| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
|
 Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2003 10:15 pm
Post subject: Foreign Policy |
 |
|
Is it possible to summarize which are the main ends of the governments (especially in relation to foreign people/countries) by type of society (DMS, Oligarchy,
Fundamentalist, Communism, Aristocratic, Dictatorship, Fascism, Tribal)? I know that you answered this question in relation to internal agenda, but what about foreign
agenda?
Thanks in advance
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
|
Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2003 1:38 pm
Post subject: Re: Foreign Policy |
|
|
Another good question Panderson. I have spent a lot of time pondering the foreign policy of various countries, but this is the first time that I have ever sat down to write about it.
Most tribal societies were fairly reclusive. They did a relatively small amount of intertribal trading. Aside from that they did not engage in much peaceful intercourse with unrelated tribes. They often raided other tribes to steal women or cattle. Much less often they found it necessary to expand into another tribe’s land or even find an entire new homeland for themselves. This could lead to an all out offensive and ethnic cleansing to take the other tribes territory. Unknown strangers were generally unwelcome. They might be scouts from a powerful tribe that was looking for good land to seize. Of course, there were exceptions to these general rules.
Aristocratic rulers were always trying to increase the amount of land and peasants that they owned. This could be done by marriage or by conquest. The marriages of a ruler’s children were one of the most important matters of state. They were always arranged and were the subject of intense discussion and negotiation. In the 15th and 16th centuries the Habsburg family gained control over much of Europe and most of Latin America through a series of very successful marriages.
Powerful dynasties often used foreign policy to try to isolate weaker neighbors and set them up for conquest. Less powerful rulers used foreign policy to search for allies that would help them to remain independent. In 19th century Europe this became a kind of real life chess game that was played by men like Talleyrand, Metternich, and Bismarck.
Early stage oligarchic society is much like aristocratic society. Countries that were strong enough often tried to conquer neighbors or empires.
They played Great Power games and balance of power games. Just a century ago this was thought to be very important. In reality it was all very transitory. Their empires could not possibly last. Millions of men gave up their lives for dreams of glory and conquest, but all of their empires have turned into dust.
Foreign policy since World War II is extremely interesting. In my opinion it is some kind of Alice in Wonderland fantasy. It never ceases to amaze me how so many bright people can be so wrong about what is going on in the world. From 1945 to 1989 most people thought that there was some kind of titanic struggle between the forces of capitalism and the forces of communism for control of the world. In reality it was all a myth, a gigantic misunderstanding.
Here for the first time is the real story of what has been going on in the world since World War II. Many readers will have a hard time believing me. All I can say to them is check it out. The data is available. The problem is that it has always been misinterpreted. It is long past time for scholars to reinterpret the evidence. Here is what has really been happening in the world.
It all started in 1945 and 1946. The Germans had tried to conquer an empire that would include large parts of the Soviet Union. They had failed and been defeated, mostly by Russian troops, but with significant help from the West. Now Germany was occupied by the victorious allies. A major problem quickly developed. There was a difference of opinion between the Russians and the Western allies over how the defeated Germans should be treated.
German actions in the Soviet Union had been extremely brutal. Their policy was to kill all communists and most of the educated population. The Russians were to be reduced to the status of serfs whose job was to serve their new German masters. But the Russians were victorious and now they wanted revenge. They wanted a deindustrialized Germany that could never again threaten the Russian people.
The Western allies had a completely different policy. They believed that the Germans had learned their lesson, and that the country should be rehabilitated and allowed to become a modern democratic nation. Germany was the prime industrial heartland of Western Europe. If it remained impoverished, it would be very difficult for Europe to flourish. The Western allies wanted to use a prosperous, capitalist Germany as a bulwark against communism in Europe. Needless to say, there were constant arguments between the them and the Soviets about this policy that became more and more acrimonious.
In March 1948 the Western powers began to unify their zones of control, reestablish the Deutsche Mark, and begin the process of forming a new democratic German government. The Russians were violently opposed to this. They would not allow any such thing in their zone of control, and tried to prevent it in the west. They did this by establishing the Berlin Blockade.
Western opinion completely misinterpreted this event. It was believed that the Russians were trying to conquer Europe for communism, starting with Berlin. The West believed that the Soviet Union was trying to destroy capitalism in Europe and keep the continent impoverished so that the people would turn to communism. I do not see any direct evidence for this view. The Soviet Union did not mobilize its military for any offensive military action. They did not send any saboteurs to destabilize capitalist society in any Western European country. They simply wanted to make sure that there would never again be a powerful, unified Germany.
