A Letter to Federica Mogherini.

Here is EU's "diplomacy" big honcho, Federica Mogherini, does it again: parades herself as a clueless delusional hack. In her today's  interview to Corriere Della Sera (in Italian) she (yet again) demonstrates the depth of the rot and impotence of EU and its structures. Using Google Translate it is not difficult to grasp Mogherini's take on the latest events in the world, including Russian-American relations:

"What does Europe in front of the new Trump-Putin Russia and a strong board, winning in Syria, a friend of dictators in the Middle East? "I would have some doubts about the actual strength of Russia, a country undermined by the economic crisis. Its internal difficulties are well disguised as an international political and military dynamics. Europe has no interest in a Russia weak and in crisis. I am very concerned by what is happening in Ukraine. Very serious, because it continues to violate the principle that borders must not be changed by force. However, Europe and Russia have worked and are working very well together on many issues such as the Iranian nuclear dossier. But on other issues, such as Afghanistan or the peace process in the Middle East I am not so sure that the agendas Trump-Putin dovetailed. " 

I have some news for Mogherini when she speaks about Russia (see above underlined). I do consider the possibility of Mogherini being asleep for the last 17 years and being awake only in a duration of the last couple of days, but to be THAT stupid and ignorant (and disingenuous, of course), one has to really put some effort in it, or remain asleep.  So, I have to write a letter to her.  Here it is:

Dear Federica, 

in the times of fast-speed internet and unobstructed global flow of information, it is really difficult to "disguise" virtually anything, let alone "internal difficulties" of such country as Russia. Especially when one considers, that Russia and Russians enjoy today benefits of freedom of speech and of information which are beyond the grasp of most Europeans who are living in Orwellian world of political correctness and of the newspeak. Western in general, and EU media in particular, are a laughing stock of the world and are supremely incompetent in the same way as EU's political class is incompetent. As any country, Russia does have difficulties but those are not only not disguised, especially considering Russia being saturated with Western "observers", ranging from media to espionage types (both foreign and domestic), but are in the open and for the last three years served as a fodder for Western "media", who not for once predicted Russia's demise.... which never came. 

It is reasonable then to assume that these, supposedly "disguised", difficulties were not as life threatening as was stated, and that EU media, diplomatic and intelligence observers failed miserably in assessing the actual, real state of the affairs. As per "disguising" those obviously well exposed "difficulties" through international and military "dynamics", one has to understand that, using the words of great British historian, Corelli Barnett: power of the nation-state by no means consist only in its armed forces, but also in its economic and technological resources; in the dexterity, foresight and resolution with which its foreign policy is conducted; in the efficiency of its social and political organization. It consists most of all in the nation itself, the people, their skills, energy, ambition, discipline, initiative; their beliefs, myths and illusions. And it consists, further, in the way all these factors are related to one another.  

While EU's combined GDP is larger than that of Russia (hers is about the size of Germany's) all points listed by Barnett Russia has, all with a plus sign. That is why Russia is a superpower influencing global dynamics. EU, other than GDP, has none of what Barnett talks about. Today EU is a geopolitical midget with demoralized population, with catastrophic demographics and being in panic retreat against waves of Muslim immigrants. EU represents today a reincarnation of Sodom and Gomorrah, European men have been completely emasculated under the constant assault of feminists and sexual deviants. European armed forces are pathetic. European Churches are empty or being destroyed altogether. The whole notion of power has been reduced in Europe to a collection of the post-modernist gender-neutral memes. The campaign of suppressing any critique of governments and of Brussels useless moronic bureaucracy is in full swing. On every point which ever defined and defines real power and influence Europe fails miserably. It increasingly becomes nothing more than a relatively small peninsula of a giant Eurasian landmass with only two things going for it. One, being a depository of a treasures of past European civilizations, second, having, for now, more or less large GDP providing a good standard of living, again, for now. But even here, a massive change is coming, because this model is unsustainable, especially against the background of European institutions' impotence and total collapse of morality and civilization sustaining values. Yes, Federica, that means you and your "diplomatic" organization too. You are simply not in the same league, not even close, with Russia's diplomats who would "eat" you and your "colleagues" alive, because unlike you, representing Brussels' bureaucracy, Russian diplomats are not only better educated, they represent real interests of their nation. 

