Romania did have another reason to join the Axis - they shared their intense anti-Semitism. It was the only non-German country during WW2 to run their own, independent, Holocaust. Unprompted by Germany.
Poland was rather anti-Semitic as well. It was generally popular in Europe back then. Even though they were anti-German, Polish National Democracy was quite enamored with Mussolini and Hitler, praising the latter especially for his anti-Semitism. We had our share of Pogroms as well, and it hasn't been uncommon to find people hating Hitler for invading Poland, but praising him for "doing the right thing with the Jews".
All in all, I wouldn't say that anti-Semitism, by itself, was a good enough reason to join the Axis.
From today's perspective, polish actions in 1938/39 were really stupid. Besides Zaolzie, we were busy with helping Hungary to take Carpathian Ruthenia (Zakarpacie) with diversions and military actions. Polish government was acting like there was no threat from Nazi Germany or USSR and Czechoslovakia was our biggest enemy.
The Maginot Line was started in 1929, so before Hitler came to power.
Majewski, writing about the diplomatic game around Munich in 1938, writes that Poland, if France had entered the war with Germany in defense of Czechoslovakia, would have joined the war on the side of France and Czechoslovakia. So Zaolzie was Zaolzie, but somehow these alliances could play out. Rather, the problem was that many of the actors in this game considered themselves weak -- they were waiting for some strong policeman to bring order, but were themselves afraid of the local donkey. Poland looked to France, France looked to Britain, and Britain did not feel ready to fight.
And all in all, rightly so. As true as such a "myth of betrayal" is, betrayal is only a myth here, at least in the case of 1939. Britain and France were not ready for war before 1941 -- so they showed as much help as they could.
Which isn't really that dissimilar to now. Someone wrote that in February 2022, Western "powers" like the UK and France only had enough ammunition in stock for a few days of the intense fighting seen in Ukraine. And we're only now desperately playing catch-up (also Poland by buying hundreds of tanks from Korea and trying to find ways to increase the manpower in the army).
Imagine what would have happened if Poland managed to successfully resist the Nazi invasion and aid was able to somehow reach it (maybe through the USSR). The West would be thinking that Hitler is only interested in Poland. After all, Nazi Germany didn't say in 1939 they're at all interested in Belgium, Netherlands, France, Norway...
I was listening to a programme about the Winter War. It's an amazingly 'close' war in Ukraine -- there the USSR, here Russia, invades a weaker neighbour (though Ukraine is much more powerful than Finland); the latter doesn't succumb to the larger neighbour, and the West, bewildered by the tough defence, sends in the guns.
There is a very popular argument that Ukraine cannot win peace by conceding territory to Russia, because Russia would just wait a little and attack again. But the Finnish example shows that this is not true.
It was surely difficult to give up territory, but in the end Finland ended up in a much better position than other countries neighbouring with Russia. And Russia hasn't tried to grab more territory from Finland since, even though Finland used to be part of the Russian Empire, so taking it over was certainly one of the Russian imperialists' dreams.
The point is, in 1938 Hitler was not ready for war either. It was a bluff. The West did not call it. But the original Hitlers plans were to be ready for the war in 1940, and in 1937 he started to panic that even this goal will not be achieved. In 1938 the only way for Germany to have actual panzer divisions was to seize Czech tanks. They did so without any combat.
Historical analogies aside, the point is that previous invasions - Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq etc - were also started with lofty ideals in mind whereas we now know the American public was lied to a lot of the time (the US involvement in Vietnam ramping up after a false flag operation, for example). Couple this with the incredible political influence of the Big 5 defense contractors, who all happen to be American, and there is a lot of basis for being sceptical in engaging US dollars in yet another overseas conflict. Additionally, Ukraine having a history of corruption does not help in allaying the fears that a lot of US taxpayer money will end up being stolen by oligarchs and corrupt politicians.
> that previous invasions - Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq.
but who invaded whom? Yes, if we were talking about Afghanistan in 1979, we have many parallels and a very similar plan of action, with the attack on the airport and the attempt to overthrow the government at the beginning, and then Russia getting stuck in a devastating war. Perhaps it would be appropriate to talk about the analogy of U.S. actions, but more with aid to the mujahideen in Afghanistan during that invasion. Aid that was essentially effective.
All these analogies that Hedges thinks of on this "who attacked whom" fall apart -- support for Ukraine is support for the "other side" in the case of the Iraq or Afghanistan analogy.
I would sum up the whole "historical analogies" thread by saying that human imagination and the search for analogies is very, very limited, not to say stupid.
I was talking about the US invasion in 2001. Which cost billions of US taxpayer dollars, untold lives and did nothing to change the political reality on the ground.
