The September/October 2023 edition of Foreign Affairs magazine carries a book review by Michael Kimmage entitled “Born in the Bloodlands: Ukraine and the Future of the European Project.” The book being reviewed was The Russo-Ukranian War: The Return of History by Serhii Plokhy (Norton, 2023, 400 pp).
According to the magazine, “Michael Kimmage is a Professor of History at the Catholic University of America and a Senior Nonresident Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 2014 to 2016, he served on the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio.”
This article is not another review of the book by Plokhy; rather it is a review of the review by Kimmage. It is an important topic because Kimmage has held significant positions in the university/think tank/government agency congregation that helps analyze and direct US foreign policy.
Several items in Kimmage’s review, whether taken from Plokhy’s book or added comments by Kimmage himself, raise serious questions as to the usefulness of this US analyst’s version of Ukraine War history. For example:
ONE. The review mentions that the pro-Russian candidate won the election of 2004, but states it was “dirty” and annulled after protests in the “Orange Revolution” of that year. A new “fairer” election put the pro-Western candidate in as President. The review neglected to mention or analyze the allegations that “color revolutions” are often found to have been instigated and produced by the US.
TWO. The review mentions that the pro-Russian candidate won the 2010 election but does not provide any information as to how fair it was or why he won. Kimmage then notes that this Ukrainian President turned down an economic agreement with the EU, which led to his overthrow in the Maiden revolution of 2014. Kimmage neglects to point out that the alternative agreement with Russia & China reportedly gave superior economic benefits to Ukraine..
THREE. The review does not explain or analyze the Maiden revolution, despite it being a violent overthrow of a duly elected democratic government. No mention is made of the US official Victoria Nuland, and her claim that the US spent $5 billion in the successful effort to achieve that regime change in Ukraine.
FOUR. The review notes that Russia annexed Crimea, but failed to put that action in perspective as regards the huge Russian naval base in Sevastopol. Reports circulated that the Russians acted in order to keep from being kicked out of the base and to prevent the base from falling into the hands of the US Navy.
FIVE. The review claims that Russia invaded eastern Ukraine after the Maiden revolution. Kimmage neglected to point out that before that the separatist provinces in eastern Ukraine were under attack by the Kiev forces and were engaged in a basic civil war. The separatist provinces were very pro-Russian and appealed for aid from Russia. Public opinion in Russia was favorable to the separatists. However, the Russian government was dubious about the separation and preferred to keep Ukraine whole, but with a loose federation so that the Russian-speaking provinces could be semi-autonomous. Russia tried to straddle the fence by sending “little green men” to provide military support to the separatists, but tried to make the support appear unofficial by removing all identification from the green uniforms. Russia held off annexing the separatist provinces and only annexed Crimea after a referendum held in Crimea in which the electorate voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia. Kimmage approves of the separation of Ukraine from the USSR following a 1991 referendum in Ukraine whereby the electorate voted to approve the separation. However, he ignores the similar situation later with regard to Crimea whereby the Crimean electorate voted to approve its separation from Ukraine.
SIX. The review notes “an open-ended diplomatic process between 2014 and 2022.” It does not adequately discuss the Minsk Agreements in detail and the effect this effort had on subsequent events in Ukraine. The agreements, if implemented, would have protected the Russian speakers in Ukraine through a loose federation arrangement. The agreement had the potential to significantly delay, if not prevent, the Ukraine War. Kimmage could also have noted that both the leaders of France and Germany later admitted that they signed the first Minsk Agreement in order to buy time for NATO countries to rearm Ukraine.
SEVEN. The review then skips to February 24, 2022, the date of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and completely ignores the “Not-Ultimatum” of Russia in December 2021, which proposed negotiations to achieve a new security architecture for Europe. This was Russia’s last-minute attempt to avoid a military-technical solution to the crisis. Kimmage then ignores the diplomatic negotiations between Ukraine and Russia held in March 2022, in Turkey and Belarus, with mediation by the Turkish President and the Israeli Prime Minister. This effort resulted in a draft agreement to stop the war, but was rejected by the Ukraine government after intervention by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
EIGHT. The review states that “Over the course of this massive invasion, Russia’s military has underperformed on the battlefield and committed atrocious war crimes.” The author does not present any evidence of the alleged “underperformance.” He should have been aware of the Russian President’s statement that “Strictly speaking, we haven’t started anything yet.” Russia has huge forces that have not even been committed to the battle yet, and greatly increased armaments production. In addition, there have been numerous allegations of atrocious war crimes committed by the Ukrainian forces. An article in Foreign Affairs should have noted these facts.
NINE. Kimmage’s review mentions NATO’s beginning in the first paragraph, but ignores the issue of NATO expansion eastward. Yet, NATO expansion is one of the main reasons behind the conflict in Ukraine, and is regularly mentioned as a “red-line” for Russia. The actual sequence of events during 2021, which was reported by the news media as they happened, was summarized last week by the NATO Secretary General as follows:
Then lastly on Sweden. First of all, it is historic that now Finland is member of the Alliance. And we have to remember the background. The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.
The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.
So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite. He has got more NATO presence in eastern part of the Alliance and he has also seen that Finland has already joined the Alliance and Sweden will soon be a full member…
Extract from: “Opening remarks by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the joint meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) and the Subcommittee on Security and Defense (SEDE) followed by an exchange of views with Members of the European Parliament, 07 Sep. 2023.” (www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_218172.htm?selectedLocale=en)
TEN. The review states that “This war did not begin as a proxy war between Russia and the United States. Putin may have gone to war because of his vision of Russia’s place in the world. But his more visceral motivations follow from Russian history and form his warped view of Ukrainian history…” This completely ignores the massive involvement in Ukraine by the Biden family and the intervention by Victoria Nuland. It ignores the years of the US arming and training the Ukraine military and providing intelligence and direction during the war. It completely overlooks the fact that Putin early on proposed a “Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok” and suggested that Russia be admitted to NATO.
***
It is hard to understand why a professor of history would write a public document so lacking many essential facts and history. Especially since the skimpy history he recounts is tangential to his main thesis of the Ukraine War’s impact on the European Project. It would be more useful if the professor would write an exposé about what actually transpired at the Policy Planning Staff during 2014-2016, the Maiden revolution period, or provide a history of the European Project. He was certainly in a central position to know what was going on. In addition, the editors at Foreign Affairs failed to do basic editing. They should have at least pointed out to the professor some of the areas for improvement listed above, since the information is readily available through an internet search.
Potential addendum to 4: at that time, rumors abounded at the time, if I remember correctly, that Ukraine was about to violate the terms of the lease of the Sevastopol Base that still had many years left and demand that Russia vacate immediately–which would have turned the base over to US. Can you imagine what might happen if Castro tries to forcibly evict US from Guantanamo (for which, if i remember right, we have less legal right to than Russia did to Sevastopol) for the explicit purpose if hosting a Chinese missile base there?
I HAVE read the actual texts of the construction contracts published by the US Navy/Marine Corps for the expansion of naval facilities in Crimea on the homepage of the DoD. I`ll see if I can dig them up.
You seem surprised.
There used to be at GOVTRIBE what I recall as being an old RFI for renovation of School #5 in Sevastopol that only in the past year has been scrubbed. I should have saved it.
It was an active topic on the internet at the time and often quoted, including a request for bids on ‘curtains’ for NATO’s new digs.
US Navy had a $60 million contract to build primary schools in Crimea which I found to be a strange use of their budget.
Yuschenko was the “Orange Revolution” who pledged to tear up Russia’s lease on Sevastopol by 2017 and pledged visa free travel in EU…….and pushed Ukrainian over Russian…….but his new CIA wife Kateryna Mykhaylivna Yushchenko (Ukrainian: Катерина Михайлівна Ющенко, née Chumachenko from Chicago handled his campaign and lubricated it with State Department cash…….
However he failed to deliver and lost the following election…….his wife seems to have snaffled several million dollars she “fundraised” for a children’s hospital……..but that is “so normal”
US puppets are always the same……
US staged a coup in Hawaii and imprisoned the Queen of Hawaiians to gain control of Pearl Harbour; they imposed a $2000 lease in perpetuity on Cuba to steal Guantanamo Bay; they seized the Philippines to get Subic Bay;
US seizes whatever it wants – just like it has Diego Garcia and the inhabitants were carted off by the London serfs to serve US goals…..
When I first read of those, I was skeptical so I checked to see if they were real, and they were. The presumptive arrogance of these people boggles the mind. A lot of planning, money, and preparation over years went into the globalist attempted capture of Crimea and Sevastopol. This was not ‘off the cuff.’ That so much was done out in the open (you can be sure Russian foreign intelligence regularly scans open-access DoD contract listings) says a lot about their misperceptions of Russian will and capability.
That would be a prize winner, try to find it.
So would be the ‘mirotvorets’ dox/purge/kill list hosted on a NATO server in Estonia (the CIA’s home away from home), which was meticulously noted and validated by anyone doing a ‘ping back’, which I did, but that’s long been obfuscated and repositioned via proxy as well. Busy little bees at work.
