Who was the US in 1962 to decide what Cuba and the USSR do?
>Ukrainians should probably organize a referendum and decide for themselves what they want now, not in 2008
Sadly, the time for that has passed, now it is war that decides what will happen.
Meanwhile, if we were to draw an appropriate analogy to 1962 it would go like this: "Confrontation over missiles, Khrushchev backs down. However, JFK is not satisfied with Khrushchev's assurances that Cuba will not eventually form a NATO-like alliance with Russia, and doesn't like the idea of the countries forming close economic ties, and so decides to invade anyway, seeking regime change and a government in Cuba that is permanently friendly to US interests."
The latter (hypothetical) action would have been neocolonial aggression in the classic mold, of course - on top of being a transparent sham. And in exactly that vein, a much closer analogy to the course of action Putin actually took in Ukraine.
Yeah, it's hard to join NATO even if you want to, while your country is invaded.
>And there was no war for 50+ years.
There is still no war between Russia and the US.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Averted_n...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#Kennedy's_escalati...
Kennedy believed another failure to stop communist expansion would irreparably damage US credibility. He was determined to "draw a line in the sand" and prevent a communist victory in Vietnam. He told James Reston of The New York Times after the Vienna summit with Khrushchev, "Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place."
That line actually originates from Karl Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice...the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." Žižek often references this concept, but it’s Marx who coined it in his analysis of historical repetition.
You need to really work on the depth of your historical understanding and get off of Mastodon or Lemmy, which I'm guessing is why I mistook your addledness for Twitter.
But if that's the only defense you have for the current farce -- sure, go ahead and run with it.