Drawing cheap historical parallels will not help us understand the Ukraine conflict.

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by Sean McMeekin

There has been much talk of historical analogies since Russia invaded Ukraine. Are we living through another Cuban missile crisis? Is it October 1973, when another endangered American ally—Israel—faced destruction and desperately needed arms, with the danger of Russian retaliation if escalation went too far? Or are we in 1939, on the brink of cataclysmic world war?
 
While history never repeats itself exactly, we should never rule out the worst-case scenario, precisely so that that we can avoid it. So it is worth revisiting the casus belli of 1939. Like Ukraine today, Poland then was a proud but overmatched buffer state with few natural barriers to stave off invasion by a more powerful neighbor from multiple directions, depending for its security on a precarious guarantee issued by distant powers in the West.
 
The usual story is that, after Hitler violated his pledges at Munich by moving into rump Czechoslovakia in March 1939, British opinion soured on Chamberlain’s appeasement policy, and Chamberlain woke up to the threat posed by Hitler, too late to secure the best outcome as a more forthright response to Hitler at Munich might have allowed – but still in time to resist German aggression and save the world from Nazi subjugation.
 
While there is truth in this, there is a more painful interpretation as well. Chamberlain, like many statesmen reacting to bad news, veered from one irrational extreme to the other in 1939, from abject appeasement of Hitler to mindless confrontation. Poland was his ostensible object of concern, but he did not really favor her cause. Chamberlain’s notorious guarantee of Poland’s “independence,” but not territorial “integrity,” reflected his ambivalence, as Poland had enlarged her territory in a series of wars since becoming independent in 1919—including at Munich, where she had seized Czechoslovak territory alongside Germany and Hungary.
 
Britain’s mixed messaging had devastating consequences. Despite having helped ensure that negotiations between Warsaw and Berlin over the “Polish corridor” would go nowhere by stiffening Polish resistance to Hitler, Chamberlain’s guarantee to Poland was not backed up by shipments of arms, warplanes or even loans. After the German invasion on September 1, all France offered Poland was a brief excursion across the German frontier; Britain dropped a few bombs on the Baltic coast. Shamefully, Poland was left alone on the battlefield as German armies invaded her from five different directions—until September 17, when Stalin’s armies invaded her from the east, completing her destruction.
 
Poland’s fate during the world war is almost too terrible for words. Her people endured horrendous repression under both Nazi and Soviet occupation, mass executions, forced labor and death camps, culminating in the Holocaust, and then Soviet occupation again, lasting for decades. Anyone who doubts what resistance meant for Poland should examine photographs of Warsaw upon its “liberation” in January 1945: a post-apocalyptic, depopulated pile of rubble, its population reduced from a prewar 1.3 million to perhaps 150,000 survivors.
 
The parallel to Ukraine today is not exact, but there are eerie similarities which urge caution. Putin is no Hitler, but he has certainly displayed irredentist designs on former Soviet Russian territory, from the war with Georgia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008 to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and her unofficial moves into Lugansk and the Donbass in 2014.
 
Like Britain and France with Poland in 1939, the U.S. has taken on Ukraine as a cause, dangling the prospect of NATO membership before her as early as 2008, supporting the “Euromaidan revolution” of 2014 which toppled a Russia-friendly government in Kyiv, and talking loudly of the need to defend Ukraine—Ukrainomania is bipartisan in Washington, one of the few issues which aligns and excites everyone who matters. When Putin finally struck this February, Russia invaded Ukraine from five directions, with Russia’s axis of advance bearing an unmistakable resemblance to the multi-pronged German invasion of Poland in 1939. Once again, despite promises of military support, Ukraine’s main sponsor has left her alone on the battlefield.
 
There are important differences, too. Poland also faced a Soviet invasion from the east in 1939—a sixth front on top of the first five—whereas Ukraine has nothing to fear from western NATO-member neighbors Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland. Britain and France never did get arms to Poland in 1939, whereas the U.S. has sold Ukraine Stinger and Javelin missiles.
 
