Abstract: Putin is going to war for exactly the exact same socio-economic reason as Adolf Hitler: total failure. So he will not stop, until all is consummated.
Putin’s plutocratic society has turned into a dictatorship. His economy, weakened by militarization and corruption, is failing. That decay is on a collision course with his self-admitted personal addiction to power. A difference with Hitler: oil and gas (Russia is the first producer, with the USA; Hitler had none and depended upon American and Russian oil until 1941). Faced with fascism again, having learned a bit from history, with higher stakes, this time the so called “democracies” are rallying in a more timely manner.
In September 1939, France attacked Hitler to help Poland. Alone, France was, and condemned by the presidency and Congress of the USA. This time, it’s completely different. The USA is on the frontlines, joining an increasingly serious NATO. France is sending to Poland and the Baltic republics one hundred of her lethal, nuclear capable Rafales active stealth jets:
Serious Business: Rafale Carrying Six Beyond Visual Range Infra Red Missiles &, On Its Belly A 300 Kiloton H Bomb Capable Of Making 600 Kilometers In 8 Minutes. Sent To Poland.
Both with the European Union, and NATO, attack against one is attack against all. Taken literally Putin has said he wanted to reconstitute the Czars’ evil empire. Submitting to Putin, means, for starters, sending people to be abused in concentration camps for homosexuality, opinions, and insulting the Church. Pluto’s reign: even Putin’s generals are billionaires.
[I would suggest that the USA sent anti-ballistic missile ships, in the Baltic, as the Kremlin has made nuclear threats from its occupied territory around the ancient German city of Konigsberg.]
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SOCIALIST WARNING TO PLUTO PUTIN:
The French Republic is controlled by the Socialist Party, and, officially, 57% of its GDP is state (although an economist on this site, D. Deux said the real number is lower). France can hardly be called a Wall Street, or NATO puppet.
100 French supersonic active stealth fighter-bombers Rafales are deploying in Poland and the Baltics, some a few dozen miles from Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave. What’s Kaliningrad? The ancient East Prussia. Another territory invaded by the Kremlin, and declared to be Russian. Some of the Baltics have been tortured and nearly exterminated by Russia for the last 250 years. Then, after ethnic cleansing, the Czars moved in Russians (many as recently as after WWII, under Czar Stalin). Those very same Russians whose descendants now Putin wants to save so much.
The Rafales carry the active stealth system “Spectre”. Basically Spectre makes anti-noise, with a precision of less than one degree on the source. That allows to jam Very High Frequency radar that renders even stealth planes like the future USA Strike Fighter, the F35, “Lightning II, plainly visible.
Active stealth Rafales can carry a standoff missile carrying a 300 kilotonnes (of TNT) thermonuclear warhead. That’s twenty times Hiroshima. The missile is propelled by a French invention patented in 1908 (Lorin), that nearly flew as a fighter in 1940, before flying in 1947, the RAMjet. The RAMjet gives the missile a 600 kilometers range above Mach 3 (because it carries only fuel: the RAM breathes air).
(By comparison the bomber part of the arsenal of the USA consists of subsonic planes carrying obsolete subsonic cruise missiles of H bomb power at most 150 kt.)
Britain also regrets to have only strategic nuclear submarines as a deterrent (which the Scottish Independence Party wants to eliminate, presumably to switch allegiance to Putin). As Russia has threatened to use H bombs on the battlefield, and based some in occupied “Kaliningrad”, between Lithuania and Poland, it’s good to be able to reply tit for tat. Besides, Rafales could certainly land on Red Square…
Even Socialist France is warning Putin.
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WAR PHILOSOPHY:
As I have argued, history is basically a compendium of ineluctable complexities, avoidable conspiracies, and ultimate wars. In particular, history is not made by pacifists inasmuch as by war. See: “War Makes History”.
There are basically two types of war: bad guys against bad guys, and bad guys, against good guys. Wars of good guys against good guys are very rare (see Note1).
A sure way to have a country led by bad guys is to make it a plutocracy. In Putin’s realm, even the top generals are wealthy plutocrats. Actually every whom Putin calls a “friend” is a multimillionaire, or multibillionaire, in the West alone. Putin has invaded now three countries, and made clear he was not going to stop there.
