I’ve been watching PBS’ “Rise of the Nazis,” which focuses on the Eastern front of World War II’s European Theater, and I’m just astounded at the parallels between that conflict and the one in Ukraine. Then as now, you have the irresistible force of a dictator — well, two in fact — determined to maintain chaos to stay in power and the immovable object of a people determined to go all in to save their homeland. The names have changed, but the issues behind the Nazi siege of Russia and the Russian siege of Ukraine remain depressingly familiar, particularly as brought home in the recent episode on Stalingrad, the turning point of World War II in Europe.
Read MoreJacques Louis David’s “Leonidas at Thermopylae “(1814), oil on canvas. Musée du Louvre. Adolf Hitler compared the Germans at Stalingrad to the Spartans fighting the Persians at Thermopylae. Of course, the Nazis were more like the invading Persians. But Hitler’s point was that it would be in a clash of civilizations, a fight to the death.