People are saying Putin's war in Ukraine is an act similar to Hitler with Poland. I'd beg a differ
The comparison is not wrong, because Putin is a mad megalomaniac tyrant who is obsessed with neo-imperialist agenda. But Putin being compared to Hitler would make it so incredibly flawed. For all the crimes the Russian dictator did to Ukrainians, as well as Chechens, Georgians and Syrians, it is Putin's pre-war tactics that may draw us more to concern about. In this phase, it will take us to think a different figure that may qualify to Putin: the Japanese fascist leader Hideki Tojo.
Hideki Tojo, who was he?
In 1905, Tojo, at the time just graduated from the Military Academy, witnessed the Treaty of Portsmouth brokered between already struggling Russia and a near-bankrupt Japan. The Japanese were victorious, but they received little and could not make Siberia part of Japan. This had a profound effect on the young officer - it manifested his dislike toward the United States and several European nations, which he saw as robbing goods from Japan - and persisted throughout his life. Because he hid that anti-American emotion, he was able to maintain a low profile.
In 1918, he joined Japanese expedition force to Siberia before getting dispatched to Germany a year later, where he would stay for three years. Because of the old ties between the Germans and Japanese, Hideki Tojo found only Germany as the European nation he liked. Tojo even admired the German tactic of Wehrstaat (Total Defence), a totalitarian ideology aimed for war readiness. Himself also got his only visit to the United States in 1922, where he was left with only even poorer perception on America and its people as corrupt and alcoholic. Tojo's hatred against the United States and several European nations (except Germany) only manifested deeper when the United States imposed the immigration ban on Asians.
Tojo grew to power in 1930s, by winning supports for his determination and decisiveness. He also illustrated a book, in which he revealed his resentment against the West, his open hatred against France, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union. The Nazi regime was also well-praised by Tojo as the only regime that could reshape the world's order at the time. To win the support from the new Emperor Showa (known as Hirohito), Tojo even participated in arresting coup executioners in 1936, effectively granting Tojo de facto control of Japanese politics.
After collecting all power to the hand, Tojo persuaded for an aggressive expansionist plan, began with China before it headed to Southeast Asia, with the umbrella dream of creating a pan-Asian empire. But his war-like mentality dragged his country against the United States, culminated into the Pearl Harbour bombing that would eventually lead to his demise at the WWII. Tojo left the Prime Minister position in 1944 but he still retained significant power before surrendering to the United States in 1945. Three years later, he was executed for war crimes across Asia.
What are the commons between Putin and Tojo?
It is necessary to underline the relations of Putin and Tojo toward their own nations and systems are massive complexity of theological, spiritual and political understandings. While rifts can be seen between the Russian dictator and the Japanese Prime Minister, their coincidences are included below.
The connection between homeland and their common abhorrence toward the West manifested both psyche of Tojo and Putin. For the Japanese Prime Minister, Tojo was deeply connected to the old, ancient Japanese root and its militarist traditions. Hideki Tojo, a young officer, saw Western culture with utmost disdain, since he came from a relatively poor family and got a passionate nationalist education at youth. This deep love for the nation and hatred against the West is also manifested on Putin's mind, the Russian leader was born from a poor family before enrolling the military life, working as an agent for KGB; the Russian leader has long suspicious of Western involvement in what Putin defined as red line, including trying to move Belarus and Ukraine away from Putin, before Putin found Western influence "deplorable".
The idea of expansionism has also been on the playbook of both Tojo and Putin. The Japanese war criminal had long persuaded his chauvinistic ideology of conquest, believing that Japan could achieve "greater things" by expelling the "white devils" for ambitious Japanese design. Tojo also advocated the use of every lethal weapon if it could, such as chemical weapons, which was the reason why Japanese occupation was so brutal. This stands firm to what Putin had chosen, the Russian President wanted to conquer with the same dream of getting greater, if the "Atlanticists" (U.K and U.S.) could be driven out of Europe, which is written already by philosopher Alexander Dugin. Like Tojo, Putin is not afraid of unleashing violence, like what Putin did to Chechnya, Georgia, Syria and Ukraine now.
Megalomaniac ideological imposition in the name of their nations are something that researchers fail to underline, but this is what made Putin similar to Tojo. The Japanese General believed, if Japan could crush the whites and sent them hell, the Japanese would be happy to reign in a new Asian entity that true to Japan's Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In Tojo's mind, reasserting Japanese role in Asian politics would bring a significant leverage to dictate and demand, while the same time promoting pan-Asianism with Japan the centre. Now, that thing is exactly in the game of Putin; the Russian dictator sees that NATO and EU expansions a problem, and to deal with it, he must crush all of his Atlanticist enemies, including what he thought as "puppets" (Poland and the Baltics) and to establish the neo-Soviet Union, presiding with the so-called CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organisation) as a counter to NATO. By rebuilding the new Soviet Empire with a Tsarist element, Putin aims to reshape Europe in what he thought to be his own view.
