The value of studying history lies not in the accumulation of facts but in our ability to discern and apply its lessons. Yet history is too often remembered rather than understood. I feel compelled to revisit one of its most horrific chapters to examine why, in the 21st century, war is no longer a sustainable strategy for securing territorial, economic, or geopolitical advantage. More often than not, it produces precisely the opposite result.
The war unfolding in Ukraine is not a matter of indifference to me, although I left Russia more than 30 years ago and retain few ties to my former homeland. I deliberately refer to the conflict, which began in 2014 and escalated into a full-scale invasion in 2022, as Putin’s war rather than Russia’s war. This distinction matters. The Russian people did not collectively decide to invade Ukraine. That decision belongs to an authoritarian leader whose concentration of power and wealth has left the population with little meaningful influence over his policies.
Wars are rarely spontaneous. They emerge from political, economic, and ideological conditions, often exploited by leaders whose ambitions have grown beyond institutional restraint. The twentieth century’s most devastating example is Hitler. In examining World War II, I will focus on the Soviet Union’s response to the German invasion of 1941 and the strategic decisions that ultimately contributed to its survival. I will then contrast Stalin’s wartime adaptation with Putin’s ideological rigidity and strategic miscalculations in Ukraine.
This essay is not to rehabilitate Stalin, but to illustrate how even a ruthless dictator can transform—and what happens when another refuses to do so.
The Great Patriotic War
I will refer to the Soviet Union’s war against Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945 as the Great Patriotic War, the name by which it is remembered throughout much of the former Soviet Union. For the Soviet population this is far more accurate because the German invasion was not just another military conflict. It was a war for the nation’s very survival that the Soviet Union fought largely alone. The human cost was staggering. Approximately 27 million Soviet citizens died, the majority of them civilians. When birth deficits are considered, the numbers were substantially greater. To understand the scale of this conflict, we must recall the historical context in which Hitler rose to power.
Hitler’s Ideology and the Failure of Appeasement
A decade before Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Hitler’s expansionist ambitions were already in the works. In Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”), written during his imprisonment following the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, Hitler articulated his vision of German territorial expansion, racial supremacy, and the conquest of Eastern Europe. At its center stood Lebensraum, or “living space,” the belief that Germany was entitled to seize territory and resources from peoples Hitler considered racially inferior.
Germany’s economic turmoil, national humiliation following World War I, and political instability created perfect conditions for extremist ideas. When Hitler became chancellor in 1933, he dismantled democratic institutions, murdered or imprisoned his political opponents, expanded the German military in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, and turned racial ideology into state policy.
His first foray into territorial acquisition came in March of 1938, when he annexed Austria to Germany. Later that year, Hitler decided to annex the Sudetenland, a predominantly German-speaking border region of Czechoslovakia. Britain and France, still recovering from World War I, pursued appeasement with Hitler instead of outright rejection of his demands. The Munich Agreement of September 1938 permitted Germany to annex the Sudetenland without Czechoslovakia’s taking part in the negotiations, which was an absurd decision. In return, Hitler promised that he had no further territorial ambitions. Six months later, Germany took the entire territory of Czechoslovakia. The appeasement strategy failed spectacularly—Hitler was just getting started. Diplomatic concessions offered to a dictator only encouraged his ambitions rather than restrained them.
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the Destruction of Poland
In August 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, a nonaggression agreement containing the secret protocol that divided much of Eastern Europe into German and Soviet territories. For Hitler, the pact was important because it eliminated the immediate danger of fighting a war on two fronts. For Stalin, it offered more territorial advantage and extra time to fortify Soviet defenses.
On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland at Westerplatte, marking the first battle and the start of World War II in Europe. Germany’s invasion was accompanied by extreme brutality against Polish civilians, intellectuals, political leaders, and Jews. Hitler’s objectives were the subjugation and eventual destruction of entire populations.
On September 17, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, fulfilling its part of the secret agreement. Caught between two invading powers, Poland was completely overwhelmed. Warsaw surrendered on September 28, although Poland as a state never formally capitulated. Its government and armed forces continued resistance abroad and through an extensive underground movement. Approximately six million Polish citizens died during the war, including around three million Polish Jews. Poland’s suffering stands as one of the worst examples of the horrific human consequences of territorial conquest driven by personal ideology.
What came next, however, was far more egregious in terms of both human life losses and protracted military operations.
Operation Barbarossa
In the early hours of June 22, 1941, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa—the invasion of the Soviet Union—the largest invasion in military history. Despite repeated intelligence warnings, Stalin had failed to prepare for the attack. His initial response was disbelief, confusion, and an unwillingness to accept that Hitler had deliberately broken their nonaggression pact. As a result of Stalin’s inadequate response, Soviet forces suffered catastrophic losses in the opening weeks of the war. German armies advanced rapidly, encircling hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops. Stalin’s prewar purges of top military commanders had severely weakened the Red Army, while the decision to position Soviet defenses and equipment near the western border made them particularly vulnerable to attack.
