Sometimes it is difficult to get all parties on the same page for peace proposals taken seriously.

February 2016,  Estonian Journal of Military Studies (click here)

Rationalist theories (click here) have met with difficulties when used to establish credible security governance in multicultural environments for actors possessing a different sense of logic. The case of Ukraine serves as a perfect example of a Hobbesian challenge to a Kantian international system. The present research topic is influenced by the theoretical works of Alexander Wendt and Richard Lebow, and seeks to examine the cultural patterns that influence international systems and their security governance practises. In addition, it is also an attempt to produce contrasting conceptions for interpreting norms, perceptions, and motives. Motives impelled by a Kantian system are divergent from the motives of Hobbesian and Lockean systems. In Ukraine, the Hobbesian political culture, presented by Russia, challenges the Kantian principles of international organisations (UN, EU, OSCE, NATO), which are responsible for the security governance in the postmodern international system. Figuratively, ‘the world of Merkel’, which is influenced by Western liberal traditions, is opposition to ‘the world of Putin’, which corresponds to a Hobbesian and Lockean interpretation of international security. A determined Hobbesian actor can pose serious challenges, or even enact permanent changes, to a Kantian international system. With their intervention in the Ukrainan crisis Russian political elites successfully carried out neoconservative postulates of foreign policy, while international institutions (e.g. the UN, the OSCE) have met with serious difficulties in their attempts to introduce necessary measures of effective security governance.

First published Tue Feb 12, 2002; substantive revision Mon Sep 12, 2022

The 17th Century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (click here) is now widely regarded as one of a handful of truly great political philosophers, whose masterwork Leviathan rivals in significance the political writings of Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Rawls. Hobbes is famous for his early and elaborate development of what has come to be known as “social contract theory”, the method of justifying political principles or arrangements by appeal to the agreement that would be made among suitably situated rational, free, and equal persons. He is infamous for having used the social contract method to arrive at the astonishing conclusion that we ought to submit to the authority of an absolute—undivided and unlimited—sovereign power....

First published Mon Feb 23, 2004; substantive revision Fri Jan 21, 2022 (click here)

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) argued that the supreme principle of morality is a principle of practical rationality that he dubbed the “Categorical Imperative” (CI). Kant characterized the CI as an objective, rationally necessary and unconditional principle that we must follow despite any natural desires we may have to the contrary. All specific moral requirements, according to Kant, are justified by this principle, which means that all immoral actions are irrational because they violate the CI. Other philosophers, such as Hobbes, Locke and Aquinas, had also argued that moral requirements are based on standards of rationality. However, these standards were either instrumental principles of rationality for satisfying one’s desires, as in Hobbes, or external rational principles that are discoverable by reason, as in Locke and Aquinas. Kant agreed with many of his predecessors that an analysis of practical reason reveals the requirement that rational agents must conform to instrumental principles....

I don't know who Putin is channeling to continue to commit genocide against innocent and peaceful people, but, it is my guess communists have less desire to talk than fight.

The peace prospects with Russia by any other country do not exist. Propaganda is immoral and Putin shines it on all the time.

International Law must be upheld as the supreme measure of morality. Enforcing it may be difficult, but, cannot be compromised. Allowing any act of genocide is not to be tolerated.

Democracy in the United States of America will never be compromised by anything less than moral.

"Warsaw East European Review," Vol. 8, 2018 (click here)