Biden Replicating Wilson Will Incite a Great War in Europe
Woodrow’s WWI diplomacy did not make the world safe for democracy.
by FRANCIS P. SEMPA
July 21, 2023, 1:57 PM
A former member of the Obama State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, writing in Foreign Affairs, has called for President Joe Biden to offer Russia what Woodrow Wilson offered Germany after World War I.
READ MORE: How Goes It for President Putin?
Max Bergmann, currently at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, urges Biden to offer the Russian people “a path out of the economic and diplomatic isolation from the West” by ridding themselves of Vladimir Putin the way Germans rid themselves of Kaiser Wilhelm II at the end of World War I. “President Joe Biden,” Bergmann writes, “should outline what a post-Putin Russia could look like, just as President Woodrow Wilson formulated a vision for postwar Germany in 1918.” Perhaps Bergmann has forgotten how Wilson’s postwar diplomacy helped set into motion events that led to Hitler’s rise to power and World War II.
Wilson, Bergmann writes, offered Germany a “just peace” with no annexations and no punitive sanctions, which Bergmann believes played a role in Germany’s military leaders “initiat[ing] regime change” that eventually led to the creation of the Weimar Republic. Biden should make a similar offer to Russians and Russian military leaders: Get rid of Putin and we will offer you a “just peace” that includes Russia’s complete withdrawal from Ukraine, Russia’s pledge to respect Ukraine’s independence and reduce tensions with Western powers, Russia’s acceptance of Ukraine’s membership in the European Union and NATO, and the prosecution of Russian war criminals.
https://spectator.org/urging-biden-to-replicate-wilson-in-ukraine-could-lead-to-a-wider-war-in-europe/
