In WW2 the westies were so certain that Germany would defeat and annihilate the entire Russian people and that they then would enjoy some spoils. The Russian people, recently liberated from the murderous tsarist yoke and ably led by Stalin and the Communist Party had better ideas and an extraordinary capacity to call on Russian people to mobilise. The westies were aghast when the Russians began the roll back of the nazi eastern juggernaut. Outwitted and outclassed the westies urgently invaded Europe lest it become entirely accustomed to a non capitalist mode of government and economy.
So they saved the nazis and shipped them off to safe havens with the connivance of Popes and Anglicans - couldn't have those Eastern Orthodox heretics ruling supreme now, could we? What a miserable pack of scoundrels, scumbags and carpetbaggers they are. Blinken, Biden and Nuland seem well suited to their representative role for this swill.
I have almost no background in most of the areas related to the proxy war in Ukraine.
Reading hundreds and hundreds of comments on moonofalabama gradually leads to a better understanding of what is going on and the historical roots, but these substacks provide essential educational background.
Also, substacks provide a storage location for important work rather that lessens the need for one's personal filing system. I probably copied and stored 50 Karlof1 posts on MOA struggling to figure out what was happening all the while seeing long term friends and "liberals" spouting nonsense like Russia's goal is to conquer all of Europe. Or other lies that Russia started the war.
I was an antiwar protester at Berkeley from 1965-1967 but then withdrew from politics until the 2004 presidential election which was stolen here in Ohio. For sure I was one of the 10 million world wide who protested the invasion of Iraq and that should have shown that undemocratic forces were in control.
I am so lacking in background that The Great Chessboard didn't register but of course I know its author.
So I did a search and found the entire book posted on a CIA website. I would appreciate anyone to comment on the significance of this.
It's seen as a how to manual, sort of like what happened with Hudson's "Super Imperialism." I personally don't find that surprising at all. Indeed, I'd expect it to be there.
Whilst you could spend an entire academic career researching and analysing the causes of WW1, a main theme is that Germany felt at risk from rising powers that encircled it, and in particular Russia where failed German diplomacy broke the old alliances and placed Russia in the Entente camp. The Germans and Austro-Hungarians likely started the war when they did because they analsyed that it was inevitable and the odds against them prevailing worsened as time went on.
None of this is to say that there was not an element of anti-Russian racism in their thinking and it is also the case that Germany won its war against Russia in WW1, and this would surely have reinforced any prejudices that they held, and also within the wider west. Certainly this racism was an underlying factor in why Nazi Germany thought it could defeat the USSR. Well we know how that turned out.
NATO won the Cold War and if you listen to what current NATO commanders say then it seems in 1989 I must have fallen asleep and missed WW3 where fleets of NATO armoured vehicles operating expert combined arms manouvres liberated occupied eastern Europe from the communist yoke. However joking aside we once again see racist attitudes pervading western thinking and discourse about Russia. Well rule 101 is never underestimate your opponent.
Fischer's book is extremely detailed and tells how Germany used the Austro-Hungarians to initiate the war is an effort to make it appear Russia was at fault. The flaw was in Germany's assumption that France would be as easy as 1870. What's historically significant IMO is the attitude of Germany's Establishment and its post-war continuation. I didn't touch the issue of the Kaiser sending Lenin to Russia or Hindenburg's confession to George Seldes as to why Germany surrendered. What appears to be the case is as early as 1912 the Kaiser already saw the coming war as existential for the Teutons versus the Slavs and Gauls. Yet, there seems to be more animus aimed at the Slavs than the Gauls, perhaps because Gauls have Germanic roots. One form of evidence I haven't examined is German prewar propaganda aimed at dehumanizing its opponents that could inform us more about the racist angle. UK-US propaganda aimed at the Germans was certainly very brutal and outlandish.
