Let’s reach out to Russia – for the sake of peace overcoming a “bloc mentality” and ideological firewalls

Immanuel Kant: “Out of wood so crooked as that of which man is made, nothing absolutely straight can be wrought”

Queen Louise Bridge over the Russian-Lithuanian border, Summer 2023

East

Challenging times await. Lithuania is reinforcing its border to Kaliningrad Oblast, formerly Königsberg. New barriers known as “dragon’s teeth” have been installed on the Queen Louise Bridge at the border crossing on the Nemunas River,[1] which Germans know as the Memel. Additional dragon’s teeth are to be erected on the river’s banks and in the river itself – to “impede the movement of enemy troops.” It’s still possible, however, to cross the bridge to Sovetsk, formerly Tilsit, on foot.     

Tilsit was where my grandmother Gertrude Herbst was born. She often crossed the river with my mother to what was then Übermemel, today’s Panemuné, to shop at the market there. Borders were open, there was a lively exchange – it was part of normal daily life.

The Lithuanian government now fears a Russian attack. Peace seems a long way off. And yet there is peace. All we have to do is look closely.

The Nemunas (Memel) River with a view of Kaliningrad oblast/Königsberg, summer 2023

West

There’s also a lot of excitement on the “Western front.” With Donald Trump as president of the US, the pressure on the EU will grow. The trade war between the US and China will intensify and, in keeping with the dictum “Make America great again,” not only will the conversation’s tone become harsher, we will see whether the US becomes part of a multi-polar or multi-regional world, or whether a “bloc mentality” becomes entrenched and the US withdraws into isolationism.

In any event, the EU seems to be trapped. What role should it play in the new world order? What does it actually want? Which strategies can it use to avoid being weakened and crushed between East and West, between China and the US? The EU’s current position is anything but advantageous. Is this the advent of the EU’s decline? The decline of the European elites or the EU oligarchy?

The power of transcending forces

Whether we want to believe it or not, they seem to exist, those transcending forces which outlast all governments, whether democracies or autocracies, and which extend across all the world’s countries.

How else can we explain the fact that certain things never really change, despite new governments taking power in democratic states. Global players, global corporations, are the ones who operate transnationally and who often have a US investment fund as their main stakeholder: globally active defense contractors, for example, or tech companies, especially from the platform economy, not to mention pharmaceutical companies. Most are American enterprises. 

Enterprises whose focus is on maintaining and expanding their spheres of power and influence. In the US in particular, they are actively trying to uphold the old world order and prevent any competing players, especially from China, from being admitted.

Basically, the US wants to preserve and secure its predominance in all areas – militarily, politically and economically. This absolute will is expressed in various ways, including in the intensification of the trade war between the US and China and in the economic sanctions against Russia. There are also many non-military means and measures meant to deliberately weaken other countries.

National governments often play only a subordinate role, implementing the ground rules and the global corporations’ often ideologically inflected economic sanctions. Nevertheless, the role of governments should not be underestimated, since they can constrain the global agitators of our time. 

The most recent example: Germany’s “no” to the EU’s punitive tariffs on imports of electric vehicles from China. And Olaf Scholz’s clear “no” to supplying Taurus missiles to Ukraine. These are clear signals from Germany to China and Ukraine.

The illusion of a perfect world

In the spirit of Kant: People all have their rough edges. It’s hard to make something straight of all that, something that is 100% coherent, a world order based on justice and harmony.

That is in the spirit of Jacques Ancel as well, the French geographer and geopolitician, who places people in the center of his geopolitical reflections. Ancel contests the rigidity of a fixed world order and emphasizes instead the human factors, such as shared culture and language, that play a crucial role in defining and shaping a harmonious order – the true power of the sovereign.   

The perfect world order doesn’t exist; nor does the absolute truth. And yet, both “hostile camps” seem to want, by hook or by crook, to propagate a perfect world. 

