lewrockwell--2020-02-17--When Stalin Almost Conquered Europe

When Stalin Almost Conquered Europe

For many years I maintained far too many magazine subscriptions , more periodicals than I could possibly read or even skim , so most weeks they went straight into storage , with scarcely more than a glance at the cover .
But every now and then , I might casually browse one of them , curious about what I had usually been missing .
Thus , in the summer of 2010 , I happened to leaf through an issue of Chronicles , the small-circulation flagship organ of the marginalized paleoconservative movement , and soon began reading a blandly-titled book review @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it immediately justified all the many years of subscription payments I had sent to that magazine .
The reviewer was Andrei Navrozov , a Soviet emigre long resident in Britain , and he opened by quoting a passage from a previous 1990 book review , published almost exactly twenty years before : He himself had written that earlier book review , which ran in the prestigious Times Literary Supplement following the original English publication of Icebreaker , and his description was not overblown .
The work sought to overturn the settled history @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s author , writing under the pen-name Viktor Suvorov , was a veteran Soviet military intelligence officer who had defected to the West in 1978 and subsequently published a number of well-regarded books on the Soviet military and intelligence services .
But here he advanced a far more radical thesis .
The “ Suvorov Hypothesis ” claimed that during the summer of 1941 Stalin was on the very verge of mounting a massive invasion and conquest of Europe , while Hitler ’ s sudden attack on June 22nd of that year was intended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the author also argued that Stalin ’ s planned attack constituted merely the final act in a much longer geopolitical strategy that he had been developing since at least the early 1930s .
Following the Bolshevik Revolution , the new Soviet regime had been viewed with extreme suspicion and hostility by other European countries , most of which also regarded their own domestic Communist Parties as likely fifth columns .
So to fulfill Lenin ’ s dream and carry the revolution to Germany and the rest of Europe , Stalin somehow needed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their common line of resistance .
He allegedly viewed Hitler ’ s rise as exactly such a potential “ icebreaker , ” an opportunity to unleash another bloody European war and exhaust all sides , while the Soviet Union remained aloof and bided its strength , waiting for the right moment to sweep in and conquer the entire continent .
To this end , Stalin had directed his powerful German Communist Party to take political actions ensuring that Hitler came to power and then later lured the German dictator into signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Britain and France to declare war on Germany , while also eliminating the Polish buffer state , thereby placing Soviet armies directly on the German border .
And from the very moment he signed that long-term peace agreement with Hitler , he abandoned all his defensive preparations , and instead embarked upon an enormous military build-up of the purely offensive forces he intended to use for European conquest .
Thus according to Suvorov , Stalin ranks as “ the chief culprit ” behind the outbreak of World War II in Europe , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bears that exact title .
Since 1990 , Suvorov ’ s works have been translated into at least 18 languages and an international storm of scholarly controversy has swirled around the Suvorov Hypothesis in Russia , Germany , Israel , and elsewhere .
Numerous other authors have published books in support or more often strong opposition , and even international academic conferences have been held to debate the theory .
But our own English-language media has almost entirely blacklisted and ignored this ongoing international debate , to such an extent that the name @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever lived had remained totally unknown to me .
Finally in 2008 , the prestigious Naval Academy Press of Annapolis decided to break this 18 year intellectual embargo and published an updated English edition of Suvorov ’ s work .
But once again , our media outlets almost entirely averted their eyes , and only a single review appeared in an obscure ideological publication , where I chanced to encounter it .
This conclusively demonstrates that throughout most of the twentieth century a united front of English-language publishers and media organs could easily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ensuring that almost no one in America or the rest of the Anglosphere would ever hear of it .
Only with the recent rise of the Internet has this disheartening situation begun to change .
Determining Stalin ’ s true motives and the basis of his foreign policy during the 1930s is hardly easy , and his statements and actions are subject to multiple interpretations .
Therefore , the theory that the dictator spent all those years deftly preparing the outbreak of World War II appears quite speculative to me .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hypothesis—that the Soviets were themselves on the verge of attacking when the Germans struck—is an extremely factual question , which can be evaluated based on hard evidence .
I find the case quite compelling , at least if the facts and details that Suvorov cites in support are not totally spurious , which seems unlikely with the Naval Academy Press as his publisher .
The Eastern Front was the decisive theater of World War II , involving military forces vastly larger than those deployed in the West or the Pacific , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weakness of the Soviets .
On June 22 , 1941 , Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa , a sudden , massive surprise attack on the USSR , which caught the Red Army completely unaware .
Stalin has been regularly ridiculed for his total lack of preparedness , with Hitler often described as the only man the paranoid dictator had ever fully trusted .
Although the defending Soviet forces were enormous in size , they were poorly led , with their officer corps still not recovered from the crippling purges of the late 1930s , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were absolutely no match for the modern panzer divisions of Germany ’ s hitherto undefeated Wehrmacht .
The Russians initially suffered gigantic losses , and only the onset of winter and the vast spaces of their territory saved them from a quick defeat .
After this , the war seesawed back-and-forth for four more years , until superior numbers and improved tactics finally carried the Soviets to the streets of a destroyed Berlin in 1945 .
Such is the traditional understanding of the titanic Russo-German struggle that we see endlessly echoed in every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and film around us .
But even a cursory examination of the initial situation has always revealed strange anomalies .
Many years ago , while in Junior High , I became an avid war-gamer with a strong interest in military history , and the Eastern Front of World War II was certainly a very popular topic .
But every reconstruction of Operation Barbarossa always noted that the Germans owed much of their great initial success to the very odd deployment of the huge Soviet forces , which were all massed along the border @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for an attack , and some writers casually suggested that this might have indeed been the case .
But the sheer volume of supporting evidence amassed by Suvorov goes far beyond this sort of idle speculation , and he produces a historical picture radically different than what our standard accounts have always implied .
First , although there was been a widespread belief in the superiority of Germany ’ s military technology , its tanks and its planes , this is almost entirely mythological .
In actual fact , Soviet tanks were far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and maneuverability to their German counterparts , so much so that the overwhelming majority of panzers were almost obsolescent by comparison .
And the Soviet superiority in numbers was even more extreme , with Stalin deploying several times more tanks than the combined total of those held by Germany and every other nation in the world : 27,000 against just 4,000 in Hitler ’ s forces .
Even during peacetime , a single Soviet factory in Kharkov produced more tanks in every six month period than the entire Third Reich had built prior @ @ @ @ @ @ @ similar superiority , though somewhat less extreme , in their ground-attack bombers .
The totally closed nature of the USSR meant that vast military forces remained entirely hidden from outside observers .
There is also little evidence that the quality of Soviet officers or military doctrine fell short .
Indeed , we often forget that history ’ s first successful example of a “ blitzkrieg ” in modern warfare was the crushing August 1939 defeat that Stalin inflicted upon the Japanese 6th Army in Outer Mongolia , relying upon a massive surprise attack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infantry .
And Stalin apparently thought so highly of many of his top military strategists in 1941 , that despite his huge initial losses , many of them remained in command and were eventually promoted to the highest ranks of the Soviet military establishment by the end of the war .
Certainly , many aspects of the Soviet military machine were primitive , but exactly the same was true of their Nazi opponents .
Perhaps the most surprising detail about the technology of the invading Wehrmacht in 1941 was that its transportation system @ @ @ @ @ @ @ upon wagons and carts drawn by 750,000 horses to maintain the vital flow of ammunition and replacements to its advancing armies .
Meanwhile , major categories of Soviet weapons systems seem almost impossible to explain except as important elements of Stalin ’ s offensive plans .
Although the bulk of the Soviet armored forces were medium tanks like the T-28 and T-34 , generally far superior to their German counterparts , the USSR had also pioneered the development of several lines of highly specialized tanks , most of which had no counterpart elsewhere @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Soviets had produced a remarkable line of light BT tanks , easily able to shed their tracks and continue on wheels , achieving a top speed of 60 miles per hour , two or three times faster than any other comparable armored vehicle , and ideally suited to exploitation drives deep into enemy territory .
However , such wheeled operation was only effective on paved highways , of which Soviet territory had none , hence were ideally suited for travel on Germany ’ s large network of autobahns .
In 1941 Stalin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , more than the rest of the world ’ s tanks combined .
( * ) For centuries , Continental conquerors from Napoleon to Hitler had been stymied by the barrier of the English Channel , but Stalin was far better prepared .
Although Stalin ’ s vast USSR was entirely a land-power , he pioneered the world ’ s only series of fully amphibious light tanks , able to successfully cross large rivers , lakes , and even that notoriously wide moat last successfully traversed by William the Conqueror in 1066 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of these amphibious tanks , far more than 3,350 German tanks of all types used in the attack .
But being useless in defense , they were all ordered abandoned or destroyed .
( * ) The Soviets also fielded many thousands of heavy tanks , intended to engage and defeat enemy armor , while the Germans had none at all .
In direct combat , a Soviet KV-1 or KV-2 could easily destroy four or five of the best German tanks , while remaining almost invulnerable to enemy shells .
Suvorov recounts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 43 direct hits before finally becoming incapacitated , surrounded by the hulks of the ten German tanks it had first managed to destroy .
Other evidence of the scale and intent of Stalin ’ s armies in the summer of 1941 are equally telling : ( * ) During the early years of World War II , the Germans effectively utilized paratroops and air-mobile forces to seize key enemy targets far behind the front lines during a major offensive , and this was an important component of their victories against France in 1940 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are necessarily lightly armed and no match for regular infantry in a defensive battle ; hence their only role is an offensive one .
