Putin/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.
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