The utter capitulation of the Trump administration to Russian interests in Ukraine is neither an example of appeasement nor collusion, but rather is the fulfillment of decades of Soviet and Russian investment in the corrupting of our constitutional republic.  Years ago, in the deepest bowels of the Russian intelligence community, the KGB and its successor FSB determined that the US public was so stupid and our institutions so corruptible that a demonstrable fool like Donald Trump could be elevated to the highest office in the land.  Comparing Donald Trump to the pitiful Neville Chamberlain is an insult to the former British Prime Minister.  In betraying Ukraine, Donald Trump is doing exactly what the Kremlin put him in office to do. 

The many private conversations that Trump and Putin have had over the past decade have determined what Ukraine will relinquish in any Trump sanctioned settlement to the conflict.  In violation of American commitments to Ukraine in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Trump will likely reward Russian aggression by allowing it to permanently annex Crimea and the Donbas region.  Trump will further do Putin’s bidding in demanding that Ukraine be denied NATO membership.  In other words, Putin gets everything he wants for now; Ukraine loses most everything for which it has been heroically fighting; and Trump gets a nice pat on the head from his owner.  

There are no Chamberlain illusions here for “peace in our time.” This is a comprehensive and deliberate capitulation to Putin.  It appears, moreover, that the framework for promoting this farce will occur in collusion with the Saudis, another major funder of the president who will destroy the core idea of America.  Welcome to the New World Order.  It should also be noted that the list of 18 nations voting to oppose the condemnation of Russia in its invasion included the predictable array of the world’s most heinous dictatorships along with the USA and Israel.  The Netanyahu government is thus complicit in three acts of recent ethnic cleansing:  Gaza, Ukraine, and Artsakh. 

Putin’s Pawns

Putin has known that so long as he was able to return Trump to the Oval Office, he could achieve his goals in Ukraine.  Using all the levers of dark money that Trump’s SCOTUS has permitted through its ruling in the Citizens’ United case, Putin succeeded in getting his man elected once again.  Putin and his oligarchic collaborators could wait while western intellectuals and pundits questioned not only the costs of the war but also whether devoting so much attention to an imperfect democracy on the “eastern fringes of Europe” was advisable.  Putin was surely smirking as the pundit class blamed Biden for a failure to unite the country and bring down the price of eggs while the Kremlin continued to support politicians and media that challenged the results of the 2020 election.

Republicans have for too long hidden behind the smoke screen generated by the now-equivocating quisling Bill Barr.  While Barr succeeded in obscuring the vast evidence showing Trump’s collusion with the Kremlin revealed in the Mueller Report, he ultimately could not hide the role Russia played in Trump’s 2016 campaign.  Such interference has continued and even expanded in Trump’s subsequent campaigns.  Russia has no reason to fear consequences from a Republican Party that has willfully blinded itself to such interference.

The current capitulation to foreign fascism is a strand that runs through the history of the Republican Party over the last century. 

• It was Republicans who undermined the effort to create the League of Nations, an institution that could have hampered the rise of the fascist movements that ultimately led to the outbreak of World War II. 
• It was Republicans who promoted an “America First” policy that kept the United States from playing a constructive role in mitigating the reparations regime that devastated European recovery in the aftermath of World War I. 
• It was largely Republican politicians, bankers, and industrialists who colluded with Hitler in the years leading to World War II in a role like that played by the various benefactors of Trump’s campaign in support of Putin’s objectives. 

We are now observing the farcical rerun of the tragedy that resulted in World War II.  And there is no shortage of farcical characters to fill the necessary roles in this tedious play.  

The shockingly stupid utterings of J.D. Vance and Peter Hegseth at the recent Munich Security Conference has had the salutary consequence of driving our former European allies into seeking their own position on the Ukraine crisis apart from the US.  The sooner Europe distances itself from the Trump administration on all matters, the better it will be for the world.  Now that the Kremlin has “its girl” Tulsi Gabbard in charge of national intelligence, it will be much easier for Moscow to maneuver on the world stage.  The Kremlin will surely need its stooges in the White House if it intends to keep pace with the advances China is making on the global stage in the aftermath of the US abandonment of its role in the world.  

Our dimwitted Secretary of Defense, between odd sips of a brown liquid, misrepresented the history of the Russian incursion into Ukraine.  He fallaciously confused correlation with causation in claiming that the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea resulted from the perceived weakness of President Obama on the global stage.  Between sips, Pete said that the same was true for the Russian incursion into Ukraine on 24 February 2022.  He falsely claimed that Russia would not have dared such a move under the bold leadership of Trump.  This Hegseth History needs some “distillation.”

