I am in Africa. Edward Snowden seems to be doing a super job without me, so I have been working on my book and not burdening you with superfluous comment.
I have written this today which is too much of a digression and almost certainly will get cut out of the book, and is in any case a first draft. But I thought it was quite interesting – and does bear tangentially on Mr Snowden.
We need at this stage to step back and take a look at the wider context in which Burnes was operating, and particularly the question of how British and Russian Imperial expansion threatened to drive the two powers into conflict to the north of the Indian sub-continent.
British people, myself included, have to concentrate their intellectual resources to get a clear conceptualisation of the Russian Empire, which can be obscured from our view by a number of factors.
Firstly, from our own history and geography, we think of colonies as something reached exclusively by ship. The idea that colonies can be a contiguous land mass with the metropolitan, yet still in effect colonies, is not a pre-received idea for us. Russia’s absorption of the entirely alien cultures of the vast Centre, Siberian belt, North and North-west of Asia was undoubtedly a massive colonial expansion. Working in Central Asia today, for example, political societal and economic developments could only be understood as a post-colonial situation. Crucially, the broad mass of people were themselves entirely of the view that they were former colonised1, returned to independence. But I found a great many western and particularly British officials had much trouble with the concept.
Secondly, the transmutation of the Russian Empire into the Soviet Union confused the issue, in bringing a spurious equality to the different Soviet Socialist Republics. In particular, this brought members of the political elite from the Asian areas within reach of holding political power at the centre. But that is not at all unusual for the history of Empires in general, particular as they mature. The economic relationships within the Soviet Union, with the Asian regions very much operating as primarily exporters of raw commodity or goods with little value added, followed a well-worn colonial pattern even if operated by central planning rather than overt capitalism. But many, looking at the Soviet Union itself (not including the occupied states of the Eastern bloc) did not realise the Soviet Union in itself was an Empire incorporating colonial structures.
Thirdly, particularly for those brought up like myself during the Cold War, the Russians were distant and feared figures and not perceived as altogether European. In fact, the Russian conquest of the whole of the North and heart of Asia was a simultaneous part of an almost complete encirclement of Asia by Europeans from the late eighteenth to the end of the nineteenth century, which included of course the occupation of United States Europeans of the American Pacific Rim, and of Australia, New Zealand, East Africa, much of South East Asia and India by the British and occasionally others. Russian and British expansion into Asia were part of the exact same process, except the British often did not see it:
A long liberal tradition took a sceptical view of Russia’s European credentials, seeing Tsarist Russia as as “Asiatic despotism” too crude and too poor to be “one of us”…A more realistic view would see Russia, like Spain or the Hapsburg Empire, as one of the frontier states that played a vanguard role in Europe’s expansion…behind Russia’s expansion was in fact its European identity…the economic energy that flowed from Russia’s integration into the European economy; and the intellectual access that Russians enjoyed, from the sixteenth century onward, to the general pool of European ideas and culture. Russians, like other Europeans, claimed their conquests as a “civilizing mission.”2
Britain’s claim that Russia was excluded from the “civilizing mission” of Empire because it was a despotism, when British officials were arbitrarily blowing resisting Indians into many pieces from the muzzles of cannon while practising unabashed despotism in India, is something those of my age and older were educated not to question. The notion that the culture of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Tchaikovsky is not European is self-evidently wrong. I found that walking around the 19th century Russian cantonments of Margilan in the Ferghana Valley, with its beautiful little theatre for amateur dramatics, its racecourse and mess hall, the architecture could have been a British hill station. It even has its Freemasons’ Lodge.
So Russia and Britain were indeed expanding their colonial possessions in Asia, and their boundaries were pushing ever closer towards each other. They were both part of the same historical process, and as a non-determinist I find it difficult to explain why in each case the expansion very often went ahead against the express wishes of the metropolitan authorities, but that takes us too far away from Alexander.
The Russophobes therefore were not talking absolute nonsense. Nobody knew how far North-west the British might push and how far South-east the Russians. Nor was it physically impossible for a Russian army to invade India through Afghanistan and/or Persia. Babur, Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah had all done that. The logistics were difficult, but not impossible.
