Putin’s war on Ukraine bears alarming historical parallels

Current events are eeri­ly – and omi­nous­ly – imi­tat­ing those that have gone before.

And those who have the pow­er to con­trol or alter these events appear to be woe­ful­ly igno­rant of what has pre­vi­ous­ly transpired.

In March 1938, Austria became a part of Germany in the Anschluss, a blood­less takeover foment­ed by Austrians enam­ored with Germany.  Because no coun­try opposed to this annex­a­tion did any­thing mate­r­i­al oth­er than issue “notes of protest,” Hitler was emboldened.

An area of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland was ced­ed to Germany lat­er that same year, in September, lead­ing British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to declare “peace in our time.” The Sudetenland had been incor­po­rat­ed into Czechoslovakia in 1919 and con­tained about three mil­lion peo­ple who were either German or were allied to the German cause.  Germany pro­claimed that those of German descent in the area were being mis­treat­ed by the Czechoslovak gov­ern­ment and used this as a ruse to demand its incor­po­ra­tion into Germany.

One year lat­er saw the begin­ning of World War II when Germany invad­ed Poland and Britain declared war on September 3^rd, 1939.

This acqui­es­cence by Czechoslovakia, France, and Britain dur­ing all of 1938 led irrev­o­ca­bly to total war.

Fast for­ward to 1991.  Ukraine declares inde­pen­dence from Russia and begins run­ning the coun­try with its own government.

In 2005 new­ly elect­ed Yushchenko promis­es to lead Ukraine towards affil­i­a­tion with NATO and the EU.

Five years lat­er, pro-Soviet Yanukovich is elect­ed pres­i­dent, but is removed from office by par­lia­ment in 2014.  At this point the par­lia­ment in Crimea is seized by pro-Russian forces and Moscow annex­es the ter­ri­to­ry (ala Austria, 1938).

Zelenskyy is elect­ed pres­i­dent in 2019 and con­tin­ues mov­ing Ukraine toward alliances with the west­ern powers.

Russia begins mass­ing troops near the Ukrainian bor­der in the spring of 2021, alleg­ing “train­ing exer­cis­es” while Putin con­tin­u­ous­ly pro­claims he has no inten­tion of invad­ing Ukraine (ala Poland, 1939).

On February 21, 2022, Putin says Ukraine is an inte­gral part of Russian his­to­ry being run by a pup­pet gov­ern­ment man­aged by for­eign pow­ers at the same time that he orders “peace­keep­ing forces” into two break­away regions in east­ern Ukraine after rec­og­niz­ing them as inde­pen­dent (Sudetenland).

February 24, 2022, Putin autho­rizes “spe­cial mil­i­tary oper­a­tions” in Ukraine, and mis­sile and artillery strikes begin on the major cities includ­ing Kyiv.

And so, after Ukraine’s thir­ty years as an inde­pen­dent nation, and more than eighty years after Hitler ini­ti­at­ed events that are now being mim­ic­ked by Putin, the rest of the world — includ­ing the United States this time — is pon­der­ing how to address this cur­rent con­flict, even to the point of debat­ing how much aid to sup­ply to Ukrainian forces bat­tling to main­tain their nation’s independence.

Another step back in history.

In 1940, President Roosevelt final­ly con­vinced Congress to accept the Lend-Lease Act, after Britain had been strug­gling against Germany for a year, des­per­ate­ly plead­ing for mil­i­tary aid.  Surely one can see the com­par­i­son between Britain in 1940 and the Ukraine in 2022.  And if one can see that com­par­i­son, one must also be aware that, with­out the mate­r­i­al aid pro­vid­ed by the United States in 1940, Britain may well have suc­cumbed to the pow­er of the Nazi state, as Ukraine will yield to Russia now with­out out­side help.

Congress is now divid­ed on this issue.  Some in that body feel that the United States has done enough, more than its share and far more than our oth­er NATO allies have done.

What seems appar­ent – despite the advanced age of many mem­bers of Congress – is that too few of them under­stand these con­flat­ing his­tor­i­cal events.  While Senators like McConnell and Graham appear to sup­port con­tin­ued sup­port for Ukraine, oth­ers like Senator Paul do not.

Those who ques­tion the com­mit­ment of the United States to Ukraine decry the cost. Yes, war is cost­ly and this one is run­ning up the tab in both mate­ri­als and money.

But there are over­rid­ing ques­tions that must be asked of those in Congress who want to sus­pend the sup­port of this country.

How will China view the com­mit­ment of the United States to Taiwan if we walk away from Ukraine?

Will North Korea decide that it can over­whelm South Korea and impose its total­i­tar­i­an régime on the low­er part of that penin­su­la as it attempt­ed to do in 1950 because the U.S. won’t respond as it did then?

What will be the cost, not only in mon­ey and mate­r­i­al, but in the lives of American ser­vice­men and ser­vice­women if Russia is allowed to suck us into anoth­er land war in Europe? Because if Putin is allowed to con­sume Ukraine, does any­one believe that he will stop there?

Hitler didn’t.  Just ask his­to­ri­ans who know about France and Belgium and the Netherlands and Norway and Finland.