Here, I have to conclude my letter with response to what I marked in red in your quote. Dear Federica, it is the other way around. It is Russia who is not interested in Europe as EU, especially when it is not going to survive. Russia is not interested, other than as the market for Russian goods, in Brussels' bureaucracy which is dumb as fuck and can ensure only two things: either completely run Europe into the ground or, maybe, finally precipitate the uprising of those remaining French, German, Italian, Dutch nations who must erase this globalist order in order to survive as independent nations and cultures. With this, Federica, I want to wish you and EU bureaucracy a faster moral and financial bankruptcy and disappearance from European mind, whatever is left of it today anyway, as a long and torturous nightmare disappears with awakening into the nice sunny morning. But I don't hold my breath for that and you may relax before finding Europe as merely a geographic appendix to a place where the new economic reality is emerging as I type this. Stay safe and learn how to shoot (just in case), you may need it. But above all, try to wake up first.  

Ciao.    

  

Aww, Isn't That Cute?

Now government of Germany is having a lucid, even if the only one so far, moment. Federal Republic Of Germany finally figured out that Kiev junta maybe is not what it was portrayed before in Germany by this (among many others) very Suddeutsche Zeitung, which now, finally, discovered evil plans of Ukraine's Government. All previous three years  Germany lived in happy self-imposed ignorance of the nature of Kiev's neo-nazi junta, all three years Germany viewed a cabal of criminals and openly murderous nutjobs who run Ukraine as a legitimate subject of international relations and closed its eyes on atrocities which were and are committed in Donbass on the orders from Kiev. What happened that suddenly official Berlin saw through Poroshenko's plans and came to the correct conclusion that it is Kiev which is "deteriorating situation to a great extent in order to stop the US President from easing sanction on Russia"? Let me get this straight: Berlin understands now that Kiev is ready to start a war to not allow President Trump to lift sanctions from Russia? But wasn't it Germany in general, especially through its media which would make Goebbels blush, and Frau Kanzlerin Merkel in particular, who gave legitimacy to this collection of war criminals in Kiev and who went out of their way to impose sanctions on Russia? If my memory serves me right, it was Germany, especially its Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who played a crucial role in escalating Kiev events to what they became today--a geopolitical catastrophe in progress right in the middle of Europe. 

Germany (together with US) was one of the main drivers behind the process of Ukraine's collapse, it was Germany and its imbecile political and media class, who wanted to see Ukraine in the so called Western Fold. Well, guess what, Germany can have it now and that is why such a "sudden" attack of the common geopolitical sense. It is precisely because Germany and, with it, EU can have and will have this explosive, rotten, corrupt and destabilizing for EU (which is not experiencing its best moment as I type it) element. In the end, Germany wanted to assert itself as a great power, using Ukraine, and "assertion" it did. Considering "intellectual" level of Germany's ruling class, Germany failed miserably, as was expected. Now, when real multi-polarity became a reality, especially with Trump's victory and West's sanctions on Russia provided so much needed impetus for Russia's re-industrialization and continued modernization,  one has to ask the question--what Germany and EU are about to face when dealing with their (together with Obama) Ukrainian creation? The answer is very simple: they, not Russia, will have to pay for the mess they created. Let Germany deal with it, let it show a leadership in facing Kiev's neo-nazis whom Berlin so actively supported from the get go, let Germany (and EU) face consequences, including the loss of a very large part of Russia's market. Frau Kanzlerin better start finding some explanation for Germany's business community why it will never again be able to have niches it enjoyed in Russia prior to 2014. Hey, Ukraine could be a good compensation, right? 

UPDATE: as WSJ reports NATO decided to "shelve" plans to meet with Ukraine regarding European Missile Defense. Not to "provoke" Russia. In the same time, doesn't Frau Kanzlerine have elections to attend pretty soon? As we all know, wars create a problem of refugees and we know how "well" Germany handles these types of problems. 

