Sunday, March 16, 2014

Anschluss!

Via Nancy

http://thefabweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/DkqdT.jpg

Many Americans have trouble understanding modern Russia or leader Vladimir Putin. That’s in good part because they have little or no understanding of Russia’s history or geopolitics.

“The Soviets Union will return” I wrote in 1991 after the collapse of the USSR deprived the Russian imperium of a third of its territory, almost half its people and much of its world power.

A similar disaster for Russia occurred in 1918 at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Defeated by the German-Austrian-Bulgarian-Turkish Central Powers in World War I and racked by revolution, Lenin’s  new Bolshevik regime bowed to German demands to hand over the Baltic states and allow Ukraine to become independent.

As soon as Josef Stalin consolidated power, he began undoing the Brest-Litovsk surrender. The Baltic states, Ukraine, the southern Caucasus and parts of “Greater Romania” were reoccupied. Half of Poland again fell under Russian control. Stalin restored his nation to its pre-war 1914 borders, killing millions in the process.

In the 1930’s, Adolf Hitler was tearing down the equally cruel Versailles Treaty that left millions of ethnic Germans stranded in hostile nations and deprived Germany of its historic eastern regions. Hitler claimed his invasion of Russia was motivated by Germany’s strategic imperative to acquire farm lands so it could attain food security.

More @ LRC

2 comments:

  1. Funny you should mention this...

    When this Crimea/Ukraine crap started, the first thing that came to mind was Sudetenland and "Lebensraum," and Germany justifying its attack on Poland by claiming Poles attacked a German radio station.

    History repeating...and we have learned nothing.

    Our government seems hell-bent on making sure WW3 gets going.

    I seem to recall O'Vomit saying, on more than one occasion, that he would end the "never-ending" wars.

    If this war happens, there'll be an ending alright...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Our government seems hell-bent on making sure WW3 gets going.

    As usual

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    If this war happens, there'll be an ending alright...

    If so, we better be in the American Redoubt.

    ReplyDelete