The West at its End

How delayed the public's perception is! At the beginning of the Ukraine war seven weeks ago, shock and fear of Russian superiority were still omnipresent even when Ukrainian successes were already becoming apparent. Today, the mood seems to have taken a turn for the opposite: Russia is in retreat, Putin has already lost the war - although his counterattack is already in the offing.

What is clear is that the seven weeks will certainly turn into seven months, if not seven years. The Russian president is "all in", he has really put everything on the line, because the sheer existence of a sovereign and democratic Ukraine stands forever in the way of Putin's dream of a Eurasian world power - he will not and can no longer be satisfied with Crimea and Donbass.

And now that he has closed ranks, stabilized the ruble, and shut the first window of war shock, the grueling war of fatigue is just beginning. Unfortunately, Russian resources for this - both material (military) and immaterial (resilience) - are very high. Ukraine, on the other hand, can more than keep up immaterially, but its material resources look far worse.

Transformation war

It is essential that the West must compensate for this asymmetry. The analogy to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 is not entirely wrong, but Poland cannot be "the new Pakistan" in this alone; NATO and the entire EU - especially Germany - must restore the resource balance with weapons, weapons and weapons. If this fails to happen, first Ukraine, then the Baltics, and finally the whole European idea of freedom, equality and democracy will fall and fail.

And even these resources may not be enough in the long run. The world order is re-sorting itself in these years of global-digital upheaval; the West has fallen out of time. It is only a category of the Cold War, when the North still ruled the world and considered the Global South only a peripheral battleground - this historical injustice is now ending and with it the old industrial blocs.

New global currents are gathering regardless of compass direction and geography, the West must adapt, open up, even merge into such a new alliance of democracies - because it will no longer be able to win this transformation war alone. Russia has sought old (India, Iran) and new allies (China, Egypt) in the world who will sooner or later support Putin's autocracy. The West, however, is only slowly grasping this turning point; is it now finally ready to renounce its privileged, racist, indeed historical arrogance?

Globalization of democracy

There are only 18 months left until the next U.S. presidential election and who wants to rule out that the next president will not even leave NATO? For Putin's overall war strategy, unfortunately, this date is a conclusive vanishing point - and a risk for which Europe and the rest of the West must prepare. The U.S. is a torn partner, and so we must think the unthinkable today: without the U.S., how could the EU still defend itself against Putin and his allies?

Only if it finally deepens its internal integration and becomes a real federal state; only if it integrates its open flanks to the outside world - from the Balkans to Turkey (after Erdogan) to the Caucasus - and simply only if it also diversifies politically and globally gathers all democratic forces against the autocratic alliance. Trade agreements and defense treaties with India and Indonesia, South Africa and Nigeria, Argentina and Mexico - welcome to a globalized world, welcome to the 21st century.

A long war casts its shadow ahead, in the first truly global epoch of mankind, the existing West must end in order to save the universal idea of freedom, equality and democracy. However, despite all the horrors, this end contains a hopeful beginning: the globalization of democracy, perhaps even the democratization of the globe - and all thanks to the invincible courage of the Ukrainians.