What would Raymond Allen think?

Rafaël Amselem is a researcher at the liberal think tank GenerationLibre.

“At three o’clock in the morning the order to pitch camp arrived; the action was to begin in a few hours: the camp fire from the previous night was about to go out, and it was not yet daylight.” wrote Curzio Malaparte In his work The sun is blind. For Ukraine, the day has not yet dawned.

“Faced with an enemy that has no limits, we cannot set limits for ourselves” : Whatever you think Latest statements from the President of the Republicwho brutally ask us existential and urgent questions. For a regime based on freedom, does the preservation of peace require preparation for war? Then the rhetoric of public debate is swept away and everyone agrees on the invective: on the one hand, collaborators, on the other, warmongers. This dichotomy can be divided arbitrarily: cowards against warmongers, Munichers against collaborators, traitors against the careless…

The year was 1939, when Europe was about to fall into the valley of death. Raymond Allen In a speech to the French Philosophical Society entitled “Democracies and Totalitarian States,” he proposed the following principles: “When we talk to those who claim to despise peace, we must say that if we love peace, it is not out of cowardice”Peace, or rather the absence of war for Aron – something completely different! – is not raw data: it is a framework constructed according to the will to be able to agree on its exact terms. Peace is therefore not immediate, but The result of a process Human wills meet and try to reach an understanding. Therefore, when it comes to peace, peace may lose its excellence. “A regime that claims force is the only reason” ; In short, they are not ready to give up their weapons. It is ridiculous to talk about peace in front of them. “This further ingrained in the minds of fascist leaders the idea that democracy is indeed decadent”.

Democratic states must organize themselves to maintain their position in the international space, while authoritarian regimes are essentially driven by nationalist and even imperialist intentions.

Raphael Amselem

The “peaceful” leap shared by the LFI and RN is therefore a first and foremost, if not a surprising, if not a capitulation to an illiberal regime (which everyone will judge). Morality (or what we think of them), choosing to shout out apologies for high principles without caring about their practicality in the light of the sun. Raymond Allen adds: “It is absurd to believe that we resist guns with butter, or resist effort with rest”There is no doubt that we can understand it in this sense. Ecclesiastes : “To everything there is a time, for every purpose under heaven: (…) a time for war and a time for peace”.

Let us not conclude that it is necessary to go to war against Vladimir Putin. However, these elements remind us that Liberal Democratic CountriesWhile adhering to principles and always aiming for the supremacy of law, we should not shy away from the history of the war that is unfolding before our eyes, accept The Hobbesian nature of international relationsand have the courage to stand up for what they believe in. It’s not just Vladimir Putin that threatens the world’s still-declining democracies, nor is it even the only looming military risk: authoritarian regimes are not lacking in the ingenuity to infiltrate public debate and try to smooth over elections with influence tactics.

In this sense, Realpolitik It presents itself as a necessity, a necessity of moral nature: if behind the moral appearance of boasting the beauty of principles, you preach pacifism on the set, then it is in vain to preach pacifism with flowers and tears in your guns. As a result, the practice of this thought leads to immoral consequences – a blank check Vladimir PutinThe indefinite continuation of the already existing wars and the exposure of the desire of neighboring countries to dictatorships for their geographical hegemony. Therefore, democratic countries must organize themselves to maintain their position in the international space, while dictatorships are essentially driven by nationalist and even imperialist intentions. Because this is the nature of dictatorships: foreign policy is clearly at the top.

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Critics will be quick to claim that such targets highlight that there is no real gap between the two. Liberal and Illiberal Regimes ; Basically, we use the same means, both aiming for power. This is ignoring the substantive differences that retain all the confusion: “In a democracy we must spontaneously agree to these necessities imposed elsewhere”.

Whether it remains to be seen Democratic countryweighed down by various emergencies (security, climate, economy), seems to complain about the slightest economic effort in favor of Ukraine (we cannot read the rather mediocre aid provided to Ukraine, compared to what we will not do here (for farmers, the poor, the unemployed, etc.), and gentrified, and therefore cares little about public affairs and prefers leisure, will be able to realize this virtue. The day is not yet bright. It is worrying that many of those who love peace today or pretend to love peace are essentially motivated by cowardice.