What is very clear is a certain segment of Eastern Europe's Slavs was masterfully manipulated into hating their neighbors to the point of killing them off, and that hatred was continually nurtured between the wars and then afterwards, which now has a legacy over 100 years that will be very hard to uproot.
Re your last para, it is the case that those that led [us] to war in 1914 had very little idea of the potential outcomes and the ultimate nature of the thing [the war] they just created. And so had very few of those whom they led. By lighting the fuse of war, you are gambling with unknown and unknowable consequences in directions that you do not and cannot anticipate. I think you posted somewhere [forgive me if I am wrong] that Russia did not want war. IMO sensible people run Russia and so this judgement [if you are correct ] makes sense in all sorts of ways, but mainly because the outcomes are unpredictable. I doubt anyone ever predicted where we would be today back in early 2022 - unless a wild guess was proven correct. I'm not at all sure those that run NATO either know their history nor view the world except through a very specific lens - that does not allow dissenting voices to be heard.
My study of Russia/USSR is that after its defeat by Japan in 1905-6, the Tsar lost interest in imperial expansion as there were many rapid changes occurring within Russia and Europe. The Tsar was advised that war would further destabilize Russia, but Nicholas was a man of honor and stood by his commitments. Afterwards with the Revolution and Civil War, Russia needed peace to develop itself so it could defend itself, and what was accomplished between 1925 and 1940 was remarkable in that regard. After WW2. Russia again needed peace to recover from its massive losses on its own. Same thing after the USSR's fall and its Rape by NATO/Outlaw US Empire. Russia really needed to avoid war with NATO in 2014 and did its best to aid Donbass while preparing itself for what was anticipated. And the reality is Russia would like to have peace today too but is prevented from having that luxury. IMO, it's analyzed the Demon it faces and has taken upon itself its "historic task" in Putin's words to destroy that Demon. How much war Team Putin anticipate is unknown as they aren't saying. But we can look at Russia's preparations and conclude a WW2-type clash won't happen unless NATO causes it. Solving then securing Ukraine while continuing to follow its current direction is what I see Russia doing. There's a task beyond that requiring solidarity with as many nations as possible and is actually a global task, not just Russia's. Putin will run Russia until he retires in 2030. How much he contributes afterward can only be guessed at, but it will be something certainly.
Spurred by Crooke, this is a valuable exposition of information which is not often discussed. However, in most senses it’s a conventional historical approach (names of people, records, dates) which has long been used as a tool to understanding. And that’s to say, it doesn’t really uncover the forces that drove these events.
So to say that “racism” against Russians has been around for a long time, or that the rent seeking classes feel threatened by socialism, are probably self-evident explanations that don’t go very far from explaining why, after a century, the protagonists for a new world military confrontation remain exactly the same. One could take the stance that the rest of the world should simply not get involved, but that’s obviously impossible even though it might seem desirable for the Europeans/westerners/white engage in some serious population control vis the battlefield.
Perhaps one could take a biological approach to finding a gene (like the presence/absence of the MAOA gene which has been attributed to comparatively higher levels of violence in certain populations) which are found disproportionately in Europeans that leads to almost continuous warfare among themselves, their progeny, and anyone nearby.
Alternatively, as been put forth recently in an intriguing paper appearing in Unz, there are mental, cultural and spiritual (or absence thereof) values — passed on generationally through institutions — which are the source of the unceasing violence and aggressivity of the West that cannot be changed, merely repressed or controlled (eg the philosophical idea of evil).
The latter hypothesis, discussed in the Unz article, I found to be completely convincing as institutional power in the US has clearly been increasingly concentrated among a small portion of the population since 1963.
However, reading a rather clumsy book recently on the Cathars, the evil was always there. The Papacy ordained a crusade — annihilation of an entire population, genocide if you will) on Christian people who lived in the West.
So now I’m back to the idea of genetic origin for the problem of evil in the West.
The particular Why? question you're asking is something my anthropologist/sociologist side has long sought an answer/explanation for. I have hypotheses like everyone else that are as valid as Freud's. Perhaps I'll write more about it sometime.
