Talk politics.

In the current issue of Newsweek, Dan Perry provides a developed opinion piece on revanchism, "the desire to acquire or reacquire land", and its current place in international conflicts, The Astounding Gluttony of Giants:

https://www.newsweek.com/astounding-gluttony-giants-1731380

"Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has unleashed hell upon Ukraine, and on his own information-deprived people, in a bid to enlarge the world's largest country, which already stretches across 11 time zones.

Closely watching is China's Xi Jinping, who rules the world's most populous country with 1.4 billion people, has destroyed freedom in Hong Kong (violating a commitment to preserve "one country, two systems"), and is sorely tempted to gobble up Taiwan.

To the west, it would be a wonder if India and Pakistan, two nuclear powers which are the second and fifth most populous on Earth respectively, don't eventually go to war over Kashmir, a province that would barely move the needle for either by any metric.

Is nothing ever enough? Is it worth sacrificing a single life to add to these countries' already huge numbers?"

Territorial ambitions are not limited to global giants, he notes, but drive local conflicts the world over - in Sudan, Armenia, Turkey - "when big powers like Russia and China start to mess with the map, smaller powers take note and emulate, especially bad actors who rule non-democracies or fake democracies." He notes that "Revanchism, the desire to acquire or reacquire land, has been a fixture in history. But in much of the world and certainly in Europe, it was in retreat during the decades after World War II, a trauma whose legacies included a mighty impatience with quibbles over borders. But as memories fade, revanchism is back in style, with autocrats especially."

The reality is, you'd argue, in Ukraine, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Palestine, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, you name the country - people just want to be left in peace to carry on with their lives. They are the victims of war and the ambitions of acquisitive leaders. What do those leaders want? More. And they will destroy anything in their paths, even the very people who occupy those lands.

I'd say the author espouses the typical position deeply rooted in Western Exceptionalism. It’s fine for Europe to have colonized over 80% of the world but if a former colony decides it doesn’t like the borders Europe drew for them then SHAME. The reality that the West does not want to accept is that part of the long slog of de-colonization is allowing these people to decide on their own borders. And sometimes that means they’ll have to duke it out as Europe did for thousands of years.

But to put this into a broader perspective, political and dictatorial power is a drug some national leaders cannot give up. Like Trump when he was defeated in 2020. Like Putin after the break up of the Soviet Union. And now Xi Jin Ping, who needs Taiwan in order to cement his legacy in Chinese history.

The good news is, if you can call it good news, going to war these days can have disastrous consequences, as in MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction. That's why the West needs to stand up to Putin to prevent him from trying to reclaim those countries that currently belong under the NATO umbrella of protection.