In the event of initiating a military conflict, a timely and unambiguous declaration of war as the duty of the aggressor was defined in the Hague Convention of 1907. Less than seven years later, the world witnessed a “domino effect,” where a string of correctly formulated ultimatums, declarations, and war announcements drew it into the First World War and, with it, the era of 20th-century military-political cataclysms. Such a “parade of declarations of war” has not been repeated since; even on the eve of and at the start of the Second World War, the totalitarian regimes that initiated it repeatedly did without a formal declaration (the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935, the German attack and subsequent Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, the Soviet attack on Finland in 1939). A significant reason why declaring war suddenly “went out of fashion” was the new principles of international relations, the cornerstone of which was laid in 1928 by the so-called Kellogg-Briand Pact, declaring war itself as an unacceptable means for resolving international disputes and unusable in interstate relations. Initiating a war, the indicator of which is unambiguously a declaration of war, can threaten decision-makers not only with moral but also criminal liability, as those tried in Nuremberg, Tokyo, and elsewhere discovered. Therefore, the number of instances in the 20th century where the start of a war is masked as legitimate self-defence, the protection of civilians against ongoing or planned crimes, the actions of forces not directly linked to the initiator, etc., has increased significantly. We have been able to observe the use of almost this entire arsenal for the last couple of years, so to speak, “live” – in Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

All in all, declarations of war throughout history have been and remain a de facto optional component of warfare; there have been far fewer of them than wars, and far fewer than is commonly assumed. A declaration of war is more of a legal than a military act, the resulting rights and obligations of the warring parties being enforceable only within the system of interstate relations. In a declared and therefore universally accepted state of war, the “rules of conduct” of state power, both towards the enemy and towards allies, neutral countries, and even its own citizens, are defined more concretely. Therefore, it is no surprise that a high-ranking security professional allows themselves a military-political metonymy and, instead of stating “Europe is experiencing an intensification of terrorist activity” or something similar, uses the categorical “War has been declared on Europe.” Which quite predictably follows with: “We would like to… democratically, but you can’t in wartime.” À la guerre comme à la guerre, dear fellow citizens!

One can only guess how far Mr Grabovskis’ “you can’t democratically” reaches. Does it involve the indefinite expansion of the powers of operational structures, say, the simplification of procedural orders for tracking, detention, and holding in custody? Perhaps special settlement zones or police supervision for the potentially dangerous? Perhaps ethnic, religious, regional, or racial background as criteria for automatic inclusion in the potentially dangerous category? And what about those who, even if they do not belong to the potentially dangerous, might take it into their heads to interfere with the defenders of the fatherland fulfilling their duty by sticking their noses where they don’t belong, raising unnecessary fuss, and thus undermining the national unity so necessary in war? And what about freedom of speech and assembly—shouldn't that also be slowed down until better times? Well, how can one not remember Ojārs Vācietis with his “when the sergeant will command the folds of the brain with the folds of his backside” (“Two Odes to a Scorpion”, 1967)! And—please don’t misunderstand!—with this quote, I do not intend to denigrate the judgment of military personnel (as if to say, “they all think with that part there”). In this case, Vācietis’ metaphor is a description of a situation where society as a whole, succumbing to collective paranoia, loses the ability for rational political self-regulation. And I would like to add: the aforementioned classic French saying at its inception in the 17th century did not denote the right of soldiers to act as they pleased in a war zone, but rather the readiness of noble cavaliers to endure the inconveniences of wartime.

However, it may be that something so extraordinary and unprecedented is indeed happening in Europe right now that it requires categorical rhetoric and, consequently, action?

Terror in various forms and with various ideological justifications has been a reality of European political life for about a century and a half now. This includes the “hunting” of crowned and titled persons organised by various sub-species of anarchists, socialist-revolutionaries, and nationalists in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries; the actions of paramilitary fascist organisations against political and ideological opponents and members of hated races in interwar Germany, Hungary, Romania, etc.; and the bloody last three decades of the 20th century with acts of terror as a means of struggle for Northern Irish nationalists and British loyalists, Basque separatists, and with the actions of right-wing and left-wing radicals in Italy, West Germany, Spain, Belgium, and elsewhere.

And—yes—in recent decades, radical Islam has indeed become the main source of terrorism in Europe. But is it in any way more dangerous, more cruel, or more radical than its past counterparts with a different ideological focus? The bombings in 1980 in Bologna (most likely the handiwork of neo-fascists) or in 1995 in Omagh, Northern Ireland (the work of the Real Irish Republican Army) were just as murderous as a similar Al-Qaeda operation in Madrid in 2004 or the operation by Daesh followers in Brussels this year. Just as cold-bloodedly as those who carried out the massacre in Paris last year, their victims were gunned down by Breivik, an owner of an “unbending, Nordic character.” I have heard the opinion that, unlike all past radical movements, Islamic extremism is alien to Europe, “imported” here from the outside. I cannot really agree, given that Europe has been in constant contact and interaction with the Islamic world for many centuries. Significant territories in the Balkans and the Pyrenees were under the power of Muslim rulers for longer or shorter periods, while in later times, almost all Islamic lands were colonies, protectorates, or mandate territories of European great powers. Turkey, which still theoretically has a chance to become an EU member state, was formed and grew on the threshold of Europe and Asia, equally influenced by both. And does the fact that Bolshevism is a European product, while radical Islam is not, make the utopia of the World Union of Soviet Socialist Republics somehow more attractive than the vision of a Global Caliphate?

In the form of radical Islamic terrorism, Europe has encountered yet another threat—similar to others it has had to face in the past. However, it is precisely in the last few decades that our part of the world has learned to stand against similar dangers while simultaneously maintaining and developing the principles of civil liberties and rights. And furthermore—any terrorist rampage in the past and today is child’s play compared to the misery and suffering brought to our part of the world in the last century by regimes whose guiding motive was such a “you can’t democratically.” Therefore, such statements from the mouth of a European make me anxious rather than any declaration of “jihad” from the latest oriental bearded man.
The article in Latvian was first published in the May 2016 issue of Rīgas Laiks magazine