Posted on 07/09/2025 1:25:18 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Americans all too often presume that everyone else aspires to live and think as we do. Others must share our values, if only in secret, or at least be eager to learn them. This is a dangerous attitude to take with any nation or culture, but perhaps especially so with Russians—and never more so than when the topic is war.
As Gregory Carleton observes in his superb 2017 study Russia: The Story of War, war is an indispensable part of how Russians see the world and their place in it. The extent to which World War II and all previous wars extending back a thousand years define Russian national identity is truly astonishing...
Reminders of war are everywhere in Russia. Newlyweds ritually place flowers on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow. I don’t know any American who can identify the day May 9, the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s surrender, but in Russia it is the most important holiday of the year, consecrated by the Russian Orthodox Church...which, even more than Russian Orthodox holidays, unites Russians of all social classes, believers and atheists alike
Wars figure in American history, of course, but they do not define what it is to be an American. (A partial exception may once have been the Civil War in the imagination of some Southerners.)
To appreciate the Russian perspective, we should consider some basic historical facts. Americans were profoundly shocked by our loss of more than 50,000 soldiers in the Vietnam War; in World War II, the toll was approximately 450,000.
Now contrast that with historical memory in Russia. It is impossible to know the Soviet death toll from 1941 to 1945, but it was surely greater than 20 million...Only 3 percent of Russian men born between 1923 and 1924 survived the war...
(Excerpt) Read more at commentary.org ...
You don't mean this.
After the Allies landed at Normandy, just 15% of the Wehrmacht was committed to the Western Front; everything else was in the East, fighting the advancing Russians.
It is sad.
That is false.
The Second world war STARTED with the Russians being allies of Nazi Germany, and together the Russians and Germans invaded Poland.
The Russianwere allies of Nazi Germany for 2 years supplying Hitler with the oil and gas his war machine needed to invade western Europe.
In 1944, in the east what happened was that one tyrant - Nazi Germany- was defeated by another tyrant, Soviet Russia. For people east of the iron wall, world war two ended onky in 1990 when the Russian yoke was removed
Muscowy has been invaded 4 times:
1200s by the Mongols who ruled it for 300 years
1610 by the Poles and the Polish king was briefly crowned Tsar
1812 by Napoleon
1941 by their erstwhile ally, Nazi Germany
That means they worship war, right?
Read my first comment on this, in post #2 above
“I don’t know any American who can identify the day May 9, the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s surrender, but in Russia it is the most important holiday of the year”
Given what the Nazis had planned for the Soviet peoples I don’t have a problem with them making it a big deal.
The Nazis were Russia’s allies for the first two years of the war.
Do you know that Russia started the wat as an ally of the Nazis and they were allies for the first two years of the war?
Did you know that Russia was losing in 1942 until American weapons helped the russians turn the tide?
Russia is still a nation of serfs and peasants.
The current version of the nobility covets the USSR and longs to recreate it. The nobility fears Europe. Ukraine must be taken to provide a buffer to allow time to repel the coming European armies.
I think you mean the P-39 Airacobra, not the P-40.
Yes. Thanks!
Until very recently, Japanese and Chinese culture were based on the structure of feudalism and warfare.
I guess you live up north.
America had nothing to do with it.
My post #55 was in reply to a post by Secon-Econ, post #30. Secon-Econ said “since WWII.” So, I limited myself to war since WWII.
For the most part, online activists who malign Putin are followers of Saul Alinsky who think it might advance their low IQ agenda.
Alinsky, in his mentally deficient teachings, induced his followers to personalize their politics. He felt a need to fabricate something—anything—to advance his low IQ belief system since it has nothing of substance in its own right.
For the most part, online activists who worship Putin are followers of Saul Alinsky who think it might advance their low IQ agenda.
Alinsky, in his mentally deficient teachings, induced his followers to personalize their politics. He felt a need to fabricate something—anything—to advance his low IQ belief system since it has nothing of substance in its own right.
Ok
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