So it may be again.
Lord Lansdowne's letter has been proven right by history, if any document ever were. I quote from it.He wrote immediately after the Bolsheviks had seized power and should have written two or three years earlier.
The parallel with people like Donald Trump who want an enduring ceasefire in Ukraine, rather than a continuing cold or hot war between democracies and autocracies, is obvious, I hope.
Before I read the New York Times piece that said General Surovikin was involved in the planning of Prigozhin's revolt, I had already come to the conclusion that the mutiny was a coup attempt that failed.
Lord Lansdowne's letter has been proven right by history, if any document ever were. I quote from it.He wrote immediately after the Bolsheviks had seized power and should have written two or three years earlier.
The parallel with people like Donald Trump who want an enduring ceasefire in Ukraine, rather than a continuing cold or hot war between democracies and autocracies, is obvious, I hope.
Before I read the New York Times piece that said General Surovikin was involved in the planning of Prigozhin's revolt, I had already come to the conclusion that the mutiny was a coup attempt that failed.
The NYT says Prigozhin's plans were discovered, it started at half cock and the forces in Moscow from whom Prigozhin expected help chose not to offer it.
Mark Galeotti thinks otherwise, says it is now clear that it was just a protest or something, to make Putin change his mind about the Wagner Group being put under the control of Sergei Shoigu, the Defence Minister, which makes no sense.
Mark Galeotti thinks otherwise, says it is now clear that it was just a protest or something, to make Putin change his mind about the Wagner Group being put under the control of Sergei Shoigu, the Defence Minister, which makes no sense.
Owen Matthews has the same view though.
A senior Kremlin source quoted in a great article in the Guardian:
What will happen next?
John Helmer, veteran Moscow correspondent, has an explanation that sounds like it comes from Sergei Shoigu.
"Many in the [defence] ministry believe Prigozhin has kompromat on everyone. This would make it unlikely that he would be liquidated, since the kompromat staying secret would be tied to him remaining alive."
What will happen next?
Who knows?
‘In Russia, nothing is more dangerous than the appearance of weakness’ said the great Peter Stolypin, quoted by Simon Sebag Montefiore.
‘In Russia, nothing is more dangerous than the appearance of weakness’ said the great Peter Stolypin, quoted by Simon Sebag Montefiore.
He wrote a good article published yesterday in the Times on how Russian autocrats lose power if they mishandle wars (Tsars Peter III, Paul and Nicholas II). Khrushchev's fall was precipitated by the Cuba Missiles Crisis.
'In 1904, Nicholas II was advised by his interior minister Plehve to launch “a short victorious war”. Nicholas’s ensuing Japanese war was a catastrophe that led to the 1905 revolution. But Putin was made by his “short victorious wars” — until 2014. He pulled off a near bloodless victory to seize Crimea and Sebastopol. And he hoped to destroy Ukraine obliquely by a dirty war in Donbas. Ironically it was a cardinal error: I believe if he had seized all of Ukraine then, he would have got away with it. Instead Ukraine armed itself. As his spy agencies and courtiers promised instant victory, Putin invaded Ukraine.'I agree that from his point of view Putin should have taken over the whole of Ukraine in 2014, but that was not how it seemed at the time or while Mr. Obama played things very cool and refused to supply Ukraine with 'lethal weapons'.
Mr Obama and Mr Trump had much in common - they were both unhappy with the idea of an active American empire involved everywhere.
I agree, generally speaking, but I am pessimistic about the chances for peace, since there are entrenched forces in the USA intent on prolonging this war for profit and indeed because they do wish to deny Russia its place amongst the great nations.
ReplyDeleteI think there is some truth in that, especially the second part, especially on the part of the neo-cons who see Russia as a threat to the world they want.
DeleteChurchill had the same view though…
ReplyDeleteStrange to think that were it not for Wilson’s mendacity (given his narrow victory was helped by campaigning precisely on the fact he had kept the US out of the war), WW2 and the Cold War might all have been avoided…
To be fair to Wilson he was sincere about intending to keep out of the war.
DeleteThe Zimmermann telegram was a provocation it would have been very hard to swallow, after the Lusitania. War is almost always disastrous. Little colonial wars like the Falklands are the exceptions.
They should have made peace in 1915 and we should,
after the fall of France in 1940, at least have listened to what Hitler had to say, as Halifax advised. See my latest post.
Re "democracies"
ReplyDeleteAny alleged expert or layperson who talks about "democracies" AS IF a real democracy ACTUALLY EXISTS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD (or has existed at any time in 'human civilization') is evidently repeating mindlessly and blindly the propaganda fed to them since they were a kid and/or is part of the (unconscious, ignorant, naive, willful) crowd who disseminates this total lie because any "democracy" of 'human civilization' has always been a covert structure of the rule of a few over the many operating behind the pretense name and facade of a "democracy": www.CovidTruthBeKnown.com (or https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html)
"There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. [...]. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies [...]. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable laws of business. The world is a business [...]." --- from the 1976 movie “Network”
"We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." --- Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice
In terms of "experts" or "awake" folks who sell you the fake program of democracies...
"All experts serve the state and the media and only in that way do they achieve their status. Every expert follows his master, for all former possibilities for independence have been gradually reduced to nil by present society’s mode of organization. The most useful expert, of course, is the one who can lie. With their different motives, those who need experts are falsifiers and fools. Whenever individuals lose the capacity to see things for themselves, the expert is there to offer an absolute reassurance." —Guy Debord
Isn't it about time for anyone to wake up to the ULTIMATE DEPTH of the human rabbit hole --- rather than remain blissfully willfully ignorant in a narcissistic fantasy land and play victim like a little child?
"We'll know our Disinformation Program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---William Casey, a former CIA director=a leading psychopathic criminal of the genocidal US regime
"Separate what you know from what you THINK you know." --- Unknown