While one wonders if China is reprising Berlin 1936 with its Olympics, one also wonders what is being reprised in Georgia. Is it Czechoslovakia 1938 or Berlin 1948 or maybe Berlin 1961? Czechoslovakia 1938 was Neville Chamberlain bringing "peace in our time" back from Munich. It was, in fact, Czechoslovakia 1938 that gave appeasement a bad name. Appeasement was an acceptable term before Munich. (See here.) Czechoslovakia 1938 was giving in to Hitler and maybe missing a chance to stop World War II before it started. Berlin 1948 was the Berlin Airlift and Harry Truman standing up to the Russians even though it was hard to do so and lots of people were saying that we couldn’t do it, that it didn’t really matter, and that it wasn’t the right place to fight. Berlin 1961 was the Wall going up. It was a terrible thing, but we decided we could not do anything about it. We knew we had to stop the Russians, but we couldn’t do it there. We would have to let them win because they needed the Wall to be there more than we needed the Wall to not be there. It wasn’t the right place to fight. It would be harder the next time because we lost in Berlin in 1961, but we decided it was better to do that than to make a stand in the wrong place at the wrong time. So which of these is Georgia? Vladimir Putin and Russia today is not Hitler and Germany in 1938. It is more of a question of whether this is Berlin 1948 or Berlin 1961. At this point, I do not know the answer to that question, and we probably won’t know the answer until after the crisis is over and three or four, or maybe more, years have passed. In the meantime it is interesting how various commentators and, in some cases, politicians have fallen into their old, late Cold War roles. One side says we have to stop the Russians. The other side says we need to understand the Russians and Georgia instigated it anyway. The first side thinks that letting the Russians prevail will just encourage them to keep pushing – and will lead others to think they have to give in to what the Russians want. The second side says that we’re just as bad and that the Russians are only doing what we did (in Iraq or Kosovo or someplace) and that we have no moral right to complain.* The first side favored Reagan’s SDI plans and wanted to put Pershing II’s into Western Europe in the early 1980s to counter the Russian SS-20s. The second side demonstrated against both of these decisions.** Personally, I hope we can support the Georgians and stand up to the Russians. The Georgians are really trying to start a democracy in the Caucasus. They sent 3,000 troops to help us in Iraq (probably another reason why some of the people on the second side don’t care about the Georgians). But I don’t have the facts to know if we can. Sometimes the balance of forces, the available resources, just does not allow you to do what you want to do. That was Berlin in 1961. If that is true in this case, we will need to accept that fact – and try harder to be ready the next time. ------------- ** When I read that Barack Obama said the Berlin Wall came down because of the world coming together as one, I wondered what world he was referring to. Certainly not the one I remember.
* The moral equivalence of Georgia and Iraq (or Kosovo) is an interesting question. I do not think there is a moral equivalence, but I do not have time to address that question today. I hope I can get to it in the next week or so.
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