I don't blame Germany for wanting to become powerful via massive land grabs. It was trendy at the time, all the cool countries were doing it. A nation can't survive in this world without either having direct control of a long list of key strategic resources or entering into alliances with nations that have the global leverage to get it for them in exchange for favors. The British empire was one of the most powerful the world has ever known. Germany wanted their piece of the pie, fair enough. The genocide was a separate issue, and rest assured the world didn't give a damn until it became politically correct to give a damn. Until well into the war, even China was taking in Jewish refugees while the U.S. was turning them away. But again, separate issue. Germany wanted to become a superpower, they gave it a pretty good shot (the Allies suffered vastly more casualties than the Axis), but we managed to painstakingly make that 2nd front before the Soviets were conquered, resulting in a war that was no longer realistically winnable for Germany. That said, there isn't a nation in the world which doesn't have a closet full of skeletons. But the crimes perpetrated by both Germany and Japan during WWII were not just uniquely severe, but well organized and intentional (I personally feel that Japan was much worse than Germany in that regards, but for whatever reason we never really found the state of mind to empathize with China's struggles).
That's all irrelevant as far as the reasoning behind the wars, though. The same is true today. Crimea and Ukraine are important not because of the challenges its citizens are facing, but because they occupy a key spot in the strategic struggle between Russia and the European Union. Neither side is any better or worse for wanting the upper hand. Again, that's just how you survive in this world. And for those who think I'm an *** hole for saying their struggles aren't relevant, I'll emphasize that I'm not saying I don't personally care, I'm simply saying that's not what is driving the decisions being made right now. Every time the U.N. drops off a can of donated food in Africa, a village gets slaughtered to prevent that food from tipping the balance of power. But who cares, right? Caring would mean getting directly involved, and we'd rather keep donating the food to BS ourselves into believing we're changing something (even though we're actually just contributing to the slaughter by doing so) and focus our active attention on arbitrary situations that just so happen to occupy the headlines, preferably involving people we can relate to more. We may even go get stoned while we're pretending to care, knowing full well that doing so means supporting a criminal economy that is leading to the torture and murder of thousands per year. Sorry, I get tired of people sometimes
Anyway, here's what's relevant:
Russia decided it was in its interests to move on Crimea. The world said "Hey, we're gonna label that as an illegal move but, just so you know, we have no interest in getting into a fight over it, and can assure you that there will be no consequences if you choose to do so. That said, please play nice and don't do it, k?" Russia was like "Lol" and started deploying troops. Now it's in a position to possibly continue moving through the rest of Ukraine, and the world is like "Omg Russia, that's so mean! Please stop it, or else we'll say more bad things about you!" And Russia is like yeah, whatever, and will basically do whatever it wants because the rest of the world doesn't have the fortitude to make a stand.
In other words, who really cares what everything thinks of the situation in Ukraine? Russia knows by now that the world has grown gutless and complacent, and we can rest assured they're going to do whatever they feel is in their best interests. If that means annexing Crimea or continuing into other parts of Ukraine, they will do so unimpeded.
To add icing to the cake, through our overuse of sanctions in dealing with rogue nations we're in the midst of forcing alliances between those rogue nations. To counter our economic moves, Russia has now signed a trade agreement with North Korea. This will not only seriously undermine our ability to control North Korea through control of its economy and resources, it will create a situation in which engaging in military action against North Korea would interfere with Russia's interests. We saw how that worked out when we were trying to negotiate with Syria (How's their chemical weapons disarmament coming along, by the way? Is Russia still on board with that, or did we just lose that fight as well?) Once North Korea fully realizes the magnitude of this situation, they will ultimately come to the conclusion that, following in the footsteps of Russia, they can basically do what they want without fear of reprisal. They know we won't engage them militarily as long as they are buddies with Russia, and sanctions just became meaningless since they found an alternate source for their strategic resources in the form of a ****** off Russia.
Seriously, this stuff just keeps repeating over and over. Replace the names of a few of the countries involved, and it could be pretty much any century. I know most of you aren't exactly war mongers, but the cold hard truth is that the second you make it known to your potential adversaries that you are unwilling to engage in violence, you create a situation in which violence is inevitable for the simple reason that they no longer have an answer to the question of "or else what?".
