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The World Has Put Harsh ‘Sanctions’ on a War-Hungry Nation Before

As much as I hate the “everything bad is a Nazi” comparisons, unfortunately, it may fit here. I won’t even go into Germany’s fixation on Ukraine, although it is an interesting parallel.

After World War I, the world placed harsh sanctions on Germany for its aggression during the Great War. Those sanctions were enacted in the Treaty of Versailles and put Germany under debt it found impossible to surmount. Sure, it took the Great Depression to sink Germany into the morass that birthed the Nazis, but the weak German economy before then was easily blamed on the treaty and those that forced it upon the German people. The financial actions taken by the world were intended to punish Germans for the acts of their leaders, but in the end, punished Europe and Russia as badly.

Would the Third Reich have grown out of Germany’s ashes had the Versailles Treaty’s sanctions been less harsh or the depression not pushed them over the edge? That’s hard to say, but a disastrous economy gave someone like Adolf Hitler all the ammunition he needed to get Germans to consider what the world had ‘done to them’ and that they should want to fight back – and so they did.

What happens when the everyday life of Russians turns back into bread lines, soup kitchens, crappy apartments, and poverty after they’ve experienced the lives they have today? How bad do things get if, after these sanctions, a new recession – which is a very likely possibility – hits? What happens when they decide to direct their anger at someone or something? Will it be at Putin or the west? Even if it is Putin, could that anger give rise to someone or something even more evil?

Putin is power-hungry, but he knows that war with NATO will end him – so he plays the brinkmanship game that Kruschev and countless other Russian leaders have shown him. Push the world to the edge of global conflict where they will cede just about anything to avoid crossing over into outright war. Kim Jong-un and Iran’s Mullahs also know this game well. That’s where the world is now.

It’s a tough place to be for the rest of Europe. If they go too deep on sanctions and create a devil worse than Putin, then what? If they don’t go harsh enough, how much will Putin take before they have to go further?

All of this largely depends on Putin’s intentions and willingness to wager his country’s wealth on expansion. Then again, maybe his country’s wealth is in such decline that he has no choice but to expand.

I struggle to think of a single case where an expansionist, warring, dictator was stopped by financial punishment. It has always taken violence of action to stop that aggression. Always.

I don’t want war and could never advocate for it, but as Einstein is quoted as saying:

“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”

The question now is – what is the definition of ‘anything’?

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Rich Mitchell

Rich Mitchell is the editor-in-chief of Conservative Daily News and the president of Bald Eagle Media, LLC. His posts may contain opinions that are his own and are not necessarily shared by Bald Eagle Media, CDN, staff or .. much of anyone else. Find him on twitter, facebook and

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2 Comments

  1. An article written from a highly propagandized state of mind.

    I tire of people harkening to the same old narratives from the same fake-news media they have come to despise and recognize as liars and propagandists without limit, to the depths of evil they will go to, in order to manipulate our minds to achieve the overthrow of all good.

    Putin bad? Russia evil? Give me a break… no, just break my neck now and put me out of my misery having to endlessly endure your for-granted acceptance of the establishment’s long-perpetrated narrative of Putin and Russia that makes ignorant Americans believe that not only is Russia still the communist bastion of the USSR, but that Putin is actually Stalin in disguise. (As evidence for this, just go look at the comments sections of a myriad of news and social media outlets reporting on the Ukraine War.)

    You say Russia is bad? Tell me some factual evidence from an objective, qualitive source that is NOT the media/news? Name Russia’s great evils since the fall of communist Russia 30 years ago?

    Putin is evil? Without regard to his past association with the Communist USSR, point me to objective historical evidence–again, not from media/news propaganda–that evidences what Putin has done so evil all this time since becoming president of Russia? Especially to warrant the hysteria and fact-less repetitions of his de-facto damnation as a human being?

    You all have heard the mantras so often, repeated them so frequently, failed to ever question, never asked for proof, refrained from researching the facts yourself, so often, so frequently, your level of brainwash totally prevents you from even considering the faintest hint of a suggestion that you are merely repeating your programming or ignorant of basic facts.

    I could write an essay teaching you a myriad of truths about Russia that would bunker-bust your beliefs if you had even a modicum of objectivity and open to truth, rather than being a brainwashed mocking bird for the establishment agenda. Since I know your programming is complete, I won’t bother wasting my time.

    The truth is in the open. When you have reached a point that you are willing to open your eyes and see, the truth will begin to reveal itself to you. But as long as you just accept the narrative as for-granted facts, you will remain in your ignorance, doomed to perpetuate the lies of your masters.

    1. The entire op-ed, while opinion, was based on historical fact. I didn’t even focus on Putin, so I’m not sure what you’re going after. The Baltics have been the source of wars for a very long time.

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