Trump and Putin’s Man in Kyiv

Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, Paul Manafort, played a key role in the chaos that precipitated the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea.  Manafort had been a well-compensated consultant to the corrupt, Kremlin-sponsored President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych.  At the time of the annexation, Manafort was also working with Russian oligarchs in an investment scheme for a Ukrainian cable television business.  During the development of that corrupt business venture, Manafort accrued a massive debt to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.  In short, one of Trump’s main advisors in his 2016 campaign was a man at the center of the corruption and pro-Kremlin groups in Ukraine and Crimea who contributed to the annexation.

When the democratic Maidan Revolution brought down the corrupt regime of Manafort’s client Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, the political situation in Ukraine was too fluid and complex for the Obama administration to do much more than it did in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea that same year.  The complicated legal and political status of Crimea further obscured the matter.  Crimea represents a complex ethnic and legal area somewhat like that represented by Gdansk (Danzig) in the period between the two world wars.  Had Ukraine possessed a stable government in 2014, it would have been possible for the Obama administration to do more.  Manafort and an array of Trump advisors made sure that maintaining Ukrainian independence from Moscow would remain a difficult task.

Ukraine would have to get its own house in order before it could address the Russian violations of its territory in 2014.   Ukraine DID get its house in order, quickly, and in conjunction with one of the most remarkable democratic movements in recent history.

SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE.

In 2015, a 37-year-old Russian-speaking Ukrainian secular Jewish comedian named Volodymyr Zelenskyy created, produced, and starred in a television series, Servant of the People, that became the inspiration for a movement that consolidated Ukrainian national identity as a pluralistic society determined to uphold the highest democratic ideals.  In the series, Zelenskyy played the role of a high school history teacher whose surreptitiously recorded rant against the neglect of history in the education curriculum went viral on social media in a way that resulted in his elevation to the presidency.  Watching Servant of the People is an inspirational experience for those willing to work through its cultural and linguistic barriers.  (It remains available on Netflix where it is unfortunately subtitled, not dubbed.)

In an extraordinary case of life imitating art, Zelenskyy became President of Ukraine in 2019 as leader of the eponymic political party, Servant of the People.  Watching the series is thus mandatory for anyone wanting to understand current Ukrainian identity and the contrast it provides to the criminal regimes in Moscow and Washington.  In fact, no one can comment meaningfully on current Ukrainian matters who has not seen the series.  It is that definitive.

The series engages both the highest ideals and most sobering realities that make up current Ukrainian identity.  The word “Ukraine” is itself a statement of the unique identity of its people.  The Slavic roots for this term translates “borderland.”  On the one hand, this might be regarded as an odd way to identify a country.  If something is defined as a boundary, does it have an identity apart from the things it borders?  On the other hand, being at the boundary of a variety of cultures places a nation’s identity at the center of those cultures.  This is one of the main themes in the TV series.  

Ukraine is one of those places in the world where cultural patterns connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa meet.  The rich black soil of Ukraine’s agricultural wealth connects to the Black Sea trade networks, the point where the Silk Road intersected with the Viking trade networks along the Dnieper River.  This is the reason why Kyiv existed for seven centuries before Moscow was founded.  It has been the crossroads of many civilizations.  Ukraine is also the source of great mineral wealth.  It is thus a treasure of world culture and economy as well as a vital strategic venue.  There is no mystery as to why Putin wants it so badly.  The only mystery is why the GOP wants to give it to him so readily.

Zelenskyy’s democratic Ukraine represents everything that Putin’s dictatorial Russia is not.  Ukraine’s remarkable success as a democratic state is what triggered Putin’s 2022 invasion.  Ukraine has prevailed and can prevail in this conflict so long as people who share a vision for government of, by, and for the people prevail.  Ukraine can triumph if we can thwart Putin’s two stooges (Trump and Musk) in the White House.

The Quid Pro Quo

In addition to the inspiring vision and humor of Servant of the People, the series also presents a sober view of world realities that prepared Ukraine well for the first Trump term.  Zelenskyy only became president of Ukraine in May of 2019, in the final months of Trump’s first term.  Throughout his first term, Trump did nothing to hamper the consolidation of Putin’s Crimean annexation and conspired with Putin in over 20 secret phone calls on how to provide the illusion of support for Ukraine so as not to hamper Trump’s reelection chances in 2020 by appearing too chummy with Putin.  The infamous phone call when Trump conditioned military support for Ukraine on Zelenskyy’s announcing a corruption investigation into Hunter Biden was undoubtedly a ploy hammered out in conversations between the White House and the Kremlin.  That phone call occurred only two months into Zelenskyy’s presidency.  As was shown repeatedly in the TV series, Zelenskyy knew how to engage Kremlin operatives such as Trump.

