[TheMilkMan]

(21)Editors Note:Sun Tzu,'The Art of War', c.500 BC: 'Pretend inferiority and encourage his [the enemy's] arrogance'. This instruction, part of the ancient Chinese tradition of conscious deviousness, is found in Sun Tzu under the heading 'Preliminary Calculations', or 'Estimates (or Appreciation) of the situation, implying advance 'reckoning' or 'calculations' ahead of conflict.

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[JCG]

Sorry, I think I'll stick with the "fallacies." It was Reagan's policies that brought the Soviet Union to its knees, not Gorbachev's.

Good riddance.

America's Fifth Column ... watch Steve Emerson/PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
New Link: Download 8 Mb zip file here (60 minute video)

Who is Steve Emerson?

[fourdeuce82d]

Ummm...do you believe this analysis still obtains? You are aware, of course, that this crap has to be at least a decade old, given the tenses of the sentences?

Is this a slam at the idiots who still proclaim the imminent danger of a resurgent CCCP? Or do you concur?

[WOSG]

This reads like Nazi propoganda from Goebbels in late 1944 - the whole Commie enterprise collapsed soon after this was penned. Perstroika was a stop-gap half-measure to get enough freedom for the Soviet Union to advance but not so mauch that the Govt collapsed --- ooops, plan didnt work..... Final score: Freedom & USA 1 , Communism & USSR 0.

I am with the "bunk" opinion of this.

[struwwelpeter]

Gorby's double program of "Glasnost" (openness) and "Perestroika" (reconstruction) were just desperate band-aids on the arterial hemorraging of the Soviet Union. Neither kept the empire alive, and if anything hastened its collapse.

During the Yeltsin years Gorby went into hibernation - either at his 4-room beach house south of Yalta or at his academic retreat in his western-funded "Gorbachev Institute" in Moscow. His influence is zip inside Russia, though he still has pull in Germany - enough to get his dying wife treated there. Even the word "perestroika" is frowned on - goverment and journalism preferring the russified english word "rekonstruktsiya".

During the days of Yeltsin Russia sank so low - its economy eclipsed by Denmark's - that one joke had Boris Nikolaevich stating "America... wanted to bring Russia to her knees... but they decided this was too expensive... and left her laying on her back."

Vladimir Putin may still be a bit of a cipher, but he has managed to pull Russia back from complete anarchy. A power vacuum that large with Islam to the south and China to the east would not help the US. The Soviet conspiracy you allude to, however, is not very likely. Though Russia might still pine for the center of the world stage, with its old military and scientific prowess, no one wants to go back to standing in line for cheap shoes.

[Porterville]

Wow, what a buch of cra#. What is the Ex-Soviet Union going to do??? Rage the next war against the US and an ever expanding Nato with the rusted beams of their ships??? Or beat the US and Nato by investing in all their ex-satellites??? Or a Billion Chinese??? Or the two insane dictators in Cuba and NKorea???

Reagan Whooped Sissy Socialist A$$

[spetznaz]

Interesting article. Actually quite interesting albeit for the fact that after all this years it seems that the hidden threat advocated by the writer does not seem to have happened. Thanks to Reagan's policies the USSR basically collapsed on itself. Reagan was basically just what the doctor ordered for the US due to his prudent acts (which required a lot of guts since before he came along the Soviets were actually ahead in a myriad of areas yet Reagan had the b@!!$ to do what was necessary even when certain parts of congress screamed and hollered).

Hence these 'fallacies' are, in my humble opinion, not fallacies but facts. The USSR is basically dead and buried, and it had been dead for quite some time ....it just had not realized it (just like a cockroach that gets its head chopped off yet remains alive for over a week). The system espoused by the Soviets just could not work, and it was essentially a matter of time before the whole system imploded under its own weight.

