I read an interesting piece a few weeks ago on why Putin keeps calling the Ukrainian government a Nazi government. I don’t remember where I read it, or exactly what I read, but – as I think about it – the answer was quite simple: the Russian populace has been raised on hatred of the Nazis, so if you tell the Russians that the Ukrainians are Nazis, they will respond accordingly. Not very complicated (and not very different from Trump’s use of insults to tar subconsciously the reputation of anyone who isn’t himself).

But, of course, Israel being the favorite target of so many people, there are many who like to call the Israeli government Fascist, and there is a subset of those who like to call it Nazi. Well, I don’t think there is anything Nazi about the Israeli government – the 20+ percent of the country’s citizens who are not Jewish are not subject to a final solution or random government supported violence, the economy of Israel is certainly different from the economy of Hitler’s Germany, Israel is a multiparty parliamentary democracy and not a one party authoritarian state, free speech is not foreclosed, etc. 

But there is one similarity between the German people in the 1930s, and the Arabs living in Gaza, and many of those living in the West Bank, today. They want lebensraum – more land to live in than the land they have today. But there is a difference – in Germany, they really didn’t need any additional land. But for those living in already overcrowded Gaza, more land is definitely needed. They would like Israel to be part of that additional land, but that won’t give them any lebensraum; it is already the home of over 8 million people. So, eventually, the Gazan Palestinians will have to be able to freely leave their homeland for greener pastures (and almost every place is greener than Gaza).

Yes, the people of Gaza have something in common with the Nazi Germans. They also have something in common with the Jews who found themselves living under the Nazis. No other country, including their Egyptian neighbors, will let them in.

Now back to Ukraine. I need to stop listening to John Mearsheimer, but he seems to be staring at me whenever I go on YouTube with a new lecture or podcast almost every day. Sometimes more than once a day. And he depresses me, because he says things that are opposite of what I think or want, but he says it so well. Today, I heard a 20 minute interview where he again said that it is impossible for Ukraine to defeat Russia, that it was just a matter of time.

But then I discovered Michael Clarke, a British academic who has been a professor of defence studies at Kings College London, and the director of a number of related think tanks. What a breath of fresh air. He is now on my list of favorites. His position is much more open on the Russia-Ukraine War, and quite balanced on what is happening in Gaza.

The difference is, I think, that Mearsheimer thinks with a broad brush (if that makes sense) – he decides who will come out ahead, and then he will tell you every reason he can think of that supports his conclusion; he will not give you any opposing views at all. And he is short on details. Clarke, however, is filled with details – he can tell you precisely what weaponry Russia has, what defense armaments Ukraine possesses, how Russia directs and treats his troops, what those who oppose Zelenskyy politically are saying and so forth. He does not think with a broad brush, he analyzes the little details and, going from the bottom up, reaches his conclusions. And, yes, he speaks as well as Mearsheimer, and has the advantage of speaking with a British accent, which makes him sound that much more authoritative.

His forecast for 2024. Not really a forecast, but a warning. If, he says, the United States, Britain and Europe does not keep the commitments it made time and time again to Ukraine, Putin will win the war, promises to other nations who may find themselves under Russian threats will be ignored, and the balance of power world-wide will change. His analogy again was to the 1930s, when he said the world’s dictators all said that the problems with the democracies is that they could talk and talk and talk, but that they never did anything and therefore were held in contempt.

Mearscheimer says it differently. He is convinced (he is never equivocal) that the western democracies, obviously including the US, will keep losing interest in Ukraine and simply let it go. But he also says that this was obviously what would happen from the beginning, and that the Ukrainians were simply naive and fooled when they believed that the West would save them. He claims that Putin didn’t want war, that all of the Russian claims could have been negotiated at the beginning, and that – if the West hadn’t been intent on adding Ukraine to NATO, Putin would have done nothing, and Ukraine would still be whole, all of the destruction and casualties avoided.