It would interesting to learn of the Chinese viewpoint as to why Europe/US have been the origins of continental/global warfare (wars for beyond one’s borders) from at least Roman times. They are probably the only thinkers with an “outside” point of view to set against their relatively recent exposure to the West and reach some hypotheses.
There are doubtless a few western thinkers with a comprehensive command of history, philosophy and science who have pondered this question — but of course they are largely systematically suppressed (eg Ezra Pound). Recent “thinkers” have largely been intellectual poseurs who (on the surface of it) revert to the axiom that the west is superior in all respects and thus has the right to rule the world (Leo Strauss et al). Many, I suspect, have ideas but are fearful of consequences but as long as they have some outlet (eg Unz) their ideas will circulate in Ch8na.
Fundamentally, geography and culture IMO are the two main factors. Even the Mongols were different, although somewhat like the Borg--join us and be assimilated or be destroyed--your choice. Those that didn't resist lived. One of my favorite historical What Ifs? is How would Europeans act today if the Great Khan hadn't died when he did as his death stopped the Mongol's Westward expansion in its tracks and it went no further despite the paucity of resistance available.
Another is the Vatican as an Imperial Institution that took Western Romes place--the state religion became a state and emulated its "mentor." Keeping the masses illiterate was also a major tool of control, which brought it into conflict with Islam and Orthodoxy. From its history, the Silk Roads really never influenced Europe in an intellectual/cultural sense, which is something Escobar hits on often. I asked Hudson in the last roundtable discussion if East Asia had any record of the sort of debt forgiveness seen in Western Asia, but the question got muddled by the moderator and the East Asia aspect was neglected. It would be nice to take a two-year sabbatical and research the areas that will fill in the holes in my knowledge, but I doubt the world will stand still for me.
Physical domination seems transient if unlinked to “culture” — and culture which is not transient seems to me to be necessarily linked to written language. So the “influence” of the Mongols or Incas in any broad sense was transitory.
Of course, languages which existed and completely vanished may leave no traces afterwards. Which is why the hieroglyphics of Ancient Egypt magnetically drew so many people, scholars and lay people alike.
To me, the transmission of tradition/culture is linked to written language and therein lie the linkages.
You posed a very interesting question to Hudson — was there a framework for system of debt in Ancient China? Perhaps there was, and there was some form of debt forgiveness — certainly China is forgiving/renegotiating lots of its loans to borrowers today, if on an case-by-case basis and not cyclically (if I understand Hudson properly).
I don’t mean to drag your efforts away from where you are focused at present — your substack is outstanding and your comments on MOA are some of the most valuable there.
You understand Hudson correctly. Even today, China's basic philosophy is to seek balance and harmony, concepts that are 3,000+ years old, so something had to be done to keep that occurring given the long lives of the dynasties. If you can find a copy or read the one available at The Archive, Vernadsky's "The Mongols and Russia" is very informative and provided insight into both that no other history I've read provides, https://archive.org/details/mongolsrussia0000geor/page/n7/mode/2up
Thanks for the positive feedback. Much more occurred today than I was able to post about, but there's always tomorrow.
"And perhaps with another thousand years of evolving humanity will no longer bother with ethnicities and just treat everyone as a human."
Good luck with that. It's not genetically possible. 250,000 years of human behavior and who knows how many million before that in primates proves that. Unless of course you remove the issue of genetics from the species...
your conclusion is only one of many, and it is very pessimistic in nature... others prefer to have faith in a better world... 'some say i'm a dreamer, but i'm not the only one'...........it takes all kinds to make the world go around..
In WW2 the westies were so certain that Germany would defeat and annihilate the entire Russian people and that they then would enjoy some spoils. The Russian people, recently liberated from the murderous tsarist yoke and ably led by Stalin and the Communist Party had better ideas and an extraordinary capacity to call on Russian people to mobilise. The westies were aghast when the Russians began the roll back of the nazi eastern juggernaut. Outwitted and outclassed the westies urgently invaded Europe lest it become entirely accustomed to a non capitalist mode of government and economy.
