Just a year ago, the British newspaper The Guardian published an interview with Zeynab Serekaniye, a Kurdish woman who joined the militia to fight the Islamic Caliphate, or IS as it is better known.

The then 26-year-old was hailed, alongside the other Kurdish women fighting IS, as a hero whose relentless resistance to the Caliphate helped to keep this fundamentalist organisation in check.

Less than a year after this interview, Serekaniye and her fellow fighters were sold off to Turkey, their historical enemy, by the Western Alliance that had so much feted them. Such a treacherous move was the price paid to buy Turkey’s assent for Sweden and Finland to join NATO.

Not only were the Kurds thrown to the dogs by an agreement signed behind their backs but the United States even committed itself to equip the Turkish air force with more warplanes, without imposing any restriction on their use, particularly on the Kurdish population. Turkey’s assent to Sweden and Finland joining NATO was definitely a victory for the ideology of liberal democracy. It also marked the bankruptcy of its morality.

As we are writing, the Turkish government – certainly not a beacon of democracy or the upholding of the rule of law – has an ongoing ‘operation’ against the Kurds called ‘Operation Claw-Lock’ in northern Iraq.

It isn’t just the penchant for calling wars ‘operations’ for autocracy and the suppression of peoples who demand their freedom that parallels Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Vladimir Putin. Erdogan too is in the habit of suppressing opposition and, till now, the appalling human rights record of his government has been a major hindrance to Turkey joining the EU.

Despite all this, Erdogan has negotiated on his own terms with the rest of NATO and will continue with his wars and crimes with impunity.

NATO and the EU’s complacency towards Turkey, because of strategic interests to pursue the war against Russia, discredits any moral claim they might make. If truly the war in Ukraine was about values and not hegemony, then Turkey would have been automatically disqualified from sitting round the same table with those nations that favour human rights and a democratic morality.

But, then, we know that, in international politics, morality is but a mere excuse for powerful players to employ force to recalibrate the hegemonic balance of power across the globe. Within the sphere of hegemonic interest, the morally unacceptable suddenly becomes tolerable.

No wonder, then, the volte face by the European Commission with regard to Poland’s accessibility to the Recovery Fund, despite the government in Warsaw doing nothing to reverse its relentless attack on the rule of law. Frans Timmermans, European Commission vice-president, who has long fought for the upholding of the rule of law within the EU, lamented being in a minority to vote against the commission’s green light for Poland to access the Recovery Fund money.

NATO and the EU’s complacency towards Turkey discredits any moral claim they might make- Aleks Farrugia

Again, the question is: who will pay the price for this strategic compromise that wouldn’t have happened had not Poland been bordering on Ukraine? The answer is all those law-abiding and law-loving judges who compromised their career for the sake of upholding the rule of law.

Similarly, the world will be long waiting for any sanctions against Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, after US President Joe Biden retracted from punishing the prince for commissioning the murder of Saudi US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Defending freedom of the press, anybody?

Not when there is strategic interest to keep the world’s second biggest oil producer and key American ally in the Gulf within the orbit of US interests during a conflict that might redraw the hegemonic balance of power in the region and beyond.

“There are no morals in politics; there is only expediency,” said old Lenin and what’s happening around us proves him right. In the meantime, the sanctions imposed on Russia are biting us back. Those paying the price are the most vulnerable, for now, small businesses included. Soon, however, we will realise that a prolonged war in Ukraine will only weaken Europe and make it less relevant than ever on a global scale.

An increase in poverty, with high inflation and soaring unemployment, will bring more divisions and instability. The rhetoric of morality, made to serve the interest of ideological hegemony, will lose all its lustre. Europeans will want concrete action to alleviate the hardships. I wonder how the ideologues (and their mouthpieces) in Brussels will respond to this. I wonder what will become of the Ukrainians then.

Will today’s European allies simply retreat to put some order back home and leave the Ukrainians to their own devices? Will the US-led NATO all of a sudden rediscover the value of Russia as an ally when the Chinese sphere of influence reaches Europe by the backdoor of Africa, turning its back on the Ukrainians? All questions that will only be answered by time.

For those narrowly concerned about what happens on the 246 kilometres squared that comprise the Maltese Islands, and who question the purpose of this article, my answer is twofold.

First of all, regardless of the fact we don’t speak of it, the war is still happening and the outcomes from how it plays out will still be felt on this little rock. So, we might as well start paying more attention and seek to understand.

Secondly, I find ambiguity in the way our politicians are placing themselves on this war. While it may be a strategic ploy, which I doubt, I feel it is more the result of events finding them intellectually unprepared, which, if it is so, is worrying indeed.

In such a situation, rather than forging relations that would benefit the country and position ourselves to keep afloat between conflicting powers, the risk of being swayed by hegemonic rhetoric disguised as a moral imperative is great. If the country’s interest is to be preserved, that is what must not happen.

Aleks Farrugia is a writer and historian.