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Saturday, April 30, 2022

A Refusal to Cooperate - Vox Popoli

Roosh explains why he is the peasant revolt:

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I’m not supposed to be sharing the truth with you. They had a specific plan for me, but I figured out what it was and revolted against it. They punished me to get me back in line, but I will never follow them. They aren’t yet sure what to do with people like me who go against their will to expose their schemes and their lawlessness. My existence is proof that things are not going well for them.

In 1965, a certain demographic in America agitated for a looser immigration law. Historically, most immigrants came from Christian Europe, but the law changed, opening the borders to anybody, including the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. My father was one of the first to benefit from this new law. He immigrated from Iran before the revolution on a student visa. Not long after, my mom immigrated with her entire family from Turkey (she’s Armenian), and additional family members came after that. They liked America. It’s easier, safer, more comfortable, and there’s more freedom. I expect both of my parents to remain in this country for the rest of their lives.

The plan of the regime was simple: culturally sterilize the white population, their greatest threat to power (as clearly evidenced by the recent Canadian truckers’ protest), and replace them with atomized non-European people who will obey any directive to come and reside in the United States to enjoy its first-world comforts. Through the pursuit of their material self-interests, my parents unknowingly consented to this plan. They had two children who were supposed to accept without question the prime directives of the regime: consumerism, comfort, casual sex. Their son abided by this plan and exceeded it to a foul degree. He injected the sexual revolution with the addition of steroids, spreading degeneracy around the Western world and unknowingly aiding the depopulation agenda through the fulfillment of his carnal desires. He was supposed to be a rootless Cosmopolitan who supports abortion and foments grievances against America for being racist against non-whites. He was supposed to feed the divide-and-conquer plan of men versus women so they would never pairbond and create families. He was supposed to be an obedient corporate worker, a mindless consumer, an enjoyer of soybean oil. He was supposed to do all this for the remainder of his life, to be a mere peasant who survives day to day with the aid of entertainment, industrial food, credit, pornography, and normalized passions sponsored by the elite. Some of this he did, and some he didn’t, but something happened along the way.

The reason inversion is ultimately futile, even when it has been successfully implemented by “a certain demographic”, is that one can only war against truth, reality, and God for so long before everything collapses in flames.

DISCUSS ON SG

 https://voxday.net/2022/04/30/a-refusal-to-cooperate/

Friday, April 29, 2022

YOUR Congress Just Declared WAR……on Russia.....ah correction....on YOU!

In addition, it is with YOUR treasure, YOUR blood and without YOUR approval – so STFU and bear DaConsequences…that’s an order!

So how’s that TV war in Ukraine going?

MoA - Ukraine - Doubling Down - Ukraine is a victim here but not a victim of Russia but of much bigger plans in the U.S. which did its best to instigate this war (recommended).

What does it all mean? Bearing that in mind, may this be the war that kills America, not Russia?

DaEveningNews that YOU watch does not tell you….. On Ukraine, The World Majority Sides With Russia Over U.S., by John V. Walsh - The Unz Review

We Are Now At War With Russia - by Karl Denninger – really?

Good God, I hope everyone in Congress recognizes what this bill, which apparently has now passed and Biden will sign it (seeing as he asked for it directly), means.

Let's recap.  Per our Constitution the military is under civilian control.  That is, the actions of the military, including weapons used by same or suitable for same, are under the control of Congress and The Executive.

Congress must authorize anything that leads to expense, and such must come from The House.  Again, this is basic Constitution stuff.

Just think – we won’t just see war on TV – we might even experience it in real life! Excited yet? What do you mean you don’t want it? YOUR duly elected reps in congress representing YOU vote according to YOUR wishes…..don’t they? They say they do!

Oh yes and BTW – in case we forgot - You may not be interested in war but war is interested in you - and it’s coming! (The economic side is already here.) – a review from a month ago.

Congress Goes to War - Vox Popoli

Karl Denninger points out that under long-established international law, the US Congress has effectively declared the United States to be in a state of war with Russia:

Congress has explicitly authorized, and Biden will sign, this bill that specifically permits the transfer to Ukraine of basically anything other than nuclear material. Seriously folks — that’s the only real exception found in the referenced definition.

By agreeing to provide direct weaponry that can be and will be used in the waging of war by one of the two parties to same we have entered the conflict. That our GIs are not directly involved there is of no consequence. This is no different than shipping arms to Britain during WWI in the Lusitania or the lend-lease provisions in early WWII that ultimately led us to get involved there in Europe. Indeed Pelosi directly referenced those early WWII provisions indicating that she knows damn well the implications of what Congress just did.

In fact it was lend-lease of March 1941 that led Hitler to come after the United States; we had entered the war as a belligerent by officially agreeing to supply war material to Britain.

In those two wars there was no realistic means for the Germans or other Axis powers to hit us directly on our own soil. But they did in fact do that in response when they sunk the Lusitania, which had a bunch of Americans on board. They could reach that ship, did reach it, and did sink it. They did so because we were supplying England with munitions.

