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In regards to prewar Germany, Italy, Japan, and the now the current path of Russia (and soon China) provides us with an obvious lesson. It's long overdue we accept it..
Common elements in the rise of 20th and 21st century of Autocratic Aggressor States and their War Crimes Against the Peace have been:
1) They are born in failed attempts to establish a better behaved and more responsible state. Hence after the failure of the Weimar Republic, the Meiji Restoration's Taisho Democracy, and Yeltsin's de communization to a failed Russian "democracy", the Autocratic Aggressor State is born. What emerges from the failure is a newer generation of rulers and social yearning for order over "anarchy" and need for the respect and deferential fear of others, usually driven by a strong man autocrat or a shared elite autocracy.
2) These new born autocracies secure power by exploiting their nation's deep insecurity, their people's need to believe that their nation's failure to civilize is someone else's fault and/or that actually being civilized itself a false virtue, a hypocritical trick by those "others" who are equally uncivilized and scheming against their nation.
3) Autocracy's tool of first use is demagoguery. The less sophisticated of their people are fed what they crave, the belief that they are a "great people" being held down by envious others. Their entitlements are historic and ancient, their oppression never ending, their heroism in vanquishing their enemies is envied by all. And yet, say their leaders, they are denied their rightful place in the sun, the honor of being one of the few great nationalities and powers. They are not feared or respected!
4) The autocrats encourage their people to believe in alleged "grievances", which are usually rooted in three kinds of humiliation and sense of victimhood.
The first kind is based in nationalist longing for their lost "empire" and "their" (stolen) empire's land (that was usually "stolen" back by that empires victims) - hence their nationality and/or race are being humiliated by their former vassals and/or victims. "Intolerable" in their view.
The second type of grievance is not over nationality's lost power but of the injustice of their people never having had the opportunity to build an empire. Japan's, for example, deepest grievance was that it never had the opportunity for colonizing China and how 'unfair' it was that all the useful conquests had been already done by white European others.
The last type is a derivative of the prior two grievances. Those who have lost empire and left behind others of their ethnicity, nationality, or race are eternally vexed by the humiliation of not being in being dominate "race" in these mixed national states.
5) However, the real or imagined grievances are insufficient to drive the populace of an Autocratic Aggressor state to support (or at least accept) their launching of a war. Paranoia and alarmism are also necessary. The common motif that the aggressor state is "surrounded" by enemies - Germany's two front fears, Japan's fear of colonial powers and bases in all directions (as well as Russia bordering them), and Russia's alleged vexation of being "surrounded" by NATO.
The Autocratic Aggressor State will, even when it is lying, justify its dissembling paranoia as necessary to expose a "deeper truth", that it "just knows" that if it does not act, it will be "too late". (eg WW2 Japanese militarists talked themselves into believing that even if Japan joined the allies defeating Germany, then all the white nations would still turn on and attack Japan).
6) The path to war by these Autocratic Aggressor States begins with their objectives or demands escalating to greater ambitions. What begins as a militarization of the aggressor society moves into a strategic demand then an escalation into a war of conquest. The seeds start with a "Manchukuo" or "Alsace Lorraine" or "Georgia", military actions by the autocratic aggressor state that are merely appetizers for the autocratic aggressor states.
7) Finally, the autocratic aggressor state is nothing like it was during its brief but unsuccessful attempt to become civilized and well-behaved world citizen. Whatever modernity, tolerance, property rights, union rights, or judicial independence is lost - they become fully empowered dictatorships and instruments of brutal repression.
So, as it should be obvious even to the Pro Putin lobby, the path of Russia and even China are nearly identical to the path of prewar Germany, Italy, and Japan. They all share identical reasoning, identical excuses, and identical paranoid and resentful pathologies. Each was, or now is, an existential danger to the modern world. Appeasement is not an option, nor is ignoring it.
It won't stop with Ukraine or Tiawan - it never does absent a successful resistance.
Common elements in the rise of 20th and 21st century of Autocratic Aggressor States and their War Crimes Against the Peace have been:
1) They are born in failed attempts to establish a better behaved and more responsible state. Hence after the failure of the Weimar Republic, the Meiji Restoration's Taisho Democracy, and Yeltsin's de communization to a failed Russian "democracy", the Autocratic Aggressor State is born. What emerges from the failure is a newer generation of rulers and social yearning for order over "anarchy" and need for the respect and deferential fear of others, usually driven by a strong man autocrat or a shared elite autocracy.
2) These new born autocracies secure power by exploiting their nation's deep insecurity, their people's need to believe that their nation's failure to civilize is someone else's fault and/or that actually being civilized itself a false virtue, a hypocritical trick by those "others" who are equally uncivilized and scheming against their nation.
3) Autocracy's tool of first use is demagoguery. The less sophisticated of their people are fed what they crave, the belief that they are a "great people" being held down by envious others. Their entitlements are historic and ancient, their oppression never ending, their heroism in vanquishing their enemies is envied by all. And yet, say their leaders, they are denied their rightful place in the sun, the honor of being one of the few great nationalities and powers. They are not feared or respected!
4) The autocrats encourage their people to believe in alleged "grievances", which are usually rooted in three kinds of humiliation and sense of victimhood.
The first kind is based in nationalist longing for their lost "empire" and "their" (stolen) empire's land (that was usually "stolen" back by that empires victims) - hence their nationality and/or race are being humiliated by their former vassals and/or victims. "Intolerable" in their view.
The second type of grievance is not over nationality's lost power but of the injustice of their people never having had the opportunity to build an empire. Japan's, for example, deepest grievance was that it never had the opportunity for colonizing China and how 'unfair' it was that all the useful conquests had been already done by white European others.
The last type is a derivative of the prior two grievances. Those who have lost empire and left behind others of their ethnicity, nationality, or race are eternally vexed by the humiliation of not being in being dominate "race" in these mixed national states.
5) However, the real or imagined grievances are insufficient to drive the populace of an Autocratic Aggressor state to support (or at least accept) their launching of a war. Paranoia and alarmism are also necessary. The common motif that the aggressor state is "surrounded" by enemies - Germany's two front fears, Japan's fear of colonial powers and bases in all directions (as well as Russia bordering them), and Russia's alleged vexation of being "surrounded" by NATO.
The Autocratic Aggressor State will, even when it is lying, justify its dissembling paranoia as necessary to expose a "deeper truth", that it "just knows" that if it does not act, it will be "too late". (eg WW2 Japanese militarists talked themselves into believing that even if Japan joined the allies defeating Germany, then all the white nations would still turn on and attack Japan).
6) The path to war by these Autocratic Aggressor States begins with their objectives or demands escalating to greater ambitions. What begins as a militarization of the aggressor society moves into a strategic demand then an escalation into a war of conquest. The seeds start with a "Manchukuo" or "Alsace Lorraine" or "Georgia", military actions by the autocratic aggressor state that are merely appetizers for the autocratic aggressor states.
7) Finally, the autocratic aggressor state is nothing like it was during its brief but unsuccessful attempt to become civilized and well-behaved world citizen. Whatever modernity, tolerance, property rights, union rights, or judicial independence is lost - they become fully empowered dictatorships and instruments of brutal repression.
So, as it should be obvious even to the Pro Putin lobby, the path of Russia and even China are nearly identical to the path of prewar Germany, Italy, and Japan. They all share identical reasoning, identical excuses, and identical paranoid and resentful pathologies. Each was, or now is, an existential danger to the modern world. Appeasement is not an option, nor is ignoring it.
It won't stop with Ukraine or Tiawan - it never does absent a successful resistance.