Good catch! Knowing how vile our leaders are, next time you come across something like that, mark it well. If it strikes you as exceptionally malevolent even by subterranean Swampite standards, it probably is.
Cuba was run by the US Army when the Guantanamo base agreement was signed by a puppet President. This expensive base has been worthless for decades and serves no military purpose, as this short video explains.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHo8KtRYCsQ
This expensive base [Guantánamo] has been worthless for decades and serves no military purpose… – Paul Greenwood
Sure it does… it’s called a bone of contention, just like South Korea, Taiwan or Ukraine. The US MIIC can “activate” that bone on demand.
My mistake, Carleton, I attributed your quote erroneously. My apologies.
This expensive base has been worthless for decades and serves no military purpose… — Carlton Meyer
You never know. Germany is reverting back to coal for fuel and so someday might the US.
Guantanamo’s original value was as a coal depot for American warships.
Bones of contention are a dangerous lot. More than one has ended up choking one or both of the contenders.
if I remember correctly, that Ukraine was about to violate the terms of the lease of the Sevastopol Base
That intent was inferred, not directly stated as there’d been no time to fully consolidate the coup but it was an obvious intent by Ukraine to anyone with an IQ above 50, esp. after Yushchenko ten yrs before had stated his intent that the lease not be renewed when it expired in 2017. Instead, it was renewed by Yanukovych.
You can say that this entire clusterfuck began with the west breaking one of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s naval base.”
That commandment is after the one broken by Slick Willie: “Thou shalt not put thy rod in thy staff”.
Willie was an Arkansas trailer trash boy with a drunk for a father who beat his mother and that was egged onto glory by his plotting partner Druzilla. It’s a story as old as the pyramids.
Sad as it is, trailer trash boy actually out shined those who followed him, but not by much.
Point zero five. Should have mentioned that the Nazis turned over their lists of Ukrainian agents & info on drops & getting ordnance in, in 1945, to the Americans.
The book is a summary of the western political position on this conflict. It attempts to launder the whole dirty propaganda campaign by putting it up as an academic and hence impartial account. That will be its context when the actual history comes to be written. By then it will be risible but unimportant, added to the vast dump of the ignoble war of words.
Agreed. This is standard neocon propaganda disguised as scholarly research. Note that any Ukrainian who wants to be neutral and not join NATO is called pro-Russian.
The whole travesty started with “Not one inch toward the east!” That statement should have been tattooed on the participants’ foreheads!
And then: RF was not in shape to counter the Clinton’s NATO expansion, but they’re ready now to reverse it — SMO in 404 will not turn into WWIII, but this NATO’s push to east may.
Hope NOT,
Cheers, JaKo
No mention of the nonexistent biolabs, which worried cookie nuland of fell into Russian hands.
Also no mention of the repeated UA wish to obtain nuclear weapons. (Fex by Melnik in April 2021 – almost a year before the SMO).
Biden knew Russia would invade the first week of Feb, loudly announced same, but they didnt.
Feb 19, 2022, Zelensky coyly asked for nukes in front of NATO at the German Defense meeting. He would not have done this without State Dept approval. It would have taken a week or two for NATO to deliver. Russia pulled the trigger and invaded just days later.
Ukraine had already used nuke-capable missiles to slaughter civilians with anti-personnel warheads. Means+motive. Threat of hostile nukes next to Russia, not just in Romania and Poland, created a forced move.
They would only ‘know’ that if they also knew that they’d goaded the Ukrainians into assembling their army at the Donbass line, poised to repeat Operation Storm, again with the accompanying western officers leading the charge – and that the Russians would react to preempt it.
Planning is everything. Now you guess whose plan.
On Feb 19, 2022, war has already started, but we didn’t know it. Ukraine has finished setup for the invasion on Russian controlled territories, and was in the artillery preparation phase (that precedes infantry advance).
OSCE reports surge in number of explosions in east Ukraine
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/osce-reports-surge-number-explosions-east-ukraine-2022-02-19/
OSCE reports more than 1,500 ceasefire violations in a single day in Ukraine
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220219-live-osce-monitors-report-dramatic-increase-in-ukraine-ceasefire-violations
Is the deep state gathering up its house pundits to bulwark against the realization that ukr has lost the war? Keep up the stiff upper lip hip hip..
Ukraine looks to be losing the land war, but Russia look to to be losing the Black Sea War against NATO. Should this continue, the land war will be lost as well.
Russia will need to step up to their Red Lines, or they will inadvertently lose both.
Russia will just HAVE to take Odessa, won’t it? The west cannot keep its d**** in its pants. That has always been its problem.
Yup. I agree, but they may still have problems with NATO in Romania until they make it clear that they will not tolerate that country being used as a base to attack Crimea. But an attack on Romania triggers full NATO response. Hmm….🤔
Oh no – a full NATO response. Once those Estonians wade in, Russia will crumble. A nuclear attack on greater DC and the Utah Data Center may be the only way to free ourselves from the forces that have subverted the US.
You must have a great homeowners insurance policy !!! Have you read it ?
I know there are people who think you pay your premiums and you have 100% certainty of payout when bad luck arrives……….other people know how hard you work to file a lawsuit to get satisfaction………
Insurance companies hold the umbrella over your head in sunny weather and take it home when it rains…….that is how ANY mutual assistance treaty works……..France tried to welch out of its 1925 Treaty with Czechoslovakia at Munich 1938; it tried to welch on its 1920 Treaty with Poland in 1939……….
US failed to honour the Four Power Treaty on Berlin in 1961 when Honecker built the Berlin Wall in violation……..Kennedy balked and failed to enforce compliance and let GDR regime gain control of East Berlin which was not permitted under Four Power Agreement……..
Kennedy weakness led directly to Cuba Missiles Crisis
Kennedy weakness led directly to Elysee Treaty when Adenauer turned to France and their nuclear deterrent for protection after seeing how weak Kennedy was……and how West Germany was left in the lurch
There is ZERO guarantee USA will rise US cities for anyone in Europe……….no Americans are willing to die in Peoria or Sacramento or Portland to fight a war for Bucharest or Riga
“Should this continue, the land war will be lost as well.”
How exactly? By D-Day style landing behind Surovikin line? Let’s say that all Russian surface ships are removed from the western part of Black Sea. Would that allow Ukro/NATO to sail into Sevastopol? Even if they make a landing in Crimea. Then what? They make landings over the Dnieper on regular basis, and die there.
Should this continue, Russia would have no choice but to go all the way to Danube (which will take a while). Last year Putin had goodwill to leave Odessa to some future rump state of Ukraine. That ship has sailed. WWIII is just getting started, and it’s going to get uglier. Escalation is slow but constant, and it won’t stop anytime soon. There is a reason why North Korea joined the chat.
Around 2 yrs ago my wife and I were at a restaurant in Anytown, USA that was hosting a Russian language version of Jeopardy. Maybe half were Russian, half Ukrainian & all getting along fine. Well, everyone’s gathered in their respective teams to answer questions and one forlorn fellow whose wife is Ukrainian says to me “phew, someone who speaks English here. What do you think, will Ukraine ever get Crimea back?” So I tell him: “Not without a nuclear war they won’t, and then – who’ll need it?” Silence.
Thinking back, I’ll just bet he was one of Blinken’s advisory staff.
“It is hard to understand why a professor of history would write a public document so lacking many essential facts and history. ”
I don’t find it difficult, but then I spent twenty five years in an economics department, a subject that is even more political than History . In my retirement I’ve done some research on Marshal Tukhachevsky.
The accounts on this sensitive topic given by luminaries such as Leonard Schapiro CBE and
John Erickson, FRSE, FBA, FRSA are highly selective .
Probably should start with a correct version of WW2. United States did not beat nazi Germany. My ancestors did. From there not only has the despicable and altogether hateful genocidal maniacs of America totally changed history, religion and science, especially biology. That has been the single biggest problem facing the human race since 1945.
We have had enough of America, it is about time “real men” stood up and did something with that rotten system!
Guns don’t kill people. People kill people…and in this case the neocons (and their beloved 4th Internationale renamed ‘project for the new american century’) are the people.
I agree in the description of events in your first paraghraph, except may be the initial starting point at 1945, since a recent account by a gold especialist in an economic review informed that already the Sumeriann Tablets were informed of the ciclic economic crisis and wars humanity has gone through, immutably since those ancient times to this day, unveiling that evolution in this case is a quimera.
With regard the standing up of “real men”, well, they probably stood up to keep the resources sovereignty under their control, that is, withour foreign participation in profits, and thus for conserving their rate of profit, which, as the recent jointly accepted declaration by the G20, does not mean it implies sovereignty of the peoples and a fair share on those profits by the working masses, as the health passports and digital indentity for the masses approved by all countries reunited there imply…..
Kimmage:
“From 2014 to 2016, he served on the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio.”
He was part of the Nuland cookie & Nazi hotel genocide … part of the “PLANNING STAFF” the exact same time as coup.
