A serious piece would acknowledge the obvious, that we have an ignorant, aging, mentally impaired, and dangerous man "leading" us. Instead, Mike spends his time criticizing the "experts". So instead, let's look at what Don's own appointees have to say.
Don is: Someone his first Secy of State called a f...... moron. Someone his chief of staff, a decorated four star general, said would "rule like a fascist" if re-elected, while also exposing Don's Hitler references (and let's not forget JD musing about Don being "America's Hitler"). Someone his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, another general, called "fascist to the core". Someone who sided with Vlad, and not his own 17 security agencies, on the stage in Helsinki. Someone who couldn't identify the nuclear triad while a presidential candidate. Someone who doesn't read the presidential daily brief. Someone who claims Ukraine started the war. Someone who appointed a drunkard, sexually abusive weekend talk show host the Secy of Defense, while firing the service's top JAG's. Someone who praises the leader of an English speaking country for his English speaking ability. I could go on. And on. And on. But don't take my word for it. Go back and read closely the explicit and urgent warnings from the adults in his first term cabinet. Follow that up with a week or two of his current daily bleats on "Truth" Social. See if you find anything of concern...and imagine when he's 82.
So Mike, yeah, what could possibly go wrong? Maybe those "experts" are on to something:)
It's too commonplace for authors at Commonplace to attack other's thinking, rather than cogently presenting their own. To me, that immediately discounts whatever thinking they may have. I'll note that this blog is part of "know-nothing" (author's words) think tank community. Here is what I do know about the Ukraine situation: Putin, is cold-hearted and ruthless. When confronted with a snake, it is wise to treat it like a snake. Trump said he could end the war with one phone call - the longest six months and counting phone call of my life. Trump can only see the chance for American business in Russia and cannot, given his self-interest, weigh the cost to democratic countries and other trading partners. I do agree with Trump that NATO countries do need to buck up and spend more on their own defense. If they did so a la Reagan-era defense spending, we will bankrupt the Russian government much like we did the Soviet one. Add a zero tolerance economic blockade and it will happen all the faster. However, Trump is more fascinated with authoritarianism so good luck with that. Trump will never make a "deal" here as there is no deal to be made that will satisfy Putin, a snake if there ever was one.
The GDP of the European NATO countries is about $23 trillion and Russia’s GDP is $2.1 so ten times smaller. Europe can easily afford to spend ten times what Russia does on defense especially now that the war has seriously depleted Russia’s existing military stocks. Far past time for Europe to quit relying on the US for its defense and to chart its own course.
OR… one could compare today’s doomsayers to the perennial millenarians who have been anticipating the end of days AT LEAST since the origin of Christianity…
BUT ridiculing notions arising from speculations into the Alaska summit is also quite akin to investing energies into debunking prophecies based on readings of tea leaves and bird flights. If you think about it though, a close reading of tea sediments, a study of the arching directions of turtle doves, or a careful investigation the entrails of slaughtered goats is probably less farcical than the desperate antics of the current leader of the “free world” when it comes to foretelling future events, opportunities, and catastrophes.
The lead up to World War I is a better analogy if one insists on focusing specifically on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. To accede to Russia’s imperialist demands would be another nail in the coffin of US pretensions regarding any “rules based international order,” a term meant perhaps to draw attention away from how the US (like other empires) rejects any notion of international law it cannot arbitrarily dictate. A Russia without control over Ukraine, on the other hand, risks falling ever more into client state status regarding an ascendent China — though China would also benefit from a Russian victory (even a partial one) over Ukraine with respect to its long term campaign to seize Taiwan.
So no. The Putin/trump summit is not a WWII retread… BUT it would be myopically foolish to ignore lessons present in a study of how many “small” conflicts have ignited larger ones with the lead up to the First World War being only one example.
As for WWIII, it has always (since the crimes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) been a shorthand for a world (or civilization) ending apocalypse. With our new century (and Millenium), nightmares about a destructive nuclear war have been augmented by dreads associated with global climate change. Still, these two horseman were probably not enough to initiate the precipitous drop in human fertility (with notable exceptions in Israel and occupied Palestinian Territories including Gaza).
I suspect the other two horsemen driving this doom loop are the obscene levels of wealth concentration and the rise of social media though changes in gender roles and the structures of advanced economies are putting great psychic pressures on the invested identities of white males where violence and irrationality have always been our “trump cards”.
