War in Europe Is Not New
If Europe’s dreams were of peace, they were shattered thirty years ago
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, news correspondents and pundits looking for ways to describe how surprised they were at witnessing war in Europe have already made some remarkably cringeworthy comments. CBS’ Charlie D’Agata contrasted Kiev to Iraq and Afghanistan, calling it a “relatively civilized, relatively European city.” (D’Agata later apologized.) Al-Jazeera English anchor Peter Dobbie said the sight of Ukrainian refugees was “compelling” because “they look like any European family.” And British journalist Daniel Hannan said that what made the war so shocking was that it was not being “visited upon impoverished and remote populations,” but rather upon people who “seem so like us.”
These comments have already been justifiably called out by many for the implicit (or explicit) assertions they made that places like Iraq and the Middle East are uncivilized. But beyond the ethnocentrism, the comments betrayed a strange historical amnesia about violent conflict in Europe generally and in Ukraine specifically.
What these correspondents were articulating, after all, was the commonplace idea that war is something that Europeans had put behind them after World War II and that we are therefore seeing the collapse of a peaceful…