We claimed at the time we were not, we were lying and that is now established as a historical fact.

The Germans hit a legitimate military target despite our and Britain’s claims at the time otherwise.

Today the situation is different. Russia can hit us here and not just with nukes. They can hit American assets that are by any reasonable international standard military targets all over the world and that includes military command and control which by our Constitution includes all members and facilities of both Houses of Congress along with the Executive, never mind obvious things like the Pentagon.

I don’t think Putin is crazy enough to do it right up front but do not mistake “doesn’t” tomorrow morning for “can’t” — the door is open.

Don’t kid yourselves folks; such a strike, if it occurs, is entirely legal from an international law perspective under the laws of war. It is legitimate for a belligerent to strike the military elements, direct and indirect, of an entity supplying its opposing military.

We are now a belligerent in this conflict having crossed the line when we went from providing food, medical assistance and similar to military goods and the definition in this act does not draw a distinction, not that there really is one that is internationally recognized in the first place, between offensive and defensive arms.

The neocons wanted their war with Russia. Looks like they’re getting it, and it won’t be even remotely surprising if they get it good and hard. It’s worth noting that it was just nine months from FDR’s establishment of Lend-Lease to formal war with Germany; if a similar time frame holds, the USA will be openly at war with Russia by January, just in time for General Winter.

But legalities and diplomacies aside, the USA is already observably at war with Russia, given that it is already spending 6x more on the Russo-NATO war than the entire Ukrainian military budget. All the endless word games and legal posturings about the expansive redefinition of neutrality and what is justified in response to the illegality of war aren’t going to prevent a single missile from being fired against a legitimate target in a belligerent state.

DISCUSS ON SG

https://voxday.net/2022/04/29/congress-goes-to-war/ 

We Are Now At War With Russia - by Karl Denninger

 Good God, I hope everyone in Congress recognizes what this bill, which apparently has now passed and Biden will sign it (seeing as he asked for it directly), means.

Let's recap.  Per our Constitution the military is under civilian control.  That is, the actions of the military, including weapons used by same or suitable for same, are under the control of Congress and The Executive.

Congress must authorize anything that leads to expense, and such must come from The House.  Again, this is basic Constitution stuff.

Now Congress has explicitly authorized, and Biden will sign, this bill that specifically permits the transfer to Ukraine of basically anything other than nuclear material.  Seriously folks -- that's the only real exception found in the referenced definition.

By agreeing to provide direct weaponry that can be and will be used in the waging of war by one of the two parties to same we have entered the conflict.  That our GIs are not directly there is of no consequence.  This is no different than shipping arms to Britain during WWI in the Lusitania or the lend-lease provisions in early WWII that ultimately led us to get involved there in Europe.  Indeed Pelosi directly referenced those early WWII provisions indicating that she knows damn well the implications of what Congress just did.

In fact it was lend-lease of March 1941 that led Hitler to come after the United States; we had entered the war as a belligerent by officially agreeing to supply war material to Britain.

In those two wars there was no realistic means for the Germans or other Axis powers to hit us directly on our own soil.  But they did in fact do that in response when they sunk the Lusitania, which had a bunch of Americans on board.  They could reach that ship, did reach it, and did sink it.  They did so because we were supplying England with munitions.

We claimed at the time we were not, we were lying and that is now established as a historical fact.

The Germans hit a legitimate military target despite our and Britain's claims at the time otherwise.

Today the situation is different.  Russia can hit us here and not just with nukes.  They can hit American assets that are by any reasonable international standard military targets all over the world and that includes military command and control which by our Constitution includes all members and facilities of both Houses of Congress along with the Executive, never mind obvious things like the Pentagon.

I don't think Putin is crazy enough to do it right up front but do not mistake "doesn't" tomorrow morning for "can't" -- the door is open.

Don't kid yourselves folks; such a strike, if it occurs, is entirely legal from an international law perspective under the laws of war.  It is legitimate for a belligerent to strike the military elements, direct and indirect, of an entity supplying its opposing military.

We are now a belligerent in this conflict having crossed the line when we went from providing food, medical assistance and similar to military goods and the definition in this act does not draw a distinction, not that there really is one that is internationally recognized in the first place, between offensive and defensive arms.

There was some dispute whether we have already done that, of course -- particularly as regards whether we were the enabling intelligence and actionable information that led Ukraine to be able to hit certain things thus far.  But up until now there was reasonable plausible deniability to our actions.

NOT ANY MORE; this is not implicit or hidden at all, it is IN YOUR FACE, public, and with no apologies or weasel-words.

Again folks: As of this point in time we are now a belligerent in the Ukraine-Russian conflict.

PS: If you think I'm supporting either side of this corrupt jackwad brigade -- nope.  Hard pass.  You want to fight Russia go pick up a rifle yourself.  I've got no cock in this fight and neither does any honest American.

https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245746

On Ukraine, The World Majority Sides With Russia Over U.S., by John V. Walsh - The Unz Review

 Russia pivots to the dynamic East and fast developing Global South


2014 saw two pivotal events that led to the current conflict in Ukraine.