The enormity of what happened has not been grasped yet, just because it’s too enormous, emotionally speaking. Such a thing, a major power using military force to annex territory, did not occur since 1938-1940 (when Hitler annexed several countries and pieces thereof). Even under Stalin, countries were invaded, and controlled, but Stalin did not formally annex them. Far from annexing Ukraine, actually, Stalin gave Ukraine a seat at the United Nations, and other powers (which now Putin is busy stealing, making him, in that precise sense, worse than Stalin himself! Quite a feat).
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PUTIN’S INVASION EXCUSE:
I argue that, although Putin really wants to terrorize the world with his military, and enjoys the power, his true motivation is to use his aggressive drive to hide a much less savory reality of his gigantic kingdom. But, before this, what is Putin’s official reasoning, officially a regression from concessions made by Stalin himself?
The unfolding invasion doctrine exposed by Putin, is a faithful duplicate of that of Hitler in the 1930s Hitler said: ‘invade wherever there are “threatened” “Germans”, and evoke the splendor of reconstituting the “Grosse Reich”, to protect “German” minorities. Putin says exactly the same except replacing “German” by “Russian”, and “Grosse Reich” by “the Big Country”.
As the New York Times put it, April 18, 2014 (with a few additions of mine between brackets []):
“[NEW RUSSIA] was conquered in the late 18th century by Catherine the Great, who installed [one of her many lovers, co-conspirators, and co-murderers in the assassination of Catherine’s husband, the Czar] Prince Grigory Potemkin to lead the colonization of the lands.
The prince earned fame as the architect of the Potemkin village, a town of brightly painted facades and happy people erected to deceive visiting officials and dignitaries. Critics have accused Mr. Putin of employing a similar sleight of hand in the invasion of Crimea and the supposedly spontaneous pro-Russian uprising in eastern Ukraine.
On Thursday, Mr. Putin repeated his assertion that he felt an obligation to protect ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, where they are a large minority of the population. “We must do everything to help these people to protect their rights and independently determine their own destiny,” he said.
“The question is to ensure the rights and interests of the Russian southeast,” he added. “It’s New Russia. Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Odessa were not part of Ukraine in czarist times; they were transferred in 1920. Why? God knows. Then, for various reasons, these areas were gone, and the people stayed there. We need to encourage them to find a solution.”
What Putin is saying is that the empire of the Czars ought to be reconstituted, as it existed in the Nineteenth Century. That means that, among other places, Poland ought to be annexed (Poland was part of the empire of the Czars in the 19C).
IF ANYTHING, WHAT PUTIN SAYS OUGHT TO BE TAKEN MORE SERIOUSLY THAN HITLER:
Yes, it’s enormous. Yes, Putin went off the deep end. Yet, remember this: it’s because people did not read Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini or Hitler literally, that they got surprised by the resulting holocausts, later.
Once again, several of mechanisms launched by Putin are exactly the same as with the ones the Nazi dictator used. Hitler was surrounded by a cloud of plutocrats (many from the USA and Great Britain). Plutocrats made Hitler feel all powerful, and made him believe that so great was plutocratic power (kratos), that they would keep the Western democracies impotent, and that, never, ever, Britain and the USA would align themselves behind the French Republic in her determined opposition to Nazism.
WHY HITLER COMMITTED TO A WAR HE WAS (NEARLY) SURE TO LOSE:
[The relevance to Putin, is that, at first sight, Putin is sure to lose, especially if he conquers all of Ukraine. Putin is acting from the same political delusion, and economic necessity as Hitler.]
So Hitler was sure that the “democracies” would once again surrender, and do whatever he wanted. However, he got extremely surprised by the signing of a defense treaty between Poland and Britain (France had signed a similar one 6 months earlier… with Britain in the appendix). Hitler tried a few last tricks, and differed the invasion of Poland by a few days.
However as Paul Schmidt, a translator of the Reich’s foreign ministry relates (See Note 3 for an error in the link!): On Sunday September 3, 1939, at 9am, Berlin time:
“I then took the [British] ultimatum to the Chancellery, where everyone was anxiously awaiting me. Most of the members of the Cabinet and the leading men of the Party were collected in the room next to Hitler’s office. There was something of a crush and I had difficulty in getting through to Hitler.
When I entered the next room Hitler was sitting at his desk and Ribbentrop stood by the window. Both looked up expectantly as I came in. I stopped at some distance from Hitler’s desk, and then slowly translated the British Government’s ultimatum.
[This is the text of the British Ultimatum: ‘More than twenty-four hours have elapsed since an immediate reply was requested to the warning of September 1st, and since then the attacks on Poland have been intensified. If His Majesty’s Government has not received satisfactory assurances of the cessation of all aggressive action against Poland, and the withdrawal of German troops from that country, by 11 o’clock British Summer Time, from that time a state of war will exist between Great Britain and Germany.’]