Where the Russophobes got it seriously wrong was their political analysis. A successful Russian invasion of India would have taken enormous resources and been a massive strain on the Russian state, and would certainly have precipitated a major European war. Russia’s economy was still recovering from Napoleonic devastation. Her foreign policy priorities were focused on the richer and more central lands of the Mediterranean and Caspian. Russia’s desire to divest Persia and Ottoman Turkey of vast provinces and to become a Mediterranean power was the consuming passion of the Tsar’s ministers, and Nesselrode in particular. Bringing Central Asia into play may occasionally be a useful bargaining chip with Britain, but was never more than that.
It is a peculiar fact that for two hundred years, fear of an attack by Russia has been a major factor in British foreign and above all defence policy, and was for much of my lifetime the factor that outweighed all others. Vast sums of the nation’s money have been squandered on guarding against this illusory threat, and that is still the unacknowledged purpose of the ruinously expensive and entirely redundant Trident missile system today. Yet on any rational analysis, Russia has never had any incentive to attack the United Kingdom, and never has remotely intended to attack the United Kingdom. However an awful lot of arms manufacturers and salesmen have become exceedingly wealthy, as have an awful lot of politicians, while the military have had pleasant careers.
British Russophobia is an enduring historical fact. Navigating his path around it was now a key problem for Alexander Burnes in 1833
1 Olivier Roy, The Creation of Nations, pp87-9
2 John Darwin, After Tamerlane, p.21
CE
“Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Poland or many other countries a little bit closer to the old Iron Curtain than the UK is about the imaginary Russian threat”.
The threat to the UK was imaginary – the threat to Poland etc obviously not. Last time I looked, however, Ramsgate was far from Lublin.
@Suhayl (9:06pm and others)
“Cryptonym, in 1944/45, the USSR was in no position to mount an invasion and occupation of western Europe.”
But through Austria and the low countries western europe would have been lightly defended, occupying forces were far from ever seeing any action, lounging around in the best hotels, pickled on booze, defensive troops would have been in German uniform but a hotch-potch of old men and younsters raised from places like Ukraine, and then the Atlantic Wall, not in any way defended in the rear. By leaving Germany aside to further internal collapse – learning from the German error of its (the German) assault on Moscow which was a symbolic target and deprived resources of men and equipment from the southern offensive, delaying it and hampering it sufficiently for that to peter out in the cold – a westward charge certainly wasn’t impossible or too incredible. I think there was a real opportunity once Russia drove back the Germans, in full retreat and flight, from the east to their own country, that they could have had a crack, if so minded, with a reasonable good chance of success, at wrapping up all of Europe right up to the Channel. There must have been a point where that was considered an option or choice, and it wasn’t taken; it could even have been an easier option than tackling Germany itself head-on, which was an unlikely decision, vengeance aside, if as you suggest their position was so parlous. Of course once the US, UK and Commonwealth armies had a strong toe-hold back on the continent, the opportunity passed as it could have found itself fighting them, re-Dunkirking them if necessary as the wartime alliance unravelled, plus ominously having a still simmering but cut off Germany in their rear. I think if it was the evil expansive empire we’ve been tirelessly told it was and not as the evidence instead suggests, purely concerned with its defence, it would have taken that gamble unquestionably.
With the inevitable prospect of the centre of power in the EU moving eastwards if Russia is successfully wooed and a willing party to the suit, it seems that institution, to us on the far fringe of Western Europe will become even more disconnected and remote.
I’m amused your comic (mis)characterisation of Anon’s post. Who is the better looking, most sexy of the whistleblowers? This is a game for the gay guys, and the hetero girls mostly but anyone can join in. Assange, well he’s getting on, lets be honest, had it, a certain something maybe once, but he can’t hold a candle to the younger team. Manning, well clothes and dress sense is out the window, those Swiss Admiral outfits, -sheesh, another demonstration of the US’ mental cruelty, but cute enough, but would like to see some more of him in casual clothes. Snowden is still an unknown, taller, darker haired than Bradley, both could do with contacts, or laser eye surery, or simply more stylish glasses, those horn-rimmed librarian jobs of Snowden’s wouldn’t look out of place on Dame Edna. I demand ever more dashing, glamourous, vain or handsome whistleblowers.
