LET'S start off with a quote from the Bible (King James Version): " To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven... a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."
I first came across those sentiments not in a Bible class, but in the musical version entitled Turn! Turn! Turn! recorded by California band The Byrds, although the song itself was adapted from holy scripture by the legendary Pete Seeger in the late 1950s.
The popularity of the Byrds version was enhanced by the fact that it was released when the protest movement against the US role in the Vietnam War was gaining strength and many people were taking the view that, in the words of the Bible, it wasn't "a time to kill" but rather "a time to heal".
Years later, Gerry Adams struck a rather biblical note when the IRA announced an end to its 36-year armed campaign in July 2005 and he said: "There is a time to resist... a time for war. There is also a time to engage, to reach out and put war behind us."
The Ukraine war began on February 24 this year and at the moment there is no end in sight. But we mustn't lose hope. This point was brought home to me when I attended the launch last week of a journalistic memoir entitled Line of Fire: Journeys through a Media Minefield, by David O'Donoghue (Orpen Press, Dublin), in which the author recalls covering the visit for RTÉ of the British monarch and her husband to the north in 1977.
Describing a "huge" republican protest march down the Falls Road, he writes: "At the head of the parade the marchers held a large green banner aloft bearing the words 'Queen of Death'." The British army and the RUC blocked the route, leading to a full-scale riot.
If anyone had predicted in those days that, in time to come, republican leader Martin McGuinness would meet and shake hands with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip at the Lyric Theatre, less than two-and-a-half miles away, that person's mental state would have been questioned. I was outside on that day in 2012 and reported how the Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister said, as he left the building: "I'm still a republican."
That was just 10 years ago this week and thankfully we still have peace – although not exactly reconciliation – in this part of the world. It took a long time to achieve a settlement and one of those involved at a senior level was Jonathan Powell, who was then-prime minister Tony Blair's chief of staff and chief negotiator on Northern Ireland.
Powell expressed his views on the Ukraine conflict in The Guardian last week, where he set out a middle-ground approach in terms of European public opinion, between those who want to "cut and run" now and another faction who wish to see the Russians defeated.
The former group would concede territory quickly to Putin in return for a ceasefire, but Powell argues that this would most likely give the Russians time to regroup and return to the fray.
The hard-line element meanwhile want total victory, without negotiations, over Putin and his forces. Powell argues that this latter course would have to involve invading Russia itself and overthrowing its current regime, as the allies did in Germany in the Second World War.
He suggests a more measured approach, providing continued support to the Ukrainians, eg by facilitating their membership of the European Union at an early stage, and allowing them to decide themselves when to negotiate for a peace settlement and on what terms.
Powell is probably right in suggesting that the Russians will not be in the mood for serious negotiations for some time yet.
A situation where they control the Donbas region but cannot make any further progress sounds to me like one where Putin and his friends could be persuaded to hold serious talks.
A comprehensive expulsion of the Russians back to their homeland does not sound like a realistic possibility either.
A sizeable element of western public opinion is beginning to get tired of the issue and, in that scenario, brave and creative thinking from our political leaders is required.
But looking at the group photos from the G7 summit, featuring Boris Johnson and Joe Biden – both of whom are rather short on public support these days – suggests that authoritative leadership is somewhat scarce at the moment.