Germany entered the war with 4,000 paratroops , a far larger force than anything found in Britain , France , America , Italy , or Japan .
However , the Soviets had at least 1,000,000 trained paratroopers , and Suvorov believes that the true total was actually closer to 2,000,000 .
( * ) Sometimes the production decisions of major weapon systems provide strong hints of the broader strategy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ produced military aircraft in history was the heavily armored IL-2 , a powerful Soviet ground-attack bomber that was originally designed as a two-man system , with the rear gunner able to effectively defend the plane against enemy fighters during its missions .
However , Stalin personally ordered the design changed to eliminate the second man and defensive armament , which left the bomber extremely vulnerable to enemy aircraft once the war broke out .
Stalin and his war-planners had seemingly banked on possessing near-total air supremacy during the entire course of any conflict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ German luftwaffe were destroyed on the ground by a surprise attack on the very first day .
( * ) There is considerable evidence that in the weeks prior to the German surprise attack , Stalin had ordered the release of many hundreds of thousands of Gulag prisoners , who were issued basic weapons and organized into NKVD-led divisions and corps , constituting a substantial part of the Second Strategic Echelon located hundreds of miles from the German border .
These units may have been intended to serve as occupation troops , allowing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ press onward and complete the conquests of France , Italy , the Balkans , and Spain .
Otherwise , I can find no other plausible explanation for Stalin ’ s action .
( * ) The planned invasion and occupation of a large country whose population speaks a different language requires considerable logistical preparation .
As an example , prior to their attack the notoriously methodical Germans printed and distributed to their troops large numbers of German-Russian basic phrasebooks , allowing effective communication with the local Slavic villagers and townsmen .
Ironically enough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the USSR seems to have produced very similar Russian-German phrasebooks , allowing conquering Soviet troops to easily make themselves understood to German civilians .
Many millions of these phrasebooks had been distributed to Soviet forces on the German border during the early months of 1941 .
Suvorov ’ s reconstruction of the weeks directly preceding the outbreak of combat is a fascinating one , emphasizing the mirror-image actions taken by both the Soviet and German armies .
Each side moved its best striking units , airfields , and ammunition dumps close to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very vulnerable in defense .
Each side carefully deactivated any residual minefields and ripped out any barbed wire obstacles , lest these hinder the forthcoming attack .
Each side did its best to camouflage their preparations , talking loudly about peace while preparing for imminent war .
The Soviet deployment had begun much earlier , but since their forces were so much larger and had far greater distances to cross , they were not yet quite ready for their attack when the Germans struck , and thereby shattered Stalin ’ s planned conquest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ examples of Soviet weapons systems or strategic decisions seem very difficult to explain under the conventional defensive narrative , but make perfect sense if Stalin ’ s orientation from 1939 onward had always been an offensive one , and he had decided that summer 1941 was the time to strike and enlarge his Soviet Union to include all the European states , just as Lenin had originally intended .
And Suvorov provides many dozens of additional examples , building brick by brick a very compelling case for this theory .
The book is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ words , and $ 20 plus a few mouse clicks on Amazon will provide you a copy to read and judge for yourself .
But for those who desire a simple summary , Suvorov ’ s 2009 lecture at the Eurasia Forum of the Annapolis Naval Academy is conveniently available on YouTube , though slightly hindered by his weak English .
And also his C-SPAN Book TV lectures at the Woodrow Wilson Center : Controversial theories , even if backed by seemingly strong evidence , can hardly be properly evaluated until they have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strongest critics , and this should certainly be the case with the Suvorov Hypothesis .
But although the last three decades have seen the development of a large secondary literature , much of it sharply critical , nearly all this international debate has taken place in Russian , German , or Hebrew , languages that I do not read .
There are some exceptions .
Several years ago , I came across a website debate on the topic , and one strong critic claimed that Suvorov ’ s theories had been totally debunked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Stumbling Colossus , published in 1998 .
But when I ordered and read the book I was sorely disappointed .
Although purporting to refute Suvorov , the author seemed to ignore almost all of his central arguments , and merely provided a rather dull and pedantic recapitulation of the standard narrative I had previously seen hundreds of times , laced with a few rhetorical excesses denouncing the unique vileness of the Nazi regime .
Most ironically , Glantz emphasizes that although Suvorov ’ s analysis of the titanic Russo-German military struggle had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both Russian and German scholars , it had been generally ignored in the Anglo-American world , and he almost seems to imply that it can probably be disregarded for that reason .
Perhaps this attitude reflected the cultural arrogance of many American intellectual elites during Russia ’ s disastrous Yeltsin Era of the late 1990s .
A far superior book , generally supportive of Suvorov ’ s framework , was Stalin ’ s War of Annihilation , by prize-winning German military historian Joachim Hoffmann , originally commissioned by the German Armed Forces and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ edition appearing in 2001 .
The cover carries a notice that the text was cleared by German government censors , and the author ’ s introduction recounts the repeated threats of prosecution he endured from elected officials and the other legal obstacles he faced , while elsewhere he directly addresses himself to the unseen government authorities who he knows are reading over his shoulder .
When stepping too far outside the bounds of accepted history carries the serious risk that a book ’ s entire print-run will be burned and the author imprisoned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at evaluating the text since important sections have been skewed or preemptively excised in the interests of self-preservation .
Evaluating scholarly debates on historical issues becomes difficult when one sides faces incarceration if their arguments are too bold .
Can we say whether Suvorov is right ?
Since our information gatekeepers of the English-language world have spent the last three decades closing their eyes and pretending that the Suvorov Hypothesis does not exist , the near-complete absence of any substantial reviews or critiques makes it very difficult for me to come to any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ available evidence , I believe it is far more likely than not that Suvorov ’ s theories are at least substantially correct .
And if so , our current understanding of World War II—the central formative event of our modern world—is entirely transformed .
Suvorov notes that treaties or pacts are traditionally named for the city in which they are signed—the Warsaw Pact , the Baghdad Pact , the Munich Agreement—and thus the so-called “ Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ” signed in August 23 , 1939 by which Hitler and Stalin agreed to the division @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ the Moscow Pact.
” As a direct result of that agreement , Stalin gained half of Poland , the Baltic States , and various other advantages , including a direct border with Germany .
Meanwhile , Hitler was punished by declarations of war from France and Britain , amid worldwide condemnation as a military aggressor .
Although Germany and Russia both invaded Poland , the latter managed to avoid being dragged into any war with Poland ’ s erstwhile allies .
Thus , the primary beneficiary of the Moscow Pact was clearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trench warfare on the Western front during the First World War , almost all outside observers expected the new round of the conflict to follow a very similar static pattern , gradually exhausting all sides , and the world has shocked when Germany ’ s innovative tactics allowed it to achieve a lightening defeat the allied armies in France during 1940 .
But at that point , Hitler regarded the war as essentially over , and was confident that the extremely generous peace terms he immediately offered the British would soon lead to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he returned Germany to a regular peacetime economy , choosing butter over guns in order to maintain his high domestic popularity Stalin , however , was under no such political constraints , and from the moment he had signed his long-term peace agreement with Hitler in 1939 and divided Poland , he ramped up his total-war economy to an even higher notch .
Embarking upon an unprecedented military buildup , he focused his production almost entirely upon purely offensive weapons systems , while even discontinuing those armaments better suited for defense and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ By 1941 , his production cycle was complete , and he made his plans accordingly .
And so , just as in our traditional narrative , we see that in the weeks and months leading up to Barbarossa , the most powerful offensive military force in the history of the world was quietly assembled in secret along the German-Russian border , preparing for the order that would unleash their surprise attack .
The enemy ’ s unprepared airforce was to be destroyed on the ground in the first days of the battle , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ penetration thrusts , surrounding and trapping the opposing forces , achieving a classic blitzkrieg victory , and ensuring the rapid occupation of vast territories .
But the forces preparing this unprecedented war of conquest were Stalin ’ s , and his military juggernaut would surely have seized all of Europe , probably soon followed by the remainder of the Eurasian landmass .
Then at almost the last moment , Hitler suddenly realized the strategic trap into which he had fallen , and ordered his heavily outnumbered and outgunned troops into a desperate surprise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Soviets , fortuitously catching them at the very point at which their own final preparations for sudden attack had left them most vulnerable , and thereby snatching a major initial victory from the jaws of certain defeat .
Huge stockpiles of Soviet ammunition and weaponry had been positioned close to the border to supply the army of invasion into Germany , and these quickly fell into German hands , providing an important addition to their own woefully inadequate resources .
The enormous and fully-militarized resources of the Soviet state , supplemented by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eventually turn the tide of battle and lead to a Soviet victory , but Stalin ended up with only half of Europe rather than its entirety .
Suvorov argues that the fatal weakness of the Soviet system was its total inability to compete with non-Sovietized states in the peacetime production of civilian goods , and because such states had still survived after the war , the Soviet Union was doomed to eventual collapse .
Navrozov , the Chronicles reviewer , is a Russian Slav and therefore hardly favorable to the German dictator .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ remarkable statement : Reprinted with permission from The Unz Review .
The Best of Ron Unz

