I've spent the last 6 months studying Putler and Russia, where I a strong believer in knowing your friends well and your enemies even better. Another on my rules is if I do something I do it well and have a clear understanding, or I don't do it at all. An example of one of my learning projects is economics.
Part of fast learning is getting information from a vast range of sources and sifting out the wheat from the chaff and getting to the core of a problem, something I've had to do many times with R&D projects and also with my hobbies, so I've got good at it where it is something I do for several hours most days.
Putler is no Hitler? Wrong. No he doesn't have a funny little moustache, has less hair, ............TBH how much did any of these Hitler attributes affect the average English person between 1939-45? What did affect the average English person profoundly is Hitler's territorial ambitions and this is where Putler has more in common with Hitler than sets them apart. Who is the most dangerous of the two: IMO Putler. Why? Hitler disliked gas having been wounded by a gas attack in WWI.
Putler and his generals don't agree with MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) but that there will be a winner and losers and they think they will be the winner. They have better civil defence facilities, their biggest city Moscow has an Anti-ICBM missile shield and being a very big more rural population, more will survive. In the UK in the 1960's it was calculated between one and two thirds of the population would survive. In a conventional war against the West, currently Russia will lose, but once you factor in their willingness to project or the limited use of nuclear weapons then this changes the equation. Would Germany be prepared to risk lose Bonn or Italy Naples to save the Baltic countries? This is a dangerous divide and conquer strategy for the survival of NATO and the EU which Putler is out to destroy.
Churchill was ridiculed when he warned in the 1930's about the German threat, by history has judged him rather kinder than Hitler's useful fools!
So you don't believe some of us also follow those rules? In fact I have studied German and British military history for 40 years. I, like many also know that it is wise to know your enemies more than your friends, but
never think actually anyone is your friend. The difference between warnings about Hitler in the 1930s is that only a few, like Churchill, were worried about the growing menace. Many in Britain, let alone around Europe, believed Hitler was a good thing, and the Nazis had the right political idea. Even briefly the British monarch openly supported Hitler, along with many figures in the upper classes, with a following behind Moseley. That does not exist with the Putin issue; the British establishment, and most of us, along with the USA and Europe
KNOW he could be a great danger to our security, in a minor way approaching what the USSR represented during the Cold War. It has also nothing to do with what Hitler was, or Putin is, in physical appearance, so why raise all that? Who is suggesting it has anything to do with anything?. It is about the
mental health of these individuals, and that certainly drove the former to do what he did, in the manner he did. I have stated before, Hitler took a whole fanatical nation with him, having built up his military using international finance, so he could. That did affect the British (you stated English, why?) person in the street, with bombs falling on them, evacuees of occupied countries arriving, many of the men set to fight the Nazis, food rationing, and of course the loss of loved ones in the military. Putin is not in a position to do all of that as easily as Hitler did. As for Putin gambling over the MAD theory; do you think the modern Russians, with constant contact with the west, the internet, and television, are going to be happy entering a war where they could loose everything they have gained so far on their road to democracy when they KNOW what their leader is? Once more Hitler had brilliant propaganda, along with a message of reversing the Versailles Treaty, destroying the Jews, along with the Communists, then creating a new greater Germany of the Third Reich. Has Putin got any of that going to pursuade the Russian people of a glorious war and sacrifice?
Anyway, Putin is not in a position ( as I have listed in a previous post) to take on the countries of the West as they represent a real challenge (nuclear) to his forces, the type of opposition Hitler did not face. Hitler (but not many of his generals) felt he could take on the countries of Europe, thinking that Britain would let him do so. There was little challenge and the Nazis rolled on. Putin is not in that position, and certainly has so far not launched a Blitzkrieg, rolled 2,500 tanks and 3.5 million men across European borders, with major air support, as Hitler did at 0300 hours on 22nd June 1941 to enter Russia. Putin faces determined opposition from the international community who are very aware that he and any ambitions he has
must be curtailed; that is what the conferences have, and will, be discussing. The West is not a soft touch as it was in 1938/9. Putin cannot be a Hitler with an AXIS. Putin is alone facing Europe and the USA, still a super-power.
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Topic: Are you ready for a long cold winter with limited gas? (Read 5794 times)