this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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Good write up but I don't really think the fascist - appeasement thing is a valid comparison.
Just because a country aggressively invades a country does not mean they will necessarily invade another. For example US invasion of Iraq. US obviously is a dangerous country but there hasn't been any other invasions in the last 2 decades and it doesn't look like there will be another in the foreseeable future. (I know Afghanistan is an invasion too but not on the same scale. Hundreds of thousands of troops were deployed in Iraq, similar to Ukraine)
Second, we must look at the context behind the invasion. Like you pointed out, this is essentially a war of independence. Ukraine has always been in Russian sphere (if not outright part of Russia) and is considered a geostrategic + ideological priority for Russia. Kiev for example is the birthplace of the Russian people.
So it makes perfect sense that they would try to keep the country in chains and we see the start of the invasion back in 2014 because of the coup that took out the pro-Russian government.
These circumstances are not really going to crop up again. No country but Ukraine (to a lesser degree, Belarus, but that is firmly in Russian sphere) holds as much significance to Russia.
The only realistic thing Russia would go to war for going forward is to keep old Soviet Republics (like Georgia) in line.
Keep in mind if we're reciting 20th century history as if it's the Bible on how to act towards aggressive countries - that Germany annexed Austria peacefully. They annexed Sudetenand (sort of) peacefully. When they invaded Poland they did so with relative ease and without losing a significant amount of their fighting power. Iirc it only took them about a month to finish their invasion of Poland. Contrast that to the Ukraine v Russia War where we've entered the 2nd year with no signs of stalemate easing up.
Throughout all of their territorial expansions before WW2, the Germany military force did not get significantly weakened.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, however, has been a disaster for Russia. They are desperately burning through Soviet stockpiles of tanks from the 50s or even earlier. It might take decades for them to return to their previous fighting strength.
I really don't think it's likely Russia starts another war any time soon. So trying to compare this with Nazi Germany and "appeasement" I think is a bit reductionist. The circumstances are different.
eh my main point was to explain how russian external politics mesh with russian internal politics. it's not 1:1 by any measure, but through all of this russian govt was going through far right playbook, line by line
spoiler
and i had opportunity to step on my soapbox for five minutesyeah this might be a stretch, but do you remember if there were anything close to weapon transfers like now in 2014 or 2008? chechen wars weren't even really reacted to, except for 1. human rights abuses, and 2. for countries that already had a grudge with russia. in both cases, the most common response was strongly worded letter. for example, poland accepted 90k of chechen refugees; however this did exactly nothing against destruction of grozny, and most importantly was no impediment to gaining internal recognition for putin
and we're in very good situation that russians are this incompetent. and it's not the first time either: secondary objective of chechen wars, aside from that above, was remaking public image of russian army as a capable force, because failure in afghanistan was still a fresh memory. results were, so to speak, suboptimal
now, after 1.5 years of full scale war you can say that, but it was far from obvious two years ago or on 2014
1991 iraq war and invasion of afghanistan at least had clearly stated rationale and objectives, nothing like nebulous drivel you'll hear from russians about satanist gay nazis threatening russian sphere of influence
through history ukraine had much more western influence than russia, you can see borders of historical states even today if you know what you're looking for. election results, railway density, dominant religion, language, types of industry present and many other factors delineate cleanly former borders of polish-lithuanian commonwealth, for example. especially for some last 300 years or so ukrainians got increasingly strong opinions on whether they are part of that russian world or not. (i'd like to notice that this line of propaganda, the one when novorossia was introduced and such was only heated up after 2010 or so, i don't know exactly why)
this propaganda for internal consumption is not the only russian objective however. they still can try to stir shit in moldova or pollute western information space with their psyops, i don't think they have ever stopped, probably they take overtime instead, even if prigozhin's part is out. if you haven't heard of this man, look up konstantin malofeev