Everything One Needs To Know.

In many respects America's fate, even despite an economic calamity of a gigantic scale, was contingent upon bringing justice to those who unleashed unprecedented, historically, witch-hunt and mass-psychosis campaign. Anyone with an average IQ and even fleeting acquaintance with principles on which law operates knew and know where and who all those Russia, Ukraine and other "Gates" originated from. Well, it doesn't matter, evidently. 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General William Barr said on Monday he does not expect a Justice Department review of the FBI's handling of 2016 election interference to lead to criminal investigation of former President Barack Obama or former Vice President Joe Biden. "As to President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement, based on the information I have today, I don't expect Mr. Durham's work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man," Barr said.

Sad, but totally expected, to be honest.  Barr, however, made some clarifications:

Barr did not rule out the possibility of others being criminally investigated, without offering specifics.

We'll see about that, which, I am a bit on a shaky ground here, since Barr's statement is not born out by the reality:

Barr added that the election should be decided strictly on policy debates, and that any investigation of a political candidate would need to be approved by him personally. "We cannot allow this process to be hijacked by efforts to drum up criminal investigations of either candidate," Barr said.

Well, sure, we all know that Biden sonny's, Hunter, tenure with Ukrainian Burisma had nothing to do, like really-really nothing, with the fact of his senile cretin-father being Ukraine's Gauleiter not only on Obama's orders (Obama always was an amateur in foreign relations, not that there are any professionals in them in D.C. nowadays, but still) but on his own volition, being also an architect of a bloody coup and war there, having blood of thousands of innocent people on his wandering hands. This is not to mention that this coward is now hiding from exposure for his sexual exploits and, once those 2020 "elections" begin to delve into, quoting Barr, "policy debate" (Good ol' Joe cannot, fvcking orient himself in space-time continuum, let alone have "policy debates") we all can be 100% sure that sexual history of Joe will hit the "printing presses" of partisan media. So much for the "policy debate". But, as we all know, the land of the "laws" doesn't really hold up that well under the closer scrutiny. Evidently prosecuting corruption (sedition and treason is also not biggy anymore, evidently) in the US nowadays is contingent merely on who holds and how much power and influence. As Larison reports:

The president announced on Friday that he was firing Steve Linick, the State Department’s Inspector General. One possible reason that Linick was removed may have been that he was conducting an investigation into the bogus emergency declaration that the administration used to expedite arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE last year. 

Say it ain't so! Come on, we all know that Mike Pompeo... oh, wait:

If Linick was investigating the bogus emergency declaration, he would have come across reporting that showed how a former Raytheon lobbyist serving at the department was instrumental in pushing through the plan to expedite arms sales that benefited his old employer. He would have discovered that there was no genuine emergency that justified going around Congress. Once his investigation was concluded, it would have found that the emergency declaration was made in bad faith and that the law was abused so that the administration could proceed with arms sales that Congress opposed. Another reason for the firing was to protect Mike Pompeo from an investigation into the Secretary’s abuses of government resources for personal purposes.

We all know that a person who openly states that he "lied, cheated and stole" for a living as CIA's big honcho, is being truthful. How can anyone doubt Pompeo's truthfulness? Reality of the American political discourse, however, is such that one cannot stop wondering if any normal, not damaged mentally, people are left in D.C. I am sure many people around the globe ask the same question. American political "elites" today represent a gruesome picture. All politics, everywhere is a dirty business, always was and often it did attract people with serious psychological, if not psychiatric, problems. There is an excellent work titled The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders: With Profiles of Saddam Hussein and Bill Clinton. It is long and, at times, tedious read including delving into this proverbial psychobabble, but it is unequivocal in singling out narcissism as one of the main features of Western politicians. Lust for power and narcissism. It is in the foundation of the explanation to the phenomenon of American politics driven by non-stop lowbrow "election cycle" circus. 

