It’s Not Over in Ukraine
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, April 13, 2014
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8 comments
Via the BBC: Nato alarm at east Ukraine violence.
Lots of details, so just follow the link.
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Wow! Who could have seen this coming?
Well, we’ve already had the Sudetenland and the Anschluss, so I guess it’s time for Czechoslovakia.
Human history began long before Hitler. Surely, somebody could find an analogy other than Hitler, the Roman Empire (generally), or Genghis Khan. These territories have been fought over for hundreds of years, and they have been mostly controlled by Russia.
@TastyBits:
There’s no point in a historical analogy so obscure that no one gets it.
In any case, this is just too Hitler to pretend otherwise.
@michael reynolds:
If everything is Hitleresque, then what is the point? Hitler was a vegetarian. Does that make vegetarians suspect? If all that one knows of history is Hitler, one’s opinion will be of limited value.
If the idea is to get Putin worked up about being compared to Hitler, I doubt it is going to work, but like the empty military gestures, it will make everybody feel better.
@TastyBits:
I think you’re being deliberately obtuse.
Quite clearly the tactics are similar, close to identical: Send in agitators to get an ethnic population worked up, claim that the ethnic population is in danger, send in troops to “protect” your group, defend your move by pointing to historical antecedents, hold a bogus referendum, reassure everyone that this is all you want, and then repeat the entire thing all over again.
In point of fact the analogy is spot-on.
@michael reynolds:
Followed by rounding up the undesirables, and sending them to the gas chambers.
Where does the illegal overthrow of the democratically elected government fit in? I guess if Hitler had been able to use Facebook and Twitter to engineer his takeover, it would have been fine.
Oh wait, this is different. We are supposed to conveniently forget that little detail.
@michael reynolds: If Russia is Nazi Germany and history is repeating, then I assume you’re agitating for the US to cast off its 1939-ish isolationism and invade?
You really think that’s going to end well for anyone?