I know :) Well, that's what I'm writing about -- people use the same "analogies" over and over again, not paying attention to the fact that they have nothing to do with the story to which they refer. Here the "analogy" is the attacking losses, to the losses of the supporting defense. I don't even see one common element here. These "analogies" say more about those seeing the analogies than they do about politics or war.
Some analogy is 1979, or rather the 1980s in Afghanistan. Not that it's the best one, but nevertheless some sort of -- there are common elements here. Iraq, or Afghanistan, and US interventions, have no elements in common with the war in Ukraine.
It did achieve something: it demonstrated to what lengths the US will go to strike back against those who attack US soil. So it probably had a deterrent effect on anyone thinking about repeating 9/11, or aiding those who'd want to repeat it.
I don't want to defend that invasion, but please note that there would be no "bin Laden in Pakistan" without it. Maybe killing him in Afghanistan was also possible (?), but as always with alternate history, we will never know for sure.
Well, of course it was theoretically possible to get bin Laden then, for example had US forces been a little bit luckier during the battle of Tora Bora. The point is, going after him (and his associates) there or elsewhere should have been the main focus of US involvement in that area back then, instead of a democracy building mission in Afghanistan which failed spectacularly as we now know.
What countries don't have a "history of corruption"? And after more than a year, there's been zero evidence of Western weapons being stolen in Ukraine.
If I was American taxpayer, my comfort would be in two things. First, the aid is mostly not in money. It's military stuff, made by American factories, and thus somehow staying in the USA. Second, as such, it's of little help for the corrupted oligarchs. They can't really stock HIMARS in their dachas.
Actually, according to the chart below, materiel only accounts for 31% of the aid that has been sent. It appears a large part of the aid is in fact in cold hard cash. For example, the purely financial component related to propping up the economy (ie to continue paying out wages, pensions and maintaining basic services) is actually greater and stands at 34%.
So? It's still cash that the US is sending Ukraine. Which proves that a large part of the aid is in fact not military materiel that cannot be easily pilfered, which was the point of this exchange.
Frankly, with bombs and rockets falling on homes next door, I care preciously little about whether the US public was lied to, sung to, danced to or given flowers. I would be so much happier if they accepted the situation on the ground and rejoiced in the fact that, for once, their government is engaging on the morally just side of a conflict. One could wish...
'Europe as emerged from the Paris Peace Conferences' map is not a Paris Conference related map, but rather 1921 result of two Polish invasions on Lithuania, and Peace of Riga after Polish-Soviet war. Second Polish invasion being a nice model for 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
There's an official map annex to Treaty of Versailles, but my google-fu was too weak to find it. Though I'd assume it's a crude drawing rather than full blown map. Personally I'd rather use this one: https://images.natgeomaps.com/PROD_LG_1000px/HM19210200_1_LG.jpg
No wonder Lithuanians chopped down Piłsudski's oak in Druskininkai, his favourite summer resort, which was part of illegally annexed Lithuanian territory.
My choices for maps are kind-of determined by copyright laws, this one is public domain. But a Really Good Map should show arrows pointing from one country to another, labeled "guaranteed by", "mutual protection", "has unresolved border conflict with" and "technically still in state of war" (that would be Poland and Lithuania until 1938).
Got it, textbook history lesson taken and we knowappeasement didn’t work. But isn’t it a bit of a misleading, heavy-handed historical analogy? Donbas is not Czechoslovakia. The world is no more just about Europe’s internal dealings. Where is China, India, African continent in your analysis? You say the U.S. has no business in supporting Ukraine against Russia from the far? Just pure export of democracy as embodied by NATO? Come on.
I'd love to answer your question, but I don't understand it. Of course all democracies "have business" in supporting other democracies. I never said anything opposite, in fact, I even have a post just about it ("za wolność naszą y waszą").
I meant business as in: struggle over resources, money, access, present and future contracts, boost for arms industry and all related industries etc. It’s of course possible, and the system in question does exactly this, to legitimize this expansion for expansion’s sake as practicing solidarity, strengthening of democracy etc. The Empire must explain itself, creating a parallel reality as constantly morphing image of injustice as justice.
Romania did have another reason to join the Axis - they shared their intense anti-Semitism. It was the only non-German country during WW2 to run their own, independent, Holocaust. Unprompted by Germany.
Poland was rather anti-Semitic as well. It was generally popular in Europe back then. Even though they were anti-German, Polish National Democracy was quite enamored with Mussolini and Hitler, praising the latter especially for his anti-Semitism. We had our share of Pogroms as well, and it hasn't been uncommon to find people hating Hitler for invading Poland, but praising him for "doing the right thing with the Jews".
All in all, I wouldn't say that anti-Semitism, by itself, was a good enough reason to join the Axis.
Romania had other reasons, sure. The Soviet threat.
Being anti some specific totalitarian state while quietly admiring its leader and his methods?
You mean it was typical for polish right wing parties in what year?
