This is more like the desert storm scenario than the desert shield scenario. One country invading another sovereign country. The boundaries were clear. No occupying force necessary. I'm not saying we should jump to boots on the ground war without exhausting other possibilities first, but this is very little like Afghanistan and even less like the second Iraq war.
Thank you for the response and your perspective. One can and should use lots of history as a case study I agree.
This is not the same situation though so I don't think it would be responsible to just say Putin is like Hitler and this is like the invasion of Poland therefore I will send other people to fight a war with some unspecified goal, and just leave it at that.
I'm not saying your opinion is wrong or you haven't thought more deeply about it, perhaps you don't have time or interest in giving a more lengthy answer.
How is this different though? Why do you assume this power hungry maniac dictator will want to stop at any point voluntarily more than the previous one did?
Also, HN doesn't like long discussions with its irritating "commenting too fast" filter, so I'll answer the comment below - good point about Czechoslovakia and Austria. That already could be seen as a sign of what's to come, but the more it escalated, the stronger it should have been apparent.
How are Russian troops entering Ukraine different from Germany invading Poland? Well probably quite a lot. Sort of a hard question obviously there are differences and similarities I don't want to get into just listing things out and arguing why the differences or similarities matter or don't matter. I hardly even know what's going on in the region now and my WWII history is not fantastic, so I don't think it would be too productive. I would be interested to hear you to explain it if you believe they are similar (if you want to).
Do you think this is more similar to Crimea 2014 or Poland 1939, for example? Or maybe you think Crimea 2014 was the same as Poland as well?
The main parallel is that it's about a power maniac who won't stop until he is stopped. Or to put it differently, he'll take as long as he can. So the question you should be asking, will he stop with Ukraine if he'll take it?
> The main parallel is that it's about a power maniac who won't stop until he is stopped.
Well there's clearly huge differences then aren't there?
> Or to put it differently, he'll take as long as he can. So the question you should be asking, will he stop with Ukraine if he'll take it?
I think I should be asking a lot of questions, that one included of course. And I'm not sure or even sure he would risk getting involved in a significant war in Western Ukraine. At this point "power maniac who must be stopped" doesn't sway me enough that I should ask someone else to send their son to die.
If we are concerned with power maniacs, should we start with China? Will they stop at Tibet and the Uyghurs and Hong Kong? Should we take the CCP regime down before they take Taiwan? That is actually stated goal of the party after all. North Korea? Saudi?
I mean if the concern is occupations, mad dictators, human rights or whatever, we have a lot of wars we could start. Why just limit ourselves to Ukraine?
That's why I don't find that emotional argument convincing (coming from the ruling class, at least). They're sometimes concerned with dictators, except when they aren't. In those other cases sometimes they ignore them and sometimes they actually support them. Sometimes they were the ones who installed them in the first place.
I see more parallels than differences. Fascistic regime with most of its budget used on the army run by the power hungry maniac swallowing its neighbors when he feels he can.
And your arguments could be applied to World War II as well, so they don't sound stronger in this case, than in that one.
> I see more parallels than differences. Fascistic regime with most of its budget used on the army and power hungry maniac running it.
Okay. I would be interested in hearing why it's different from other similar regimes but if you don't want to explain that's okay.
> And your arguments could be applied to World War II as well.
Some could in some ways that's true. But I don't think it's similar and I don't think all of them apply in equal ways.
Western Europe was petrified of Germany in the 30s and considered it a very high risk of wide scale invasion and wars though, which is why they doubled or tripled their military expenditure and had massive build ups of fortifications and forces during the 30s.
There's simply been no such sense of that kind of risk with Russia in the past few decades even up to today. I share that view that the real risk is not high. And Russia doesn't use most budget on the army, there is just no such indication of that kind of build up as Germany had.
So far it's a regime which is not very nice and has locally expansionist ambitions. Which is a lot like China. You have preferred so far not to answer whether you think we should go to war against China before they could roll through Taiwan since occupying Tibet, but I think that's a much better parallel than 1930s Germany.
> Okay. I would be interested in hearing why it's different from other similar regimes but if you don't want to explain that's okay.
Which regimes? Can you list some cases where fascistic regime with most of its budget used on the army and power hungry maniac running it was appeased and it worked well?
Most of Russia's government budget is not spend on the army. I think North Korea is closer to that mark although it's probably even harder to estimate.
NK is not really expansionist but China is. So China. Who also spend 4-5x what Russia does in absolute. And I don't say it worked well to appease them.
I'm wondering what the difference is. Some pro-war people are drawing "lines" but it's not really clear to me exactly what those lines are. Beyond WWII and Nazis, which is not a reasonable analysis and seems more like a typical cheap appeal to emotion.
> In 2019, revenues are planned to reach 15.555 trillion and expenditures will amount to 16.374 trillion, whereas the deficit will stand at 0.8 percent of GDP. By 2020, revenues are estimated at 16.285 trillion with expenditures at 17.155 trillion
And
> In contrast, military spending rose from 2 trillion, 141 billion in 2013 to 3.775 trillion in 2016. In 2017 it fell to 2.778 trillion, and it will decline further in 2018 to 2.771 trillion, but will grow again afterward, to 2.808 trillion in 2020. It should be borne in mind that the actual military spending in Russia is much higher than the planned figures. Traditionally, additional budget revenues, if any, are allocated to this sector. Moreover, some military expenditures are concealed under other civilian items, primarily under the “national economy.” Police spending rose from 1 trillion, 487 billion in 2013 to 1.898 trillion in 2016, 1.977 trillion in 2017, 2.108 trillion in 2018, and 2.140 trillion in 2020. The share of concealed budget expenditures in 2013 amounted to 13.8 percent of the total expenditure and increased to 18.6 percent in 2017, with a planned increase to 20.1 percent of the budget in 2020. These are absolutely bizarre figures that cannot withstand any comparison with the secret parts of budgets in developed economies. At the same time, a significant proportion of the “secret expenses” most likely does not go to military purposes but simply remains in someone’s pocket.
So expenditures are around 17, and official military budget is 2.7-3.7. There are "secret" expenditures of up to 3.4 of which they don't all go to the military but if they did we would be at 7.1. 41% of federal budget revenue to the military.
Let's see your figures that show it over 50.
> But further discussion about it is pointless and will be going in circles.
I absolutely could be wrong, but I'm not arguing in bad faith here I'm using the sources I can find so you don't need to go off in a huff. And it's not really going in circles because you've refused to answer all my questions about China or acknowledged that the military build up in Europe is not remotely like it was in the 1930s. It's more like it's hit a brick wall than gone in a circle.
EDIT: Either way I find it's pretty arbitrary to be so worried about the exact amount of military expenditure. Would a regime that spent 30% of its budget be better than one that spent 40%? What if the absolute numbers were higher? What if the government raised taxes and other expenditures to reduce the proportion of military spending below the magic 50%? What about as a proportion to GDP? I really don't see why that should make a significant consideration about whether we would go to war with a country. So perhaps you are right and it is pointless to talk to you about this.
> some military expenditures are concealed under other civilian items
That's the main point. And as if you they'll tell you real numbers.
Either way, no need in all this demagoguery. I already explained the basic idea - Putin will stop only when stopped and none of the above is really relevant to that.
I know they period of history well enough. When Germany invaded Poland, Soviet Union was ally to Germany and no country was interested in helping Poland.