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Putin, indeed, has a much stronger casus belli over western meddling in Ukraine than Hitler did in Poland. Britain and France had far less pull in the Warsaw of summer 1939 than the overweening influence U.S. has enjoyed in Kyiv since 2014. Putin’s claims about Ukraine committing “genocide” in the Donbass may be far-fetched. But his complaints are more credible that Western military and intelligence have turned Ukraine against the historic identity it long shared with Russia, making the country a lethally armed cat’s paw of the West – though not lethally armed enough to deter Russian aggression.
 
It is not as if no one knew about the dangers. From Henry Kissinger to Zbigniew Brzezinski to George Kennan, experienced American statesmen have warned that even talking about Westernizing Ukraine through NATO might be fatal to peace. As John Mearsheimer cautioned us in September 2015, “the West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path, and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked.” Mearsheimer’s prescient speech has received 21 million views on YouTube, almost half in the last few weeks, with Washington insiders and media poohbahs excoriating him as a Putin apologist, even as a petition campaign was launched to get Mearsheimer fired from the University of Chicago. We would have better off heeding his warning.
 
Compounding the damage, Washington’s loud championing of the Ukrainian cause has recently been accompanied by contrary signs of weakness and appeasement, from the humiliating botch of the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer to President Biden’s hint that a “minor incursion” into Ukraine might not occasion a decisive response. Like Chamberlain veering between irrational extremes in 1938-1939, the West’s Ukraine policy has blatantly provoked Russian anxieties and offered Ukrainians the false promise of an American security umbrella, while doing nowhere near enough to actually deter Russia. Ukraine may not suffer as badly as Poland did from 1939 to 1945, but much of the country has already gotten wrecked.

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The conflict in Ukraine is one of regional interests between wester Europe nd the eastern boundary of Ukraine and Russia. The is no vital National security interest for the US. Especially at a time when our own southern border threatens our very sovereignty and National security.

Kyiv – The Tragic History of Ukraine’s Capital

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Your Tax Dollars at Work: Ukrainian Officials Keep Getting Caught Fleeing Country with Suitcases Full of Cash and Euros

14 billion + another 800-900 billion of our tax dollars. Who knew the Ukraine was anything but the 4th most corrupt country in the world. Looks like we just pissed away another 15 billion. At this point I say you fu€is are on your own.

Any bets on how much of this round of billions in aid to Ukraine is working it way back to the big guy and other corruptocrats in DC. This may have been their last rodeo.

The US is being used as a pawn for European interests.

biden is all too willing to go along as he sees it causing imminent damage to America

Another rogue CIA set up, how do these Ukrainian Nazis instantly become expert drone operators?
All the MSM lying mockingbird bastards using the same propaganda, often debunked on the internet in 2.5 seconds.
Recent history is much more telling on understanding the conflict. Look to our own State Dept.

Trump propagandists are being used as the pawns of Vladimir Putin’s propagandists.

Site some evidence

When you find those “Trump propagandists”, let us know. They must be hiding behind the “pee-tape”.

We’re holding our government accountable.

There’s nothing more Constitutional, democratic, or freedom-loving than that.

The US had a hand in this war and we demand to know how much of one, and how much money Biden got in that country.

FOX News, 03/21/22 – Holocaust survivor, 96, is killed in Ukraine

Germany’s Buchenwald concentration camp memorial said Friday that Boris Romanchenko–a holocaust survivor who was 96 years old–has been killed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Ukraine also refused to surrender Mariupol after Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an ultimatum to surrender the city by 5 a.m. Monday.

There’s a ‘cheap historical parallel’ for possible consideration—in case anyone is actually having trouble seeing parallels between Vladimir Putin and Adolph Hitler.

Last edited 2 years ago by Greg

It’s definitely Nazis fighting Russians, but not much more.

The old “Putin is Hilter” propaganda point is so two-years ago, buddy.

Let’s find a list of American law-makers and politicians who had “investments” in Ukraine. Let’s talk about why only two countries have social credit scores, the obvious one being China, and the one being ignored is Ukraine. Let’s talk about how the crisis allowed Zelensky to disband political parties in a democracy (always a good “reason” for you fascists to kill democracy, afterall).

Let’s talk about the fascistic move to require EVs in America rather than let capitalism do it’s thing. Let’s talk about how Musk, the god-father of working EV, is completely ignored by Biden’s “EV summit”

What are you assholes up to? I mean, really?