For many years I maintained far too many magazine subscriptions, more periodicals than I could possibly read or even skim, so most weeks they went straight into storage, with scarcely more than a glance at the cover. But every now and then, I might casually browse one of them, curious about what I had usually been missing.
Thus, in the summer of 2010, I happened to leaf through an issue of Chronicles, the small-circulation flagship organ of the marginalized paleoconservative movement, and soon began reading a blandly-titled book review. But the piece so astonished me that it immediately justified all the many years of subscription payments I had sent to that magazine.
The reviewer was Andrei Navrozov, a Soviet emigre long resident in Britain, and he opened by quoting a passage from a previous 1990 book review, published almost exactly twenty years before:
[Suvorov] is arguing with every book, every article, every film, every NATO directive, every Downing Street assumption, every Pentagon clerk, every academic, every Communist and anti-Communist, every neoconservative intellectual, every Soviet song, poem, novel and piece of music ever heard, written, made, sung, issued, produced, or born during the last 50 years. For this reason, Icebreaker is the most original work of history it has been my privilege to read.
He himself had written that earlier book review, which ran in the prestigious Times Literary Supplement following the original English publication of Icebreaker, and his description was not overblown. The work sought to overturn the settled history of World War II.
Icebreaker‘s author, writing under the pen-name Viktor Suvorov, was a veteran Soviet military intelligence officer who had defected to the West in 1978 and subsequently published a number of well-regarded books on the Soviet military and intelligence services. But here he advanced a far more radical thesis.
The “Suvorov Hypothesis” claimed that during the summer of 1941 Stalin was on the very verge of mounting a massive invasion and conquest of Europe, while Hitler’s sudden attack on June 22nd of that year was intended to forestall that looming blow. Moreover, the author also argued that Stalin’s planned attack constituted merely the final act in a much longer geopolitical strategy that he had been developing since at least the early 1930s.
Following the Bolshevik Revolution, the new Soviet regime had been viewed with extreme suspicion and hostility by other European countries, most of which also regarded their own domestic Communist Parties as likely fifth columns. So to fulfill Lenin’s dream and carry the revolution to Germany and the rest of Europe, Stalin somehow needed to split the Europeans, and break their common line of resistance. He allegedly viewed Hitler’s rise as exactly such a potential “icebreaker,” an opportunity to unleash another bloody European war and exhaust all sides, while the Soviet Union remained aloof and bided its strength, waiting for the right moment to sweep in and conquer the entire continent.
To this end, Stalin had directed his powerful German Communist Party to take political actions ensuring that Hitler came to power and then later lured the German dictator into signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to divide Poland. This led Britain and France to declare war on Germany, while also eliminating the Polish buffer state, thereby placing Soviet armies directly on the German border. And from the very moment he signed that long-term peace agreement with Hitler, he abandoned all his defensive preparations, and instead embarked upon an enormous military build-up of the purely offensive forces he intended to use for European conquest. Thus according to Suvorov, Stalin ranks as “the chief culprit” behind the outbreak of World War II in Europe, and the updated English edition of his book bears that exact title.
To my great surprise I discovered that Suvorov’s remarkable theories had gained enormous worldwide prominence since 1990, and had been widely discussed almost everywhere except in America and the other English-speaking countries. As Navrozov explained: [The English edition of the] book sold 800 copies.Some months later, a German edition of the book, under the title Der Eisbrecher: Hitler in Stalins Kaulkul, was published in Germany by a smallish house, Klett-Cotta, to timid and gingerly reviews. It sold 8,000 copies. In 1992, Suvorov’s manuscript was delivered to a maverick publisher in Moscow, and at last the book saw the light of day in the original Russian, quickly selling out its first print run of 100,000 copies. In the years that followed, over five million copies have been sold, making Suvorov the most-read military historian in history. And yet, in the nearly 20 years that have elapsed between Icebreaker‘s launch in England and the present publication of The Chief Culprit, no British, American, Canadian, or Australian publisher saw fit to exploit potentially global interest in the drifting Icebreaker—or to so much as touch Suvorov with a barge pole—despite the fact that the almost unobtainable $20 copies of the long-out-of print Hamish Hamilton edition have been changing hands on the internet for upward of $500.
Since 1990, Suvorov’s works have been translated into at least 18 languages and an international storm of scholarly controversy has swirled around the Suvorov Hypothesis in Russia, Germany, Israel, and elsewhere. Numerous other authors have published books in support or more often strong opposition, and even international academic conferences have been held to debate the theory. But our own English-language media has almost entirely blacklisted and ignored this ongoing international debate, to such an extent that the name of the most widely-read military historian who ever lived had remained totally unknown to me.
Finally in 2008, the prestigious Naval Academy Press of Annapolis decided to break this 18 year intellectual embargo and published an updated English edition of Suvorov’s work. But once again, our media outlets almost entirely averted their eyes, and only a single review appeared in an obscure ideological publication, where I chanced to encounter it. This conclusively demonstrates that throughout most of the twentieth century a united front of English-language publishers and media organs could easily maintain a boycott of any important topic, ensuring that almost no one in America or the rest of the Anglosphere would ever hear of it. Only with the recent rise of the Internet has this disheartening situation begun to change.
Determining Stalin’s true motives and the basis of his foreign policy during the 1930s is hardly easy, and his statements and actions are subject to multiple interpretations. Therefore, the theory that the dictator spent all those years deftly preparing the outbreak of World War II appears quite speculative to me. But the other central claim of the Suvorov Hypothesis—that the Soviets were themselves on the verge of attacking when the Germans struck—is an extremely factual question, which can be evaluated based on hard evidence. I find the case quite compelling, at least if the facts and details that Suvorov cites in support are not totally spurious, which seems unlikely with the Naval Academy Press as his publisher.
The Eastern Front was the decisive theater of World War II, involving military forces vastly larger than those deployed in the West or the Pacific, and the standard narrative always emphasizes the ineptitude and weakness of the Soviets. On June 22, 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, a sudden, massive surprise attack on the USSR, which caught the Red Army completely unaware. Stalin has been regularly ridiculed for his total lack of preparedness, with Hitler often described as the only man the paranoid dictator had ever fully trusted. Although the defending Soviet forces were enormous in size, they were poorly led, with their officer corps still not recovered from the crippling purges of the late 1930s, and their obsolete equipment and poor tactics were absolutely no match for the modern panzer divisions of Germany’s hitherto undefeated Wehrmacht. The Russians initially suffered gigantic losses, and only the onset of winter and the vast spaces of their territory saved them from a quick defeat. After this, the war seesawed back-and-forth for four more years, until superior numbers and improved tactics finally carried the Soviets to the streets of a destroyed Berlin in 1945.
Such is the traditional understanding of the titanic Russo-German struggle that we see endlessly echoed in every newspaper, book, television documentary, and film around us. But even a cursory examination of the initial situation has always revealed strange anomalies.
Many years ago, while in Junior High, I became an avid war-gamer with a strong interest in military history, and the Eastern Front of World War II was certainly a very popular topic. But every reconstruction of Operation Barbarossa always noted that the Germans owed much of their great initial success to the very odd deployment of the huge Soviet forces, which were all massed along the border in vulnerable formations almost as if preparing for an attack, and some writers casually suggested that this might have indeed been the case. But the sheer volume of supporting evidence amassed by Suvorov goes far beyond this sort of idle speculation, and he produces a historical picture radically different than what our standard accounts have always implied.
First, although there was been a widespread belief in the superiority of Germany’s military technology, its tanks and its planes, this is almost entirely mythological. In actual fact, Soviet tanks were far superior in main armament, armor, and maneuverability to their German counterparts, so much so that the overwhelming majority of panzers were almost obsolescent by comparison. And the Soviet superiority in numbers was even more extreme, with Stalin deploying several times more tanks than the combined total of those held by Germany and every other nation in the world: 27,000 against just 4,000 in Hitler’s forces. Even during peacetime, a single Soviet factory in Kharkov produced more tanks in every six month period than the entire Third Reich had built prior to 1940. The Soviets held a similar superiority, though somewhat less extreme, in their ground-attack bombers. The totally closed nature of the USSR meant that vast military forces remained entirely hidden from outside observers.
There is also little evidence that the quality of Soviet officers or military doctrine fell short. Indeed, we often forget that history’s first successful example of a “blitzkrieg” in modern warfare was the crushing August 1939 defeat that Stalin inflicted upon the Japanese 6th Army in Outer Mongolia, relying upon a massive surprise attack of tanks, bombers, and mobile infantry. And Stalin apparently thought so highly of many of his top military strategists in 1941, that despite his huge initial losses, many of them remained in command and were eventually promoted to the highest ranks of the Soviet military establishment by the end of the war.
Certainly, many aspects of the Soviet military machine were primitive, but exactly the same was true of their Nazi opponents. Perhaps the most surprising detail about the technology of the invading Wehrmacht in 1941 was that its transportation system was still almost entirely pre-modern, relying upon wagons and carts drawn by 750,000 horses to maintain the vital flow of ammunition and replacements to its advancing armies.
Meanwhile, major categories of Soviet weapons systems seem almost impossible to explain except as important elements of Stalin’s offensive plans. Although the bulk of the Soviet armored forces were medium tanks like the T-28 and T-34, generally far superior to their German counterparts, the USSR had also pioneered the development of several lines of highly specialized tanks, most of which had no counterpart elsewhere in the world.
(*) The Soviets had produced a remarkable line of light BT tanks, easily able to shed their tracks and continue on wheels, achieving a top speed of 60 miles per hour, two or three times faster than any other comparable armored vehicle, and ideally suited to exploitation drives deep into enemy territory. However, such wheeled operation was only effective on paved highways, of which Soviet territory had none, hence were ideally suited for travel on Germany’s large network of autobahns. In 1941 Stalin deployed almost 6,500 of these autobahn-oriented tanks, more than the rest of the world’s tanks combined.
(*) For centuries, Continental conquerors from Napoleon to Hitler had been stymied by the barrier of the English Channel, but Stalin was far better prepared. Although Stalin’s vast USSR was entirely a land-power, he pioneered the world’s only series of fully amphibious light tanks, able to successfully cross large rivers, lakes, and even that notoriously wide moat last successfully traversed by William the Conqueror in 1066. By 1941, the Soviets deployed 4,000 of these amphibious tanks, far more than 3,350 German tanks of all types used in the attack. But being useless in defense, they were all ordered abandoned or destroyed.
(*) The Soviets also fielded many thousands of heavy tanks, intended to engage and defeat enemy armor, while the Germans had none at all. In direct combat, a Soviet KV-1 or KV-2 could easily destroy four or five of the best German tanks, while remaining almost invulnerable to enemy shells. Suvorov recounts the example of a KV which took 43 direct hits before finally becoming incapacitated, surrounded by the hulks of the ten German tanks it had first managed to destroy.
Other evidence of the scale and intent of Stalin’s armies in the summer of 1941 are equally telling:
(*) During the early years of World War II, the Germans effectively utilized paratroops and air-mobile forces to seize key enemy targets far behind the front lines during a major offensive, and this was an important component of their victories against France in 1940 and Greece in 1941. Such units are necessarily lightly armed and no match for regular infantry in a defensive battle; hence their only role is an offensive one. Germany entered the war with 4,000 paratroops, a far larger force than anything found in Britain, France, America, Italy, or Japan. However, the Soviets had at least 1,000,000 trained paratroopers, and Suvorov believes that the true total was actually closer to 2,000,000.
(*) Sometimes the production decisions of major weapon systems provide strong hints of the broader strategy behind their development. The most widely produced military aircraft in history was the heavily armored IL-2, a powerful Soviet ground-attack bomber that was originally designed as a two-man system, with the rear gunner able to effectively defend the plane against enemy fighters during its missions. However, Stalin personally ordered the design changed to eliminate the second man and defensive armament, which left the bomber extremely vulnerable to enemy aircraft once the war broke out. Stalin and his war-planners had seemingly banked on possessing near-total air supremacy during the entire course of any conflict, an assumption plausible only if the German luftwaffe were destroyed on the ground by a surprise attack on the very first day.
(*) There is considerable evidence that in the weeks prior to the German surprise attack, Stalin had ordered the release of many hundreds of thousands of Gulag prisoners, who were issued basic weapons and organized into NKVD-led divisions and corps, constituting a substantial part of the Second Strategic Echelon located hundreds of miles from the German border. These units may have been intended to serve as occupation troops, allowing the much more powerful front-line forces to press onward and complete the conquests of France, Italy, the Balkans, and Spain. Otherwise, I can find no other plausible explanation for Stalin’s action.
(*) The planned invasion and occupation of a large country whose population speaks a different language requires considerable logistical preparation. As an example, prior to their attack the notoriously methodical Germans printed and distributed to their troops large numbers of German-Russian basic phrasebooks, allowing effective communication with the local Slavic villagers and townsmen. Ironically enough, at around the same time, the USSR seems to have produced very similar Russian-German phrasebooks, allowing conquering Soviet troops to easily make themselves understood to German civilians. Many millions of these phrasebooks had been distributed to Soviet forces on the German border during the early months of 1941.
Suvorov’s reconstruction of the weeks directly preceding the outbreak of combat is a fascinating one, emphasizing the mirror-image actions taken by both the Soviet and German armies. Each side moved its best striking units, airfields, and ammunition dumps close to the border, ideal for an attack but very vulnerable in defense. Each side carefully deactivated any residual minefields and ripped out any barbed wire obstacles, lest these hinder the forthcoming attack. Each side did its best to camouflage their preparations, talking loudly about peace while preparing for imminent war. The Soviet deployment had begun much earlier, but since their forces were so much larger and had far greater distances to cross, they were not yet quite ready for their attack when the Germans struck, and thereby shattered Stalin’s planned conquest of Europe.
All of the above examples of Soviet weapons systems or strategic decisions seem very difficult to explain under the conventional defensive narrative, but make perfect sense if Stalin’s orientation from 1939 onward had always been an offensive one, and he had decided that summer 1941 was the time to strike and enlarge his Soviet Union to include all the European states, just as Lenin had originally intended. And Suvorov provides many dozens of additional examples, building brick by brick a very compelling case for this theory.
The book is not overly long, running perhaps 150,000 words, and $20 plus a few mouse clicks on Amazon will provide you a copy to read and judge for yourself. But for those who desire a simple summary, Suvorov’s 2009 lecture at the Eurasia Forum of the Annapolis Naval Academy is conveniently available on YouTube, though slightly hindered by his weak English.