All of this has to be understood within the context of the time. Many people blamed capitalism for World War II. They also blamed it for World War I, the Great Depression, imperialism, and all the world’s problems. Communism was something of a world wide fad at the time. It had swept through most of the world’s universities; it was adopted by many of the world’s trade unions, and it was accepted by very large numbers of the exploited people in the colonial world.
In the late 1940s half of the world thought that communism was an idea whose time had come. Capitalism was believed to be bankrupt. The exploited people of the world thought that communism was the wave of the future. The Soviet Union was not responsible for this belief. Yes, it was communist. Yes, it supported communists around the world. But it did so in a legitimate and nonviolent way.
At least half the people in Greece, Italy, and France were socialists or communists, but not because the Russians told them to be. It was their own idea. It was the result of their own belief that capitalism was not benefiting them, and that it was time for a change.
The country that was the least receptive to communism was the United States. Americans were relatively pleased with capitalism and could not understand why so much of the world was opposed to it. It is very common for people to accept a simple explanation, even when it is wrong, rather than try to understand a much more complex reality. Conservative commentators claimed that the Soviet Union was trying to conquer the world for communism, and that all communist insurgencies began in Moscow. The half of the world that was anti-communist accepted this argument, including most Americans.
The Berlin Blockade was cited as an example of communist aggression. The Russian occupation of Central Europe was cited as another example. What were the Soviets supposed to do? Over one million Russian soldiers had just been killed battling the fascist armies in Central Europe. (See the forum thread: What countries made up the Axis Powers?) The elite families in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and other states of the region were still virulently anti-communist. Were the Russians supposed to just leave and allow fascist governments to return? If Stalin had evacuated Central Europe, the entire Russian population would have been outraged.
In 1949 the communist revolution seized control in China. For the next thirty years, Chinese propaganda screamed insults at the evil American imperialists. This was partly because the U.S. had given massive aid to anti-communist forces in the Chinese civil war. It was also partly because they were using America as a boogie man, a source of all evil. The early stages of the modern revolution are often a very emotional time. It is very common for the advocates of one path of development to choose a symbol of the alternate path and go on and on about how super evil it is.
The Americans did not like being called evil. German and Japanese wartime propaganda had also used that term. The Americans thought of this Chinese communist propaganda as something like a declaration of war. In fact it was no such thing. It was primarily intended for the domestic Chinese audience. The United States quickly got into the spirit of the times and began referring to the Russians and Chinese as the evil forces of global communism.
In 1950 the North Koreans launched their invasion of South Korea. This was solely and only an attempt to reunify the Korean nation, but that is not the way that the Americans saw it. All available documents from this period are unanimous in showing that Washington really believed that this was the opening gambit of an all out Russian and Chinese communist attack on the free world. American reinforcements were quickly rushed to Western Europe to engage the coming Soviet assault that was expected in the immediate future.
I find this to be absolutely stupefying and mind boggling. Yes, the N. Koreans were using Russian military equipment. Yes, Stalin had given reluctant permission for the reunification attempt. But that was all. There was no discussion in the Soviet Union about any requirement to attack the West. There was no intention, no preparation, and no reason. Just eight years earlier half of Russia had been devastated by the Germans. In 1950 the recovery and rebuilding program was only half completed. The very last thing that the Russians wanted was another major war. No one could do a serious study of the Soviet Union and not realize this.
All of this has been definitely confirmed. In the early 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the official state archives were opened to selected historians. There is nothing in them about any offensive attack on Western Europe or the United States, not in 1950, not in 1960, not in 1970, not at anytime. It is absolutely incredible that the United States government ever believed that the Russians were planning to launch a surprise attack on the rest of the world to impose communism. (See the forum thread “Cuban Missile Crisis” for more about this subject.)
The United States did go to the defense of South Korea. It was certainly our right to defend a friendly country that was under attack. Then, General Douglas MacArthur insisted on continuing the war to eliminate North Korea. The Chinese warned the U.S. many times that they would not tolerate American troops on their border. MacArthur ignored the warnings and kept pushing north. This resulted in the Chinese intervention, which led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans and a million Chinese. This did not have to happen.
