In a 2019 article David Carlin argued “Winston Churchill believed World War II should have been called the Unnecessary War because it could have been easily avoided.”. During the 1930s, the West had numerous chances to take decisive action against Hitler. They did not. Poor Western leadership allowed the Nazi menace to grow to monstrous proportions, and the world suffered the bloodiest conflict in human history
Sadly, the ongoing war in Ukraine has become yet another “Unnecessary War”. We should have seen it coming.
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The result of our collective inaction and lack of courage led to a broader confrontation which is slowly spiraling out of control. Its future consequences might prove no less disastrous than WW II if left unchecked. It is up to us to decide how far-reaching and all-encompassing the war will develop.
DISTURBING HISTORICAL PARALLELS
Like Hitler, Putin turned to militarization once in power
Hitler openly announced his intention to remilitarize Germany two years after taking power. He started rebuilding his ground forces, navy and air force while reinstating conscription. “He assured other world leaders that these were not violations of the Treaty of Versailles but purely “defensive” measures.”
President Vladimir Putin started remilitarizing Russia as soon as the economy allowed. The defense budget almost tripled between 2000 and the end of 2021. The armed forces underwent three reforms, a war with Georgia, an intervention in Syria, several smaller deployments in the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet republics and not least, a war in Ukraine that actually started in 2014.
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Like Hitler, Putin has repeatedly walked back on international treaties
On Oct. 14, 1933, Hitler pulled Germany out of the World Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations. He repeatedly violated the obligations of the Versailles Treaty and the ensuing agreements designed to avoid war.
Russia stands accused of violating around four hundred international treaties, including the Budapest Memorandum, which promised to respect Ukraine's independence and sovereignty. More than 200 negotiations and 20 cease-fire agreements have demonstrated Putin’s lack of commitment to peace. He simply uses negotiations to secure his strategic aims and objectives.
Putin has called for a rewriting of international law and the UN Charter. To be rewritten.
Like Hitler, Putin thinks recent history treated his country unfairly
Putin called the collapse of the Soviet empire “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
In his speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, he expressed his disdain over NATO’s so-called eastern expansion, the development of a unipolar world, the imbalance of powers, the status of the architecture of global security and BRICS as the new center of global economic growth. He issued several warnings, many of which have since come true, the result of Russian aggression.
Putin has since declared his ambitions of re-establishing a monopolar world. On Nov. 7, 2024, he declared that the former world arrangement “has already passed away, and a serious, irreconcilable struggle is unfolding for the development of a new world order,” and saying only the West is resisting the changes.
Like Hitler, Putin has long announced his expansion plans
Hitler was not secretive about his aggressive expansionist policies. Publicly, however, he maintained that he was taking the peaceful route. “Everything Hitler did was geared toward war ever since he came to power in 1933. From the very beginning, his aim was to revise the post-war order ordained in the Treaty of Versailles - to regain hegemony in Europe through an enlarged Germany, ” Sarah Judith Hoffman wrote in a DW article in 2014.
Putin has been no less secretive about his plans, again allegedly to be achieved by peaceful means. He argues he is in favor of a “world that will allow all nations to develop and resolve emerging contradictions based on mutual respect for cultures and civilizations, without coercion and use of force.” Tellingly, the statement was made while Russia was waging a war no less ferocious than that of Nazi Germany.
He has long talked about Russia’s historical territories and defined Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians as “one people”. According to Putin, Russia was in the past called the Soviet Union, implying that he regards all of the former USSR as its “historical territories”.
Like Hitler, Putin also seeks hegemony in Europe.
Putin has signaled his intentions to expand his sphere of influence into eastern and central Europe. In December 2021, Russia published a draft treaty between the US and Russia “on security guarantees”, as well as a draft agreement on measures to ensure the security of Russia and the NATO member states. The documents called on the Alliance to withdraw its forces and military structure to its 1997 borders. These “negotiations” happened as Russia was preparing a full-scale invasion of Ukraine as its first step in its westward expansion.