It’s more hype than substance. The goal is to divide people, erect firewalls. We seem to be regressing to kindergarten and perpetuating with all our might the “us against them” mentality.

Is China really threatening our way of life? Is Russia? Is our democracy in danger because other countries have opted for another form of government? Or is our democracy in danger because we basically no longer live it and no longer know what democracy really means?

Isn’t it actually the sanctions we have imposed on Russia that are causing Germany and the EU to falter as business locations, since we are cutting ourselves off from the cheap energy supplies we need?

The old world order with the US as hegemon is at an end. It’s the end of the West’s eternal crusades in which political, economic and military means have been used to ensure Western supremacy. The crusades of the “superior” – a feeling of superiority that was forged during the Enlightenment and the Age of Industrialization.

In fact, this mentality of “us against them” is not only rather primitive and banal, it’s also extremely dangerous. In the worst-case scenario, it could lead to a third world war. After all, there are plenty of flashpoints at the moment: Ukraine, the Middle East, Taiwan/China.

Beyond all the propaganda on both sides, we should not let ourselves to be divided. On the contrary, we should get on an airplane, fly to China and Russia, make friends there and decide for ourselves about the purported threat to our way of life.

Economic sanctions hurt people, us, first and foremost, since companies always find a way to circumvent them and continue making a profit. Companies that remain in sanctioned countries “fly under the radar.” Companies that leave sanctioned countries always do so with great publicity-generating fanfare.

How are we supposed to understand each other if bridges are dismantled and communication channels fall silent? Every exchange not only ensures prosperity, it also nourishes people’s intellect and soul and promotes human interaction.

BRICS 2024 Kazan

Those were the days, when people sang along loudly and lightheartedly to the song “Moscow” by the group Genghis Khan. People gave little thought to the relevant forms of government but, demonstrating that music has the power to unite, they just danced happily in the crowd. Politics was politics, art is art.

The BRICS summit in Kazan in October 2024 showed this clearly once again. Russia is not isolated and remains seemingly unharmed by the economic sanctions. The opposite actually seems to be the case, since according to forecasts by the IMF, global economic growth is set to reach 3.2%, with industrialized countries predicted to achieve growth of 1.8% and emerging and developing countries 4.2%. China and India are also expected to grow in 2025: India by 6.5% and China by 4.5%. Germany is the only industrial country in which the economy is predicted to stagnate or decline, with minimal growth of 0.8% forecast for 2025.

In January 2024, the BRICS founding members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – welcomed Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates to the alliance. In total, the BRICS countries represent approximately 56% of the globe’s population and account for 67% of its oil and gas supplies.

Size is certainly not everything, but with their high share of natural resources, the BRICS countries have an advantage over other resource-poor nations such as Germany, since every economy needs a reliable energy supply. Given the increasing presence of artificial intelligence (AI) in almost all areas of life, data centers are becoming more important around the globe. And more data centers mean more computing power, more electricity consumption and bigger CO2 footprints.

As resource-rich countries with a solid energy basis, Russia and China have achieved a good mix of oil, gas and renewables, i.e. solar and wind. China in particular, the largest supplier of solar panels and wind turbines, is one of the main drivers of the global expansion of renewable energies. The world is installing record numbers of wind and solar facilities and China now accounts for 60% of these sites.

At the same time, we need to put everything in perspective, since only a limited amount of the globe’s electricity needs are covered by wind (7.5%) or solar (5.1%) power, with the lion’ share (87.4%) coming from other types. So there’s been a lot of discussion about what are still relatively small energy sources.

The fact is that we live in a multi-regional world in which new centers of power are continuing to develop. Centers of power which have a common ground that is different from the common ground shared by the so-called Western community of states.

The strengthening of the BRICS alliance is a normal development in our global world, in which the transnational exchange of goods and services remains an integral part of the economy. The form of government, whether democratic or autocratic, is irrelevant.

