Commenter KK’s impassioned defense of Russia against the (to him) “blind hatred” of Poles got me thinking. I’ve been doing some reading lately regarding the path to perpetual war in Europe—after all, the current conflict in Ukraine can arguably be seen as simply the continuation of a civilizational crisis in the West that first took military form in the Napoleonic wars. Certainly the inevitable centrality of Russia to Western Europe’s future can be dated at least that far back. What is different about this dynamic since WW2 is the overwhelming presence of the United States in the equation.
Interesting post, Mark. It ties in to the Brandon Smith idea and link to Antony Sutton that the West funded both the Bolsheviks and later Hitler. So it would make sense that the West would fund the rise of Bolshevism in Russia as a counter to Germany in WW1 and then, appalled at the prospect of a growing threat from the USSR, fund Hitler to counter Stalin.
Sean McMeekin in his “Stalin’s War” has an interesting description, based on Soviet archival material, of Stalin’s views and actions on the runup to Operation Barbarossa. It seems that Stalin was building up his forces with plans to attack Germany when Hitler beat him to the punch.
Putin is a KGB thug with demented goals and objectives. I cannot get past the thought that Russia is justified because they're being pushed by NATO. The former Warsaw pact nations want absolutely no part of being a Russian/Soviet client state and the attraction of joining NATO is obvious with an aggressive irrational nation on the border. Russia is a failed parasitic state which offers nothing to its allies. Nope. I cannot concur with the assessment that Russia is justified. Although I certainly understand the tendency given the people who share my view. They are not deep thinkers the right answer just happens to work for them in this instance
I knew a long time ago that there were many and devious reasons behind the diplomatic maneuvering in the 1930s. So everybody, including eventually Hitler, miscalculated. I will give them this. Compared to our current crop, they were all geniuses and had rational motives. Nowadays....except for maybe Purin, who is banking on our stupidity.
Blitzkrieg was essentially the first time true combined arms combat was used effectively. Tanks, (somewhat) motorized infantry coordinating with close air support for rapid breakthroughs and surrounding the opposition. Russia stopped it, effectively for the first time at Kursk in 1943.
Mark, I am posting from London, Ontario. This is the first time I am commenting on your page. I read you regularly and admire you immensely given your own background and the sort of American patriot I imagine you are. On the subject that you write in this edition of yours, I simply wanted to point out to you some texts on the period, which you likely know about or have read, to contextualize your discussion. AJP Taylor's "The Origins of the Second World War" is in my view one of the finest studies in the diplomatic history of the twenty years between the two world wars, and despite the many books written since Taylor his discussion of the Stalin-Hitler or the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact remains timeless. Then there is Isaac Deutscher's biography of Stalin covering the period especially from 1926 through the outbreak of the war, and how Stalin looking back prepared for the eventual contest with Hitler's Germany. Much has been written lately about Stalin, especially the two volumes so far published by Stephen Kotkin, but again in my view one of the most illuminating revisionist histories of Stalin-Trotsky struggles (and neocons being the progeny of Trotskyites) is "Stalin: The Enduring Legacy" by Kerry Bolton. Stalin's crimes are now part of history, as is that Hitler or Mao. The point I want to leave you with is Trotskyism represented the ideology of Marxist/Bolshevik world revolution, and Stalin's policy of "socialism in one country" represented in retrospect the defense of "national sovereignty" of what by 1941 became Mother Russia. In our time the neocons have been pushing "world revolution" under the umbrella of American imperialism (unipolar hegemony post-Cold War) that fuses with the Globalist Agenda of the WEF pushed by the EU and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals to impose the concept of one borderless world and obliterate nation-state sovereignty. The neocons are the reincarnation of Trotskyites and their war against Russia in Ukraine ironically is "karmic", the repeat of the period when Trotsky was still a force after Lenin in Moscow till he was expelled from the party, and then his ideology of world revolution fused with the Cold Warriors's ideology of turning America into an imperialist power subverting the very foundation of the republic and the warnings of the founding fathers. The war in Ukraine is not simply any longer a war against Russia, which it is, but it is also a war that American patriots have to win to save their republic from the neocons and their Globalist agenda or America will no longer remain the great republic and bastion of freedom based on individual rights as founded in 1776.
God bless.