The fall of Minsk just days later plunged Stalin and the entire country into a profound crisis. Stalin withdrew to his dacha, returning to leadership only after a group of Politburo members visited him and urged him to take command of the war effort. While the precise details of this episode remain disputed, Stalin’s initial psychological paralysis was unmistakable. What Stalin did next, however, was of greater importance. Despite being an authoritarian dictator, he decided to loosen his grip on power recognizing the importance of professional military judgment, industrial mobilization, and strategic foresight. These three decisions proved especially consequential to his eventual victory.
Industrial Relocation
As German forces advanced, the Soviets undertook one of the most extraordinary industrial relocations in history. Entire factories, machinery, workers, and production facilities were loaded onto trains and transported eastward, to the Ural Mountains and into Siberia and Central Asia. This operation was immensely challenging logistically. As equipment was dismantled and loaded onto trains, industrial workers maintained production until the very last moment. At their destinations, factories resumed operations almost immediately, in primitive conditions and in the open air, before factory walls had even been erected.
Meanwhile, Stalin’s “scorched earth” policy intended to deny advancing German forces access to supplies and infrastructure. The result was a remarkable industrial recovery. Soviet factories eventually outproduced Germany in tanks, artillery, and aircraft, helping the Red Army replace equipment losses, absorb human losses, and sustain a prolonged war of attrition. Hitler had expected a rapid victory. Instead, Germany was fighting an opponent whose industrial capacity had survived the invasion and whose ability to absorb and replace losses was unparalleled. This proved to be a challenge for Hitler.
Military Leadership and Strategic Adaptation
Stalin’s second important adjustment was his growing realization that he could not win this war without top military talent. Although he continued to interfere in operations and sometimes insisted on disastrous decisions, he gradually ceded military planning to generals Zhukov and Vasilevsky. This transformation stood in sharp contrast to Hitler, whose strategic inflexibility became even more rigid as the war progressed. Hitler repeatedly prohibited withdrawals, insisted that his generals hold strategically untenable positions at all cost, and allowed ideological convictions to override military realities.
Stalin, too, issued brutal orders demanding resistance at virtually any cost. But while he embraced more freedom in military decision-making Hitler rejected it outright. Stalin, shockingly, became more receptive to professional advice and operational adjustment as the war progressed, while Hitler became driven exclusively by his own bad instincts.
Hitler’s Logistical Catastrophe
Germany’s military strategy depended on a rapid territorial advancement and quick victory. Three major army groups advanced toward Leningrad in the north, Moscow in the center, and Ukraine in the south. Initially, this strategy was successful. Germans penetrated deep into Soviet territory, destroying or capturing large numbers of Soviet forces. However, Hitler had overlooked a critical logistical detail—the farther German armies advanced, the more difficult it became to replenish their supplies. The Soviet Union’s vast distances, unpaved roads, different railway gauge, and seasonal mud created logistical problems on a scale Germany had not anticipated when planning the invasion. Furthermore, Hitler was distracted by competing strategic objectives. His decision to divert significant forces from the advance on Moscow toward Kyiv in 1941 delayed the offensive against the Soviet capital, a mistake that proved to be consequential for Germany. By the time German forces approached Moscow, fall mud and winter weather complicated their advance. Not just the weather, but Soviet resistance and industrial mobilization were also decisive parts that contributed to Germany’s demise. Hitler had launched a war of annihilation expecting a swift victory. Instead, he got a war of attrition for which he was unprepared.
World War II Aftermath
The Soviet Union emerged from World War II victorious but completely devastated. Its immense losses profoundly shaped Stalin’s postwar worldview. The delay of the Allied invasion of France, which did not occur until June 1944, gave way to his suspicion that Britain and the United States had deliberately allowed the Soviet Union to bear the brunt of the war against Germany. It is unclear whether Stalin’s thinking was justified or mistaken. One thing is clear. While the West pursued military campaigns in North Africa, Italy, and elsewhere, it also supplied the Soviet war effort. For Stalin, however, the delay served as evidence of the West’s ambitions for geopolitical dominance.
By the end of the war, Soviet forces occupied much of Central and Eastern Europe establishing communist regimes that Stalin viewed as a protective buffer against future Western invasion. In turn, Western governments regarded this expansion as a threat to European sovereignty and security. The resulting confrontation gave rise to the Truman Doctrine, the policy of containment, and NATO, established in 1949 as a collective defense alliance.
The Ripple Effects of the Cold War
This psychological warfare remains central to Putin’s geopolitical narrative. He portrays NATO’s eastward expansion as evidence of a Western campaign to weaken Russia. However, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe sought NATO membership because of their own experiences with Soviet domination and their concerns about eventual Russian aggression.
Putin has also repeatedly invoked alleged Western promises not to expand NATO eastward. In 1990, then US Secretary of State James Baker discussed limits on NATO’s military presence, but he did so in the context of German reunification. The broader meaning of those discussions remains disputed. Still, there was no binding treaty prohibiting NATO from admitting other European countries. When Finland and Sweden joined NATO in 2023 and 2024, respectively, it was precisely because of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine that led to NATO expansion.