And if you haven’t watched the HUNDREDS of videos of Ukrainians plastic-wrapping other Ukrainians to poles and beating their bare asses with belts and chains, you really should.

You might stop propagandizing for satan, and instead find Jesus.

Putin’s propaganda videos tend to be seen for what they are. Cranking them out is the full-time occupation of a vast, state-funded Russian disinformation apparatus. How haven’t you figured that out yet?

The real question is what state is funding your full-time occupation? Either is Soros, or it’s actually Social Security.

Kind of the same thing, at this point.

And I haven’t seen any “Putin Propaganda Videos” since Russia is cut off from the internet.

The Democrat state-run propaganda videos seem to fill the space completely, with little room for anyone to use their brain.

Which is the plan, of course.

03/21/22 – As Mariupol hangs on, the extent of the horror not yet known

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Mariupol’s defenders held out Monday against Russian demands that they surrender, the number of bodies in the rubble of the bombarded and encircled Ukrainian city remained shrouded in uncertainty, the full extent of the horror not yet known.

With communications crippled, movement restricted and many residents in hiding, the fate of those inside an art school flattened on Sunday and a theater that was blown apart four days earlier was unclear.

More than 1,300 people were believed to be sheltering in the theater, and 400 were estimated to have been in the art school.

Perched on the Sea of Azov, Mariupol has been a key target that has been relentlessly pounded for more than three weeks and has seen some of the worst suffering of the war. The fall of the southern port city would help Russia establish a land bridge to Crimea, seized from Ukraine in 2014.

But no clear picture emerged of how close its capture might be.

“Nobody can tell from the outside if it really is on the verge of being taken,” said Keir Giles, a Russia expert at the British think tank Chatham House.

Over the weekend, Moscow had offered safe passage out of Mariupol — one corridor leading east to Russia, another going west to other parts of Ukraine — in return for the city’s surrender before daybreak Monday. Ukraine flatly rejected the offer well before the deadline.

Mariupol officials said at least 2,300 people have died in the siege, with some buried in mass graves, but fears grew that the number could be far higher.

For those who remain, conditions have become brutal. The bombardment has cut off Mariupol’s electricity, water and food supplies and severed communication with the outside world, plunging residents into a fight for survival.

“What’s happening in Mariupol is a massive war crime,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.

Mariupol had a prewar population of about 430,000. Around a quarter were believed to have left in the opening days of the war, and tens of thousands escaped over the past week by way of a humanitarian corridor. Other attempts have been thwarted by the fighting.

Those who have made it out of Mariupol told of a devastated city.

“There are no buildings there anymore,” said 77-year-old Maria Fiodorova, who crossed the border to Poland on Monday after five days of travel.

Olga Nikitina, who fled Mariupol for the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, where she arrived Sunday, said gunfire blew out her windows, and her apartment dropped below freezing.

“Battles took place over every street. Every house became a target,” she said.

A long line of vehicles lined a road in Bezimenne, Ukraine, as Mariupol residents sought shelter at a temporary camp set up by the rebel Donetsk government. An estimated 5,000 people from Mariupol have taken refuge in the camp. Many arrived in cars with signs that said “children” in Russian.

A woman who gave her name as Yulia said she and her family sought shelter in Bezimenne after a bombing destroyed six houses behind her home.

“That’s why we got in the car, at our own risk, and left in 15 minutes because everything is destroyed there, dead bodies are lying around,” she said. “They don’t let us pass through everywhere — there are shootings.”

Francesco Rocca, president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, urged Russia to abide by the Geneva Convention and allow humanitarian aid into the city…

Last edited 2 years ago by Greg

Ukraine in not our problem soy boy

A murderous lunatic rolling his tanks through a neighboring nation up to the edge of NATO is ‘not our problem’?

So how’s the weather today on Planet Trump?

Last edited 2 years ago by Greg

So how’s the weather today on Planet Trump?

Sunny…with zero chance of Putin invading anyone…because Trump has him handled.

Hope that New World Order is worth it to you and your masters.

The rest of us will all be dead.

Yup
Regional territorial dispute not in our vital National security interests

It has too be a terrible day if you are a democrat when the WaPo comes out and joins the NY slimes validating the laptop from hell in its entirety

Um, yes….Putin is invading Ukraine.

Remember when non-Leftists said Russia was a threat?

