Slightly more than 86 years ago, on September 17, 1939, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany. This was the outcome of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed on September 1, 1939, an agreement that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union would remain neutral toward each other and there was also a secret protocol dividing Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres. Other Europeans did nothing then or before when they could have contained Germany following its defeat in World War I and limited its rearmament.

With Allied victory in 1945, the Soviets moved quickly to integrate Poland into their sphere of control, and this continued for decades until the Soviet Union collapsed. The first democratic Polish parliamentary elections were held in October 1991, completing the country’s transition from communist party rule to a Western democratic political system.

Putin has since dreamed of reconstituting Greater Russia as a recognized global power, and with it, bring former satellite countries under its control. Thus, his probing with drones in Poland is consistent with Putin’s aspirations. If you are Polish, you see the parallels now to what happened in 1939. Ironically, this time it is Russia acting as Germany did and the West more likened to devious Nazi Germany.

Yes, there does exist NATO with its Article 4 commitment to mutual response, e.g., an attack on any member to be treated as an attack on all. But nowadays the Europeans look weak, much like they did in 1939, and Trump is the twenty-first-century version of Neville Chamberlain, finding any fig leaf to avoid war, unwilling to confront Putin on Ukraine, or anywhere.

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Putin is feeling more brazen because he thinks Trump is weak, easily flattered, and can be bought, all of which means there is no reason to fear him. As is a typical Trump gambit, blaming the previous Administration and  deflection, he is doing so now in putting greater demands on the Europeans before he will consider acting.

And Putin learned from Hitler in other ways: for example, the usefulness in assembling other countries with reasons to challenge those who oppose him; today for Putin, China is his Japan, Belorussia his Italy, and so forth. Putin has his nuclear arsenal and hypersonic missiles; Hitler had his V-2 rocket and almost an atomic bomb.

In short, one can only hope that history does not repeat itself, that a more balanced and stable international order is in our future.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of Impakter.com — In the Cover Photo: Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk. Cover Photo Credit: NATO / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0