Blix presentation of his book ’A Farewell to War’ to UK Pugwash webinar 2 April 2025

Hans Blix

[…] If I am right in believing that restraints arise on embarking on or joining  traditional  armed conflict due to concerns about risks of horizontal or vertical nuclear escalation, a significant question arises. Namely:  how – if not by kinetic force – will the competition be pursued and the underlying conflict be solved?The good answer should naturally be:   By diplomacy But I think it is likely that hybrid war measures will be used or threatened to back the diplomacy […]

In my view,  the invasion  in Feb 2022 was  not intended to be a full-scale war but a Crimea II –a smart ‘special military operation’  that would quickly topple a regime that was deemed unrepresentative and in  power through a Western supported coup. The ‘operation’  failed as it was based on erroneous Intelligence and a lack of understanding that the  majority of Ukrainians wanted independence and emancipation from Russia and from an increasingly unattractive economic and political system.

I see the Russian action as a disastrous ‘aberration’ and deviation from but not  an end to the long-term evolution from interstate war.

Now about diplomacy:

I find it depressing  that states spend billions on intricate military planning to deter possible adversaries from conceivable armed actions and so little effort on understanding other states, their interests and ambitions and on searching for non-violent approaches to differences. The human defense genes are easily triggered while  demands for diplomacy, dialogue  and détente are likely to be branded as meek.

To read the sometimes shifting  intentions of foreign regimes may also be more difficult than conjecturing possible actions from the size,  possession, character  and location of their armed forces. It requires much knowledge, experience, intelligence and, in addition,  empathy.

Sometimes–  when armistices are reached after years of fighting –we hear it said  that the ‘conflict had no armed solution’. We cannot help but wonder if that reflection could not have come earlier and led  to a solution by diplomacy.