Paul Schmidt pursues:
“When I finished, there was complete silence.
Hitler sat immobile, gazing before him. He was not at a loss, as was afterwards stated, nor did he rage as others allege. He sat completely silent and unmoving.
After an interval which seemed an age, he turned to Ribbentrop, who had remained standing by the window. ‘What now?’ asked Hitler with a savage look, as though implying that his Foreign Minister had misled him about England’s probable reaction. Ribbentrop answered quietly: ‘I assume that the French will hand in a similar ultimatum within the hour.’
[Patrice’s remark: Hitler’s foreign minister and former Ambassador and conspirator to London, Joachim von Ribbentrop, had assured him repeatedly that neither Britain nor France would honor their commitments to Poland.]
Paul Schmidt pursues:
“As my duty was now performed, I withdrew. To those in the anteroom pressing round me I said: ‘The English have just handed us an ultimatum. In two hours a state of war will exist between England and Germany.’ In the anteroom, too, this news was followed by complete silence.
Goering turned to me and said: ‘If we lose this war, then God have mercy on us!’ Goebbels stood in a corner, downcast and self-absorbed. Everywhere in the room I saw looks of grave concern, even amongst the lesser Party people.”
Hitler was allied with the Kremlin, which promptly invaded Poland, even though 45 French divisions attacked Hitler’s “Westwall” in the West: “Poland never will rise again in the form of the Versailles treaty. That is guaranteed not only by Germany, but also … Russia.” (Hitler , public speech in Dantzig, now Gdansk, end September 1939.)
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WHY PUTIN IS INVADING:
What is going on with Putin? Why is he so crazy? Why does he risk a widening war?
Well, the answer is simple: because he has long been at war, and has long been losing it so well that even him, in spite of his stupidity, has noticed it. Like a gambler on a losing streak, he puts more on the table. Wait, some will say: ”Is Putin not acquiring territory? How can you say he is losing”.
Once again, Adolf Hitler’s case comes to our rescue to understand the generality of the situation.
In 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt, alarmed by Hitler’s annexations sent a telegram to the German “Chancellor-President” inquiring: “Are you willing to give assurance that your armed forces will not attack or invade the territory of the following independent nations?” Roosevelt listed 31 nations including Poland, the Baltic States, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Britain.
Hitler gave his answer to the Reichstag, assuring ‘Herr Roosevelt’ that Germany only had peaceful intentions toward its neighbors. Germany, Hitler declared, “had not thought of proceeding in any way against Poland.”
Putin, Lavrov, and company have been duplicating those comments. And duplicating the brazen lying pattern of Hitler: after claiming there was an insurrection in Crimea, Putin coolly, and publicly, admitted that his forces did it all, “acting very professionally”. In other words, Putin lies so much, he believes that everybody has got to tolerate his constant lying, and he does not mind broadcasting it. That, too is reminiscent of Hitler, who did not hesitate to say, and write, publicly, that the bigger the lie, the better. See “Mediating Pluto”.
As with Hitler, but hopefully faster this time, the “democracies” are going to get tired of the lies.
PUTIN & HITLER: WORLD WAR WANTED TO HIDE ECONOMIC FAILURE:
The truth was just the opposite. Starting in May 1939, the president of Germany gave a whole series of conferences to his top generals stating that war was unavoidable, because the German economy, far from flourishing, was breaking down.
What was going on? Germany had become a full blown plutocracy, corrupt through and through, insuring immense economic inefficiency.
Same for Putin’s Russia. Remember the Olympic games in Sochi, by far the most expensive, ever, in history, 50 billion dollars, most of the money going top plutocrats around Putin (some now struck by sanctions)?
Germany also was making a huge effort of militarization. That, too, unbalanced the economy completely. Putin is duplicating that. While NATO is disarming, Putin announced a complete rearmament with completely new weapons, including new mobile nuclear missiles.
So, of course, Putin’s economy is breaking down. The nominal GDP of Russia is significantly smaller than Italy, and is around 1.5 trillion dollars (less, smaller than California’s).
Hitler again, in his third and final conference to his top generals in August 1939:
“Our economic situation is such that we cannot hold out more than a few years. Göring can confirm this. We have no other choice. We must act,” Hitler said. Thus far, all of Germany’s territorial gains had come as a result of “political bluff” but it was now necessary to utilize Germany’s “military machine.”
