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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Marina Kalashnikova's Warning to the West
2009-07-18
Meet Marina Kalashnikova: a Moscow-based historian, researcher and journalist. Last August she criticized foreign "experts" for suggesting that a conflict with Moscow will not happen because Russia's elite is too closely associated with the West. According to Kalashnikova, "The West does not care to wake from the dream of its wishful thinking, even when Moscow turns to ... reanimating Stalin's cult of personality together with the ideology of the Cheka [i.e., the secret police]."

I'm afraid that Marina Kalashnikova is right. The West has been dreaming, and the West will suffer the consequences. If the Kremlin likes Stalin, then there will be trouble. If KGB officers have established a sophisticated form of dictatorship in Russia, they have done so for a reason. We should remind our politicians, with their short memories, that Stalin and his secret police did not run a Sunday school. Furthermore, the recent trail of blood and radiation leading back to the Kremlin is like a finger pointing to the greatest danger of our time -- nixed from the news media's prattle of the hour. (A retired KGB officer recently told me that "nobody is easier to buy than a Western journalist.")

Russia has built an alliance of dictators, what Kalashnikova calls an "alliance of the most unbridled forces and regimes." Extremists of all kinds serve the purpose of breaking the peace, damaging Western economies, and setting the stage for a global revolution in which the balance of power shifts from the United States and the West to the Kremlin and its Chinese allies. "Among the ideas that animate general staff analysts in the Kremlin, there is the idea of diffusion," says Kalashnikova, "It is not that the Kremlin should strive for territorial expansion and the dissemination of its [political] model. The critical thing is power and the fulcrum of an overall strategic context. In that case, even if the Americans appear influential in the post-Soviet countries, Moscow remains in charge. The [Russian] General Staff therefore has successfully expanded Moscow's position beyond and above the old Soviet position in Africa and Latin America." What prevails, she says, is Moscow's "assertiveness and determination without fear of a reaction from the West."

In other words, the West has already been outmaneuvered. The KGB and the Russian General Staff have taken our measure, and they are laughing at us. Our leaders do not realize the sophistication of their enemy. They cannot see or understand what is happening. They blink, they turn away, continuing to use concepts gifted to them long ago by Soviet agents of influence. As a nation we are confused and disoriented, believing that the world is beholden to the West's money power -- and therefore, peace can be purchased.

"The Kremlin has activated a network of extremists in the Third World," wrote Kalashnikova. "[At the same time] Russia has managed to shake off nearly all international conventions restricting the expansion of its military power." In this situation, the only counter to Russian power is American power. Yet the American president is preparing to surrender that power in a series of arms control agreements that will leave the United States vulnerable to a first strike. Placing this in context, nuclear weapons are ultimate weapons, so that the West's superiority in conventional weapons is therefore meaningless. Whoever gains strategic nuclear supremacy will rule the world; and the Russian strategic rocket forces are in place, ready to launch, while America's nuclear forces are rotting from neglect.
Balance at the link. Well worth the read.
Posted by:Whomort Angineper3541

#6  TEST
Posted by: Mercutio   2009-07-18 18:55  

#5  Our leaders do not realize the sophistication of their enemy.

Not certain why this is, Barry talks about the Fox Network nearly every week.
Posted by: Besoeker   2009-07-18 15:57  

#4  "In other words, the West has already been outmaneuvered. The KGB and the Russian General Staff have taken our measure, and they are laughing at us. Our leaders do not realize the sophistication of their enemy. They cannot see or understand what is happening. They blink, they turn away, continuing to use concepts gifted to them long ago by Soviet agents of influence. As a nation we are confused and disoriented, believing that the world is beholden to the West's money power -- and therefore, peace can be purchased. "

This is an article that ought to be read by every thinking American, and hopefully it's being distributed far and wide - I know I'll be sending the link to NRO and Instapundit after I finish posting this comment. That said, I have an ever-so-slightly more optimistic take on the situation than the author expressed above. I think Mr. Nyquist, and perhaps Ms. Kalashnikova herself (wonderful name, BTW...wonder if she's related to this guy?) have confused America's "leaders" with America's people. Just remember what happened to the American psyche after 9/11 - it took the fifth-column media five full years of 24/7 effort to force that genie back into the bottle.

I'll leave you with a quote from Herman Wouk's War and Rememberance, noted in James Hornfischer's magnificent history of the Battle off Samar:

"The vision of Sprague's three destoyers - the Johnston, the Hoel, and the Heermann - charging out of the smoke and the rain straight toward the main batteries of Kurita's battleships and cruisers, can endure as a picture of the way Americans fight when they don't have superiority. Our schoolchildren should know about that incident, and our enemies should ponder it."
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo)   2009-07-18 15:56  

#3  Consider North Korea and Iran. Time after time the Russians and Chinese block effective action against these so-called rogue states. But are they rogues or are the doing the bidding of puppeteers in Moscow and Beijing? Then compare the combined nuclear throw weight of Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea to that of the United States and you can get as paranoid as you want especially when we have feeble minded politicians of questionable loyalty in the White House.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2009-07-18 13:26  

#2  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU

Russia is not looking inside.
Posted by: Art   2009-07-18 12:46  

#1  Obama will be the last to realize it - his arrogance and narcissism masks any ability to make him realize just how stupid he is, and there is no hope that the press will ever do anything to reveal the truth.
Posted by: OldSpook   2009-07-18 12:43  

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