Home » Posts tagged 'soviet union' (Page 3)

Tag Archives: soviet union

The United States has devised on ongoing strategy of tension towards Russia. It has initiated economic sanctions against Moscow, concocted a narrative about ‘Russian aggression’ for public consumption and has by various means attempted to undermine and weaken the energy-dependent Russian eeconomy. It has moreover instigated a coup on Russia’s doorstep in Ukraine and is escalating tensions by placing troops in Europe.

The reality is that the US, not Russia, has around 800 military bases in over 100 countries and military personnel in almost 150 countries. US spending on its military dwarfs what the rest of the world spends together. For example, it outspends China by a ratio of 6:1.

But what does the corporate media in the West say about this? That the US is a ‘force for good’ and constitutes the ‘world’s policeman’ – not a calculating empire underpinned by militarism.

By the 1980s, Washington’s wars, death squads and covert operations were responsible for six million deaths in the ‘developing’ world. Other estimates suggests a figure closer to 20 million deaths in 37 nations since 1945.

Breaking previous agreements made with Russia/the USSR, over the past two decades the US and NATO have moved into Eastern Europe and continue to encircle Russia and install missile systems aimed at it. It has surrounded Iran with military bases. It is also ‘intervening’ in countries across Africa to weaken Chinese trade and investment links and influence. It intends to eventually militarily ‘pivot’ towards Asia to encircle China.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Good Enemies Are Hard To Find: Therefore Worry

March 16, 2018

Good Enemies Are Hard To Find: Therefore Worry

Why is the American political class so intent on reviving the Cold War? Why does Israel have it in for Iran?

These are complicated questions; many factors are involved.

But there is “a fact of life,” as it were, that bears on the answers to both questions: that to keep their regimes – their distinctive ways of organizing cultural, economic, and political institutions — going, the United States and Israel need enemies, and the ones most readily at hand no longer seem up to the task.

One reason why Russia has again become America’s enemy, and Iran Israel’s, is that good enemies are hard to find.

***

When the Soviet Union imploded, America’s political and economic elites found themselves facing a problem that they had not seen coming: how to make do without a rationale that had served them well for as long as anybody could remember.

Almost from the moment World War II ended, Americans were made to understand that an Evil Empire threatened the Land of the Free. That implacable foe, the Soviet Union was, by any reckoning, a worthy antagonist, and an enemy for all seasons — of limitless scope and world-class capabilities.

It provided our rulers with reasons why so much of our wealth had to be spent fattening an ever expanding military-industrial complex, why our basic liberties might have to be (and sometimes were) curtailed, and why dissent had to be kept in bounds.

In totalitarian societies, states force compliance with the demands of rulers and the exigencies of regimes through the use or threat of force. We Americans had little need of that; our propaganda system gave us motivation enough to make “defense” our highest priority.

A less formidable adversary could not have brought us to that point. What our rulers needed was a foe capable of “scaring the hell out of us,” as the stately Dean Acheson famously said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Three Global Super-Powers

February 19, 2018

The Three Global Super-Powers

There are currently three global super-powers, three nations that lead the world: China, Russia, and US.

After World War II, until recently, the US clearly dominated the world, not only culturally, with more influence over the world’s other cultures than any other single nation possessed, but also economically, with product-dominance throughout the world, and also militarily tied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and, then, after the Cold War, still possessing such military dominance, so that in 2006, America’s billionaires — as represented by the most-prestigious two agencies that represent their collective interests against the public, the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard University — were actively promoting, broadly amongst foreign-policy academics, the idea that the US should seek to occupy a position of such extreme military superiority over Russia, so that since 2006 the concept of “Nuclear Primacy” is reflected, by America’s power-centers, as being the correct goal for America, going forward, replacing the prior nuclear-strategic paradigm (since the 1950s) of “Mutually Assured Destruction,” or “M.A.D.,” in which nuclear weapons were (and, by Russia, still are) seen as purely defensive strategic military assets between the two nuclear superpowers, weapons whose only actual purpose, for either country, is to ward off a WW III — no usefulness at all in an actual aggressive military context. Thus, M.A.D. became replaced in America by Nuclear Primacy, nuclear weapons that are put in place to serve not only to ward off a nuclear attack, but also, ultimately, to win a nuclear war against the other nuclear super-power, Russia — nukes as aggressive weapons, by which the US will (it has been expected, ever since 2006) soon be able to demand, and to receive, Russia’s capitulation, surrender, or else Russia will be destroyed by a US nuclear first-strike, while US casualties, from any presumably few Russian weapons that might make it through this ABM-BMD shield, will be kept to an “acceptably low” level, by virtue of that then-functioning ABM-BMD system, combined with increases in US nuclear striking-power.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Worst Threat We Face Is Right Here At Home

February 17, 2018

The Worst Threat We Face Is Right Here At Home

The Federal Reserve is ruining us

Last week, volatility made a long-overdue return to the US and global equity markets.

