If there is a parallel between Hitler and Putin it’s that they have used a combination of nationalism and external threat to bolster their domestic position.
No matter how reasonable Hitler’s position sounded at first (and I don’t think it unreasonable that German speaking Germans who want to be German citizens should be allowed to become Germans or that Russian speaking Russians who want to be Russian citizens should be allowed to be Russians) and no matter how accomodating of that position one is willing or able to be the demands continue. Not because the new demands are reasonable, or logical or even real but because it is only the feeling that They are thwarting Our Reasonble Demands that keeps domestic opinion in line.
So I fear that we’ll do some perfectly reasonable deal now about the Crimea and then find in a few years time that, because Putin’s position at home is looking a bit shuggly he turns up with another set of concerns about oppressed Russians living in Belarus or God help us, Lithuania. Not because anyone much in Russia thinks it important that Russians in Lithuania should be in Russia but because angst about that sort of thing makes it difficult to challenge Putin Saviour of Our Nation.
Of course, we spent the time between the annexation of the Sudentenland and the invasion of Poland building Spitfires.
Anyway, the thing looks a little like the Sudetenland and I’m trying to think of ways in which the analogy fails in order not to have to follow the analogy through to its historical conclusion.
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If there is a parallel between Hitler and Putin it’s that they have used a combination of nationalism and external threat to bolster their domestic position.
No matter how reasonable Hitler’s position sounded at first (and I don’t think it unreasonable that German speaking Germans who want to be German citizens should be allowed to become Germans or that Russian speaking Russians who want to be Russian citizens should be allowed to be Russians) and no matter how accomodating of that position one is willing or able to be the demands continue. Not because the new demands are reasonable, or logical or even real but because it is only the feeling that They are thwarting Our Reasonble Demands that keeps domestic opinion in line.
So I fear that we’ll do some perfectly reasonable deal now about the Crimea and then find in a few years time that, because Putin’s position at home is looking a bit shuggly he turns up with another set of concerns about oppressed Russians living in Belarus or God help us, Lithuania. Not because anyone much in Russia thinks it important that Russians in Lithuania should be in Russia but because angst about that sort of thing makes it difficult to challenge Putin Saviour of Our Nation.
Of course, we spent the time between the annexation of the Sudentenland and the invasion of Poland building Spitfires.
Anyway, the thing looks a little like the Sudetenland and I’m trying to think of ways in which the analogy fails in order not to have to follow the analogy through to its historical conclusion.