Mikael Valtersson: Then And Now

For those who don’t know:

Mikael Valtersson @MikaelValterss1

Former officer Swedish Armed Forces/Air Defence, former defence politician and chief of staff Sweden Democrats. Current political and military analyst.

Valtersson has written two long tweets in which he basically suggests that history is kinda repeating itself. He’s writing about the West vis a vis Russia. Obviously he’s aware that much has changed—all except the imperial or hegemonistic ambitions of Old Europe. Twitter isn’t a great platform for such a complex topic, but Valtersson raises a number of provocative points that are worth considering. Bear in mind that he’s not an advocate for neo-colonialism nor, necessarily, for the pre-WW1 status quo in Europe—he’s just describing what he believes is going on. My own view is that French and British scheming is simply moonshine and that the collapse of colonialism was inevitable.

I’ll briefly excerpt the first tweet, which appeared as an article at Sputnik":

Mikael Valtersson @MikaelValterss1

SPUTNIK ARTICLE: FRANCE AND UK CONTINUES TO WHIP UP WAR HYSTERIA

Have British and French attempts to reanimate the century old Entante Cordiale any meaning for the future of international politics or is it just nostalgia?

I and Dr John Laughland commented on this in Sputnik. My complete answer is in this tweet.

On April 8th it was 120 years ago that tension between The British Empire and France was relaxed through the Entante Cordiale (Cordial agreements) on April 8th 1904. This is seen by many of the end of the millennia old animosity between England and France. In reality it was mainly a successful attempt to deescalate tension between both colonial empires. Real military cooperation wasn't started until after the beginning of World War I.

…

An ironic thing about the real Entante Cordiale, was that it in reality only was a crisis resolution in 1904. At the same time France and the Russian Empire were staunch allies since the beginning of the 1890s. An alliance the British Empire joined only during WWI.

After WWI the British Empire and France as victors divided the spoils of war in the Middle East and in Africa. All that their former allied partner Russia got, was 6 million dead, a revolution and loss of huge territories in Europe. Even though the Entante won the war, Russia was treated as one of the many losers of WWI.

https://t.me/geopolitics_live/20857…

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240409/uk-and-france-talk-of-reviving-wwi-alliance-over-fear-of-trump-return-1117834301.html…

1:47 AM · Apr 10, 2024

Here is the second tweet, in toto. This is where Valtersson suggests that the Euro ruling class is still pursuing war on Russia, just as it has for the past century. That much is probably non-controversial among the readership here. Some may also be familiar with the ideas behind Valtersson’s reassessment of Chamberlain and Churchill. My view here is that both were misguided geopolitical criminals. At the end, you’ll see how this ties in to what Doug Macgregor is warning us about. The Neoncons and Israel desperately want another Great War because they believe they can defeat their enemies and establish the global order that will make the world safe for their hegemony. Valtersson and Macgregor are warning against such schemes which have, historically, always come a cropper and which—and this is Macgregor’s argument—these schemes are not only delusional and impractical for the long run, but the American Empire is not up to the task in the short run either.

Mikael Valtersson @MikaelValterss1

COMMENT WARMONGERING ALWAYS FAILS, APRIL 10th 2024

Even before WWII many in the West wanted a war. Chamberlain and Lord Halifax are often accused of being naive, but that's not true. They were much more realistic than Churchill.

Churchill was an early neoconservative who believed that the West, and especially the British Empire, had a divine duty to civilize the world. The British Empire was the highest epitome of civilisation in the world and must therefore fight both backwardness as well as totalitarianism around the globe.

Chamberlain and Lord Halifax were more practical. They wanted to preserve the real geopolitical entity called the British Empire. They were also afraid that a major war including the British Empire would be too costly and lead to the Empire's downfall. Instead of Churchill's ideas of a crusade against totalitarianism they wanted to entice the Third Reich/Germany and the Soviet union into a war that would severely weaken both parties. This would only leave the United States as a global competitor to the British Empire.

They were also afraid that Churchill's belligerence against all kinds of totalitarianism, would unite Germany and the Soviet union against the British, thereby creating a much stronger and dangerous enemy. Unfortunately for Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, Hitler and Stalin were better at the Great game than expected. They got the war they wanted in 1939, but not between Germany and the Soviet union as they had hoped.

Fortunately for the British, Hitler's and Stalin's ambitions clashed, which resulted in war in 1941. What's known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War 1941-45 took up to 75 percent of German resources during the war and inflicted terrible human losses both in Germany and the Soviet union.

Who was right then, Chamberlain or Churchill? Chamberlain of course. He predicted the fall of the British Empire if they got involved in a new Great power war and that happened. He also wanted a war between Germany and the Soviet union to weaken them both. He finally got that and Germany was crushed. But he underestimated the strength of the Soviet union who emerged as a superpower after WWII.

Churchill's crusade on totalitarianism resulted in the defeat of nazism, but instead communism came to dominate a large part of the world during the Cold war, a very abysmal result of a crusade against totalitarianism. His beloved Empire also fell to pieces after the war. The only thing that remained was the free Western Europe as small vassal states to the new American Empire.

The result of the Great game that led to WWII was the rise of two new superpowers, the fall of the European colonial empires, division of Europe and much increased influence of communism. A total failure of a war mongering scheming to preserve the British Empire.

The outcome was as abysmal as the outcome of WWI which also to a great extent was started by the Austrian military leadership's ambition to strengthen the old order by a short and victorious war. The result was the fall of empires and many revolutions.

The questions now are what secret schemes exist and will they fail as miserably as during both world wars? Today the situation is even worse, since miscalculations might cause a nuclear holocaust. It's time for sensible persons to stop the journey towards a new Great war. That can only be achieved if warmongering neoconservatives are isolated, ideas of Western supremacy are abandoned and all parties are prepared to compromise for the greater good of humankind. Fanatical adherence to principles must also be abandoned, especially since those principles are not applied to the West and its friends, only on the perceived enemies of the West.

3:30 AM · Apr 10, 2024

English isn’t Valtersson’s native language. I’m not sure what he means by “principles” in the final paragraph, but I suspect that what he really means is something along the lines of “ideological constructs of a reality that doesn’t truly exist.”

There has been a flood of excellent commentary over the last few days—hard to keep up with it all. Here’s a link to a very interesting article at a very establishment outlet. The argument is basically the same as the one that Max Blumenthal has advanced for years:

The Problem Isn’t Just Netanyahu. It’s Israeli Society.

Despite blaming the prime minister, a large majority of Jewish Israeli citizens support his destructive policies in Gaza and beyond.

By Mairav Zonszein, the senior Israel analyst at the International Crisis Group.