The war in Vietnam tore the country apart. White kids wanted no part of it, and they let it be known on streets and campuses.
The war in Ukraine, in contrast, has sparked few if any middle-class outrages in the U.S. Having no American troops there helps in that regard.
Both wars share a couple of things in common. First, they were and are events separated from us by mighty oceans. Second, both have — or had — the domino effect written large all over them.
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In the case of Vietnam, when Ted Kennedy managed to freeze all funding for South Vietnam after Henry Kissinger had forged a peace settlement, the North swooped in.
The result — not just from Saigon’s downfall but from the war in general — were the Killing Fields of Cambodia and the spread of communism in Southeast Asia.
In the case of Ukraine, the closest parallel on European soil is Czechoslovakia in 1938. Adolph Hitler had reclaimed the Sudetenland, which he claimed was racially German anyway.
In the case of Czechoslovakia, Britain’s Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, forged a peace treaty with Hitler to confine his ambitions to the Sudetenland, declaring, “peace for our time.”
That “forever peace” didn’t last very long, however. Hitler was on the march again within a year, and World War II had begun.
If Ukraine falls to Russia, which by most accounts seems likely unless Putin gives up or agrees to some sort of peace deal, Poland and the Baltics could be next on Putin’s radar.
Trump has been trying to play Kissinger in Ukraine, but he’s on the slippery slope of becoming the Neville Chamberlain of the 21st Century. Putin may well agree to a deal, only to continue his march months later with even more relentless ambition.
European leaders seem as afraid of Putin as they were of Hitler, and Trump is hell-bent on winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
To me, that combination doesn’t bode well for a real solution to the Ukrainian onslaught.
[PICTURED: President Trump with European leaders and Ukraine’s Zelenskyy discussing ways to peace at the White House]