While Zelenskyy was surely aware of Hunter Biden’s shady relations with Burisma, he was more aware of the corrupt political game Trump was playing.  After all, Zelenskyy knew the ties between Trump’s crooked campaign manager Paul Manafort and the fraudulent Viktor Yanukovych.  Zelenskyy had also followed the efforts of the despicable Rudy Giuliani to promote the lie that Joe Biden played a direct role in getting Hunter Biden placed on the board of Burisma.  Zelenskyy knew as well of Michael Flynn’s ties to Putin and his 2017 confession of lying to the FBI about conversations he had had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.  

Zelenskyy’s refusal to succumb to Trump’s impeachable efforts to extort an investigation into Hunter Biden in exchange for weapons needed to defend his country reveals that he understood that there were larger principles involved than the immediate military needs of his country.  Zelenskyy thus saved democracy in the US by not providing Trump and Putin with a lever to destroy Biden’s candidacy.  

Trump’s first term was a boon to the Kremlin.  Trump did nothing to discourage or diminish the Russian consolidation of power in Crimea.  Nor did he thwart Russia’s role in fomenting the separatist movements in those parts of Ukraine with Russian speaking populations.  Most significantly, Trump did everything he could to signal to Putin that the US was no longer committed to NATO as an organization that might constrain Russian aggression.    An emblematic moment illustrating this effort to betray our closest allies occurred when Trump pushed aside the Prime Minister of Montenegro at the 2017 NATO summit.  Montenegro at the time was being accepted into NATO, a move adamantly opposed by Moscow.  With the gloating Viktor Orban waddling in his wake, the picture comprises a scene that might be depicted in a remake of Animal Farm.  

Putin and January 6

The promotion of Trump as someone whose strength and power were formidable in standing up to Vlad the Terrible provided a well-scripted ruse, courtesy of Kremlin propagandists.  It was vital for Trump and Putin to perpetuate the illusion of dynamic confrontation if Putin were to have any chance of returning Trump to the White House in 2020.  It was going to be a tall task for Putin.

By the most meaningful measures, the first Trump term was a failure.  While adding nearly 8 trillion dollars to the national debt, the stock market had only its third highest performance in history, after that of Clinton and Biden.  Even though adding 8 trillion to the national debt provided the momentary illusion of wealth, most of the benefits went to the richest of the rich.  Other than the stock market, most other economic measures were weak, especially those related to the declining middle class.  

Trump’s disastrous response to the COVID pandemic, however, was probably decisive.  When Trump and Musk die, they should go straight to straight to hell and be forced to perform unspeakable acts on Satan himself for eternity.  Others who facilitated the evils of Putin, Trump, and Musk, should have to spend millennia in purgatory repeating a few times each hour for 24 hours a day this gem of a refrain from the mind of the stable genius:

“So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous – whether it’s ultraviolet or just a very powerful light, and I think you [turning to Dr. Deborah Birx] said that hasn’t been checked but you’re going to test it.  And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside of the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way.  And I think you said you’re going to test that too.  Sounds interesting.  And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute.  One minute.  And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?  So, it’d be interesting to check that.  I’m not a doctor.  But I’m, like, a person that has a good you-know-what.”

It is no wonder that the US had one of the highest COVID death rates in the developed world, with approximately 400,000 unnecessary deaths due to the refusal to mandate masks and social distancing protocols.  

Thus, it was no surprise that the public turned against Trump in the 2020 election.  The stupidity of Americans is profound, but it is not infinite.  The corruption of our institutions and the Republican Party, however, is a different story.  Putin could bank on those institutions.

The Kremlin engaged social media to promote the fiction that the Biden victory resulted from massive voter fraud orchestrated by the deep state.  Putin celebrated the January 6 attempt to violently destroy the constitutional republic.  Russian propagandists knew full well that the Republican Party was no longer one rooted in any other principle than pure power, and that its status as a political movement is entirely dependent on the personality cult that they had help build around Trump.  Putin surely felt affirmed when in July 2024 Trump’s SCOTUS declared that executive authority is above the law, a decision that ensured that Trump would never be held to account for his role in the events of January 6.  It also moved the US distinctly in the direction of Russian-style dictatorship.  

While Trump’s loss in the 2020 campaign provided a momentary glitch in Putin’s plans to reconfigure Europe in a way that better fits the requirements of his kleptocracy, Putin remained confident in the corruption of US institutions and the ignorance of its public.  He knew that time was on his side.   His minions were well rooted in the far-right movements of various European countries and in the mass base of the Republican Party.  What Putin did not anticipate, however, was the rapid consolidation of Ukrainian democracy under the leadership of Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Putin Attacked Ukraine Out of Weakness!