It began with a 2-day back-to-back violent drop. Day 3 saw a big rebound, swiftly followed by two more days of gut-wrentching losses. And then finally, last Friday, the day saw massive swings both high and low, ending with a huge upside run.

During this period the S&P 500 lost more than 300 points. Since then, though, the market has been steadily rising.

Is the danger past? Are the markets safe once more?

And if so, did the markets recover organically? Or were they rescued by The Plunge Protection Team (PPT)?

The answer matters.

If such intervention was rare we could almost justify it, if it took the form of simple, pre-arranged circuit breakers that shut the market down for a “cooling off” after they’ve moved too far, too fast. Indeed, these already exist, and are sufficient in our view.

But if such market interventions are routine, persistent, and generally depended on by the major market participants, then they’re highly destructive over the long term.

Sadly, we live with the latter.

Insiders get stinking rich by front-running the scheme (check). Normal adjustments are prevented (check), allowing dangerous bubbles of extreme overvaluation to form (check), while fostering malinvestment (check).

Do this long enough and you end up with a deformed economy, an eroded social structure, and markets that no longer function as appropriate mechanisms for capital distribution and economic signaling.

This is where we find ourselves today.

Modern-Day Soviet Crop Reports

In the former Soviet Union, the communist method of assuring economic progress was to set targets for production. Famous among them were the crop reports.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Ghosts of 1968

February 14, 2018

The Ghosts of 1968

The hope of 1968 that public demonstrations can actually change the power structure has been lost.

1968 was a tumultuous year globally and domestically. The Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia–a very mild form of political and cultural liberalization within the Soviet bloc–was brutally crushed by the military forces of the Soviet Union.

The general strikes and student protests of May 1968 brought France to a standstill as demands for social and political change called the entire status quo into question.

On the other side of the planet, the Cultural Revolution was remaking China’s still-youthful revolution, to the detriment of the political status quo, the intelligentsia and the common people.

The U.S.was convulsed with assassinations, civil unrest and mass demonstrations against the war in Vietnam and the political status quo (the Democratic Party convention in Chicago).

Ironically, much of the world was benefiting from two decades of rising prosperity and the demise of colonialism. When expectations exceed actual opportunities, discontent is the result. When the power structure is deaf to the discontent, a cycle of repression and disorder feed on each other.

Fifty years on, the ghosts of 1968 are still with us. With the advantage of hindsight, 1968 was the culmination of the belief that it was still possible for the common people to change the political and social order in a positive fashion– to remake the status quo power structure into something more humane, accessible, just and fair.

The Western status quo bent but did not break. Nothing in the developed-world power structures actually changed. The status quo did break down in China, but the breakdown was not liberating; it was a catastrophe of injustice and destruction without precedent.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Foreign Policies Remain Unchanged Since 1948

February 5, 2018

US Foreign Policies Remain Unchanged Since 1948

Ever since 1948, the US Government’s foreign policies have been consistently focused upon breaking up the Soviet Union and turning its Warsaw Pact allies against the Soviet Union; and, then, once that would be (and was) accomplished, turning any remaining allies of Russia against Russia; and, then, once that will have been accomplished, conquering Russia. Since at least 2006, US ‘defense’ policy has been that nuclear war will be an acceptable way to conquer Russia if lesser measures fail to do the job. (Since 2006, the concept that a nuclear war between the US and Russia would result in “mutually assured destruction,” or “MAD” — a war that both parties to it would lose — has been rejected at the highest levels of the US Government, but continues unchanged as being the policy at the highest levels of Russia’s Government, which are terrified of the US Government’s attempts to develop anti-ballistic missiles and other systems that would eliminate Russia’s defenses — i.e., ability to retaliate — against a US nuclear first-strike attack — terrified at the US Government’s preparations to win a nuclear war.)

