AT PENPOINT
The US response to Russia’s threatening moves over Ukraine have been compared to few back of those of the UK over Germany’s over Czechoslovakia, when the UK agreed to German demands at the Munich meeting between the German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, and the British PM, Neville Chamberlain. When Chamberlain returned to London, his first words were: “Peace whit honour, and peace for our time.”
There are a number of parallels that can be made about the two situations. The first is that a power which is declining, but by no means finished, is trying to restrain a power which feels it has been neglected. The power which is vying to replace the old power is not involved in the matter, though its sympathies are known, and it is loosely allied to one. Here the parallels break down, for whereas the UK, then the leading world hegemon, tried to restrain Germany, the USA is trying to restrain Russia. The USA was not present at Munich, and it would replace the UK as a world hegemon only after World War II. Now it is the USA which is shaky, and in the face of China. Whereas in 1938 the rising world power was allied to the UK, now the rising world power is in the camp of Russia.
Another striking similarity is that Germany and Russia are both defeated powers. While Germany was defeated in World War I, Russia lost the Cold War. In a way, both crises arise out of their respective defeats. The Czechoslovakia crisis arose because Hitler wanted its Sudetenland territory, which it had attached to it when it was created after World War I out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Sudetenland were those German-speaking parts of Moravia and Bohemia near the Sudeten mountain, and which had been part of Bohemia since the 9th century. Austria itself had been included in the Reich after 1938’s Anschluss, and Germany had made plans to invade Czechoslovakia, just as Russia has positioned itself to invade Ukraine. It has already taken a bit of Ukraine, the Crimea in 2014, which it formally annexed.
After the Cold War, the USSR’s alliance system crumbled, and the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. However, the USA-led NATO remained, but even expanded to former Warsaw Pact members. Indeed, of the ex-Soviet republics, the three Baltic republics joined NATO in 2004. While some former Warsaw Pact members, like Poland and Romania, have joined NATO, Ukraine would be 5he first Slavic ex-Soviet republic to join NATO, though Georgia is listed as an ‘aspiring member’.
Russia seems to be afraid that Ukraine might invoke the NATO treaty against the armed rebellion in Donetsk, which has declared itself the Donetsk People’s Republic, or the Luhansk People’s Republic. It also has concerns about the placing of missile defence systems there, which it probably feels would be too much of a threat after their placement in Poland and Romania.
Whether or not Putin has found an Asian partner, Pakistan does not like this business of having to choose one over another. It does not like any situation where it has to choose between the USA and China. However, with nuclear war a threat, it may have other worries, along with the rest of the world.
Ukraine’s EU membership is another problem. It is a new country, becoming independent in 1991, but it is second only Russia in size in Europe, and would be the largest member of the EU when it joined. It would also be the only country with an active rebellion. That rebellion is backed by Russia because it occurred in the Donbas area, which has traditionally been an industrial powerhouse. Not only is 17.3 percent of the population Russian, but the 77.8 percent Ukrainians are speakers of an East Saliva language. The other members of that ;language family are Russian and Belarusian. Belarus is another country that Russia regards as of special interest to it. Indeed, in the 1897 census, Ukrainian was not given the status of a separate language, but described a a dialect of Russian.
Though Russian President Vladimir Putin is very different from Adolf Hitler, his appeal is based on the same desire to reverse the effects of the war his country lost. Hitler may have had an actual defeat to reverse, that of World War I, apart from his emphasis on racial theory (which meant propagating the virtues of a mythical Aryan-ness, or the Holocaust), but Putin definitelt wants to restore the prestige Russia lost after the USSR collapsed.
The USSR was primarily what is today Russia, to the extent that when Trotsky in the 1920sspeculated about what language would be spoken when communism was achieved, Stallion firmly said it would be Russian. The irony is that while Trotsky was a Russian-speaking Jew, Stalin was a Georgian. Though Ukrainian nationalism had resurgence after the collapse of the Russian Empire, and though Ukraine now inclines towards its European identity, it was always counted a close ally of Moscow.
However, if it has a very strong Slavic component, it also has a strong European content. The western part of Ukraine was until 1918 part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and was only given to the USSR after World War II. The eastern part had been part of the Russian Empire and afterwards the USSR. Even now, the Western part is dominated by the Roman Catholic religion, and the Eastern by the Orthodox (the Ukrainian Orthodox Church split off from the Russian Orthodox in 2019 as an autocephalous church under the Ecumenical Patriarchate); Ukrainian has both a Cyrillic alphabet and a Latin. Ukraine is where the Slavs meet the Teutons, it seems, and its attraction towards Europe is greater than that of Russia.
It is perhaps not entirely a coincidence that an Eastern European country is at the centre of the dispute. Czechoslovakia was in 1938 a Slavic country, and like Ukraine something of a military power, Hitler had prepared to invade, and on 30 May 1938, had approved ‘Case Green’, which provided for 39 divisions to carry out operations, while Czechoslovakia could mobilize 47.divisions. Similarly, Ukraine is not negligible militarily. It has the second largest military in the region. Unfortunately, it is up against the largest, Russia. It is outnumbered, mustering 200,000men. Russia has amassed a million men on its frontier. Czechoslovakia needed help to fight Germany, and had treaties with the USSR and France guaranteeing its sovereignty. England was expected to join France.
But as early asJanuary, it was made clear that England had no intention of fighting. Similarly, though the USA and its allies have sent equipment to Ukraine, they have made it clear that they will not help with boots on the ground.
Historians still debate whether the Munich Agreement delayed war. It didn’t stop the demise of Czechoslovakia, which became a Reich Protectorate even after giving up its territory. It also meant that the Czech military was unavailable in the war that followed.
The assumption that Hitler would stop was wrong. He abstracted Memel-land from Lithuania in March, and invaded Poland in September, precipitating the very war that Munich was supposed to have stopped. The year of delay was used by the UK, France, Germany and Italy in preparing for it. The verdict is that Germany made the best use of this time.
Will there be war, even though it will be devastating and nuclear. Over the Ukraine, highly unlikely, but China’s dispute in the South China Sea could be a flashpoint. Are Russia and China closely allied enough to make a flashpoint for one a trigger for both? Memories are raised of the Germany-Japan Axis.
Whether or not Putin has found an Asian partner, Pakistan does not like this business of having to choose one over another. It does not like any situation where it has to choose between the USA and China. However, with nuclear war a threat, it may have other worries, along with the rest of the world.