The terrible tragedy of the Vietnam War did not have to happen. The nuclear arms race did not have to happen. Supporting brutal and corrupt third world dictators just because they were anti-communist like Mobutu Sese Seko in the Congo did not have to happen. The United States provided massive support to the Shah of Iran long after the vast majority of his own people wanted to get rid of him. This was done because the CIA wanted to use mountaintop listening posts in Iran that overlooked Russian missile testing
ranges. This has caused no end of trouble between Iran and the United States for the last 25 years. It should never have happened. The CIA sent saboteurs to destabilize communist countries or insurgencies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This amounted to state sponsored terrorism, and it should not have happened.
In the 1980s a Reagan administration staffer wore a tee shirt to work that said: Frankly, I’d rather be killing communists. In the 1970s he was in Africa doing exactly that. No Russian or Chinese ever went out killing capitalists for the sheer joy of it. But Americans believed that it was a great thing to go around the world hunting and killing communists. In many places they killed socialists, leftists, pinkos, and any shade of non-capitalist. This is incredible.
Anyone who has read this web site knows that communist economics and ideology are faulty, but that is no reason to treat communists the way the Nazis treated Jews. The communists in Afghanistan were mostly idealistic young people who wanted to use science and central planning to push their country into the future as quickly as possible. They fought against the warlords, tribal leaders, and religious leaders who represented the traditional establishment. Well, now they are all dead, and the warlords, tribal leaders, and religious leaders are in control. Is Afghanistan any better off?
Communism is a product of social change and the modern revolution. It only appears in early stage oligarchic societies. This is always a violent period in any country’s history. Communism is a militant form of socialism. It does not shrink from violence. Communists have executed aristocrats, oligarchs, tribal leaders, and religious leaders. Their ideology is a dead end. But they are a legitimate part of the modern revolution. Everywhere that they gained control, it was with the support of a majority of the population.
After World War II the Jewish refugees from the death camps in Europe decided that they must have a nation-state of their own and that it must be located in their ancient homeland of Palestine. I understand their plight, but in the modern world you can’t just throw an entire people out of their homes and take their land. That is what happened, and it has led to a massive foreign policy disaster for the United States.
Palestine was already occupied by the Palestinians. They had no desire to share their country with the European Jews. In 1945 their were already about 300,000 Jews living in Palestine. They had been slowly immigrating from Europe, often illegally. It was quite plain that they were not wanted. There had been numerous gun battles between the Palestinians and the newcomers ever since the 1920s.
The Jewish refugees adopted the point of view that the Palestinians were not a legitimate nationality because they have never had a sovereign independent state. This was true. In 1945, before the breakup of the colonial empires, it also applied to almost half of the world. As far as the Jews were concerned, the Palestinians were simply Arabs. Let them go live in some other Arab state.
The Jews began a terrorist campaign against the British colonial power and forced them out of the territory in 1948. The Jews immediately declared the existence of the sovereign state of Israel, which was then attacked by five Arab countries: Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. When a cease-fire was negotiated, the Egyptians held the Gaza Strip, the Jordanians controlled the West Bank, and Israel held the rest of Palestine.
The United States had supplied only a modest amount of covert military aid to the Israelis, but it was very pleased with the emergence of an independent Israel. The existence of Israel solved the Jewish problem, but it created the Palestinian problem.
Most Palestinians fled from the Israeli area of control to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Jews claim that this was a voluntary exodus. The Palestinians claim that they were forced out. Neither side has ever documented or substantiated their claim. It is difficult to believe that the Palestinians simply left without any acts of coercion on the part of the Israelis.
In the years following the 1948 war, the United States clearly supported Israel but also tried to maintain good relations with the Arab states. It pretty much ignored the Palestinians, as did most of the world. In the 1950s the Arab states turned to the Soviet Union for military aid. This caused the United States to become more open in its support of Israel.
More wars followed between Israel and the Arab states in 1956, 1967, and 1973. Israel was victorious. In 1967 it seized control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians have never had an organized army and played almost no role in any of these wars. In the last 30 years the Arab states have pretty much given up the fight. Since the return of Sinai to Egypt and the Israeli withdraw from Lebanon, only Syria still suffers from the loss of land to Israel, the Golan Heights.
This has left the Palestinians without much support in the fight to regain their homes. Half of them still live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the other half have become dispersed in the neighboring Arab states and around the world. The Palestinians have never accepted the loss of their homeland. In the late 1960s they began to form guerrilla organizations to fight Israel. Since they do not have a country or an army, they have no other way to fight except sending small numbers of gunman or individuals with bombs to kill Israelis. The United States and Israel call these terrorist attacks. The Arab and Islamic world calls them freedom fighters.
