What would Reinhold Niebuhr now be saying about events in Ukraine?
It is of course rash to suggest what Reinhold Niebuhr would now be saying about Ukraine: first because he has been claimed by both those on the left and the right of politics, and secondly it is difficult to separate one’s own views from those one posits might be his. But rash though it may be, the question is still worth asking.
First, I suggest, he would be looking critically at the position of NATO supporting governments. What is their responsibility for this tragedy?
Even when the cause was undoubtably right, as it was for the Allies in World War II, Niebuhr was keen to eliminate any hint of self-righteousness. We see this most clearly in the kind of prayers he composed at the time with its phrases like:
We pray for wicked and cruel men, whose arrogance reveals to us what the sin of our own hearts is like when it has conceived and brought forth its final fruit.
So he would have had some sympathy with his close ideological companion George Kennan’s view in his 1997 article “A Fateful Error.” Kennan, the architect of the cold war policy of containment, did not mince words in arguing that ‘expanding Nato would be the most fateful error in American policy in the entire post-cold war era.’[1]
Niebuhr would have asked how it was that we never followed up the suggestions made at the end of the cold war that we take active steps to give the emerging Russia a sense of security; that we avoid again depicting Russia, which is partly in Europe, as someone “other” than Europe?
That said, as clearly as Niebuhr was opposed self-righteousness in any nation, not least the United States, he was equally opposed to any idea of moral equivalence, the idea that one side is always as bad as the other. However flawed both sides in a conflict might be there are certain policies and programmes that are clearly wrong and have to be named as such. So he would have had no hesitation, of course, in calling Putin’s invasion a clear act of aggression, and in supporting Ukraine with the arms they needed.
Then, he would have been totally clear eyed about the reality of power in the present context. He was not called “The father of us all” by secular realists for nothing. The realities in the present situation are first, that Putin is not going to allow a cease fire until he has got something he can claim as the success of his “special operation”. At a minimum this would mean the capture and annexation of the whole Donbas region. And however appalling this would be Ukrainian forces are unlikely to be strong enough to recapture it, nor could Putin allow it. Secondly, however, much as Putin would like to press on and take Odessa and part of Moldovia, the cost of this and the risk of losing support at home will I think be too high. So having captured Eastern Ukraine there would be a place to halt. With the cost of the war now so high with large casualties on both sides, there is real pressure for a cease fire. If that was achieved then protracted negotiations would no doubt go on for years. The uncertain question is how determined the West would be in keeping up sanctions and rejecting Russian gas. For how many years could they keep this up before slipping back into business as usual?
If Putin was allowed to keep Eastern Ukraine as he has kept Crimea, and remains still in Georgia, it would be morally appalling but this sadly is the end that still remains the most likely outcome.
Finally Niebuhr would remind us that life remains messy, fraught and unsatisfactory to the end because some manifest injustices may never be put right in this world. However, the final purpose of God lies beyond history. As he put it:
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History (Chicago, 2008), 63.
With that hope, we can continue to hope and work for small achievements in the here and now, even if it is just making the situation slightly less bad than it would otherwise be.
References
[1] George F. Kennan, “A Fateful Error,” The New York Times (05/02/1997).
© Richard Harries, 2022.
This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
Cover Image: “Ukraine Russia Heads Family Banner” by Gerd Altmann is licensed under the Pixabay License.
Richard Harries was Bishop of Oxford from 1987-2006. On his retirement he was made a cross bench peer (Lord Harries of Pentregarth). He is the author of 33 books, recently mainly on the interface of Christian faith and wider culture, including literature and the arts. Earlier he wrote widely on ethical issues, and he has had a life-long interest in Reinhold Niebuhr.
