General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPutin/Hitler
Last edited Fri Feb 25, 2022, 01:17 AM - Edit history (1)
The comparisons are obvious. Men who keenly resent a recent humiliation of their country (Hitler: The Versailles Treaty; Putin; the post-Cold War settlement). And both saw it as their mission to reverse same.
Putin does not have a targeted ethnic group on which to extract revenge; the fact that he is not as bad as Hitler is scant consolation.
Both sought weaknesses they could exploit through threats and coercion.
Both manufactured a fake casus belli (Giewitz, Donbas). Putin exploited Russocentric parts of Ukraine the way Hitler exploited the Sudetenland.
They are both characterised by iron singlemindedness and therein lies their great strength and their great weakness. Their focused determination achieves much when the general situation is conducive to that approach. When the need for nuanced thinking, revision of previous positions, retreat, listening to wiser counsels etc comes into play they become badly unstuck: their maniacal monofixation makes it impossible to act any other way but in character.
VarryOn
(2,343 posts)regnaD kciN
(26,044 posts)But he could make the same sort of mistake as Tsar Nicholas 1 who bit off more than he could chew in the Crimean War: Britain, France, and Turkey.
BlueCheeseAgain
(1,654 posts)The megalomania, the lies, the aggression-- and with nuclear weapons.
Samrob
(4,298 posts)can turn around and perform inhumane acts against others. War is inhumane. We are all guilty of it. We (humans) can't seem to stop ourselves.
Demovictory9
(32,453 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,648 posts)especially in their expansionist activities.
They just use different tools.