In a World Full of Enemies, America Can Only See One at a Time

 

On this day in 1991, Russian General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev did something many in the West thought would never happen: He announced that the Soviet Union would be dissolved. While this event helped bring an end to America’s longtime enemy, it did not bring an end to the spread of communism. The United States put the blinders on and moved forward. But now, less than three decades later, Russia is led by a man whose aim is to restore the Soviet Empire. Yet no one in America is ringing the alarm bells. On today’s show, Stephen Flurry discusses how America’s ignorance of its enemies is bringing down this once great nation.

Russia can only survive as a global Eurasian bridge

Russian President Vladimir Putin has every reason to be proud of himself. He is a master of high geopolitical games. Moscow’s influence is more widespread than ever, possibly even greater than at the height of the Cold War, when Moscow was the capital of the Soviet Empire and vying with Washington for global dominance.

In the American presidential campaign, for the first time ever, a candidate openly quoted Putin as a model to follow, while in past decades, Russia, in its Soviet incarnation, was just the great enemy against which the United States should prepare to fight.

Fear This Man

From time to time, there’s a must-read article worth posting in its entirety or a majority of it in tact. This is one of those articles.

 

Caption: Russian President Vladimir Putin (Yuri Kadobnov/AFP)

 

Those who underestimate Russia’s Vladimir Putin do so at their peril.

In the West, many see Russian President Vladimir Putin more as a schoolyard bully than a ruthless tyrant. He’s mischievous and unfriendly, but his behavior, we tell ourselves, is the result of insecurity. If we ignore him, he’ll grow out of it. Many are amused by and even admire Putin’s personality and behavior. He is the John Wayne of world politics: decisive, uncompromising and masculine. He is the antithesis of the soft, politically correct Western politician. He’s traditional, conservative and pragmatic in a world growing ever more liberal, secular and dangerously idealistic.

But we must not be deceived by Vladimir Putin.

Russia examines 1991 recognition of Baltic independence

As Vladimir Putin wants to resurrect the Soviet Empire, Russia is possibly creating a pretext for reining in the Baltic states via invasion.

 

The Russian chief prosecutor’s office is to examine whether the Soviet Union acted legally when it recognised the Baltic states’ independence in 1991.

The investigation was described as an “absurd provocation” by Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were occupied by Soviet communist forces in 1940. The USSR broke up in 1991.

War Drums: Gazprom’s Dangerous New Nord Stream Gas Pipeline to Germany

Does the latest Russian-German deal reflect the spirit of Molotov-Ribbentrop?

Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom signed a deal June 18 to double the capacity of the Nord Stream gas pipeline that delivers Russian gas directly to Germany. The deal is a precursor to war.

Analysts are wondering: Why would Germany continue to work with Russia’s Gazprom when it is supposedly targeting Russia for its invasion and occupation of Ukraine?

When asked how he convinced Germany’s E.ON, Austria’s omv and British-based Royal Dutch Shell to do business with Gazprom, chief executive Alexei Miller said: “As far as Nord Stream is concerned—there was no politics at all. The decision was taken in November 2011, and all the work has been done based on the decisions taken three years ago.”

What’s Behind Russia’s Revival of a Soviet-Era Song Contest?

Russia will revive the Cold War-era Intervision Song Contest this October, according to July 25 reports.

Intervision was first established back in 1977 as a direct rival to the Europe-oriented Eurovision Song Contest. Few people in the participating Soviet nations had private telephones, so Intervision’s television viewers would turn on their house lights if they liked a certain song, or off if they didn’t. The state energy company would then record the size of each power spike, and report the results to the television company to determine points for each contestant. As the Soviet Union began to weaken in the early 1980s, Intervision was discontinued.

Now, Putin is reviving this relic of the Soviet Union’s “glory days,” as he recently has with so many others including a military prep fitness program, the “Hero of Socialist Labor” award, and a grip on domestic media that would earn a hat tip from Comrade Stalin himself.

All these moves serve Putin’s general purpose of resuscitating the Soviet Empire. But this latest one—reviving the song contest—also serves another specific purpose.

Merkel miffed at Barack Obama and David Cameron ‘nuclear war game’

Hopefully this is not a hint of what’s to come in the future, but the threat is real. Many people don’t know that even JFK warned about the Soviets and their nuclear bomb in Washington D.C..

