The Traumatic Past is Back: World War II, Cold War, and European Responses to the War in Ukraine

On the morning of 24 February 2022, political leaders in Europe woke up to the news that the Russian army attacked Ukraine. Suddenly, after decades of peace, political leaders in Europe were facing a rapidly unfolding military event that required security and foreign policy decisions. Building on the IR scholarship focused on analogical reasoning in foreign policy decision making (Jervis, May, Verzberger, Khong), we look at the use of historical analogies by policymakers in a moment of crisis. We do so comparatively by looking at narratives used by policymakers in three European countries - Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic - in the first months of Russian’s war at Ukraine. Rather than focusing on one key analogy, as the literature typically does, we aim to capture and analyze the entire spectrum of historical references these policymakers use in their reasoning as well as the evolution of this reasoning over time and the prioritization of certain analogies over others depending on audience, venue, and timing of the message. We find that despite the historical similarities and even though both current countries policies towards Russia and Ukraine are closely aligned, Polish and Czech leaders significantly diverge in their use of historical analogies. If anything, German leaders of historical analogies is closer to that of both Polish and Czech leaders than those counties are to each other.