When Russia invaded, and the inevitable'1939' comparisons began, I asked "Well, perhaps we should provide troops if it's truly a runup to WWIII. I was told "Oh no, those plucky Ukrainians just need weapons, nothing more."
Three years on, it's obvious that Zelensky doesn't have enough troops to fight a protracted war.
But do the Europeans want to provide any troops? Of course not, because they know well that this isn't really like 1939 and their citizens won't fight for it..
We're also told that if we don't stop Putin in Ukraine he'll attack NATO countries. If that's really true, than what is the point of offering Zelensky NATO membership?
The whole thing stinks, and Western media outlets are guilty of news malpractice for their reporting.
Not every situation may be 1939, but Trump and his lackeys certainly bear watching. Especially since the only reason Trump has for anything he does is his own reward, in this case the Nobel Peace Prize. Putin was so scared that Ukraine was a potential part of NATO, he made a pre-emptive strike to get the property he wants before he risked war with the West. We will just have to wait and see, I guess.
I understand your perspective. The irony of John Kerry portraying Churchill is frustrating. You're correct that the appeasement analogy is often overused; not every conflict is that serious. However, deterring aggressive leaders early is crucial.
Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine exemplify this. If he's not stopped, he’ll continue to push like a bully. Europe has a more immediate stake in this situation than the U.S., which currently shows little willingness to sacrifice for its defense.
Putin is a rational, yet sociopathic actor. In contrast, the Iranian mullahs and Hamas exhibit irrationality similar to the Nazis, making deterrence impossible. The key is recognizing which threats are significant enough to justify costly stands.
During the Cold War, the U.S. successfully deterred Soviet expansion for a time, but Vietnam became a miscalculation. We underestimated the enemy's resolve, leading to a loss that demoralized the American public.
Vietnam wasn’t a Munich moment; although a few neighboring countries fell to communism, the U.S. remained intact. Ultimately, free-market capitalism outlasted totalitarianism, which might reflect a lack of faith in our system during that era. Understanding ourselves and our limits remains essential today.
I take your point. The irony of John Kerry cosplaying Churchill is nauseating.
You're right that the appeasement analogy is overused. Not every dispute rises to that level.
However, the importance of early deterrence of a sociopathic, imperialistic, bullying despot is an eternal verity.
Bad behavior must be deterred early and often.
The best contemporaneous example is Putin‘s clear revanchist ambitions . He must be stopped in Ukraine or he will continue to push and push and push like a school yard bully until someone stops him.
That someone maybe Europe because frankly their interest is much more existential than ours. The current American administration is lukewarm the best about sacrificing even treasure much less blood to defend Europe so.
Putin is a sociopath, but not a raving lunatic and that makes a difference. He can be deterred. In Hitler’s case the only way to stop him was to annihilate him and the Nazis. I see a parallel with the Iranian mullahs and their puppets including Hamas. These people are as irrational as the Nazis, if not more so, eager to die and be martyred, eager to sacrifice their own people to suffering and death for propaganda value, driven by senseless hate.They can not be deterred by any sort of rational calculation.
So in some cases, simply standing up to an aggressive sociopathic, but rational actor is not only indicated, but can be effective. In other cases, aggressor is so insane that the only thing that could be done is to demand unconditional surrender on pain of annihilation, but in either case lessons of Munich still apply, the question is which threats are substantial enough from the interest of the party, considering deterrence to make a stand that is going to be very expensive in terms of blood and treasure.
In the case of America for example, during the Cold War, we were able to deter Soviet expansionism at an acceptable price from the Overton Window of the American people for probably 15 years from 1950 to 1965. Vietnam, however was a bridge too far— our hubristic arrogance and ignorance got us into a situation that was well beyond the price we anticipated in terms of blood and treasure. The American people were victimized by Soviet propaganda, demoralized by the casualties, and thus the war was largely lost on the homefront, although the arc of history provided victory to the free market capitalist democratic system. Vietnam is probably as capitalist as any country in the country at this point, as is China, so as it turned out the best antidote communism was to let countries succumb to it and then see with their own eyes how idiotic Marxism is—almost every country in the world that toyed with communism has abandoned it because sadly it doesn’t work— too bad— if it did work what a lovely world it would be where all of us got what we needed and all this contribute what we could and everybody saying Kumbaya…that’s not the nature of human nature and it won’t be anytime soon unless somehow we’re able to genetically create angels out of men.
