Uprooting Demons of the Past

Abstract

This chapter argues that the contemporary global crisis can certainly be compared and contrasted with the periods to the early Cold War period, but it is closer to a mix of periods before both World War I and World War II. In essence, US/NATO/ European support for German unification may not have sparked global war as had been feared during the Cold War , but US/NATO/European support for Ukraine to regain full control over eastern Ukraine and Crimea could provoke war—or at least press Russia into an even closer alliance with China, while engaging in a new arms race . The present geostrategic and political-economic conflict in the Black Sea region can also be compared and contrasted with French claims to regain Alsace-Lorraine after the Imperial German annexation of that province in 1871 the pre-World War I period. The present crisis can likewise be compared and contrasted with Polish demands for a creation of an “Intermarium” group of states versus Soviet Russia in the interwar period. In the Asia-Pacific, Sino-Japanese-Korean conflict is best compared and contrasted with the late nineteenth-century conflicts in the Asia-Pacific that led to the 1894–1895 Sino-Japanese war more so than the conflicts in Asia that led to Japanese imperialism.