When the Republican US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on 26 March 2012 that, “Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe”, he was actually stating publicly something that US President Barack Obama secretly agreed with and had been working since day-one of his Presidency to implement — and his State Department had secretly already been drawing up plans since 2011 to overthrow the Moscow-friendly leaders of two nations: Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovych. But Obama (who was the most gifted liar in US Presidential history, and really understood how to use truths to demolish even lies that his own policies were secretly based upon — simultaneously criticising bad polices while secretly implementing them) responded to Romney’s statement of March 26^th, by saying on 22 October 2012, “Gov. Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that al-Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not al-Qaida.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

UK’s Secret Cold War Plan For Middle East Oil Fields

January 31, 2018

UK’s Secret Cold War Plan For Middle East Oil Fields

The 1950s were a turbulent time on both sides of the Iron Curtain. With the Second World War over and the star role played by crude oil in its outcome, British and U.S. intelligence agencies wasted no time working out scenarios should the Soviets invade the Middle East.

In hindsight, especially to younger generations, this might seem eccentric, but not to those who remember the Cold War and the paranoia that raged on both sides. In the 50s, the British and U.S. intelligence services were genuinely concerned about a further Soviet expansion, into the Middle East, which at the time was the main source of crude oil for both countries. No wonder the region was a priority security issue for both countries.

The plans were first hatched by U.S. President Truman in 1949, Russian Sputnik writes, citing a number of recently declassified documents from both the UK and the United States. Dubbed “oil denial”, the plans involved oil company personnel in the Middle East sabotaging their own oilfields and refineries in case of a Soviet invasion, in hopes of restricting the invaders’ access to the precious commodity.

While sound in themselves, the denial plans of the Brits faced problems: the empire’s influence in the Middle East was in decline. Iran’s and Iraq’s governments, according to declassified documents, were believed to be particularly unlikely to cooperate with oil companies in sabotaging their own oil industry.

The reason for this was that the UK no longer had a monopolistic presence in these two, despite the U.S.-led 1953 coup in Iran, which returned the shah to power and BP to the helm of the Iranian oil industry. BP was at the helm, true, but the Iranian government controlled the refineries, and was building more. The Soviet invasion scenario involved not just oilfields but also refineries.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘Sorry Chump. You Didn’t Have it in Writing’

December 18, 2017

`SORRY CHUMP. YOU DIDN’T HAVE IT IN WRITING’

At a time when the United States is convulsed by anti-Russian hysteria and demonization of Vladimir Putin, a trove of recently declassified Cold War documents reveals the astounding extent of the lies, duplicity and double-dealing engaged in by the western powers with the collapsing Soviet Union in 1990.

I was covering Moscow in those days and met some of the key players in this sordid drama. Ever since, I’ve been writing that the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, were shamelessly lied to and deceived by the United States, Britain, and their appendage, NATO.

All the western powers promised Gorbachev and Shevardnadze that NATO would not expand eastward by ‘one inch’ if Moscow would pull the Red Army out of East Germany and allow it to peacefully reunify with West Germany. This was a titanic concession by Gorbachev: it led to a failed coup against him in 1991 by Communist hardliners.

The documents released by George Washington University in Washington DC, which I attended for a semester, make sickening reading (see them online). All western powers and statesmen assured the Russians that NATO would not take advantage of the Soviet retreat and that a new era of amity and cooperation would dawn in post-Cold War Europe. US Secretary of State Jim Baker offered ‘ironclad guarantees’ there would be no NATO expansion. Lies, all lies.

Gorbachev was a humanist, a very decent, intelligent man who believed he could end the Cold War and nuclear arms race. He ordered the Red Army back from Eastern Europe. I was in Wunsdorf, East Germany, HQ of the Group of Soviet Forces, Germany, and at Stasi secret police HQ in East Berlin right after the pullout order was given. The Soviets withdrew their 338,000 troops and 4,200 tanks and sent them home at lightening speed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

JFK Files Reveal Bobby Kennedy And CIA Plotted False Flag War With USSR

November 23, 2017

JFK Files Reveal Bobby Kennedy And CIA Plotted False Flag War With USSR

False flag conspiracy theories have arisen from thousands of global tragedies ever since pirates allegedly spawned the term by flying the flag of the home country they were preparing to attack. Of course, these “conspiracy theories” would be far easier to discredit if they’d stop coming true…

Alas, a recently revealed document from the so-called ‘JFK Files’ will only serve to stoke the flames of conspiracy theorists as it very clearly confirms a plot crafted by then Attorney General Robert Kennedy and the CIA to carry out a false attack that could be pinned on the USSR and serve as a basis for a U.S. “counterattack”.

According to a formerly “Top Secret” document summarizing a meeting from March 22, 1962, officials from JFK administration secretly strategized on the best way to “manufacture or acquire Soviet aircraft,” including a MIG 17 or MIG 19. Per the following except, plans ranged from building aircraft that could stand up “distant observation” or “close observation” and ranged in cost from $3.5 million to $22 million.

