Valentin Serov’s painting of Alexander Nevsky’s triumphal entry into Pskov after defeating the Livonian knights

From the rate at which great errors are repeated, it doesn’t seem that people have much capacity to learn from history.  Look at Germany and Russia.  You’d think that the defeat of the Livonian knights by Alexander Nevsky in 1242 would have taught the Germans that the wisest policy at moments when Russia is weak is not to throw all caution aside and push eastward as hard as possible.  Yet that is precisely what Germany, in all its political incarnations, has done in the centuries since, every time Russia looks vulnerable.  Always before this has resulted in disaster; I don’t see any reason to doubt that the current push to annex Ukraine to the European Union will result in yet another disaster.

I realize that, since Germany is for various geopolitical reasons bound to dominate Europe, it is to be celebrated that its dominion takes the form of the EU.  Certainly the EU is in every way a vast improvement over its predecessor, the SS.  I don’t fault Europeans for accepting EU membership as the best deal Germany is ever going to give them.  And as an American, I don’t fault the USA’s leaders for realizing that our country’s economic and other interests require close relations with Germany and its satellites and maintaining an alliance with them in the form of NATO.  But I do wish that the other EU states and the USA would use their influence to restrain the Germans before their recklessness in the east again plunges us into a planetary war.