It’s Déjà vu all over again
Let’s not repeat one of our worst mistakes ever.
Note: An urgent post asking all my subscribers to come to the aid of Ukraine.
My Ukrainian friend “Danylo” sounded discouraged when he wrote me a couple of weeks ago. Lord knows, he had good reason. With missiles falling around him daily and no defense system in place to stop them, he hadn’t slept well in months.
Meanwhile, extremists in Congress are so wrapped up in their own petty politics, they continue to deny aid to Ukraine when history suggests that only they stand between the world and Russia’s expansionist aims.
Consider what Adolf Hitler said of Austria in his 1925 autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf:
German-Austria must return to the great German motherland, and not because of economic considerations of any sort. . . Common blood belongs in a common Reich. As long as the German nation is unable even to band together its own children in one common State, it has no moral right to think of colonization as one of its political aims. Only when the boundaries of the Reich include even the last German, only when it is no longer possible to assure him of daily bread inside them, does there arise, out of the distress of the nation, the moral right to acquire foreign soil and territory.
Now consider what Vladimir Putin said of Ukraine in his July 2021 article “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians:”
During the recent Direct Line, when I was asked about Russian-Ukrainian relations, I said that Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole. These words were not driven by some short-term considerations or prompted by the current political context. . . It is in the hearts and the memory of people living in modern Russia and Ukraine, in the blood ties that unite millions of our families. Together we have always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. For we are one people.
In March 1938, under this blood-tie rationale — espoused by Hitler then and Putin today— German tanks and armored vehicles crossed Austria’s borders and took over the country with no resistance offered, either in or outside of Austria.
Nor did anyone resist when, under that same blood-tie rationale espoused by Hitler and Putin, Germany annexed the Sudetenland and then all of Czechoslovakia.
So you can’t say the Allies weren’t warned when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, forcing Britain and France to declare war.
Thirteen years had passed since Hitler had said, “Only when the boundaries of the Reich include even the last German” would he stop—and in those thirteen years, he had proven in Germany, Austria, the Sudetenland, and Czechoslovakia that he would be true to his word.
Eight months after invading Poland, the Nazis gobbled up Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg—all in short order, allowing the Nazis to circumvent the Maginot line and occupy France by early May 1940, and then, later that month, trap hundreds of thousands of Allied forces at Dunkirk.
If not for a flotilla of fishing boats and pleasure crafts, piloted by British civilians, the war might have ended, then and there, with Nazi Germany victorious. As it was, in less than a week’s time, that citizen-led flotilla rescued 338,226 men, including 139,997 French, Polish, Belgian, and Dutch troops aboard 861 vessels.
Even so, with France and Scandinavia now in Nazi hands, Britain was alone in its battle against Nazi Germany. Only the United States could help now.
That’s why, for almost a year, Prime Minister Churchill beseeched the U.S. for aid much like Ukrainian President Zelensky is beseeching us now.
By the time that aid arrived, Germany had badly battered Britain and brought most of the continent to its knees, putting the Allies at a profound military disadvantage and making the war far more difficult and costly to win.
Déjà vu
According to Margus Tsahkna, the Foreign Minister of Russia’s neighbor, Estonia, Putin won’t stop with Ukraine any more than Hitler stopped with Austria or the Sudetenland or Czechoslovakia. Similar to Hitler, Putin won’t stop until he brings back all the “lost colonies of the Soviet Union,” occupying Poland, then going after Finland:
"Putin already said years ago what his plan is: The restoration of the imperium. Russia wants to get back the lost colonies. This is exactly what it is. And it didn't start two years ago. It started with Georgia in 2008. Georgia is now partly occupied. With Ukraine, it started in 2014, and now it's a full scale war. From our perspective as a bordering country, Russia wants to get back the colonies occupied for 50 years by the Soviet Union.”
Should that happen, we won’t be able to say we weren’t warned any more than we could say we weren’t warned by Hitler before he sought to overtake Europe.
