While no historical analogies are ever perfect, there are some noteworthy similarities between the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and Vladimir Putin, although not for the reasons some pundits are suggesting.

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

 – Mark Twain

Bismarck, the 19th century German statesman from a landowning Junker family, may never have appeared shirtless astride a horse, or photographed saving a television crew from a Siberian tiger, but there is more to the story between he and Vladimir Putin than first meets the eye.

Much like the Russian leader from a later epoch, Bismarck, the fervent anti-liberal who held sway over Prussia from 1871 to 1890, found it a matter of existential importance to bring his own people, the Germans, together in common ‘statehood.’ But whereas Bismarck’s empire-building initiatives led to a string of successful wars against Denmark, Austria and France, Putin’s nation-building efforts were necessarily focused on long-simmering internal problems, which had the potential, if not defused, to bring post-communist Russia to its knees.

A comparison between Bismarck and Putin was made last month by the columnist George F. Will. Unsurprisingly, however, Will, writing in the pages of The Washington Post, used his analogy to support the perennial ‘Russia the Aggressor’ narrative, suggesting that Putin would move to conquer other countries after ‘demilitarizing’ and ‘denazifying’ Ukraine.

“The Baltic nations — Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, all NATO nations — should worry,” he warned.

Such a groundless and reckless claim, aside from stoking Russophobia, flies in the face of everything that Putin has stood for during the duration of his presidency. Moreover, it ignores the fact that the Russian leader has already fought his ‘wars,’ so to speak.

While Bismarck was initially compelled to fight against foreign adversaries, Putin’s priority, in addition to taming the oligarchs who had practically taken over the Kremlin in the 1990s, was to end the war in Chechnya, which had its start in 1994 under his predecessor Boris Yeltsin. Just around the time this conflict in the North Caucasus was coming to an end, in 2008, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili made the reckless decision to launch a military offensive on the breakaway state of South Ossetia. The unprovoked attack, which occurred while Putin was serving as prime minister, resulted in the death of several Russian peacekeepers and culminated in a brief war between Russia and Georgia that ended swiftly on the side of the former. This conflict was followed seven years later with Moscow’s intervention in Syria, which began in September 2015 with an official request from Damascus to help defeat the terrorist fforces of Islamic State. Up until the launching of Moscow’s special operation in Ukraine, those wholly defensive campaigns had been the extent of Russia’s so-called ‘aggression.’

What Will fails to understand in the course of his comparison is that Bismarck, who expressed his personal revulsion to war on many occasions, was no ‘neocon’ as it were. The shrewd chancellor, after putting his enemies in check, was the driving force behind an age of peace on the European continent that lasted for two decades. In that respect, a comparison could be made between ‘the Putin Doctrine’, as it were, and the realpolitik of Bismarck.

Here is a quote by the historian Eric Hobsbawm as he describes Bismarck: “He remained undisputed world champion at the game of multilateral diplomatic chess for almost twenty years … [and] devoted himself exclusively, and successfully, to maintaining peace between the powers.”

Sound familiar? Any reader who has not been thoroughly brainwashed by the mainstream media and its kneejerk anti-Russia stance will quickly see that that description also aptly applies to Putin and his judicious approach to foreign affairs over the duration of his tenure. The prediction here is that (unbiased) future historians will be writing much the same words about the Russian leader, whose defensive actions in Ukraine, for example, will be viewed as absolutely warranted in face of the existential threats they countered. But I digress.

The WaPo columnist also conflates the ‘mindset’ of modern, democratic Russia with that of the sprawling Soviet Union and its 15 republics. Since the collapse of the communist empire in 1991, and certainly long before then, the Russian people have had no appetite for ‘empire-building’ adventures, unless, perhaps, it is employed as a boardroom strategy for some business expansion. Russia is a full-blown ‘capitalist democracy,’ abundant in natural resources, human talent and lebensraum (‘living space’), and as such has absolutely no need – regardless what the pundits would have everyone believe – for wars of expansion.

