xor

Eastern Europe is not real

Not in, like, the “there’s nothing there” way, but in the “there’s no substantive economic, social or geographic reasons to treat it as a cohesive region” way

It’s difficult to quantify, but I think there is a compelling argument to be made - just off of my head, WW2 led to:

• the fall of German autocracy/restoration of German democracy (though Hitler did kinda break that one in the first place)
• Italian and Japanese democracy
• redistribution of wealth/power in Britain
• the 4th french republic
• alignment of the European democracies
• establishment of the UN

It’s crazy that this isn’t even the first comment I’ve seen this week arguing that the Ukraine war is somehow a conspiracy by the West to sell more weapons, as if Russia didn’t just roll up and invade them, illegally and unprovoked

Ironically your metaphor works really well as an example of how that’s not true - just because you’re allowed to pull the strings, doesn’t mean you’re the owner of the puppet