New OpEd: “How the League of Nations’ Weak Response to Italy’s Invasion of Ethiopia Helped Precipitate World War II”
I am pleased to announce the publication of my first OpEd, “Failure to Respond Strongly to Putin’s Aggression Could Prove Catastrophic: How the League of Nations’ Weak Response to Italy’s Invasion of Ethiopia Helped Precipitate World War II,” in The Washington Post's "Made by History" series. The OpEd warns that ineffectual international responses to brazen acts of unilateral militarism, such as the League of Nations' failure with protecting Ethiopia from Benito Mussolini's fascist dictatorship, embolden further violations of international norms, risking broader conflicts.
Below is an abstract for “How the League of Nations' Weak Response to Italy's Invasion of Ethiopia Helped Precipitate World War II,” followed by a URL where you can read the OpEd.
OpEd Abstract
In launching the invasion, Russia is clearly demonstrating that actions taken by the West after Russia invaded the Crimean peninsula in 2014 — including the E.U. suspending economic and diplomatic negotiations with the Russian Federation, and the West placing Russian and pro-Russian Crimean officials on no-fly lists — weren’t a deterrent to further Russian aggression. Instead, Putin seems determined to demonstrate his country’s geopolitical sovereignty and imperial prowess to the Western powers. This sort of signal-sending aggression is not the first time that a strongman authoritarian leader explored the fragile boundary between international diplomacy and unilateral militarism. Just over four years before the outbreak of World War II, Italy’s “Duce,” or “Leader,” Benito Mussolini, intentionally brought the post-World War I international diplomatic order to its proverbial knees, demanding a “small place in the sun” for fascist Italy among the imperial possessions of East Africa. The consequences of the Duce’s defiance of international diplomacy provides a warning to today’s political and diplomatic leadership — refusal to take a hard line against Putin could have catastrophic unintended consequences.