Poohbah, you crack me up. You haven't added one bit of new information to this thread. You have never proved a single one of your so-called "counterarguments." In fact, now that I think about it, I can't remember you ever venturing to prove anything except a bunch of statistical poppcock about unverified missile totals. Everything I have posted is thoroghly footnoted so anyone can check the validity of ISWR's sources and come to their own conclusions. If, as the articles I posted clearly demonstrate, the Soviet Union really did fake its own collapse, it wouldn't matter if the article was published in 1994 or 2004. Would it make you FEEL any better if the article was published with today's date on it? Are you maintaining that the Soviets originally faked their own demise and then somehow lost control and collapsed for real after 1994? What's your point? You have no point, you are all inuendo. I post sources open to inspection for anyone to check. Moreover, Anatoly Golisyn predicted almost all of the changes in the "former" Soviet Union nearly 10 years before the events themselves (94% percent of them according to author Mark Riebling). Every other Soviet analyst was completely taken by surprise by the events leading to the USSR's "collapse." That is, everyone EXCEPT Golitsyn and Angleton. They had consistently maintained that the Soviets were about to fake their own death for almost a decade. Moreover, Golitsyn provided specific details and sequences, even naming the names of future leaders and the role they would play to make the whole thing look convincing. But I bet you have never read any of Golitsyn's books have you. Nor have you read any books by authors who support Golitsyn. So it is you who are coming across devoid of any substance. Why don't you put forward your version of what happened during the lead up to and after the "collapse" of Soviet Communism, and I promise you I will take your argument apart bit by bit, using open sources, until you realize that your argument has been reduced to the residual puddle it always was. Indeed, if I only proved you wrong on a single point, it would be an infinitely greater accomplishment than anything you have accomplished here. But don't worry, I will destroy your entire argument. There will be nothing left of it when I am finished with you. What do you say, Poohbah, ready to accept the challenge. Put up or shut up.
Pot, kettle, black. This stuff is almost a decade old!
You have never proved a single one of your so-called "counterarguments."
You haven't proven a single one of your arguments to begin with. Arm-waving with self-referential documents is not proof.
Everything I have posted is thoroghly footnoted so anyone can check the validity of ISWR's sources and come to their own conclusions.
Footnoting does not prove validity. Many of the footnotes are references to other documents produced by ISWR, and those documents in turn refer to other documents prepared by ISWR. In short, these articles are self-referential.
If, as the articles I posted clearly demonstrate, the Soviet Union really did fake its own collapse, it wouldn't matter if the article was published in 1994 or 2004.
That is the problem: the articles do not clearly demonstrate that.
You haven't clearly demonstrated a damn thing. Please do so before doing anything else.
Are you maintaining that the Soviets originally faked their own demise and then somehow lost control and collapsed for real after 1994?
I am asking you to prove your arguments. You have refused to do so. When pressed for additional information, you have provided one non-ISWR article...from a source of legendary non-credibility.
Moreover, Anatoly Golisyn predicted almost all of the changes in the "former" Soviet Union nearly 10 years before the events themselves (94% percent of them according to author Mark Riebling)
When a man like Golitsyn makes Kerryesque predictions (first one thing, then the opposite), he's going to be right a fair amount; all you have to do is ignore where he was wrong.
And perceptive observers of the USSR were few and far-between in the 1980s, being mostly recruited from an academia that regarded the USSR as a great, noble, and successful experiment.
I am unsurprised that Golitsyn got the events somewhat correct, although he got the underlying causes absolutely wrong. I knew people who'd been assigned to the embassy in Moscow in the 1970s and early 1980s (I was in the Marine Corps during the 1980s), and they openly wondered how in the hell the USSR kept itself from imploding. Answer: it didn't, in the long run.
Every other Soviet analyst was completely taken by surprise by the events leading to the USSR's "collapse."
Because they never understood the nature of the Communist system. The factory floor manager lied to the factory manager, who lied to the ministry representative. That much we understood. But we never understood until after things collapsed that the ministry representative lied to everyone above him, and so it went, right up to the Politburo.
So it is you who are coming across devoid of any substance.
You haven't provided anything except a bunch of self-referential articles with theses that are downright silly; the "proof" of the theses is in footnote references to other articles by the same entity.
You asserted; you must prove. You have failed to do so.
Why don't you put forward your version of what happened during the lead up to and after the "collapse" of Soviet Communism, and I promise you I will take your argument apart bit by bit, using open sources, until you realize that your argument has been reduced to the residual puddle it always was. Indeed, if I only proved you wrong on a single point, it would be an infinitely greater accomplishment than anything you have accomplished here. But don't worry, I will destroy your entire argument. There will be nothing left of it when I am finished with you. What do you say, Poohbah, ready to accept the challenge. Put up or shut up.
After you put up or shut up, good sir. Prove your arguments. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Provide said extraordinary proof, or go elsewhere.