The first, familiar to all, was the coup in Ukraine in which a democratically elected government was overthrown at the direction of the United States and with the assistance of neo-Nazi elements which Ukraine has long harbored.

Shortly thereafter the first shots in the present war were fired on the Russian-sympathetic Donbass region by the newly installed Ukrainian government. The shelling of the Donbass which claimed 14,000 lives has continued for 8 years, despite attempts at a cease-fire under the Minsk accords which Russia, France and Germany agreed upon but Ukraine backed by the US refused to implement. On February 24, 2022, Russia finally responded to the slaughter in Donbass and the threat of NATO on its doorstep.

Russia Turns to the East – China Provides an Alternative Economic Powerhouse.

The second pivotal event of 2014 was less noticed and in fact rarely mentioned in the Western mainstream media. In November of that year according to the IMF, China’s GDP surpassed that of the U.S. in purchasing power parity terms (PPP GDP). (This measure of GDP is calculated and published by the IMF, World Bank and even the CIA. Students of international relations like economics Nobel Laureate, Joseph Stiglitz, Graham Allison and many others consider this metric the best measure of a nation’s comparative economic power.) One person who took note and who often mentions China’s standing in the PPP-GDP ranking is none other than Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

From one point of view, the Russian action in Ukraine represents a decisive turn away from the hostile West to the more dynamic East and the Global South. This follows decades of importuning the West for a peaceful relationship since the Cold War’s end. As Russia makes its Pivot to the East, it is doing its best to ensure that its Western border with Ukraine is secured.

Following the Russian action in Ukraine, the inevitable U.S. sanctions poured onto Russia. China refused to join them and refused to condemn Russia. This was no surprise; after all Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China had been drawing ever closer for years, most notably with trade denominated in ruble-renminbi exchange, thus moving toward independence from the West’s dollar dominated trade regime.

The World Majority Refuses to Back U.S. Sanctions

But then a big surprise. India joined China in refusing to honor the US sanctions regime. And India kept to its resolve despite enormous pressure including calls from Biden to Modi and a train of high level US, UK and EU officials trekking off to India to bully, threaten and otherwise attempting to intimidate India. India would face “consequences,” the tired US threat went up. India did not budge.

India’s close military and diplomatic ties with Russia were forged during the anti-colonial struggles of the Soviet era. India’s economic interests in Russian exports could not be countermanded by U.S. threats. Now India and Russia are now working on trade via ruble-rupee exchange. In fact, Russia has turned out to be a factor that put India and China on the same side, pursuing their own interests and independence in the face of U.S. diktat. Moreover with trade in ruble-renminbi exchange already a reality and with ruble-rupee exchange in the offing, are we about to witness a Renminbi-Ruble-Rupee world of trade – a “3R” alternative to the Dollar-Euro monopoly? Is the world’s second most important political relationship, that between India and China, about to take a more peaceful direction? What’s the world’s first most important relationship?

India is but one example of the shift in power. Out of 195 countries, only 30 have honored the US sanctions on Russia. That means about 165 countries in the world have refused to join the sanctions. Those countries represent by far the majority of the world’s population. Most of Africa, Latin America (including Mexico and Brazil), East Asia (excepting Japan, South Korea, both occupied by U.S. troops and hence not sovereign, Singapore and the renegade Chinese Province of Taiwan) have refused. (India and China alone represent 35% of humanity.)

Add to that fact that 40 different countries are now the targets of US sanctions and there is a powerful constituency to oppose the thuggish economic tactics of the U.S.

Finally, at the recent G-20 Summit a walkout led by the US when the Russia delegate spoke was joined by the representatives of only 3 other G-20 countries, with 80% of these leading financial nations refusing to join! Similarly, a US attempt to bar a Russian delegate from a G-20 meeting later in the year in Bali was rebuffed by Indonesia which currently holds the G-20 Presidency.

Nations Taking Russia’s side are no longer poor as in Cold War 1.0.

These dissenting countries of the Global South are no longer as poor as they were during the Cold War. Of the top 10 countries in PPP-GDP, 5 do not support the sanctions. And these include China (number one) and India (number 3). So the first and third most powerful economies stand against the US on this matter. (Russia is number 6 on that list about equal to Germany, number 5, the two being close to equal, belying the idea that Russia’s economy is negligible.)

These stands are vastly more significant than any UN vote. Such votes can be coerced by a great power and little attention is paid to them in the world. But the economic interests of a nation and its view of the main danger in the world are important determinants of how it reacts economically – for example to sanctions. A “no” to US sanctions is putting one’s money where one’s mouth is.

We in the West hear that Russia is “isolated in the world” as a result of the crisis in Ukraine. If one is speaking about the Eurovassal states and the Anglosphere, that is true. But considering humanity as a whole and among the rising economies of the world, it is the US that stands isolated. And even in Europe, cracks are emerging. Hungary and Serbia have not joined the sanctions regime and of course most European countries will not and indeed cannot turn away from Russian energy imports crucial to their economies. It appears that the grand scheme of U.S. global hegemony to be brought about by the US move to WWII Redux, both Cold and Hot, has hit a mighty snag.

