Russophobia And Its Consequences

The other day Simplicius had a thought provoking post which reflected the conclusion that many others are coming to:

Last Dance at the Vampire Ball: West Searches for Answers to Its Demise

As the reality of the coming Russian victory over the combined NATO Leviathan has slowly dawned on the West, it has engendered a poignant shift in the increasingly high-pitched narrative. The comprador elite class has awakened to the fact that their global order is on the brink of dissolution, following Russia’s unclothing of their designs. The many decades of Gladio and other subversions are coming undone before our very eyes, as the dreams of a certain line of elite architects stretching back many generations are being washed away by the fitful birth of a new world.

Everywhere you turn, this elite moral panic is playing out front and center. As their industries die, their people gnash and seethe, and institutions flirt with collapse, the hoarse-voiced compradors clamber over each other to bleat out litanies of frantic warnings about saving themselves and their class:

Having framed the current situation in these terms, Simplicius turns to the past to ask, Where did Russophobia that led the collective West over the cliff of self destruction comes from. To explain this irrational and self destructive impulse he turns to a recent presentation by Jeffery Sachs. You could argue, as Sachs does, that this self destructive hatred of Russia can be traced back to the British realization, at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, of how big and potentially powerful Russia was. Russia had not only defeated Napoleon (at great cost) but had then marched, ultimately, all the way to Paris:

"I want to take it back to the 1840s, to the real roots of hegemony, which is Great Britain. Never was there a hegemon with such ambition and such a curious view of the world. But Britain wanted to run the world in the 19th century and taught America everything it knows. Recently, I read a fascinating book by a historian named J.H. Gleason, published by Harvard University Press in 1950. It's an incredibly interesting book called 'The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain.'

The question is, where did England's hate of Russia come from? Because it's actually a little surprising. Britain has HATED Russia since the 1840s and launched the Crimean War that was a war of choice in modern Parliament—a war of choice by Palmerston in the 1850s—because it hated Russia. So, this author tries to understand where this hate came from, because it was the same kind of iterative hate that we have now. And by the way, we hated the Soviet Union because it was Communist, but we hated Russia afterwards when it wasn't communist. It doesn't matter. So, it's a deeper phenomenon, and he tries to trace where this hatred came from.

The fascinating point is, Russia and Britain were on the same side in the Napoleonic Wars from 1812 to 1815, from the Battle of Moscow in Russia to Napoleon's defeat in Waterloo. They were on the same side, and in fact, for many years, the relations weren't great, but they were kind of normal. So, this historian reads every snippet of the newspapers, what's written, of the speeches, to try to understand where the hatred arose.

The key point is there was no reason for it. There was nothing that Russia did. Russia didn't behave in some perfidious way. It wasn't Russian evil; it wasn't that the tsar was somehow off the rails. There wasn't anything except a self-fulfilling lather built up over time because Russia was a big power and therefore an affront to British hegemony. This is the same reason why the US hates China: not for anything China actually does but because it's big. It's the same reason, until today, that the United States and Britain hate Russia—because it's big.

So, the author comes to the conclusion that the hate really arose around 1840 because it wasn't instantaneous, and there was no single triggering event. The British got it into their crazy heads that Russia was going to invade India through Central Asia and Afghanistan—one of the most bizarre, phony, wrongheaded ideas imaginable—but they took it quite literally. And they told themselves this: 'We're the imperialists. How dare Russia presume to invade India?' when it had no intention of doing so. So, my point is, it's possible to have hate to the point of war and now to the point of nuclear annihilation for no fundamental reason. Talk to each other."

Simplicius goes on to discuss various manifestations of this obsessive hatred and it’s all interesting (despite some inaccuracies), but hold Sachs’ last thought, because we want to consider consequences today:

it's possible to have hate to the point of war and now to the point of nuclear annihilation for no fundamental reason.