So they saved the nazis and shipped them off to safe havens with the connivance of Popes and Anglicans - couldn't have those Eastern Orthodox heretics ruling supreme now, could we? What a miserable pack of scoundrels, scumbags and carpetbaggers they are. Blinken, Biden and Nuland seem well suited to their representative role for this swill.
Thank you karlof1, excellent report indeed.
Your substacks are extremely important.
I have almost no background in most of the areas related to the proxy war in Ukraine.
Reading hundreds and hundreds of comments on moonofalabama gradually leads to a better understanding of what is going on and the historical roots, but these substacks provide essential educational background.
Also, substacks provide a storage location for important work rather that lessens the need for one's personal filing system. I probably copied and stored 50 Karlof1 posts on MOA struggling to figure out what was happening all the while seeing long term friends and "liberals" spouting nonsense like Russia's goal is to conquer all of Europe. Or other lies that Russia started the war.
I was an antiwar protester at Berkeley from 1965-1967 but then withdrew from politics until the 2004 presidential election which was stolen here in Ohio. For sure I was one of the 10 million world wide who protested the invasion of Iraq and that should have shown that undemocratic forces were in control.
I am so lacking in background that The Great Chessboard didn't register but of course I know its author.
So I did a search and found the entire book posted on a CIA website. I would appreciate anyone to comment on the significance of this.
https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/36/36669B7894E857AC4F3445EA646BFFE1_Zbigniew_Brzezinski_-_The_Grand_ChessBoard.doc.pdf
It's seen as a how to manual, sort of like what happened with Hudson's "Super Imperialism." I personally don't find that surprising at all. Indeed, I'd expect it to be there.
Whilst you could spend an entire academic career researching and analysing the causes of WW1, a main theme is that Germany felt at risk from rising powers that encircled it, and in particular Russia where failed German diplomacy broke the old alliances and placed Russia in the Entente camp. The Germans and Austro-Hungarians likely started the war when they did because they analsyed that it was inevitable and the odds against them prevailing worsened as time went on.
None of this is to say that there was not an element of anti-Russian racism in their thinking and it is also the case that Germany won its war against Russia in WW1, and this would surely have reinforced any prejudices that they held, and also within the wider west. Certainly this racism was an underlying factor in why Nazi Germany thought it could defeat the USSR. Well we know how that turned out.
NATO won the Cold War and if you listen to what current NATO commanders say then it seems in 1989 I must have fallen asleep and missed WW3 where fleets of NATO armoured vehicles operating expert combined arms manouvres liberated occupied eastern Europe from the communist yoke. However joking aside we once again see racist attitudes pervading western thinking and discourse about Russia. Well rule 101 is never underestimate your opponent.
Fischer's book is extremely detailed and tells how Germany used the Austro-Hungarians to initiate the war is an effort to make it appear Russia was at fault. The flaw was in Germany's assumption that France would be as easy as 1870. What's historically significant IMO is the attitude of Germany's Establishment and its post-war continuation. I didn't touch the issue of the Kaiser sending Lenin to Russia or Hindenburg's confession to George Seldes as to why Germany surrendered. What appears to be the case is as early as 1912 the Kaiser already saw the coming war as existential for the Teutons versus the Slavs and Gauls. Yet, there seems to be more animus aimed at the Slavs than the Gauls, perhaps because Gauls have Germanic roots. One form of evidence I haven't examined is German prewar propaganda aimed at dehumanizing its opponents that could inform us more about the racist angle. UK-US propaganda aimed at the Germans was certainly very brutal and outlandish.
What is very clear is a certain segment of Eastern Europe's Slavs was masterfully manipulated into hating their neighbors to the point of killing them off, and that hatred was continually nurtured between the wars and then afterwards, which now has a legacy over 100 years that will be very hard to uproot.