And also his C-SPAN Book TV lectures at the Woodrow Wilson Center:
Controversial theories, even if backed by seemingly strong evidence, can hardly be properly evaluated until they have been weighed against the counter-arguments of their strongest critics, and this should certainly be the case with the Suvorov Hypothesis. But although the last three decades have seen the development of a large secondary literature, much of it sharply critical, nearly all this international debate has taken place in Russian, German, or Hebrew, languages that I do not read.
There are some exceptions. Several years ago, I came across a website debate on the topic, and one strong critic claimed that Suvorov’s theories had been totally debunked by American military historian David M. Glantz in Stumbling Colossus, published in 1998. But when I ordered and read the book I was sorely disappointed. Although purporting to refute Suvorov, the author seemed to ignore almost all of his central arguments, and merely provided a rather dull and pedantic recapitulation of the standard narrative I had previously seen hundreds of times, laced with a few rhetorical excesses denouncing the unique vileness of the Nazi regime. Most ironically, Glantz emphasizes that although Suvorov’s analysis of the titanic Russo-German military struggle had gained great attention and considerable support among both Russian and German scholars, it had been generally ignored in the Anglo-American world, and he almost seems to imply that it can probably be disregarded for that reason. Perhaps this attitude reflected the cultural arrogance of many American intellectual elites during Russia’s disastrous Yeltsin Era of the late 1990s.
A far superior book, generally supportive of Suvorov’s framework, was Stalin’s War of Annihilation, by prize-winning German military historian Joachim Hoffmann, originally commissioned by the German Armed Forces and published in 1995 with an English revised edition appearing in 2001. The cover carries a notice that the text was cleared by German government censors, and the author’s introduction recounts the repeated threats of prosecution he endured from elected officials and the other legal obstacles he faced, while elsewhere he directly addresses himself to the unseen government authorities who he knows are reading over his shoulder. When stepping too far outside the bounds of accepted history carries the serious risk that a book’s entire print-run will be burned and the author imprisoned, a reader must necessarily be cautious at evaluating the text since important sections have been skewed or preemptively excised in the interests of self-preservation. Evaluating scholarly debates on historical issues becomes difficult when one sides faces incarceration if their arguments are too bold.
Can we say whether Suvorov is right? Since our information gatekeepers of the English-language world have spent the last three decades closing their eyes and pretending that the Suvorov Hypothesis does not exist, the near-complete absence of any substantial reviews or critiques makes it very difficult for me to come to any definite conclusion. But based on the available evidence, I believe it is far more likely than not that Suvorov’s theories are at least substantially correct. And if so, our current understanding of World War II—the central formative event of our modern world—is entirely transformed.
Suvorov notes that treaties or pacts are traditionally named for the city in which they are signed—the Warsaw Pact, the Baghdad Pact, the Munich Agreement—and thus the so-called “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact” signed in August 23, 1939 by which Hitler and Stalin agreed to the division of Poland should more properly be called “the Moscow Pact.” As a direct result of that agreement, Stalin gained half of Poland, the Baltic States, and various other advantages, including a direct border with Germany. Meanwhile, Hitler was punished by declarations of war from France and Britain, amid worldwide condemnation as a military aggressor. Although Germany and Russia both invaded Poland, the latter managed to avoid being dragged into any war with Poland’s erstwhile allies. Thus, the primary beneficiary of the Moscow Pact was clearly Moscow.
Given the long years of trench warfare on the Western front during the First World War, almost all outside observers expected the new round of the conflict to follow a very similar static pattern, gradually exhausting all sides, and the world has shocked when Germany’s innovative tactics allowed it to achieve a lightening defeat the allied armies in France during 1940. But at that point, Hitler regarded the war as essentially over, and was confident that the extremely generous peace terms he immediately offered the British would soon lead to a final settlement. As a consequence, he returned Germany to a regular peacetime economy, choosing butter over guns in order to maintain his high domestic popularity
Stalin, however, was under no such political constraints, and from the moment he had signed his long-term peace agreement with Hitler in 1939 and divided Poland, he ramped up his total-war economy to an even higher notch. Embarking upon an unprecedented military buildup, he focused his production almost entirely upon purely offensive weapons systems, while even discontinuing those armaments better suited for defense and dismantling his defensive lines of fortifications. By 1941, his production cycle was complete, and he made his plans accordingly.
And so, just as in our traditional narrative, we see that in the weeks and months leading up to Barbarossa, the most powerful offensive military force in the history of the world was quietly assembled in secret along the German-Russian border, preparing for the order that would unleash their surprise attack. The enemy’s unprepared airforce was to be destroyed on the ground in the first days of the battle, and enormous tank columns would begin deep penetration thrusts, surrounding and trapping the opposing forces, achieving a classic blitzkrieg victory, and ensuring the rapid occupation of vast territories. But the forces preparing this unprecedented war of conquest were Stalin’s, and his military juggernaut would surely have seized all of Europe, probably soon followed by the remainder of the Eurasian landmass.
Then at almost the last moment, Hitler suddenly realized the strategic trap into which he had fallen, and ordered his heavily outnumbered and outgunned troops into a desperate surprise attack of their own on the assembling Soviets, fortuitously catching them at the very point at which their own final preparations for sudden attack had left them most vulnerable, and thereby snatching a major initial victory from the jaws of certain defeat. Huge stockpiles of Soviet ammunition and weaponry had been positioned close to the border to supply the army of invasion into Germany, and these quickly fell into German hands, providing an important addition to their own woefully inadequate resources.
The enormous and fully-militarized resources of the Soviet state, supplemented by the contributions of Britain and America, did eventually turn the tide of battle and lead to a Soviet victory, but Stalin ended up with only half of Europe rather than its entirety. Suvorov argues that the fatal weakness of the Soviet system was its total inability to compete with non-Sovietized states in the peacetime production of civilian goods, and because such states had still survived after the war, the Soviet Union was doomed to eventual collapse.
Navrozov, the Chronicles reviewer, is a Russian Slav and therefore hardly favorable to the German dictator. But he closes his review with a remarkable statement:
Therefore, if any of us is free to write, publish, and read this today, it follows that in some not inconsequential part our gratitude for this must go to Hitler. And if someone wants to arrest me for saying what I have just said, I make no secret of where I live.
Reprinted with permission from The Unz Review.
The Best of Ron Unz