He’s as responsible for all those deaths, and all the deaths since Nuland.
Another grifter off of death, glorifying the glorified magazine for death profit.
Of course he was going to leave out actual facts… he’s probably a Nuland/Kagan ghost writer.
Same as “book” (Plokhy) was written by one of those “historians” Andrei is always talking about. The book author, born in Ukraine runs off to Canada & Harvard and then writes like he knows Russian History.
Anyone connected to the State Department is a foreign violence prone dunce.
Having made the acquaintance of an Advisor to Bush, now an advisor to Blinken, and someone who decorates many boards and graces Harvard………I remain unimpressed by the calibre of advisors to US Potentates………in fact I find them lightweight with only air-filled PhDs for ballast…….
They are IGNORANT of other cultures, have second or third-hand knowledge decanted from acceptable scribblers of US-centric delusions and totally adrift in the big wide world
Even though I have an advanced degree from the US I consider the bulk of credentialists turned out of these actors into the Hall of Mirrors in Washington to be substandard and downright dangerous
They are IGNORANT of other cultures, have second or third-hand knowledge decanted from acceptable scribblers of US-centric delusions and totally adrift in the big wide world
Well said. Not only that but they readily defer to people like Nuland or Freeland, simply because they do have knowledge of the language and culture, all of the wrong kind (or right kind if your intent is to stir up a war). And that’s how they end up mixing bleach with ammonia and wondering why they’ve all begun gasping for air.
Hall of Mirrors, substandard, and dangerous – that describes every employee of the State Department. They are all social climbers who worm their way into jobs far beyond their abilities for power abuse and prestige. And of course the overly generous benefits which give the taxpayers nothing in return except avoidable foreign violence and millions of new enemies.
Since everyone who cares about U.S. foreign policy can easily find all the relevant facts to prove “we” have been committing acts which always violate international law at a minimum and are acts of war at maximum, why do we continue to have senseless debate? The U.S. spends billions interfering in Nation States politics, nothing is ever done. Do I really have to believe that the U.S. has captured and secured every institution from the UN to you name it? IF all of that is true and the other real powers are not playing along then I have to believe we will see the end of this global conflict in a nuclear war started by the U.S. because by their nature they will never admit or accept defeat.
All countries with a nuclear deterrent, have it as a last resort if their nation faces an existential threat.
Except the US, who dropped two in a week on civilians in a country thousands of miles from their shores to speed up the end of a war.
That should send a chill through your bones!
Accidentally dropped them on Spain in 1966
Any historian is a propagandist. How could it be otherwise? It is not surprising that he sings the song of the State Department. If he lived in Russia, he would sing Kremlin songs. Had he lived in Germany in 1936, he would have sung songs by Dr. Goebbels.
Case in point: Timothy Snyder, Yale’s resident russophobe, who back in 2010 wrote in the NY Review of Books that Bandera “intended to create a fascist state without minorities and murdered many Poles and Jews”, arguing that Yushchenko’s recognition of Bandera as a national hero was a mistake and hoped that Yanukovych would be wiser, but after 2014 became quite the Bandera apologist himself.
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2010/02/24/a-fascist-hero-in-democratic-kiev/
I’m surprised that the editors have withstood the pressure to purge the article. I can guess why though.
“Any historian is a propagandist. ”
It is usually wise to define your terms of reference unless your purpose is to facilitate conflation/obfuscation.
Omniscience is never an option whilst lateral change is a constant hence some are of the view that “historians” only exist in the imagination of others and hence would not seek to make the conflation historian/propagandists that you apparently seek to make, or even the conflation of blank space/propagandist since propagandist also does not exist as “controlled propaganda” is never wholly achieved despite the “best” efforts of some, thereby facilitating blank spaces as both the numerator and demoninator, and hence Mr. Douglas Adams was understandably mistaken; the answer to the universe and everything is not 42, but 1.
Consequently since lateral change is a constant some continue to be engaged in efforts of encouragement to transcend “history” and its contemporary methods – the present S.M.O being one component of multiple interactive vectors of such encouragement upon which some speculate.
Fancy schools, fancy connections, no brains. The State Department of where diplomacy goes to die. Anyone crawling around the SD has no depth, no grasp of history, uncultured, ill read, poorly spoken. Does anyone really think that Blinken is smart? He is just the public mug of the rest of them. He can’t even comport himself and speaks like a spoiled and smug college freshman who got the job through connections. Does anyone really think that Nuland is smart? She is just the ugly public mug of the rest of them. That festering parasitic dump has walked us into decades on end of one avoidable war after another for the personal gains of our fake diplomats and their MICC pimps. The only reason they get away with it is because they facilitate distant attack and loot campaigns on the pretext of something else and their MSM waterboys and chicks cover for them. They don’t work for us, they work for their own and their handlers’ personal interests, and abuse us, our taxes, and and our military to do so.
Dissuade anyone you know from going near recruiting stations, they are only processing centers for cannon fodder.
“He can’t even comport himself and speaks like a spoiled and smug college freshman who got the job through connections.”
You are exactly right. I was in the State Department, Bureau of European Affairs, when Blinken came on board. He was a completely unknowing, undistinguished political/crony appointment out of the blue. His family was/is part of the NY Democrat elite. Wall Street-wealthy. Big donors. Grew up in Paris. Some of his elder relatives were ambassadors. Richard Holbrooke, then head of European Affairs, was probably pressured to give him the job [they came from the same NYC Democrat circles]. Harvard graduate who before joining State was a “movie producer” in Paris with no film credits [his verbatim words, not mine]. Was ‘assigned’ to the Biden team while Joe was in the Senate and has been a loyal team player since. He may not have even wanted to be SecState — too much personal responsibility. None of his feckless, unimaginative, and unbearably entitled attitude is a surprise to anyone who knew him at the time. He is the quintessential toady who rose to the top. Never had an independent decision-making job in his life, including to today.
His Harvard transcripts must be funny. Figures he was ambling around the yard of Hahvahd waiting his turn to pick up a diploma and impress everyone. Or try to anyway.
It’s really comedic to watch these rich louts trying to ape the blue bloods.
“No amount of varnish can ever hide the grain of the wood, for the more varnish you put on the more the grain will express itself.”
– Charles Dickens, Great Expectations.
What’s hard about it? It’s propaganda, and meant to be cited by fellow propagandists as an “authoritative source”.
Exactly right…
Years ago, when the CFR was relatively unknown to the hoi poi, I used to laugh when occasionally happening upon television news programs visiting friends and relations.
Once, in LA during the buildup to the first Gulf War, I was chastised for questioning the sincerity of one “serious news” program… based on the claim that all five guests had various political outlooks with impeccable credentials, and the host was a well-respected veteran journalist. The fact that that all, including the journalist, agreed that the only solution was war, with no dissent, did not matter. The need for war was obviously self-evident.
Then I pointed that every person on-screen was a CFR member, including the journalist. Senior members all.
In addition to “historian” Michael Kimmage serving on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff from 2014 to 2016 conveniently “forgetting” all those relevant facts, policies and decisions, one should never forget that State’s Policy Planning Staff was created – wholecloth – from a CFR working group in 1937…
I believe that nothing special happened here, you just need to change the funny saying “When does an American politician lie ? When his mouth moves!” to “When do American politicians and historians lie ? When their mouths move !”
Seriously, there is nothing surprising when an American official makes false claims or lies to our eyes ! Although I grew up in a lying communist dictatorship, and I’m used to the fact that the officials constantly lie and only the weather forecast in the newspapers contains a trace of truth, but now I’m at the point where the news comes from the USA (now I wouldn’t even mention the pathetic British lie production machine) , I don’t believe any of that, because they either lie or slander in a disgusting way !
It can be bad to be a citizen of a country from which only dirt and malice flows into the world !
Here’s my Ukraine Weekly Update which may be useful to some: https://robcampbell.substack.com/p/ukraine-weekly-update-8a2
Just discovered your substack because of your post here. It is excellent, comprehensive and as good as/better than anything out there. Keep it up, Sir.
Likewise, I just went to have a look. An excellent, concise synopsis of recent global events. Bravo.
Ditto
Here is my Ukraine Weekly Update which may be useful to some: https://robcampbell.substack.com/p/ukraine-weekly-update-8a2
It is as always, sadly – principles are completely dead. Nothing remains that held above political expedience and can overrule it, rather than be determined exclusively by it.
If an event happens that favours “the West” in some way, it is considered to be in accordance with principles, moral and legitimate. If an event happens that favours Russia, it doesn’t matter how perfectly it might match gold standards and principles and be in every way the same case as one that favours “the West” – it WILL be seen as illegitimate, wrong and contradicting principles. If a region votes to secede from Russia or ally with the West, it’s democratic, legitimate and heroic; if a region votes to join Russia or ally with it, it’s undemocratic and corrupt and “a sham” and “illegitimate”. If the West takes military action, it’s heroic and necessary and Western troops are gallant beyond reproach; if Russia does, it’s a barbaric unprovoked aggression and Russian troops are said to do absolutely nothing but war crimes. If the West refuses to solve things diplomatically, it’s “we did all we could but we had no other choice!”; if Russia tries to solve things diplomatically, it’s seen as “malign influence to be repulsed and countered”.