Like Hitler, Putin considers Ukraine essential to his broader strategic aim and objectives
According to the renowned historian Timothy Snyder, Ukraine was at the center of Hitler’s project of colonization and enslavement. The purpose of the second world war from Hitler’s point of view was the conquest of Ukraine.
In a sense, the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US National Security Advisor about Ukraine’s crucial importance to Russia also summarize the views of Nazi Germany: “Without Ukraine, Russia [Nazi Germany] ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia [Nazi Germany] automatically becomes an empire.”
Like Hitler, Putin aims to subjugate all of Ukraine to establish the preconditions for great power status and dominate Europe. Already the world’s biggest nuclear power, it will gain the economy, additional energy and commodities, technology, and human resources needed to achieve strategic parity with the US and China.
Like Hitler's war, Putin’s war follows a similar trajectory
Putin is waging a total war. The society, including its children, is being militarized. He is using propaganda and disinformation to manipulate the population. Universal rights are being limited. He has conducted a partial mobilization. He is sacrificing hundreds of thousands of Russians to reach his dream of Russian greatness. The country is on a wartime economy and its defense industry has been mobilized. It is building a coalition of autocracies to battle its true enemy: The West.
Russia is waging a war no less brutal than that of Nazi Germany. It intends to destroy the Ukrainian nation, including its history, its culture, its language and not least, its liberal democratic values and principles.
It stands accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. More than 135,000 incidents of war crimes committed by Russian troops are being investigated. Prisoners of War are being arbitrarily executed. Civilians are being exposed to indiscriminate air strikes and hunted by Russian drones. Ukrainians are exposed to systematic torture by occupation forces.
Like Nazi Germany, Russia has established a network of filtration and concentration camps. Children are being deported to Russia and robbed of their national identities. Ukrainian infrastructure, industries, hospitals, health institutions, schools and homes are being destroyed as Russia tries to deny Ukrainians basic services like heating, electricity and sanitary services. Parts of Ukraine may become uninhabitable. The war has caused the largest population displacement crisis since World War II, with nearly a third of the population forced to flee their homes. Nearly 6.8 million are refugees globally.
Sadly, the West is also following in the path of its predecessors.
The West is making the same mistakes as it did in the 1939s.
In 1935, Western Powers realized that Germany had developed an air force and was expanding its army, both major violations of the Versailles Treaty. Failing to act when the stakes were low was their first mistake. One year later, Hitler blatantly remilitarized Germany’s Rhineland border with France.
The West once again failed to respond militarily.
In 1938, Hitler forced Austria into the Third Reich by threatening to invade. In the words of David Carlin, ” The Western Allies responded with a collective shrug… Many British and French political leaders had staked their hopes on appeasing Hitler to avoid war… The infamous Munich Conference in late 1938 revealed the costs of appeasement.” Hitler demanded parts of Czechoslovakia. The UK and France gave in to Hitler’s demands.
“Western leaders repeatedly squandered chances to stop Hitler before 1940. First, their governments refused to take decisive action against the Nazis. Then, they remained divided in the face of a growing threat. Finally, they undermined their own opposition to Hitler through irresolution and half-measures. These mistakes proved disastrous. Nothing excuses the evil actions of Nazi Germany, but strong Western leadership might have contained Nazi evil before it exacted such a terrible toll.”
That summary also describes the Western response to Russia’s aggression. Its inaction is even more shocking given Russia’s ongoing Hybrid War across Europe and the US.
The West has repeatedly shrugged and looked the other way as Russia has persistently tested their resolve. The list of transgressions includes its war in Georgia in 2008; the illegal annexation of Crimea; the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine and the creation of new permanent military formations along its border; its attempt to destabilize Ukraine through hybrid war since (at least) 2014; its military intervention in Syria in 2015, including its involvement in war crimes for indiscriminate bombing of civilians; the maritime blockade in the Sea of Azov and attack on the Ukrainian Navy in 2018; its “borderization” and gradual reduction of Georgia’s territory; its attempted coup in Montenegro in 2016; its sabotages; multiple and repeated cyber-attacks against NATO member states; assassinations; attempt to meddle in referendums and elections in NATO countries; and persistent influence operations across Europe and the US.
