Winning the war is not enough.


At the end of WWI, the vanquished was left to her own devices. After having been saddled with huge war reparations. The US – whose President, Woodrow Wilson, had been the brain behind the League of Nations – went back into its ‘splendid isolation’.
Adolf Hitler rose to power. Conquered the western part of Europe and then attacked the Soviet Union, convinced that the US would not intervene into the conflict. Convinced that ‘Western Civilization’ had become weak. That the good life enjoyed by those living there had ‘mellowed’ the people. Read ‘castrated’.
Japan was convinced that attacking the US was a good idea. For more or less the same reasons used by Hitler to convince himself that America wasn’t going to fight back.

America had to fight on two fronts. For otherwise all her partners would have been conquered. For otherwise America would have been left alone…

Any resemblance with the current situation, when America seems to be extracting herself from the European front and when Russia has been left to her own devices after loosing the Cold War, is purely coincidental. And since there’s no such thing as a coincidence…

Doing business is not enough.
America and Nazi Germany did a lot of business.
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union did a lot of business.
The EU and the US did a lot of business with Russia.

WWII is ample proof.
Winning a war is useless unless followed by a workable peace. Which comprises the integration between the victor and the vanquished.

Yet winning the war comes first.
Any attempt to integrate an unrepentant aggressor is doomed to fail.
1938 Munich Agreement and 2014 Crimea should be enough.