This difference in interpretation is causing a massive problem because the United States has become involved in another conflict with the Arab world. Most Arab states are still at the beginning and most difficult stage of the modern revolution. Many are still ruled by aristocrats. Others are ruled by oligarchs who control most of the wealth and show little interest in economic development and sharing power with the population.
This is an extremely common situation. Most countries have gone through this stage of development. It is often very long, very difficult, and very violent. The United States says that it wants democratic reforms in the Middle East, but it does not want chaos, violence, and dictatorship. This is very understandable. Much of the world is dependent on Middle Eastern oil. Democratic development with peace, stability, and security would be a great thing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.
The modern revolution will eventually result in prosperous market economies and democratic governments throughout the Arab world. But it is a long, difficult, and violent process. It was a violent experience in the United States. It was very violent in Europe, and it is a violent process in the Middle East. There is nothing that the United States or the Arab people can do to prevent that. The insertion of Israel into the area has made it more violent.
The American attempt to interfere in the Middle East and prevent the natural course of revolution, which includes dictators and war, has turned some of that violence against the United States. This situation has gone from bad to worse. If the United States understood the modern revolution it is possible that it might be able to use its power and wealth to do some good. Unfortunately, it is clear that American policy makers do not have a clue. They are increasing the problems and the violence, not alleviating them.
The Arab world is in the early stage of oligarchic development. This usually means that an oligarchic class, which is often made up of a combination of aristocrats and wealthy capitalists, is running a market economy primarily for its own benefit. The common people are left to stew in their poverty. The ordinary people do not like this. They tend to look for some alternative method of development that will do away with the oligarchic class. In much of the world the common people turned to socialism and communism. A few countries turned to fascism. In the Arabic Middle East, many people have turned to Islamism.
Because the United States does not understand the modern revolution, and refuses to learn from history, it has no idea what is going on. It thinks that the Islamist movement is some kind of weird and violent religious cult and calls them terrorists, just like it calls the Palestinian freedom fighters terrorists. In American minds terrorists are evil, just like communists and dictators are evil. The United States is now determined to destroy this evil.
The United States and its Israeli allies have seized Arab land, destroyed numerous Arab armies, and dropped tens of thousands of bombs on the Arab people. This has made the majority of Arabs absolutely livid with anger. In response an Arab group called Al Qaeda has launched a half dozen attacks against the United States. One of these destroyed the World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon, and killed about 4000 Americans.
In its self-righteous anger the United States now has hundreds of thousands of soldiers, CIA, and FBI agents scouring the Middle East to kill terrorists, Islamists, and a revolutionary dictator. This entire development is highly reminiscent of the Cold War, except that the communists never retaliated directly against the United States.
What will happen next? Most Americans think that their tough talking president and high technology military are getting the Middle East under control. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Most of the Arab world and Afghanistan are still in the early stages of the modern revolution. It will be a long time before there are prosperous
economies and democratic governments. There will be more violence, revolution, civil war, and dictatorships.
No country has ever liked being occupied and ruled by a foreign power. This includes Iraq. Whatever goodwill came from removing a brutal dictator will soon be gone. American soldiers on patrol in Iraq will suffer more and more casualties until they are forced to leave.
The Palestinian problem will not be solved until there is a viable and sovereign nation of Palestine. The Roadmap for Peace does not seem to include any such thing. It will fail. There are those who say that the militant Palestinians are not interested in a country of their own, they only want to destroy Israel. This is a load of nonsense that is only intended to obscure the real problem.
It is difficult to predict how much success Islamism will have in the Arab world. In Iran, government by the Mullahs was used to stabilize a very chaotic revolutionary situation. In 25 years of rule they have enforced law and order and created the conditions necessary for the market economy to continue to develop. Government by fundamentalist religious clerics, however, does have its limitations. Iran has progressed about as far as it can go under these conditions.
The Iranian people, especially the young, are now demanding more freedom, more democracy, and more economic opportunity. This is just about the best possible outcome that any revolutionary movement can have. I hope to God that the United States does not do anything to screw it up. Whether or not Islamism could perform as well in the more difficult revolutionary situation of the Arab world is presently unknown.
Why has the United States engaged in this kind of foreign policy where it goes around the world interfering in everyone else’s revolutionary experience? There are so many possible reasons and combinations of reasons that it is very difficult to sort this out. Most Americans would say that we do it in the interest of freedom, democracy, and peace. Since our actions have led to more violence rather than less, It is difficult to substantiate this motive.