For those who look forward to a multipolar world, this is a welcome turn of events emerging out of the cruel tragedy of the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine. The possibility of a saner, more prosperous multipolar world lies ahead – if we can get there.

https://www.unz.com/article/on-ukraine-the-world-majority-sides-with-russia-over-u-s/

Unpronounceable Name, Incomprehensible Policies: Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Afghanistan Myth, And What it Means for Ukraine Ukraine Part I – The Occidental Observer -by Albemarle Man

 It is now taken as Gospel that the relatively small war in Afghanistan “brought down” the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, an empire of Socialist Soviets extending — when one counts its tributary states — from the Bering Straits to Berlin.  Not much evidence has been presented to back this claim.  But a lot of feel-good talk by Western commentators, most of whom could not identify the location of Napoleon’s attack routes or the Pripet Marshes, has repeated this claim as fact.

This seems surprising.  At first view, it seems hardly credible that a nation, which barely 40 years previous had endured and prospered after a war that killed more than 20 million of its citizens and raged across virtually all of its European homeland could be destroyed by a tiny border war in which fewer than 60,000 ground troops were lost.

But a man named Zbigniew Brzezinski claimed it did, and so it must be.

And that is the problem today.  The self-written history by an historic self-promoter, with limited or no historical backing, now appears to be the strategic justification for war in the Ukraine, cited by the odious class of Neocons now running our foreign policy establishment.  Their goal — unbelievable — seems now clearly to be “regime change” in Russia.  Their machina satanica — a cruel, needless war of Christian against Christian in Ukraine.

The incredibly dangerous goal of pursuing “regime change” — by any means — in respect of what is perhaps the world’s foremost nuclear power would consign its promoters to mental hospitals in any sane jurisdiction.

But we are not governed by sane men, nor is our homeland any longer a sane jurisdiction. We are governed by an ethnic class that bears ancient enmity towards all Russian goyim, and the Russian Tsar that is so deep it is almost beyond human understanding.  They even hate Hungarian Christians, notwithstanding the Orban government’s close ties to Israel.  And, tragically, their stupidity matches their bile.

The fact that Russia is now headed by a self-proclaimed baptized Christian who is promoting the strong revival of the hated Russian Orthodox Church has ignited their fury.  The fact that he has outlawed many of their culture-war hobby-horses — gay marriage, gay and transsexual solicitation, and indoctrination of children — fuels their ire further.

Adding salt to the wound is that the same man grabbed Russia in 2000 out of the mouths of Jewish oligarchs who — along with Boris Yeltsin’s chauffeur — were actually running the country, starving its people, and looting its assets.

Thus, this ethnic class, who, 25 years ago, dreamed of re-taking Russia under the guise this time of predatory capitalism (as opposed to Judeo-Bolshevism), finds itself substantially cut off from any real control of internal Russia.  This state of affairs — to a decent person, commendable, to an historian, inevitable, to the Neocons, unacceptable — is what is viewed by the Neocons in Foggy Bottom with rage.

And then came Ukraine.  A Neocon-created, purposeful disaster, now coming to a head.  After years of provocation, threats of NATO entry since 2008, a western-backed coup in 2014, sanctions under Obama/Biden, armaments shipments under Trump, continual provocations of Russia in an area crucial to the Russian heartland, smack in the center of the prime southern route by which every western power has waged war against Russia, against all warnings by many of America’s older (even in some cases Jewish) leadership class — Henry Kissinger, George Kennan (whose pre-2003 warnings about NATO expansion were ignored), Jack Matlock (Ambassador to Russia under Reagan), John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, Stephen Cohen of Princeton and NYU, Michael Mandelbaum of Johns Hopkins (see “Anatomy of a Blunder” (americanpurpose.com), Richard Pipes, the Jewish historian at Harvard who clearly bore no love for historic Russia, but whose scholarship to the day of his death was generally careful and restrained. Finally, Russia strikes.  And for the Neocon class, this the perfect opportunity.  Regime change — not for the Ukraine, but for Russia!  Through a long, grinding war just like Afghanistan.

And there’s the rub.  “Afghanistan” is faked history.  And the failure of our leadership class to realize that is a symptom of our dilemma.

In effect, as we discovered in the “Jewish wars” of 2003–21 against Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan that we let the smart Jews go to Mossad.  We kept the dumb ones. Or, perhaps, we are simply not listening to the smart ones.

A little history is in order.

First, the fake history.

According to Brzezinski, the brilliant and ambitious National Security Advisor to President Carter, he and Carter (Carter as lead pony, ZB as ringmaster) “drew” the Soviet Union into Afghanistan by secretly authorizing a transfer of $500 million in weapons funding to a group of (as always) dissident, derelict Muslims, this time called the “Mujahideen,” who were organizing in southern Afghanistan as, in effect, a representation of the Pashtun nation which extends across parts of Northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan.  It was this budget outlay, according to Professor Brzezinski, that — when detected, presumably by the ever-watchful Soviet KGB — freaked the Soviet leadership into introducing ground troops into Afghanistan 6 months later — in October of 1979.  This “masterstroke” embroiled the Soviets in their “Vietnam,” leading inevitably, as US funding for the Mujahideen increased, to the ultimate dissolution of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev on that fateful December night in 1991.