Vietnam was an example of a miscalculation, underestimation of the enemy, misunderstanding of what was really going on in their heads, which was more about liberation from colonial rule than adapting communism—althoungh communism helped turn the people against the rulers Webtotally underestimated the determination of the Vietnamese people, and were blind to the fact that there were so many of them that were motivated to fight us thinking that we were the French redux that we we had one hell of a challenge on our hands.
We totally underestimated the zeal and resolve the American people to fight communism without having facing any clear and present threats such as the one that we faced in World War II after Pearl Harbor. People just didn’t see why we should send our boys to die for the South Vietnamese, so it was unsustainable on many levels. It is the central tragedy of the American, super power erabof being willing to “pay any price,, bear any burden” in the soaring rhetoric of JFK. We proved to ourselves and the world that we weren’t. Nor even his own brother was. It remains the fault line in American politics to this day.
So was Vietnam a Munich moment? No. We lost the war. The consequences to some extent followed the domino theory—a few countries in the region fell to the communiats, but we didn’t because the American people, while they tired of the bloody seemingly endless war, did not succumb to the siren song of communism, and we were from a military standpoint in an year of mutually assured destruction invulnerable to conquest by military means, which everybody here understood is common sense— you know they’re not gonna get on boats in Haiphong Harbor and invade the West Coast— and they didn’t. in fact,!their system collapsed on its own, so in the end, free market, capitalism and democracy triumphed over totalitarianism, so maybe we didn’t have enough faith in ourselves and our way if life, but the point is knowing yourself in a platonic sense, knowing the nature of the enemy, accurately assessing the real threat,! and avoiding taking the appeasement paradigm to the extreme, or you’re gonna fall on your sword for every country that’s threatened by some expansionist regime, regardless of whether it has any geopolitical strategic value to you. If the communist threat emerged in Mexico, for example we would probably have gotten involved with real geopolitical strategic perspective, Aa we did in the Cuban Missle Crisis with widespread support from the American people, whereas
in distant Vietnam, not so much.
So you have to be wise enough to know what your own people will support; you have to do the cost benefit as you say and make a decision. For Europe. Munich was existtential. Literally the whole continent ended up dominated for four years;! for the Soviets, it turned out to be existential.l, though they didn’t understand it at the time. They didn’t know they were being played by Hitler, but they found out the hard way. Their Great Patriitic War was the price they paid— millions slaughtered
The lesson people took from Munich was you do have the smell sweat the small stuff because everything is big stuff—suffering from the posttraumatic stress of World War I’s unprecedented slaughter in the trenches, no one wanted to get in a war over the small stuff like the Balkans, but applying that lesson to Czechoslovakia turned out to be a huge error, given the nature of the threat that was being faced, which was far different than the situation in World War I, where you had basically rational, though in realistic powers that were not mad men like Hitler.
So every situation is different and almost entirely personality dependent. Assessing the psychology of your counterparty, particularly in societies that are driven by messianic autocratic dictators is essential.
You must accurately assess the magnitude of the risk and how much are you willing and able politically and economically to spend to defend; your pain threshold is key, an indirect proportion to the degree of autocracy and power vested in one individual and by then I don’t mean formal authority. I mean the power of the fearless leaders, actual leadership based on his political skills and ability to mesmerize people and keep them wild to the cause even when things get tough. Conversely, in a democracy, that is very susceptible to dissent. Your pain threshold is much lower.
just a few examples, Hitler and Mussolini were able to maintain the loyalty and active participation of their people for years in the face of catastrophic Ho Chi Minh was able to maintain the resolve of the Vietnamese people in the face of casually levels that would deter a democracy. Hamas is capable of maintaining the loyalty of their people through fear, intimidation, religion, and hate well beyond the pain threshold of almost any rational player, and of course Israel is able to do the same thing in spite of a very divided and Democratic Parliamentary body politic, and that will be the ultimate decider of what happens—will the power of Islamic radicalism and antisemitism overcome the Zionist resolve to maintain a homeland in the face of a history of pogromq and holocaust and real genocide. Israel is fear driven, and Islamic jihadosm is hate driven. Palestinians” don’t have to defend that land. They don’t even think they will get a huge Palestinian in the United States. They know they can go somewhere else in lot of them and the other Zionist thing this is the last for us and it becomes more and more reinforced by the spread of anti-Zionism and antisemitism around the world so who knows how that’s gonna turn up with the point is that you know the will to win is the most decisive of all the inputs into war history is filled with example of numerically and technologically superior armies that fall pray to a very small number of dedicated zealous opponents, the classic example, the Spartans of their the mighty host of Persia, wow numerous and technologically sophisticated and very little women were reluctant warrior with little taste for combat by a paper tiger is the Asian communist like to call the United States.
in Taiwan unfortunately is an example that so well written well and I have shared it with my network which I get you about 10 views.
