Making and Unmaking Peace in Europe

Is it possible to think of peace-making in Europe after the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Catherine Guisan retrieves Hannah Arendt’s “lost treasure” of three successful peace-making initiatives by leaders, thinkers and activists, which have been forgotten: the US-initiated Marshall Plan’s model of action in concert; the European-initiated model of reconciliation through political and economic integration; and the resurrection model of Soviet initiatives for domestic and foreign policy transformations in the 1950s and 1980s. Winning the peace matters as much as winning the war. To understand Ukrainian views on peace-making, Guisan analyses domestic contests around history and identity, historical aspirations to autonomy in Crimea, and popular attitudes towards the Russia–Ukraine war and the accession to the European Union. Like people at war everywhere, Ukrainians face the contradictory imperatives of justice and reconciliation. Together Europeans can imagine and build a long-term security order, even, eventually, with a reforming Russia, that respects both imperatives.