“I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war. Never mind whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterward whether he told the truth or not. In starting and waging a war it is not right that matters but victory.”
In the latest developments, May 1, the Russian Foreign ministry condemned the Ukrainian national elections and referendum scheduled for May 25. Chancellor Merkel called Putin to ask him to say something about freeing observers of the 57 nation strong Organization or Security and Cooperation in Europe held by terrorists in South East Ukraine. Putin retorted by requesting the withdrawal of Ukrainian army from South east Ukraine (as if that was within the powers of Merkel to order around the Ukrainian army!)
Heil Putin!
BABY VLADIMIR WALKS THE VALLEY OF DEATH:
I am of courseunfair when I compare Putin to Hitler. Putin himself would to point out that he, and Hitler, used the methods Catherine The Great used to extend her borders all the way to the west. That, is west of Warsaw. Catherine would send spies and agents provocateurs, hard picked Russophiles, who would cause problems, and then what we call now Special Forces. At this point she would scream Russians are being threatened, and send her army, using the Targowican confederation. She used that method also throughout the “New Russia” which Putin mentioned repeatedly.
The entire idea of the European Union is unanimity in all important decisions, respect of the dozens, if not hundreds, of cultures and civilizations of the Old Continent. It’s the exact opposite of the spirit that has been festering in the Kremlin, ever since it exists. It’s a shock of civilizations against a predation that predates civilization.
“They say the greatest addiction is to power,” Vladimir Putin. Well, there is more than that, baby Vladimir, with your nuclear toys. As Salvador Dali pointed out, Hitler started World War Two, just because he wanted to lose it… Unbeknownst to himself!
Why? There is a streak of self-destruction in the genus Homo. By destroying the latter, just so, evolution made it possible for the environment to live another day. Putin may feel he is channeling Ivan the Terrible, and he will create his “Big Country” (not realizing that his country is 42 times California in area already, although Russia has a smaller GDP than this state of the USA).
But all what Putin is doing is walking up the valley of death, searching for the oldest instinct, destruction of the fiercest predator, himself. Evolution at its best, culling the obsolete. Too bad millions of lives are at stake.
Meanwhile all will turn out good, as long as the Occident remembers that history it its master, and collapse, its friend.
Patrice Aymé
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Note 0: Why did Hitler refer his generals to Goering’s assessment of the Nazi economy? Hermann Goering was an authentic hero of the World War One, whereas Hitler had been only a courageous, but lowly caporal in WWI.
Generals took a flying ace such as Goering seriously. Goering replaced Von Richtoffen at the head of his top squadron, after the latter’s demise. Moreover, the father of Goering had made Namibia safe for Germans, by exterminating the locals in a deliberate holocaust-man hunt.
So the Nazi German military officers (such as Rommel) could only venerate Goering. The most serious generals wanted Hitler dead. But that was easier said than done. When the generals turned to Anglo-American help to do so, they were betrayed.
Note1: the Swiss Civil War of 1847 is a rare example of good guys against good guys; yet, even in this case, the ones who won were the progressives federalists, and could be viewed as good guys against the staunch Catholic conservatives! Moreover, less than 150 soldiers got killed. A better example of good guys on good guys would be the much more bloody French Commune of 1871, when both French sides had good points, and no choice, as the Prussian imperial army was pulling the strings, material or emotional, on both sides.
Note 2: On the obsolescence of USA bombers: manufactured between 1979 and 1990, the SUBSONIC cruise missile’s W-80 warhead is deployed aboard 85 non-stealthy Air Force B-52 bombers to give the 1960s-era planes an ability to launch nuclear weapons without having to enter heavily defended airspace. The warhead has a variable explosive power of 5 to 150 kilotons, or roughly one-third to 10 times the yield of the nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima. It’s carried by 1980s-vintage Air Launched Cruise Missile.
Note 3: I gave the link on Paul Schmidt because it was in English. However it contains a grievous mistake: it claims France joined Britain in supporting Poland. However, in truth, it was the other way around: Britain was added in the fine print of the addendum of the Franco-Polish Treaty. And the truth is, that Britain was highly supportive of Hitler until 1936. In 1940, the ex British king, who was a Nazi, transmitted the French plans to his friend Adolf Hitler. Although he had been fired for being pro-Nazi, and wanting to marry a notorious Nazi spy, Edward VII had been made Inspector General of the British Forces, and spent a month studying the French defenses.
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 