And for those who prefer to point to Viet Nam, Iraq, or Afghanistan as cautionary tales rather than World War II, no one is suggesting that U.S. troops be deployed against some murky goal that cannot be achieved, as happened in each of those instances. Ukraine is asking for aid, not troops. And the goal is clear: protect Ukraine’s right to self-determination and the integrity of its borders for the sake of an international order ruled by law not military force. And unlike either the Iraqis, the Vietnamese, or the Afghanis, the Ukrainians have demonstrated a love of democracy and a willingness to die for it far beyond what even we ourselves now demonstrate.
The hidden, personal cost of our inaction
Two weeks ago, I responded to Danylo’s email with what I now see were platitudes. “You are not forgotten,” I wrote. “There is still hope. . . Hang on. There are a lot of people like me who understand we are all in the same fight and those on the front lines like you and all of Ukraine need our support. There are signs that Congress may pass military aid for Ukraine within the next few months. We will keep the pressure on them.” When I heard back from Danylo two days ago, my heart sank.
“Oh, Diana . . . ‘hope’ . . . I don’t know,” he wrote. “I haven’t made plans for more than a week for a long time. In 2014, when Russia first attacked, I fled with one bag and moved to another city. Now I have a family, a child, my life is settled, and everything is falling apart again, only much worse.”
He went on to describe how Russian TV relishes talking 24/7 about slaughtering all Ukrainians and the need to burn or drown all Ukrainian children.
“I can’t understand how with one click you can turn into such animals,” he wrote. “Although, remembering the Second World War, I understand that apparently it is very simple.”
Like Britain in the Second World War— his country is now on its knees asking for help every day, while we in the United States dither. “Apparently everything is in vain,” he wrote at the email’s end. “I don't know what will happen next.”
I don’t either, but I do know that you and I live in a country that gives us the right to influence what happens next — and the responsibility to try.
What you and I can do
It’s pretty straightforward. Extremists in Congress are aiding and abetting Russia’s expansionist aims by holding Ukrainian aid hostage.
Either they fail to see how our nation’s safety and self-interest are inextricably linked to Ukraine’s, or they don’t care about that as much as they do their own political safety and self-interest. Or perhaps both.
They don’t even try to hide the smallness of their reasoning, captured best by Representative Garret Graves (R-La.) in his response to CNN reporter Manu Raju. “Look, the reality is,” Graves told Raju, “you have to keep in mind President Biden asked for Ukraine, President Biden asked for Israel, President Biden asked for aid for Taiwan, and President Biden supports the changes to TikTok. What are Republicans getting out of this?”
I’ll tell you what they get.
They get to fulfill their Constitutional oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
But since they won’t, we must. Just as British citizens came to the aid of Allied forces trapped at Dunkirk, we must come to the aid of the Ukrainians people, like Danylo, fighting for our freedom, not just theirs. And we must come to the aid of all those in Congress besieged by extremists blocking them from voting for aid.
Here’s how:
Call members of Congress. Give them the “bottom cover” they need to authorize military aid and equipment. Tell them why you think we must give aid to Ukraine now. See Timothy Snyder’s “An Appeal to Congress” on how. https://rb.gy/cxwvue
Contribute directly to Ukraine. See Timothy Snyder’s “Challenge of Six” for how you can contribute directly to the Ukrainian effort. https://rb.gy/p3nwy0
Forward this newsletter to your friends and families and ask them to do the same.
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Notes
Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna of Estonia made these remarks at a session of the Raisina Dialogue, titled 'Back to the Future: A New Era of Conflict in Europe?' in New Delhi in which the participants discussed the impacts and goals of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Cited by the Business Standard, New Delhi, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. Edited for clarity. https://rb.gy/270iye
To ensure anonymity, I changed or omitted the names of people, towns, and cities in my excerpts from “Danylo’s” email.