As far as can be discerned from the archival records, the story appears to be quite different.  The minutes of the relevant 1979 Politburo meetings at the Wilson Center Digital Archive at Princeton University (declassified in the Perestroika period of 1992) are fascinating for a number of things.  They contain clear evidence of the animal aggressiveness of Yuri Andropov, then head of the KGB and the total dominance he had even then over the Politburo.  They reveal — by his absence in many cases — the declining influence of the physically failing Brezhnev.  One report from a preexisting Soviet military advisory group to the Politburo indicates an awareness of “American aid,” but contra to ZB’s assumptions, expresses caution about putting in Soviet troops for fear of triggering an aid increase.  (See generally the Wilson Archives, Wilson Center Digital Archive.)  In later documents much more central to the decision to enter, especially a personal memorandum by Andropov to Brezhnev, also from the Wilson Center Digital Archive, only the risk of the new, corrupt, oppressive, personally motivated leader is made, and the need to assist in his capture and overthrow.

Later, post troop entry, memoranda discuss at greater length the Muslim rebellion, but focus solely on aid from Pakistan, the Saudis, and China.  Nowhere is the fine hand of the U.S. mentioned except for a U.S. consul in Turkey apparently making noises about establishing a “new Ottoman Caliphate,” whatever that was about.

Instead, the archive indicates Andropov strongly urged the entry of ground troops due to two factors (I) the erratic actions of the — ironically — pro Soviet leader who had just deposed — for personal reasons — the previous very pro-Soviet leader of what in each case was a highly socialist government; and (II) apparent contacts KGB agents believed that the new President was having with American interested parties, but no mention of U.S. aid to rebels in the southeast..

This summary is consistent with a history channel summary prepared by Suzanne McGee, “Why the Soviet Union Invaded Afghanistan,” which fails to note any concern about perceived US military aid to the mujahideen in making the decision to send troops to Afghanistan.   See also Artur Kalandarov, The Soviet and American Wars in Afghanistan: Applying Clausewitzian Concepts to Modern Military Failure.  It is also consistent with the authoritative account by Diego Cordovez and Selig S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal (Oxford University Press, 1995).[1]

In what appears to have been a classic case of destroying the good to achieve the perfect, or, perhaps, to be fair, feeling the Soviets to be between a Scylla and Charybdis, Andropov argued for the entry of ground troops to depose the new Afghan President in conjunction with the Afghanistan military which, since the 1950’s, had historically been trained by the Russian military and had pro-Soviet inclinations.  (This in contrast to Afghanistan’s civilian leadership class, which had been trained primarily in the United States.)  In this respect, Andropov’s actions could be analogized to those of the Kennedy Administration in believing they had to dispose of fellow-capitalist Diem to save the anti-communist effort.

The absent but not completely somnolent Brezhnev later complained that he was told the entry would last only six months.  Whether this was the actual view of Andropov or a sales pitch is not known.  However, Andropov’s 1982 efforts to negotiate an extraction of all Soviet troops indicates that the incursion was viewed as short term and quickly was perceived as a mistake.

Presumably lacking the background that would have been provided by timely perusal of live Politburo minutes, however, this move must have terrified some members of the U. S. foreign policy establishment, despite the open and long information trail of the entry, made clear to the President by the CIA.  See Douglas MacEachin (CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence, 1993–95), “Predicting the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: The Intelligence Community’s Record” (Federation of American Scientists.org) .  Among the terrified group was, predictably, Brzezinski, as well as a goodly number of the famous or infamous “team B” members then advising the CIA, most of whom were the same group of Neocons who have caused so much trouble over the succeeding 40 years.

Afghanistan’s western border smacks up all along a good part of Iran — both its northern and its massive southern oil fields.  A quick look at the map, undoubtedly pulled out in haste that morning by National Security Council, State Department, and Langley mandarins (let’s not presume too much preexisting “area knowledge” here, folks), indicate that if the Soviets took all of — or only the western fringe of — Afghanistan, a huge shift in the balance of power would have occurred in the  Middle East.  The Soviet war machine would be in much closer striking range of the oil necessary to run the NATO and Japanese military operations.  With a direct interior line of supply back to the USSR — no need here for a jerry-built African sub-base in Kenya to support further massive jerry-built air and sea lifts to the Persian Gulf — the Soviets would be poised like a Cobra for a master-strike at the major Western oil fields.  See, e.g., James D. J. Brown, Oil Fueled:  The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan (April 9, 2013).

