When the attacks of 9-11 came as a bolt out of the blue, I recall numerous analogies to Pearl Harbour. A comparison both irrelevant and dangerous all at the same time.
Good article. I enjoyed reading it very much. It certainly got me thinking. Mark Twain once said, "history doesn't repeat itself, but people often do—for better or for worse". I think this is the case people clothe themselves in analogies to justify their own actions. We imagine we are fighting the Soviet Union, Putin thinks he's the new Czar. Both are wrong and dangerous illusions.
Analogies about Russia today are mostly made to the Soviet Union, which for those of us "blessed" with being able to read and listen to Russian and had to listen through Putin's speeches we know this is not the case. Imagining this is the Soviet Union is wrong.
Putin has covered himself in the mantle of being the heir of the Czarist state, glorifying and even sanctifying the last Czar. This is much more dangerous than the Soviet State as the Czar's economy was backward in the extreme and there was little in the way of industry and development. What information we have indicates half the children died before becoming adult, a tiny minority could read and generally the infrastructure was non-existent for most of the country.
Russia was unable to defend itself under the Czar which was bad enough but it was also constantly making trouble for the rest of Europe. The Soviet Union had some economic development, mostly thanks to their ability to take the risk of getting loans and technical expertise from the West to develop their economy. The Czar was too afraid of foreign influence to dare.
30 years after the Fall of the Soviet Union even the economy starts to look like it did under the Czars. Industry is wiped out except for oil and gas. The Russian state now is highly dependent on the revenues from its ownership of several oil and gas corporations. The governments revenue is 39% from this source and the Russian economy owes 25% of its GDP solely to this sector (Mitrova & Melnikov, 2019). Europe is also highly dependent on the delivery of those resources, roughly 40% of gas and 25% of oil is Russian. In turn, Russia is highly dependent on the European market, taking just over 50% of its oil and gas (Rauhala, Noack, & Guinan-Bank, 2022).
Really interesting. I wonder how much change, progress and connectedness in the past few decades has reduced the ability of analogies to predict the future well.
This was an insightful tour through early 20th century but I’d also suggest it’s worthwhile to consider more recent history. Many may notice that those now most loudly clamoring for regime change in Russia have been regime change enthusiasts for the past several decades; perhaps we should examine their record and how they’ve contended with the law of unintended consequences. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine and others have all been dramatically meddled with in the hopes of spurring the growth of stable democratic capitalist societies. The results of these experiments have been mixed at best and now the foreign policy establishment’s end goal for Russia is what? The overthrow of Putin? Are we confident that who comes after will be good? Do we understand the breadth of effect the sanctions will have on the global economy or the existing economic order?
Colin Powell supposedly told the Bush administration that invading Iraq was subject to the Pottery Barn rule: you break it you own it. I pray to god these people know what they’re doing but I do not hold high hopes that they do.
I picked a few easy analogies because they're fun, I think. The exercise you're suggesting would be quite helpful -- and it points to a different way to use history, which is to look for patterns. That's a trickier subject I'll write much about in future.
When the attacks of 9-11 came as a bolt out of the blue, I recall numerous analogies to Pearl Harbour. A comparison both irrelevant and dangerous all at the same time.
Good article. I enjoyed reading it very much. It certainly got me thinking. Mark Twain once said, "history doesn't repeat itself, but people often do—for better or for worse". I think this is the case people clothe themselves in analogies to justify their own actions. We imagine we are fighting the Soviet Union, Putin thinks he's the new Czar. Both are wrong and dangerous illusions.
Analogies about Russia today are mostly made to the Soviet Union, which for those of us "blessed" with being able to read and listen to Russian and had to listen through Putin's speeches we know this is not the case. Imagining this is the Soviet Union is wrong.
Putin has covered himself in the mantle of being the heir of the Czarist state, glorifying and even sanctifying the last Czar. This is much more dangerous than the Soviet State as the Czar's economy was backward in the extreme and there was little in the way of industry and development. What information we have indicates half the children died before becoming adult, a tiny minority could read and generally the infrastructure was non-existent for most of the country.
Russia was unable to defend itself under the Czar which was bad enough but it was also constantly making trouble for the rest of Europe. The Soviet Union had some economic development, mostly thanks to their ability to take the risk of getting loans and technical expertise from the West to develop their economy. The Czar was too afraid of foreign influence to dare.
30 years after the Fall of the Soviet Union even the economy starts to look like it did under the Czars. Industry is wiped out except for oil and gas. The Russian state now is highly dependent on the revenues from its ownership of several oil and gas corporations. The governments revenue is 39% from this source and the Russian economy owes 25% of its GDP solely to this sector (Mitrova & Melnikov, 2019). Europe is also highly dependent on the delivery of those resources, roughly 40% of gas and 25% of oil is Russian. In turn, Russia is highly dependent on the European market, taking just over 50% of its oil and gas (Rauhala, Noack, & Guinan-Bank, 2022).
I can’t remember who said it, but history does not repeat itself, but rhymes.
Really interesting. I wonder how much change, progress and connectedness in the past few decades has reduced the ability of analogies to predict the future well.
Super question. No idea what the answer is beyond a hunch.
This was an insightful tour through early 20th century but I’d also suggest it’s worthwhile to consider more recent history. Many may notice that those now most loudly clamoring for regime change in Russia have been regime change enthusiasts for the past several decades; perhaps we should examine their record and how they’ve contended with the law of unintended consequences. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine and others have all been dramatically meddled with in the hopes of spurring the growth of stable democratic capitalist societies. The results of these experiments have been mixed at best and now the foreign policy establishment’s end goal for Russia is what? The overthrow of Putin? Are we confident that who comes after will be good? Do we understand the breadth of effect the sanctions will have on the global economy or the existing economic order?
Colin Powell supposedly told the Bush administration that invading Iraq was subject to the Pottery Barn rule: you break it you own it. I pray to god these people know what they’re doing but I do not hold high hopes that they do.
I picked a few easy analogies because they're fun, I think. The exercise you're suggesting would be quite helpful -- and it points to a different way to use history, which is to look for patterns. That's a trickier subject I'll write much about in future.