Consider the following, which was told by JFK to Time Magazine:

In late July 1961, President Kennedy, just back from the grim Vienna summit with Khrushchev, asked me to dinner in Palm Beach. After daiquiris and Frank Sinatra records on the patio, his three guests and I gathered around the table for fish-in-a-bag, a White House recipe. Between lusty bites, Kennedy told the story of Khrushchev’s anger over West Berlin, the island of freedom in the Soviet empire’s East Germany. “We have a bustling communist enclave just four blocks from the White House,” I noted, meaning the Soviet embassy. Kennedy paused, fork between plate and mouth, and said, “You know, they have an atom bomb on the third floor of the embassy.” Aware of JFK’s love of spy stories, I said something like, “Sure, why not?”

No, Kennedy continued, it was his understanding that the Soviets had brought the components of an atomic device into the building in inspection-free diplomatic pouches and assembled it in the upstairs attic. “If things get too bad and war is inevitable,” he said, “they will set it off and that’s the end of the White House and the rest of the city.” I laughed. Still suspending his bite of fish, Kennedy said, “That’s what I’m told. Do you know something that I don’t?” No sign of mirth. The conversation moved on.

Five years ago I was lecturing in Staunton, Va., and retold the story. In the question session, a man in the audience rose and said, “You may not believe that story about the bomb in the attic, but I do. I worked for 25 years at the Defense Intelligence Agency, and that was our understanding.” And now I can hear Kennedy asking again, “Do you know something I don’t?”

Source: Were the Russians Hiding a Nuke in D.C.? (Time)

 

World leaders played an interactive nuclear war game designed to test their responses to a terrorist atomic “dirty bomb” attack that threatened the lives of hundreds of thousands of people

David Cameron joined Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and Xi Jinping and other world leaders to play a “nukes on the loose” war game to see how they would cope with a terrorist nuclear attack.

The German chancellor grumbled at being asked to play games and take tests with the Prime Minister, US and Chinese presidents around a table with dozens of heads of state at a nuclear summit in The Hague.

The Ukraine crisis: Russia may halt (START) strategic weapons inspections, revert to Cold War tactics

This is perfect timing, for Russia that is, since the USA is conveinently suiciding itself militarily by reducing its strategic nuclear deterrance — which also outdated and hasn’t seen anything new in weaponry since the early 90’s/late 80’s.

Russia ratcheted up international tensions over Ukraine by a big notch Saturday, March 8, the day after mobilizing air and coastal defenses for a large-scale month-long drill to prevent the disruption of the May 16 Crimean referendum. The defense ministry in Moscow announced: “Russia is considering halting foreign inspections of its strategic weapons arsenal, including nuclear-capable missiles, in response to “threats” from the United States and NATO over the Ukraine crisis.

Lines of tanks were seen Saturday heading from Russian bases towards Crimea.

A high-ranking defense ministry official in Moscow, who was not named, released this statement to all Russian news agencies: “The unfounded threats towards Russia from the United States and NATO over its policy on Ukraine are seen by us as an unfriendly gesture that allows the declaration of force majeure circumstances.”

The Fight for Ukraine

If Ukraine is to still join the EU, expect it to after the cold winter subsides. This way, Russia can no longer blackmail the Ukranian leadership via energy supplies by shutting off the gas lines as it did a few years back — which also was a statement to Europe as it, too, was affected.

Every decent revolution produces an iconic scene. The 1989 Tiananmen protests had tank man; during Germany’s reunification it was a segment of the Berlin Wall swaying back and forth like a wiggly tooth before finally collapsing; in Baghdad in 2003, it was the slow-motion toppling of the giant statue of Saddam Hussein. On Sunday, the budding revolution in Ukraine got its iconic scene, when, amid protests of roughly 500,000 in Kiev’s Independence Square, angry marchers felled a Vladimir Lenin statue then slugged it to pieces with sledgehammers.

The protesters are upset with President Viktor Yanukovich, and specifically his November 29 decision to reject a free-trade deal with the EU. The decision was seen not only as a rejection of Europe, but an embrace of Russia. Many Ukrainians worry that Yanukovich, despite repeated denials, has struck a deal with Vladimir Putin to form a customs union with Russia.

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Whatever the outcome, events in Ukraine highlight three important geopolitical realities, each of which is also prophetically significant.

Author: Soviet agents subverted US in 1930s

Although opinions may vary on the timing of the subversion, she definitley is on the right track. Readers of well-sourced books such as New Lies for Old, The Perestroika Deception and Origins of the Fourth World War (JR Nyquist) — or those who have listened to Yuri Bezmenov — will know exactly what she’s talking about.

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Syndicated columnist Diana West says the ultimate conclusion of her new book shocked even her.

“Americans have been betrayed … by our leaders going back to FDR’s administration in the 1930s because we were penetrated by Soviet agents to such an extent that our policies and, indeed I argue, our character as a nation was subverted,” she explained in an interview with The Daily Caller’s Ginni Thomas about her book, “American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character.”