Absolutely everything in world politics is determined solely by the principle of whether it’s a net positive or a net negative for Russia/China; if it’s positive, it’s wrong and evil, if it’s negative, it’s good and “progressive”. And media and history and even people’s own minds are edited to make sure all inconvenient facts are forgotten as thoroughly as possible.
This is why there will be no peace between us no matter what. “The West” simply cannot see living in anything but a totalizing zero-sum game and Russians (and not just the government) have run out of patience for smug Western bullshit. Western leaders think they’re the unstoppable force who’s destined to win this conflict regardless, and they got too many regular Westerners thinking that way too. Napoleon’s France and Hitler’s Germany thought the same. It appears that graveyard of history is about to gain a third, yet greater entry.
Russia really is the reaper of would-be world dominators.
“Napoleon’s France and Hitler’s Germany thought the same. It appears that graveyard of history is about to gain a third, yet greater entry.”
You have just offended Poles by not counting them, and some others probably, but Poles would surely be the most offended ones. They marched onto Moscow before it was cool, and lost an empire, and it doesn’t even count. 🙂
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Foreign Affairs the official propaganda publication of the CFR?
Isn’t the CFR a self-appointed club of shysters on the make, dedicated to dictating American foreign policy for the benefit of the half dozen families who rule the US, whilst infiltrating their members into positions of influence in government, academia, industry and the media?
Isn’t it just part of the ‘big club’ that you ain’t in it; that George Carlin spoke of?
That the review omits many inconvenient details is unsurprising, it’s about stating the party line, not reporting history.
Yes, you are correct. The CFR that was established with JP Morgan and JD Rockefeller money in 1921.
This whole descent into madness is not about the Russo/Ukrainian conflict. And another proxy war, this time between Russo/Poland, is not about what comes next after the death of the last Ukrainian. These so-called “conflicts” have all been “priced in.”
The whole descent into madness ends up right where it began in 1945, right where the United States and the West picked up where Nazi Germany left off, by treating Russia and the Russian People as sub-human, unworthy of all those vast reserves of natural resources which Russia possesses in “shameful abundance,” and which the United States is running out of, and resources Europe ran out in the aftermath of World War II. Same thing with Japan. Vast reserves of natural resources — of natural gas, real oil, real coal, real minerals, and real rare earths — found almost nowhere else now. No substitutes like the West and the United States are “making do” with.
Without cheap and abundant resources there is First World Economy. That’s part of the reason there is no West. There is only the United States, and not for much longer. There is no NATO; a bunch of parasitic vassal states don’t count. There is only the United States.
This ends only one way.
These so-called proxy wars have been about one thing and one thing only — the United States and Russia trying each other on for size. This escalates into what was all along. A US/Russo world war. And who gets to keep all these resources to stay alive.
Poland is a joke. Sad but true.
It has now transpired – election time – that PiS – the aptly-named party of Kaczynski The Klown – has antipathy towards immigration from Africa and Asia into its pristine Polish Catholic Wonderland……….BUT…….PiS appointees in the legations in Africa and Asia have been SELLING work permits to direct Africans and Asians into Germany………
This is the EU all over – some basket case sells Visas and Residence Permits – Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus, Greece, Poland – and floods Europe with immigrants………
It is such a game – you are as likely to hear Russian (Ukrainian) in parts of Germany today in trains (Mobile phones) as German…….or even African dialects
Never mind the review, have you read the book? Talk about a pathetic attempt to rewrite history. I have four other books by Plokhy which are now highly suspect. I thought the guy was a fairly reliable source, but this? Talk about completely destroying your credibility.
Could somebody please recommend a history of the breakup of the USSR, because I no longer trust this guy’s account.
” I have four other books by Plokhy which are now highly suspect. I thought the guy was a fairly reliable source, but this?”
That is always useful as you illustrate, since “censorship/ignorance” is one trajectory of “ignorance” in hope of facilitating/precluding rendering others complicit in their own transcendence through catalysations of “but this?”
Mr. Plokhy’s publications “enjoyed” a more limited benefit of foreign “helpers” than that enjoyed by Mr. Boris Pasternak in regard to Doctor Zhivago.
“Could somebody please recommend a history of the breakup of the USSR, because I no longer trust this guy’s account.”
His/Her/Their stories of the “breakup” of the USSR do exist, and components of history of the transcendence of the USSR by The Russian Federation do exist but not usually in the public domain, but a history of the breakup of the USSR does not exist since it never happened since the USSR continues to enjoy a decreasing half-life, although some will believe that it did happen because we won the Cold War, whilst some practitioners offer the response of Mr. Chou En Lai to a journalist’s question on the “success” of “the French Revolution of 1789”, which some of limited horizon believe that Mr. Chou En Lai response was in relation to “The French Revolution of 1968”, that “It’s too soon to know” leaving non-practitioners to speculate why that is apparently the case.
If your motivation is seeking entertainment perhaps Mr. Stephen F. Cohen’s book “Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives” may prove amusing.
Dmitry Orlov’s
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2367427.Reinventing_Collapse
is well worth a read.
“Dmitry Orlov’s
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2367427.Reinventing_Collapse
is well worth a read.”
MirrorGazers says
15 September 2023 at 11:36
“Consequently since lateral change is a constant some continue to be engaged in efforts of encouragement to transcend “history” and its contemporary methods – the present S.M.O being one component of multiple interactive vectors of such encouragement upon which some speculate. “
Omniscience is never an option and Mr. Orlov’s observations are well worth a read/consideration/testing, as are “Mr. Stephen F. Cohen’s book “Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives”
Mr. Snyder’s “Bloodlands”
and Ghost of Mozgovoy says
15 September 2023 at 22:06
since “war” is never restricted to things that go bang, immersion in win/lose paradigms facilitates constant war and contingent oscillating sustainabilities of opponents, and consequently the purpose of some is transcendence, unlike others who forgot to pack their asthma medication before their trip into the Bolivian mountains in 1967, and subsequently aided the sales of the T-shirt industry, and the suicide pact known as the JCR.
“Consequently since lateral change is a constant some continue to be engaged in efforts of encouragement to transcend “history” and its contemporary methods – the present S.M.O being one component of multiple interactive vectors of such encouragement upon which some speculate. “
Including but not limited to https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-trend.html
What do you mean by JCR pact?
RE: Ghost of Mozgovoy says
16 September 2023 at 07:26
What do you mean by JCR pact?
Junta Coordinarinadora Revolutionaria inaugurated in Santiago de Chile in October 1972.
JCR “los caballeros de la rosa” – was the “brainchild” of Miguel Enriquez the leader of M.I.R. , “informed” by the romantic who forgot his asthma medication when jaunting in Bolivia in 1967 and was subsequently elevated by his opponents to a T-shirt star, in conjunction/reaction with/by another “Presidential ” clown on Sunday the 9th of September 1973 who asked Mr. Pinochet to organise the army to “circumvent” the expected coup which Mr. Pinochet had already been designated by “the leadership” of the coup to lead.
Hence Mr. Pinochet promised Mr. Allende to organise the “army” but just not in the way expected by Mr. Allende.
The efforts of the congregation of fools in unperceived conjunction, facilitated the various phases of the “Condor Years”, and more significantly helped sustain the alchemy of turning gold into paper, “trickle down economics” the petro-dollar, and in part the bases upon which “The United States of America” was facilitated from at least 1973 until 2008, and accelerated the ongoing transcendence of “The Soviet Union” by the Russian Federation.
Hence JCR was a suicide pact.
I’m anything but amused, nor am I interested in polemics. Erudition is no substitute for clarity, which is what I’m seeking.
“Erudition is no substitute for clarity, which is what I’m seeking.”
And hence you will seek the presently impossible as a function of facility and purpose in all regards facilitating a revolution around fixed points, or in the venacular – dance round and round the garden – unless you co-operate with others with facility in erudition in various matters to facilitate your purpose.
Dance….
…but now it is Blinken who states “It takes two to tango”, meaning you should dance when and in the way he deems opportune…
It was Lavrov who coined that expression, isn´t he?
You should have chosen another kind of dance…You will never dande tango with this generation of opponents, since to dance tango you need at least some passion….
https://youtu.be/jst_PFEBgEw?feature=shared
Sometimes asthma is produced or exacerbated, amongst other factors, by an insufficiency of Vitamine D, did you know?
Probably he was not taking sunlight or food enough…
Anyway, according to a documentary made by an Argentinian doctor, who admired the iconic fighter, it is heard from the wolf´s mouth, archive images ( I mean, it was the very US Green Beret commanding the Bolivian rangers who stated this..), the man guessed Guevara just run out of luck, if the peasant whose son was injured and treated by a GB´s doctor would had not told them in gratitude where they have passed through and at what exact of hour of the day…
Enjoy your journey…
P.S: I understand what are you trying to mean….I got also to know that our history was not told either as it really happened….since it was told to us by the foreign agents infiltrated around the 80s….
