Anyone remember Freedom Fries? After France refused to buy into our so called invasion justification, we punished them by renaming their culinary delight known as French Fries. We sure taught them a lesson.
The problem with eastern europe is that it is one vast plain until you get to the Urals with no mountains or large bodies of water. Everybody there doesn't feel safe unless they dominate everybody else. Geography is destiny.
One can say the same of all of Central Asia with regards to open lands. Mountains just west of China and various deserts being the exception. Of course the Mongols learned that long before the internet.
If you're looking at it through the lens of "land grab", Kuwait is the parallel, if you're looking at it through the lens of Russian military imperialism in Eastern Europe, Hungary '54 and Czechoslovakia '68 are the parallels. In neither case was there a robust response from NATO. The variable of what precedent this sets for China and Taiwan is obviously very different than in the early Cold War though. Tom Cooper is my favourite blogger on Ukraine and agrees with you the American response was weak. Personally I think in the long arc of history they moved the "Iron Curtain" (border of de facto Russian empire) 300 or 400 or so miles to the east, and all that has happened is it has rolled back about 50.
Hungary and Czech crises were different in the way the world viewed spheres of influence at the time, and that they didn't change borders. I do think that Putin saw those as the model he was following with the full invasion - but he had already seized land from Georgia and taken the Crimea by that time, so a penchant for the land grab was evident already.
Bush I, last of the traditional Republican presidents. Getting what seemed like half the world to coinvade Iraq may have seemed a bit silly at the time, but I think it was very important in fostering American leadership at the time. Sadly it was all thrown away by his son a generation later.
Not sure I buy into the Nixon as somewhat weak on communism. When he , with Kissinger of course, made their pitch to Brezhnev and Mao, it was said that only someone with Nixon's anti communist credentials could hope to sell rapprochement to the American public. Nixon and Kissinger saw themselves as great statesmen of the 20th century and whatever one may think of Realpolitik, I find it more palatable to the more recent Amerika Uber Alles approach. For an interesting but weird sidelight, check out the Nixon Khrushchev American kitchen appliance de are in 1959. Or Khrushchev's fascination with American agriculture when he visited Iowa.
Nixon definitely had the prior cred as anti-communist, but when you consider all the actions he took, especially the capitulation and near treason relating to Vietnam, his actual presidency was the least anti-communist and the most transactional of the cold war.
Ugh, don't get me started on Vietnam. The main reason Dien Bien Phu wasn't decisive for the Vietnamese was because both China and the Soviet Union sold them out to reset relations with US. Everyone agreed to future reunification elections, with the US later backing out when it was clear who would win. The North / South boundary had little more historical legitimacy than did the Middle East national boundaries carved out by Britain and France post WWI. That all said, I can understand why many US policy makers saw it in the context of the larger Cold War and perhaps a Korean War 2.0
Understanding Russia? Well you can simply believe it never stopped being an imperialist nation since it first rid itself of control from the Golden Horde. Play a game of EU2 as Russia and see how much fun it to stomp on everything weaker than you. It all belongs to Mother Russia.
The reality was significantly different though. Other than the Eastward expansion, Russia had a really difficult time with Sweden, Poland, and Crimea, even if they managed to engulf so much of the territory eventually.
Yes, it took them considerable time to ramp up in Eastern to Central Europe as well as to the Black Sea. But even the once huge territory of Poland was eventually reduced to nothing (with help from other European countries). I wasn't clear that I thinking more of the Eastern expansion.
Interesting comments. A man of many talents.
Anyone remember Freedom Fries? After France refused to buy into our so called invasion justification, we punished them by renaming their culinary delight known as French Fries. We sure taught them a lesson.
The problem with eastern europe is that it is one vast plain until you get to the Urals with no mountains or large bodies of water. Everybody there doesn't feel safe unless they dominate everybody else. Geography is destiny.
Well...there are rivers and marshes, both of which have proven somewhat effective defensive terrain/
@@calandale You make a good point.
One can say the same of all of Central Asia with regards to open lands. Mountains just west of China and various deserts being the exception. Of course the Mongols learned that long before the internet.
If you're looking at it through the lens of "land grab", Kuwait is the parallel, if you're looking at it through the lens of Russian military imperialism in Eastern Europe, Hungary '54 and Czechoslovakia '68 are the parallels. In neither case was there a robust response from NATO. The variable of what precedent this sets for China and Taiwan is obviously very different than in the early Cold War though. Tom Cooper is my favourite blogger on Ukraine and agrees with you the American response was weak. Personally I think in the long arc of history they moved the "Iron Curtain" (border of de facto Russian empire) 300 or 400 or so miles to the east, and all that has happened is it has rolled back about 50.
Hungary and Czech crises were different in the way the world viewed spheres of influence at the time, and that they didn't change borders. I do think that Putin saw those as the model he was following with the full invasion - but he had already seized land from Georgia and taken the Crimea by that time, so a penchant for the land grab was evident already.
Bush I, last of the traditional Republican presidents. Getting what seemed like half the world to coinvade Iraq may have seemed a bit silly at the time, but I think it was very important in fostering American leadership at the time. Sadly it was all thrown away by his son a generation later.
Not sure I buy into the Nixon as somewhat weak on communism. When he , with Kissinger of course, made their pitch to Brezhnev and Mao, it was said that only someone with Nixon's anti communist credentials could hope to sell rapprochement to the American public. Nixon and Kissinger saw themselves as great statesmen of the 20th century and whatever one may think of Realpolitik, I find it more palatable to the more recent Amerika Uber Alles approach.
For an interesting but weird sidelight, check out the Nixon Khrushchev American kitchen appliance de are in 1959. Or Khrushchev's fascination with American agriculture when he visited Iowa.
Nixon definitely had the prior cred as anti-communist, but when you consider all the actions he took, especially the capitulation and near treason relating to Vietnam, his actual presidency was the least anti-communist and the most transactional of the cold war.
Ugh, don't get me started on Vietnam. The main reason Dien Bien Phu wasn't decisive for the Vietnamese was because both China and the Soviet Union sold them out to reset relations with US. Everyone agreed to future reunification elections, with the US later backing out when it was clear who would win. The North / South boundary had little more historical legitimacy than did the Middle East national boundaries carved out by Britain and France post WWI.
That all said, I can understand why many US policy makers saw it in the context of the larger Cold War and perhaps a Korean War 2.0
Wow a lot to parse. First the obligatory snarky comment, great to hear you follow current events after the year 1700 or so.
While it's sometimes hard to remember times outside my youth, I do manage occasionally.
Understanding Russia? Well you can simply believe it never stopped being an imperialist nation since it first rid itself of control from the Golden Horde. Play a game of EU2 as Russia and see how much fun it to stomp on everything weaker than you. It all belongs to Mother Russia.
The reality was significantly different though. Other than the Eastward expansion, Russia had a really difficult time with Sweden, Poland, and Crimea, even if they managed to engulf so much of the territory eventually.
Yes, it took them considerable time to ramp up in Eastern to Central Europe as well as to the Black Sea. But even the once huge territory of Poland was eventually reduced to nothing (with help from other European countries). I wasn't clear that I thinking more of the Eastern expansion.