Once "look good" triumphs over all other considerations, the political class and its subservient media are doomed and so is the nation this political class pretends to lead. I am on record for years, that the only things US political class knows how to do is to "look good", unless they are caught in corruption or sexual scandal. And that is the problem--they are not caught often enough and this is everything one needs to know about present moment.      

Siluanov Sings A Song.

Among most hated people in Russia who are associated closely with a catastrophe of 1990s and the so called "liberal" reforms, and who still remain important government figures, two stand out. One is a chairman of Russia's Central Bank Elvira Nabiulina and Russia's Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. I omit here all kinds of freaks such as German Gref or Anatoly Chubais who are not government employees, nor Alexei Kudrin is really a person who decides much at his position of a Chairman of the Accounting Chamber, albeit, he is an excellent auditor and that, realistically, is where he should remain. Anton Siluanov, however, is a permanent fixture of Russian government for years and years and he is a designated main "liberal" there. It is more remarkable then to hear such admissions from him such as this (made around 10 days ago) in his interview to Vedomosti: 

"Лет пять назад, если бы нефть Urals стоила дешевле 15 долларов - то есть бюджет не получает ни копейки нефтегазовых доходов, - это был бы кризис. А сейчас на нефть уже не так обращают внимание, потому что мы создали необходимые финансовые буферы и даже при цене 10 долларов проживем. Это прошлая война, и к ней мы подготовлены, а сегодня перед нами вызов абсолютно нового масштаба.... cейчас перед нами новые задачи – защита здоровья и жизни людей"

Translation: About five years ago, if Urals brand of oil would have had a price of $15--meaning the the budget wouldn't have received a cent of oil-gas profits--that would have been crisis. Nowadays, we don't pay attention to oil that much, because all necessary financial buffers have been created and even with the price of $10 per barrel we would have survived. That is the past war and we are prepared to it, today we have a challenge of absolutely new scale... now our main task is defending health and lives of people. 

It is down right fascinating hearing a person with such background speaking in these terms and increasingly changing the modality of this rather new political tune. This change reflects, obviously, a fundamental shift which occurred within Russian political class against the background of COVID-19. Urals, as of now, fluctuates around $29-30 a barrel, a price, which is fairly comfortable for Russia's budget (and economy), not to mention the geopolitical fallout from Saudis shredding their budget while not forgetting to buy US assets, including in US energy. Funny world we all live in. This world being funny, however, does not negate a grim reality, which was predicted, and cannot be denied anymore:

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- American oil producers have cut much more output than you think. Their reaction to market forces has been bigger than official data suggest, and that means the U.S. is actually working alongside Saudi Arabia, Russia and other big oil producers, to help balance oil supply and demand — even if that wasn’t quite what President Donald Trump intended. Two sets of data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show that crude production is now about 11.6 million barrels a day, down by between 1.2 million and 1.4 million barrels a day, or roughly 10%, from plateau levels reached over the just-ended winter, depending on whether you use the weekly or the monthly numbers.

Just read the whole article and at this stage keep in mind this simple fact that the issue is NOT about if it is now 2.4 million barrels per day the US oil cut--not at all--but if, as also was predicted, the cut will be along the lines of somewhere between 5-6.5 mbpds. That is the issue, once the US will resign to the fact that it is back to being net-importer of energy. The fact is, no matter what President Trump intended, the economic and geopolitical reality is ruthless--it is not affected by lies, spin, misreporting of many Western media, unless we are talking about some segments of Western clueless public, and reality is constituted by a combination and interplay of factors many of which never make out into the light of public attention. Or putting it in simple lingo--Russians became better, much better, capitalists than Americans. They also retained most of skills in running the country with a high level of government intervention, when needed. This is the lesson in adapting which probably will not be learned. In real world silly intentions and faith in a magic ability to wish problems away do not work. Never did, albeit some in US still believe in this "magic", like this moron who passes in the US for "diplomat", who was charged with "fighting" ISIS. 