When Putin invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, it was an act of desperation on the part of Moscow.  As Alexei Navalny noted in his posthumous memoir, one of the motives for Putin’s attack on Ukraine was to divert public attention from the hardships and injustice inherent in Putin’s corrupt regime.  Navalny well knew that in a time of war, opposition to the leader could be posed as treason and could provide the basis for more direct assaults on the domestic political opposition.  

The more troubling motive for Putin, however, was the dynamic consolidation of government that occurred under the leadership of Zelenskyy.  The leader of the Servant of the People party had only assumed office in July of 2019.  Two years into his term, the aspiration of a prosperous and peaceful Ukraine depicted in the TV series was becoming reality.  Ukraine provided a stark contrast from Putin’s dark repression.  Ukraine was getting stronger and better by the day.  Russia was not.  If Russia was to assert its unfettered access to Black Sea ports–a dream of Russian rulers since the days of Peter the Great–it was going to have to act soon.  Putin assumed, as did most of the rest of the world, that Ukraine was not sufficiently consolidated as a society and as a military force to withstand the Russian assault.  They were wrong.

We are now three years into a war that most experts claimed would last only three days.  The Ukrainian army has fought with spectacular success under the leadership of Zelenskyy as commander in chief.  President Biden worked with NATO allies to assist the Ukrainian army in a way that would not increase the possibilities of a wider war.  Biden’s caution often came at the expense of Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.  Historically non-aligned Sweden and Finland understood the gravity of Moscow’s move and were rapidly accepted into the NATO alliance.  The democratic world imposed a sanctions regime that rendered Russia both a diplomatic and economic pariah.  This war was turning into a disaster for the Kremlin.  As the disaster unfolded, Putin invested ever more into his orange-hued diabolus ex machina, Donald Trump.

Trump did not disappoint.  He spent the Biden years saying nothing meaningful in relation to Putin’s war crimes.  In Trump’s fallacious reasoning, he would simply claim that Putin would never have tried such an invasion under a Trump presidency out of respect for his powerful leadership.  That makes sense only to the spectacularly stupid, of which we have many in elective office and the corporate media.  Putin had control of all the meaningful levers manipulating the Republican Party.  

Putin’s goal at the time of the Ukraine invasion was to ensure that Republicans took control of the House in the 2022 midterms.  Putin succeeded, thereby ensuring that Trump would never be held accountable for his first attempt to destroy the US constitution, and that he would politically survive to complete that task in the 2024 elections.  Meanwhile, one of Trump’s most corrupted federal judge appointees ensured that the highly classified documents he stole from the national archives would remain at Mar-A-Lago, ready to be exchanged for fun, profit, and treason.

Putin Floods the Zone

Knowing that all people of conscience would see his invasion of Ukraine for the obscenity it was, Putin obscured the 2022 invasion with other outrages and machinations.  The invasion provided the context for understanding the expanded attack on his internal opposition, including and especially Alexei Navalny.  More importantly for his controlling influence over the GOP, Putin arrested Britney Griner in the week prior to the attack on Kyiv.  Griner was an intentional distraction that diverted focus from the literal rape and plunder Putin’s criminal regime had imposed on Ukraine.  Putin knew that Americans would chase the Griner story like a bunch of cats following a laser point.  Meanwhile, few would focus on what was happening inside of Russia and Ukraine.

The Griner story helped fuel the Republican war on “woke.”  Her homosexuality and use of marijuana triggered the puritanical strands of the Christian Right.  The fact that she was bigger, stronger, smarter, and more soulful than the incels who promote the cult of masculinity to the Republican base gave them a perfect target.  This bro cult used their stereotype of Griner to suppress their insecurities and fire their racism, sexism, and homophobia.  The mainstream media in the US had that impeccably superficial story that fits the 6 minutes that represents the permissible time span for any story presented in the infotainment complex.  

Trump had unequivocally supported Putin’s arrest of Griner.  Couched in the racism and sexism that define his character, Trump claimed the Griner was “spoiled” and “loaded up with drugs.”  For the record, Griner had pled guilty to bringing one gram (0.0022 lbs.) of medically prescribed cannabis oil into Russia.  This would be equivalent to the weight of a single seed from a bright yellow sunflower, one of the principal symbols of Ukrainian identity.  For this horrific crime, Griner received a nine-year prison sentence.  The Grovelers of Putin concurred that this was an appropriate sentence.  One wonders how the GOP might have responded differently had the athlete in question been Caitlin Clark.  Putin is not that stupid.  The GOP, on the other hand . . . .