Re your last para, it is the case that those that led [us] to war in 1914 had very little idea of the potential outcomes and the ultimate nature of the thing [the war] they just created. And so had very few of those whom they led. By lighting the fuse of war, you are gambling with unknown and unknowable consequences in directions that you do not and cannot anticipate. I think you posted somewhere [forgive me if I am wrong] that Russia did not want war. IMO sensible people run Russia and so this judgement [if you are correct ] makes sense in all sorts of ways, but mainly because the outcomes are unpredictable. I doubt anyone ever predicted where we would be today back in early 2022 - unless a wild guess was proven correct. I'm not at all sure those that run NATO either know their history nor view the world except through a very specific lens - that does not allow dissenting voices to be heard.
My study of Russia/USSR is that after its defeat by Japan in 1905-6, the Tsar lost interest in imperial expansion as there were many rapid changes occurring within Russia and Europe. The Tsar was advised that war would further destabilize Russia, but Nicholas was a man of honor and stood by his commitments. Afterwards with the Revolution and Civil War, Russia needed peace to develop itself so it could defend itself, and what was accomplished between 1925 and 1940 was remarkable in that regard. After WW2. Russia again needed peace to recover from its massive losses on its own. Same thing after the USSR's fall and its Rape by NATO/Outlaw US Empire. Russia really needed to avoid war with NATO in 2014 and did its best to aid Donbass while preparing itself for what was anticipated. And the reality is Russia would like to have peace today too but is prevented from having that luxury. IMO, it's analyzed the Demon it faces and has taken upon itself its "historic task" in Putin's words to destroy that Demon. How much war Team Putin anticipate is unknown as they aren't saying. But we can look at Russia's preparations and conclude a WW2-type clash won't happen unless NATO causes it. Solving then securing Ukraine while continuing to follow its current direction is what I see Russia doing. There's a task beyond that requiring solidarity with as many nations as possible and is actually a global task, not just Russia's. Putin will run Russia until he retires in 2030. How much he contributes afterward can only be guessed at, but it will be something certainly.
Spurred by Crooke, this is a valuable exposition of information which is not often discussed. However, in most senses it’s a conventional historical approach (names of people, records, dates) which has long been used as a tool to understanding. And that’s to say, it doesn’t really uncover the forces that drove these events.
So to say that “racism” against Russians has been around for a long time, or that the rent seeking classes feel threatened by socialism, are probably self-evident explanations that don’t go very far from explaining why, after a century, the protagonists for a new world military confrontation remain exactly the same. One could take the stance that the rest of the world should simply not get involved, but that’s obviously impossible even though it might seem desirable for the Europeans/westerners/white engage in some serious population control vis the battlefield.
Perhaps one could take a biological approach to finding a gene (like the presence/absence of the MAOA gene which has been attributed to comparatively higher levels of violence in certain populations) which are found disproportionately in Europeans that leads to almost continuous warfare among themselves, their progeny, and anyone nearby.
Alternatively, as been put forth recently in an intriguing paper appearing in Unz, there are mental, cultural and spiritual (or absence thereof) values — passed on generationally through institutions — which are the source of the unceasing violence and aggressivity of the West that cannot be changed, merely repressed or controlled (eg the philosophical idea of evil).
The latter hypothesis, discussed in the Unz article, I found to be completely convincing as institutional power in the US has clearly been increasingly concentrated among a small portion of the population since 1963.
However, reading a rather clumsy book recently on the Cathars, the evil was always there. The Papacy ordained a crusade — annihilation of an entire population, genocide if you will) on Christian people who lived in the West.
So now I’m back to the idea of genetic origin for the problem of evil in the West.
Just kidding. It’s likely a combination of both.
The particular Why? question you're asking is something my anthropologist/sociologist side has long sought an answer/explanation for. I have hypotheses like everyone else that are as valid as Freud's. Perhaps I'll write more about it sometime.
