9 responses to “Donbas et al – Sudetenland Quietly Ignored”

1. 

   Barry Pruett

   10 August 2025

   Thank you, George, for offering your insight on the cause of the war in Ukraine. While history does not repeat itself, it certainly rhymes, so I understand your viewpoint. I also value your opinion especially since such viewpoint is no doubt influenced by your lived experience which I do not share as a scholar whose lived experience was the 1990s and not Nazi Germany.
   My view is a little bit different. Unlike Hitler who telegraphed his intentions in Mien Kampf, Putin has never expressed any desire to get the band back to together. While he has waxed poetic nostalgically about the collapse of the USSR as many Russians do today, I have seen no evidence that Russians en masse have their eyes set on the Baltics, Poland, or any country in Eastern Europe. The line drawn seems to be NATO expansion and Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. There is a more likely realpolitik explanation which has to do with the Black Sea and security therein. If you notice, NATO and the West have been most active in Ukraine, Georgia, and Romania as well. All three of these countries border the Black Sea. Note also that NATO is in fact building the largest base in Europe in Romania near the Black Sea. As much as you can make comparisons to pre-WWII Europe, I can make the same realpolitik comparisons to the Crimean War in the mid-1850s.
   As far as NATO expansion and realpolitik, Gorbachev was promised by James Baker and the Bush administration that NATO would not go “one inch” farther to the West after German reunification and NATO expansion into East Germany. Mary Sarotte recently wrote a book about this called, “Not One Inch” which I would highly recommend. The West’s promise to Gorbachev ended up not happening. As the unipolar hegemon in the world, there was nothing to stop the West from expanding NATO into the borders of the former USSR. Though Ukraine has always been a redline. Indeed in 1993, Barry McCaffrey told the Clinton administration, that if they messed around with NATO expansion in Ukraine, “we could get sucked into a Eurasian quagmire and risk a shooting war with Russia.” [Strobe Talbott, The Russian Hand, p. 98]. In 1993, the Pentagon initially vehemently opposed NATO expansion. Indeed, Sec. Def. Bill Perry almost resigned over the proposal for NATO expansion, and George Kennan was vehemently opposed as well. Eventually Shalikashvili became a proponent of the PfP by October 1993 – the NATO expansion precursor.
   But as the global hegemon after the collapse of the USSR, nobody could stop the West and NATO expansion – certainly not Russia in the 1990s.
   In 2008, GW Bush asserted that NATO would expand to Ukraine. At the Russia-NATO Council summit in 2008, Putin said that NATO expansion to Ukraine was a redline for Russia and would require Russia to take security measures. In 2014, the West got involved in Ukraine elections. After Biden’s election, his administration asserted that NATO would expand to Ukraine. Russia forcefully pushed back, and here we are today.
   Like I said yesterday, it takes two to fight. My dear friend, I sincerely look forward to your reasoned and, as always, well-supported arguments to the contrary.

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2. 

   Resurrected Hillbilly

   11 August 2025

   What’s wrong with the Swiss solution?
   4 distinct languages spoken. Nobody seems to be complaining…

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3. 

   Resurrected Hillbilly

   11 August 2025

   Typepad quarantine gone wild.

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4. 

   Resurrected Hillbilly

   11 August 2025

   Barry P. “it takes two to fight”.
   What was Ukraine supposed to do when angry child Putin invaded them?
   NATO is not an invading force trying to take land from Russia.
   NATO, if you ask me, is more like the EU – an organization you can join, or be accepted into.
   Russia could join NATO but because they are a bunch of criminal assholes they would probably have to clean up their act first.