With regards to Crimea, which voted in March 2014 to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation, Will was noticeably agitated that Moscow deferred to the late U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and his self-styled concept of “self-determination” as a universal right and “an imperative principle of action” to justify its actions. Clearly, such highfalutin ideals are only acceptable when the ‘exceptional’ Americans are behind them.

“It must delight Putin to employ an American saint’s piety in an act of anti-American realpolitik,” Will seethed. “Much of Putin’s geopolitics consists of doing whatever opposes U.S. policy.”

Considering that Western policy to date has been blood-stained since around the turn of the millennia, “doing whatever opposes U.S. policy” may not be the worst choice of strategy.

Clearly, the non-stop efforts by the Western media to paint Putin as the epitome of evil do not flush with reality. Unlike the United States and NATO, which have initiated scores of unprovoked attacks on a number of hapless countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, Putin has never felt the need to travel abroad in search of “monsters to slay.” Rather, they came knocking on Russia’s door instead, one after another. Indeed, listening to the jeremiads emanating from Western officials these days, they actually seem incredulous that Russia has military bases in such close proximity to the territories of NATO states, some of which, like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Norway, now actually share a border with Russia.

In the face of this aggressive posturing on the part of the U.S. and NATO, it would be no exaggeration to say that Putin has been the real peacemaker since coming to power. For those who would argue at this point that the 30-member military bloc is merely a “defensive” organization, imagine the hysteria that would erupt should Moscow ever decide to militarize America’s borders in the Caribbean and South America. In fact, there is no need to imagine anything; we already saw that hysteria during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when the world teetered on the brink of war for endless days between the nuclear powers.

For many years, Russia, China and the rest of the world have been captive spectators, watching as the United States and its allies run roughshod around the planet, regime changing here, breaking things there. And now that Russia has finally punched back after years of issuing unmistakable warnings that fell on deaf ears, the Western hemisphere would have everyone believe that Moscow is behaving as the aggressor. The memory of the public may be short, but it’s not that short. The majority of awakened people (as opposed to ‘woke’) may despise military conflict and the horrors that it brings, but without a Russian intervention in Ukraine at this critical juncture in history the consequences down the road would be far more severe.

Not only has Vladimir Putin offset an array of external threats to his country, whose defensive capabilities were at risk of becoming redundant – anti-missile systems, for example, and bioweapon labs smack on Russia’s border would have achieved that – but he spared Europe and the world from the specter of a U.S.-provoked catastrophe, and one that might have been nuclear-tipped.

In 1890, brash, young new German Emperor Wilhelm II fired Bismarck after 28 years as minister-president of Prussia and then first Imperial Chancellor of Germany. He abandoned the priority policy of maintaining warm ties and close communications with Russia that Bismarck had always followed and scrapped the Dreikaiserbund, the League of Three Emperors that Bismarck had created with the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires.

Over the next 20 years, an increasingly isolated Germany became more and more committed to its one remaining ally – weak, unstable and inept Austria-Hungary ruled by the Habsburg Emperor Franz-Josef, after his death long revered but in reality a dim dolt.

In 1914, Wilhelm II performed his most fatal idiocy: He gave the rulers of Austria-Hungary a blank check to send an ultimatum to Serbia over its suspected invovlement in the assassination of the Habsburg Archduke Franz-Ferdinand in Sarajevo that was bound to lead to war.

Afterwards, belatedly realizing what he had done, Wilhelm panicked and tried to pull back from the catastrophe to which he had doomed his country and all of Europe. But it was too late. More than two million young German soldiers died for nothing in that war over the next four years. A needless war fought over allegations of complicity in an assassination cost the bones of a lot more than one, solitary Pomeranian grenadier.