Ah, Yes. As Was Predicted.

On this blog too, from the get go. But then again, each time I hear Ph.D in economics from Harvard, I cringe. Well, I cringe from Ph.Ds in political "science" too, from any Ivy League madras.

So, Russian economy is not in tatters, eh? 

Have to hand it to Forbes, McCain's photo with caption looks great. Remember me thanking this old hack with pushing for France not to sell these two floating Mistral-class coffins to Russian Navy? 

As for Serdyukov and his handlers...well,Mistral embarrassment will be with them for a long time. John McCain, meanwhile, should double his efforts to prevent Mistrals' delivery to Russia--there will be many Russian naval professionals who would thank him for that.   

But what do I know, really. Wait, this was my first post in this blog (wink, wink). Does McCain even know how much good did he do for Russia? I am not being facetious.

Does United States Have Enough Currency?

No, I am not talking about good ole' greenback, which could be printed by US FRS and Mint (coins) thus flooding the world with papers and inflation. Hey, beats dealing with it domestically and why, when inflation could be exported to some other locality. I am talking about real hard currency which exists beyond the virtual world of Wall Street indices and blown out of proportions, grossly exaggerated US GDP figures. I am talking about the hard currency of the real military and economic weight--a geopolitical hard currency. It is this currency, which rules the world, always did, always will. Donald Trump's victory changed geopolitical calculus dramatically and underscored a titanic scale of changes world is coming through now. For starters, it became (as was anticipated with Trump) OK to ally with Russia to fight this ISIS filth. These are great news but let's slow down a bit and look at even larger picture. Even before President Trump's Inauguration a bunch of the US foreign policy "experts" started to float the idea that now, that Trump is a winner, United States might do a "trick" on Russia, or, go full Nixon-Kissinger in order to regain Russia as an ally in US struggle with China. There are three problems with this plan, though, especially as seen from Russia and by that I do not mean the only source of US "knowledge" about Russia--a collection of US sycophants from Moscow's uber-liberal Parnassus--but from people who deal with facts:

1. It is simply inconceivable for any foreign policy realist to consider Nixon-Kissinger "opening of China" (understandably, as a counterweight to the Soviet Union at that time) any sort of a success. Speaking frankly, it was this very policy through which United States initiated and then accelerated the growth of her own economic and, to a degree, geopolitical competitor. Now, with China's nominal GDP being larger than that of the US, not to mention the actual GDP which is in manufacturing--here, the gap is huge and continues to grow--how can one in his own mind consider this any kind of success or a viable geopolitical concept? We all know the results of this "success", which, in large part, is responsible for deindustrialization of the United States--the very factor which, among very few others, defines nation's geopolitical weight. Russia's professional analysts know the real situation in the US economy. And that is why Russia's leadership, at least at this point, is not convinced at all that this game should be played. Let's face it, China as an economic entity is worth for Russia not simply more, but on the order of magnitude more than the United States.

2. For some reason, many people in the US who offer this bizarre triangulation with using Russia as an ally for the US in her struggle against China, still reside in late 1980s-ealry 1990s thinking that Russia is simply still enamored with the US, her standard of living and culture. This simply has no bases in reality anymore. Russians, unlike it was in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, are simply not interested in US anymore. Other than Russian traditional fear (justified completely) that some nut-job in US will start a war with Russia, the appeals of US "democracy" and liberalism faded dramatically and overwhelming majority of Russians merely go about their daily business and live their lives. The US in Russia today are viewed mostly from the point of view of a threat--a dramatic departure from 25 years ago when United States were viewed as an ally and a friend, those sentiments disappeared pretty fast. Russians' "going about their daily business" involves a lot of bread and butter issues and here United States are not even in the first ten of Russia's main trading partners but, as you may have guessed it already, China, sure as hell, is. Thus the irresistible and highly warranted question arises: what's in it for Russia? What can possibly United States offer Russia economically, when economic dynamics in Eurasia offers Russia a host of incredible economic opportunities?  

