Putin finally did it. Once again he is invading a country so as to annex it, or parts of it. This is clear and simple.
Russia’s invasions are meant to redraw the map, to annex territories. So it was when Stalin attacked Finland in 1939, so it is today with regard to Ukraine. Nevertheless, there are those who see moral equivalency between Putin and Biden, between Russia and America, or worse, see America as the chief troublemaker. Trump is wholeheartedly supporting Putin, calling his action “genius.”
The default position of old-fashioned anti-Americans has always been moral equivalency between us and our opponents, or even assigning the bulk of the blame to the US. The tired refrain is that we ourselves have invaded dozens of countries, so who are we to lecture other countries? US imperialism.
There is no question that the conquest of the North American continent was a terribly cruel and imperialistic endeavor. But I am referring here to the most recent century, especially American foreign policy since the end of World War Two. Yes, it is true that America has invaded many countries during this period. It had appointed itself world cop, responsible for the status quo.
But unlike Russian (and earlier German and other European imperialism), American imperialism hardly ever ANNEXED the countries or territories which it invaded. Our invasions of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and many other countries were not meant to make those countries into American territory.
Irredentism is part of the motive behind such aggression: In many parts of the world, many members of a country’s ethnicity live outside of that country’s borders as a minority in an adjacent state. Sometimes the mother country lays a claim on the part of the adjacent country where these “ethnics” live. Sort of ethnic cleansing, or “unification.”
Hitler grabbed Czechoslovakia’s Sudetentland in 1938 because there were many Germans living in that Czech province.
Another example are the one and a half million Hungarians who live in Rumania, called the Szekely. A few years ago I was visiting Hungary’s President Arpad Goncz. As a joke, I said to him: “Sir, have you ever considered invading Rumania and taking back Szekelyland?” After a brief silence, he said: “hmm...I’ll think about it...” Of course, we both ended up with a hearty laugh. The last thing in the world Hungary and Rumania needed was a territorial war over a meaningless distribution of ethnic groups...
But Putin’s sense of humor is less well developed. To him, the fact that there are Russians living on the Ukrainian side of the border warrants invasion, war and annexation.
Putin may resort to another often used subterfuge: the creation of a puppet state. An example of this is the state of
Manchukuo, created and ruled by Japan from 1932 to 1945. This was just a coverup for the annexation of a huge chunk of China.
Now is not the time to believe in some sort of moral equivalency between Putin and Biden, Russia and America. Let’s leave the self-blame for another day. To argue that Biden is as much at fault and as much of a war monger as Putin is nonsense.
Don’t misunderstand me:
Were Biden to order that we go to war against Russia, I would be the first to march in an anti-war protest. And even though he has repeatedly said that this won’t happen, we are not out of the woods: Economic sanctions can ESCALATE into war, as they did with Japan in 1938-41.
Nor have we reached the “Munich” moment yet, when in 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain accepted Hitler’s promise that he would commit no further acts of aggression. It is not clear that we must go to war to thwart further Russian aggression.
I am not sure what the solution is. I am not against economic sanctions. All I know is that the world is in a bad place, and that Putin is one of the bad guys.
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