So what were these replica planes to be used for? Well, it turns out those details were laid out with some level of specificity as well…that is, if you can get beyond the brilliant efforts at redaction in the excerpt below…

“There is a possibility that such aircraft could be used in a deception operation designed to confuse enemy planes in the air, to launch a surprise attack against enemy installation or in a provocation operation in which Soviet aircraft would appear to attack U.S. or friendly installations in order to provide an excuse for U.S. intervention. If the planes were to be used in such covert operations, it would seem preferable to manufacture them in the United States.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Does Russia Produce ‘Fake News’? Or Does America? Or Both?

October 30, 2017

Does Russia Produce ‘Fake News’? Or Does America? Or Both?

The biggest difference between American and Russian news-reporting has been a simple factual issue between the two sides, on what incident started the ‘New Cold War’ between the U.S. and Russia. (The original Cold War was between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and had an ideological, capitalist-versus-communist, alleged basis, but this one doesn’t — so, it’s not really a ‘New Cold War’; it is quite different, but it might be even more deadly.)

The U.S. and its allies say that what started it was in March 2014 when “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” and “the invasion of Crimea” and Russia’s “conquest of land” by means of that “invasion,” sparked America’s sanctions against Russia and NATO’s military buildup along Russia’s borders; but Russia says that what started it was in February 2014 when Ukraine was victimized, as Russian Television reported it, on 13 March 2014, by:

an armed coup. The Maidan do not appoint these people; rather, it’s the US that does it. It’s enough to look at the newly appointed officials: Parubiy, Gvozd, Nalyvaichenko are all people who followed somebody else’s orders, the orders of the US, not even Europe. They are directly linked to the American intelligence.

In the American account, Ukrainian democracy started when the democratically elected President of Ukraine was overthrown in February 2014; in the Russian account, Ukrainian democracy ended when the democratically elected President of Ukraine was overthrown in February 2014, and only after (and in response to) that, did two regions (Crimea and Donbass, both of which had voted more than 75% for that man) break away from, and refuse to be governed by, the newly installed Ukrainian Government, which was now being imposed upon them.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Putin Slams US: “The Biggest Mistake Russia Ever Made Was To Trust You”

October 20, 2017

Putin Slams US: “The Biggest Mistake Russia Ever Made Was To Trust You”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not yet formally declared his intention to seek another term as leader of Russia, but many observers noted that a sweeping speech he gave at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi this week served as a template for his campaign ahead of the March election.

The speech’s overarching theme was to burnish Putin’s accomplishments as the man who restored “power and respect” to Russia. But in doing so, he heaped abuse on the US and its western allies, accusing them of selectively adhering to international law, and of taking advantage of Russia during the 1990s when the country was struggling to rebuild following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Bloomberg reported.

He accused the US of abusing Russia’s trust, and seeking to take advantage of the political and economic chaos that persisted for much of the 1990s and early 2000s, according to Russia Today.

“The biggest mistake our country made was that we put too much trust in you; and your mistake was that you saw this trust as a lack of power and you abused it,’’ he said during a question-and-answer session that was carried on national television. What was needed, he said, was “respect.’’

High on Putin’s list of perceived slights was the US’s failure to keep its end of the bargain in a host of international disarmament agreements. He explained that, while Moscow doesn’t plan to exit any existing treaties, he promised an “instant, symmetrical response” if Washington decides to quit first.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

If Economists Are So Smart, Why Are They Always Wrong?

September 25, 2017

If Economists Are So Smart, Why Are They Always Wrong?

When I took Econ 101 and 102 as a young college student back in antediluvian times the textbook we were assigned was Paul Samuelson’s Economics: An Introductory Analysis. This book is the all-time best selling economics textbook and is still around today (19th ed.).

I had the 1961 edition. In it, Samuelson, a prominent Keynesian economist who won the Nobel prize in economics, predicted that the economy of the Soviet Union would overtake the U. S. economy in 23 years (by 1984). Even as late as the 11th edition (1980), Samuelson stood by his prediction.

As anybody who knows anything about the Soviet Union, their top-down centrally planned economy was a disaster that left its citizens in poverty. It was inefficient, wasteful, driven by coercion, politics, corruption, and cronyism. Consumer wishes were ignored. Goods were under-produced or overproduced. There were shortages of everything, except vodka and hydrogen bombs.

There was a joke floating around Moscow at the time about shortages: Yuri Gagarin’s daughter (he was the first man in space and hero of the Soviet Union) answers the phone: “No, mummy and daddy are out,” she says. “Daddy’s orbiting the earth, and he’ll be back tonight at 7 o’clock. But mummy’s gone shopping for groceries, so who knows when she’ll be home.”