3. The reason this blog was started. It is a huge one, a defining one--Obama's Administration and its cabal of neocon war criminals is responsible for what even during Cold War seemed inconceivable. United States, her paid for, encouraged and supported proxies, Ukrainian neo-nazi junta, spilled the blood of Russian and Russo-phone civilians in Ukraine. I stress it, not military--military is expected to face death, but civilians. Russians do not forget easily these things and it was here where a huge obstacle exists culturally--US political class as a whole simply has no grasp of what a spilled blood means in international relations. This factor is tectonic and can not simply be dismissed. That is what behind statements by many high ranking Russian officials when they admit that repairing Russian-American relations will be a long and arduous process. Truth is, today Russians simply do not trust the United States, period.

Both Russia and the United States need to repair their relations and a lot of good will come out of it, but considering Russia as a possible Nixonesque "counterweight" to China? I don't think that the United States has enough geopolitical (and financial) currency to "buy" Russia. Yes, the discussion on new geopolitical structure involving US, China, Russia and, eventually, strong regional players must start today and this is possible with new Administration, but Russia is not for sale in any, even the most sophisticated,  geopolitical game as a "counterweight" or as a mercenary. The game has changed and so did Russia, China, United States and so did the world at large. We either start to negotiate with each-other or we will perish all under the ruins of the old world.  

UPDATE on a long way to normalization of relations.

  

Neo-Liberalism Is A Mental Ilness.

I mean it. Some imbecile local Swedish politician has resigned because he asked somebody "to shoot Donald Trump". Evidently, in Sweden, who prides itself on wholesale "democratic" rapes of cute Swedish blonde girls by ISIS and jihad sympathizers, who pass in Sweden as "refuges", and on great academic achievements in discovering alternative genders, it is not known that calling for, in effect, assassination of the leader of a foreign nation is not only a despicable act, it is also criminal. It is akin to this mama's boy Marco Rubio accusing President Putin of being a "war criminal".  Not as severe as some Swedish dimwit calling for Trump's assassination, but all the same--a position wrought with dangers of being sued. 

But apart from being morally reprehensible (US Secret Service--you can organize the meeting of this Swedish cretin with Tony "Torn Spleen" Bonaducci), the reasons why this imbecile has called for an attempt on Trump makes this whole thing surreal. As RT reports:

“He [Trump] risks the future of the entire Earth,” he said, adding that “now, when the world has started going in the right direction,” Trump plans to increase oil and coal production.   

Got it? Remember that psycho-environmental-bitch from England who aborted a child in order "to reduce a carbon footprint"? This is exactly the same situation with one huge difference. If that British pathetic excuse for a woman could abort a child with impunity, this environmental terrorism should not be left without attention and proper action. Any hysteria from liberals should be met with a decisive slap, a  legal one, or better yet, when situation calls for it, with mae-geri,  into their faces. This is the public, be it in US in a form of BLM, anarchists or militant SJWs, or in Europe with their sexual perverts and environmental terrorists, who, given the chance, will have no inhibition to arresting, torturing or killing normal people who would not agree with their insane ideological positions. They already wrecked numerous innocent lives of decent people. Of course, those acts will not be performed by this public, most of it are cowards and cry-babies, but they do have influence and we all should be ready for dealing with this insidious totalitarian threat. Meanwhile, a robust legal action should begin against this, now peeing into own pants, Swedish SJW who has to face a book thrown at him for calling for assassination of democratically elected President. This, below, has to be put back to where it belongs--mental asylums. Wake up, Sweden, wake up. 

       

Congratulations, America! Congratulations, Mr. President.

It is a new day in USA! A badly needed and a long, very long expected day. Will American and world's problems disappear with Donald Trump's inauguration? No way! But for the first time in three consecutive US Administrations (in reality even longer), the United States has a President who gets it and speaks to people directly. Trump's inauguration speech (I am at work and had to listen to it in parts) and now reading a transcript was incredible, his vision is solid and good, some of his statements probably gave aneurysms to the whole generation of political whores in Congress, on both sides of an isle, and D.C. bureaucracy. No, the wars will not stop immediately and badly needed manufacturing will not return to the US in a flick of the magic wand, but Trump's vision of the world and of the US, while not perfect, is a good place to start to saddle those powerful winds of change, which will sweep cancerous neo-liberalism into the dust bin of history. 

