Essay by Prof. Dr. Hans Vorländer "War in Europe", director of the Mercator Forum for Migration and Democracy (MIDEM) as well as TU Dresden’s Center for the Study of Constitutionalism and Democracy (ZVD).

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and thus its violation of international law has brought with it two realizations. The first is that war has once again become the continuation of politics by other means. The second is that, paradoxically, we could not imagine war in Europe anymore. Shock has been joined by consternation. There is an imperative for direct action – in politics, civil society, the public sphere and science.

To fathom what has happened and how it can be explained is a tremendous challenge – first and foremost for policy makers because they are required to issue quick responses and adapt to unprecedented situations for which they were insufficiently prepared at best. The necessity of clear, quick decision-making, so essential in times of crisis, is made drastically more pressing in war. And in a situation that doesn’t allow for the lengthy processes of forming a consensus and making a decision – or, in the words of Max Weber, the “slow drilling through thick boards” that characterizes democracy in peacetime. At the same time, this action always takes place under a veil of uncertainty and of partial knowledge that can easily be falsified for the purposes of propaganda. Yet, alongside horror and desperation, we must also expect effective action, which, in view of warfare that does not show consideration for civilian casualties – or even more so strategically and cynically includes them in the plans – represents a nearly unsurmountable demand for rationality. Politicians face two main dilemmas when managing a crisis. They have to maneuver between achieving what is expected of them and the pressure to make quick decisions on the one hand, and what options are actually available and the problems of acceptance on the other. The concurrence of war in Europe and the overabundance of existential crises threatening our lives and our health – immigration and refugee crises, the pandemic, climate change – makes political action a gargantuan task.

In a situation like this, civil society’s ability to mobilize is all the more crucial. As in 2015 and 2016, many people are currently springing to action to provide direct help and are taking in millions of war refugees. Networks set up over the past years in response to the influx of immigration, particularly at the municipal level, have been reactivated quickly. The willingness of the states bordering Ukraine to cut through the red tape and provide immediate care and assistance to hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people fleeing their home country is impressive. It was a different story in 2015 and 2016. However, overload and exhaustion are foreseeable. Proactive coordination at the European level as well as between the federal, state and municipal governments in Germany is indispensable. These efforts must not just account for a fair distribution of persons seeking refuge, but also for non-bureaucratic assurance of access to education, healthcare, housing and gainful employment. The burden on societies taking in refugees will be heavy, but manageable.

The public sphere will also face great challenges. Just like our priorities, our attention is shifting. This “historic turning point” is changing the discourse. For a long time, we simply could not imagine a war. The European integration project, initiated in the West after World War II and extended to Central Europe after 1990, was not just a plan for economic prosperity, but also an attempt to stabilize democracies and make war impossible. And it seemed to work. Clausewitz’s formula, which states that war is the continuation of policy by other means, had become devoid of meaning for the member states of the EU. But they had lost sight of the threat levels on the Eastern borders of the EU and beyond, which have now – and had even previously – come to a head. The war in former Yugoslavia should have been reason enough for us to become aware of these threats, and that is not the only example. The wars in Chechnya, the invasion of Georgia, the annexation of Crimea, the proclamation of people’s republics in Eastern Ukraine and the use of weapons of mass destruction in Syria should have opened our eyes to a new, territorial sovereignty and imperialism right at the borders of the EU that stomps with disregard on international law and human rights. The systemic transformation taking place within Russia at the same time, the systematic denial of basic human rights, the elimination of the opposition and the establishment of autocratic, dictatorial power structures was not regarded with sufficient clarity, or was suppressed completely. The hope of using multilateral negotiation diplomacy and the interlacing of mutual economic dependency to ensure peace and effect the desired change has tragically been an illusion.

What can science contribute in such a situation? A key function of science is the introspective observation of societies. Science will have to offer decisive responses to the questions of why the (Western) European public spheres and stakeholders have succumbed to such fundamental misconceptions of the latest developments. Has the assumption of an “end to history,” with which democracy has remained unchallenged following the fall of real socialism, led to a discursive “peace dividend” of no longer needing to factor in violence and war (although this assumption has long been repudiated in other regions of the world, including the states bordering the Mediterranean Sea to the south)? Science, too, will be forced to critically consider whether it has always asked the right questions and addressed the threats and dangers of liberal orders sufficiently. Universities are spaces that welcome open and contentious debate. In fact, they are marketplaces of ideas where such discussions must take place.

Universities are a shelter for academic freedom and thus safe havens for persecuted students, lecturers and researchers forced to flee. Therefore, universities institutionally lend themselves to being viewed as universities in exile. In the wake of the immigration crisis of 2015/16, TU Dresden positioned itself in alliance with other German and international universities as a new university in exile, following the model of and at the suggestion of the New School for Social Research in New York, which founded such an exile university in 1933 and took in displaced emigrants from Nazi Germany and Europe. Never again – this is what we thought, but it was a delusion.

About the author

Prof. Dr. Hans Vorländer is the director of the Mercator Forum for Migration and Democracy (MIDEM), founded in 2017, as well as TU Dresden’s Center for the Study of Constitutionalism and Democracy (ZVD). From 1993 to 2020, he was Chair of Political Science with a Focus on Political Theory and the History of Political Thought. He is a consultant for various expert committees and is a co-publisher of the Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft (ZPol) – Journal of Political Science. His work focuses on Political Theory, Constitutionalism and Constitutions, Democracy, Populism, and Migration and Integration.