It took 3 million soldiers, 3,000 tanks, 7,000 artillery pieces,
and 2,500 aircraft…
“Operation Barbarossa” was the codename for Nazi Germany’s
invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
It was the largest military operation in human history.
The Nazis had already conquered most of Europe. Hitler had grown
overconfident from his recent military victories. Now he was hunting for big
game… Stalin’s USSR.
Throughout history, many European invaders, including Napoleon,
suffered monumental defeats when they took on Russia. Despite this, Hitler
thought he could succeed where they had failed.
The idea was to inflict a total defeat on the Soviets in a
matter of months before the notoriously brutal Russian winter began.
At first, it looked like the Germans might succeed. The Soviets
were taken by surprise and were disorganized.
But those initial victories wouldn’t be enough. Thanks to
stubborn resistance and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of Soviet troops,
Operation Barbarossa stalled.
The Germans didn’t make it to Moscow before winter. The ruthless
cold weather would prove to be a far more effective weapon than anything in the
Soviet arsenal. Hitler’s hopes of quickly taking out the USSR perished in the
brutal cold. It ultimately turned the tide of the war against Germany.
But the Soviet victory cost millions of lives. By the end of the
war, the Soviets had lost over 20 million people. Some estimate they lost
many millions more. By comparison, the U.S. lost around 400,000 people.
So, it shouldn’t be surprising that the Russians get a little
prickly when a foreign military starts marching toward their borders.
And recently… for the first time since Operation
Barbarossa, German tanks are once again advancing on
Russia’s border.
You probably haven’t heard
this extraordinary piece of news. That’s because the mass media has basically
ignored and obscured it. They’ve been busy covering far more important things… like
transgender issues and Kim Kardashian’s latest stunt.
That’s why I want to tell
you about Operation Anaconda 2016.
It’s the largest war game
in Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War. It’s essentially a rehearsal
to secure a quick NATO victory in the event of war with Russia.
It was launched from
Warsaw, Poland, recently and involves 31,000 NATO troops.
Operation Anaconda 2016
is one of the most important stories you’re not hearing about. It shows how
perilously close the world is to another global war.
I found out about
Operation Anaconda 2016 while in Warsaw with Doug Casey earlier this year.
(Incidentally, Poland is one of the cheapest, enjoyable
countries I’ve ever been to. A 30-minute taxi ride from the middle of Warsaw to
the airport is only $5. You’ll be hard-pressed to find an entrée in one of the
nicest restaurants for over $15.
Poland does not use the European currency, the euro. It has its
own currency, the zloty. And the zloty’s weakness is a big reason Poland is so
inexpensive today. By the way, “zloty” means “gold” in Polish. But the
currency has no tie to gold. It’s just a paper currency, like the dollar and
euro are.)
Operation Anaconda 2016 is controversial even within NATO. German
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier recently said:
Whoever
believes that a symbolic tank parade on the alliance’s eastern border will bring
security is mistaken. We are well advised to not create pretexts to renew an
old confrontation.
Although Steinmeier said Operation Anaconda 2016 is symbolic, he
failed to mention exactly what it symbolizes.
First, an anaconda is a giant snake. It kills its prey by
squeezing it. From the Russian perspective, they’re the ones who feel squeezed.
This is precisely what the U.S. has been doing by fomenting so-called colored
revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia (both on Russia’s periphery) and trying to
absorb them into NATO.
Second, this unprecedented “tank parade” on Russia’s borders
symbolizes nothing less than World War 3.
(Doug Casey: It’s provocative, and actually quite
insane. The Western media paints the Russians as the aggressors, which—let me
shock you by saying this—is the opposite of the truth. Russia is an economic
minnow, producing nothing but oil and gas, and mostly unprofitably, at current
prices. Its population is in permanent decline, and it’s actually a
disintegrating empire with a dozen secession movements. Its only serious
industrial sector is manufacturing weapons, but even the most advanced Sukhois
and MiGs (like the F-22 and F-35) are artifacts of a bygone era. The Russians
aren’t in a position to threaten anyone—entirely apart from the fact that
conquering neighboring countries no longer makes sense. In today’s world,
you’re no longer acquiring an asset to be looted, but taking on a liability.
As for NATO, it’s
outlived its usefulness by over 25 years. The huge military bureaucracy is just
a hammer in search of a nail. It should be abolished before it gets everyone in
a lot of trouble.)
Russian President
Vladimir Putin has reacted to Operation Anaconda 2016 with alarm. At a recent
press conference, he warned Western mainstream media journalists that the world
is sleepwalking into World War 3, saying:
We know year by year what’s going to happen, and
they know that we know. It’s only you that they tell tall tales to, and you buy
it, and spread it to the citizens of your countries. Your people in turn do not
feel a sense of the impending danger—this is what worries me.
How do you not understand that the world is being
pulled in an irreversible direction? While they pretend that nothing is going
on. I don’t know how to get through to you anymore.
U.S. politicians like to use Putin as a piñata to show how tough
they are. Hillary Clinton has declared Putin to be the new Hitler. This is the
kind of thinking that fueled Operation Anaconda 2016.
Now, we’re not referees charged with deciding which political
players are good guys and which are bad guys.
However, the portrait of Putin as a Hitler or a crazy man
leading his country toward disaster—the picture you get from the mainstream
media and from many politicians—is suitable only for propaganda posters.
I don’t give two you-know-whats about what happens in Eastern
Europe, except to the extent it might spark World War 3 and cause us to get
vaporized in a nuclear exchange.
Albert Einstein once said, “I know not with what weapons World
War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.”