Asked why the American public should tolerate US involvement in Syria, Special Envoy James Jeffrey points out the small US footprint in the fight against ISIS. "This isn't Afghanistan. This isn't Vietnam. This isn't a quagmire. My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians."

This is everything one needs to know about US foreign policy both in economic and military terms, but then again, one is free to browse the whole thesis by this cretin here. It is a tour de force of sheer incompetence and delusion. But then again, US has a rich history of supporting all kinds of humanitarian terrorists, so it is not surprising that this glorious tradition is preserved by people like Jeffrey and his ilk. In the end, it is also possible to declare in media anything one wants, facts on the ground be damned. It seems the neocon schizophrenia is a feature of the American political discourse and it will run the US into the ground--in the end, it is not far from its final destination. As one pundit observed:

On a personal level, most of these neoconservatives turned Never-Trumpers are very nice people. I’ve known many of them for years. They are serious about their faith, family, and country, and treat others with respect. But politics isn’t about being nice, it’s about the real impact of policy on people’s lives—both at home and abroad. By any measurable standard, their careers are failures. Their policies have killed, yes, literally killed, hundreds of thousands, and they should not be taken seriously.

Well, he describes here typical psychopaths--a dominant type in US politics and in the world turned upside down, failure IS success, and murder IS a gift of life. After all, many Nazi leaders were excellent family men and cared deeply about their faith, country and treated others with respect. The only difference--they WERE taken seriously by others and ended up on the stand as war criminals, responsible for tens of millions killed. People like Jefferey--and they infest D.C.--may end up helping to kill hundreds of millions, not to speak of billions. In this case, we may, if we survive, state that their careers were a total success.

I Remember Those Times, Still (It Is Friday).

I still get this feeling, 38 years later. It was Baku of that time and us being young--I guess it was across the world, then. 

Or maybe it was and still is this, on Fridays....

I, guess, indeed, some things will never change. 

I Feel Sad On Friday.

That I may never fly those beauties again. I never cared about A-380, but I loved myself B-747s. Found some footage of old ladies (from 1980s no less) flying couple of week ago. This is after years and years in a desert. 

Recall also this giant taking to skies after 10 years in washout. 

Recall, what I wrote few years ago about real queens of the skies. I fell back to those times when I read that new second B-777X flew yesterday, and I love those "three axes". I hope Boeing knows what it is doing, because B-737 Max may end up as the plane which made us, in Northern America, consider traveling by car or using video-conferencing, while those magnificent large birds flying over oceans. 

P.S. Ah, the tender childhood (in USSR this cinematographic gem was called Air Adventures) ....Plus, you have to admit Electric Lightnings with their bizarre wings looked... cool.

Arctic Front?

Scott Ritter penned a nice piece on the tensions in Arctic and noted:

The US is in the process of developing advanced SM-3 Block IIA surface-to-air missiles which can be launched from the Mark 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) employed on Aegis-capable ships. These new interceptors are capable of intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and will be tested in this configuration in the third quarter of 2020. Given the fact that the vast majority of Russia’s strategic nuclear force—especially those elements of which are stationed in Siberia—are configured to fly over the Arctic Sea region before reaching their targets in the United States, any US naval deployment in the Arctic Sea armed with these weapons could not be seen as innocent.

Here is where Russia's integrated air defense and strike capabilities come in play along all the Northern Sea Route. Geopolitics is really easy when viewed in statics, so is tactics and operations (well, not really, but for the sake of argument). I stated not for once, that all this apparatus consists primarily of few simplest geometric figures such as straight lines, angles, circles and sectors. Seems simple enough. It is when those figures begin to move and interact (relate) to each-other, this is where it all becomes extremely complex and cannot be described in motion to a layman. Yet, statics will do for a moment--once the circles with the radii of modern Russian anti-ship missiles, ranging from P-800 Onyx and 3M22 Zircon, begin to be "moved" around, one can easily see that no matter where the US Navy positions its ships with SM-3 (granted they did not develop a capability to plow through thick arctic ice, which is still there), up to the even projected retreat of arctic ice edge in the nearest 10+ years, there is simply nowhere to hide for US Navy's surface force, no matter its composition. 

