Adolf Hitler wanted a Third Reich — a third grand empire. So does Vladimir Putin. He hopes his Russian Federation can recover the lands lost when the Tsarist Empire collapsed in 1917 and the Soviet in 1991.
The Soviet population in 1990 was 280 million — half of them non-Russian. After the breakup, Russia still is the world’s largest state by geographical extent, but now has only 144 million people, not half the US total (336 million and growing) and not one-eighth of India or China. Putin kills his young men, or forces them into exile, even as Russia faces a demographic crisis.
Hitler’s Third Reich lasted about seven years from the point where it annexed Austria in 1938 to his suicide in May 1945. So far Putin’s forces continue to occupy a sliver of Moldova; two provinces still legally belonging to Georgia; several parts of Ukraine’s Donbas; and all of Crimea, which had been transferred in 1954 from Russia to Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev.
Hitler’s grand vision for Germany ended in disaster. His Wehrmacht reached as far as Stalingrad and then retreated. Its achievements? It flattened many countries and killed more than 50 million soldiers and civilians, both German and foreign. In 1945 Germany was occupied by four of the countries it had attacked.
After a few years, West Germany evolved into a prosperous democracy allied with its NATO partners. Instead of the racist robots cultivated by Hitler, most Germans respected human rights and only reluctantly armed again to defend against potential aggressors. East Germany, long ruled by communist tyrants, evolved more slowly but in 1990 joined a united Germany. Instead of leading a Third Reich ruling and exploiting its neighbors, Germany became a leader of the free world.
If Vladimir Putin considered Hitler’s aims and his failures, the Russian President would find a way to cut short his overreach in Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine, and other regions of what was the Soviet empire. The basic lesson of history is that exploitation does not pay. It may bring some immediate rewards but tends to backfire — more quickly now than in earlier times because technology speeds up everything in our interdependent world.
Most people in the erstwhile European empires and Japan live better now than when they ruled much of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, or the Americas. Mutual gain is a healthier and happier orientation than exploitation.
Instead of fighting rebels in its colonies, Portugal now trades and cooperates with its former subject peoples. Many former possessions now treat Portuguese as an official language. Besides Portugal, Lusophones include Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe, while Portuguese is a co-official language in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau.
The United States would probably be more prosperous if it did not feel obliged to help defend the Philippines, Taiwan, Ukraine, and its European and Asian-Pacific allies, but its overseas presence is mainly a response to security concerns, with economics playing a subordinate role. Despite the Iraq war, Americans are not keen on running other people’s countries.
Russia and its people would be better off if they gave up any dream of a third empire and focused instead on human and social development at home. While Russian troops die and expend resources attacking Kharkiv, permafrost is melting across Siberia undermining infrastructure and poisoning the environment. Canada, the USA, and other countries face similar challenges, but on a smaller scale.
What if Moscow just gave up on aggression and joined in collaboration to address our many shared problems? Why not, you know, give peace a chance?
Walter C. Clemens is an Associate at the Harvard Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Boston University. He wrote Blood Debts: What Putin and Xi Jinping Owe Their Victims (Westphalia, 2023).
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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