Or how the current situation is a reenactment of a dark chapter in our history
I have just read a very interesting article by Martin French on Putin’s recent nuclear threat. A very thorough analysis you should probably read.
It triggered a thought association process in that little head of mine. A sovereign country is being invaded by what can be called a dictatorship according to 21st century standards, a tough regime, the leader of which is threatening to resort to nuclear weapons to see his way through. The powers that matter are talking a lot, waving a lot but doing nothing decisive.
Does it remind you of a similar situation?
Europe, 1938
Hitler decides to annex Austria, after having repudiated the Treaty of Versailles earlier and having started a massive rearmament campaign. European powers like France and the United Kingdom decide to follow an appeasement policy and stand aside, allowing Adolf to lay further claims on the Sudetenland, then part of Czechoslovakia. They had it coming since 1935. As for the United States, well, they had already passed the Neutrality Act three years earlier out of concern with the situation in Europe and Asia.
Austria and the Sudetenland then. And today, Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk. And now Ukraine.
It took the invasion of Poland by Adolf to trigger a response from the European powers in 1939, leading to the greatest armed conflict the world had ever known.
What will it take today?
Assumptions
Martin French takes the assumption that Putin is either
a man who is weak and frightened of being found out — ripe to be replaced in a military coup.
Or
a man unchallenged, acting in an unpredictable manner, his diktats carried out without question as they occur to him.
And I think he got it spot on. Unless…
Could the Russian president be flat out crazy, or worse, completely paranoid? In that case, God help us all. World War 2 ended with a couple of low yield nukes. Are we heading there today?
Could he be nuts enough to trigger the Dead Hand? Keep in mind he’s got 6000 nuclear warheads and has been bragging about his hypersonic missiles for some time now.
Let the board sound
Rabih
The Idea Sounding Board 