Salim
(p.s. I would love to communicate with you if and when time permits either of us. My email address is: smansur26@gmail.com)
I forget where I heard this - I'm sure it was linked from this site - but Czechoslovakia had one of the best militaries in Europe and would have handled Germany. In this view, Chamberlain's actions also were not appeasement but instead constituted an Anglo strategy of trying to use Hitler to crush the USSR and create the third triad of the three-bloc concept. So...similar but cynical.
Interesting post, Mark. It ties in to the Brandon Smith idea and link to Antony Sutton that the West funded both the Bolsheviks and later Hitler. So it would make sense that the West would fund the rise of Bolshevism in Russia as a counter to Germany in WW1 and then, appalled at the prospect of a growing threat from the USSR, fund Hitler to counter Stalin.
Sean McMeekin in his “Stalin’s War” has an interesting description, based on Soviet archival material, of Stalin’s views and actions on the runup to Operation Barbarossa. It seems that Stalin was building up his forces with plans to attack Germany when Hitler beat him to the punch.
Putin is a KGB thug with demented goals and objectives. I cannot get past the thought that Russia is justified because they're being pushed by NATO. The former Warsaw pact nations want absolutely no part of being a Russian/Soviet client state and the attraction of joining NATO is obvious with an aggressive irrational nation on the border. Russia is a failed parasitic state which offers nothing to its allies. Nope. I cannot concur with the assessment that Russia is justified. Although I certainly understand the tendency given the people who share my view. They are not deep thinkers the right answer just happens to work for them in this instance
I knew a long time ago that there were many and devious reasons behind the diplomatic maneuvering in the 1930s. So everybody, including eventually Hitler, miscalculated. I will give them this. Compared to our current crop, they were all geniuses and had rational motives. Nowadays....except for maybe Purin, who is banking on our stupidity.
Blitzkrieg was essentially the first time true combined arms combat was used effectively. Tanks, (somewhat) motorized infantry coordinating with close air support for rapid breakthroughs and surrounding the opposition. Russia stopped it, effectively for the first time at Kursk in 1943.
Mark, I am posting from London, Ontario. This is the first time I am commenting on your page. I read you regularly and admire you immensely given your own background and the sort of American patriot I imagine you are. On the subject that you write in this edition of yours, I simply wanted to point out to you some texts on the period, which you likely know about or have read, to contextualize your discussion. AJP Taylor's "The Origins of the Second World War" is in my view one of the finest studies in the diplomatic history of the twenty years between the two world wars, and despite the many books written since Taylor his discussion of the Stalin-Hitler or the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact remains timeless. Then there is Isaac Deutscher's biography of Stalin covering the period especially from 1926 through the outbreak of the war, and how Stalin looking back prepared for the eventual contest with Hitler's Germany. Much has been written lately about Stalin, especially the two volumes so far published by Stephen Kotkin, but again in my view one of the most illuminating revisionist histories of Stalin-Trotsky struggles (and neocons being the progeny of Trotskyites) is "Stalin: The Enduring Legacy" by Kerry Bolton. Stalin's crimes are now part of history, as is that Hitler or Mao. The point I want to leave you with is Trotskyism represented the ideology of Marxist/Bolshevik world revolution, and Stalin's policy of "socialism in one country" represented in retrospect the defense of "national sovereignty" of what by 1941 became Mother Russia. In our time the neocons have been pushing "world revolution" under the umbrella of American imperialism (unipolar hegemony post-Cold War) that fuses with the Globalist Agenda of the WEF pushed by the EU and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals to impose the concept of one borderless world and obliterate nation-state sovereignty. The neocons are the reincarnation of Trotskyites and their war against Russia in Ukraine ironically is "karmic", the repeat of the period when Trotsky was still a force after Lenin in Moscow till he was expelled from the party, and then his ideology of world revolution fused with the Cold Warriors's ideology of turning America into an imperialist power subverting the very foundation of the republic and the warnings of the founding fathers. The war in Ukraine is not simply any longer a war against Russia, which it is, but it is also a war that American patriots have to win to save their republic from the neocons and their Globalist agenda or America will no longer remain the great republic and bastion of freedom based on individual rights as founded in 1776.
God bless.
Salim
(p.s. I would love to communicate with you if and when time permits either of us. My email address is: smansur26@gmail.com)
I forget where I heard this - I'm sure it was linked from this site - but Czechoslovakia had one of the best militaries in Europe and would have handled Germany. In this view, Chamberlain's actions also were not appeasement but instead constituted an Anglo strategy of trying to use Hitler to crush the USSR and create the third triad of the three-bloc concept. So...similar but cynical.