'..it's good for empires to lose wars..''..You can use history to learn. You can use history even to anticipate things sometimes .. I've been trying to get Americans to talk about winning since March or April 2022, and they have been moving in that direction. It's just been frustratingly slow. I don't want to promise you anything that's not going to happen, but I do think that they are slowly moving in that direction.
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I have a very specific view, which is that it's good for empires to lose wars. They don't always lose them, but it's good for them to lose. Poland, Germany, Italy -- these are all postimperial countries. Spain, France, Britain -- these are postimperial countries. This thing called European integration is a postimperial phenomenon. In daily political practice, trying to maintain an empire is inconsistent with trying to maintain the rule of law or human rights at home.
One sees that with Russia, they're obviously trying to just carry out a genocide in Ukraine .. Defeating Russia in war is the best thing that we could do for Russia. What happens in Russia, though, after that is up to the Russians, up to the people who live on that territory. I'd put it that way. It would be good for them to lose this war, just like it was good for France to lose in Algeria, just like it was good for Germany to lose in 1945.
..The problem in a way is that we overestimate our own power. We didn't want Yugoslavia to fall apart. It fell apart. We didn't want Czechoslovakia to fall apart. It fell apart. We didn't want the Soviet Union to fall apart. I'm just going to stop on that moment because there's so much myth around that now, largely thanks to the Russians. But the Americans were working really hard in 1991 to keep the Soviet Union together. That's what we wanted. But we couldn't do it.
What we should be learning is that we don't actually have that much control .. What happens is that we get trapped in our own vanity. We think we control so much, but we don't really control .. That's not the kind of thing that we in the West have the power to do.
That fear [of Russia falling apart] is understandable, but I think it becomes a kind of excuse because people always feel safer when they're doing nothing. But you have to compare risks. The risk of Russia destroying Ukraine, carrying out a genocide, becoming more powerful, preparing the way for a Chinese-led world order, and so forth is much greater than the risk of Russia losing the war and then Russians deciding, “OK, now that we've lost a war, what are we going to do?”
Personally, I think it would be fine for Russia to be in a moment like they were in 1905 when they lost to Japan. Their attitude toward Japan was very similar: “We can't possibly lose this war. It's an inferior country, inferior culture.” Then when they lost, they had some elections and land reform and they thought about things. It wouldn't be bad for Russia for that to happen [again]. If Russia does lose, the outcome is probably going to be a good one.'
- Timothy Snyder (
Defeating Russia Is The Best Thing We Could Do For Russia': Historian Timothy Snyder On The Ukraine War, August 7, 2024)
Context (Ukraine defeats Russia) - '..give it the aid that it needs to fight and win the war .. Ukraine can win the war.'(Ukraine defeats Russia) - '..Ukraine has a legal right to defend itself, including striking an aggressor on its territory..'(Russia, a fascist imperialist regime, must lose) - 'It is normal for Russia to lose wars.''What are Ukraine's borders? .. they’re internationally recognized and defined in 1991.' - Navalny