The causes of World War I were compulsarily taught to millions of schoolchildren when I was growing up in Ireland and Britain. Today I doubt one American in half a million could explain them. Yet Congress in Washington and the US media are madly urging on the US government to replicate the castastrophe in what could trigger a global thermonuclear holocaust.

Assassination! Instead of the suspected involvement of the tiny Serbian government which was indeed deeply involved in the plot (but for which no proof at the time was in fact uncovered) we see the US government following the lead of the UK government in blaming Russia without any evidence whatsoever in the alleged assassination of Sergei Skripal.

A reckless stupid commitment! Instead of Wilhelm II giving a "blank check" to the Austro-Hungarian government to start a war with Serbia, provoking reaction by Russia, we see the US Congress pressuring President Donald Trump into imposing ferocious sanctions on Russia. Those sanctions are clearly intended to wreck Russia's 19 years of recovery, prosperity and growth under President Vladimir Putin.

A superpower allowing a weak, unstable and irresponsible minor ally to pull it into a destructive war!

Wilhelm, the emperor of bluster in the end let himself be led as tamely as an obedient poodle by the reckless adventurers and gamblers in Vienna. Today, Trump is allowing US policy be deformed and national survival threatened by his loyalty to a leader he despises, Prime Minister Theresa May of the disintegrating United Kingdom.

Most of all Bismarck knew that tiny squabbling coutnries in the Balkans were not worth the life of a single comic soldier.

Bismarck would not have cared a fig for the internal politics of Macedonia, Montengegro or Georgia. He would have laughed at the idea that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania could or should determine the future of global superpowers and world-spanning alliances.

Instead, Bismarck sought to quarantine off peripheral regions that historically generated violence, ethnic conflict and assassination away from the major powers.

The Iron Chancellor's policies maintained global peace for two generations. Abandoning them brought on the conflagration of 1914 that destroyed European civilization.

Today, the United States and its allies need to remember and relearn the wisdom of Bismarck and abandon the fatally infantile enthusiasms of Wilhelm II.

The survival of humanity depends upon it.

President Donald Trump appears sui generis. Other troublesome populists, like Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, hold power. But no other nation of great influence is governed by someone so little rooted in reality and so much dominated by personality.

However, the president has a historical soul mate who ruled a century ago. The similarities are striking, though their lives obviously differed in important ways. One wonders: was the German Empire’s Kaiser Wilhelm II reincarnated as President Trump?

He took power in 1888 after the death of his grandfather and father. Wilhelm rejected the liberal views of his parents (his mother was British and unpopular among German conservative circles) and favored traditional autocracy. Also, he was determined to rule as well as reign. In contrast, his grandfather, Kaiser Wilhelm I, had mostly left governing to the famed “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck.

Still, Wilhelm II was no dictator. Germany had a strong constitutional order and an elected Reichstag with a broader franchise than Great Britain. However, the cabinet answered to the kaiser, not the parliament. In that sense, Imperial Germany looked a lot like modern-day America, where the president is both head of state and government, and thereby manages the executive branch, in contrast to Westminster parliamentary rule.

The German Empire was not a superpower, but it was a rising great power. It possessed the world’s second-largest economy, had surpassed Great Britain in industrial strength and enjoyed a substantially larger population than France. The German army was the world’s best army. Kaiser Wilhelm’s attempt to match British naval strength failed, but the potent Kriegsmarine could not be ignored by London. Berlin also acquired a small network of overseas colonies.

The kaiser was particularly interested in international affairs. He dismissed Bismarck in 1890 and embarked upon what he termed the “New Course.” Bismarck was no liberal peacenik, but once he unified Germany and consolidated the empire’s gains, he sought stability. He was uninterested in colonies, opposed a naval race with Great Britain, and sought to keep France and Russia apart. Had his policies remained in place, World War I almost certainly would not have erupted in August 1914. Bismarck famously observed that the Balkans were not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier. He was right.