We could look to see who benefits from a policy of military intervention around the world. Certainly the generals and the military industrial complex benefit. But they do not have nearly enough power in the United States to arrange it.
Many top politicians have told the American voters that countries X, Y, and Z are our enemies and they are coming to attack us with horrible weapons, but elect me as president and I will defend you. This scam has been used over and over again with a great deal of success. Harry Truman used it in 1948. “Give em hell Harry” was a campaign slogan that referred to his tough talk against the Soviet Union.
Richard Nixon used this strategy in every election that he ever ran in. In 1960 however the scam was turned against him when John Kennedy ran against the fictitious “Missile Gap” with the Soviet Union. Barry Goldwater tried to use this strategy in 1964, but it was a rare failure.
Ronald Reagan used this con most successfully of all in 1980 and 1984. He claimed that the United States was far behind the overwhelming military might of the Soviet Union, and it was imperative that he be elected so that he could buy trillions of dollars worth of weapons and redress the balance. Then when an antiquated and impoverished Soviet Union finally folded in 1991, the Reaganites said it was because their arms build up had forced the Russians into bankruptcy trying to keep up. What nonsense.
This scam has most recently been used by the Bush administration. In 2002 they campaigned on the platform that the Democrats were a bunch wimps who could not protect America from the Arab terrorists. Then President Bush highly exaggerated the threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and used this issue to start a war. It turned out that Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction and was not a threat to the United States.
So many American politicians have falsely claimed that evil dictators were about to attack the United States that this seems like a good explanation for all the unnecessary military adventures and foreign interventions. But when you take a close look at the American electorate, you have to wonder. Many constituencies are so eager to support a strong military that whichever candidate tells the biggest lies to justify more Pentagon spending is the one that will win. Are the politicians conning the people into believing that we are in danger, or are the voters forcing the politicians to tell outrageous lies in order to win?
Ever since World War II the American people have had a thing about evil dictators. The great lesson of the war was supposed to be that dictators are evil, and they will attack the United States if we don’t get them first. Americans are not alone in believing this. Throughout the Cold War half the world strongly supported America’s campaign to kill communists. It is only in the last year that much of the world is starting to wonder if the United States is going too far with its military adventures.
The truth is that human brains are hard wired with a highly developed instinct for paranoia. There is always someone around who shouts out: “those evil foreign bastards are out to get us.” Then everyone nods in agreement and votes for military action. There may have been a time when fear of strangers and a healthy sense of paranoia were useful for survival. In the modern world these instincts are causing way too much trouble.
There is only one way to defeat paranoia. That is through knowledge and understanding of what is actually happening in the world. The necessary knowledge and understanding can only be achieved through a careful, unbiased, scientific study of history. The data that can tell us what is going on is very complicated and easy to misinterpret. We need thousands of highly qualified scholars to work together to examine all the relevant historical data, develop theories and explanations, weed out the errors and inconsistencies, and figure out what is really happening.
Unfortunately, the present history establishment is not up to the task. Their failure to do their job properly has allowed paranoia to run rampant in the world. The scholars have abdicated their responsibility. This has left the way open for hate mongers such as Rush Limbaugh and others like him to explain the world to the public. The result is unnecessary death and destruction added on top of the normal and inevitable violence that is part of the modern revolution. Woe unto us all. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2003 2:58 pm
Post subject: Re: Foreign Policy |
|
|
Thanks for the answer and sorry for the delay
But ... Wasn't USSR specular to USA?
1)What about failed invasion of Poland in 1920?
2)What about Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact?
3)What about aggression on Finland in 1939?
4)Wasn't the Berlin blockade a direct provocation?
5)Wasn't Soviet involvement in Afghanistan like US involvement in Vietnam?
6)Wasn't Warsaw PACT superior to NATO in conventional weapons (much more divisions)?
Bye
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2003 1:34 pm
Post subject: Re: Foreign Policy |
|
|
Hi panderson, I don’t know what you mean by specular, but can address the rest of your questions.
1. During the Russian civil war of 1919-1920, one of the White armies was operating from the Russian-Polish border with support from the West through Poland. As the Red armies gained the upper hand they chased the anti-communist Whites into Poland and kept going.
There were at least two other issues. Poland had ruled Byelorussia for centuries. Most all the land was owned by Polish Catholic aristocrats while the peasants were Russian speaking Orthodox serfs. This continued to be true even when Russia ruled Poland. The Czars apparently felt that the Polish aristocrats were less of a problem than Russian aristocrats. The communist thought differently and wanted to liberate the Byelorussian serfs.