SM-3 might be (declared) a "good" missile, allegedly, for the intercept of classic ballistic missiles--it is absolutely useless against modern anti-shipping weapons. Especially carried by MiG-31Ks or TU-22M3M. Ritter is correct:

If the US decides to beef up its naval presence in the Arctic region, expanding the current Barents Sea Patrol to incorporate more aggressive FONOPs along Russia’s Northern Sea Route, one can anticipate that Russia will respond in kind, creating the potential for a repeat of the Yorktown/Caron incident in the frigid waters of the Arctic north. In this day and age of renewed Cold War-like tensions between the US/NATO and Russia, the last thing either side needs is a new point of potential force-on-force friction.

Force friction is a euphemism for two opposing forces getting in direct contact with each-other. The only difference here is that unlike famous incident in the Black Sea in 1980s, any force entering the area will be tracked even before they think about anything and will have firing solution ready through a variety strike means from which it has no defense. This is not to mention that the launch sites of Avangards, as one example, not to mention mobile Yars complexes are entirely out of the range of even new SLCM-N. But here is this trick, unless the United States wants to play in nuclear exchange (and there are a number of lunatics who want that), one fact remains unchanged--Russia already has a whole set of conventional (non-nuclear) instruments to counter US nuclear threat by simply sinking any US (NATO) asset in the Arctic region. And here is the main point: the game is not about nuclear exchange, long ago it became a game of conventional weapons and when it comes down to conventional stand-off, high supersonic or hypersonic strike weapons and reconnaissance and tracking systems, the United States long ago lost this arms race and the gap continues to grow. In this case, moving expensive and allegedly effective assets under the sights of Russia's forces in Arctic is nothing more than a traditional chest thumping. There is a reason, the United States wants Kinzhal to be included into START negotiations. Maybe because those weapons are merely CGI, right?

I Am So Heartbroken... Not.

Aw, poor-poor talented baby Pavel Durov, he is so hurt by this injustice, that it almost broke my heart. Not really.  Get this:

Telegram has been forced to abandon its cryptocurrency initiative, with its founder Pavel Durov blasting the US for seeking to crush any attempt at decentralization in order to maintain its global financial dominance.Telegram founder and St. Petersburg native Pavel Durov announced the move in a post to his own Telegram channel on Tuesday, stating the crypto project – the Telegram Open Network (TON) and its currency, known as “Grams” – would have to be shut down.“Unfortunately, a US court stopped TON from happening,” Durov said, adding that the court ruled “people should not be allowed to buy or sell Grams like they can buy or sell Bitcoins.”

I had recently an exchange about programmers with one of our very own software engineer here. I want to repeat my point to him, now to everyone who read this--I do not disrespect programmers. Without programmers our life as we know it would stop, but being even a top notch software engineer, or top notch aerospace engineer or, for that matter, even the head of a giant corporation having several degrees in everything ranging from electronics to economics, is, in itself, by no means a guarantee from being an ass-hole or even dumb as fvck. I personally knew some Ph.Ds with STEM and humanities degrees, who, while being reasonably good at their work, were complete morons, that is why I KNEW them, not anymore. So, moans and appeals to public by some creep who is into the business of "managing" people who write a code for social networks--one of the most important markers and arenas for exhibiting a mental breakdown of the global society--do not impress me at all, not to mention the fact, and here it comes, that, and I said it many times, the issue of the social networks is not an issue of programming or software engineering in its highest forms. It is the issue of publicity and the level of exhibitionism people ready to reach. Remove Durov and VK (his brainchild), nobody will notice, because there are hundreds if not thousands like him standing in the wings ready to take his place and offer something even "better" than VK, or Facebook, for this matter. 

