Read modern history.

Especially 1936 to 1940.

If you are in a hurry you can start here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time

I think I am well versed in European history, thank you for your snarky comment. There's no reason to believe some local conflict will undermine "democracies" all over Europe, notwithstanding the media that is always preying on people's fears.

Sorry I didn't realize that. There are actually a lot of people shouting loudly who never read history.

I thought the salami slicing pattern was obvious for everyone to see now.

Since it is not point is that to me and many others the situation looks very similar to what happened just before WWII.

The difference between now and WW2 is that all of Europe west of Ukraine ( excluding Switzerland), and most of it north, are in a single military alliance, which has nuclear weapons ( and France also does, not under the NATO chain of command).

Sure. That military alliance was just recently kicked out out Afghanistan, in a very embarrassing way. That Alliance's most powerful member, the US, aren't as strong as they were in the past neither for various reasons. And Putin, it seems, wants to find out when that block is willing to go to war against a peer (or near-peer) aggressor. Because I wouldn't take it for granted that NATO would actually start a shooting war with Russia over the almost indefensible Baltics (beyond some honor saving measures) or that the US would actually got to war with China over Taiwan. What prevented those scenarios was, IMHO, the perception of the Wests power, and the real soft power backing that perception up. Now a lot of that soft power is gone, and the perceived power decreased considerably. At the same time the perceived, and soft, power of countries like Russia and China increased a lot. The balance changed, and naturally people want to gauge, actively, by how much exactly that balance changed. Ukraine will just be the beginning if it isn't stopped.

You seems to see Russia as expanding, they perception, I think, it's exactly the opposite. Putin is not thinking in expanding is thinking in making an stand.

Everything is a question of perspective, isn't it? You managed to put my thoughts into one sentence, thanks for that. Because I think Putin is exactly thinking like that. Let's hope all he wants is to make a stand, and not revenge.

All conflicts start as "local". What we know today as WW2 was originally reported as the German-Polish war, for example.

Didn’t the British get involved the second Germany invaded Poland?

France as well. Poland was never a intended to stay local by the Nazis, it was the beginning. Not that France and Britain did a lot between the invasions of Poland and the low countries / France so.

Britain and France did declare war, yes. But there's a reason why it was called the "phony war" for several months (until Nazis invaded France).

Your first and second sentence seem to be in conflict with one another.

In my opinion the existence of an any authoritarian entity, let alone the expansion of one is a threat to democracy.

Until all nations are healthy democracies, the institution of democracy faces an existential threat.

If you are referring to Germany 1936, it did not resembled modern western democracies at all. It was not established democracy at all prior. It was forced into democracy it never wanted after loosing war. Prior, it was heavily militarized some-constitutional monarchy. Their democracy was failing mess the whole time.

If you are referring to something else, be concrete.

Thanks for pointing out.

I'm comparing Germanys "helpful" occupations of neighboring countries "to help the poor Germans there against abuse" inhabitants to Putin's attempt to occupy Ukraine "to protect all the poor Russians there against genocide."

There was no German enclave uprising in Poland with an 8 year stalemate. The situation in Ukraine has been very unstable.

Well, there were Danzig (a free city state) and Königsberg. Not that I would consider that being a reason to invade anyone so. Unless you are a crazed war monger in search of an excuse.

Tho, Germans did tried to create local nazi guerillas in northern countries that would support them from inside. It did not really worked out, they never got numbers.

Yep. You are right.

Putin is even better than Hitler at this game it seems.

No surprise, given Putin's training.

Hitler was actually quite open about his "conquest for living space" project and goals. It was believable only if you wanted to believe and afaik, they did not believed him at the time.

They mostly thought they are not ready for the full scale war yet, but that is different calculation.

Pretty funny how open people sometimes are about intentions and goals, and still nobody believes them. Personally, I think people like Xi and Putin can be taken, when it comes to strategic goals, taken by their word. Which is scary in itself, also scary that nobody seems to do exactly that.

Hitler's casus belli was already bullshit back the day. And the whole East of Europe, from the eastern border of Germany to the Russian pacific coast was at war following WW1. With quite a lot of external intervention I might add.