Wars and Political Differences

Sometimes I wonder if we, as news watchers, politically interested people, and voters, perhaps spend too much time following political issues that we cannot influence – in spite of the duty to do that in the democratic international world we live in. We cannot stop the Russian war against Ukraine or the Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. We can follow the news, talk and write about it, but to little or no avail. Yet, we can hope that perhaps it helps to avoid similar situations in future, so in that sense, it helps to be engaged. The most recent news estimate is that as many as 1,500 Russian soldiers are killed or seriously injured every day at the front in Ukraine, up by 500 from earlier reports. In addition, a somewhat lower number of Ukrainian soldiers die, plus the unpredictable and lasting attacks on civilians and infrastructure. NATO countries give military and other support to Ukraine so it can defend itself better against Russia’s massive aggression. Still, we seem powerless as individuals, organisations and countries to end the devastating war, perhaps even prolonging it.

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Last weekend, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, recommended that foreigners, including foreign ambassadors and other diplomats, should leave Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, warning that the Russian drone and missile attacks would see a massive escalation. He said this when the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, visited Kiev. Merz had earlier said that he feared an escalation of Russian drone attacks on Germany and that his country was preparing itself for better protection. He did not say, though, that a foreign country’s attacks on another country by targeted drones and other forms of sabotage should be defined as similar to direct attacks on the country, at ports, airports, IT facilities or other targets. I believe it is a matter of time before Western European countries will have to clarify their language and response, yet realise that it would lead to the situation becoming more serious. Russia, on its side, has warned about its exclave of Kaliningrad, until 1946 known as Königsberg, in the central part of the Baltic Sea, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, that if the West did anything against Kaliningrad, probably meaning drone attacks, and possibly also increased control of the sea and rail entrances to the territory, then Russia would use any force to protect Kaliningrad.

It should be added that Germany and other European countries and organisations should hold further and deeper peace talks with Russia, to the extent possible – about Ukraine and the overall relations with the West. It is a failure on all sides if such talks are not being pursued; I hope they are, although still only secretly.

Unlike the sad and serious news from Europe, I will now, in the second part of today’s article, draw attention to Brazil and Spain, and more ordinary political issues; first, Brazil, where the presidential and general elections were held on 4 October. Brazil is South America’s largest country, with well over 210 million people and 48 percent of the continent’s territory. The two main candidates came out quite close in the election, but neither received more than fifty percent, so a second election round will take place in a few weeks. The sitting socialist/social democratic ‘Workers’ Party’ President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, got about 45 percent of the votes, while the son of the former right-wing president, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, got about 47 percent of the votes. A third candidate got just under 3 percent. On 25 October, the final election battle will be between Lula and Bolsonaro. President Lula has held the office three times earlier and is now 80 years old. Bolsonaro is 45 years old, yet is building on his father’s right-wing political thinking, including having friendly ties with the USA. The latter is important for all Latin American countries, indeed the continent’s largest country, especially now when President Trump seems to have a renewed interest in the continent in the USA’s ‘backyard’.

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In Brazil’s neighbour to the south, Argentina, with 46 million people and the second-largest country in South America, the Trump-friendly right-wing President Javier Milei is now in his third year in office, not having become as outrageously populist as many feared during his election campaign in 2023. It is possible he will be able to stabilise Argentina, a country needing that after several years and decades of economic mismanagement, devaluations and more, at a time not very far removed from its past as a dictatorship. Brazil is a much larger economy, and therefore also more important to the entire continent, and also to the USA and the rest of the world.

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If both Argentina and Brazil get right-wing presidents, that will be important for the right-wing parties’ image in future, also being seen as model countries for right-wing politics, especially in Latin America and beyond. Some are positive about the growth of the right-wing parties, while the majority still supports the old mainstream parties, fearing the populist right-wingers.

Pedro Sanchez, PM of Spain, has just called for an early election to take place on 29 November. His main opponents will be the conservative and right-wing parties. Sanchez belongs to the ‘Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party’, a centre-left social democratic party. He is a particularly creative and pragmatic politician, as shown during his decade-long time as party leader and three periods as PM. Although his policies have often been controversial, he has also received broad recognition, including from the centre-right EU leader Ursula von der Leyen.

Sanchez is a rare politician because he has presented important new and independent ideas, indeed in the field of migration and refugee policies, where he has worked for the regularisation of hundreds of thousands of undocumented foreigners living in the country, rather than expelling them. He has proposed that migrants could settle in rural and small-town areas, which suffer from demographic population decline and economic stagnation, and migrants could be an important asset in helping create new life in these areas. However, the conservative side in parliament opposes his policies, which do have challenges, such as increasing problems in the housing sector. Sanchez therefore called a snap general election at the end of next month, which would, in any case, by law have to be held by mid-2027.

In Spain and Brazil, there will be a showdown between the mainstream social democratic ideology and policies on the left, and the populist and conservative policies of the right-wingers. The Brazilian and Spanish election campaigns and the election results will be important in indicating political trends, important for coming elections in many countries, indeed in Germany and in next year’s presidential election in France, where the populist right-winger Marine Le Pen is a prominent candidate.

The political conflicts between the mainstream political parties and the populist right-wingers are important and decisive for the future of people in the West and beyond. Yet, the immediate issues related to ending the ongoing terrible wars are more important, indeed the Russian war in Ukraine, the decades-long Israel-Palestine war, the USA-Iran conflict, and conflicts in Africa. It is a sad fact that we all feel powerless and worried about the ongoing wars and conflicts, with hybrid attacks, and we seem not to have effective institutions to control and end them – and the UN is not able to meet its main objectives of preventing and ending wars.

Atle HetlandThe writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist with experience from university, diplomacy and development aid. He can be reached at atlehetland@yahoo.com

The writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist with experience from university, diplomacy and development aid. He can be reached at atlehetland@yahoo.com

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