Memories of the Soviet taking of the Carpathians in 1939, the only non-Russian European source of oil — the Polesti Fields in Romania, necessary for German Panzers,) and the Mannerheim line in the Winter War of 1940 (think Swedish chromium, necessary for German steel), preparatory to Stalin’s planned attack on Western Europe (known to U.S. elites but covered up for PR reasons) must have arisen.  If not in American minds, such thinking would occur to those of weathered Wehrmacht Eastern Front veterans then running West German foreign policy, not the least of whom was former Wehrmacht Lt. Helmut Schmidt’s (Eastern Front 1941) veteran of direct front-line combat through the siege of Leningrad), then the Chancellor of West Germany (1974–1982).

Was this to be the southern prong, of which the northern would be a land invasion of Europe?  In essence a large-scale replica of Stalin’s possible plan of 1940 (pre-empted by Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa)?

But, for now, the Americans were in luck.  Instead of proceeding in a high concentration down the western border of Afghanistan, and attempting to cut deals with the local tribes — especially the unlikely ally of the Balochistanis, strategically located in the southwest corner of Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan (closest to the Persian Gulf and its nearby oil fields). Controlling those areas would permit them to operate in large numbers with significant offensive bases aimed on a vector pointing at the Persian Gulf oil pocket (ominously, the predominant ethnic group in western Afghanistan were the Tajiks, counted as perhaps more supportive of the socialist government than the Pashtun, although the Mujahideen consisted also to some extent of Tajiks). However, instead of going for the oil fields, the Soviets directed their troops in a fly-net, air-dropping them in all major Afghan cities, in insufficient numbers to do more than hunker down against rebel attack, especially in the useless Eastern portion — the location of Kabul, the nation’s capital.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight guided by the Politburo minutes, we can see why.  The operation probably was about limited regime change to a new leader, possibly nothing more, plus some military assistance in putting down the Muslim uprising, which increasingly took precedence in Soviet politburo memoranda after the Christmas Eve invasion and quick overthrow of the disliked Amin and his replacement by a “gentler, kinder” authoritarian leader.

Moreover, wiser “old hands” might have — and probably did at the time — also point out   ferocious geographic and topographical issues in controlling any part of Afghan terrain, especially without cooperation of the local population, made more difficult of course by the ideological battle being waged against the old social network (including its religious practices) in the rural areas.  Would Andropov — clearly motivated by Socialist ideology in his actions, as were the Kennedy and Johnson administrations vis-Ă -vis Vietnam — have been able constitutionally to cut the necessary deal with conservative Balochi and/or Tajik tribesmen who controlled the Iranian border areas to permit a permanent USSR base there without the interference that ultimately brought the Soviets down?  But that is another story.

But the Americans did not know that (nor frankly can we know that today — Andropov may have had much more in mind than he let on to his beloved Comrades.  See Imtiaz H. Bokhari (member of the faculty of the Staff College, Quetta Pakistan), Soviet Threat to the Gulf (Military Review, the Professional Journal of the U.S. Army, August, 1985, p. 51) (c. 1985).

Bokhari states that, “answers to the question of [whether] the Soviet march into Afghanistan is part of an overall grand strategy for reaching the gulf or whether the move essentially resulted from defensive or offensive motivation or both would greatly help in evaluating the possible consequences. While academia can afford to differ in their analyses, the success of Western policy will increasingly depend upon the ability of Western statesmen to correctly assess the root.” (Military Review, the Professional Journal of the U.S. Army, August, 1985, p. 51).  He continues “the Soviet move into Afghanistan was initially interpreted by many analysts as part of a grand design aimed at world domination. [Although] over the years, the number of analysts who continue to believe this way has [by 1985] declined (Ibid., 55)…., [a] pacified Afghanistan will provide the Soviets an excellent base for operations in Pakistan. The existing communication infrastructure is adequate to support large sized operations. … Air bases in southern Afghanistan are well-sited to provide tactical air cover to ground operations right up to the Indian Ocean in the south and to the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. The terrain in Baluchistan is well-suited for large-sized mechanized operations … and [p]erhaps the Soviets will conclude that it was less dangerous — and in some ways more promising — to move south by way of Baluchistan. … With this indirect approach, Iran and the Persian Gulf would be completely outflanked. Because of their presence in Afghanistan, the Soviets have already bypassed the mountain barriers of Iran” (Ibid., p. 58.   See also William E. Griffith, “The Implications of Afghanistan,” Survival (July–August 1980) and Shazia Pirzada (Research Officer at the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad), “The Soviet Union and the Gulf, Capabilities and Intentions,” Strategic Studies (Autumn 1986), p. 24).

So, the US properly prepared for the worst, funding the Mujahideen as, apparently, the best force to use against the invading Russians.  In that, we cannot fault Brzezinski or the Carter Administration.  Some may have thought it was cleverly enmeshing the Soviets, but I imagine wiser heads viewed it as staving off a small though non negligible chance of disaster.[2]

However, two things do appear clear:

First, unless there is classified Soviet information not yet released, it does not appear that the $500 million appropriation drew the Soviets in.

