A Bad Deal, 80 Years Ago

Townhall.com ^ | August 15, 2019 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Kaslin]

Some 80 years ago, on Aug. 23, 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, formally known as the "Treaty of non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

The world was shocked — and terrified — by the agreement. Western democracies of the 1930s had counted on the huge resources of Communist Russia, and its hostility to the Nazis, to serve as a brake on Adolf Hitler's Western ambitions. Great Britain and the other Western European democracies had assumed that the Nazis would never invade them as long as a hostile Soviet Union threatened the German rear.

The incompatibility between communism and Nazism was considered by all to be existential — and permanent. That mutual hatred explained why dictators Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin both despised and feared each other.

Yet all at once, such illusions vanished with the signing of the pact. Just seven days later, on Sept. 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. World War II had begun.

After quickly absorbing most of Eastern Europe by either coercion or alliance, Hitler was convinced that he now had a safe rear. So he turned west in spring 1940 to overrun Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, and the Netherlands.

Hitler accomplished all that relatively easily, failing only to conquer Great Britain with an exhaustive bombing campaigning.

During all these Nazi conquests, a compliant Stalin shipped huge supplies of food and fuel for the German war effort against the West. Stalin cynically had hoped that Germany and the Western democracies would wear themselves out in a wasting war — similar to the four horrific years in the trenches of the Western Front during World War I.

[nathanbedford]

Frankly I am bewildered by both of your replies.

The Spanish Civil War found Stalin's forces more closely aligned with the Western democracies in that struggle against the Nazis. Why that situation would incline Stalin to make pact with Germany is not clear to me.

It is my understanding that rather than Molotov flying to the West, Ribbentrop flew to Berlin while the emissaries of France and Great Britain were taking a slow boat to St. Petersburg and so they missed that date with destiny when Molotov stole the march on them.

I do not understand why Britannica would necessarily be biased in favor of putting Great Britain in a bad light? Anyway, there are several sources for this view, Kissinger to the contrary notwithstanding.

If Stalin was well aware of Hitler's aggressive designs against Russia, why would that impel him to make the pact? He made the pact in spite of that knowledge because he had so little respect for the Western powers, as I noted in my first reply and with which you seem to take issue.

Finally, there is a great controversy about whether Stalin actually apprehended the danger from Germany at least that the danger was imminent. Additionally, Stalin, if he apprehended the full dimension of the threat from Germany, needed more buffer space between him and Germany which the pact provided him.

[AlanGreenSpam]

-—”Many of us on these threads think it is “cool” to break up NATO. Nothing could be further from the interests of the United States whose real interests lie in reforming NATO just as our real interests lie in reforming the EU. We need Europe as a counterweight to an axis which is already forming between Russia and China.”

Actually, you’re not figuring in the demographic future of the EU.

Due to Merkel’s unfortunate importation of millions of mostly angry young Muslim males who believe in Sharia Law - Europe will be an Islamic-controlled region. France is already 9% Muzzie. As it is a democracy, we can expect a Muzzie ruler of France within one or two generations based on the prolific breeding of Muzzies compared to the French. That means an Islamic nuclear power in the middle of Europe with missiles pointed at the US.

Russia will likely be our last hope for the continent.

My thinking is that we should give the EU (sans the UK) to Russia and let Putin strong-arm the Muzzies. The EU are too cowardly and politically-correct to deal with their Muzzie problem. Putin cares not about political correctness.

The thinking that Russia will forever be an enemy is an old-school Cold War perspective. We have more in common with Russia than most people think, especially relative to Islamic culture.

[NorseViking]

By 1939 the situation on the ground was different. The Spanish War was history.
Common front was needed against Hitler but Western Europe didn’t want it.
The pact was a way for Stalin to win time and get ready and as you correctly said to aquire a buffer zone between USSR and Germany in absence of the will from the West to form any alliance with him.
The pact was purely a defensive measure.
One of the consequences was that Hitler had his hands free to turn to the West.
We can only speculate what could be the result if there was an alliance between UK, France and USSR but it is very likely that the pact between USSR and Germans didn’t take place and the whole story to unfold very differently.

