When defeat is unacceptable and victory impossible, there is still a way of ending a war. It will not be a “just peace”, but a compromise. Why can it happen? Fundamentally because we, as a human species, have the privilege of being endowed with logos, which, in ancient greek, meant both speech and reason.
Philosopher Philippe Van Parijs reflects on current events and debates in Brussels, Belgium and Europe
Like you, I was stunned by the Russian invasion of February 2022, amazed by the way the Ukrainians managed to repel it, horrified by the suffering they have endured and continue to endure on a daily basis, and impressed by their resilience over the past four years.
Like some of you, no doubt, I was very happy to have been able to welcome a Ukrainian family into our home for over a year and moved by the gratitude they have kept showing us ever since.
And yet I feel obliged to write here something that most Ukrainians, understandably, will not like to read, even if they themselves believe it. Something that many European leaders think, if our Prime Minister is to be believed, although they do not consider it strategically clever to say so.
Ukraine must not lose the war, but cannot win it.
Russia must not win the war, but cannot lose it.
Does this mean that the war can only drag on indefinitely, with its trail of killings, mutilations, destruction, with families on both sides deprived of their sons, with children who will never see their father?
Does this mean that Europe will continue indefinitely to buy tonnes of American weapons at great expense in order to allow two European peoples to kill one another?
Does this mean a continuous rise in the staggering cost of Ukraine’s reconstruction and of the promised integration into the European Union of a country which, even before the war began, was already far poorer than the poorest Member State of the Union?
Does this mean that Belgium will need to further slash its social welfare and education spending in order to quadruple its military expenditure in response to NATO’s demands?
Does this mean irreparably undermining our global efforts to tackle global warming, because of the impossibility of involving the world’s largest country?
No. The fact that Ukraine must not lose the war but cannot win it implies none of that, providing understandable — but sometimes suicidal — emotions do not render us deaf to messages such as the following three.
“It is precisely because this conflict touches on a broader range of interests that we must not rule out from the outset the possibility of finding a compromise that allows both sides to save face, even if their demands currently appear diametrically opposed.”
Jürgen Habermas, German philosopher, who died on 14 March 2026 at the age of 96.
Die Süddeutsche Zeitung 14 February 2023.
“Negotiating is never a surrender, it is courage [il negoziato non è mai una resa, è coraggio]. So as not to lead the country to suicide… The strongest person is the one who… thinks of the people and has the courage to wave the white flag. And to negotiate… That word, ‘negotiate’, is a courageous word. … We must not be ashamed to negotiate, before the situation worsens.”
Pope Francis, who died on 21 April 2025 at the age of 88.
Televisione della Svizzera Italiana, 2 February 2024.
"It is astonishing that in such a dangerous situation, so few voices are raised in favour of peace. Talking of a ceasefire or negotiations is denounced as a shameful capitulation by the warmongers who encourage the war they wish to avoid at all costs in their own countries. The urgency is great: this war is causing a considerable crisis that is exacerbating and will exacerbate all the other enormous crises facing humanity, including the ecological crisis."
Edgar Morin, French sociologist, still alive, aged 104.
De guerre en guerre, Editions de l’Aube, 2023.
If pacifism were embodied only by these three great figures of the past century, its days would be numbered.
But perhaps there will be enough European leaders who possess the wisdom and will find the courage to halt the infernal spiral of war by resolutely engaging in negotiations likely to lead to a compromise. A compromise — let us not delude ourselves — is not a just peace. It is an agreement whereby each party renounces something that it would not only like to obtain but also believes it has a right to obtain. It is therefore an agreement that neither party can consider just.
In this case, the contours of the potential compromise have been foreseeable for a long time. National sovereignty will be safeguarded at the cost of sacrificing territorial integrity. Such a compromise would be fundamentally analogous to the Treaty of 1839, which ended the war between Belgium and Holland. Belgium saw its national sovereignty recognized in exchange for giving up half of the provinces of Limburg and Luxembourg. Fundamentally analogous perhaps, but so much more difficult to achieve for a multitude of reasons, starting with the weight of the hundreds of thousands of victims sacrificed on both sides, way more than the hundred Belgian soldiers commemorated at Brussels’ Place des Martyrs.
And yet, there is no other way out: speak directly with the Russians. Don’t let it be the monopoly of the vagaries of the US administration. Painstakingly re-establish a minimal relationship of trust with these neighbours of today and tomorrow, human beings like us, however demonised they may be. Reflect on the quasi-miraculous process that made possible, after the Second World War (and certainly not after the First), far more than a mere normalisation of our relations with Germany — a process that, unfortunately, did very little to inspire us after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Together with these enemies of today, we must dare to try to imagine intelligent institutions that must, as those of the European Union have done, enable yesterday’s enemies to do far better than simply refrain from killing one another: to cooperate, to help one another, to fraternise.
All rather utopian, you might say. Not quite. For a fundamental reason articulated 2,500 years ago by Aristotle in a famous passage of his Politics.
"Man is the only animal that nature has endowed with logos [a Greek word that meant both speech and reason]. And whilst the voice [phônè] is what expresses joy and pain and is therefore present in other animals, speech [logos] is designed to express what is beneficial and what is harmful, and consequently also what is just and unjust; and among all animals, humans are the only ones to possess a sense of good and evil, of just and unjust."
It is logos as speech that enables logos as reason to prevail over emotion and next over self-interest. To prevent and resolve conflicts, whether large or small, to allow rationality to tame passions and then reasonableness to harmonise interests, there is no other way than to agree to talk to one another and listen to one another — and to succeed in doing so.
A path that is sometimes desperately narrow, but the only one that allows us never to give up hope that one day, among all the peoples of the Earth, peace may finally reign.