Beyond that the communists hoped that the Polish peasants and all of Eastern Europe would join the communist revolution. It did not happen, and the Red army, at the time largely cavalry, was not nearly strong enough to defeat the newly independent Poles who were armed with French World War I surplus weapons. The Red army was thrown back and Byelorussia remained under Polish control until 1939.
2. In 1939 the Russians knew that they would have to fight the Germans sooner or later, but they preferred later so they signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It makes sense to me.
3. Stalin invaded Finland in late 1939. He wanted to push the border back from Leningrad about 30 miles. He probably also wanted the Russian army to get some modern combat experience. The war was not justifiable, but it was not an all out attack on Finland or the West either. At first it was a disaster but after throwing in 200,000 troops he finally managed to beat the 30,000 man Finnish army and push back the border.
4. Yes, the Berlin blockade was a direct provocation. In 1943 Stalin had asked the United States what we thought post war Germany should look like. We sent back a scheme called the Morgenthau Plan, which described a totally demilitarized, deindustrialized Germany which would be reduced to a harmless agricultural nation. The Russians liked it and completely agreed.
Then in 1947 we began to rebuild Germany, including their industry and army. We hoped that the new Germany would be a bulwark against communism in Europe. The Russians were totally appalled. They considered it to be a betrayal and a direct provocation against them. They hollered and screamed and banged the table at the joint allied ruling council. The Americans, British, and French ignored their protests.
The Russians did not want to start a war, but they most certainly did want to stop the process of rebuilding a modern Germany. They looked for a more forceful way to protest and came up with the idea of blockading Berlin. This was done by placing barricades on the roads and railroads. They did not mobilize their army or prepare to fight. They had no intention of invading and conquering Berlin. They simply wanted to apply pressure to stop the rebuilding of Germany.
The Americans went ballistic. Washington claimed that the evil communist aggressors were beginning their campaign to conquer Europe. They knew that it was a lie. The Russians had made their position crystal clear, but Truman saw political advantages in opposing the evil Russians for the 1948 elections. The rest is history.
5. Russian involvement in Afghanistan was similar in some ways and different in other ways from Vietnam. The Afghanistan communists were progressive modernizers. They asked the Russians many times to support their takeover of the country. The Russians always said no, that it was too soon for such a bold step. In 1976 the Afghan communists went ahead and launched a coup anyway and took control of Kabul. The Russians tried to stay as aloof as possible.
The Afghan communists decreed many modern reforms. One of them was to insist that all village schools should admit girls. This was too much for the conservative village and religious leaders. They mobilized their supporters and began killing communists, including Russian diplomats.
Afghanistan was right on the border of the Soviet Union. Communist schoolteachers, officials, and supporters were being massacred. The country was dissolving into civil war. The violence was spilling over into Soviet Central Asia. What were the Russians supposed to do, sit by and watch? In 1979 the Russians decided to intervene and sent in their army. It turned into a Russian Vietnam. The Russians were defeated and the conservative warlords, tribal leaders, and religious leaders gained control and started fighting each other.
The Americans proclaimed a great victory over international communist aggression. I say the communist defeat was a tragedy for Afghanistan and the West. The result was the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
6. Oleg and I had had a discussion about the relative strength of NATO and the Warsaw Pact a year ago. I believe that the Russian military in Central Europe was an occupation army that was never capable of launching a successful attack against the West. He disagreed. Both of us were speculating about something that never happened. What we now know for sure is that the Russians never planned to launch an attack against Western Europe.
I realize that the above explanation is contrary to the conventional wisdom. I have spent most of my life researching the available data. In my opinion the conventional wisdom is wrong. Scholars should have realized that it was wrong a long time ago. Unfortunately, history is not a science and was unable to arrive at the truth. The whole world has suffered because of this.
A while ago you asked about Victor Davis Hanson. I was unfamiliar with his work. I have since read two of his books, “The Western Way of War” and “Carnage and Culture”. I am willing to discuss them if you would like.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2003 4:01 pm
Post subject: Re: Foreign Policy |
|
|
All right but ...
1. "So is it right to say that before WW2 soviets really wanted to conquer the world or at least Europe?"
2. "But wasn't Stalin catched completely unprepared by 1941 invasion?"
3. After Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Soviet Union annexed Baltics. Finland before revolution was owned by Russia. Stalin asked Viipuri (finnish N°2 or N*3 city) and Mannerheim line. If Finland didn't fight maybe Stalin was going to annex Finland too. Finnish people were right to be suspicious.