These are all events that individually or collectively should have triggered an incrementally stronger response from NATO. During the Cold War, the Alliance responded to every provocation by the Soviet Union to ensure that there was no room for strategic miscalculation. After 2007, Russia again started testing NATO’s readiness and resolve. Unfortunately, the Alliance failed to respond and as a result, Europe is once again facing a full-scale war.
Having failed to act when Nazi Germany annexed Austria and occupied parts of Czechoslovakia, Europe choose to confront Hitler when Germany invaded Poland. The West failed to act when Russia annexed Crimea and occupied parts of Donbas but has yet to confront Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and its hybrid war.
The war continues to escalate because of appeasement, irresolution and half-measures. Since the start of the full-scale war, Russia has weaponized food and energy, established a coalition of “autocracies” (CRINK: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea), courted the Global South, fueled the war in the Middle East in partnership with Iran, impaired maritime transport in the Red Sea and not least, escalated its hybrid war against NATO and the EU. North Korean soldiers are for the first time in history fighting in Europe in support of Russia.
After 15 years of testing NATO’s political will and military capacity, Russia made the strategic miscalculation the Alliance vigorously managed to avoid during the Cold War. Failure to respond to Russian transgressions of international law and failure to prepare for war shattered the peace past generations had fought for. As a result, the West is facing the worst security crisis since WW II.
Still, the Ukrainian victory plan – founded on an internationally supported peace plan – received another shrug from the West.
Like 85 years ago, the West remain uncommitted to stopping a war that increasingly more Heads of State, Ministers of Defense, Chiefs of Defense and Intelligence communities warn is escalating into something far more sinister.
Instead, many cling to the hope of “Russian restraint”. Failing to understand Putin’s aim and objectives and the existential nature of the war, they bid for negotiations and peace agreements. Seeking to avoid war at any cost, they allow Russia to maintain escalation control over a war it intends to win. The West remains divided as the US is once again questioning its role in European security, slowly turning its back to the Washington Treaty.
However, the biggest difference between then and now is that the outcome is not yet a given. It can still be ended before it spirals out of control. Russia must be convinced to withdraw and abandon its imperialistic ambitions. This, however, requires strength, resolve and courage.
Putin sees the same West Hitler saw when he decided to go to war. While the Alliance on paper is militarily superior to Russia, it lacks the political will to stop a war threatening its security, stability, and prosperity. Russia sees the West as weak, divided and risk averse. It is crucially important to change his perception.
Failure to act will be President Biden’s legacy. Too little and too late. He will share this legacy with many former European and US Heads of State.
The repercussions of the war are already far-reaching. The Alliance is divided. Increasingly many predict an open conflict between NATO and Russia. The world has witnessed a seismic geopolitical shift as Russia has entered partnership with China, Iran and North Korea. The election in Georgia returned the country to Russia’s sphere of influence.
Turkey, Hungary and Slovakia are hanging in the balance as the West reels. Instead of being contained, Russia's malignant activities are spreading. Respect for international law and the UN charter are plummeting. The war is fueling right-left political extremism across both Europe and the US. It is increasing global famine and, therefore, triggering demonstrations, riots and unrest.
A war increasing in scale and scope – a Russia with ambitions to achieve parity with the US and China – is the challenge President Trump faces when he takes office.
If the US turns its back on Ukraine, it also turns its back on Europe and the Indo-Pacific area. If he tries to freeze the war, he will not end the war or stop the broader confrontation. It will not undo any of the global repercussions of the war.
It will only mark the decision to repeat past mistakes, spiraling this unnecessary war out of control.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
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