They were far, far behind us.

So how is it possible that Samuelson and his fellow Keynesians could even consider that a planned economy could work better than a free economy? For 11 editions he persisted in believing that failed theory. And a generation of students left school with the idea that a centrally planned economy could work.

Mainstream economists today aren’t much better.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

So Deep, It’s Sunk?

September 5, 2017

So Deep, It’s Sunk?

If you strike the king but do not kill him, by definition your position is weak.

There has never have been a deeper deep state than the Soviet Union’s. It controlled everything: the military, intelligence, the judicial system, the rest of the government, the press, and the economy. It operated in shadows and darkness; there was no loyal opposition or media to shine the occasional light. Yet at 7:32 p.m., December 26, 1991, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin and replaced with the Russian flag. The Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union’s declaration number 142-H recognized the independence of the Soviet republics. Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned, handing power to Boris Yeltsin. The Soviet Union and its deep state were no more.

There are still lessons to be generally recognized from the fall of the Soviet Union.

A deep state operates submerged from public view. The US deep state had to emerge in its effort to topple Trump, an emergence that screams weakness (see “Plot Holes”). The ineptitude of the effort made the weakness that much more apparent.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Sergey Lavrov Says US Media Reminds Him of Soviet Union’s “Pravda”

May 22, 2017

Sergey Lavrov Says US Media Reminds Him of Soviet Union’s “Pravda”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a few choice words for the U.S. media during a press conference in Cyprus a few days after the NYT and WaPo unleashed a pair of dubiously sourced accusations about what was said between President Trump and the minister during a meeting in the Oval Office.

As Russia Insider reports:

“I sometimes get the impression that many U.S. media outlets work according to a principle which was common in the Soviet Union. Back then, people used to joke that the newspaper Pravda Truth] had no truth in it, and the Izvestia [News] paper has no news in it. I get the impression that many U.S. media operate in the same way.”

U.S. media were barred from Lavrov’s meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, but that didn’t stop WaPo from reporting that Trump allegedly shared classified information with Lavrov about the source of intelligence that inspired the U.S. to ban travelers from 10 airports in the Middle East and North Africa from storing laptops in carry-on luggage. The report added that the decision to share that information jeopardized the source in the process. Meanwhile, the NYT reported that Trump said he fired Comey because the FBI director was a “nut job” and that the decision had eased pressures from the FBI’s investigation into collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Lavrov has denied that any classified information was shared during the meeting. Though it’s important to remember that, even if Trump did share classified intelligence, doing so wouldn’t be a violation of U.S. law.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Ever-Growing List of ADMITTED False Flag Attacks

March 7, 2017

The Ever-Growing List of ADMITTED False Flag Attacks

Painting by Anthony Freda

Presidents, Prime Ministers, Congressmen, Generals, Spooks, Soldiers and Police ADMIT to False Flag Terror

In the following instances, officials in the government which carried out the attack (or seriously proposed an attack) admit to it, either orally, in writing, or through photographs or videos:

(1) Japanese troops set off a small explosion on a train track in 1931, and falsely blamed it on China in order to justify an invasion of Manchuria. This is known as the “Mukden Incident” or the “Manchurian Incident”. The Tokyo International Military Tribunal found: “Several of the participators in the plan, including Hashimoto [a high-ranking Japanese army officer], have on various occasions admitted their part in the plot and have stated that the object of the ‘Incident’ was to afford an excuse for the occupation of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army ….” And see this, this and this.

(2) A major with the Nazi SS admitted at the Nuremberg trials that – under orders from the chief of the Gestapo – he and some other Nazi operatives faked attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to justify the invasion of Poland.

(3) The minutes of the high command of the Italian government – subsequently approved by Mussolini himself – admitted that violence on the Greek-Albanian border was carried out by Italians and falsely blamed on the Greeks, as an excuse for Italy’s 1940 invasion of Greece.

(4) Nazi general Franz Halder also testified at the Nuremberg trials that Nazi leader Hermann Goering admitted to setting fire to the German parliament building in 1933, and then falsely blaming the communists for the arson.

(5) Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev admitted in writing that the Soviet Union’s Red Army shelled the Russian village of Mainila in 1939 – while blaming the attack on Finland – as a basis for launching the “Winter War” against Finland. Russian president Boris Yeltsin agreed that Russia had been the aggressor in the Winter War.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: soviet union

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Post navigation

Latest Posts