4 "But weren't Americans morally right to let Germany rebuild economically and resist to Soviet pressures?"
5. "But wasn't better for USSR to not intervene (like USA in IRAQ now)? They surely weren't welcomed by Afghans"
6. "Why WP had more divisions and tanks than NATO? Weren't they expensive?"
7 Were Soviet intervention in Budapest or Prague morally justifiable?
8 Wasn't there a race between the two superpowers to control Third world countries and their resources?
9 To summarize: weren't Soviets quite aggressive? Wasn't prudent to contain them?
Bye Mr.Naurer and thank you really much
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2003 1:30 am
Post subject: Re: Foreign Policy |
|
|
1. No, it is not right to say that the Soviet Union wanted to invade and conquer any significant part of Europe. Communism was a militant form of socialism. From the very beginning communist thinkers assumed that it would require violence for the great proletarian revolution to be successful. The communists preached the violent overthrow of early stage oligarchic states. The state power structure responded with violence toward the communists. It is certainly true that communism is closely associated with political violence and civil war.
The question is, did the Soviet Union ever envision a communist army aggressively attacking capitalist states for the purpose of forcing them to accept a communist form of economy and government? The answer is no. No communist thinker ever wrote about such a thing. No orator ever spoke about it. No conference ever discussed it. The concept of conquering for communism never had any place in communist ideology.
The communists believed that class warfare underlay the history of every nation. This was, after all, a period of class warfare. They believed that the ruling and capitalist class would never be much more than 10 percent of the population. The exploited working class would always be 80 to 90 percent of the population. Communism would gain control in any given country when the working class proletariat finally stood up and demanded it. Struggling communist parties in emerging nations might benefit from advice and encouragement, but they should never get the idea that a foreign army would do their job for them.
The leaders of the Soviet Union were in general agreement that this is the way that communism should take over the world. Central Europe, however, was a different matter. Napoleon had invaded Russia through Poland. The Kaiser had invaded Russia through Poland. Hitler had invaded Russia through Poland and Romania. Enough was enough, and this was too much. At the end of World War II the Russians were in occupation of Central Europe and they decided to stay there as long as there was a threat of invasion from the West.
2. Yes, all reports say that the Russians were unprepared for the German invasion. This is a paradox. All historians of Eastern Europe in the 1930s say that Stalin knew he would have to fight Hitler sooner or later. All historians say that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was intended to delay such a war. Then on June 22, 1941 Stalin is surprised. I also am perplexed, but I can not argue with the historians. I have read their data and arguments and it all makes perfect sense to me. It would seem that somehow Hitler pulled a fast one on Stalin.
3. Viipuri was not one of Stalin’s initial demands, although it was part of the final settlement. The Finns were right to be suspicious, and they were right to fight. You can’t just give a piece of your country away
to any foreigner who demands it. I don’t know what Stalin’s motive was. He called it rectifying the border. He got a few thousand square kilometers of mostly uninhabited forest and a mostly abandoned city. He also got some much needed training for his army.
4. Yes, I agree. Europe needs a strong and wealthy Germany. It doesn’t bother me that the West ignored Russia’s protest. It doesn’t bother me that they refused to give in, or that they pushed the Berlin Airlift to a successful conclusion. It does bother me that they lied about what the Soviets were trying to accomplish.
5. With 20/20 hindsight I think most Russians would agree that the intervention in Afghanistan was a bad idea.
6. Communist industry has always shown itself to be slow to change and adapt. Another problem is that it only produces what the state tells it to. Governments often want weapons. Don’t ask me to explain this, ask the Pentagon. The Soviet Union geared up for massive tank production during World War II. After the war those factories scaled back some, but kept on producing tanks. Anyone who is familiar with communist industry is not surprised. They could not produce consumer goods. The communists have always failed there.
7. In occupied Central Europe the Soviets did not claim to be morally right. They just insisted on maintaining the occupation. This attitude increased American opposition to communism. American belligerence then increased the Soviets determination to maintain the occupation. Morality has had little to do with history. Unintended consequences are much more common.
8. Was there a race between the two superpowers to control the third world and its resources? Many Western and Soviet leaders probably thought along these lines at least part of the time. I think that it mostly just gave both sides an excuse to beat their chests and carry on with what they already wanted to do, which was to squabble about who had the most balls and the biggest missal. Natural resources are sold to the highest bidder. Who has the biggest missal has nothing to do with it.