Putin’s campaign succeeded.  Republicans retook control of the House.  The Griner story thus paved the way for Putin apologists and 2020 election denialists to operate in an unfettered manner in the legislative branch of government.  House and Senate leaders could now operate in collusion with the thoroughly corrupted judicial branch while they awaited the return of Putin’s puppet to the White House.  Putin released Griner soon after the November 2022 midterms.  Her story had served its purpose.

Hillbilly Travesty

The 2022 midterms thus paved the way for Putin to reinstall his lackey in the White House.  When searching for a Vice-Presidential candidate and potential successor to the old and feeble Trump, there was little doubt as to who Putin would prefer most from among the array of cyphers being considered.  Days before the invasion, J.D. Vance had declared his position on Putin’s invasion: “I gotta be honest with you.  I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine.”  Vance and his definitive benefactor, the racist plutocrat Peter Thiel, had already been major investors in Rumble, a far-right social media site that the Kremlin commonly used to convey disinformation to the world.  

The Vance candidacy thus provided insurance for Putin that would extend beyond the remaining time of the aging Manchurian candidate Russia had groomed for decades.  It was consequently no surprise when Vance at the 2025 Munich Security Conference mouthed Kremlin talking points on recent elections in Romania, where evidence of Russian interference was overwhelming.  That Vance would so transparently assert Kremlin interests should surprise no one.  He has been doing it for years.

The same is true for Elon Musk.  Unlike Vance, however, Musk could fund his own way into global prominence.  Musk has been in secret contact with Putin for decades.  The story of how such a compromised charlatan as Musk could be awarded such strategically important contracts by the US will be one of the most difficult challenges for future historians to explain.  In April of 2023, Musk declared: “Between Tesla, Starlink & Twitter, I may have more real-time global economic data in one head than anyone ever.”  He recently used this power to gain access to every person’s Social Security and income tax information.  Not surprisingly, Musk has leveraged his control over the vital communication network Starlink to attempt to compel Ukraine to relinquish its claims to the vital seaports of Crimea.  

While Musk’s collusion with Putin in Ukraine remains somewhat obscure, his alliance with the Kremlin in promoting Putin’s allies throughout the world remains clear.  Just as he allowed Twitter to become a platform for Russian disinformation in US elections, so he is continuing to do so in support of far-right parties in Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, France, and every other nation where immigrant hatred and religious bigotry can be exploited.  Every person in the world should be concerned with how much power is being concentrated in the hands of Musk, Putin, and Xi.

Miniscule Marco

Because real power in the world of today’s GOP is tied directly to Putin and the global community of plutocrats who underwrite the clownish figures in the political world, it seems worthwhile to ignore entirely such absurdities as Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, and Marco Rubio.  They will surely perform the constitutionally destructive role that the Republican Senate and Trump’s SCOTUS has entitled them to do.  They are merely symptoms of a corrupted polity.  Marco Rubio, however, stands out in this group because he symbolizes the fecklessly bipartisan character of the crisis we face.

Every Senate Democrat voted to confirm Rubio in another futile attempt to revive a foolish bi-partisan spirit that died completely in the aftermath of January 6.  Every Democrat!  Et tu, Bernie?  This utter incapacity on the part of Senate Democrats to properly understand this political moment is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the current crisis.  Rubio recently sat with the Russians and the Saudis to negotiate the future of Ukraine.  Why is Riyadh welcome at this table but Kyiv not?  Rubio thus became an infinitely more pitiful figure on the world stage than Neville Chamberlain ever was.  While Senate Democrats cannot be blamed directly for this, they are complicit through their confirmation vote.

There was never anything in the political biography of Marco Rubio that would indicate that he has a spine or a heart or any set of principles that he would not compromise for the sake of the perception of personal power.  Trump selected all cabinet appointments based on their willingness to submit unequivocally to his demands.  Trump, moreover, will always submit to the demands of Putin.  Senate Democrats need to issue an unambiguous condemnation of Rubio’s willingness to negotiate the future of Ukraine without it being invited to the table.  

The fact that the murderous Saudi regime was at the table and Ukraine was not reveals much about what motivates the Putin/Trump regime.  Saudi Arabia and Russia had colluded to maintain high oil prices in the aftermath of Russia’s 2022 invasion.  This move ensured that global inflation would remain high in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic and hamper Democrats in the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential elections.  Trump’s subservience to the oil industry is part of his enslavement to Putin. 

The general effort of Trump to negotiate the future of Ukraine without it being present at the table provides echoes of Munich, 1938.  There are some lessons from 1938, but they are not the ones most pundits have mentioned so far.