Kaiser Wilhelm was aggressive, thoughtless and extraordinarily maladroit. He earned a lengthy litany of criticisms. The Economist recently observed that he “grew up to be emotionally needy, bombastic, choleric, hyperactive and hypersensitive. His personality combined with the militaristic authoritarian culture of the Prussian court to create a monarch who was extraordinarily ill-suited to lead the most powerful country in Europe.”

Historian Thomas Nipperdey called the kaiser “gifted,” but also “superficial, hasty, restless, unable to relax, without any deeper level of serious, without any desire for hard work or drive to see things through to the end, without any sense of sobriety, for balance and boundaries, or even for reality and real problems, uncontrollable and scarcely capable of learning from experience, desperate for applause and success.”

That sounds an awful lot like the current occupant of the White House.

Kaiser Wilhelm insisted on gaining Germany “a place in the sun” by fair means or foul. Although he was nothing like Adolf Hitler in power or intention, he managed to offend ally and adversary alike. There was no Twitter then, but in 1895 the kaiser dispatched an encouraging telegram to the Boers, who were resisting British troops in the Transvaal. This won neither him nor Germany any friends or plaudits across the English Channel.

In 1900 German soldiers joined an international expedition to suppress the anti-Western “Boxer Rebellion” in China. He told them: “Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in history and legend, may the name German be affirmed by you in such a way in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a German.” The term “Hun” was put to propaganda use against Germany during World War I.

Five years later, he inflamed tensions with France by visiting Morocco and backing the kingdom’s independence against Paris. His conduct also offended friendly states and lost Berlin support at the international conference called to defuse the crisis. In 1908, Kaiser Wilhelm gave an indiscreet, boastful, condescending interview in the Daily Telegraph, a leading British paper. During the interview, he called the British “mad” and said the German navy targeted Japan. So hostile was the reaction at home, as well as overseas, that the chastened monarch tempered his future foreign ventures.

During the European crisis after the June 28, 1914, assassination of Austria-Hungary’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to that empire’s throne, Wilhelm pushed for an aggressive response before unsuccessfully attempting to halt the rush to war with the famous “Willy-Nicky” telegram to his cousin, Russian Tsar Nicholas II. Kaiser Wilhelm was gradually sidelined during the war and forced to abdicate by the Reichswehr after Germany sought an armistice in late 1918. Erich Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg ran the show. Kaiser Wilhelm lived out his life in exile in the Netherlands and died under Nazi occupation in 1941.

In both personality and lack of discretion, the Kaiser and the Donald seem to have a lot in common. Thankfully, history never fully repeats itself, but the two remind us of the truth of abolitionist Wendell Phillips’ observation that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

America has a more powerful legislature, an active opposition and a better developed civil society than imperial Germany — all of which should help hold President Trump in check if his more dubious personality traits lead to trouble. Nevertheless, the presidency has amassed extraordinary authority. Congressional Republicans so far have been largely pusillanimous and understandable popular anger against institutions, such as the media, undercut their influence.

One need not look to history to recognize that the next four years are likely to prove challenging. But President Trump’s closest historical model suggests the urgency of preparing an effective, nonpartisan opposition. Surely, this is a time to be vigilant in the defense of freedom.

nationalinterest.org

A quarter of century later the crisis in Ukraine gave an impetus to the Weimar Triangle’s revival. In the autumn of 2014 the three foreign ministers gathered in Weimar to forge a common position on Ukraine’s presidential election. Then they unanimously condemned the “annexation” of Crimea. There were more meetings to follow. In September 2014 the ministers of State and State Secretaries responsible for European affairs from Germany, France and Poland met in Herleshausen (Land Hesse) for political talks. In October 2014 Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs, visited Berlin and Weimar for consultations in the “Weimar Triangle” format with his German and Polish counterparts, Mr. Steinmeier and Mr. Sikorski. In March, 2015 the "Weimar Triangle” format meeting of Defense Minister of Germany Ursula von der Leyen, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Polish Minister of Defense Tomasz Siemoniak was held in Potsdam. The ministers agreed to strengthen the defense of the European Union. It dovetails with the idea of creating a European army put forward in early March by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen strongly supported the initiative saying Germany was ready to participate.