I am a realist and I do not hope for too much. But we may finally exhale understanding that US and Russia, while not becoming friends in any meaningful way, may actually not get embroiled in a global conflict. That is already a huge tangible, the rest could be discussed and settled on something which may actually work. In my mind, the most important strategic, nay, metaphysical thing Trump stated was this: 

"We've made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and the confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon. One by one the factories shuttered and left our shores without a thought for millions of millions of American workers left behind. The wealth of middle class Americans has been ripped from their homes and redistributed across the world. But that is the past but now we are only looking to the future...  We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to follow."

And that, my friends, is simple and pure truth. The words which resonated in me with Orwell's: In a Time of Universal Deceit — Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act. That is what this President did on his way, along which he was spat on, humiliated, lied about, blackmailed and threatened, towards this day. I am not going to lie, I got a little bit emotional. I sincerely congratulate America of decent, hard working, honest people with the chance and a hope. I also congratulate 45th US President, Donald Trump, with doing it all against all odds. I think he will need these incredible skills in overcoming those odds soon enough. It is a new day in America, and in the world and I also congratulate myself with the excuse for opening the bottle of a bourbon and lighting a cigar--it is a good day. Ah, yes, peeking at this Inauguration and seeing Melania, the most gorgeous US First Lady, probably ever, (don't give me this Jackie shit) was a treat. Isn't that cool? Hell, yeah. 

              

P.S. I can not wait when these no good Hollywood "celebrities" stick to their word and self-deport themselves from the United States, as they promised to do if Trump wins. Well, he won.   

 

Samantha Power Really Needs A Vacation Or (Better Yet) Permanent Retirement.

When one will write the real history of  the 20th and early 21st century, as long as this person would maintain even rudimentary scholarship and objectivity, one will have to stress one of the major history's truisms--scale and proportions matter a great deal. In fact, they define how history unfolds. In this respect, US Ambassador  to UN Samantha Power is a great demonstrator of a major reason (one of several) for why the United States found herself in the position it is today. This is not a good position, to put it mildly. In her last (yesterday) press-conference in UN Security Council, during her incoherent babbling about Russia, Power repeated the old and fundamental myth of American politics of the last 70 years. 

 

THE COMMON THREAD CAN BE FOUND ONLY IN WHAT RUSSIA IS AGAINST, NOT IN THE RULES IT FOLLOWS. BUT THE RULES IT BREAKS. RUSSIA'S ACTIONS ARE NOT STANDING UP A NEW WORLD ORDER. THEY ARE TEARING WORLD -- THAT THEY ARE TEARING DOWN THE ONE THAT EXISTS. THIS IS WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING AGAINST. HAVING DEFEATED THE FORCES OF FASCISM AND COMMUNISM, WE NOW CONFRONT THE FORCES OF AUTHORITARIANISM AND NIHILISM. 

And here is the issue: each time I hear, from many corners, that United States "defeated" "communism" (remember this? "You lost, we won") or, let alone, that US defeated Nazism (Fascism, etc.), I am forced to ask a question. The question is: have anyone in US political class ever tried to claim credit for Sunrises (and Sunsets) or for change in the seasons, you know--to issue a medal "For Changing Summer Into Autumn"? Each time when I hear that somebody "defeated Soviet Union", I try to recall desperately when was the parade of "victors" held on the Red Square? The degree of idiocy of the US elites' post-Cold War triumphalism is astonishing. It is especially noticeable against the background of contemporary Russia trying to stem the flow of all those "liberated" nations into Russia, and here we are talking about millions upon millions people. So much for the "liberty". What is also strange about those claims is that the ability of Russian Federation to annihilate most of the world on the eve of dissolution of USSR didn't change after its dissolution. Obviously, the fact that multicultural empires do not live long, and that is how (primarily) Soviet Union collapsed, is beyond the grasp of people like Power and US political and "intellectual" strata she is the product of. Yes, US did "help" somewhat but metaphysical and material rot of the so called "communism" had very little to do with the United States, whose, accidental material wealth of the second half of 20th Century was based primarily on the outcome of WW II in which the Soviet/Russian contribution to victory in it against Nazism, Fascism, what have you, is overwhelming, both in blood and treasure. 