Our country had almost no debt then, one of the most industrialized of the world at the time, a nearly autarchy…if not by neccessity due its international condemnation to ostracism….
The admiral was blown out so that they could suck us dry….just hours after the visit of that laureate by your “Academy of Sciences” to renegotiate US bases treaties…..
Now we have real nazi fascism of the worst kind…. undercover ( although increasingly in plain view…), but without prosperity….we have misery and ruin instead….
Do you blame people on HispanAmerica, trying to fight for a fairer share of the riches of their countries and gain more freedom, for the fall of the USSR, whic your elites orchestrated from inside with the unestimable help of the CIA/Harvard guys?
Face of concret….
Well, probably you think that these fed up people should wait for ( Godot ) you to mend things in Europe with your 5D chess play and appoitnment to dance tango with your “partners”, should´they?
80.000 met in Maddeburg to protest against pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine policies by the installed government formed by foreign agents…and, it is not that I say it, attention to the pannel at 00:14´ footage…
https://t.me/elespiadigital/15606
May be they should go home and swallow their bledding….as “conjunction of fools”…
And these are Germans… which characterize themselves for being quite a peaceful moldable people amongst those in Europe….even they are fed up and thin they ain´t going to take it any more….
“Do you blame people on HispanAmerica, trying to fight ”
I note your continuing immersion in romanticism in emulation of the JCR and its components which in both cases precluded/precludes both your and the JCR’s facility in analysis, including “your” simplistic interpretations upon which “questions” are predicated.
The analysis initiated in 1970 and periodically reviewed, outlined that “Popular Unity” and associates did not know how to facilitate their purposes like the participants in the “Warsaw Rising” of 1944, some of whom did not even turn up on schedule – 17-00 CET on 1st August 1944 in various locations – and consequently engaged in over-extension, thereby facilitating their complicities in precluding their avowed purposes and significant levels of killed in action/by disappearance, thereby facilitating :
“The efforts of the congregation of fools in unperceived conjunction, facilitated the various phases of the “Condor Years”, and more significantly helped sustain the alchemy of turning gold into paper, “trickle down economics” the petro-dollar, and in part the bases upon which “The United States of America” was facilitated from at least 1973 until 2008, and accelerated the ongoing transcendence of “The Soviet Union” by the Russian Federation.
Hence JCR was a suicide pact.”
and part of the “history” upon which the present Polish Republic is based/facilitated in furtherance of the illusion that from 1863 onwards it was “For your freedom and ours”.
Ergo:
Not trying to fight; failing to fight wisely as a function of lack of self-knowledge and acceptance of likely consequences interpreted as “martyrdom” deserving of periodic rituals of rememberance, not the ineptitudes of fools, obfuscated by it was not me it was these “evil-doers” in hoped perpetuation of beliefs and indulgences, as was the case with the fool and the T-shirts.
“80.000 met in Maddeburg to protest against pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine policies by the installed government formed by foreign agents…and, it is not that I say it, attention to the pannel at 00:14´ footage…”
That was a better choice even if in Magdeburg, than committing suicide through over-estimation of their own abilities, and likely in addition to enjoying some fresh air, gave them a level of feeling of satifaction that they were doing something useful even if facilitating future bathos/frustration, whilst re-immersing themselves in the paradigm which they hope they are “defeating”, whilst increasing the noise/signal ration within which others with facility can act, despite neither omniscience nor perfection being an option.
Some hope that it was not the case, but war is never a spectator sport without consequence.
Thank you for your illustration of part of why MirrorGazers says
16 September 2023 at 05:15 :
“Mr. Orlov’s observations are well worth a read/consideration/testing….. and Ghost of Mozgovoy says
15 September 2023 at 22:06” and others.
“Do you blame people on HispanAmerica, trying to fight ”
I note your continuing immersion in romanticism in emulation of the JCR and its components which in both cases precluded/precludes both your and the JCR’s facility in analysis, including “your” simplistic interpretations upon which “questions” are predicated.
The analysis initiated from 1970 onwards and periodically reviewed, outlined that “Popular Unity” and associates did not know how to facilitate their purposes like the participants in the “Warsaw Rising” of 1944, some of whom did not even turn up on schedule – 17-00 CET on 1st August 1944 in various locations – and consequently engaged in over-extension, thereby facilitating their complicities in precluding their avowed purposes and significant levels of killed in action/by disappearance, thereby facilitating :
“The efforts of the congregation of fools in unperceived conjunction, facilitated the various phases of the “Condor Years”, and more significantly helped sustain the alchemy of turning gold into paper, “trickle down economics” the petro-dollar, and in part the bases upon which “The United States of America” was facilitated from at least 1973 until 2008, and accelerated the ongoing transcendence of “The Soviet Union” by the Russian Federation.
Hence JCR was a suicide pact.”
and part of the “history” upon which the present Polish Republic is based/facilitated in furtherance of the illusion that from 1863 onwards it was “For your freedom and ours”.
Ergo:
Not trying to fight; failing to fight wisely as a function of lack of self-knowledge and acceptance of likely consequences interpreted as “martyrdom” deserving of periodic rituals of rememberance, not the ineptitudes of fools, obfuscated by it was not me it was these “evil-doers” in hoped perpetuation of beliefs and indulgences, as was the case with the fool and the T-shirts.
“80.000 met in Maddeburg to protest against pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine policies by the installed government formed by foreign agents…and, it is not that I say it, attention to the pannel at 00:14´ footage…”
That was a better choice even if in Magdeburg, than committing suicide through over-estimation of their own abilities, and likely in addition to enjoying some fresh air, gave them a level of feeling of satifaction that they were doing something useful even if facilitating future bathos/frustration, whilst re-immersing themselves in the paradigm which they hope they are “defeating”, whilst increasing the noise/signal ration within which others with facility can act, despite neither omniscience nor perfection being an option.
Some hope that it was not the case, but war is never a spectator sport without consequence.
Thank you for your illustration of part of why MirrorGazers says
16 September 2023 at 05:15 :
“Mr. Orlov’s observations are well worth a read/consideration/testing….. and Ghost of Mozgovoy says
15 September 2023 at 22:06” and others.
As Mr. W.C.Field’s observed:
“There comes a time in the affairs of men when we need to grab the bull by the tail and face the situation”.
October Fest 2023….”Moscow, Moscow, Russia is a beautiful country, throw the glasses at the wall….”……lalaralalala….lalaralalala, hahaha, hey…Moscoooow….
https://t.me/elespiadigital/15638
Briefly explained, but, from the unknown Russian marxist point of view, which differs quite a lot from that of MirrorGazers, take a look, if so minded, at this translation by this marxist leninist website, currently frozen, of the following article written by Tatiana Khabarova on February 29, 2000, for the magazine «North Compass«, which got in the end unpublished….as censure was working hard then, like it is today the case in a Europe through fagotizicing process….
https://culturaproletaria.wordpress.com/2017/05/15/breve-historia-economica-de-la-urss/
You will probably find familiar the same mimical proccess on whole dismantling Europe is going through, both, through the “pandemic” and “War in Ukraine”, in lack of availability on the part of Russia….and the accurate description and nomination of this process in the final conclusions, as defining terms accurately is a primer to understand reality…and identlfy your enemy….
Then, as it is probably your case and that of the commentariat, I guess that, after the ongoing bacanalia of exposition by the “deep state” during at least the past three years, you have ceesed to considerate, not only past accounts of history, but also past characterizations of “regimes” and statesmen which were based only in imperialist propaganda and, as I currently do, read sources from any extrem of the espectre…since, in the end, as I have recently discovered, there are patriots and valid people of every known ideology…most of them not related to any known party at any parliament….but people in search of some truth…
( Google translation since it is very Late here…and I have not really the time to review…Final bold mine….Capital letters as they were in the original translation…)
“What would have been the course of events in the USSR if a true, and not a virtual, restoration of the bourgeois regime had occurred in the country?
A true restoration of capitalism, even if only partially, could only occur for one reason: if the socialist relations of production were revealed, at first, incapable of guaranteeing the subsequent rise of the productive forces of our society, and were objectively necessary to recover certain elements of the basis of private property to ensure the progress of the productive forces.
A similar situation occurred in our country during the period of Lenin’s NEP.
What was the element of the basis of private property that the socialist economy, then in formation, needed? It was the monetary-mercantile relations or value relations. Since at that time the form of manifestation and action of the law of value in socialist society was still unknown, it was necessary to temporarily go back to monetary-mercantile relations in their “usual” capitalist form.
This strategic retreat was carried out under the total control of the proletarian State and quickly produced the expected fruits, that is, the general resuscitation of the productive forces and, on this basis, a certain political stabilization.