The proposal to form a European military is not new. France made the idea float in the middle of the XX century. Back then it was blocked by Great Britain and Spain. The defence chiefs meeting was followed by the talks held by ministers of foreign affairs to exchange their views on the Ukrainian crisis, as well as the European neighborhood policy. Poland is interested more than others in the revitalization of Weimar Tringle activities, especially in view of events in Ukraine. Since a long time ago Warsaw has been pursuing its own goals there. It also acts in the interests of the United States. Poland does not like the fact of being excluded from the Normandy format (a diplomatic group of senior representatives of the four countries – Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France – to resolve the situation in the East of Ukraine). Warsaw has expressed its dissatisfaction on a number of occasions. Berlin has stated that the Poland’s position will be taken into account. It’s not clear how Angela Merkel is going to keep her word. The European security cannot be guaranteed without Russia (as Merkel said during her visit to Poland in November 2014). 

And she told the truth. These words make one draw a comparison between Merkel and Otto von Bismarck, nicknamed the “Iron Chancellor” (“the Mad Junker”) who gathered scattered German lands into an empire to proclaim the Second Reich. It would be a mistake to say that the years of his rule was the golden age for Russia-Germany relations. In his letters to Gorchakov (chancellor of Russian Empire from 1863 to 1883) he sounded rather sentimental, but his flattering style was too good to be true. It made doubt his sincerity. His machinations at the Congress of Berlin (a meeting of the representatives of the Great Powers of the time – Russia, Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy and Germany – held in June-July 1878) effectively disavowed Russia's victory over the decaying Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78. When it came to Russia Bismarck balanced to pursue the goal of strengthening the Germany’s position in Europe. No such thing as gratitude exists in politics. Why should the Minister-President of Prussia feel gratitude to Russia for supporting him in his efforts aimed at unifying separate states under the banner of German empire? In a way, Merkel follows Bismarck – she feels no gratitude to Moscow for allowing Germany to reunify. Though it was not exactly reunification in strict terms. West German simply devoured East Germany. 

On April 1, Germans marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Otto von Bismarck. The publications devoted to the event say the “Iron Chancellor” supported the idea of sanctions against Russia and deterred it from aggression against Turkey. It makes Merkel look almost like a politician acting in accordance with the traditions of the Second Reich Empire – the days of glory in German history. 

In reality there are more things that divide the two politicians than unite them. The Bismarck’s European policy was called “juggling with all five balls” (meaning Austria, Russia, Great Britain, France and Germany). The Merkel’s blowing hot and cold or trying to stand with her legs in two camps – the Normandy Four and the Weimar Triangle – has nothing to do with juggling. It looks more like inability to choose an independent course to be adamantly followed. Besides, in the contemporary Europe the balls have quite different weights. What is more, Germany remains to be a ball in the hands of overseas juggler. 

So, Frau Bundeskanzlerin, I have been watching you rule the country from my family vault and now my patience is lost. You have to listen to what I’ll tell you from my estate in Friedrichsruh. It’s a pity you have never come here to visit my grave and ask my advice. Looks I did right ordering grenadiers to give Poles a rough ride and have no mercy because hardly anybody else in Europe deserved thrashing more than them. Yes, you got it right, I mean your grandfather, a Pole by origin. He inherited the national traits of his tribe and made you inherit them too.

Now I’d like to make you remember the rules I introduced for German diplomats century and a half ago. Breaching them boded trouble for the nation. This is the first rule, Angela:

«Stupidity is a gift of God that should not be used».

