Putin knows full well that before the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kherson war zone demystified the invincibility of the mighty Russian military, Western leaders were paralysed by the uncertainty over how far he was willing to go if provoked.
By Tiko Okoye
Ongoing developments in Ukraine eerily mirror the events that culminated in World War II. In a speech Third Reich Fuhrer Adolf Hitler delivered to fellow Germans at Wilhelmshaven in annexed Austria on April 1, 1939, he stated that “the only fault we can blame the (pre-WWI German) regime for is that the Reich had full knowledge of the devilish plan of a raid and yet it did not have the power of decision to ward it off in time and could only let this encirclement ripen until the beginning of the catastrophe.”
Hitler’s major gripe was that although the Peace Treaty of Versailles aka (US President Woodrow) “Wilson’s Fourteen Points” had promised a reconciliatory “peace of equal justice for all that was to know neither victor or vanquished, (guarantee) equal distribution of colonial domains and equal recognition of colonial desires…the German colonies were stolen from us… (and) the monetary penalties which were imposed on the German people reached astronomical figures.”
To tackle what he perceived as the inhuman treatment of the German people by a unipolar power structure mainly comprising the British, Hitler outlined what he dubbed ‘a very short and simple programme’: “Removal (by solitary prison confinement or assassination) of the internal enemies of the nation, replacing a great number of societies with a united German national community and breaking of the peace treaty – in one way or the other.”
Fast-forward to a post-Cold War devastated Russian rump of the once imperialistic Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) when, just like Hitler, Putin assumed office. Like Hitler, he set about the gigantic task of rebuilding a beleaguered nation based largely on his personal vision, self-belief and self-confidence. It is quite clear that Putin bristles at the notion that after Mikhail Gorbachev unwittingly facilitated the collapse of the USSR, Russia emerged as the vanquished, with America as victor.
Again, like Hitler, Putin huffs and puffs at the refusal of the West to adhere with the principle of equal distribution of colonial domains and equal recognition of colonial desires. He wonders why Russia should acknowledge America’s territorial interests by withdrawing from Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis, while the West led by America resolutely seeks to mix it up with Russians in the latter’s sector of existence.
Hence, in his unwavering determination to break what he perceives as a constraining unipolar power structure, Putin, just like Hitler, sees nothing wrong with brutally suppressing internal dissent by abrogating human rights, including the right of free speech and freedom of association. He offers no apologies for ruthlessly hurting many in the transformation process as “the wellbeing of the entire nation must richly compensate every single one for what he had or has to give up dearly on his own part.”
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Hitler accused the Allies of unilaterally changing the map of Europe and making “satellite states” of supposedly independent countries such as Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Russia, among others, who not only suppressed their German-speaking compatriots, but were remotely used to frustrate ‘greater German interests.’ In explaining while their annexure shouldn’t pose any problem, Hitler averred that in times past – “up to one thousand years,” in some cases – these countries had been ruled by German Kaisers (kings)!
There are many who have bought Putin’s excuse that he was ‘forced’ into invading Ukraine to curb the mistreatment of Russian-speaking Ukrainians and to proactively block it from becoming the arrowhead of a devilish plan by NATO to encircle Russia. Seemingly taking a cue from Hitler, Putin didn’t want to be remembered in history as the Russian leader who, having full knowledge of the devilish plan by enemies to encircle the motherland, lacked the power of decision to safeguard her national interests.
But the authenticity of the argument that Putin’s action was to proactively block Ukraine’s NATO membership is given the lie by the fact that Putin has neither invaded the three former Soviet member-states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on Russia’s western border that joined NATO much earlier in the day, nor directed any verbal flak at a country like Finland that used to flaunt its neutral status in foreign affairs, and which shares the longest stretch of border with Russia, as well as Sweden, both of which have formally applied to join the European Union.
The invasion of the former three Soviet member-countries and accompanying sabre-rattling should’ve been sufficient to frighten the hell out of the likes of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia from ever contemplating same. Apart from Putin and a vast majority of his compatriots perceiving Ukraine as a breakaway district of Tsarist Russian Empire, another major reason why Putin picked on Ukraine is that it isn’t just the largest in size among the former Soviet member-states, but also richly endowed with mineral resources that could be readily harnessed to fund his empire-building projects.
During the run-up to WWII, European powers, for whom the fear of Hitler rapidly morphed into the beginning of wisdom, sought to massage his larger-than-life ego, leading 32nd POTUS Franklin D. Roosevelt to warn his colleagues that “No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it. There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness. There can be no reasoning with an incendiary bomb.” In the end, they had to draw a line in the sand in Poland. Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 kick-started WWII.
Putin knows full well that before the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kherson war zone demystified the invincibility of the mighty Russian military, Western leaders were paralysed by the uncertainty over how far he was willing to go if provoked. This fear, coupled with the fact that their intelligence agencies had confirmed the Kremlin’s prediction that Ukraine would be overrun within three days, kept NATO member-states from acceding to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s early appeals for military assistance.
And although the capacity of the armaments kept steadily increasing, Western nations decided not to give any weapons that could directly strike Russian territory to the Ukrainians for fear of disproportionate Russian reprisals. This explains why Russia’s in-your-face gambit to forcefully seize a large swathe Ukrainian territory through a kangaroo plebiscite only serves as a red herring that the West must appropriately respond to.
Should Ukraine subsequently make attempts to reclaim its stolen territory, Putin would deem them as direct attacks on Russia, with far-reaching consequences. Many commentators in Africa, who erroneously mix the defunct USSR that played a very positive role in the continent with Putin’s Russia, continue to ponder why the Ukrainians shouldn’t just lay down their arms to end the devastation of their physical infrastructures and wanton killings.
Well, as 26th POTUS Theodore Roosevelt fittingly declared, “A really great people, proud and high-spirited, would face all the disasters of war rather than purchase that base prosperity which is bought at the price of national honour.” Besides, Ukraine is also doing the African continent a great service. Just imagine what would happen if ancient kingdoms and nation-states are allowed to reclaim their territories balkanised willy-nilly by European powers at the 1884/85 Berlin Conference by “any means necessary”!
Just as the Allies construed Hitler’s impending invasion of Poland as a red line, Western nations must go to the stake over Russia’s annexure of any Ukrainian territory. A cornered Putin fully understands that the only way to feed the fear of Western nations after the humiliation a ‘Davidian’ Ukraine inflicted on his ‘Goliathian’ military forces is to regularly drop hints of a willingness to deploy nuclear weapons; to which he now ends with “I’m not bluffing.”
But that’s exactly what NATO must do – call Putin’s bluff! A Yiddish proverb warns that “If you can’t bite, then don’t show your teeth.” “The dog’s bark,” says a Madagascan proverb, “is not (a display of) might, but (is actually of) fright.” No matter how deranged the Russian leader has become, he certainly knows that Russia doesn’t have a monopoly on highly-lethal nuclear armaments.
It is crunch time and Europe and the rest of the world must attentively consider the only two credible options canvassed by iconic investor and market historian Jeremy Grantham, and decide what to do without further ado. We should either actively work towards a regime change in Moscow within six months that’s aimed at ushering in a honeymoon period, or allow the war to drag on and snowball into a multiyear Super Cold War that would have serious repercussions everywhere.
It’s now entirely left to the world to either timeously cull the rotten apple from the pack or risk having the world as we know it today return to the formless and disorderly prehistoric epoch described in Genesis 1:2! The most important takeaway from WWII is that prevention is always less painful, less damaging and less costly than cure.