Somehow you drew the approximately correct conclusion despite a scaffolding of some of the most ridiculous propaganda we have been subjected to in the last few decades.
We puppeteer Ukraine against Russia, at great human and financial cost, to procure more resources despite the ones we have here and do not utilize. It's all so stupid I can only laugh.
This is an interesting take. I'd like to see your take on where we are relative to 1776 and 1861. The urban v. non-urban polarization in the US today is getting ever closer to crisis or conflict. I don't think it's another Chicken Little scenario coming up.
For more information on that question or seeds for another article, start with The Second Bill of Rights "Parlor Game" on its website, and you can always ping me too.
Summary: whether by population, industrial capacity, military technology, preparedness of enemies... 2025 Russia doesn't even come close to 1939 Germany.
ChatGPT can separate Putin's motives from his material ability. Our ruling class can't do that. They get stuck on "Putin is a bad man" and focus on his motives instead of his military. In terms of danger to Europe (not Ukraine... Europe) he may be a bad man, but he's also an impotent one.
I guess the obvious analogy to Munich would be a conference to carve up a nation without the carvee (to coin a word) present. Not to say this is a moment of equal gravity, but that is a pretty obvious similarity. But my guess is that this Alaska conference will probably lead nowhere anyway.
A serious piece would acknowledge the obvious, that we have an ignorant, aging, mentally impaired, and dangerous man "leading" us. Instead, Mike spends his time criticizing the "experts". So instead, let's look at what Don's own appointees have to say.
Don is: Someone his first Secy of State called a f...... moron. Someone his chief of staff, a decorated four star general, said would "rule like a fascist" if re-elected, while also exposing Don's Hitler references (and let's not forget JD musing about Don being "America's Hitler"). Someone his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, another general, called "fascist to the core". Someone who sided with Vlad, and not his own 17 security agencies, on the stage in Helsinki. Someone who couldn't identify the nuclear triad while a presidential candidate. Someone who doesn't read the presidential daily brief. Someone who claims Ukraine started the war. Someone who appointed a drunkard, sexually abusive weekend talk show host the Secy of Defense, while firing the service's top JAG's. Someone who praises the leader of an English speaking country for his English speaking ability. I could go on. And on. And on. But don't take my word for it. Go back and read closely the explicit and urgent warnings from the adults in his first term cabinet. Follow that up with a week or two of his current daily bleats on "Truth" Social. See if you find anything of concern...and imagine when he's 82.
So Mike, yeah, what could possibly go wrong? Maybe those "experts" are on to something:)
Good luck America.
Demands serious analysis. Provides deeply unserious analysis.
Carl, you might enjoy helping The Second Bill of Rights project establish its 501(c)(3) in September.
https://www.secondbillofrights.us/donate
Even if it's $10 or $20 . . . every little bit helps get us there.
It's too commonplace for authors at Commonplace to attack other's thinking, rather than cogently presenting their own. To me, that immediately discounts whatever thinking they may have. I'll note that this blog is part of "know-nothing" (author's words) think tank community. Here is what I do know about the Ukraine situation: Putin, is cold-hearted and ruthless. When confronted with a snake, it is wise to treat it like a snake. Trump said he could end the war with one phone call - the longest six months and counting phone call of my life. Trump can only see the chance for American business in Russia and cannot, given his self-interest, weigh the cost to democratic countries and other trading partners. I do agree with Trump that NATO countries do need to buck up and spend more on their own defense. If they did so a la Reagan-era defense spending, we will bankrupt the Russian government much like we did the Soviet one. Add a zero tolerance economic blockade and it will happen all the faster. However, Trump is more fascinated with authoritarianism so good luck with that. Trump will never make a "deal" here as there is no deal to be made that will satisfy Putin, a snake if there ever was one.