lewrockwell--2020-02-17--The Russia Hoax Continues and Both Dems and Repugs Push It

Although the farcical Mueller Commission is now ended and even the results it came up with , practically speaking , effectively exonerated the president , to listen to various members of the media , including many Fox pundits , most Democrats and many Republicans , it was if there was no “ investigation ” at all .
The same “ Russia Hoax ” narrative continues : just listen to Representative Adam Schiff spiel on for a while .
For such national personalities nothing has really changed .
This template , despite what we now know and always have known , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s why Roger Stone faces prison time , essentially because he was convicted for lying about non-existent Russian subversion in America elections .
“ Russia is bad , ” we are told , and its president , Vladimir Putin , is really , really bad .
Why , he may be as bad as , let ’ s see , maybe those old Commies prior to 1991 , or maybe he IS a Commie ?
Certainly , say Fox interviewees like Representatives Dan Crenshaw and Adan Kinzinger , or Neoconservative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it seems , still rampages and “ Russia is still our Number One Enemy ” ( remember Mitt Romney saying that ? )
.
War with Russia ?
: From ... Stephen F. Cohen Best Price : $ 5.00 Buy New $ 8.50 My friend Dr. Paul Gottfried just recently sent me a news article ; it concerns something President Vladimir Putin recently said and was quoted by Reuters news service ( February 13 ) , specifically , that in no uncertain terms he totally ruled out homosexual marriage in Russia .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Russian constitution he declared : “ As far as ‘ parent number 1 ’ and ‘ parent number 2 ’ goes , I ’ ve already spoken publicly about this and I ’ ll repeat it again : as long as I ’ m president this will not happen .
There will be dad and mum.
” Indeed , back in December , addressing a meeting in the Kremlin Putin forcefully reaffirmed his nation ’ s commitment to traditional matrimony : President Vladimir Putin remarked at a recent Kremlin meeting that some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” out of concerns for political correctness , something he hoped ‘ would never happen in Russia ’ .
Putin was referring to a law passed in France earlier this year which mandates that schools refrain from using ‘ father ’ and ‘ mother ’ and instead use ‘ parent 1 ’ and ‘ parent 2 ’ .
According to government MP Valérie Petit , the change was necessary because using ‘ father ’ and ‘ mother ’ is “ old fashioned ” and doesn ’ t meet the needs of “ social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see Russia following suit .
During a meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations , a Kremlin advisory group , Putin told delegates , “ You said the word mother ‘ can ’ t be replaced.
’ It turns out , perhaps , it can ; in some countries , they now have ‘ parent number one ’ and ‘ parent number two.
’ I hope we will never have that ( in Russia ) .
I will do everything to stop it.
” Back in June , Vladimir Putin commented on a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in its death throws thanks to forced multiculturalism .
“ The ruling elites have broken away from the people , ” Putin told the Financial Times , adding that the “ so-called liberal idea has outlived its purpose.
” This is not new ; Putin ’ s statements and vision for Russia are not secret .
Yet , to listen to the American media , very little of what he has said and very little of the legislative action of the Russian Duma ( parliament ) is reported by the American press .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is done in such a way as to portray the Russian president and his country in an extremely negative and hostile light .
Russia , it is repeated daily , is “ authoritarian , ” anti-democratic , does not respect human rights and persecutes minorities ( e.g.
, homosexuals , lesbians , etc . )
; it is aggressive and has “ invaded ” its neighbors ( e.g.
, Ukraine , Georgia ) .
And Putin is a “ KGB thug ” who “ wants to restore the Soviet Union ” ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the past six or so years I have written extensively about this narrative .
Very simply it is the iron-cage ideological framework that now dominates both Democratic and Republican parties , with a few exceptions .
There are voices raised in objection to it : Professors Stephen Cohen ( Princeton University ) and Paul Robinson ( University of Ottawa ) , and Tucker Carlson on his nightly television program ( with guests like former colonel and consultant Douglas MacGregor ) , and maybe Senator Rand Paul in Congress .
But those voices are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here in the United States .
The major media , including to a large extent Fox , simply avoid actually quoting Putin , and every action taken in Russia is a perceived threat to America , or to “ the sanctity of our democratic elections.
” When was the last time , for instance , that you heard a major American news outlet actually cite something Putin said , a speech , an official statement of Russian policy ?
Just to take one example—there are many—back on September 20 , 2013 he spoke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Here is just a portion of that speech , made before a gathering of representatives from around the world : “ …We can see how many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their roots , including the Christian values that constitute the basis of Western civilisation .
They are denying moral principles and all traditional identities : national , cultural , religious and even sexual .
They are implementing policies that equate large families with same-sex partnerships , belief in God with the belief in Satan .
“ The excesses of political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are seriously talking about registering political parties whose aim is to promote paedophilia .
People in many European countries are embarrassed or afraid to talk about their religious affiliations .
Holidays are abolished or even called something different ; their essence is hidden away , as is their moral foundation .
And people are aggressively trying to export this model all over the world .
I am convinced that this opens a direct path to degradation and primitivism , resulting in a profound demographic and moral crisis .
“ What else but the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ act as the greatest testimony of the moral crisis facing a human society ?
Today almost all developed nations are no longer able to reproduce themselves , even with the help of migration .
Without the values embedded in Christianity and other world religions , without the standards of morality that have taken shape over millennia , people will inevitably lose their human dignity .
We consider it natural and right to defend these values .
One must respect every minority ’ s right to be different , but the rights of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” I have cited these remarks previously ; they are not unique .
For Putin has been saying the same thing for years—and enacting legislation mirroring what he says that also reflects the desires and aspirations of the great majority of Russia ’ s citizenry .
Back a little over five years ago I authored a longish researched essay on Vladimir Putin and what has been and is going on in Russia since the fall of Communism in the fall of 1991 .
Although the essay could use some updating , the essential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I believe , useful .
I am passing it along today : Examining the Hatred of Vladimir Putin and Russia A Conservative Analysis by BOYD D. CATHEY • DECEMBER 29 , 2014 Reprinted from My Corner by Boyd Cathey .