Yes, Power gets to it too in her press-conference and does this, now traditional, lip service to Russian sacrifice, but denying Russian people any agency is a traditional pseudo-intellectual shtick of US "elites" who are desperate for any kind of meaningful "victory". Well, here is the opinion of the man who was and is close to Russia's political top and he, actually, knows Russia inside-out.

     

The statement of Cold War "victory" flies out of the window once one gets closer to real Soviet History of 1970s and 1980s and understanding of what country that was--the insights neither CIA (yeah, right) nor Soviet "dissidents" (most of them discredited) could and can provide. Russians didn't "surrender" in Cold War, they, as it turned out today, naively thought that the better way was possible and extended "hand of friendship to US. This hand has been slapped away".  Or, putting it in layman's lingo, Russians got screwed over and those who BSed naive Russians proclaimed themselves "victors". Now, former influential Congressman Curt Weldon exclaims in desperation: how did we get here, meaning disastrous relations with Russia. Obviously Weldon conveniently "forgets" how NATO moved to Russia's borders (because US was a Cold War "victor") and how American advisers and firms did their utmost to place an alcoholic and West's door mat Yeltsin into Kremlin (all on Weldon's Congressional "watch"). 
      

US "hacking" Russia's elections in 1996. 

Yeah, Russians, certainly, must exhibit a very warm feelings towards US "diplomacy" whose only task was and is to lecture Russians on how to do things right, that is how the US defined "right". That is what Power and US "elites" (most of them) represent. It doesn't matter that their triumphalism and false sense of entitlement have no foundation in real life, and those few years in 1990s of controlling Russia's "elites", who would sell their own mother for the grant from US NGOs and would follow just about any insane policy "advice" from their American curators were the acts of high treason towards Russian people. As long as United States was able to re-write the history, it was all good. 

American post-Cold War triumphalism is a love child of American exceptionalism which is one of the pillars of American founding. This exceptionalism is not unique, Russians themselves had this "exceptional" thing going for them for a century or three, so had British with their empire "on which the Sun never sets". So were Germans, we all know where this led to. All great nations, and American are a great nation, have this exceptional streak. But American messianic exceptionalism really overdid it, big time. It was a very specific way it overdid it. As Alexis De Tocqueville wrote in his masterpiece "Democracy In America" (Chapter 16): All free nations are vainglorious, but national pride is not displayed by all in the same manner. The Americans in their intercourse with strangers appear impatient of the smallest censure and insatiable of praise. The most slender eulogium is acceptable to them; the most exalted seldom contents them; they unceasingly harass you to extort praise, and if you resist their entreaties they fall to praising themselves. It would seem as if, doubting their own merit, they wished to have it constantly exhibited before their eyes. Their vanity is not only greedy, but restless and jealous; it will grant nothing, whilst it demands everything, but is ready to beg and to quarrel at the same time. If I say to an American that the country he lives in is a fine one, “Ay,” he replies, “there is not its fellow in the world.” If I applaud the freedom which its inhabitants enjoy, he answers, “Freedom is a fine thing, but few nations are worthy to enjoy it.” If I remark the purity of morals which distinguishes the United States, “I can imagine,” says he, “that a stranger, who has been struck by the corruption of all other nations, is astonished at the difference.” At length I leave him to the contemplation of himself; but he returns to the charge, and does not desist till he has got me to repeat all I had just been saying. It is impossible to conceive a more troublesome or more garrulous patriotism; it wearies even those who are disposed to respect it (c). 