The guy is, obviously, of a very narcissist nature (I guess running a social network can do this to one) and, frankly, in my book is a typical Russian liberda. Here are some snippets which give an impression about this creep. As is expected from this type of people, he wrote a manifesto in which he proposed how "to save Russia".

Two of Durov's ideas from the manifesto include abolishing Russia's national currency and allowing foreign interests to purchase state land, reports Business Insider.

Well, I guess you get the idea who this guy is, as he describes himself as a libertarian (red flag immediately), a euphemism for globalist shill and, pardon me, lack of real economic and history education.  I also need to make a disclaimer here that when people such as Durov (or Gates, or Zuck) speak about "technology" they do not speak about REAL technology, they speak about computers and software only because for them the rest of the productive, scientific and military technological reality is beyond their grasp. Come on, can you imagine Bill Gates (who never completed any serious STEM program) or Durov, who has a degree in... philology, to understand issues of systems' integration in aircraft, space ships or weapon systems, or can you imagine them sitting solving differential equations or creating models, let alone designing a commercial aircrfat? They hire people who can do that, that is for sure, while they strategize, conceptualize....

In the end, it takes such a great effort for these dudes, such as Durov, to find some creepy PR cause to throw their weight behind or to decide what kind of act of mental masturbation they will perform to keep themselves in the news and on the market of mostly useless services. Wait, bang!! Let's invent currency. And here, let me become Devil's Advocate. Let's imagine that there is a some fairly higher-up in US governmental hierarchy and that, unlike Durov, he (she) has, say a serious degree in Computer Science, has completed economics study and has connections to some actual intelligence and military sources in the US. Imagine that such a person also has some good practice in actual geopolitics across the globe and has a good idea what really moves this world. This person knows that US livelihood depends on the petrodollar and USD in general being a world's reserve currency. Let's say this person is a realist. And let's say this person, who is a higher-up, is not 35 years old as Durov but in his very late 50s and early 60s and had a fairly eventful life. So, now imagine, that this person learns about some "Russian" crum who thinks that he is a big shot and decides to introduce yet another scam such as Bitcoin but this time on his social platform. Wow! How original. So, after this person laughs for 20 minutes, especially at Durov's faith:

“Today, we are in a vicious circle: you can’t bring more balance to an overly centralized world exactly because it’s so centralized. We did try though,” Durov said, adding that Washington controls the “global financial system” and can coerce ubiquitous tech giants like Google and Apple to serve its agenda.

No, this is really LOL. He merely picks up the phone (or e-mails) the American STATE, government, that is, appropriate brunch, and tells them that some mama's boy decided to do what is a decision level of people such as presidents, prime ministers and secretary generals. So, this person in US simply initiates the movement of the gears of the government--the government of still, however declining, superpower. So those gears do the job they are suppose to do--prevent any stupid ideas from materializing. And I have a question for Durov:"Boy, do you even have a grasp of the scale and forces involved in this geopolitical game, to pretend that your pseudo-intellectual (in reality ignorant) manifestos and attempts to "decentralize" are a first sign of you being totally ignorant of the outside world and its complexity?" Because one needs to be a complete dumbfvck to believe what Durov believes. Obviously, Durov doesn't understand the reality in which REAL money appear--they appear in the STATES, as in nations, who build all necessary infrastructure ranging from finances and banks, to courts, to foreign ministries, to real industries to armed forces which protect all this infrastructure and it is only THERE where modern money can appear. Not in imagination of some self-anointed brainiaks who think that they are smarter than everybody else, including people and institutions who are in charge of real money.

