By Tom Burke / Herald columnist
The world is watching war. In Europe. Again. God help us.
And for those who missed Adolf Hitler’s opening salvo in World War II, Putin has dusted off the Nazi Fuhrer’s playbook and is replaying the events of 1937-39. The question is now, as it was then: What will the United States and Western Europe do?
For the young and/or historically challenged, Hitler first remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936 [Putin “took” Belarus]; he then sent the German military to Spain to aid Franco’s coup [Putin sent his “little green men,” Russian soldiers without uniform insignia, into Donbas, capturing parts of that region]. In 1938 Hitler marched into Austria and in early 1939 took the Sudetenland and invaded Czechoslovakia [Putin sent “peacekeepers” into Donbas and surrounded Ukraine with 190,000 troops]. In September 1939 Hitler invaded Poland under a false flag and World War II began; 80 million-plus died. [Putin’s false-flag invasion, outed by President Biden, was predicated on lies of “de-nazifying” the country. TBD on how many dead.]
Putin made up a bunch of BS “history” justifying his invasion. But he might want to consider some real history: the Winter War with Finland. In 1939, Stalin invaded Finland to grab land adjacent to Leningrad (St. Petersburg, today). He invaded Finland in overwhelming numbers (a million-plus Russians vs. Finland’s 450,000-man army). Finland fought the Soviets to a standstill at first, but eventually succumbed to its hordes, losing some land but keeping their Independence. The Soviets suffered at least 300,000 dead (some estimates are near 900,000), Finland lost 63,000 killed. Hitler, observing the Russian army’s terrible performance decided the time was ripe to invade Russia. He was wrong.
In the late ’30s there were two U.S. camps: those supporting President Franklin Roosevelt’s policy of stopping Hitler; and the “non-interventionist/Nazi cheerleaders” of America-First and the German-American Bund.
Roosevelt’s position, “When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger.” But America Firsters, like Charles Lindbergh, maintained we should not “fight everybody in the world who prefers some other system of life to ours.” (Just a reminder: Hitler’s “system” was to incinerate 6 million Jews in the ovens of Dachau and Buchenwald.)
Today, history repeats as our current president sums up our interest in stopping Putin saying, “America stands up to bullies. We stand up for freedom.”
While Donald Trump, putative leader of the Republican party, stands up for Putin, calling his actions “genius,” “smart” and “pretty savvy;” and Tucker Carlson, Fox “News” star-entertainer says, “I think we should probably take the side of Russia if we have to choose between Russia and Ukraine … Ukraine isn’t a democracy, it’s a State Department client state.”
In the 1964 movie “Zulu” 150 invading Brits battle 4,000 Africans defending their homeland. On the battle’s eve, a young British private asks, “Why us?”
His sergeant’s answer is simple, “Because we’re here lad. Nobody else.”
While fictional, it’s a pretty good answer. And it’s a pretty good answer for today’s Ukraine crisis.
Because we’re here.
Nobody else.
So what does Putin want and what will the West’s current response — crushing sanctions — mean?
What Putin wants is simple: to bring the Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere, kneecap NATO, and reconstitute the the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And for that he went to war.
What our response — the sanctions — mean:
For Russia: a crippling of their already anemic economy; perhaps enough economic hardship to set the Russian people against Putin; and a slow strangulation of their manufacturing and military capability. (To be clear, sanctions are not, by definition, meant to stop Russia and force a retreat.)
For us, it could mean discomfort and sacrifice: Higher gasoline prices; likely. Cyber attacks by Putin’s minions; possibly. Supply-chain disruptions; not out of the question.
A Russian invasion of a NATO-member nation, the use of nukes, or something worse. (How much do you trust Putin’s ambition, self-restraint or sanity? Or some blundering, ham-handed Russian field commander who reads a map wrong and sends a missile into Poland by mistake?)
Will such a cost be worth it?
Yes. Without question.
In terms of our own self-interest, our freedom here is endangered by autocracy and dictatorship abroad; and America’s overseas relationships (since at least 1823 and the Monroe Doctrine) are the linchpin of our own security.
For the rest of the world America remains FDR’s “arsenal of democracy” as George H.W. Bush demonstrated when he took us to war in 1991 to stop Saddam Hussein from annexing Kuwait by force. Our victory then helped reinforce the principle of territorial integrity as the foundation of the post-Cold War world. Nothing’s changed.
There are some fools who today think freedom fighting is about not wearing a mask to Costco or rejecting the vaccine.
They are about to learn something about the real fight for freedom from the brave people of Ukraine, such as the 13 troopers at Ukraine’s Snake Island outpost, who, when ordered to surrender, told a Russian warship, “Go f*** yourself” and died in shelling, or Vitaly Skakun who sacrificed his life blowing up the Henichesky Bridge to stop a Russian tank column from advancing.
Gentle reader, there is good and evil in this world. And Putin’s Russia has demonstrated, time and again, it remains as Ronald Reagan dubbed it, the “Evil Empire.”
Their leaders are evil; their intentions are evil; and their actions are evil.
And at this moment in time, we can fight this evil by adopting the philosophy of the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., when he said in 2014 (as Putin was invading the Crimea), “We are all Ukrainians” and acting as brave as Skakun or the Snake Island 13.
Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.
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