"We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."
Adolf Hitler said this to his generals before the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler was convinced that the vulnerable Soviet system would quickly collapse under Germany's surprise attack. Thus, on June 22, 1941, the military operation dubbed "Operation Barbarossa" began, raising the curtain on the most brutal "German-Soviet War" in human history. Three months later, Hitler's army, which had been confident of victory, crumbled before Stalin's "Red Army." The prolonged war of attrition that lasted until May 1945, claiming a total of 30 million lives, became the decisive cause of Nazi Germany's downfall.
On the early morning of February 24, 2022, Russia invaded the weaker nation of Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin's declaration of a "special military operation." The European continent was once again engulfed in the flames of war due to Putin's ambition to annex the Donbas region bordering Russia and Ukraine. According to the British think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), President Putin expected to take control of Ukraine within 10 days at the time of the invasion. However, with Western support and fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces, the war is now entering its fifth year. The price of miscalculation is steep. According to the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), while the territory Russia has captured remains minimal, the prolonged war of attrition has resulted in approximately 1.2 million Russian military casualties. The Russian economy is foundering under continued Western sanctions, massive military spending burdens, and soaring inflation.
Miscalculations by unchecked dictatorial power lead to fatal consequences. Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Putin's "friend," has long aspired to "reunify Taiwan." In a recent survey by a U.S. think tank, global experts estimated a 70% probability that China would militarily invade Taiwan within 10 years. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, another ally, recently flaunted his nuclear state status after being re-elected as General Secretary of the Workers' Party at the party congress, declaring that "war deterrence has dramatically improved with nuclear capabilities as its cornerstone." One can only hope there will be no miscalculations that threaten peace in Northeast Asia.