"First: two Eastern European countries were on the wrong side of World War Two"
I think this is a typo: it obviously relates to World War I.
"Neville Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier, Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering"
No, it's not Hermann Goering, it's Benito Mussolini.
https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.zpZJ3-pe5XTKh5J4p3RPHgHaL0?pid=ImgDet
Of course, thank you! Corrected.
From today's perspective, polish actions in 1938/39 were really stupid. Besides Zaolzie, we were busy with helping Hungary to take Carpathian Ruthenia (Zakarpacie) with diversions and military actions. Polish government was acting like there was no threat from Nazi Germany or USSR and Czechoslovakia was our biggest enemy.
The Maginot Line was started in 1929, so before Hitler came to power.
Majewski, writing about the diplomatic game around Munich in 1938, writes that Poland, if France had entered the war with Germany in defense of Czechoslovakia, would have joined the war on the side of France and Czechoslovakia. So Zaolzie was Zaolzie, but somehow these alliances could play out. Rather, the problem was that many of the actors in this game considered themselves weak -- they were waiting for some strong policeman to bring order, but were themselves afraid of the local donkey. Poland looked to France, France looked to Britain, and Britain did not feel ready to fight.
And all in all, rightly so. As true as such a "myth of betrayal" is, betrayal is only a myth here, at least in the case of 1939. Britain and France were not ready for war before 1941 -- so they showed as much help as they could.
Which isn't really that dissimilar to now. Someone wrote that in February 2022, Western "powers" like the UK and France only had enough ammunition in stock for a few days of the intense fighting seen in Ukraine. And we're only now desperately playing catch-up (also Poland by buying hundreds of tanks from Korea and trying to find ways to increase the manpower in the army).
Yes, the lucky attacker is less effective.
Imagine what would have happened if Poland managed to successfully resist the Nazi invasion and aid was able to somehow reach it (maybe through the USSR). The West would be thinking that Hitler is only interested in Poland. After all, Nazi Germany didn't say in 1939 they're at all interested in Belgium, Netherlands, France, Norway...
I was listening to a programme about the Winter War. It's an amazingly 'close' war in Ukraine -- there the USSR, here Russia, invades a weaker neighbour (though Ukraine is much more powerful than Finland); the latter doesn't succumb to the larger neighbour, and the West, bewildered by the tough defence, sends in the guns.
I hope the analogy doesn't stretch too far, because in the end the Finns lost and had to concede territory.
There is a very popular argument that Ukraine cannot win peace by conceding territory to Russia, because Russia would just wait a little and attack again. But the Finnish example shows that this is not true.
It was surely difficult to give up territory, but in the end Finland ended up in a much better position than other countries neighbouring with Russia. And Russia hasn't tried to grab more territory from Finland since, even though Finland used to be part of the Russian Empire, so taking it over was certainly one of the Russian imperialists' dreams.
The point is, in 1938 Hitler was not ready for war either. It was a bluff. The West did not call it. But the original Hitlers plans were to be ready for the war in 1940, and in 1937 he started to panic that even this goal will not be achieved. In 1938 the only way for Germany to have actual panzer divisions was to seize Czech tanks. They did so without any combat.
Historical analogies aside, the point is that previous invasions - Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq etc - were also started with lofty ideals in mind whereas we now know the American public was lied to a lot of the time (the US involvement in Vietnam ramping up after a false flag operation, for example). Couple this with the incredible political influence of the Big 5 defense contractors, who all happen to be American, and there is a lot of basis for being sceptical in engaging US dollars in yet another overseas conflict. Additionally, Ukraine having a history of corruption does not help in allaying the fears that a lot of US taxpayer money will end up being stolen by oligarchs and corrupt politicians.
I would say Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq are three different stories. Putting them in one bag is a mistake and/or manipulation.
Whatever their differences, they resulted in a massive loss of life and resources while the stated political aims were generally not achieved.
You write:
> that previous invasions - Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq.
but who invaded whom? Yes, if we were talking about Afghanistan in 1979, we have many parallels and a very similar plan of action, with the attack on the airport and the attempt to overthrow the government at the beginning, and then Russia getting stuck in a devastating war. Perhaps it would be appropriate to talk about the analogy of U.S. actions, but more with aid to the mujahideen in Afghanistan during that invasion. Aid that was essentially effective.
All these analogies that Hedges thinks of on this "who attacked whom" fall apart -- support for Ukraine is support for the "other side" in the case of the Iraq or Afghanistan analogy.
I would sum up the whole "historical analogies" thread by saying that human imagination and the search for analogies is very, very limited, not to say stupid.
I was talking about the US invasion in 2001. Which cost billions of US taxpayer dollars, untold lives and did nothing to change the political reality on the ground.