It's never been racial viewpoint - it is puritan. Despite the violence unleashed by both Tojo and Putin, these dictators are astonishingly similar that they never insisted about genocide based on races - they instead talked about uniting what they saw to be the rightful soils of both Japan and Russia - and those who resist their rules had to be decapitated, apparently reforming into a merely pan-Asian (Tojo) and pan-Russian (Putin). That meant the savagery of Japan in WWII and Russia in recent invasion of Ukraine are merely dictated in the puritan manners, concrete attempts to forcefully coerce and convert, before finally severing the ties of its occupied subjects to the native country, akin to that of the English Puritans to Native Americans in 17th to 18th century. Yet despite forcible conversion to suit Tojo and Putin, this is ironically the difference with the Nazis, because Tojo and Putin had never denounced the Jews, never saw its invading neighbours as inferior (though not seeing them equal) and these dictators had no problems with Muslim ethnic peoples - something Hitler appeared not carrying the same manner.
Tojo's Japan and Putin's Russia were both isolated diplomatically, but still had allies, if not saying dangerous allies. Hideki Tojo's Japan was removed from the League of Nations, specifically walked out in 1932 for invading northern China illegally, but that didn't matter Tojo. His action was encouraged by German leader, Adolf Hitler, before Germany also walked out a year later. Putin's Russia was shunned and isolated in the United Nations and increasingly insular, but for Putin, he showed no remorse nor backing down. And his friend in Communist China, Xi Jinping, appeared to have encouraged the war on its behalf. An interesting aspect of it was the delicate balance between Hitler with Japan and Nationalist China coincided to Xi Jinping's relations with Ukraine and Putin's Russia - Hitler never saw Japan and China inferior and played a role in mediating to end the conflict - with Chiang Kai-shek approaching Hitler to do so; Xi Jinping was also approached by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba with hope to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine because China's first aircraft carrier was bought from Ukraine. Of course, when the world had Hitler and Tojo, must have a Mussolini - this role in 21st century is increasingly given to Ali Khamenei's Iran, who is a hawkish imperialist willing to redraw the border of West Asia for its totalitarian Perso-Shia expansionism.
The willingness to sacrifice is the last thing to define the similarities between Tojo and Putin. Tojo had long emphasised that the Japanese concept of Bushido must be included into the Japanese war machine, the feeling of resilience and resoluteness had to be taken immediately, that no economic embargo could ever stop Japan from marching forward because it was the work of the West against Japan. Hideki Tojo carried the delusion of Japanese sacrifice as the mean to devout for the Holy War of the Japanese Emperor, Shintoism and Yamato bloodline - hence why Japan's suicidal attacks in WWII associated. Putin appears to think that way - he believed that Russia is being surrounded by enemies and being besieged economically, but the willingness of sacrifice is too great to be prevented. The Russian dictator also sees that his war has to be taken to devout his patriotism and adherence to all-Russia nation, deeply embedded with Eastern Orthodoxy and for the Russian bloodline, as seen is his previous speech "No world could exist without Russia" - probably and deeply in rhetoric religious-political mean.
This is a must to understand how Putin and Tojo came to that similarity, by short. As we have seen in the Japanese war criminal's biography, he had already gained power within the Japanese government as far as late 1920s decade, which probably akin to that of Putin's power consolidation in Russia from 2000s onward (except that Tojo didn't become de jure Prime Minister until 1941). Vladimir Putin and Hideki Tojo are similar in the way that both are sadistic authoritarian leaders by crushing opposition at home. Both Putin and Tojo advocated the war-like mentality by trying to slaughter people resisting Russian and Japanese expansions, even if this required brutal methods - the widespread use of chemical and biological weapons of Japan back in WWII and the current flattening tactics and intensifying uses of deadly thermal weapons of Russia in its invasion of Ukraine bear many similarities. These dictators also led itself to be defamed by international organisations - Japan was kicked out of the League of Nations in 1932 while Russia is facing a complete isolation in the UN by 2022 - but these actions did nothing to deter imperialist ambitions of Putin and Tojo - these dictators understood only power and strength.
A conclusion
The madness of the Russian dictator is not actually similar to Adolf Hitler - Putin is emulating Japan's war criminal Hideki Tojo. The invasions of Chechnya, Georgia and its bombings in Syria were just serving as a precursor for a potential invasion of Ukraine. And by doing so, Putin is aiming to wage the biggest war in Europe, which is something shockingly similar to Tojo's war in Kuomintang China. Tojo and Putin aimed to reverse the peace by imposing their demands, while effectively promoting diplomatic ties with other increasingly rouge nations, with Tojo it's Germany; with Putin it's Communist China.
So no, Putin is not Hitler - Putin is working to become Hideki Tojo. So we must take Putin's strategy and to draw what happened in World War II's Asian front, we may understand the idea behind Putin's manner. There is only one thing we could prepare for - a future war seems imminent and Putin, the Russian dictator, does not seem to be afraid for a total war.
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