Second, if it in fact had so done, and had we not been colossally lucky that the Russian incursion appeared to be limited in scope, going to the eastern side instead of the western side, drawing the Soviets in could have been a colossal self-induced disaster for the U.S and might well have lost us the Cold War.  Merely a quick perusal of Pakistan Command and Staff College faculty member Imtiaz H. Bakhari’s ominous and contemporaneous article in Military Review, cited above, is enough to see the potential dangers from the move, if successfully done, to US, European, and Japanese oil security.  So, in the end, it may be good for ZB’s reputation that at some point his little fable about the $500 million will be found out.  If so, his reputation may not be permanently tainted by the thought that he advised Carter to make what might have been the most disastrous decision of any American President since Roosevelt decided to have fun with a two-front war.

Crucially, most serious analysts do not believe that Afghanistan was a material contributor to the ultimate amelioration or dissolution of the USSR.  The former was caused by actions taken across the Potomac, namely the negotiation by Secretary of Defense Harold Brown with Germany and France for the introduction of Pershing launchers and Tomahawk cruise nuclear missiles into German bases — thus de-facto making Germany, at least in-extremis — a nuclear power.  This had a dramatic impact on Gorbachev and Scheverdnadze, leading them to become much more accommodating in their nuclear arms negotiations, which quickly resulted in the removal of not only the Tomahawk/Pershings but also the Soviet IRBMs that had prompted the introduction of the Tomahawk/Pershings in the first place.  The ultimate dissolution of the USSR, as chronicled by Jack Matlock (Ambassador to Russia at the time) and most other serious commentators, involved a confluence of domestic events — not a much-delayed reaction to the loss of a minor border war. (See Matlock, Autopsy on an EmpireThe American Ambassador’s Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Random House, 1995).

Ukraine as the New Afghanistan

And now back to the Ukraine.  The Neocons see the Ukraine as today’s Afghanistan, a war that will dissolve Russia much as Afghanistan dissolved the USSR.  Since the analogy — like many such sloppily used in formulating bad foreign policy — is without foundation, it means that not only are our foreign policy elites dangerous risk-takers but also that they are egregiously ill-informed.  Ukraine may have many effects, but those are unpredictable, and many of them fearsome to those interested in maintaining a peaceful world.

In effect, the Ukraine war is worse than a crime, it is a mistake.  And those the words of Talleyrand, who knew something about mistakes and crimes.

The Neocons running our foreign policy have finally succeeded where Brzezinski failed — by their actions they actually have drawn the greatest nuclear power in the world into a crucial strategic area — Ukraine.  ZB should be tipping his hat to them from his grave.  Except, since he perhaps knew the real story and knew he was simply blowing smoke with his “dissolution” narrative, his eyes might instead be widening in terror; sort of like Churchill after the Chamberlain Polish guarantee.  “Hey gentlemen, I didn’t really mean that!”

And now what.

Nothing good.

Until this war broke out, Russia maintained, albeit with larger reserves, a miniature military compared with its former self.  Its entire Army numbered about 400,000 troops.  (Hitler’s at the commencement of Operation Barbarossa numbered 6 million; Stalin’s, 12–20 million.)  Nothing close to what is typically viewed as necessary to launch an offensive attack on Western Europe; and, even given the pathetically reduced size (65,000) of the German Wehrmacht — now tastefully re-designated the “Bundeswehr” — it made for an unlikely base from which to launch an invasion across a continental Europe.

Moreover, Russia’s current borders basically represent a Western victory for which Hitler could only have dreamed. The current borders of Russia approximate the winter front line of 1941 and 1943 — east of the Dneipier, not quite at the Volga or the Don.  This represents a huge loss by Russia of territory and hinterland for maneuver compared to its pre-1992 borders.  Had Hitler (who likely knew far more, even in advance, of the difficulties of Barbarossa than he let on) been able to cut a deal with that as the new Soviet border as of December 1943, he would have accepted it instantly and would have danced Austrian waltzes all the way from the Reichschancery to Obersalzburg.  It would have represented the greatest feat of arms in European history.

So this was the state of play in January, 2022.   We had it all.   But we wanted more.

From Russia’s point of view, the loss of the Ukraine and Belorussia, already disconcerting, would turn into a strategic catastrophe if either or both became aligned with a hostile block.

Specifically, the continent of Asia narrows dramatically as it extends westward into Europe.

A defense of Russia at the line of its current border thus is almost impossible.  The defensive front, a broad plain stretching from Leningrad in the North to the Black Sea in the South, is, from a geographic point of view, a vast prairie, plain or tundra, amenable to Blitzkrieg attack from almost any direction at will.  The loss of Belarus would mean the loss of the defensive part-perimeter of the Pripet Marshes.  The retreat of the border from Western Ukraine to east of the Donbass meant the loss of the partial southern perimeter of the Carpathian mountain chain.

Moving the Russian border back up to the western border of Belarus and Ukraine would therefore narrow the defensive front from 1,000 miles from Rostov on Don to St. Petersburg to a mere 500 miles from the hard-to-pass northern Carpathians to Kaliningrad on the Baltic. And part of that 500 miles would be blocked by the Pripet marshes in southern Belarus and the Pinsk marshes in northern Ukraine.  This has historically forced attackers into two relatively narrow lines of attack.  One through the very northernmost part of Russia, on a vector direct to St. Petersburg, usually coupled with a divergent vector after the Pripets have been surpassed, down to Moscow; and the second through the narrow gap between the Carpathians and the Pripets — essentially the gap represented by the Western border of Ukraine.

