Lula da Silva and Jonathan Sumption—Lord Sumption—, a former senior judge of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, might seem to have little in common. One is the leftist president of the largest country in South America; the other, an arguably conservative historian and judge of old England. However, both argue that it is the failure of politics that is taking society to a dangerous place.

On December 22, during his UNGA speech , Lula presented the conflict in Ukraine as a human tragedy that can only be resolved diplomatically. He cited the joint Chinese-Brazilian initiative “Group of Friends for Peace” as an example that “there are forces in the international community willing to work for dialogue”.

“War is not the continuation of politics by other means. It is the total bankruptcy of politics,” he said in an attempt to correct the famous Clausewitz quote.…