However, the achievements of the NEP should not be exaggerated. At first, the NEP could not solve any of the problems that posed to Soviet Russia, on the SOCIALIST path of development that had been chosen. All he could do was recover 75%, compared to the level of 1913, of the Russian industry that had been destroyed by the imperialist war, by the crazy management of the “democrats” of that time (Provisional Government), by the revolt of the white guards and foreign intervention. The industry only began to surpass the level of 1913 with the launch of socialist industrialization, in 1926. Commercial production of cereals, in 1927, barely represented half of pre-war production. In 1929 it was necessary to introduce the sign supply system for a series of food products and essential consumer goods.
At the same time, in the course of the construction of socialism, Soviet power incessantly sought forms of functioning of value (market) relations that were an organic part of socialism and guaranteed the distribution of the results of social production in the interests of the working masses. These searches were carried out successfully.
The contours of the socialist modification of the law of value began to be clearly outlined in the early 1930s. Without this fundamental structural discovery – whose importance in Marxist literature is, very often, completely underestimated – the further construction of socialism in the USSR would have been impossible. The beginning of the formation of the “socialist market” allowed the NEP to be completed in a natural and necessary way. The NEP was not administratively abolished, as is often claimed. It simply fulfilled its task and was no longer needed.
THIS is how the picture of temporary and partial regression to the historically inferior regime is presented, when it is really necessary and dictated by objective causes.
But nothing similar was observed in the USSR, and then in Russia, in the Gorbachev-Yeltsin times, despite the fact that at the dawn of perestroika many compared it to the NEP.
Unquestionably, throughout the so-called period of “stagnation” – when Brezhnev led the Party and the State – serious phenomena of obstruction were perceptible in the Soviet economy and in the social sphere. According to the traditional diagnosis of Marxist political economy, “the base, acquired in the configuration, slowed down the development of the productive forces” and therefore needed radical improvements.
What was the main defect that prevented the socialist base in the USSR, between the 60s and 80s, from fulfilling its corresponding role as “the main engine of the productive forces” (as Stalin formulated)? This crucial defect has a direct relationship with the informational-intellectual war, unleashed against us in the 1950s, and consisted of the deliberate destruction, by the fifth column, of STALIN’S ECONOMIC MODEL. Stalin’s economic model is a mechanism of continuous and massive reduction of costs and prices in the national economy, on the basis of which there was a rapid increase in the material, social and cultural well-being of workers in the USSR.
One of the most important components of Stalin’s economic model constitutes precisely the, previously mentioned, socialist modification of the law of value. In the Stalin period it was called “TWO-SCALE PRICE SYSTEM”. The importance of the socialist modification of value is truly enormous, since it acts on our society in a way analogous to the action of the LAW OF THE AVERAGE RATE OF PROFIT in capitalism: that is, -in essence-, the principle of the distribution of profit, created by social production. In capitalism, social benefit, in the form of profit on capital, is appropriated by practically the entire bourgeois class. In socialist society, the benefit is delivered to workers through the mechanism of regular reduction of retail prices and systematic expansion of free social consumption funds.
And it was precisely this economic construction, the most complex and perfect in the history of the world economy, that was destroyed as a result of a series of “initiatives” in the 50s and 60s. After the famous “economic reform” of 1965, It can be considered that the socialist economic mechanism was totally disabled.
If we summarize the effect of the damage caused, we can say that the socialist property of the entire people was deprived of the principle, which was appropriate, of formation and distribution of the benefit of the socialized means of production. In any bourgeois state, this would be equivalent to someone artificially blocking the action of the law of the average rate of profit and the process of profit formation on capital. And the fact that the Soviet economy, already mutilated with such seriousness, has continued to keep the country “afloat” for 25 years, is it not proof of its exceptional vitality and the enormous productive potential it contains?
In this way, the socialist economy in the USSR, at the end of the era of “stagnation”, did not need any new NEP (that is, a new retreat towards capitalism). On the contrary, it needed a determined PURGEMENT of those artificial and destructive “regressions towards capitalism” that were introduced by the “reformers”, revisionist agents, over decades, direct precursors of Gorbachev. The economy of the USSR needed a powerful regenerative sanitation and the reinforcement of its SOCIALIST core, of the socialist principle that existed in it, and that core was precisely Stalin’s model of management of the socialized economy. In general, we no longer needed to adopt practically anything from the West, except for certain aspects of secondary importance. We should have returned, with all determination, to the innovative and genuinely socialist path opened under the leadership of Stalin. This path implied – and continues to imply today – the establishment of an economic system not only different, compared to that of the West, but superior, compared to the entire exploitative economic past of civilization.
BUT SINCE the restoration of capitalism – even partial, in the spirit of the NEP – was at all necessary to our national economy, let us admit for a moment that, despite everything, it was necessary. In this case, the consequence of the Gorbachev-Yeltsin “reforms” would be the elimination of “blockades” in the economy, the overcoming of crisis phenomena, the increase in production, the influx of investments, the rise of qualifications of the workforce, the growth of solvent demand and the population’s standard of living. Instead of all this, we see the GDP falling by half – ten times less compared to Soviet projections -, the reduction of the State budget, the massive closure of industrial and agricultural enterprises, the delay in cutting-edge technologies, the unemployment, destitution and misery on an unprecedented scale. This is not a result that allows us to speak of what happened as a change in the social regime, caused by internal contradictions of the Soviet system. History does not commit nonsense such as replacing a regime that hindered (let’s admit) the development of the productive forces with another that simply destroyed them. We have here, before us, a completely different process, which, for a long time, has come to call, once and for all, by its true name, which responds to its objective nature: WAR; imperialist intervention of a new special kind, through the complicity of internal collaborators and internal criminal organizations; the establishment of an occupationist diktat over the country, whose aims, precisely, only and exclusively, are occupation and enslavement.
“Several items in Kimmage’s review, whether taken from Plokhy’s book or added comments by Kimmage himself, raise serious questions as to the usefulness of this US analyst’s version of Ukraine War history. ”
That depends on your purpose.
Not Maiden (!) but Maidan.
Iron Maidan.
Not Maiden (!) but Maidan.
That still won’t help Americans and Brits to pronounce it. (such a simple word).
Instead of My-don, they come up with May-dan. It hurts the ears. Add that to its hurting the soul and it becomes a double jeopardy to the world.
“It is hard to understand why a professor of history would write a public document so lacking many essential facts and history. ”
Not really – he like many others wishes to sustain “The United States of America” within “acceptable linear tolerances” at least for some of the folks back home through various presentations/projections, including but not limited to – It was not us, it was them “evil doers”. We are the deciders. We are the good guys in the white hats at your local Pontiac dealership” – whilst being complicit in the dealership’s transcendence.
it all comes down to money and career prospects. no different than 500 years ago in the court of any european king. the courtiers said and did anything to ingratiate and improve their personal situation.
only the clothes and technology has changed. the sentiments of people have not budged an inch
“It is hard to understand why a professor of history would write a public document so lacking many essential facts and history.”
No, it’s not hard to understand. Quite the contrary. Falsifying history is what historians have been doing since forever. History is not science. You become a professor by going along with the narrative, and supporting the current thing. Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
A minor typo, the word is Maidan not Maiden, a Hindi word.
HIndi?
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/maiden
The word is Maidan(a Hindi word), not Maiden.
” Maidan … a Hindi word.” integrated into “British variant English” during times of the Raj.
Generally meaning market square/meeting place – where things are congregated to be bought and sold.
The original designation of the location in Kiev before February 2014 was – “Independence Square”.
I have not read this one, but I read “Chernobyl” by Plokhy. There was some factual info to be sure, and the reading was interesting at times, but when an author, writing about Chernobyl, starts having digressions about “bloody gulag” etc, it becomes pretty clear that the book is rather ideological. Ann Applebaum worthy.
Other than that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs Lincoln?
Kimmage’s review is basically a Ukraine Primer for Idiots. He’s done a paint by numbers in black and white when the canvas demands a Monet. Larry’s hit on the most egregious omissions’ Let me suggest one of the early ‘tipping points’ that have led to the present.
I’d say that one of the most obvious ‘tells’ was, as already pointed out, how the ‘orange revolution’ managed to install the US’s choice of Yushchenko on the second try under strange circumstances but then … once in office he proceeded to publicly announce that he intended to not renew Russia’s lease on Sevastopol when it expired in 2017. I don’t remember what year that was but I distinctly remember the event because I instinctively knew this would force counter moves on Russia’s part. The notion that Sevastopol would be turned into a NATO naval base was even then, an ‘existential’ issue for Russia, esp. considering the covert subterfuge involved and they’d spare no effort or action to prevent it.
The latest edition of the BBC’s The Real Story includes ret. Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis, who made it clear that Ukraine cannot achieve its announced objectives in the current counter offensive.
Evidently, those in charge are trying to allow some reality into the narrative.
Later commentary by others reiterated the official story, without directly contradicting Lt. Col. Davis.
At this point they are trying to save face after having created such a depraved bloodfest, and to explain the massive ineffective weapon price tags to the taxpayers, and furthermore at this point they are only extending Russian blood loss as far as they can. This was never about Ukrainians except as cannon fodder, so their blood is no loss. The long game was seizure of Crimea and the capture of the fabled city of Sevastopol, thus allowing full control of the Black Sea. Then they could boot the Turks since their only usage is a NATO launch pad.