Bet you do now.

Remember when non-Leftists said Russia was a threat?

Mitt Romney was very clear on the point. You hate him. So was John McCain, whom you also hated. Obama tried being conciliatory, pulling missiles out of Poland, reducing NATO pressures on Putin. We saw how that worked out. Putin just became more aggressive and willing to act out.

Trump thinks Putin is making genius moves, grabbing some really great property.

Last edited 2 years ago by Greg

Mitt Romney was very clear on the point. You hate him. So was John McCain, who you also hate.

I don’t know who you are talking to, boy. Try something else on that one.

Obama tried being conciliatory. 

Obama staging a coup and installing his own puppet in 2014 is not “conciliatory”. It’s an act of war.

Parse and distort Trump’s words all you want. It won’t change the truth. Putin didn’t invade during Trump’s watch. Trump handled him. No Colbert jokes can change that.

But Putin is invading now. That’s because of Biden. That’s because of our rigged election.

That’s partially because of you.

Have you decided how to apologize to the mothers of dead Ukrainian children yet?

Last edited 2 years ago by Nathan Blue

How is It never would have happened with Trump consistent with What Putin is doing isn’t America’s problem?

I have trouble reconciling those two claims without considering the possibility of schizophrenia.

Last edited 2 years ago by Greg

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Exposes Allegations of Torture, Crimes Against Humanity by Pro-Ukrainian Forces

Marjorie Taylor Greene is bat-shit crazy. People in her own party have made that observation.

Obviously you are threatened by strong women

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a right-wing, Q-anon-fueled loony tune.

Your opinion is meaningless. You can not handle a strong woman.

Unlike the brilliant AOC who couldn’t figure out how to use a garbage disposal although she grew up in a (high) middle income neighborhood.

MTG ran, and made a success out of, her own business. AOC went to college and learned how to run a blender.

But then, you do have San Fran Nan who can’t seem to get her dentures in straight and is always adjusting them.

Last edited 2 years ago by retire05

Putin’s ‘Denazifying’ Troops Kill a 96-Year-Old Concentration Camp Survivor

A 96-year-old concentration camp survivor was killed Friday after his home in Kharkiv was damaged by Russians, The Guardian reports. After surviving the Holocaust at concentration camps in Buchenwald, Peenemünde, Mittelbau-Dora and Bergen-Belsen, Boris Romantschenko advocated throughout his life for Nazi crimes to be recognized and properly memorialized. Before he was killed by Russians—in their bogus endeavor to “denazify” Ukraine—Romantschenko served as the vice-president of the International Committee Buchenwald-Dora, a historic organization that helps Holocaust survivors preserve memories about the struggle against fascist regimes. The organization said it was “deeply dismayed” by Romantschenko’s death.

Admission From Zelenskyy Highlights How Biden Administration Wanted To Provoke Russia To Invade Ukraine

Hopefully by now everyone is well aware how the U.S. State Department has been manipulating the internal politics of Ukraine for well over a decade.

A recent statement, by current Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, puts the weeks leading up to the Russian invasion into greater clarity.

In an interview with CNN, Zelenskyy spoke about his prior communication with Joe Biden and NATO leadership. Within the interview Zelenskyy said (emphasis mine):

“I requested them personally to say directly that we are going to accept you into NATO in a year or two or five, just say it directly and clearly, or just say no,” Zelensky said. “And the response was very clear, you’re not going to be a NATO member, but publicly, the doors will remain open,” he said. {CITATION)

So, privately NATO and the Biden administration were telling Zelenskyy Ukraine was never going to be in NATO, yet they told him they were going to publicly act like the possibility existed. There was no way for Ukraine to enter NATO, but they were going to pretend he could. Why would they do this?

Now we go back to the previous outline when it was first discovered the Biden administration was using China to funnel information to Russia.

In late February, the New York Times reported on U.S. intelligence and diplomatic officials from the State Dept sharing intelligence with Chinese officials in the three months leading up to the Russian invasion. {Go Deep on Analysis} The narrative from the NYT article tells the story of the U.S. trying to convince China in December, January and February to intervene and persuade Russia not to cross the border into Ukraine.

Many people looked at this story from the perspective of incompetence, i.e. why would the Biden team think China would not share the intel, etc?