The GDP of the European NATO countries is about $23 trillion and Russia’s GDP is $2.1 so ten times smaller. Europe can easily afford to spend ten times what Russia does on defense especially now that the war has seriously depleted Russia’s existing military stocks. Far past time for Europe to quit relying on the US for its defense and to chart its own course.
OR… one could compare today’s doomsayers to the perennial millenarians who have been anticipating the end of days AT LEAST since the origin of Christianity…
BUT ridiculing notions arising from speculations into the Alaska summit is also quite akin to investing energies into debunking prophecies based on readings of tea leaves and bird flights. If you think about it though, a close reading of tea sediments, a study of the arching directions of turtle doves, or a careful investigation the entrails of slaughtered goats is probably less farcical than the desperate antics of the current leader of the “free world” when it comes to foretelling future events, opportunities, and catastrophes.
The lead up to World War I is a better analogy if one insists on focusing specifically on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. To accede to Russia’s imperialist demands would be another nail in the coffin of US pretensions regarding any “rules based international order,” a term meant perhaps to draw attention away from how the US (like other empires) rejects any notion of international law it cannot arbitrarily dictate. A Russia without control over Ukraine, on the other hand, risks falling ever more into client state status regarding an ascendent China — though China would also benefit from a Russian victory (even a partial one) over Ukraine with respect to its long term campaign to seize Taiwan.
So no. The Putin/trump summit is not a WWII retread… BUT it would be myopically foolish to ignore lessons present in a study of how many “small” conflicts have ignited larger ones with the lead up to the First World War being only one example.
As for WWIII, it has always (since the crimes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) been a shorthand for a world (or civilization) ending apocalypse. With our new century (and Millenium), nightmares about a destructive nuclear war have been augmented by dreads associated with global climate change. Still, these two horseman were probably not enough to initiate the precipitous drop in human fertility (with notable exceptions in Israel and occupied Palestinian Territories including Gaza).
I suspect the other two horsemen driving this doom loop are the obscene levels of wealth concentration and the rise of social media though changes in gender roles and the structures of advanced economies are putting great psychic pressures on the invested identities of white males where violence and irrationality have always been our “trump cards”.
When Russia invaded, and the inevitable'1939' comparisons began, I asked "Well, perhaps we should provide troops if it's truly a runup to WWIII. I was told "Oh no, those plucky Ukrainians just need weapons, nothing more."
Three years on, it's obvious that Zelensky doesn't have enough troops to fight a protracted war.
But do the Europeans want to provide any troops? Of course not, because they know well that this isn't really like 1939 and their citizens won't fight for it..
We're also told that if we don't stop Putin in Ukraine he'll attack NATO countries. If that's really true, than what is the point of offering Zelensky NATO membership?
The whole thing stinks, and Western media outlets are guilty of news malpractice for their reporting.
Not every situation may be 1939, but Trump and his lackeys certainly bear watching. Especially since the only reason Trump has for anything he does is his own reward, in this case the Nobel Peace Prize. Putin was so scared that Ukraine was a potential part of NATO, he made a pre-emptive strike to get the property he wants before he risked war with the West. We will just have to wait and see, I guess.
Very interesting.
I understand your perspective. The irony of John Kerry portraying Churchill is frustrating. You're correct that the appeasement analogy is often overused; not every conflict is that serious. However, deterring aggressive leaders early is crucial.
Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine exemplify this. If he's not stopped, he’ll continue to push like a bully. Europe has a more immediate stake in this situation than the U.S., which currently shows little willingness to sacrifice for its defense.
Putin is a rational, yet sociopathic actor. In contrast, the Iranian mullahs and Hamas exhibit irrationality similar to the Nazis, making deterrence impossible. The key is recognizing which threats are significant enough to justify costly stands.
During the Cold War, the U.S. successfully deterred Soviet expansion for a time, but Vietnam became a miscalculation. We underestimated the enemy's resolve, leading to a loss that demoralized the American public.
Vietnam wasn’t a Munich moment; although a few neighboring countries fell to communism, the U.S. remained intact. Ultimately, free-market capitalism outlasted totalitarianism, which might reflect a lack of faith in our system during that era. Understanding ourselves and our limits remains essential today.
I take your point. The irony of John Kerry cosplaying Churchill is nauseating.
You're right that the appeasement analogy is overused. Not every dispute rises to that level.
However, the importance of early deterrence of a sociopathic, imperialistic, bullying despot is an eternal verity.
Bad behavior must be deterred early and often.