This shows the horrible state of affairs in the US establishment. If Foreign Affairs publish a propaganda article and many readers don’t know that. Delusionary fantasy views will arise in the minds of the establishment and horrible policy will follow.
LMAO…
The unofficial voice of American foreign policy. Maintained a subscription for well over thirty years. All Foreign Affairs has *ever* done is publish elite American propaganda. I don’t take what they publish as anything *other* than elite propaganda.
As far as symbolism goes? The circular seal of the CFR has a mounted horseman on a rearing mount with his sword drawn and raised above his head. The Latin word “Ubique” (Everywhere) also appears on the seal.
Right on everything but the sword. (maybe they removed it in the name of plausible deniability)
http://republicbroadcasting.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Council-on-Foreign-Relations-CFR.jpg
Could the naked horseman be a freudian slip that the emperor has no clothes?
“It is hard to understand why a professor of history would write a public document so lacking many essential facts and history.”
NO, it really isn’t hard at all. Serhii Plokhy is an ethnic ukro, born in Soviet Union, and grew up with the boundaries of the ukronazi wreich. He teaches at Harvard, that bastion of ‘learnig’and ‘free speech.
Old Serge Plokoo is a ukronazi apologist, spreading disinfermatzia to support OTAN and the ukronazi wriech.
Glad to see that Jullianne and so many others immediately recognize this for the psyop it is!
Why are you wasting our time with this nonsense?
The first myth now debunked is that Ukraine can win this war. The second myth is that Russia can’t win the war. The third myth is that if Ukraine starts to lose, we can just declare a ceasefire to allow time to rebuild the Ukrainian Army.
The reality is that Russia will push all the way to the Polish border and establish a new Russian allied Ukraine within a year. Ukraine has a very long defensive line and lacks the manpower to keep it defended. It will start to crack and fall like a crumbling dam.
The professor said Foreign Affairs are paid to lie. You provided the accurate and truthful history. If propagandized America understood that there would be hope for us. Instead total defeat and humiliation is on the horizon and America will become like Russia in those early years after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The Western muppets who just deny reality will never change, what will and is changing, is the real world view on Western politicians and academics. This little bubble that the globalists run here in NATOstan is bursting, it’s only the little people and sheep who don’t realise this.
What use does the world have of people who think you can change gender like you change your socks.
In reality, when Markel and Hollande recognize that the coup against Russia was planned since 2008 and that the coup in Ukraine was a Western operation. With that there is nothing more to investigate.
Absolutely not. That tells it all. And anyone who would actually reveal such a thing, in some sort of twisted attempt at honoring oneself or avoiding criticism has to be fit for nothing, let alone leading a country. Yet, Merkel and Hollande willingly did so. With such ‘wise leaders’ as that, my only advice to Europeans is to escape while there’s still time because you’re on a runaway train to oblivion, with Biden at the controls.
Thanks Larry,
Again !
Great entry !
” It is hard to understand why a professor of history would write a public document so lacking many essential facts and history. ”
The answer is blowing in… Doctrine and Dogma…
Modern church historians, like Adolf von Harnack, Karl Rahner, (britannica.com)
explains the rise of Dogmas. And functions of doctrines and dogmas vary in the religious traditions…
Now it doesn’t matter anymore, the millennial lies, the hypocrisy of the West are over, the Crusades are over, which was the introduction to Colonialism, there is no more looting of countries around the world, Western culture is written with false history, and it’s all over now. The East opened up the world of moral and ethical culture and civilization, even India rejected the colonial name imposed on it, and changed it to the original Baharat, and that says it all, Africans throw out the colonialists and start their civilization, Latin America is doing the same, all with they cast off the fetters of evil with abhorrence. Western so-called civilization is left to itself, and everything you write and claim is yours, no one is interested in it anymore, it’s your matrix, and only you, the rest of the world is no longer interested in it. Your Crusade is over after millennia of evil, plunder and torture, it’s over.
“Your Crusade is over after millennia of evil, plunder and torture, it’s over.”
No “the war on coercion not restricted to terror” still has a half-life through multiple vectors in its transcendence, whilst “hope” of it being “over” remains the second greatest weakness – the first greatest weakness being “certainty” – precluding achievement of its transcendence which is an ongoing co-operative lateral process.
Ergo:
” Western so-called civilization is left to itself”
was never an option since the opponents understand that the ongoing co-operative lateral process is existential which they perceive as a threat, to which throughout half-lives they will seek to sustain coercion not restricted to terror in coats of many colours and designs.
As the Carpenters wisely observed – We’ve only just begun.
And while we obsess about trivia? The real world that runs on money goes on.
Brent crude $93.98 WooHoo! Fuck with Russia, and tell the Saud’s they can’t dismember whoever they want will you? Tell me how that works out for you.
Meanwhile the ECB raises interest rates 25 basis points to try to stop capital flight to the US. Which means Jerome is going to raise another 25 to 50 basis points at the Fed. He will get the last word over the EuroCucks. Europe dies this year. (I do not include Russia in Europe. Russia wins this decade long game of Risk)
While the UAW union slugs who make the worst quality control cars in the world have a few simple demands. A 40% raise. A 32 hour workweek. Pensions back. And guaranteed employment for life.
While the US commercial and personal real estate market go straight Thelma and Louise over the cliff. And Janet Yellen tries to sell another 2 to 3 Trillion of US Treasuries to people that ain’t buying anymore.
And China and Russia removed their sanctions from North Korea. Why the Fuck did those boys ever get on that train to begin with? Kimchee Boy went and traded rifles with Putin, and now the trains of munitions are going to start rolling. You thought Russia had an artillery advantage before? I’ll take the over on the fifty kabillion arty shells launched a month parlay.
Fascinating times we live in kids.
UAW copied IG Metall which demanded 32 hour week.
They want to cut the standard working week to KEEP jobs. They know EVs don’t sell……VW has started layoffs in Zwickau already……Tesla has cut output ………China is undercutting everywhere and targeting Germany with leased batteries and swap-shops………
Germany will have no car industry inside 5 years
As for interest rates they are still NEGATIVE in real terms which they weren’t when Volcker raised……….if people are loaded on DEBT it is not acceptable for inflation to protect them – risk/reward is the basis of the system – not subsidy to prevent default
So if Banks have failed to churn their Bond Portfolio to keep the term structure aligned with Asset/Liability mix let them go bust. This is Endgame.
Truth is….the Richest People are highly leveraged – let them crash and burn and expropriate them. Once you expropriate the Obscenely Rich all this Trans/Green/Vaccine Crap will disappear as they fight to preserve what they can
So, whose economy will implode from unsustainable debt burden first? US or EU?
Larry, with your extremely busy schedule, I am surprised that you even paid attention to this one of SO MANY articles which have the only aim as to re-write history and promote the WA-UA narrative. They are truly not worth your time – UNLESS you sent this article to the editors of FA and demanded posting it as a review of the review.
This blogpost is not written by Larry.
I believe it will surface eventually that there are a lot of influential people getting paid to support polices. The checks may not come from the government directly but through varied organizations. It will get worse as that filters throughout every group, school, church, etc…
Soviet ironically with a bit of mafia
My two cents…
> does not explain or analyze the Maiden revolution
It was “EuroMaidan” revolution.
in 2013 – 2016 the “euro” part was massaged ad nausea.
Partly, to distinguish from previous maidan of 1993 and 2004, “granite” and “orange” ones. But also to amplify the “backwards Asian Russia” propaganda.
Then, in 2016, the flip was switched and all “free” media and speakers all at once removed the “Euro” part and started pretending this was purely Ukrainian affair with no input (and hence responsibility) from EU. For people not caring it would pass unnoticed, but if you followed the news and the spin, it was really an overnight change to the opposite.
I think this subtle propaganda trick has to be countered and called out.
It was exactly EuroMaidan, not some Ukrainian event.
– – – –
> this Ukrainian President turned down an economic agreement with the EU
Many wrong subtle points here.
1. He did not “turned down”, he postponed it for few months and asked for negotiating amendments to it, or, he proposed EU to make a one time investment to Ukrainian economy to compensate for the negative consequences and then sign it as is. This was not “turning down” this was “tweaking”.
2. The “association” was not economic treaty, but economy-military one. The text of the treaty was classified from public access. I middle 2013 Russia spied away and published the treaty text. It was huge. Ukrainians who claim to read it said more than 1/3 of the treaty text was about military cooperation. BTW EuroMaidan protesters were interviewed by Russian TV teams making outlandish claims like the association gave immediate right for Ukrainians to live and work in EU. They were protesting “for” the treaty they did not care to read.
3. Another detail is, again, Russia – which asked for 3-party negotiation of treaties since early 2013. Back then Russia even imposed “sanitary” embargoes on Ukrainian goods and it was BIG news then, totally memory-holed now.