The fact is, capital always finds a way. Economic sanctions only interrupt human communication, unsettling and frightening people.

China: even socialism needs capital

Whether socialism, communism, planned economy or market economy, democracy or autocracy – every system requires capital.

China maintains that “socialist democracy” is the most effective form of democracy.[2] That remains to be seen. Every country is different.

In any event, China has shown that, with all the ups and downs and brutalities experienced during its history, its hybrid construct consisting of a market economy and one-party system has been effective. This in no way implies that the same would be true for other countries.

The real discussion and the real question is not about capitalism and a market economy versus socialism and a planned economy, but about individualism versus collectivism and socialism.

As the example of China shows, it’s not about socializing the means of production in accordance with Marx, but about controlling the populace, about socializing people. That means including people in set structures as was the case in East Germany, with the Pioneers and Free German Youth.

Such collectivism provides a sense of security, safety and community. Whereas a capitalist system and free market economy can sometimes be a brutal competitive struggle that “leaves [people] alone. Providing loneliness instead of community.”[3]

In the end, there are always two sides to the coin.

The EU: failure of a great peace project

With Trump’s re-election as US president, not only has a certain unpredictability returned to the world’s political and economic situation, the pressure has increased on the EU to develop a strategy for making Europe attractive as a business location and maintaining that attractiveness, and for ensuring its own security. People have often called for this, but it has never really been achieved. The EU has relied too much on the US instead, so closely are the respective oligarchies intertwined. And who would gladly or quickly give up a well-paid post in Brussels?

The great uncertainty at the moment is whether the US will become part of the new multi-polar and multi-regional world with its other centers of power, especially the Global South and the BRICS states, Russia and China, or whether it will adopt a confrontational course, intensify its trade war with China and become isolated. It’s a very open question. 

The EU would have had a bad hand even if Kamala Harris had been elected. Voters were concerned about the US and not the EU. The media response in Europe to the US elections was basically incomprehensible and a complete distraction from the EU’s current structural problems.

More than ever, the EU seems to be seeking a confrontation with Russia. Not only is more and more money flowing into Ukraine and more and more weapons are being supplied, but important positions are being filled with figures such as former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, the EU’s new high representative for foreign affairs who has declared “Ukraine’s victory in Russia’s war of aggression” to be a priority for the EU. This is not a good signal and hardly a peace-building measure.

And yet, the course was set for peace. After Germany’s reunification, the Charter of Paris was signed by 34 heads of state and government, including from the US and Canada, to create a new order that ensures peace, prosperity and freedom. Isn’t it time we revisited it? Otherwise, we – especially Europe – will one day bitterly regret it.

After all, we need an order. Nothing will be possible without a state, which must provide such an order: a framework and conditions that allow people to live in freedom, justice and prosperity.

Will we soon be governed by capital or global corporations?

A few worrying trends have appeared on the horizon, for example in Argentina, where President Milei is pursuing an ultra-liberal, ultra-conservative agenda that has many supporters from the libertarian scene.[4]

With the inclusion in the new Trump administration of figures like Elon Musk, now an apparently normal phenomenon, the US also seems to be taking a more libertarian approach, i.e. less government, more individual initiative. This is not fundamentally wrong; striking the right balance is what counts.

When there is no longer a state and we are governed by capital or global entrepreneurs, “free states” will emerge and our achievements – democracy, freedom and privacy – will be a thing of the past. Thanks to bitcoins, dollars, Google and other online providers, US financial and tech companies – along with Chinese players such as Huawei – will control global financial flows and our communications. In fact, our entire lives. Not a pretty picture.

Germany – bridge-builder between East and West

What can I know? What should I do? What might I hope for? What is a human being? These are questions that inspired Immanuel Kant, questions we should all be asking ourselves.

Even if it is not as natural for Germany as for France or other countries, nation-states are important, since they provide the foundation for a certain order. No state, no citizens. And Germany is capable of democracy, even if one sometimes gets the impression that we have lost this ability.