Lawrence Wilkerson touches on some of these same points, but with a focus on the current situation. I’ve done a summary/transcript of the highlights, omitting most of what he had to say about certain important areas (China, Georgia, Palestine). Focus on the dangers Wilkerson sees ahead—nuclear war, the stupidity of American leadership:

NATO Will LOSE if It Fights Russia as Putin Prepares for a Bigger War | Col. Larry Wilkerson

Lloyd Austin: He is lipsyncing the president, the Secretary of State, and the National Security advisor. He doesn't deviate an Iota from their line, which is purely political because of Biden's fear of the election growing every day. Second, there is this reluctance on the part of the military. Ultimately I think that reflects what is happening with the military in addition to the politicos -- and that is they are ashamed of themselves for being so grossly mistaken about Ukraine's capacity and more importantly about Russia's incapacity in this present conflict. They've been proven dead wrong once again. Let's just count them up since 9/11, how many dead wrong situations the US military forces and particularly their leadership have been involved in. They're putting all these lies out. I listened to Putin the other day [at a press conference] and I marveled at the clear-headedness, straightforwardness.

What he was, in essence, saying was, 'I don't get it! When are these people going to wake up and realize that I do not want all of Ukraine? I wouldn't want it if it was handed to me on a plate, too hard to govern! I've pretty much proven that I'm the victor here. I can't even get them to talk about a set of negotiations to which I'm invited!' Imagine that! And I'm hearing the same thing from our White House: 'We'll have negotiations somewhere but we won't invite the Russians.' Are you kidding me?

It's preposterous what we're doing. I've said before, I think we have some insane people in charge. I'm beginning to think I might be right. It's not just adjectives.

Q: Larry, the other day we had Victoria Nuland on ABC News Talk demanding US open the facilitating strikes by Kiev on the military bases inside Russia. Does she have any sort of influence on the Biden Administration or anybody in this Administration to facilitate this kind of thinking?

I don't think she does anymore and I think that's part of her frustration and why she makes such blatantly stupid statements. However there are neoconservatives filtered throughout the government still, and very infuential ones in the Congress and on the outside that have influence on the inside. So when you see something like that you know that she's probably been put out there by the neoconservative leadership to put a marker down.

NATO: They're falling apart, just as I said they would, but I didn't think they'd do it quite this fast. Germany, France are having such bitter arguments inside right, now including amongst the military leadership in Brussels. The arguments are indicative of just how bad they have made the situation and also how desperate they've made the situation with regard to the entire integrity of NATO.

Wilkerson, IMO, hits a home run with his assessment of Putin’s recent personnel moves, in contrast to some very foolish commentary that we’ve seen.

Putin: He really fielded some difficult questions [at the press conference] and I think the gist of what he was saying was, 'I've done what I've got to do. I don't really want to do a whole lot more, but if Ukraine forces me to do a whole lot more I will and’--read also in parentheses--'my military thinks that I ought to do more and they're ready to do more, and I put a guy in charge of my economy hooking it up to the military industrial complex who's smart and going to do it for the long term.’ This is something we're not paying any attention to or if we are we're not talking about it, and that is that Putin is, with this appointment of this economist to be his Minister of Defense, he's hooking his incredible industrial capacity up to his military instrument directly. That's going to prepare Putin for a bigger war, but he's not preparing for a bigger war with Ukraine. He's preparing for war with NATO should it come to that.

Now, with all this talk of Western escalation:

I do think that if NATO were to make a significant penetration into the SCTO regime, this Collective Treaty Organization , [Russia] might use a nuclear weapon on the head of the NATO penetration. But let me clue every one of the people listening to this show in: there is no way on God's green earth that NATO can make a penetration into the SCTO that would last for more than a day and go more than 100 kilometers. It's absurd. I can give you the stats on how sorry the United States military is in terms of mobilization capability and readiness right now. It's as bad as it's been since the early 1970s post Vietnam. So anyone talking in the military leadership or in the civilian leadership or to the civilian leadership about America's readiness to mobilize and take on a country that's been at war for two plus years and has now hooked up decisively its economy to its military is just pure insanity. Europe's no better.