The Lessons of Munich, 1938

The value of any historical analogy lies in the degree of direct parallels an historic event has to the present.  The 1938 betrayal of democratic Czechoslovakia has many parallels to the 2025 betrayal of democratic Ukraine.  The role of some of the nations involved has obviously flipped.  Some key fascist nations, however, are playing a similar role today as they did 87 years ago.  Commentators today who either link Putin to Stalin or some combination of Stalin and Hitler are wrong.  There is a direct parallel only between Putin and Hitler as it related to Ukraine and Czechoslovakia, respectively.  Stalin’s relevance to the present crisis is minimal at best.  Trump’s sycophancy to Putin has no precedence in 1938.  

Trump’s parodying of Kremlin talking points in the days after the Munich Security Summit exceeded the lies that Moscow spoon-fed him.  Trump called Zelenskyy a dictator, blamed him for the war, accused him of refusing to hold elections, and claimed that his approval ratings among Ukrainians was at 4%.  For the record, Zelenskyy won a legitimate election in 2019 with a margin of victory (73%) far exceeding anything Trump ever achieved.  Zelenskyy won a legitimate election of a kind that Trump’s vendor Putin would never allow in Russia; and he did so without jailing, poisoning, or assassinating his political opponents.  Zelenskyy has not held an election since then because his country is in a state of martial law due to the fact Russia occupies 1/5 of the total territory of Ukraine, continues to attack Ukraine at every opportunity, and has created millions of Ukrainian internal and foreign refugees spread throughout Europe and the rest of the world.  Polling done after Trump’s recent attack on Zelenskyy shows the Ukrainian president with a 63% approval rating, up from the mid 50s prior to Trump’s predictable reciting of Kremlin-sourced lies.

The crisis in Ukraine nevertheless has direct parallels to the crisis in Czechoslovakia that led to the outbreak of World War II.  At the Munich Agreement of 30 September 1938, the United Kingdom, France, and fascist Italy surrendered the Sudetenland to Hitler in a move that the deluded leader of the UK assured everyone would preserve “peace for our time.”  Without a shot being fired, this agreement surrendered the Czechoslovakian army, one of the best trained and equipped armies in Europe.  It surrendered the considerable industrial and resource capacity of Czechoslovakia to Hitler.  It surrendered the natural fortress of the Sudetenland Mountains to Hitler, making it so much easier for him to undertake his attack on Poland less than a year later.  

Most important, though, is the moral surrender that the democratic states made to the German dictator.  Czechoslovakia had been the state in Central and Eastern Europe most committed to the democratic ideals articulated in the Versailles Treaty that ended World War I.  Czechoslovakia was a multi-national state made up of Czech speakers of various religious identities, Slovaks who were predominantly Catholic, and Germans who were concentrated largely in the Sudeten mountains that comprises most of the Czech border. The crisis of the 1930s drove the Slovaks and Sudeten Germans into the clutches of fascism.  The Slovakian region of the country strongly supported fascism, as did most of the Catholic nations in Europe. The lure of Hitler also attracted the Sudeten Germans, especially after the Austrians welcomed the Anschluss in March of 1938.

Like Putin with today’s Donbas Russians, Hitler never stopped telling lies about the horrific plight of Sudeten Germans living under the yoke of the “oppressive” Czechs.  Like Putin, Hitler was not a credible voice to lament the plight of ethnic minorities.  The surrender of Czechoslovakia in the Munich Agreement of 1938 set the world on a path into darkness from which it would take generations to recover.  The world faces a similar dilemma today.

An often-neglected aspect of the Munich appeasement of Hitler was the role played by the lesser powers in encouraging it.  The pernicious roles played by states such as Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania in the Munich agreement has direct parallels to the crisis in Ukraine today.

For years prior to 1938, Polish and Hungarian leaders had secretly planned and operated to achieve the partition of Czechoslovakia.  The two dictatorships had determined that democratic Czechoslovakia was not a viable state and began to work with Slovak leaders to help them demand independence from the “oppressive” Czechs.  Hitler and the Czechs were both aware of the damnable scheme.  Hitler exploited it.  The Czechs increasingly turned for assistance to anyone who would offer it.  That included Stalin’s Soviet Union. Prague’s preferred resolution of the conflict, though, would have been an ironclad commitment from France and Britain to declare war against Hitler in any act of aggression he might undertake against Czechoslovakia.