Although the farcical Mueller Commission is now ended and even the results it came up with, practically speaking, effectively exonerated the president, to listen to various members of the media, including many Fox pundits, most Democrats and many Republicans, it was if there was no “investigation” at all. The same “Russia Hoax” narrative continues: just listen to Representative Adam Schiff spiel on for a while. For such national personalities nothing has really changed.
This template, despite what we now know and always have known, continues frenetically and unabated before our eyes. It’s why Roger Stone faces prison time, essentially because he was convicted for lying about non-existent Russian subversion in America elections.
“Russia is bad,” we are told, and its president, Vladimir Putin, is really, really bad. Why, he may be as bad as, let’s see, maybe those old Commies prior to 1991, or maybe he IS a Commie? Certainly, say Fox interviewees like Representatives Dan Crenshaw and Adan Kinzinger, or Neoconservative publicists such as Jonah Goldberg. Communism, it seems, still rampages and “Russia is still our Number One Enemy” (remember Mitt Romney saying that?).
War with Russia?: From... Cohen, Stephen F. Best Price: $8.99 Buy New $8.50 (as of 02:15 UTC - Details) My friend Dr. Paul Gottfried just recently sent me a news article; it concerns something President Vladimir Putin recently said and was quoted by Reuters news service (February 13), specifically, that in no uncertain terms he totally ruled out homosexual marriage in Russia. In reference to discussions over modifications to the Russian constitution he declared: “As far as ‘parent number 1’ and ‘parent number 2’ goes, I’ve already spoken publicly about this and I’ll repeat it again: as long as I’m president this will not happen. There will be dad and mum.”
Indeed, back in December, addressing a meeting in the Kremlin Putin forcefully reaffirmed his nation’s commitment to traditional matrimony:
President Vladimir Putin remarked at a recent Kremlin meeting that some countries are replacing the word “mother” out of concerns for political correctness, something he hoped ‘would never happen in Russia’. Putin was referring to a law passed in France earlier this year which mandates that schools refrain from using ‘father’ and ‘mother’ and instead use ‘parent 1’ and ‘parent 2’. According to government MP Valérie Petit, the change was necessary because using ‘father’ and ‘mother’ is “old fashioned” and doesn’t meet the needs of “social equality.” Don’t expect to see Russia following suit. During a meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations, a Kremlin advisory group, Putin told delegates, “You said the word mother ‘can’t be replaced.’ It turns out, perhaps, it can; in some countries, they now have ‘parent number one’ and ‘parent number two.’ I hope we will never have that (in Russia). I will do everything to stop it.” Back in June, Vladimir Putin commented on a similar topic, asserting that liberalism was in its death throws thanks to forced multiculturalism. “The ruling elites have broken away from the people,” Putin told the Financial Times, adding that the “so-called liberal idea has outlived its purpose.”
This is not new; Putin’s statements and vision for Russia are not secret. Yet, to listen to the American media, very little of what he has said and very little of the legislative action of the Russian Duma (parliament) is reported by the American press. Or, if it is reported, it is done in such a way as to portray the Russian president and his country in an extremely negative and hostile light. Russia, it is repeated daily, is “authoritarian,” anti-democratic, does not respect human rights and persecutes minorities (e.g., homosexuals, lesbians, etc.); it is aggressive and has “invaded” its neighbors (e.g., Ukraine, Georgia). And Putin is a “KGB thug” who “wants to restore the Soviet Union” (cf., Representative Kinzinger).
Over the past six or so years I have written extensively about this narrative. Very simply it is the iron-cage ideological framework that now dominates both Democratic and Republican parties, with a few exceptions. There are voices raised in objection to it: Professors Stephen Cohen (Princeton University) and Paul Robinson (University of Ottawa), and Tucker Carlson on his nightly television program (with guests like former colonel and consultant Douglas MacGregor), and maybe Senator Rand Paul in Congress. But those voices are few in the spectrum of political opinion here in the United States.
The major media, including to a large extent Fox, simply avoid actually quoting Putin, and every action taken in Russia is a perceived threat to America, or to “the sanctity of our democratic elections.”
When was the last time, for instance, that you heard a major American news outlet actually cite something Putin said, a speech, an official statement of Russian policy? Just to take one example—there are many—back on September 20, 2013 he spoke to the annual International Valdai Forum. Here is just a portion of that speech, made before a gathering of representatives from around the world:
“…We can see how many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their roots, including the Christian values that constitute the basis of Western civilisation. They are denying moral principles and all traditional identities: national, cultural, religious and even sexual. They are implementing policies that equate large families with same-sex partnerships, belief in God with the belief in Satan. “The excesses of political correctness have reached the point where people are seriously talking about registering political parties whose aim is to promote paedophilia. People in many European countries are embarrassed or afraid to talk about their religious affiliations. Holidays are abolished or even called something different; their essence is hidden away, as is their moral foundation. And people are aggressively trying to export this model all over the world. I am convinced that this opens a direct path to degradation and primitivism, resulting in a profound demographic and moral crisis. “What else but the loss of the ability to self-reproduce could act as the greatest testimony of the moral crisis facing a human society? Today almost all developed nations are no longer able to reproduce themselves, even with the help of migration. Without the values embedded in Christianity and other world religions, without the standards of morality that have taken shape over millennia, people will inevitably lose their human dignity. We consider it natural and right to defend these values. One must respect every minority’s right to be different, but the rights of the majority must not be put into question.”
I have cited these remarks previously; they are not unique. For Putin has been saying the same thing for years—and enacting legislation mirroring what he says that also reflects the desires and aspirations of the great majority of Russia’s citizenry.
Back a little over five years ago I authored a longish researched essay on Vladimir Putin and what has been and is going on in Russia since the fall of Communism in the fall of 1991. Although the essay could use some updating, the essential information I provide remains accurate and, I believe, useful.
I am passing it along today:
Examining the Hatred of Vladimir Putin and Russia
A Conservative Analysis by BOYD D. CATHEY • DECEMBER 29, 2014
Reprinted from My Corner by Boyd Cathey.


lewrockwell--2020-02-17--Oil Isn’t Alternative Energy’s Enemy

Oil Isn’t Alternative Energy’s Enemy

Editor ’ s note : This week , we ’ re talking to Casey Research founder Doug Casey about his interest in science , technology , politics , and history .
Yesterday , Doug told us about the impossibility of an oil shortage – despite panic in the mainstream media .
And in today ’ s Conversations With Casey , Doug offers his thoughts on the alternative energy sector… Read on below for Doug ’ s take on the political hacks who are destroying green energy with “ incessant propaganda ” … Daily Dispatch : So Doug , you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and background for oil exploration and production .
The practical question is whether oil is cheap or expensive right now at around $ 55 ?
Doug Casey : The price has been dropping of late , because of the coronavirus , and fears it will greatly reduce consumption .
Around 70 % of oil is fuel for travel – cars , planes , boats and trains .
I suspect it ’ s something that will burn out and blow over , like SARS and the others .
Mass hysteria does a lot more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who knows ?
The next war will undoubtedly feature bioweapons .
But it ’ s important to note that all commodities tend to rotate around their production cost .
Today , the average production cost of oil varies greatly .
It ’ s not just the cost of actually pumping the marginal extra barrel of oil , either .
There are infrastructure , transportation , financing , tax , regulatory , administrative , and numerous other costs .
But at this point , oil , in most places in the world , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s profitable for good operators , but far from a bonanza .
In fact , most small producers are on the edge of bankruptcy .
Gas producers are all running at a loss with gas under $ 2 .
Myths , Lies and Oil Wars F. William Engdahl Best Price : $ 33.55 Buy New $ 7.93 Technology always works to both drive down costs and increase production .
Most people aren ’ t aware of the fact that even when an oil well is capped , and is no longer produced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left in the well .
There ’ s just not enough pressure to get the oil up .
Of course , there are secondary – mostly water flooding – and tertiary ways to recover more oil .
But even under the best circumstances you can ’ t , today , get more than about 40 % of the oil in the deposit up above ground .
When technology improves further with better tertiary recovery methods , producers will be able to go back to exploit many of these old capped oil wells .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ already discovered , laying and waiting for the technology to liberate it .
Who can say exactly when that will happen ?
But if the oil price increases , innovators and capitalists will develop new ways to recover the oil in those wells .
The bottom line is : Don ’ t worry about running out of oil .
Daily Dispatch : In that case , what ’ s your take on alternative energy ?
Sounds like it may be a waste of time if we ’ re never going to run out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world ’ s supply of oil will never run out , that doesn ’ t mean I ’ m against the idea of alternative energy sources .
In fact , I completely support their development and the technology behind them .
The oil price and the cost of producing oil are key to how quickly alternative energy sources are developed .
Right now , at around $ 50 , oil is a very marginal business – and so are alternative sources .
But if oil goes to $ 100 or $ 150 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be absolutely coining money – and lots of resources will go into alternatives .
If for some reason it goes back down to $ 25 , which is unlikely , then a lot of oil companies will go bankrupt .
What observations can we make from that ?
How about this : Oil is perhaps the most political of all commodities .
Of course , all commodities – very unfortunately – are political in one way or another .
But oil is probably the most political , even more than gold , wheat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because it ’ s the major source of income for a number of countries – especially in the Middle East and Africa .
In Venezuela and Russia , the main source of government income is oil .
And as we know , something like 25 % of the world ’ s oil passes through the Straits of Hormuz .
So it can be cut off .
And if it is cut off , the price of oil is going to explode .
The price fluctuates very much with political events .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That makes me tend to be a bull .
Daily Dispatch : That all makes sense .
But what ’ s your take on the relationship between capital investment in fossil fuels and in alternative energy sources ?
How will governments , politics , and lobbyists affect this ?
We ’ ll try to give you an example here… As you know , there ’ s a lot of political and social pressure for capital to divert from fossil fuels to so-called “ green energy , ” even if the “ green @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fuels .
If it was only about energy efficiency , then that capital would probably go into oil or maybe even coal or natural gas .
But because of the political pressure , it goes towards investments in “ green energy.
” That means it takes capital away from something that is efficient and more cost-effective , and directs it into something else which may not be as efficient or cost-effective .
This may , in turn , be another reason why the oil price is so high .
It limits or reduces @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oil or fossil fuel sector .
What ’ s your take on that ?
Doug Casey : Yes .
Well , you ’ re absolutely right .
This is another reason , among many , why politics is the enemy of the average man .
Politics , by its very nature , directs capital away from its most efficient use – where it could create more capital and make the world wealthier – and it directs it into inefficient uses , where you ’ re actually getting poorer .
Governments might take a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ company to create a widget .
They typically do that because the “ investment ” is politically productive – not because it ’ s economically productive .
Government isn ’ t interested in making money , as business is ; it ’ s interested in controlling people .
But making money – which is becoming a rather despised concept – is actually about creating new wealth .
I ’ m all for wind and solar , as I ’ ve explained previously .
But technologies that are subsidized don ’ t create wealth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ destroy it .
This is how things have been with solar and wind power for decades .
They ’ ve been stupid political boondoggles , destroying wealth .
That ’ s only now beginning to change .
Daily Dispatch : Yes , perhaps you can explain what you mean .
Solar and wind power are the alternative energy sources that seem to have the most backing from the green lobby groups .
Doug Casey : Remember , all power – except nuclear – comes from the sun , directly or indirectly .
Everything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wind , solar , tidal , geothermal , whatever .
By trying to get power directly from wind and solar , it ’ s like we ’ re cutting out the middleman , which very nicely over hundreds of millions of years has concentrated that power for us .
It ’ s foolish not to take advantage of that .
That said , solar and wind efficiency have been getting better and better for decades .
Which is both wonderful and inevitable .
And they ’ ve actually been practical for remote special @ @ @ @ @ @ @ form of mass power , base load power , they still don ’ t make good economic sense .
They ’ d make even less economic sense if it wasn ’ t for subsidies , which waste capital , and are always destructive .
They ’ re destructive , because they direct capital to things that make political sense , but rarely economic sense .
When government tries to act as a venture capitalist , things almost always go badly .
Amazon.com Gift Card i ... Buy New $ 15.00 Doug Casey : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which came to light in the 2012 elections .
There was apparently lots of fraud – which is not unexpected when the government has $ 535 million on offer .
Cronies are always first in line at the trough .
But it was also just a bad bet in a rapidly evolving area of technology .
A more recent example is the Crescent Dunes solar project near Tonopah , Nevada .
The U.S. guaranteed a $ 750 million loan for the plant , which is now bankrupt , shut down as uneconomic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I thought it was an interesting large-scale science project – but only the government would waste that kind of capital because it seemed like a good idea at the time .
Doug Casey : Contrary to the incessant propaganda , solar isn ’ t an environmental issue ; it ’ s not about saving the planet from carbon , the newly christened enemy element .
These people forget that in order to create solar collectors and windmills , it takes an immense amount of metals , plastics , petrochemicals , energy , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The only way you can know if solar and wind make sense is if they make money .
I ’ m confident they will in the near future .
But they should be funded by venture capitalists , not bureaucrats and political hacks .
The Best of Doug Casey