Putin’s Ideological War
Why, then, did Putin launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and why does he continue pursuing a war whose costs to Russia are already enormous? There could be four main reasons.
First, Putin is an ideologue. Like many authoritarian leaders before him, he has created a narrative to justify his own expansionist ambitions. In his July 2021 essay, On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, Putin argued that Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians constitute one historical people, bound by the legacy of Kyivan Rus'. This interpretation effectively denies Ukraine’s sovereignty and national identity and ties it to Russia through shared ancestry and bloodlines. In Putin’s mind, the former territories comprising the Soviet Union must be brought back under Moscow’s control.
Second, Putin fears the political implications of a successful Ukrainian democracy. Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Maidan protests of 2013–14 demonstrated the power of popular movements to challenge entrenched political authority. Although Russia’s vast size and political complexities might produce a different outcome, a democratic, Western-aligned Ukraine nevertheless poses an ideological threat to Putin’s authoritarian regime.
Third, Putin viewed Ukraine’s growing Western orientation as a closing window of opportunity. Ukraine’s increasingly independent political institutions, military capabilities, and economic relationships threatened to permanently remove it from Moscow’s influence. Putin appears to have calculated that military intervention could reverse this trajectory before Ukraine became more deeply integrated with the West. In reality, the invasion strengthened Ukrainian national identity and accelerated its political and military integration with the West.
Lastly, control over Ukraine gives Putin substantial economic and strategic advantage. Ukraine’s agriculture, industrial resources, infrastructure, and naval trade routes through Black Sea would enhance Russia’s regional leverage.
Yet, Putin’s mostly ideological pursuit has produced undesirable consequences. European countries have dramatically reduced their dependence on Russian energy, replacing much of it with renewables and other energy sources. Western sanctions have eliminated Russia’s access to capital and technology, while increasing Moscow’s dependence on China. While Russia remains a major energy producer and retains substantial economic resources, the war has weakened its economic and geopolitical influence.
The Cost of Strategic Rigidity
Like Hitler, Putin greatly miscalculated Ukraine’s capacity for fighting. He assumed it would collapse quickly and that Western countries would not render their military and economic support. He was mistaken. Ukraine has demonstrated extraordinary resilience, adapting its military tactics through drones, intelligence, precision strikes, and increasingly sophisticated defensive systems. Russia, meanwhile, has relied heavily on its larger population, industrial resources, and willingness to absorb substantial casualties, just like in the Great Patriotic War. Only this time Russia’s efforts have yielded little territorial gains and failed to secure the rapid political and military victory that Putin had envisioned. The war has evolved into a war of attrition with significant human and economic costs on both sides.
As Putin’s attacks become more brazen targeting not only Ukrainian energy infrastructure but also its civilian population, Ukraine has responded with attacks on Russian military logistics, energy facilities, and other infrastructure targets supporting the Russian war effort. The question is no longer simply whether Russia can seize additional territory. It is whether the territory gained can possibly justify the long-term cost of lost economic opportunity, diplomatic influence, and national security.
A negotiated ceasefire along some version of the existing borders remains one possible outcome, although nobody knows how or when it would happen. Such an arrangement could leave Russia occupying Ukrainian territory without securing international recognition of its claims or achieving its broader political objectives. For Putin, this situation is morphing into a political failure rather than a strategic triumph.
The Fatal Illusion of Absolute Power
To draw a plausible conclusion from comparison of these two conflicts, Stalin confronted an existential threat imposed upon the Soviet Union by the invading German army. His response was initially disastrous, but he eventually recognized the need to adapt, mobilize national resources, and place greater reliance on professional military leadership. He made the right choices. Putin, by contrast, initiated a war of choice, driven by personal ideology, imperial ambition, and an obsession with Russia’s influence.
His concentration of political and economic power has weakened the mechanisms through which flawed assumptions might be challenged. Surrounded by a shrinking circle of loyalists, he has created an environment in which his personal ideology overrides any and all judgment. He is not dissimilar to Hitler in that he does not seem to recognize the futility of this system. His accumulation of personal control, rejection of military realities, and refusal to acknowledge defeat will likely paint a grim picture for Russia for years to come. While Putin’s personal fate cannot be predicted, it certainly feels as though we’ve seen this movie before.
The Soviet Union emerged from World War II as a superpower, with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, a vast sphere of influence, and, eventually, nuclear parity with the United States. Those gains came at an unimaginable human cost and were accompanied by decades of isolation, repression, and geopolitical confrontation. Putin’s war offers none of that. Instead, it has inadvertently strengthened NATO, deepened Russia’s international isolation, increased its dependence on other countries, and sacrificed the lives of countless Russians and Ukrainians. The ultimate danger of the personality cult is not that one individual accumulates power. It is that an entire nation is held hostage to that individual’s inability to separate personal ambition from national interest. That is the ultimate condemnation.