The threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine needs to be seen in the historical perspective

The history books of Russia that Vladimir Putin read when he was growing up in the 60s did not admit to the fact that following the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, Josef Stalin ordered the massacre of nearly 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia in the Katyn Forest. Some Russian historians believe Stalin ordered the mass murder as an act of revenge for the defeat of the Soviets during the Polish-Soviet War when they attempted to annex newly re-created Poland between 1918 and 1921. It would not be until fifty years after the 1940 massacre that Mikhail Gorbachev admitted that the NKVD, the Soviet Secret police, had executed the Poles. 

Vladimir Putin would be wise to learn from history and ponder the consequences of invading a neighboring country

What most historians have failed to record is how Stalin himself played a major part in the post-World War I Soviet defeat, especially during the 1920 Battle of Warsaw, also known as the Miracle on the Vistula. The Soviet invasion of Poland was on track for overrunning the country until the Soviets reached Warsaw. Instead of following orders from the Soviet High Command and joining in a coordinated attack on the capital, Stalin, then the chief political commissar of the South-Western Front, looking for personal glory, allowed Soviet forces under the command of feared cavalryman, Semyon Budyonny, to be diverted to attack the besieged industrial center of Lvóv (Lviv). This tactical mistake of dividing up Soviet forces ultimately led to a Polish victory and the signing of the 1921 Treaty of Riga.  Vladimir Putin would be wise to learn from history and ponder the consequences of invading a neighboring country.  He was 27 years old when Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan only to return home in 1989 after 10 bloody years of fighting. As Libyan resistance leader, Omar al-Mukhṭār Muḥammad bin Farḥāṭ al-Manifī, “The Lion of the Desert,” reminded Italian General Rodolfo Graziani following his capture and subsequent execution, people will fight and die for their homeland until the invaders are ultimately expelled. 

President Joe Biden and his military leaders, along with their woke recruiting videos, are perceived to be weak

Unfortunately, because President Joe Biden and his military leaders, along with their woke recruiting videos, are perceived to be weak, Putin might feel he can bully the Ukrainians into submission without intervention on the part of the United States or other European countries. Even if the United States were to limit its intervention to economic sanctions, Putin would be wise to consider how the Poles were responsible for saving Europe from being overrun by the Ottomans during the Battle of Vienna. It was during the siege of that city that King John III Sobieski led the largest cavalry charge in history (involving 18,000 horsemen) against Ottoman forces commanded by Grand Vizier Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha. Mustafa’s defeat cost him his life as he was executed on December 25, 1683 at the order of Mehmed IV, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.  It remains to be seen how much Putin has learned from history.