In search for analogies to make a mess out of the new European situation

We could be making a quantum leap into a new stage of Using Analogies Badly To Create Disastrous Foreign Policy Decisions.

Step 1: Take an airhead version of the Munich Analogy: Any concession whatsoever to any potentially aggressive country inevitably leads to world war!

Step 2: Remember “Yalta” (1) in the McCarthyist chronic-warmonger version: Commie-loving Democrat liberals are giving away Europe to the Rooskies!

Step 3: Pick some country and start bombing it: Canada, Panama, Denmark, wherever.

See how easy that is?

Of course, it will require some finessing to make the Yalta one work because the hardcore warmongers are currently split between Trumpista isolationist America Firsters and neocons who think Trump is the Chamberlain-appeaser of the moment.

Of course, when Trump’s (apparent) attempt to make some Grand Bargain with Russia to oppose China falls apart due to his Administration’s own diplomatic and negotiating incompetence, then the Yalta one will have to be dropped or repurposed.

Shrub Bush gave us a neocon version of the Munich-Yalta-Hitler Analogy in 2005: "The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable." (2)

I may start leaving this link on every post I make vaguely related to Ukraine: “Munich” and the Russia-Ukraine War 02/15/2025.

Here’s a more reality-based discussion of the shift in US-Russia relations that has analogies falling sloppily all over the place: (3)

Former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who generally takes a hardnosed look at what is happening in the world, recently described his current view this way:

When Donald Trump won the US presidential election last November, European elites apparently thought that the United States would become a little more isolationist, a bit more nationalist. But otherwise, continuity would prevail. Trump would demand that Europe pay more for its defense, but NATO – and the all-important US security guarantee for Europe – would survive.

Today, following senior US officials’ flurry of appearances at major European summits, we know that this was a grand error. Trump wants nothing less than a complete rupture with the rules and alliances that generations of US policymakers painstakingly and successfully built in the decades after World War II. From now on, Russia, not the European Union, will be America’s close partner. It is no longer the solidarity of democracies that counts in Washington, but the agreement of autocratic rulers of global powers; might once again prevails over law. …

[T]his is what Trump’s vision of international order looks like: back to spheres of influence, with great powers dictating the fates of smaller countries. It is a vision that delights Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, because it aligns perfectly with their authoritarianism and neoimperial ambitions. [my emphasis] (4)

It’s always worth being cautious about equating internal regime types with foreign policy behavior. Russia and China are big powers momentarily closely aligned with each other. But the nature of their internal regimes are different. And as important as internal influences may be on foreign policy, the nature of the regime (democratic, electoral autocracy, dictatorship, etc.) does not dictate that similar regimes will follow near-identical approaches to foreign policy.

Notes:

(1)Bremmer, Ian (2025): A new Yalta? GZERO Media 02/19/2025. <https://substack.gzeromedia.com/p/a-new-yalta> (Accessed: 2025-20-02).(1)

(2) Fuchs, Michael (2025): Yalta: Bush’s Shifting Blame Game. Center for American Progress 05/31/2025. <https://www.americanprogress.org/article/yalta-bushs-shifting-blame-game/01> (Accessed: 2025-20-02).

(3) Trump and Putin - a new alliance to weaken Europe? DW News YouTube channel 02/20/2025. <https://youtu.be/Ob1x5S_6R2A?si=NmwGxnxOfOCvzIu9> (Accessed: 2025-20-02).

(4) Fischer, Joschka (2025): Trump’s Surprise Attack on Europe. Project Syndicate 02/18/2025. <https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-surprise-attack-on-europe-by-joschka-fischer-2025-02> (Accessed: 2025-20-02).