Editor’s note: This week, we’re talking to Casey Research founder Doug Casey about his interest in science, technology, politics, and history.
Yesterday, Doug told us about the impossibility of an oil shortage – despite panic in the mainstream media. And in today’s Conversations With Casey, Doug offers his thoughts on the alternative energy sector…
Read on below for Doug’s take on the political hacks who are destroying green energy with “incessant propaganda”…
Daily Dispatch: So Doug, you’ve spoken to us about the theory and background for oil exploration and production. The practical question is whether oil is cheap or expensive right now at around $55?
Doug Casey: The price has been dropping of late, because of the coronavirus, and fears it will greatly reduce consumption. Around 70% of oil is fuel for travel – cars, planes, boats and trains. I suspect it’s something that will burn out and blow over, like SARS and the others. Mass hysteria does a lot more damage than the virus itself. But who knows? The next war will undoubtedly feature bioweapons.
But it’s important to note that all commodities tend to rotate around their production cost. Today, the average production cost of oil varies greatly. It’s not just the cost of actually pumping the marginal extra barrel of oil, either. There are infrastructure, transportation, financing, tax, regulatory, administrative, and numerous other costs. But at this point, oil, in most places in the world, is a marginal business at best. It’s profitable for good operators, but far from a bonanza. In fact, most small producers are on the edge of bankruptcy. Gas producers are all running at a loss with gas under $2. Myths, Lies and Oil Wars F. William Engdahl Best Price: $33.55 Buy New $7.93 (as of 08:30 UTC - Details)
Technology always works to both drive down costs and increase production. Most people aren’t aware of the fact that even when an oil well is capped, and is no longer produced, there is still lots of oil left in the well. There’s just not enough pressure to get the oil up. Of course, there are secondary – mostly water flooding – and tertiary ways to recover more oil. But even under the best circumstances you can’t, today, get more than about 40% of the oil in the deposit up above ground.
When technology improves further with better tertiary recovery methods, producers will be able to go back to exploit many of these old capped oil wells. It’s a huge resource, already discovered, laying and waiting for the technology to liberate it.
Who can say exactly when that will happen? But if the oil price increases, innovators and capitalists will develop new ways to recover the oil in those wells. The bottom line is: Don’t worry about running out of oil.
Daily Dispatch: In that case, what’s your take on alternative energy? Sounds like it may be a waste of time if we’re never going to run out of oil.
Doug Casey: Although the world’s supply of oil will never run out, that doesn’t mean I’m against the idea of alternative energy sources. In fact, I completely support their development and the technology behind them.
The oil price and the cost of producing oil are key to how quickly alternative energy sources are developed. Right now, at around $50, oil is a very marginal business – and so are alternative sources. But if oil goes to $100 or $150, then oil companies are going to be absolutely coining money – and lots of resources will go into alternatives.
If for some reason it goes back down to $25, which is unlikely, then a lot of oil companies will go bankrupt. What observations can we make from that?
How about this: Oil is perhaps the most political of all commodities. Of course, all commodities – very unfortunately – are political in one way or another. But oil is probably the most political, even more than gold, wheat, or uranium. That’s because it’s the major source of income for a number of countries – especially in the Middle East and Africa. In Venezuela and Russia, the main source of government income is oil.
And as we know, something like 25% of the world’s oil passes through the Straits of Hormuz. So it can be cut off. And if it is cut off, the price of oil is going to explode. The price fluctuates very much with political events. It’s controlled by governments directly and indirectly. That makes me tend to be a bull.
Daily Dispatch: That all makes sense. But what’s your take on the relationship between capital investment in fossil fuels and in alternative energy sources? How will governments, politics, and lobbyists affect this?
We’ll try to give you an example here… As you know, there’s a lot of political and social pressure for capital to divert from fossil fuels to so-called “green energy,” even if the “green energy” is less efficient than fossil fuels.
If it was only about energy efficiency, then that capital would probably go into oil or maybe even coal or natural gas. But because of the political pressure, it goes towards investments in “green energy.” That means it takes capital away from something that is efficient and more cost-effective, and directs it into something else which may not be as efficient or cost-effective. This may, in turn, be another reason why the oil price is so high. It limits or reduces the investment in new technologies in the oil or fossil fuel sector. What’s your take on that?
Doug Casey: Yes. Well, you’re absolutely right. This is another reason, among many, why politics is the enemy of the average man. Politics, by its very nature, directs capital away from its most efficient use – where it could create more capital and make the world wealthier – and it directs it into inefficient uses, where you’re actually getting poorer.
Governments might take a dollar of capital, and pay some company to create a widget. They typically do that because the “investment” is politically productive – not because it’s economically productive. Government isn’t interested in making money, as business is; it’s interested in controlling people. But making money – which is becoming a rather despised concept – is actually about creating new wealth.
I’m all for wind and solar, as I’ve explained previously. But technologies that are subsidized don’t create wealth. They misallocate it, or even destroy it. This is how things have been with solar and wind power for decades. They’ve been stupid political boondoggles, destroying wealth. That’s only now beginning to change.
Daily Dispatch: Yes, perhaps you can explain what you mean. Solar and wind power are the alternative energy sources that seem to have the most backing from the green lobby groups.
Doug Casey: Remember, all power – except nuclear – comes from the sun, directly or indirectly. Everything – coal, wood, oil, wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, whatever. By trying to get power directly from wind and solar, it’s like we’re cutting out the middleman, which very nicely over hundreds of millions of years has concentrated that power for us. It’s foolish not to take advantage of that.
That said, solar and wind efficiency have been getting better and better for decades. Which is both wonderful and inevitable. And they’ve actually been practical for remote special applications for years. But as a form of mass power, base load power, they still don’t make good economic sense.
They’d make even less economic sense if it wasn’t for subsidies, which waste capital, and are always destructive. They’re destructive, because they direct capital to things that make political sense, but rarely economic sense. When government tries to act as a venture capitalist, things almost always go badly. Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $15.00 (as of 11:55 UTC - Details)
Daily Dispatch: An example?
Doug Casey: Probably the most famous example was Solyndra, which came to light in the 2012 elections. There was apparently lots of fraud – which is not unexpected when the government has $535 million on offer. Cronies are always first in line at the trough. But it was also just a bad bet in a rapidly evolving area of technology.
A more recent example is the Crescent Dunes solar project near Tonopah, Nevada. The U.S. guaranteed a $750 million loan for the plant, which is now bankrupt, shut down as uneconomic, and being sold as scrap. I thought it was an interesting large-scale science project – but only the government would waste that kind of capital because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Daily Dispatch: What about solar’s claimed environmental credentials?
Doug Casey: Contrary to the incessant propaganda, solar isn’t an environmental issue; it’s not about saving the planet from carbon, the newly christened enemy element. These people forget that in order to create solar collectors and windmills, it takes an immense amount of metals, plastics, petrochemicals, energy, and other non-green ingredients to build them.
The only way you can know if solar and wind make sense is if they make money. I’m confident they will in the near future. But they should be funded by venture capitalists, not bureaucrats and political hacks.
Reprinted with permission from Casey Research.
The Best of Doug Casey


lewrockwell--2020-02-17--The Siren Call of a ‘System Leader’

The Siren Call of a ‘System Leader’