And do not get me wrong ....i am not saying the Soviets were no threat. Actually according to most delvings into the matter before Reagan took office the Soviets had a substantial military edge over the US. Some even say the US troops in Germany would have been overwhelmed by a Soviet thrust before they could do anything (i guess that is why nukes can be a good thing since it can make the other side think twice or thrice).

However when Reagan came in he basically shocked the Soviets into overspending! Whether it was through Reagan implementing such stuff as Starwars that made the Soviets shovel state funds into missile counter-measures .....or when the latest US hunter-killer submarines started coming out that were just deathly quiet (eg the LA class) and could shadow Soviet boomers (nuclear ballistic-missile subs) from the moment they left the port, and yet the Soviets were not able to reciprocate since the US subs were just too darn stealthy .....or even the lesser known but still important (when it comes to draining the coffers of Soviet money) case of the Buran! The Buran was the Soviet answer to the NASA Space Shuttle (it looks exactly like the Shuttle apart from instead of having a US flag it has the CCCP markings .....and as an aside the Soviets copied a lot of Western designs ranging from the Tu-144 which is a Concorde copy to even IR AAM designs .....one case that i found particularly interesting was when during the 60s some KGB agents managed to steal a SideWinder, in the 60s that was a big steal, and cut it into little pieces and send it to Moscow ....and the darn customs agents never wondered what the heck the cylinders sticking out were?)

Anyways back to the main point! Once Reagan came on line the USSR discovered that it could no longer match spending power with the US. After all the US was the largest capitalist nation in history, and the USSR was a floundering central economy! It was just a matter of time ....and when you add the Soviets trying to match submarine tech (i managed to retrieve a report that listed that particular area as one of the major areas that bled Soviet money as they tried to paly catch-up) and even the Buran (not as major as the Sub faux pas, but it dried up virtually all the money of the Soviet space program, just when Reagan's Star Wars was being yapped about and scarying every Communist general East of the GreenWich Meridian LOL).

Now Gorbachev implements Perestroika but by then it was just too darn late. End result: No more Soviet Union!

However today Russia has a great chance to re-invent itself, and it is doing so. In another 10 years the mention of the word 'Russia' may once again have a major clout and reverberence around the globe! Russia's economy is one of the fastest growing in the globe, and in most years since 1993 it has been the fastest. Even with the Mafiya (Russian Mafia) and the Oligarchs (like the behemoth Oneximbank) and their Semibankirschina (rule of 7 bankers where nepotism rules) the Russian economy has been booming! Even though the perception by most is that it is cash strapped it is actually growing quite fast ....and much better than the Zastoi (stagnation) of the Soviet era. And when it comes to the military there have been changes meant to make it leaner and more efficient. Most of the pictures of rotting rusting ships posted on FR are just of the obsolete ships being retired and moth-balled from the Black-Sea fleet! If you check you can notice that the Russians are actually churning otu new designs ranging from a new boomer sub to an advanced concept guided-missile hovercraft corvette (armed witht he equally new Yakhont missiles that have no analog in the world). However pics of such stuff never pop up here ....just the rusted shells of discrepit ex-Soviet ships.

However the important thing is that Russia is set to become one of the US's greates allies in the future. The whole Cold War 'I am gonna nuke ya if ya nuke me' era is dead and gone! Russia's best bet is to stick close to the US (although expect some occasional loggerheads over some stuff ....but nothing serious). And the US has a lot to gain from Russia due to things like its oil reserves and the fact that a strong Russia is a great deterrent to China if Beijing smokes too much Opium and decides to act foolishly!

And talking of China ....instead of wondering about Soviet stratagems that will never be people should be looking at China!

China will be the greatest threat to the US this century, both militarilly and economically. And while China is not yet a direct threat to the US (right now if they tried anything fishy we could still manage to nuke the heck out of them, and then have sufficient nukes left to nuke them all over again several dozen times) the main Chinese advantage is the way they have been stealing (or been given) US industry and secrets, and also their long-term patience (meaning they can wait until a Clintonesque president is elected and implements stupid policies). The Chinese basically have very protracted time-frames .....some ranging in half-centuries. With good POTUS' like GW this inherent danger is negated ....however inevitably a president like Clinton will be elected who seems more willing to help the Chinese that Americans, and hence the Chinese will get some extra 'aid' (maybe instead of nuclear warhead tech maybe this time they might get a next-generation US submarine).

