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Frank
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MeisterEckhart wrote on Nov 26 th, 2024 at 10:26am: Frank wrote on Nov 26 th, 2024 at 10:15am: MeisterEckhart wrote on Nov 26 th, 2024 at 9:54am: Frank wrote on Nov 26 th, 2024 at 9:43am: And so, according to Ferguson, Putin’s invasion was not prompted by Nato’s expansion. Quite on the contrary, it was encouraged because of Nato’s apparent weaknesses, for example the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Such signs of weakness convinced Russia that western resolve had crumbled. That same signal of weakness encouraged Hamas to attack Israel and likely shapes Chinese calculations about Taiwan.
The same miscalculation that emboldened Hitler to preemptively declare war on the US after Japan had done the same. The US, with a military capacity equal to that of Portugal prior to WW2, ended just 6 years later with a military capacity larger than the entire world combined. So, miscalculate away, Putin and Xi... Hopefully, you won't get to wander through the ashes of Beijing, Shanghai, Moscow and St Petersburg because 'history didn't warn you' such that you didn't see it coming. "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve" - attributed to Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto after Pearl Harbour. There has been a huge demographic and cultural shift in the West - US, Europe, Australia - since 1945. Self-belief and resolve have largely vanished. NATO deterred nobody. The only war won by NATO was against a European country, Serbia. Everything else - Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan - ended in slinking off. Even WWII would have been a probable compromise with Hitler and Japan without Russia. Do you think Europe and the West were filled with resolve in the 1930s? Churchill was spat on as a warmonger during that period. All of Europe was baying for peace at all costs and the US wasn't touching it... Roosevelt was even toying with the ideals of National Socialism. In 1940, Denmark capitulated almost without firing a shot. Can you imagine Europe not striking killer blows if Russia attempted an invasion of the Baltics or Poland? Even Denmark might be a bit miffed. I think the West had much greater self belief 80 years ago than today, even though the madness of WWI was a crushing blow to it. Denmark was a country of less than 4 million. Re-militarised Germany was over 70 million. Even France, the main continental power, was easily overrun by Germany (again). Holland and Belgium weren't in a position to halt the Wermacht and Luftwaffe, either. Britain did. Russia did. The US entered the European war only when it was pretty clear that Hitler had overreacted and was irreversibly burnt by the Russians. So no, I don't think the West has as much self belief and resolve it did then, however small it may have been.
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