That, however, did not happen.  The weight of this betrayal was obvious to anyone willing to think about it seriously.  Chamberlain might have been deluded; the French were not.  French military attachés in Prague stopped wearing their unforms in public out of shame and disgust.  Thoughtful people in Europe had the same sense of loss and despair as expressed by Ambassador Heusgen at the more recent Munich betrayal.

Edvard Benes, president of Czechoslovakia at the time of the Munich Conference in 1938, turned to his last remaining potential ally.  Stalin was willing to transport troops and equipment to assist Czechoslovakia.  To do so, however, he would have to use the airspace of either Poland or Romania.  The Polish and Romanian dictators declared that any use of their airspace by Soviet planes would be considered an act of war.  The fascist dictator of Hungary encouraged the Poles and Romanians in this denial of assistance to Czechoslovakia.  Stalin was not in a position to risk war in order to assist Czechoslovakia.

Hitler fittingly awarded the Poles and Hungarians for their roles in carving up Czechoslovakia.  The Poles received a small region in the Beskids mountains.  The Hungarians were awarded lands in Slovakia over which they had maintained irredentist claims since the end of World War I.

Stalin and Hitler soon accomplished the previously unimaginable.   Chamberlain and others like him hoped their capitulation at Munich would encourage Hitler to maintain his expansionary focus toward the east.  They foresaw an inevitable and mutually destructive conflict between the lunatic fascist ideologue in Germany and the lunatic communist ideologue in the Soviet Union.   What they did not foresee was two nuanced statesmen with tactical options to realize strategic goals.  What they did not foresee was the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 23, 1939.  The invasion of Poland occurred a week later.  The Polish army lasted 17 days against the Blitzkrieg, at which time Stalin entered the territory agreed upon in the terms of the Pact.  Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania would join Italy, Finland and Germany as parts of the invasion of the Soviet Union as parts of Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941.

From Tragedy to Farce

It is beyond appalling, then, to see Hungary and more recently Slovakia pursue the same policy toward Putin’s aggression in Ukraine.  Hungary’s dictator, Viktor Orban, has for years been Putin’s dummy.   In a plan with direct parallels to what had transpired between Poland and Hungary prior to the Munich appeasement of 1938, Orban and the previous conservative government of Poland were reaching out to Putin to see how their countries might benefit from the destruction of Ukraine.  The purported plan had Poland and Hungary tacitly accepting Russian annexation of Crimea and the Donbas while Putin would silently agree to a Polish-Hungarian protectorate over the remaining Ukrainian rump state.  This “protectorate” would be absurdly promoted in the propaganda networks of the global plutocracy as a heroic intervention on the part of the Poles and Hungarians to save the poor Ukrainians.

Thanks to a fascinating division within the Polish conservative movement involving evident Israeli collusion with Russian interference in Polish politics, the Polish government is no longer aligned with Orban’s plan.  The government of Slovakia unfortunately appears to be drifting toward Putin’s camp, even though there is strong public resistance to it.  Romania is also under increased pressure from Moscow to betray Ukraine.  J.D. Vance and Elon Musk have recently stated their support for the unfettered ability of Russia to interfere in the recent elections in Romania as a matter of “free speech.”  Russian interference is, after all, how they came to power themselves.

This phony Polish-Hungarian protectorate would almost certainly have included access to the rare earth minerals that are currently the central feature of Trump’s plan to for a peace agreement. Zelenskyy may find it in the best interests of Ukraine to accept Trump’s extortionist plan.  It might provide Ukraine a much-needed respite from war even though it will require major yet momentary territorial concessions to Russia.  The deal may be negotiated in a way that does not subordinate Ukraine into a semi-colonial relationship with US corporations.  It will be just enough to make Trump appear to be the peacemaker and provide the momentary illusion that he is something other than Putin’s stooge.  Putin will publicly express his concerns over the deal.  Privately, he will express his approval to Trump.  Zelenskyy, meanwhile, will have bought time.  He knows that over time corrupt leaders will destroy themselves from the internal rot that they thrive upon.  This is the main theme of the TV series, Servant of the People. 

The End of the American Century

Trump sees himself as part of a triumvirate of world leaders dividing its spoils on a continental basis.  He is fully willing to see China’s influence expanded throughout Asia.  He wants to see Europe networked under far-right regimes aligned with Putin.  Finally, he sees the United States taking further control of land in the Americas.  The bizarre statements about annexing Canada and Greenland while retaking the Panama Canal are fully consistent with his support for Putin’s takeover of Ukraine.  What Trump and his followers are too stupid to understand is that the United States can only lose in such a reconfiguration of the global world order.  The American Century is rapidly coming to an end.