The best contemporaneous example is Putin‘s clear revanchist ambitions . He must be stopped in Ukraine or he will continue to push and push and push like a school yard bully until someone stops him.
That someone maybe Europe because frankly their interest is much more existential than ours. The current American administration is lukewarm the best about sacrificing even treasure much less blood to defend Europe so.
Putin is a sociopath, but not a raving lunatic and that makes a difference. He can be deterred. In Hitler’s case the only way to stop him was to annihilate him and the Nazis. I see a parallel with the Iranian mullahs and their puppets including Hamas. These people are as irrational as the Nazis, if not more so, eager to die and be martyred, eager to sacrifice their own people to suffering and death for propaganda value, driven by senseless hate.They can not be deterred by any sort of rational calculation.
So in some cases, simply standing up to an aggressive sociopathic, but rational actor is not only indicated, but can be effective. In other cases, aggressor is so insane that the only thing that could be done is to demand unconditional surrender on pain of annihilation, but in either case lessons of Munich still apply, the question is which threats are substantial enough from the interest of the party, considering deterrence to make a stand that is going to be very expensive in terms of blood and treasure.
In the case of America for example, during the Cold War, we were able to deter Soviet expansionism at an acceptable price from the Overton Window of the American people for probably 15 years from 1950 to 1965. Vietnam, however was a bridge too far— our hubristic arrogance and ignorance got us into a situation that was well beyond the price we anticipated in terms of blood and treasure. The American people were victimized by Soviet propaganda, demoralized by the casualties, and thus the war was largely lost on the homefront, although the arc of history provided victory to the free market capitalist democratic system. Vietnam is probably as capitalist as any country in the country at this point, as is China, so as it turned out the best antidote communism was to let countries succumb to it and then see with their own eyes how idiotic Marxism is—almost every country in the world that toyed with communism has abandoned it because sadly it doesn’t work— too bad— if it did work what a lovely world it would be where all of us got what we needed and all this contribute what we could and everybody saying Kumbaya…that’s not the nature of human nature and it won’t be anytime soon unless somehow we’re able to genetically create angels out of men.
Vietnam was an example of a miscalculation, underestimation of the enemy, misunderstanding of what was really going on in their heads, which was more about liberation from colonial rule than adapting communism—althoungh communism helped turn the people against the rulers Webtotally underestimated the determination of the Vietnamese people, and were blind to the fact that there were so many of them that were motivated to fight us thinking that we were the French redux that we we had one hell of a challenge on our hands.
We totally underestimated the zeal and resolve the American people to fight communism without having facing any clear and present threats such as the one that we faced in World War II after Pearl Harbor. People just didn’t see why we should send our boys to die for the South Vietnamese, so it was unsustainable on many levels. It is the central tragedy of the American, super power erabof being willing to “pay any price,, bear any burden” in the soaring rhetoric of JFK. We proved to ourselves and the world that we weren’t. Nor even his own brother was. It remains the fault line in American politics to this day.
So was Vietnam a Munich moment? No. We lost the war. The consequences to some extent followed the domino theory—a few countries in the region fell to the communiats, but we didn’t because the American people, while they tired of the bloody seemingly endless war, did not succumb to the siren song of communism, and we were from a military standpoint in an year of mutually assured destruction invulnerable to conquest by military means, which everybody here understood is common sense— you know they’re not gonna get on boats in Haiphong Harbor and invade the West Coast— and they didn’t. in fact,!their system collapsed on its own, so in the end, free market, capitalism and democracy triumphed over totalitarianism, so maybe we didn’t have enough faith in ourselves and our way if life, but the point is knowing yourself in a platonic sense, knowing the nature of the enemy, accurately assessing the real threat,! and avoiding taking the appeasement paradigm to the extreme, or you’re gonna fall on your sword for every country that’s threatened by some expansionist regime, regardless of whether it has any geopolitical strategic value to you. If the communist threat emerged in Mexico, for example we would probably have gotten involved with real geopolitical strategic perspective, Aa we did in the Cuban Missle Crisis with widespread support from the American people, whereas
in distant Vietnam, not so much.