A considerable spectrum of the liberal West takes the American interpretation of what civilization consists of to be something like an immutable law of nature .
But what if this interpretation is on the verge of an irreparable breakdown ?
Michael Vlahos has argued that the US is not a mere nation-state but a “ system leader ” – “ a civilizational power like Rome , Byzantium , and the Ottoman Empire.
” And , we should add , China – which he did not mention .
The system leader is “ a universalistic identity framework tied to a state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States clearly owns this identity framework today.
” Intel stalwart Alastair Crooke , in a searing essay , digs deeper into how this “ civilizational vision ” was “ forcefully unfurled across the globe ” as the inevitable , American manifest destiny : not only politically – including all the accouterments of Western individualism and neo-liberalism , but coupled with “ the metaphysics of Judeo-Christianity , too ” .
Secret Empires : How th ... Peter Schweizer Best Price : $ 5.99 Buy New $ 9.58 Crooke also notes how deeply ingrained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ War “ spectacularly affirmed ” the superiority of the US civilizational vision among the US elite .
Well , the post-modern tragedy – from the point of view of US elites – is that soon this may not be the case anymore .
The vicious civil war engulfing Washington for the past three years – with the whole world as stunned spectators – has just accelerated the malaise .
It ’ s sobering to consider that Pax Americana may be destined to a shorter historical existence than Pax Mongolica – established after Genghis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nation , went about conquering the world .
Genghis first invested in a trade offensive to take over the Silk Roads , crushing the Kara-Kitais in Eastern Turkestan , conquering Islamic Khorezm , and annexing Bukhara , Samarkand , Bactria , Khorasan and Afghanistan .
The Mongols reached the outskirts of Vienna in 1241 and the Adriatic Sea one year after .
The superpower of the time extended from the Pacific to the Adriatic .
We can barely imagine the shock for Western Christendom .
Pope Gregory X was itching to know who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and could be Christianized ?
In parallel , only a victory by the Egyptian Mamluks in Galilee in 1260 saved Islam from being annexed to Pax Mongolica .
It ’ s sobering to consider that Pax Americana may be destined to a shorter historical existence than Pax Mongolica – established after Genghis Khan , the head of a nomad nation , went about conquering the world .
Genghis first invested in a trade offensive to take over the Silk Roads , crushing the Kara-Kitais in Eastern Turkestan , conquering Islamic Khorezm , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Khorasan and Afghanistan .
The Mongols reached the outskirts of Vienna in 1241 and the Adriatic Sea one year after .
The superpower of the time extended from the Pacific to the Adriatic .
We can barely imagine the shock for Western Christendom .
Pope Gregory X was itching to know who these conquerors of the world were , and could be Christianized ?
In parallel , only a victory by the Egyptian Mamluks in Galilee in 1260 saved Islam from being annexed to Pax Mongolica .
Pax Mongolica – a single , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coincided historically with the Golden Age of the Silk Roads .
Kublai Khan – who lorded over Marco Polo – wanted to be more Chinese than the Chinese themselves .
He wanted to prove that nomad conquerors turned sedentary could learn the rules of administration , commerce , literature and even navigation .
Yet when Kublai Khan died , the empire fragmented into rival khanates .
Islam profited .
Everything changed .
A century later , the Mongols from China , Persia , Russia and Central Asia had nothing to do with their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the young 21st century shows that the initiative , historically , is once again on the side of China , across the Heartland and lining up the Rimland .
World-changing , game-changing enterprises don ’ t originate in the West anymore – as has been the case from the 16th century up to the late 20th century .
Amazon.com Gift Card i ... Buy New $ 10.00 For all the vicious wishful thinking that coronavirus will derail the “ Chinese century ” , which will actually be the Eurasian Century , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Roads demonization , it ’ s always easy to forget that implementation of myriad projects has not even started .
It should be in 2021 that all those corridors and axes of continental development pick up speed across Southeast Asia , the Indian Ocean , Central Asia , Southwest Asia , Russia and Europe , in parallel with the Maritime Silk Road configuring a true Eurasian string of pearls from Dalian to Piraeus , Trieste , Venice , Genoa , Hamburg and Rotterdam .
For the first time in two millennia , China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political and economic expansion both on the continental and maritime realms , something that the state did not experience since the short expeditionary stretch led by Admiral Zheng He in the Indian Ocean in the early 15th century .
Eurasia , in the recent past , was under Western and Soviet colonization .
Now it ’ s going all-out multipolar – a series of complex , evolving permutations led by Russia-China-Iran-Turkey-India-Pakistan-Kazakhstan .
Every player has no illusions about the “ system leader ” obsessions : to prevent Eurasia from uniting under one power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strategic partnership ; ensure that Europe remains under US hegemony ; prevent Southwest Asia – or the “ Greater Middle East ” – from being linked to Eurasian powers ; and prevent by all means that Russia-China have unimpeded access to maritime lanes and trade corridors .

A considerable spectrum of the liberal West takes the American interpretation of what civilization consists of to be something like an immutable law of nature. But what if this interpretation is on the verge of an irreparable breakdown?
Michael Vlahos has argued that the US is not a mere nation-state but a “system leader” – “a civilizational power like Rome, Byzantium, and the Ottoman Empire.” And, we should add, China – which he did not mention. The system leader is “a universalistic identity framework tied to a state. This vantage is helpful because the United States clearly owns this identity framework today.”
Intel stalwart Alastair Crooke, in a searing essay, digs deeper into how this “civilizational vision” was “forcefully unfurled across the globe” as the inevitable, American manifest destiny: not only politically – including all the accouterments of Western individualism and neo-liberalism, but coupled with “the metaphysics of Judeo-Christianity, too”. Secret Empires: How th... Schweizer, Peter Best Price: $5.99 Buy New $11.07 (as of 07:25 UTC - Details)
Crooke also notes how deeply ingrained the notion that victory in the Cold War “spectacularly affirmed” the superiority of the US civilizational vision among the US elite. Well, the post-modern tragedy – from the point of view of US elites – is that soon this may not be the case anymore. The vicious civil war engulfing Washington for the past three years – with the whole world as stunned spectators – has just accelerated the malaise.
Remember Pax Mongolica
It’s sobering to consider that Pax Americana may be destined to a shorter historical existence than Pax Mongolica – established after Genghis Khan, the head of a nomad nation, went about conquering the world.
Genghis first invested in a trade offensive to take over the Silk Roads, crushing the Kara-Kitais in Eastern Turkestan, conquering Islamic Khorezm, and annexing Bukhara, Samarkand, Bactria, Khorasan and Afghanistan. The Mongols reached the outskirts of Vienna in 1241 and the Adriatic Sea one year after.
The superpower of the time extended from the Pacific to the Adriatic. We can barely imagine the shock for Western Christendom. Pope Gregory X was itching to know who these conquerors of the world were, and could be Christianized?
In parallel, only a victory by the Egyptian Mamluks in Galilee in 1260 saved Islam from being annexed to Pax Mongolica.
It’s sobering to consider that Pax Americana may be destined to a shorter historical existence than Pax Mongolica – established after Genghis Khan, the head of a nomad nation, went about conquering the world.
Genghis first invested in a trade offensive to take over the Silk Roads, crushing the Kara-Kitais in Eastern Turkestan, conquering Islamic Khorezm, and annexing Bukhara, Samarkand, Bactria, Khorasan and Afghanistan. The Mongols reached the outskirts of Vienna in 1241 and the Adriatic Sea one year after.
The superpower of the time extended from the Pacific to the Adriatic. We can barely imagine the shock for Western Christendom. Pope Gregory X was itching to know who these conquerors of the world were, and could be Christianized?
In parallel, only a victory by the Egyptian Mamluks in Galilee in 1260 saved Islam from being annexed to Pax Mongolica.
Pax Mongolica – a single, organized, efficient, tolerant power – coincided historically with the Golden Age of the Silk Roads. Kublai Khan – who lorded over Marco Polo – wanted to be more Chinese than the Chinese themselves. He wanted to prove that nomad conquerors turned sedentary could learn the rules of administration, commerce, literature and even navigation.
Yet when Kublai Khan died, the empire fragmented into rival khanates. Islam profited. Everything changed. A century later, the Mongols from China, Persia, Russia and Central Asia had nothing to do with their ancestors on horseback.
A jump cut to the young 21st century shows that the initiative, historically, is once again on the side of China, across the Heartland and lining up the Rimland. World-changing, game-changing enterprises don’t originate in the West anymore – as has been the case from the 16th century up to the late 20th century. Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $10.00 (as of 08:25 UTC - Details)
For all the vicious wishful thinking that coronavirus will derail the “Chinese century”, which will actually be the Eurasian Century, and amid the myopic tsunami of New Silk Roads demonization, it’s always easy to forget that implementation of myriad projects has not even started.
It should be in 2021 that all those corridors and axes of continental development pick up speed across Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, Central Asia, Southwest Asia, Russia and Europe, in parallel with the Maritime Silk Road configuring a true Eurasian string of pearls from Dalian to Piraeus, Trieste, Venice, Genoa, Hamburg and Rotterdam.
For the first time in two millennia, China is able to combine the dynamism of political and economic expansion both on the continental and maritime realms, something that the state did not experience since the short expeditionary stretch led by Admiral Zheng He in the Indian Ocean in the early 15th century. Eurasia, in the recent past, was under Western and Soviet colonization. Now it’s going all-out multipolar – a series of complex, evolving permutations led by Russia-China-Iran-Turkey-India-Pakistan-Kazakhstan.
Every player has no illusions about the “system leader” obsessions: to prevent Eurasia from uniting under one power – or coalition such as the Russia-China strategic partnership; ensure that Europe remains under US hegemony; prevent Southwest Asia – or the “Greater Middle East” – from being linked to Eurasian powers; and prevent by all means that Russia-China have unimpeded access to maritime lanes and trade corridors.
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