Most of American "elites" live by this rule, it is the thing which makes them tick, it is their clockwork, and with the events of the 20th Century the vanity of American exceptionalism reached a feverish pitch. So much so, that American "elite" started to directly steal and deform history. One of manifestations of such a global brainwashing is the fact that most West Europeans today believe that it was the United States which won WW II. The results of such a mythology are an unmitigated disaster, whose embodiment Samantha Power is--arrogant, badly educated, boastful and completely detached from the reality. She is also a fanatic Russophobe. I specifically emphasize here American "elites", those hordes of humanities "educated" offsprings of American coastal well-off class and of Ivy League degree mills. I know American people, met thousands of them and have a deep love and respect to those folks but very many (not all) representatives of the American "intellectual" class is another matter altogether. But it is this "intellectual" and moneyed class who writes the history books and owns media. And the march of American exceptionalism and triumphalism seemed unstoppable by late 1990s. That is for those who didn't know the history. Things changed dramatically in the last 3-4 years and those, yet again, who knew the history and had background could see this change coming afar, I anticipated this, hence this blog. That is those who were not American "intellectual" class--a distinction which needs to be worn with pride today. A Departure of Samantha Power, who is an embarrassment to the highly regarded  profession of a diplomat coincided with the wholesale epiphanies by this very American "intellectual" class, that one can lie only for so long, eventually the truth will emerge through empirical evidence. 

I wrote about Harlan Ullman's partial sobering--it is partial since he continues to repeat the idiocy about Russia "invading" Ukraine, as an example. Good luck building your conclusions and argumentation on the sand, yet again. Then Professor of Strategy from  Naval War College Nicholas Gvozdev got the ball rolling and yesterday he continued with his, finally dawning realization that this very "intellectual" elite pretty much knows nothing about Russia. He offers to rethink American "assumptions" on Russia. No, Mr. Gvozdev "rethinking" assumptions which were a result of a failed American "scholarship", shoddy, if not mostly fraudulent, Russia's "academe" and, in the end, falling into the trap of own, extremely false and arrogant narrative, is not possible at this time. Gvozdev, after making a hodgepodge and very weak argument, calls for: at the end of the day, however, whatever position on Russia wins out should be rooted in analytically rigorous and dispassionate analysis (c). 

I have some news for Nicholas Gvozdev: a "dispassionate" analysis is impossible at this time in the United States because very many of those "analysts" either comprehend or feel that once the "dispassionate" analysis starts, one has to completely throw American exceptionalist and triumphalist mythology out of the window. It kills American messianic narrative and brings to the fore the issue of scales and proportions--the factor which American Samantha "Powers" want desperately to ignore for a simple reason, they know, even if by gut feeling only, they will come out losers.  Hence Russophobia. The United States needs a complete overhaul of its corrupt "academe" and revival of a real Russian Studies field, which would be led not by some insane neocon (Pipes) or irrational Russophobe such as Brzezinski, let alone clownish hack such as Macfaul--the damage they did to Russian-American relations and scholaship is vast--but with people who actually bothered to study and understand the subject of their interest. In the end, as even yesterday's piece by Gvozdev shows, without understanding Russian culture, which is immense, and Russian warfare, both of which are two sides of the same coin, any attempt to "study" Russia in the way she was "studied" for the last 70+ years will end up precisely where they ended up today for the United States--on the brink of war with the nation which will not "stand for the cost" when it fights on its own land. Mr. Gvozdev better start his "cost" analysis with studying a real history of WW II. This is a good primer.
              

As Father Robert Tobias wrote in his remarkable "Heaven On Earth, A Lutheran-Orthodox Odyssey": When of late in this (American) culture we turned our eyes to divine epiphanies, we perceived only two-dimensionality, not great depth. Perhaps that was provisionally inevitable in a culture dominated by two-dimensional television, movies, billboards, cameras and sports events. (c)  I have a suggestion for those who really want to perceive a real depth--start with dispassionate study of the Soviet WW II and after history, and not just of GULAG. But most importantly--in this century of global communications and travel, go to Russia, and not Moscow or St.Petersburg only, go talk to Russian people, especially those who are in their 40s and 50s (they run the country) and see for yourself why Russia seeks peace, not war and why, after 1000+ years of her history, she will never again fight on her own land. Have a epiphany.