[Rummyfan]

A bad deal for whom?

It gave Hitler and The Reich the use of a free hand against the Western European democracies by neutering any threat from the USSR until such time as Germany decided to turn eastward. It also gave Stalin over a year to beef up the Red Army, which had been decimated by his purges throughout the thirties.

[NorseViking]

Pretty much that.

[nathanbedford]

See my reply #18 in which I said:

I think Germany's problem will be the demographic wave which now appears to be inexorable that show a Muslim takeover in my children's lifetime. If that occurs, Germany will have more on his plate than its energy policy.

But I take your point, I did not connect the dots and come to the proper conclusion which you rightly did. It might well be that the arithmetic is inexorable and Europe is lost with Russia and the Eastern Bloc countries being our only stalwart partners.

I think that might have been behind Trump's thinking when he appointed Rex Tillerson his first Secretary of State, a man with known intimate relationship with Putin. As I wrote at the time, Russia is the geographical key to the China/Russia/German landmass and threat as well as the Islamist Middle East but even so there is much Russia has fundamentally in common with the USA.

The problem: the immediate need of Russia is money which it can acquire by selling minerals and petroleum to China which has a great thirst for oil and plenty of money at the moment. Our leverage is minimal except the sanctions and tariffs already in place or which might be in place after Christmas.

[alternatives?]

Other than Germany, is there anything of much value in NATO?

[Bringbackthedraft]

Their nearest source of oil is over 1,000 miles away........................ Was Norway pushed further north?

[Jim Noble]

Funny. Russia grabbed eastern Poland and Germany western Poland. But only Germany was declared war against

And only Eastern Poland stayed grabbed.

[LS]

Norway can’t begin to support Germany’s needs. I’m talkin’ the Russkies.

[LS]

Japan is collapsing. It also will become much more dangerous as it runs out of people.

[dfwgator]

Only thing about the cartoon, is I think Hitler would have been more appropriate as the "bride".

[dfwgator]

Technically Russia broke it when they invaded Finland.

[dfwgator]

Stalin was itching to get back at Poland for what happened in 1920.

[nathanbedford]

Europe has an equivalent economy and population to the United States. To the degree that NATO holds Europe together it acts as a buffer for democracy. Buffer? Yes, there is a difference between isolationism and being isolated. We must never allow ourselves to be isolated because the left in America will simply go tits up and surrender the country to whichever rival knocks on the door such as Islamists or China.

That is not to say that we should be indifferent to the perils of overextension of our far-flung commitments. We must start by rigorously calculating what is in American interests and distinguish where we are not acting in our interests but are being played by constituents.

We must be aware that in a generation Europe, or vast regions of it, might become Islamist. But we also should recognize the geographical advantages of controlling the North Atlantic, the North Sea and the Mediterranean not to mention the landmass. I am not yet willing to give up on Great Britain.

Rather than abandon NATO, it would be well to reform NATO which might be possible after the exit of Angela Merkel especially if the Russian bear over plays his hand.

[dfwgator]

It was actually a good thing that France fell, at least keeping the British armed forces intact, and also Germany free to attack Russia.

The worst-case scenario, was another long, dragged out war of attrition in the West, which would have bled the Western armies dry, leaving all of Europe easy pickings for the Red Army.

[nathanbedford]

In the age of Moore's law I don't know how a nation runs out of people.

But I can well understand how a nation is swallowed by the appetite of its welfare recipients.

[LS]

Easy. There are only so many jobs robots can do. Robots don’t invent, they don’t innovate, and they don’t manage. They have zero artistic creativity. There goes the whole marketing, engineering, sports, music and other industries.

Take a look at Peter Zeihan.

You wouldn’t want to be in Japan right now, welfare or not.

[NorseViking]

That sounds great if you aren’t Bielorussian, Polish or Russian. Millions more people in the East had a chance to live in this case.

[dfwgator]

A lot of Poles died at the hands of the Russians, so I would not say it saved millions of Polish lives.