The parallels between now and 1939 are obvious. But so are the parallels to 2003. The most cynical and flimsiest pretexts for war. Government officials so intimidated that they rubber stamp an utterly unprovoked invasion. Unimaginably swift and horrible violence intended to decapitate the government and replace it with puppets beholden to the invaders. A world united in protest against the invasion — including huge numbers of people in the invading country.
Nearly all of Putin’s strategy is a replay of Bush’s. Very few people have spoken about this eerie parallel publicly. This article makes some interesting points:
Remember that during the Iraq war, Putin’s regime was viscerally opposed to then-US president George W Bush’s “war of choice” against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Bush neither cared nor listened to his Russian counterpart. The drumbeat for war in Washington was far too loud.
The neoconservative ideologues who had surrounded Bush were convinced that war in Iraq would reassert what they believed was America’s flagging power in the post-Cold War era and restore American credibility in a region of the world where the United States had little credibility remaining.
Power shift
America was at the apex of its military power in 2002-03. Its leaders and people were galvanized in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, to wage war upon any enemy they thought they could take on – and the Bush administration was going to do it regardless of what the international community believed or what international norms existed. That Saddam Hussein acted as a cartoon villain was an added inducement for war.
Russia chafed at the time as its power and influence were nowhere near what they are today. Moscow resisted and balked at the Americans but ultimately could do nothing to stop the invasion of Iraq.
Twenty years later, however, we are at a different point in time. Today, it is the Americans who are at their breaking point; who’ve been humiliated and dejected by 20 years of failed wars, disastrous leaders, and a volatile economic situation at home. The Russians, while nowhere near as potent today as the Americans were in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, are at their greatest level of power since the end of the Cold War.
Empowered by extraordinarily high prices of fuel on the global market (Russia is an energy-producing superpower upon which Europe depends for roughly 40% of its energy needs), feeling unstoppable in the face of sclerotic American and ambivalent Europeanopposition, the Putin regime is executing its own rapid invasion of a smaller nation with which it has had a long-standing conflict.
No amount of caterwauling or virtue-signaling from Western leaders will stop the Russian advance – any more than Russian grandstanding on the eve of the Iraq war could stop Bush’s war of choice. It’s about raw power and will. The Russians have the advantage in these areas today whereas the Americans had the advantages in 2003.
Bloodlust
And like the opening phases of the Iraq war in 2003, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has gone well for Moscow so far. It manipulated the situation flawlessly: probing and provoking its rivals to keep them off balance while playing the various Western leaders off each other repeatedly – all while it massed a force large enough to overcome local opposition but small enough to keep even the most seasoned Western observers uncertain as to Russia’s true intentions…
Vladimir Putin is about to repeat the same mistaken choices that George W Bush made, with similarly terrible results.
Agreed. But let’s make explicit at least one major difference between now and 2003. And also let’s note the depth of Establishment-America’s complicity in Bush/Iraq.
Zelensky (who seems to be both relatively decent and brave) is not, and will never be, comparable to the monstrous Saddam. A monstrous leader is not, however, a viable pretext for invasion. It is insane to imagine Canada or Russia justifying an invasion of the US during Trump with such logic. Similarly, Putin’s pretext for invading Ukraine — and Bush’s for Iraq.
Finally, before we denounce the members of the Russian government for disgraceful cowardice, we shouldn’t forget who voted for the Iraq war. American democracy has been seriously dysfunctional for a very, very long time.
Adding: This post provides, as I see it, some needed context but nothing I’ve written or quoted above in any way justifies the murderous ambitions of Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainian war needs to end immediately, Russia should withdraw and Putin should stand trial for his crimes. As should all leaders who execute invasions of choice.