Of course Hitler was a revolutionary. He said so himself. Lots, if not most revolutions go sour. And a naked grab for power is pretty much EXACTLY what a revolution is. Power is laying there in the mud for anyone who wants to get dirty and pick it up.

You can set aside your anger and try and reason out why people do what they do accurately, or you can rage impotently at events you won't let yourself understand. The choice is yours. I don't believe Putin is mad and he certainly isn't incompetent. He cast the dice. It remains to be seen if he was wrong.

My argument is that this war could have been avoided by simply agreeing to reasonable demands back in December. These demands remain the same at the moment, and the Ukrainian side just acknowledged in talks that they could in principle swear never to join NATO. The remaining demands are the recognition of Crimea as Russian and the independence of the Russian speaking provinces, also reasonable demands and effectively lost causes no matter what Ukraine would otherwise wish.

In return, Ukraine keeps its independence and the war stops. No more shooting, no more destruction. Ukraine loses nothing it hadn't already lost beyond hope of recovery. You will argue that Putin cannot be trusted, but who can? An agreement that halts the war will be enough.

Europe is now wary, and further aggression by Russia will be met with much more determination. Putin knows this. There will be no replay of 1938.