These potential lines of attack represented the historic defensive lines of the Russian and Soviet empires.

The events of 1991 blew those lines apart.  Unless both Bularus and Ukraine remained neutral, or pro-Russian, therefore, Russia stood mortally at risk of attack at any time from almost any vector.

But now, Putin’s modest demands for Ukrainian neutrality have been rejected by the neocon foreign policy elite.  And now, fatefully, the Russian armed forces have entered this area — Ukraine — from which they stand so much to gain if they can push to the Western border, closing Western attack lines to a miniscule remnant of what they have been since 1991.

Just as in Afghanistan, we don’t know what will be the final intention.  The stated intention is modest — at most a partition of the Ukraine on the Dnieper and probably less, just the Donbass.  But, if Russian victories accumulate, if Russia calls up its reserves and creates a 2-million man army as the war progresses, if Putin loses patience, or gets the taste of blood in his mouth, what will they do?  God knows.  So the Neocons have started a war that could reclaim the pre-1991 borders of the Soviet Union.  Or worse.  So they better damn well win this war.  But they have no capacity or understanding of how to do it.  Or even why.  They seem to think if they continue to promote gay rights and throw Europe into medieval night by cutting it off from half its current energy supplies (Russian gas), the West will win.

The longer this war grinds on, the more likely the Russians will massively and suddenly up the ante and go for more.

All of Ukraine?

Or — unthinkable — Poland and a defenseless Germany? As noted above, German ground forces number 65,000 — barely larger than the New York City police department.  Compare this with when Germany surrendered in May, 1945 — 1.5 million men under arms.  In fact, no sizable European army exists that would be close to matching the Russian army.   A blitzkrieg attack to the borders of France may sound unlikely, but stranger things have happened when aggressive military leaders have seen a chance for victory.  Read Caesar’s Gallic Wars.  Read his Civil War.  Remember Operation Barbarossa. Think of Napoleon at Tilsit.  And a few years later.  And remember Pearl Harbor.

So much for NATO.  70 years of Western perseverance, guided in the main by competent, if imperfect, elites, in shambles.

Back to a far worse situation than August 1939, when at least to face the Soviets we had Germany (and vice versa) and to face Japan we had China (and vice versa).  We have methodically laid waste to any allied power that might have realistically defended either of our “Eastern fronts”; we have been unsatisfied with overwhelming victory; we have made enemies of the two most powerful nations on earth, other than us; we have pushed one step too far.

And we will now discover the underlying fraud of NATO and the alliance with Japan, which, on the one hand, could never, ever, conventionally defend Europe against Soviet aggression and thus relied on the threat of strategic nuclear weapons launched at the Soviets by the U.S., which threat became simply not credible once the Soviets/Russians reached nuclear parity by 1970.  It will also expose the underlying fraud of our defense treaties with Japan and other Pacific rim nations, since China also has nuclear strike capability.

Now, we will face an enraged and contemptuous Russian behemoth on one side and a contemptuous and massive China on the other.  Having neutered Germany and Japan, we could not contain our arrogance.  This last neocon gasp may well leave us a failing Third-World Latin American-type country, slowly sinking into oblivion — no dollar as reserve currency, no empire, no manufacturing, no people capable of replicating what we had, massive numbers pouring over our borders, increased sales volumes for the rich, anarcho-tyranny for the many.

Elizabeth I of England is reported by some to have said “I do not like wars.  They have uncertain outcomes.” If not, she should have.

Bearing that in mind, may this be the war that kills America, not Russia?

End this war.

[Part II will delve into Soviet and Russian military doctrine and the implications for the nuclearization of war in Europe].


[1]Sadly for Brzezinski, the account in this book indicates that ZB’s analysis of the reasons for entry of the Soviets was completely off base, as, in the end, were much of his policies in response.  Insultingly, the book received a stellar review from none other than President James Earl Carter, as well as by Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State at the time, and Lawrence Eagleburger, U.S. Secretary of State under George Bush I, and Charles William Maynes, the editor of Foreign Policy.

[2]  In Out of Afghanistan (op. cit.), Selig Harrison tells us that as soon as 1982, Andropov was seeking ways to negotiate his way out of Afghanistan.  However, the ZB successors in Team B — the Neocons in the Reagan administration — wanted to “bleed” the, so they actually resisted UN and other multilateral or bilateral attempts to negotiate a cessation of hostilities sufficient to let the Soviets withdraw without humiliation.  It must be wondered at that they were willing to take the risk that Andropov might up the ante and capture the southwestern section of Afghanistan by bribery or force in order to establish bases with a clear shot at the Persian Gulf.  What were they thinking?

https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2022/04/28/unpronounceable-name-incomprehensible-policies-zbigniew-brzezinski-the-afghanistan-myth-and-what-it-means-for-ukraine-ukraine-part-i/