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5. 

   gjrebane

   11 August 2025

   RH 909am – Romansh is a language spoken by European gypsies wherever they gather. The only official Swiss languages are German, French, and Italian. Existentially Switzerland is a confederation with separate cultural regions where the languages are used by its ethnic German, French, and Italian citizens. Marbled multi-kulti has never worked in liberal societies. In autocratic regimes (e.g. USSR) multi-kulti is enforced by the government gun, and quickly divides into culturally cohesive regions once that gun removed. And even then the culture of the elitist leaders always dominates (e.g. the Slavs in the USSR and the Han in China).
   Multi-kulti in the US worked for generations until the Great Society programs took hold in the 1970s. Before that America had a common Europe-derived public culture and tolerated all other cultures practiced in private by our separate immigrant ethnicities – e.g. Norwegians and Swedes in Minnesota, Armenians in Glendale, and the Sikhs in our Central Valley. And all of our immigrant ethnicities maintain their old country cultures by forming old country societies in large urban areas where they practice their traditions and celebrate their holidays. Today we practice enforced in-your-face multi-kulti in the public square (e.g. institutionalized DEI) with the resulting social frictions that have divided us into an historical schism. These policies originate with the country’s Left which is quietly extending its institutionalized embrace of Marxism in our media, academe, and entertainment industries. Anyone in opposition is immediately branded as racist.

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6. 

   Resurrected Hillbilly

   11 August 2025

   Gjrebane | 11 August 2025 at 11:07 AM
   4 distinct languages, 3 official…fine by me…
   If Switzerland is a direct democracy, and multi-kulti, it does work in liberal societies, no?

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7. 

   Scott O

   11 August 2025

   “it does work in liberal societies, no?”
   BeerBelly seems to be ignorant of history and foreign cultures. The 3 cultures in Switzerland are all advanced, Christian-based, western cultures that are far removed from 3rd world cultures now seen flooding into many Euro countries. These “newcomers” do not acculturate much at all and provide no real value to the countries they illegally immigrate to.
   Multi-Kulti has been a disaster for the average citizen of these Euro countries.

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8. 

   Barry Pruett

   11 August 2025

   Resurrected Hillbilly-09:57 AM
   Imagine a not so distant future in which the Arctic Ocean becomes as strategic for the USA as the Black Sea is for Russia. Imagine further that Russia, Greenland, Norway, and Finland form a military alliance called the Arctic Alliance in order to advance their common interests and at the same time thwart USA interests in the region. In furtherance of this alliance, Canada, our fraternal neighbor with whom we share a common cultural, social, and economic bond, decides at the behest of Russia that they are going to join the Arctic Alliance and allow Russia to build military bases and place nuclear weapons on Canadian land next to Alaska and next to mainland USA.
   Do you see a problem with this scenario? Do you see shades of the Cuban missile crisis and violations of the Monroe Doctrine that has been American foreign policy since the early 19th century? While Canada may think that they have a right to ally with whom they choose, the USA would never allow this scenario to take place. Not in a million years. Such scenario would be an existential threat to the USA. Why would Russia allow the same scenario in the Black Sea and on its borders?
   Your viewpoint fails to consider Russian strategic interests in the current conflict. In order to resolve any conflict, we must first seek to understand rather than seeking first to be understood. Once we understand the other side, solutions can be crafted which both sides can tolerate and not necessarily be super happy about the outcome. This is how mediation/diplomacy is done.
   In addition, George aptly addressed your multi-kulti comments. I would only address your comment, “it does work in liberal societies.” Your comment presupposes that eastern Ukraine and Russia are liberal societies. They are not. They are eastern societies. Your Fukuyama-esque view (“The End of History”) that western liberalism is universally applicable to all peoples and all cultures is misguided and, indeed, resulted in the continual American wars after the collapse of the USSR.
   See this video for further explanation. https://www.sierrathread.com/thread/communism-to-independence-role-of-culture-ethnicity-balkans-post-soviet-states.
   See also Samuel P. Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations.” Culture matters.
   Absent an intelligent response, you will be put in the box with Ms. Rauber…

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9. 

   Resurrected Hillbilly

   12 August 2025

   Barry Pruett | 11 August 2025 at 11:48 PM
   None of your fantastical futures include countries physically attacking each other as Russia has.
   Russia already had access to the Black Sea. They didn’t need to invade Ukraine.
   Ukraine wanted to associate with Western countries, and not be threatened by the angry imperialist child Putin.
   Europe does not want to have their energy supplies threatened and be held hostage by Putin.
   It takes two to fight, it takes two to trade, it takes two to compete, it takes two to cooperate.
   Russia could simply join NATO, open it borders, normalize trade – but no, the Little Imperialist wants it all for himself.

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