Historians frequently refer to the period after World War II as the American Century.  After World War II, Franklin Delano Roosevelt reconstructed the political economy of the world on terms extraordinarily favorable to the United States.  He created a world economic system in which the US dollar became the world’s foremost reserve currency at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944.  He worked to establish an effective system of international law in the United Nations charter.  For all its many faults, the UN provided a framework for the largely peaceful end of European colonial rule and the expansion of democratic governance throughout the world.  Most importantly, FDR established the US as a nation that embodied what a dynamic democratic society could accomplish in a well-regulated capitalist economy.  Despite its many flaws, the US represented an ideal that inspired the world.  It is this US ideal that Putin is destroying through his messenger Trump.

It is the death of this aspirational role of the United States in the world that caused so much trauma at the recent Munich Security Conference.  The conference’s lead official, Christoph Heusgen, abruptly ended his speech when he was overcome with emotion.   He said, “After the speech of Vice President Vance on Friday, we have to fear that our common value base is not that common anymore.”   Musk called the emotional display “pathetic” because he is a soulless zombie who worships the nihilistic god of his death cult.  

Heusgen did not cry out of fear or weakness but out of a sense of deep personal loss.  He cried because he saw the death of hope for a better Europe and a better world that had been founded in the “common value base” of his continent and the United States.  He cried because he truly believed in the best of what the United States had to offer the world.  Instead, we sent to Munich our very worst.  Our very worst will be representing us for the foreseeable future.  Our very worst will destroy the very ideal of America.

It is time for the citizens of the US to understand that what the America First campaign really means is America Alone.  China is rapidly filling the void created when DOGE effectively ended USAID programs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.  These USAID programs benefited the USA in ways that are not easily quantifiable.  For better and for worse, these programs are linked to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.  As such, USAID is linked to the global hegemony of the US dollar as the world’s currency of exchange.  This global role of the US dollar is what feeds Wall Street and what allows the US to run up such massive federal debt without major inflationary consequences.  Those days may be coming to an end.  The global plutocracy does not care.  They know that the biggest beneficiaries of hyperinflation are the richest of the rich, who will further consolidate their monopolies on the world’s resources while the gap between the world’s rich and poor grows even wider.  

A New Vision for Europe

The good news is that the rest of the democratic world is beginning to see the United States of Musk for what it is:  a global pariah indistinguishable from the Russian dictator Putin.  The new “conservative” German Chancellor said as much in statements since his election.  He has declared that Europe needs to move rapidly from its security reliance on the United States.  The inference from his statement is that Europe now recognizes that the USA is an effective ally of Russia.  

This movement away from the US received a big boost in the German elections.  While the neo-Nazi AfD dominated in the regions of the former communist portion of Germany and had the second largest number of votes among German political parties, it did not achieve the results hoped for by Musk and Moscow after their massive investment.  

These are authentically dark times, and no one should understate that.  However, the challenge for Europe is daunting but not insurmountable.  The sooner Europe cuts its ties with Trump’s America, the better.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy will continue to be the man of the hour, just as he has been the man of this decade.  He will continue to embody the principles of European identity that inspired the end of the Cold War.  He will continue to be a central figure in the formation of a United States of Europe whose core commitments to democratic governance and human freedom will inspire generations.

In the meantime, though, Zelenskyy will have to continue to lead the Ukrainian war effort.  As with all wars, this will likely necessitate his pursuing troublesome policies and engaging disturbing agreements with unsavory allies.  He may even find his way to making a raw materials agreement with Trump.  It is certain, though, that whatever decisions Zelenskyy makes will be done with the intention of accomplishing what is best for the long-term interests of Ukraine.  

It is also certain that whatever deal Trump makes with Ukraine will have been done with the tacit consent of Moscow, even if the terms of the agreement provide the momentary illusion that Trump is not working on behalf of Putin’s interests.  Trump and the entire Republican Party are nothing other than actors in Putin’s puppet show.

A Personal Note

Many years ago, when I was teaching in Eastern Europe, I had a student who over the course of time became a good friend.  We would sit around a table with pickled herring and vodka and discuss philosophy and politics for hours.  His favorite band, The Doors, would invariably be heard from his cassette player.  He would frequently cite by memory long passages from his sacred text, Catch 22.  

Opportunities outside of his motherland caused him to leave his childhood home.  In his new land, he met a Ukrainian woman who became his wife.  They had children.

We kept in touch over the years.  More than a year prior to the Russian invasion, he told me that Russia was going to invade and attempt to destroy Ukraine.  I told him he was being alarmist.

When the war broke out, he went to Ukraine to help in the war effort.  I have not heard from him in more than three years.  I admire him.  I miss him.  His wife and children do too.

This is what evil looks like.  Our president is evil.