So you have to be wise enough to know what your own people will support; you have to do the cost benefit as you say and make a decision. For Europe. Munich was existtential. Literally the whole continent ended up dominated for four years;! for the Soviets, it turned out to be existential.l, though they didn’t understand it at the time. They didn’t know they were being played by Hitler, but they found out the hard way. Their Great Patriitic War was the price they paid— millions slaughtered
The lesson people took from Munich was you do have the smell sweat the small stuff because everything is big stuff—suffering from the posttraumatic stress of World War I’s unprecedented slaughter in the trenches, no one wanted to get in a war over the small stuff like the Balkans, but applying that lesson to Czechoslovakia turned out to be a huge error, given the nature of the threat that was being faced, which was far different than the situation in World War I, where you had basically rational, though in realistic powers that were not mad men like Hitler.
So every situation is different and almost entirely personality dependent. Assessing the psychology of your counterparty, particularly in societies that are driven by messianic autocratic dictators is essential.
You must accurately assess the magnitude of the risk and how much are you willing and able politically and economically to spend to defend; your pain threshold is key, an indirect proportion to the degree of autocracy and power vested in one individual and by then I don’t mean formal authority. I mean the power of the fearless leaders, actual leadership based on his political skills and ability to mesmerize people and keep them wild to the cause even when things get tough. Conversely, in a democracy, that is very susceptible to dissent. Your pain threshold is much lower.
just a few examples, Hitler and Mussolini were able to maintain the loyalty and active participation of their people for years in the face of catastrophic Ho Chi Minh was able to maintain the resolve of the Vietnamese people in the face of casually levels that would deter a democracy. Hamas is capable of maintaining the loyalty of their people through fear, intimidation, religion, and hate well beyond the pain threshold of almost any rational player, and of course Israel is able to do the same thing in spite of a very divided and Democratic Parliamentary body politic, and that will be the ultimate decider of what happens—will the power of Islamic radicalism and antisemitism overcome the Zionist resolve to maintain a homeland in the face of a history of pogromq and holocaust and real genocide. Israel is fear driven, and Islamic jihadosm is hate driven. Palestinians” don’t have to defend that land. They don’t even think they will get a huge Palestinian in the United States. They know they can go somewhere else in lot of them and the other Zionist thing this is the last for us and it becomes more and more reinforced by the spread of anti-Zionism and antisemitism around the world so who knows how that’s gonna turn up with the point is that you know the will to win is the most decisive of all the inputs into war history is filled with example of numerically and technologically superior armies that fall pray to a very small number of dedicated zealous opponents, the classic example, the Spartans of their the mighty host of Persia, wow numerous and technologically sophisticated and very little women were reluctant warrior with little taste for combat by a paper tiger is the Asian communist like to call the United States.
in Taiwan unfortunately is an example that so well written well and I have shared it with my network which I get you about 10 views.
A heck of a lot of confused wording to make a basic point. Is there an editor in the house? Did anyone else get to the end and find it?
Somehow you drew the approximately correct conclusion despite a scaffolding of some of the most ridiculous propaganda we have been subjected to in the last few decades.
We puppeteer Ukraine against Russia, at great human and financial cost, to procure more resources despite the ones we have here and do not utilize. It's all so stupid I can only laugh.
This is an interesting take. I'd like to see your take on where we are relative to 1776 and 1861. The urban v. non-urban polarization in the US today is getting ever closer to crisis or conflict. I don't think it's another Chicken Little scenario coming up.
For more information on that question or seeds for another article, start with The Second Bill of Rights "Parlor Game" on its website, and you can always ping me too.
https://www.secondbillofrights.us/
I asked ChatGPT to analyze 1939 Germany vs 2025 Russia in terms of their actual ability to project power across Europe.
https://chatgpt.com/share/689df2a3-7524-8008-8aee-0e0b77763ad8
Summary: whether by population, industrial capacity, military technology, preparedness of enemies... 2025 Russia doesn't even come close to 1939 Germany.
ChatGPT can separate Putin's motives from his material ability. Our ruling class can't do that. They get stuck on "Putin is a bad man" and focus on his motives instead of his military. In terms of danger to Europe (not Ukraine... Europe) he may be a bad man, but he's also an impotent one.
I guess the obvious analogy to Munich would be a conference to carve up a nation without the carvee (to coin a word) present. Not to say this is a moment of equal gravity, but that is a pretty obvious similarity. But my guess is that this Alaska conference will probably lead nowhere anyway.
1914 is much more to the point. Except, save Russia, European leadership was much more competent then. Trump should just ignore them.
The Rumsfeld quote is “free rein,” not “free reign.” Good article.