I know :) Well, that's what I'm writing about -- people use the same "analogies" over and over again, not paying attention to the fact that they have nothing to do with the story to which they refer. Here the "analogy" is the attacking losses, to the losses of the supporting defense. I don't even see one common element here. These "analogies" say more about those seeing the analogies than they do about politics or war.
Some analogy is 1979, or rather the 1980s in Afghanistan. Not that it's the best one, but nevertheless some sort of -- there are common elements here. Iraq, or Afghanistan, and US interventions, have no elements in common with the war in Ukraine.
It did achieve something: it demonstrated to what lengths the US will go to strike back against those who attack US soil. So it probably had a deterrent effect on anyone thinking about repeating 9/11, or aiding those who'd want to repeat it.
Killing bin Laden in Pakistan achieved those very same aims at a fraction of the cost of staying in Afghanistan for 20 years.
I don't want to defend that invasion, but please note that there would be no "bin Laden in Pakistan" without it. Maybe killing him in Afghanistan was also possible (?), but as always with alternate history, we will never know for sure.
Well, of course it was theoretically possible to get bin Laden then, for example had US forces been a little bit luckier during the battle of Tora Bora. The point is, going after him (and his associates) there or elsewhere should have been the main focus of US involvement in that area back then, instead of a democracy building mission in Afghanistan which failed spectacularly as we now know.
What countries don't have a "history of corruption"? And after more than a year, there's been zero evidence of Western weapons being stolen in Ukraine.
If I was American taxpayer, my comfort would be in two things. First, the aid is mostly not in money. It's military stuff, made by American factories, and thus somehow staying in the USA. Second, as such, it's of little help for the corrupted oligarchs. They can't really stock HIMARS in their dachas.
Actually, according to the chart below, materiel only accounts for 31% of the aid that has been sent. It appears a large part of the aid is in fact in cold hard cash. For example, the purely financial component related to propping up the economy (ie to continue paying out wages, pensions and maintaining basic services) is actually greater and stands at 34%.
https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukraine-here-are-six-charts
But that's not directly military aid.
So? It's still cash that the US is sending Ukraine. Which proves that a large part of the aid is in fact not military materiel that cannot be easily pilfered, which was the point of this exchange.
Money is also difficult to be pilfered. It's not like they're sending Ukraine suitcases stuffed with cash!
"Money is also difficult to be pilfered."
I'm afraid we're going to have to agree to disagree on that one.
Frankly, with bombs and rockets falling on homes next door, I care preciously little about whether the US public was lied to, sung to, danced to or given flowers. I would be so much happier if they accepted the situation on the ground and rejoiced in the fact that, for once, their government is engaging on the morally just side of a conflict. One could wish...
They better hurry before the US elites go back to their usual modus operandi and cut a deal with Russia over our heads: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/07/26/former-us-official-shares-details-of-secret-track-15-diplomacy-with-moscow-a81972
Grouchy Smurf mode:
'Europe as emerged from the Paris Peace Conferences' map is not a Paris Conference related map, but rather 1921 result of two Polish invasions on Lithuania, and Peace of Riga after Polish-Soviet war. Second Polish invasion being a nice model for 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
There's an official map annex to Treaty of Versailles, but my google-fu was too weak to find it. Though I'd assume it's a crude drawing rather than full blown map. Personally I'd rather use this one: https://images.natgeomaps.com/PROD_LG_1000px/HM19210200_1_LG.jpg
No wonder Lithuanians chopped down Piłsudski's oak in Druskininkai, his favourite summer resort, which was part of illegally annexed Lithuanian territory.
The way Poland grabbed Vilno was indeed really similar to how Russia sent "little green men" into Crimea and Donbas. Shame on us.
My choices for maps are kind-of determined by copyright laws, this one is public domain. But a Really Good Map should show arrows pointing from one country to another, labeled "guaranteed by", "mutual protection", "has unresolved border conflict with" and "technically still in state of war" (that would be Poland and Lithuania until 1938).
Got it, textbook history lesson taken and we knowappeasement didn’t work. But isn’t it a bit of a misleading, heavy-handed historical analogy? Donbas is not Czechoslovakia. The world is no more just about Europe’s internal dealings. Where is China, India, African continent in your analysis? You say the U.S. has no business in supporting Ukraine against Russia from the far? Just pure export of democracy as embodied by NATO? Come on.
I'd love to answer your question, but I don't understand it. Of course all democracies "have business" in supporting other democracies. I never said anything opposite, in fact, I even have a post just about it ("za wolność naszą y waszą").
I meant business as in: struggle over resources, money, access, present and future contracts, boost for arms industry and all related industries etc. It’s of course possible, and the system in question does exactly this, to legitimize this expansion for expansion’s sake as practicing solidarity, strengthening of democracy etc. The Empire must explain itself, creating a parallel reality as constantly morphing image of injustice as justice.
It's not "paralell reality". The difference between living in democracy and dictatorship is obvious and real.