War and peace according to Caracciolo (Limes)
"Peace is over" by Lucio Caracciolo (Feltrinelli) read by Tullio Fazzolari
It never happens to talk about a book starting with its cover. But the one chosen for Lucio Caracciolo's " Peace is over " (Feltrinelli, 144 pages, 16 euros) deserves an exception because with a single image it introduces and at the same time summarizes a problem in all its seriousness: a simple match on whose head red phosphorus shows the map of the Earth. You don't need to strain yourself to understand that fire can break out anywhere on the planet at any moment. The fire or, to be more explicit, the war has been a tragically evident reality since February 24, 2022, the day of the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
But there was no peace for years. Unfortunately it was only an illusion in which it was pleasant (and, at times, even comfortable) to believe. In his new book Lucio Caracciolo, founder and director of "Limes", the most authoritative Italian journal of geopolitics, describes without omissions and without hesitation the growing instability that threatens the world since the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It was the end of the so-called Cold War. Instead, ironically, it was the only possible peace. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact have been very presumptuously regarded as a great victory for the West. Or even as the beginning of a new era: that of the pax americana in which the United States realizes the historic and not too hidden ambition of being the policeman of the world.
In reality, as Caracciolo explains, all the balances that had somehow guaranteed thirty years of peace were breaking. Or, at least, they had kept the war away from Europe already battered by the Second World War. And it was no small achievement. Since the end of the Cold War, however, there have been internal conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, the massacres in Bosnia, the two Gulf wars, the fight against international terrorism, Afghanistan, Chechnya, chaos in Libya and guerrillas in many countries of Africa.
The list, although incomplete, is enough to demonstrate that the "international police", whether of US origin or otherwise, has not been able to guarantee peace. It wakes up abruptly and only now after the invasion of Ukraine. And only now are we starting to look with the right concern at the tensions between the United States and mainland China. But there is no answer to the dangers that threaten the world. The ongoing competition between the USA, Russia and China does not give any guarantee of a balance between the superpowers. And Europe continues to play a marginal role because behind a facade of unity, even in times of war, each state pursues its own national interests above all. Thus begins a new era in history, but not under the best auspices, in which, as Lucio Caracciolo observes, "American hegemony and the pro-European bluff are at stake". And the suspicion arises that the West has not yet learned anything from this accursed war that began on February 24th.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/guerra-e-pace-secondo-caracciolo-limes/ on Sat, 26 Nov 2022 09:10:26 +0000.