9. I have looked for signs of this much talked about “Soviet aggression”, and I have not found them. They occasionally supported other communist parties with weapons and money. They almost never sent Russian armies to invade. I have the advantage of 20/20 hindsight. I have studied history very intensively, especially the modern revolution. I think that I understand it, and that communism had a rather limited but potentially benign role to play. China used communism very successfully as part of its capitalist revolution.
The Western World did not understand the mechanics of the modern revolution. They did not know what communism was all about or what it would do. Recent historical models had included fascism and imperialism. They had every right to be wary. I do not criticize Western cold warriors for their opposition to communism. I criticize them for taking it to extreme levels, and for their one sided blindness and insistence that they were pure good and communism was pure evil.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2003 12:04 pm
Post subject: Re: Foreign Policy |
|
|
Just few more questions ....
1. " Struggling communist parties in emerging nations might benefit from advice and encouragement, but they should never get the idea that a foreign army would do their job for them."
Why this pacifist attitude? What about Lenin/Trozki dispute?
3. Many Finns say that they remained indipendent in 1939 (and in 1944) because they earned Stalin's respect (it was too costly to subdue them).
9. Many say that there wasn't Soviet aggression because there was NATO counterweight... Wasn't easy for Soviet leaders to divert inner dissent against an external enemy? What about Kruscev's "We will bury you" at ONU assembly?
Thanks again.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2003 8:32 pm
Post subject: Re: Foreign Policy |
|
|
1. The communists were not pacifist, but they mostly believed that the proletariat of each country had the responsibility for liberating themselves. Personal battles for leadership of the party were something else. Communist ideology did not discuss them either, but they happened.
3. I am not surprised that many Finns feel this way. But I have not seen any evidence that Stalin wanted to conquer Finland. I haven’t seen any evidence that he wanted to conquer anything, except his own people.
9. If the Soviet Union had been an aggressive expansionist country, we would have no trouble finding evidence to demonstrate that. There would have to be thousands of bits of data in speeches, memoirs, policy statements, military mobilizations, and combat training.
Throughout the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s the Russian army in Europe looked and acted like an army of occupation. Its duties were primarily to sit on and control the local population. When armies of occupation go into real combat, they have a poor record. Check out the fighting quality of the British military in Malaysia, Burma, and India in December 1941.
It is theoretically possible to keep an occupation army sharp during long years of peace, but it is not easy. It requires regular, large scale maneuvers, live fire exercises, and continuous diligence to keep the troops from becoming complacent. For effective combat readiness, the best solution is to fight regular practice wars, such as the Nazis did in the Spanish Civil War.
The Pentagon fought many practice wars and maneuvers during this time. They include Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Granada, Panama, etc. Aside from a brief campaign in Hungary the Russians fought only in Afghanistan. I just don’t see any serious effort to keep the Russian army in Europe combat ready. I don’t see any other data that points to an aggressive Soviet Union. I therefore conclude that they were not aggressive.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 5:08 am
Post subject: Re: Foreign Policy |
|
|
| very impressive.i am afraid much of the present violence and mess is due to unfounded american suspicion and fear .of russia. their intervention in afghanistan,arming the talibans is responsible for the insurgency in the punjab and j&k. in fact the creation of both pakistan and israel are at the root of allconflicts in south asia and the middle east.it is the moral and political responsibility of america and its allies to guaruntee peace in the region.it is sad that a peaceloving country like india has become the worst sufferer.the west should have the ability to distinguish between sincere friends and opportunists.--- hmjoshi |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Joined: 01 Dec 2007
Posts: 1
|
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 9:07 pm
Post subject: Middle East Conflict |
|
|
What do you think of Obadiah Shoher's views on the Middle East conflict? One can argue, of course, that Shoher is ultra-right, but his followers are far from being a marginal group. Also, he rejects Jewish moralistic reasoning - that's alone is highly unusual for the Israeli right. And he is very influential here in Israel. So what do you think?
uh, here's the site in question: [url=http://samsonblinded.org/blog]Middle East conflict[/url]
Last edited by AlexHertz on Thu Dec 06, 2007 6:13 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Joined: 16 Sep 2007
Posts: 7
Location: Ann Arbor, MI |
Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 12:37 am
Post subject: |
|
|
| Hi Alex, I would be very happy to discuss the the ideas of Obadiah Shoher, but this is not the right place for it. Please start a new thread on the current forum where it will be easy for everyone to find. And please include a few lines about Obadiah in your question. Most people have never heard of him. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