To put it bluntly, a stateswoman should not be more stupid than her fellow citizens. The most serious form of stupidity is to believe that you are smarter than them. Just look around and answer the question – how many Germans support your alliance with Anglo-Saxons? How many Germans approve your attacks on Russia? Are you sure you see the difference between a big political game and a woman’s intrigue?

Let me remind you the second rule of German politics so that you would not mix these things up: 

«The only sound basis for a large state is its egoism and not romanticism».

Where is the state egoism in your policy? Is it your commitment to closer relations with the US President? It’s a hope against hope. Whatever you sacrifice to please Obama, it will bring bad luck to Germans. Americans have a reason to stir up trouble in Europe, why help them? Do not forget that the third rule of German politics says:

«Whatever is at rest should not be set in motion. A government must not waver once it has chosen its course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward».

Germany has once chosen Ostpolitik and that was the best choice. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union you fell victim to greed. You wanted Russia to be pushed out further and further. Now you and Americans are turning Europe into a military camp.

Germany put on soldier’s boots and stepped on the Serbian ground. You forgot what I said: 

«The whole of the Balkans is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier»,

«One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans».

You spend billions of Euros on Kosovo. The first thing I would do being in your shoes is to hang those Albanian murderers that you made come to power. There is nothing to expect from them but low tricks and plundering. 

Finally, you messed with the Russians having forgotten the main secret of German politics:

«Make a good treaty with Russia».

You should read my memoirs and learn by heart what I said many years ago:

«Never fight against Russians. Your every cunning will be responded by their unpredictable stupidity»,

«This inviolable state of the Russian nation is strong in its climate, its spaces and limitations of the needs».

You should also take into account, Angela, that a Russian harnesses his horse slowly but drives fast. Putin’s patience has its limits. If he starts to act you’ll be in a deep trouble. You collude with Anglo-Saxons. Nothing could be more stupid.

These guys turn a blind eye on the fact that the Yeltsin’s Russia is gone. A new Russia has appeared headed by Putin. It’s not weak and pliant any more. Today’s Russia is strong again and ready to stand up for itself. You should realize who you deal with. Read once again what I wrote:

«Do not expect that once taking advantage of Russia's weakness, you will receive dividends forever. Russians always come for their money. And when they come – do not rely on agreement signed by you, you are supposed to justify. They are not worth the paper it is written. Therefore, with the Russian is to play fair or do not play».

Angela, perhaps you opted to provoke Russians into getting mired in Ukraine because you remember my words that in order to deprive Russia of its power, you need to separate it from Ukraine? Come on, you cannot formulate a concrete goal if it is based on a mere speculation! Many European politicians say that without Bavaria Germany will become a weedy castrate, but nobody is going to try it, no matter how many idiots are dreaming of secession from Germany there.

You follow Anglo-Saxons who don’t think about depriving Russia of its imperial status. They want to destroy it. Do you really believe Germany would benefit if there were no Russia in Europe? Do you really believe this baloney about European values and common interests? Remember I was rebuked for keeping away from forming coalitions. A French newspaper wrote that I suffered from nightmares because of prospects for Germany to become part of a coalition. True, I was afraid of coalitions because I could not sleep at nights fearful that my partners steal my possessions. I was also accused of creating a secret fund to bribe the press and calling journalists «moral poisoners of wells». You know what I think about them. «Journalist is a person who has mistaken his calling». They persecute people because of their complex of inferiority. I bribed them to make German wells safe for drinking. These guys have already poisoned German minds, as well as yours, I’m afraid.

Finally, I’ll say the following.

No need to take seriously those diplomatic dumbbells trying to reshape the world so that it would look like a Christmas tree in a Prussian military barrack. Believe me, the world doesn’t want to be reshaped, and there is no need to do it. Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable – the art of the next best no matter how abhorrent it may seem to be. In Russia I learned the word «nichego!» («it is nothing») used when they face really hard times. This word connotes with great wisdom and patience – the qualities you should acquire, Frau Federal Chancellor, and that would be my last advice to you.