We may say whatever we want here about US Dollar, or, for that matter, Yuan or Ruble, but behind all of these currencies are massive institutions of economic, financial and military national power which, justly so, will not allow some bedbug play the game for which he is utterly unqualified, especially when based on loony ideology of libertarianism. I am 100% positive that Russian government in private is rather satisfied with this outcome and is smirking observing the bedbug being squashed by real power. I am smirking too, I love when arrogant narcissists are shown their real place, even when it is done by such unholy structure as US financial empire. As for "more balance" in this "overly centralized world" which was so "viciously" taken from Durov, I think the 35 year old boy (these types seldom grow into real men) better not go where the REAL balance and decentralization of this world is being forged by people with "funny" degrees and backgrounds most of which Durov never heard about. You know, people who operate in reality not in the virtual world of social networks. In this case I would suggest Durov to continue exploiting the idea of social networking, and not get into the world of real power, and that is the power of the state. He simply is unqualified for that. And that is why I am absolutely heartbroken... not.  

P.S. Second name Durov in Russia, while popular, has a little bit of a funny ring to it, wink, wink. 

Who Said So To Start With?

Daniel Larison asks a question, a good one: about Kissinger's mythology. He asks the question based on Thomas Meany's (oh, he is so meany to good ol' Henry, couldn't contain myself;)) piece in New Yorker titled The Myth Of Henry Kissinger. Larison posits: 

The contrast between the worldviews and careers of Kennan and Kissinger is instructive, and it helps to explain why the Washington foreign policy consensus has gotten so many things wrong over the decades. Meaney mentions that as early as 1965 Kissinger was privately admitting that the war in Vietnam was unwinnable, but publicly he supported it and went on to preside over its continuation and escalation for many years. During the same period, Kennan spoke out against the war, and urged full withdrawal.  

My main point is this: hey, guys, aren't you a bit too late to the party? I, personally, heard enough about Washington consensus, but apart from praises heaped on Kissinger by Washington and some in squarely pro-American camp elsewhere, I, as an example, since childhood, which fell on Vietnam War, heard nothing positive about the guy, which could have been explained by USSR support for Vietnam. Later, however, I came to appreciate all hollowness of his reputation as a "geopolitical thinker" or "maitre of global diplomacy" when started delving a bit deeper into the history of the American geopolitical mindset--there was nothing to admire not just on humanitarian grounds, but on academic ones too, about Kissinger. In fact, bar some things which qualify as war crimes, Kissinger's views are down right numbingly boring in their mediocrity and predictability. The history of the US "diplomacy" and geopolitical thinking in the last  30 years is one of a shoddy scholarship, perpetual delusion and demagoguery rooted deeply in the platitudes and cliches which by now became memes and a butt of jokes around the globe. Kissinger was the one who helped to forge this pitiful state of the US "foreign (lack of) policy" and present, with the assistance of many willing helpers, self-evident truths as insights worthy of a true statesmen. Insights they were not and America's obvious decline and geopolitical retreat, denied by some against the body of overwhelming empirical evidence, was in many ways predetermined by Kissinger's views of the world, which were and are, politely speaking, are those of a slick top government bureaucrat, pretending to be a scholar and a real statesman, while not being genuine article at all. We all know what this "scholarship" is. Enough to recall Kissinger's recent meandering pathos-ridden pseudo-historical piece in the Wall Street Journal where he waxes "geopolitical" and confirms the lack of proper intellectual rigor in modern US political class, obvious to everybody but the US political class itself.  

Larison, however, while counter positioning (to Kissinger) praising George F. Kennan for his views regarding War in Vietnam, forgets that, be as it might, thinkers and scholars are not always defined by their careers. After all, Kissinger had a brilliant career when defined within the beltway framework where competence, principles and integrity play second, if not the third, fiddle to self-promotion and exposure in the media. Especially so in the modern US where self-aggrandizing is a pastime on the same level as baseball. Kennan might have been right on Vietnam, and later he lamented his famous Long Telegram but still, in his wonderful memoirs offered some prescriptions for the world which he would have never offered should he be alive today. For starters, Kennan, being a diplomat and, surprise-surprise, Russian speaker failed to grasp (later, in 1980s he will fail it again) the impact warfare had and continues to have on Russia. 