The reason was, the economic half of the “association” was designed to syphon money from Russia. Back then
3.1.1. Russia and Ukraine had free trade agreement.
3.1.2. Both Russia and Ukraine had duty barriers on EU trade
EU demanded the change.
3.2.1. Russian/Ukrainian border remains transparent.
3.2.2. Ukrainian export to EU is censored. The duties were removed but EU government was allowed to set arbitrary quotas on all Ukrainian goods. Later some Ukrainian farmers claimed they exhausted their year quotas in mere two months of trade. Duties could be to an extent countered by cutting prices or subsidies, quotas are the absolute barrier.
3.2.3. EU export to Ukraine should had been unhindered by neither quotas nor duties. Which, for Ukrainian simpleminds was translated as “cheap European goods”.
This arrangement would inevitably push BOTH European and Ukrainian goods at reduced costs into Russia market syphoning Russian funds out, like in Stolypin’s Russia century ago. Russia immediately said this “association” the existing free trade treaty terms, and the tri-party treaty has to be negotiated to reach balance for everyone.
But EU insisted on implementing the syphon, saying Russia would not dare to break the treaty violated by Ukraine. Russia’s embargoes were wake up calls, showing “yes we dare” and measuring the consequences Ukrainian economy would face.
This was why Yanukovich had to finally awake. Not because “bad Yanukovich baaaad”, but because he was proven Ukraine would not get free ride water Brussels sirens sung.
> leaders of France and Germany later admitted that they signed the first Minsk Agreement
There was a precedent though.
2014-02-20 foreign ministers of Germany-France-Poland signed a treaty with Yanukovich. The media made big news of it then, and it totally erased from memory now.
Yanukovich was removing all of police from Kiev. In exchange France/Germany/Poland warranted EuroMaidan rioters would stop violence and got to negotiations. EU violated that agreement mere 8 hours after signing.
Also, the final offensive started 18 February 2014, but…
16 February the “Right Sector” advertises (by the blog of their representative, best photographer in Germany 2012, Olena Bilozerkaya) they would have tomorrow last “watch check” with Angela Merkel (then Germany leader,and graduate of a Donetsk institute) and then day after tomorrow would start the coup.
Angela Merkel indeed made meeting with some Ukrainian politicians on 17 Feb 2014.
Night 17/18 the reddit forum was flooded with calls to “be online tonight and see from Ukraine what would make all your videogames pale in comparison”
18 Feb Kiev time at about 10-00 first gun shots were blasted at the police, which still had no weapons but rubber battons.
– – – –
One more and important point was the EuroMaidan was “faltstart”, “premature e… ignition”. It had to be started in 2014 or 2015.
It was obvious from then political dynamics, and from economic measures of post-Yanulovich regimes, and also from EuroMaidan refusing the offer to have premature but peaceful presidential election in early 2014. Would they agree, Yanukovich would badly loose and they would gain power few months before they actually got it by military means. They would have power faster and easier, but power transition was not their goal.
Personally I believe EuroMaidan 2013 was triggered to force Russian invasion and preempt Russian help to Syria. All the other reasons were secondary.
Personally, I think Euromaidan was triggered by braindead neo-nazis like Parubiy and Tyahnybok and their Ukrainian ‘bonefaced’ followers who were financed, trained and touted as democracy and freedom-loving liberal progressives by you know who.
They haven’t gotten around to cleansing all these idiots from the internet yet, just 98% of them.
https://miamimagus.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/41d096d7-b6a5-4882-8781-3fa2012152a8-346-0000000998f615b4_file.jpg?w=660
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.Ck4jwzkiYb2_bvwd4pnpGQHaE7%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=7d23fde8e116d3ce057dbe66fd59267aa7c246ef850c9f70a0017e4add039a8b&ipo=images
“It is hard to understand why a professor of history would write a public document so lacking many essential facts and history.”
I noticed that a number of academic historians have made just such embarrassing mistakes concerning Ukraine. For example, Fiona Hill embarrassed herself when she claimed that the only interest Russia has in Crimea is as a resort region. It is as if she had completely forgotten about the naval base.
Larry didn’t write this nonsece post. It was written by someone who called “Observer R,” who has’t identified what his background is, any expertise, or experience. This post looks like something one would see in the regime controlled press. Dismformatzia, touting CFR deepstate ‘Foriegn Affairs’magizine agitprop by a regime paid ukronazi Harvard shill.
“Observer R”posted a few times on “The Sakar” mostly on economics issues. Early this year Larry let him post occassionally on sonar21.
“Observer R’s” last post that I could find was on 06 July, a 2500 word background paper on 404 since 2014. This was right before OTAN’s “Villainy Villains at Vilnius”crying and lamentations fest over the deaths of the junkenwaffen pussykattenpazerwagens, all named “Leo the Leopard”. It was good, if long summary, IMO, if you don’t read the “Future”section. However, it neglects the role of OTAN expansion and encirlement of the RF (now being played out in East Asia by the same charecters) which is crucial to understanding the use and development of 404 as a kinetic proxy to attack the RF, and the use of the 2014 nazi putsch to speed up the process.
With that observation in mind, wonder if that is role being played? First, an OTAN appologist on Sakar, and now on sonar21? Or just hasn’t yet connected the dots to understand the why. Looking forward to another post to see how observant “Observer R”may be…
Im surprised that the documentary Burnt Alive in Odesa is still available on Youtube
As soon as I see ‘Odesa’ with Ukraine’s one s, I become suspicious.
It’s ‘BURNT ALIVE IN ODESSA. Documentary – YouTube’
That is par for the course, sadly:
I Left Out the Full Truth to Get My Climate Change Paper Published
“I just got published in Nature because I stuck to a narrative I knew the editors would like. That’s not the way science should work.”
https://www.thefp.com/p/i-overhyped-climate-change-to-get-published
Here is a bit about the beginnings of World War II, nothing earth shattering, but lots of lies and omissions that explain some puzzling inconsistencies with the story we all assume we know:
The War That Had Many Fathers – Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof – Hardcoded English Subtitles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRpsfJmtPNg&t=2559s
When you start going down this rabbit hole, you start to doubt a lot about what you thought you knew. And history is often easier to falsify than science. (sigh)
“It is hard to understand why a professor of history would write a public document so lacking many essential facts and history. ”
The Overton Window on Ukraine within which any academic or policy writer must stay to be published was framed by ideologues. Ideologues view the world through 10′ of 1″ pipe.
Due to their rock star status, a few academics such as Mearscheimer and Sachs can “break the frame” and speak more honestly. They’re not gonna be published in Foreign Affairs, but their position is such that the best that the CFR types can do is try to limit their reach and hold the core within the Window.
Kimmage’s paper is all about holding the core in place. The Window is being strained and stretched, its frame cracking. Realities that the core has no acceptable explanation for are threatening to blow the Window apart. Kimmage’s role is to buy time to keep the core treading water while a new Window is drawn up. At best, “essential facts and history” have but walk-on roles during that process. Often, they have no role at all.
As it is, I suspect that the shattering of the Ukrainian Overton Window will be overshadowed by the shattering of multiple other Imperial Windows and any effort to re-draw it will be abandoned as people’s attention is drawn elsewhere. A fire in the outhouse doesn’t get the same attention as a fire in the wheel house.
According to the Turks, the Ukrainian army has begun storing critical weapons, such as HIMARS, SCALP, Storm Shadow missiles, various kamikaze UAVs and depleted uranium ammunition, at the Khmelnitsky and Rivne nuclear power plants in western Ukraine and in the surrounding regions.
Since Russia did not strike at nuclear power plants, the most important weapons and ammunition systems began to be placed there in large warehouses.
https://t.me/infantmilitario/107041
‐————
“Бывали хуже времена, но не было времен подлее” – Некрасов, А.Н.
“There have been worse times, but there has never been a meaner time.”
Larry
You gave away the answer right at the beginning of your article. Kimmage taught at a Catholic university. The Saker has written extensively on the anti Slav Orthodox hatred of the Roman Catholic Church.
Orthodox Serbia pro Russian, Catholic Poland psycho anti Russian.
The Russian hating Bandera Uniates Nazis are Catholic. Do we see a pattern here.
Two new books, The Pope and Mussolini and The Pope at War have exposed the critical role the Vatican played in the rise of facisim and Nazism and cooperation through out the war.
After WWII the Catholic Church, CIA worked hand in glove.
The war against Orthodox Serbia was one result of this alliance. That 1999 war was the final act of the Vatican’s WWII Holocuast against Serbia.
Perhaps this explains that a Orthodox Russian president has been more vilified by the West than any atheistic communist leader of the USSR.
I just read the review Larry commented on. Reading the two in sequence sounds like the groundwork for expansion of the war, especially so given the lack of knowledge and disinterest by US voters.
The ‘professor’ and the rest are guilty of waging aggressive war so of course they leave the real information out. The Russians know all their names though.
The “book” is another exercise in excuse making. It’s not designed to shed clarity but instead further muddy the waters of truth-seeking with the usual inky lies and obfuscation.