Whooo ....let me stop. Basically this whole Soviet-stratagem thing is just a fallacy. The USSR is dead and gone, and Russia will be an ally not an adversary.

Now China on the other hand .....

[DarkWaters]

March 1989 memorandum to the CIA published in the 'Perestroika Deception' that Golitsyn hinted to the possibility that the Soviets would try to get a sympathizers to their point of view elected in the 1992 election. Sure enough we have Klinton via the China route.

Here are some following quotes:

For this reason, strategic objectives of Soviet political warfare include:

First of all, the neutralization of anti-Communist influence, especially the conservative parties, as an important factor in the political life of the United States, West Germany, France and Britain.

Secondly, securing the victory of the radical Left in the next presidential elections in 1992 in the United States and the victory of the Socialist and Labour parties in the national elections in West Germany, France and Britain in the 1990's. The Soviets plan to hold the International Conference on Human Rights in Moscow in 1991; and their keen interest in American participation in it is due to their desire to influence the outcome of the election in favor of the radical Left. In their assessment, the Left will be prepared to carry out and accelerate 'restructuring' in the United States.

The Soviet strategist believe that an economic depression in the United States would provide even more favorable condition for the execution of their strategy. In that event, the Soviets and their allies would shift to the doctrine of the class struggle and try to divide the Western nations along crude class lines.

The final period of 'restructuring in the United States and Western Europe would be accompanied, not only by the physical extermination of active anti-Communists, but also by the extermination of the political, military, financial and religious elites. Blood would be spilled and political re-education camps would be introduced. The Communists would not hesitate to repeat the mass repressions of their revolution in 1917, of the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe in the Second World War or of the Chinese Communist victory of 1949.

This time, they would resort to mass repressions in order to prevent any possibility of revolt by the defeated, and to make their victory final



From: The Perestroika Deception: the worlds slide towards the 'Second October Revolution' by Anatoliy Golitsyn page 34.

There is also reference to China’s help in this ‘restructuring’ on pages 35-36

[arthurus]

If these are all fallacies, and some of that may well be true, then the process of dissimulation got away from them. With JPII and RR and Maggie leaning into it, it all just crumbled. Golytsyn may well have been aware of plans for some sort of major deception when he defected but he would not know whether such plans were actually implemented or if, as is much more likely, Gorbachev reacted in the only way he could to stave off the collapse. Unfortunately for him, there was no successful way to do that.

[Orion78]

Here are some additional links on Golitsyn.

Russian and Chinese leaders face 3 centers of nuclear military power with which they have to deal.
Geopolitical Strategies of Russia, The 'Commonwealth of Independent States' and China
The Commies are coming, the Commies are coming...
The Specifics of Perestroika in China

See my homepage for more.

[Cyber Liberty]

Yes, I see it now. We've fallen for their diabolical plot. Who'd have thought that total governmental collapse was really just a clever ruse. I always thought it was just really bad toilet paper that made us different.

To think all those years in grammar school I was, in reality, putting the king-sized smack-down on those schoolyard bullies. I can't tell you how many knuckle's I've broken with my teeth, and how many knees I've dislocated with my groin.

As they say, we play checkers and the Soviets play chess. I guess we're screwed.

[Draakan]

"The Western elite believe they are helping the cause of democracy. In fact they are financing their own demise and digging their own graves. The tragedy is that they will probably not see it until it is too late."

The Western elite = Liberal/Socialist, Hollywood, and Main Stream Press, etc.


Couldn't said it better myself

[dfwgator]

Gorbachev should be on trial for ordering the massacre of 13 protesters in Vilnius in 1991.