At bottom of Kremlin's neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity. Originally, this was insecurity of a peaceful agricultural people trying to live on vast exposed plain in neighborhood of fierce nomadic peoples. To this was added, as Russia came into contact with economically advanced West, fear of more competent, more powerful, more highly organized societies in that area. But this latter type of insecurity was one which afflicted rather Russian rulers than Russian people; for Russian rulers have invariably sensed that their rule was relatively archaic in form fragile and artificial in its psychological foundation, unable to stand comparison or contact with political systems of Western countries. For this reason they have always feared foreign penetration, feared direct contact between Western world and their own, feared what would happen if Russians learned truth about world without or if foreigners learned truth about world within. And they have learned to seek security only in patient but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power, never in compacts and compromises with it.   

Mind you, this was written in February 1946, 9 months after the end of war in Europe and 5 months after the end of WW II as a whole. The phrase about "learning the truth" reads especially comical today when Russia is on order of magnitude freer country than any one in Europe and we live with the consequences of a destruction of American political institutions which used to be commonly known as democracy, not to mention chaos, destruction and murder unleashed by NATO and its main sponsor, USA, on the world. This was written after yet another historic Russia's "direct contact" with the West, which, as was the case with yet another "contact" in 1854-56,  1812, and before that in 1618, and prior to this in 1242, among many others, resulted not only with the West "contacting" Russia, for some reason, again, on her territory, but in a genocide of Slavic and other people of Russia on a historic scale, resulting in 27 million people killed and most of the historic Russia literally wiped off the face of the earth. By any metric being a bit "neurotic" not only in Kremlin but on the level of the whole population of the historic Russia was more than reasonable. As history demonstrated so vividly up to this present moment--Russia's "sense of insecurity" was and is not only inevitable but highly warranted. Sadly, Kennan, being a man of, primarily, letters and law and having a rather idealistic, and in many respects "aristocratic", that is highly misguided, view of primarily pre-revolutionary Russia, couldn't grasp then the true scale of the events of the WWII and how it related not only to Russia, but to the Western world in general, and the US in particular. 

Later, in his memoirs, while giving a recognition to the WW II, he would still stick to the narrative of a grotesqueness of a Stalin's "regime" and some alleged impact it had on Russians (that is why he is voted the most important Russia's statesman, I guess), implying, indeed, grotesque, Solzhenitsified figures of political repressions, debunked today by competent and honest historians both in Russia and in the West, not to mention by opening of the archives and by Russian people themselves. Yet, as idealistic and in many respects a well-wishing (prekrasnodushnyi) man Kennan was, he left one important realist legacy, which despite his role, even if unwitting, in unleashing a Cold War on false premises, he stated this, and that was a statement by a man of principles:

What did the greatest damage was not our military preparations themselves, some of which (not all) were prudent and justifiable. It was rather the unnecessarily belligerent and threatening tone in which many of them were publicly carried forward. For this, both Democrats and Republicans have a share of the blame. Nobody -- no country, no party, no person -- "won" the cold war. It was a long and costly political rivalry, fueled on both sides by unreal and exaggerated estimates of the intentions and strength of the other party. It greatly overstrained the economic resources of both countries, leaving both, by the end of the 1980's, confronted with heavy financial, social and, in the case of the Russians, political problems that neither had anticipated and for which neither was fully prepared.

Little did Kennan know, that from the vantage point of 2020, his views of Russia and Russians, free to "directly contact" the West any time they want, could be a subject of scorn by overwhelming majority of these very same Russians who, justifiably, view the United States as a military aggressor doing over and over again what Kennan stood against in 1960s--the war. Thus, any references today to Western "democracies", while setting Kennan as a person on a much higher level than Kissinger, hardly make a better case for him being properly qualified to pass a judgement. In the end, as I repeat like a parrot--the problem is systemic and endemic in the American post-WW II exceptionalism exercised even by those who refer to themselves as realists (however meaningless this term is) and who still are trying to find a political and moral rationale where there never was any but greed, lust for power and gross overestimation of own power and significance. American modern elites are simply not good, no matter which opposites they praise in their pursuit of a chimera.