It would interesting to learn of the Chinese viewpoint as to why Europe/US have been the origins of continental/global warfare (wars for beyond one’s borders) from at least Roman times. They are probably the only thinkers with an “outside” point of view to set against their relatively recent exposure to the West and reach some hypotheses.
There are doubtless a few western thinkers with a comprehensive command of history, philosophy and science who have pondered this question — but of course they are largely systematically suppressed (eg Ezra Pound). Recent “thinkers” have largely been intellectual poseurs who (on the surface of it) revert to the axiom that the west is superior in all respects and thus has the right to rule the world (Leo Strauss et al). Many, I suspect, have ideas but are fearful of consequences but as long as they have some outlet (eg Unz) their ideas will circulate in Ch8na.
Fundamentally, geography and culture IMO are the two main factors. Even the Mongols were different, although somewhat like the Borg--join us and be assimilated or be destroyed--your choice. Those that didn't resist lived. One of my favorite historical What Ifs? is How would Europeans act today if the Great Khan hadn't died when he did as his death stopped the Mongol's Westward expansion in its tracks and it went no further despite the paucity of resistance available.
Another is the Vatican as an Imperial Institution that took Western Romes place--the state religion became a state and emulated its "mentor." Keeping the masses illiterate was also a major tool of control, which brought it into conflict with Islam and Orthodoxy. From its history, the Silk Roads really never influenced Europe in an intellectual/cultural sense, which is something Escobar hits on often. I asked Hudson in the last roundtable discussion if East Asia had any record of the sort of debt forgiveness seen in Western Asia, but the question got muddled by the moderator and the East Asia aspect was neglected. It would be nice to take a two-year sabbatical and research the areas that will fill in the holes in my knowledge, but I doubt the world will stand still for me.
Not a Jared Diamond fan.
Physical domination seems transient if unlinked to “culture” — and culture which is not transient seems to me to be necessarily linked to written language. So the “influence” of the Mongols or Incas in any broad sense was transitory.
Of course, languages which existed and completely vanished may leave no traces afterwards. Which is why the hieroglyphics of Ancient Egypt magnetically drew so many people, scholars and lay people alike.
To me, the transmission of tradition/culture is linked to written language and therein lie the linkages.
You posed a very interesting question to Hudson — was there a framework for system of debt in Ancient China? Perhaps there was, and there was some form of debt forgiveness — certainly China is forgiving/renegotiating lots of its loans to borrowers today, if on an case-by-case basis and not cyclically (if I understand Hudson properly).
I don’t mean to drag your efforts away from where you are focused at present — your substack is outstanding and your comments on MOA are some of the most valuable there.
You understand Hudson correctly. Even today, China's basic philosophy is to seek balance and harmony, concepts that are 3,000+ years old, so something had to be done to keep that occurring given the long lives of the dynasties. If you can find a copy or read the one available at The Archive, Vernadsky's "The Mongols and Russia" is very informative and provided insight into both that no other history I've read provides, https://archive.org/details/mongolsrussia0000geor/page/n7/mode/2up
Thanks for the positive feedback. Much more occurred today than I was able to post about, but there's always tomorrow.
"And perhaps with another thousand years of evolving humanity will no longer bother with ethnicities and just treat everyone as a human."
Good luck with that. It's not genetically possible. 250,000 years of human behavior and who knows how many million before that in primates proves that. Unless of course you remove the issue of genetics from the species...
Mankind is a virus and Transhumanism is the cure.
your conclusion is only one of many, and it is very pessimistic in nature... others prefer to have faith in a better world... 'some say i'm a dreamer, but i'm not the only one'...........it takes all kinds to make the world go around..
Takes all kinds to NOT make "the world go round", too. Which is what we're seeing.
What's that saying? "Hope is not a plan." Neither is faith.
richard - we see this differently! cheers james