Let’s think back: to our shared history with Russia and its ups and downs, to the time when we were direct neighbors, to Gorbachev, without whom Germany’s reunification would not have been possible, to the moving speech Vladimir Putin gave in Germany’s Bundestag in 1991 in which he clearly reached out to us. Let’s think of Germany’s historic east, with all its wealth, happiness and suffering. Let’s think of the magnificent landscapes, of lordly estates, the vastness of the sky, the rugged Baltic coast, the Curonian Spit.

Even for those who only know Germany’s historic East from history books and not as I do, from stories of Prussia that were part of my earliest childhood, the world is wide open – they only need to travel and approach those they meet with an open mind. In such cases, dragon’s teeth, razor wire and other fortifications will no longer seem threatening.

Even though Kaliningrad is undergoing extreme rearmament, what was once Königsberg in East Prussia could serve as the starting point and lynchpin for peace talks. It’s such a symbolic place, one that also deserves to be at peace once again.

The territory once known as East Prussia can and should be the land of understanding between Germans and Russians.

Let’s bypass the dragon’s teeth

Despite sanctions and dragon’s teeth, Königsberg/Kaliningrad is becoming a meeting place where many private and business interactions are taking place. Getting there is sometimes strenuous and inconvenient. But it’s possible. Buses leave from numerous cities in Germany, there are multiple connections every day from Gdansk. Many possibilities exist, all it takes is a little courage. Making use of these possibilities would be an important and sensible step towards a peaceful world order. Let’s reach out to Russia and the Russians. It’s up to us Germans.

I am convinced that this beautiful land of my ancestors will one day fulfill its destiny: to bring about reconciliation and peace.

References and further reading

Ancel, Jacques (1938):  Géographie des frontières, Gallimard.

Banik, Katja (2024): Die friedliche Memel, www.katjabanik.com

Banik, Katja (2023): „Der bestirnte Himmel über mir…”, www.katjabanik.com

Banik, Katja (2022): Im Rausch des Bernsteins – der historische Osten Deutschlands, www.katjabanik.com

Banik, Katja (2021): A clear view eastwards: Russia and Germany, www.katjabanik.com

Banik, Katja (2021): Without roots, no future. Decoupling ideologies, www.katjabanik.com

Banik, Katja/Lüdert, Jan (2020): Assessing Securization: China’s Belt and Road Initiative, E-International Relations, e-ir.info

Dohnanyi, Klaus (2022): Nationale Interessen, Siedler Verlag, München.

Donelaitis, Kristijonas (1765-1775): Die Jahreszeiten; aus dem Litauischen von Gottfried Schneider, C.H. Beck, 2021.

Haffner, Sebastian: Anmerkungen zu Hitler, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f767vO0gJSA

Kant, Immanuel (1795): Zum ewigen Frieden

Lamszus,Wilhelm (1912): Das Menschschlachthaus, Alfred Janssen Verlag Hamburg Berlin.

Lasch, Otto (1959): So fiel Königsberg, Gräfe und Unzer Verlag.

Preussische Allgemeine Zeitung (PAZ):  Nr. 46, 15.11.2024

Pölking, Hermann (2022): Das Memelland. Wo Deutschland einst zu Ende war, bre.bra. verlag, Berlin

Teltschik, Horst (2019): Russisches Roulette: Vom kalten Krieg zum kalten Frieden, C. H. Beck.

Wagener, Martin (2021): Der Kulturkampf um das deutsche Volk. Der Verfassungsschutz und die nationale Identität der Deutschen, Lau Verlag.

[1] PAZ Nr. 46, 15.11.2024

[2] https://www.cgtn.com/how-china-works/feature/Why-China-s-socialist-democracy-is-the-most-effective-d...

[3] Sebastian Haffner

[4] https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/argentinien-javier-mileis-partei-gruendet-bewaffneten-fluegel-a-40014...