Today in fact we're sitting on $35 trillion dollars of aggregate debt, a trillion dollar payment this year on that debt which equals our defense budget, no idea how we're going to get out of that. And we're sitting on a industrial base that is about as latent as my sandbox [i.e., compared to Russia and China and they're new cooperation].

Israel: I woke up last night 2 am and I said to myself, How can I put this succinctly? So I wrote it on a 3x5 card: The only way Israel can survive as a state located in the eastern Mediterranean between the Jordan River and that sea and as a state that serves as a safe haven for Jews is if it is not a Jewish State. In short it must be a true liberal democracy welcoming all citizens, affording them equal rights. I continued, that's the only meaningful way that US support for Israel can survive as well. The two go hand in hand. I said a couple years ago Israel wouldn't be a state in 20 years it's looking more and more like I was prophetic.

Lastly, Danny Davis did another long and fascinating interview with MIT professor Theodore Postol, a true expert on nuclear war. Like Wilkerson, Postol fears that America’s unstable leadership could do something that would trigger Putin to finally bring the hammer down and put an end to the West’s idiotic provocations. Some highlights:

A Very Limited Nuclear Attack? MIT Professor Ted Postol explains

First, Davis expresses his concern that we in the West may have lost a proper fear of nuclear weapons. The problem is that some, like retired generall Ben Hodges, believe that Russia would never, ever, use nukes. But, in fact, there are some situations in which it makes perfect sense to use nukes to cause an adversary to stop doing what they're doing. This is the idea of “escalate to de-escalate”, and it’s part of Russian military thinking: The use of tactical nukes to prevent a general nuclear conflagration.

Postol is very concerned about American leadership, and he believes Putin’s public statements indicate that Putin shares those concerns:

Putin is an extraordinarily intelligent and well informed individual. It's very clear, if you look at his numerous statements, that he has a great concern that American leadership under some conditions in the future--unknowable conditions--could make a decision to try to use nuclear weapons against Russia. What he's trying to do is to simply say: Don't think of it. I understand that it would be the end of the world, and you should understand it, too. But you should also understand that however tragic the outcome would be, I will end the world if you attack us. I'll be forced to do it, in spite of my desire to avoid it.

Postol dismisses Ben Hodges’ notion that the Russians would never do that, characterizing Hodges as:

Inexcusably ignorant about both political and military dimensions of nuclear weapons. To claim expertise he doesn't have on an important matter of survival is immoral.

More generally regarding the war in Ukraine, Postol states:

What's going on in Ukraine is murder by the West and Ukraine of Ukraine's own people. The war is over.

Ukraine has unambiguously had a policy of trying to get Russia to escalate in a way that would draw the West in. It's extraordinarily reckless, but fortunately Russians have resisted that. The Russian political and military leadership is very sound minded.

And then, before he gets into an extended discussion of Russia’s doomsday weapon, the Poseidon nuclear torpedo:

53:00

It's very clear to me that Putin is most concerned about the instability of American leadership. He has correctly determined that American leadership is largely uneducated, is capable of making reckless decisions--as we have in this case, and got into a war that was a war of choice and now we don't know how to get out of it and can't even acknowledge that we've lost it already. So we're going to kill hundreds of thousands of more people because our political leadership is trying to cover themselves with the public so the public doesn't understand how reckless they were and how ill ill-considered their decisions were. So Putin is worried about the behavior of American leadership and he has obviously determined that you can't trust American leadership to know what they're doing. That is why he has been very concerned about US missile defenses. He understands that US missile defenses don't work, but he's worried that an American president might actually be silly enough to think that they could work, and that an American president might use nuclear weapons in the hope that the missile defenses could protect the United States--or parts of the United States--from a Russian retaliation. So Putin very thoughtfully concluded that what he needed was a weapon that even a totally moronic and uninformed individual could understand there's no hope of stopping.

This is where Russophobia has led us.