However, when it comes to these types of issues, never ascribe to incompetence that which can be explained by manipulative intent.

There’s every reason to believe what the Biden intelligence community and state department were sharing with China, was done with the intention of Beijing giving it to Moscow.

From that perspective, the question around intent becomes, what did they push, and why did they push it?

Now we get to the public story, public quote and critical Reuters article from December of 2021. What was being publicly outlined by Joe Biden to Ukraine President Vladimir Zelenskyy?

Reuters, December 9, 2021 – “U.S. President Joe Biden assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Kyiv’s bid to join the NATO military alliance was in its own hands, Zelenskiy’s chief of staff said after the two leaders spoke on Thursday.

Biden and Zelenskiy had a call two days after Biden held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to defuse a crisis over Russian troop movements near Ukraine’s borders. (read more)

In mid-December of 2021, the public face of the U.S. position was Joe Biden telling President Zelenskyy the entry of Ukraine into NATO was up to Ukraine. If they want in, they’re in. However, we know from Zelenskyy’s statements (March 20, 2022) privately Biden was saying you’ll never get into NATO, but we are going to publicly pretend you are.

Entry into NATO was a red line for Russia, Joe Biden knew it. Vladimir Putin had been very clear about his opposition, and everyone knew it. Russia would never concede allowing Ukraine to enter NATO. Yet, the people running the Biden administration wanted to give the public appearance of Ukraine entering NATO.

In December of 2021, the U.S. intel community and Dept of State were talking to China about the Russian troop buildup, per the New York Times info.

The Biden administration is not stupid enough to tell Zelenskyy to play the game of pretend without knowing this would trigger a definitive military response from Putin.

There’s only one way to look at this. The Biden administration was purposefully baiting Putin, and provoking Putin to invade Ukraine, because the team around Biden wanted Putin to invade Ukraine.

The question then becomes why? Why would the people in/around Biden want to provoke Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine?

Again, a critical frame of reference is needed to answer that question: never ascribe to incompetence that which can be explained by intent. 

With the scale of economic bad news and catastrophic policy outcomes overwhelming the White House, a geopolitical crisis to distract the world’s attention does have major benefits. However, this specific motive is also deeper than that.

This crisis actually helps advance the goals and objectives of domestic policy in multiple ways.

The people around Biden want soaring energy costs; they want huge increases in gasoline costs as part of their Green New Deal agenda. These are ideological travelers, the most intense elements within the Obama crowd, and Biden has been installed as a disposable figurehead allowing them to operate a policy agenda without any concern for political damage.

Paving the path to ‘The Great Reset’, also known as ‘Build Back Better’, is much easier when the fundamental change crowd can just plow full speed ahead.

These are the most entrenched ideologues who consider federal deficit spending as a means to an end, where the U.S. is fundamentally changed and forever diminished because we are broke.

Through this prism of consequence, all of the negative domestic outcomes from Russia entering Ukraine and our responses therein, are not viewed as bad outcomes. These consequences are domestic and economic pains to be embraced, not avoided. After all, the people delivering these outcomes will never, themselves, feel any of it.

Watch what happens if our own government, these same entrenched ideologues, are successful in leveraging the sanctions against Russia to include the removal of Russia from the SWIFT financial exchanges.

Russia, China and Iran will immediately respond to the “west” blocking Russia from the SWIFT financial system. If they launch a counter trade currency to work around the petro-dollar, it will not take long before the dollar is weakened or removed as the global trade currency. If that happens, it’s game over for the United States of America as we know it.

Now, think about the Obama crew, the most ideological of all ideological traveling globalists…. the same crew who wanted to see the decolonialization of western culture. The crew who wants ‘fundamental and permanent change’. For this crew, the collapse of the United States is their goal. For this crew, getting to that place by putting SWIFT sanctions on Russia is a net positive.

From that perspective, what is happening in Ukraine-Russia becomes a completely different dynamic.

Why would the people in/around Biden want to manipulate information, stoke, trigger and ultimately provoke Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine?

Well, there’s your answer.

What Zelenskyy said yesterday makes sense, when you look at it from the position that the United States wanted to provoke Russian to enter Ukraine and they used public statements along with carefully crafted intelligence information to China, in order to achieve that objective.