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Interesting article that talks about the similarities between now and 1938, and the sort of lessons we can learn from history.
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“he almost mocked the inability of the west’s $40tn economy to organise a battlefield defeat of Russia’s $2tn economy.” <- this really bothers me. There is no will here for Ukraine to succeed.
Very interesting link, thank you.
I think about this often and it’s very scary
Fast forward to where pooty pants shoots himself in the head in a bunker
I’ve played that hoi4 scenario as Czechcoslovakia and the only reason it’s winnable is because it’s a game and the ai makes huge mistakes.
I’ve been comparing this invasion of ukraine to Czechcoslovakia since almost the start, but there are differences. Not really between the justification or the foreign policy that the Russian government is using. Between the relative strength of Czechcoslovakia v nazi Germany and ukraine v russia. Also between ukraine’s negotiated treaties. Ukraine appears stronger than Czechcoslovakia but never obtained a defensive pact with a single other country. The Czechoslovaks had a defensive pact, but it was quickly abandoned. I still see letting them fall as akin to appeasement, some vying for leadership positions have suggested that abandoning defense pacts is justified sometimes. If it’s justified sometimes you may try to find a hole to make it justified all the time. All ukraine had been promised was weapons and we may be in a position where we tell ourselves we did our part even if we didn’t do enough.
It seems odd to me how the author compares Ukraine to an alternative reality of 1938 imagined by their favorite historian.
Flat comparing 2020s to 1930s is already tenuous enough.
It feels like your dismissing the idea of learning from history.
Far from it: history is an account of things that happened. Learning from it requires a solid adherence to what is known about what happened.
The value of speculating on alternate timelines is not to learn from the theorized history but to illustrate how interwoven it is with the events of the time.
You can still call that learning from history, but it is a very different avenue of inquiry. I love alternate timelines, and I also respect the limits of their value.
Literally 1938
Just out of curiosity, can anyone name one war the US has been involved in since WWII where a high ranking government official did not compare it to WWII to drum up support?
Well for one if you read the article the persons comparing it are the Estonian prime minister and her favorite history professor
The reason I specified is that random people may make random comparisons all the time, so if I just said “where people did not compare it” it wouldn’t really mean anything. Estonia doesn’t tend to have as many wars they need to drum up support for so they don’t do it as often, but it’s still a greatly overused analogy in general. People said it about Korea. They said it about Vietnam. They said it about Iraq. All of those comparisons were ridiculous in hindsight but worked well enough at the time. It’s basically just a go-to thing you can say and people will just knee-jerk get on board with whatever military endeavor you’re doing at a given time, regardless of what it is.
Maybe starting a land war with Russia and a trade war with China at the same time was a bad idea
I’m sorry, who started a land war in February 2022?
did world history suddenly begin on February 2022?
Right, next the native americans will take the US back because historically it’s theirs? Russia started a war, stop looking for excuses to cope.
That’s a weird comparison, given that Russia is and has always been a genocidal empire. A pertinent example is the renewed persecution of the Crimean Tatars under the present russian occupation.
that would be ideal, fuck the united states
Before the United States the indigenous people had the Iroquois Confederation. It was a primary model for the founders of the United States. Not sure if or how native repossession changes modern geopolitics but it’s a fun idea.