“From previous thread, Question on hacking cars. Here’s some possibilities.”
I was reading a while back that some guys in America had managed to hack into a car’s obd system remotely through the wireless tyre pressure sensors.
I doubt they could do anything significant that way but the day is coming. The day is coming when the police will be able to point a remote control at a car and stop the engine dead. The day is coming when they can tell what speed you were doing 100 miles ago as you drive past.
The day is coming when every mile you drive is monitored on central computers. It will be brought in by insurance companies offering cheap pay by the mile insurance if you let them monitor your driving. Then like the governments gained access to our internet communications they will gain access to the insurance company’s computers.
This isn’t going to affect the bad guys, quite the opposite, a thief can program a key for a BMW and be driving it away in less than a minute. Locks only stop an honest man, a criminal can always break them. The crooks will use the technology to their advantage, the governments will use it to control everyone else.
Fred,
In the video I linked you will see they confirm an attack using the tyre wireless comms can indeed take over many modern cars. They can also take control over bluetooth pairing with your car (short range), cellular modem protocol and via direct IP with a 3G/4G connection. Oh and an infected CD can take over the car as well. Probably you could do it with digital broadcast radio as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHfOziIwXic
Refereed Paper presented by Stephen Checkoway (University of California, San Diego) at the 20th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security ’11), held August 8–12, 2011, in San Francisco, CA.
Authors: Stephen Checkoway, Damon McCoy, Brian Kantor, Danny Anderson, Hovav Shacham, and Stefan Savage, University of California, San Diego; Karl Koscher, Alexei Czeskis, Franziska Roesner, and Tadayoshi Kohno, University of Washington
Abstract: Modern automobiles are pervasively computerized, and hence potentially vulnerable to attack. However, while previous research has shown that the internal networks within some modern cars are insecure, the associated threat model — requiring prior physical access — has justifiably been viewed as unrealistic. Thus, it remains an open question if automobiles can also be susceptible to remote compromise. Our work seeks to put this question to rest by systematically analyzing the external attack surface of a modern automobile. We discover that remote exploitation is feasible via a broad range of attack vectors (including mechanics tools, CD players, Bluetooth and cellular radio), and further, that wireless communications channels allow long distance vehicle control, location tracking, in-cabin audio exfiltration and theft. Finally, we discuss the structural characteristics of the automotive ecosystem that give rise to such problems and highlight the practical challenges in mitigating them.
Indeed it would be ludicrous to imagine the UK is in any immediate danger from the Russian Bear.
But that does not mean we cannot learn from history and our democratic partners to be extremely wary of a state that is rarely benign and peaceful in it’s actions and is now probably the worlds biggest mafia state run by as Alexi Navalny describes them the party of crooks and thieves.
There is still way too much Russophobia here.
Leaving aside how Russia became a colonial power by the end of World War I, it is quite clear that Western Europe favored Hitler over Stalin’s USSR, and the Nazi leader and the Anglo-Americans after him allowed Soviet expansion through treaties and agreements with Moscow so that it would be so over-extended that it would collapse, and it finally did.
In the process, the USSR was bled white, suffering around 25 million killed, 16 million of whom were civilians.
By comparison Germany had 4 million soldiers killed, and 2,000,000 civilians. The Anglo-American raids killed two million of those.
By comparison, Anglo-American losses were quite limited.
The USSR paid most heavily for being willing to take on more territory under the false assumption that the more territory it had, the more safe it would be. It only won the war because its forces were pushed back to a small area where most of it war-making factories were located.
Little wonder that the Soviets were not too kind in dealing with counties and people who had favored the Nazi forces at their expense.
During the closing stages of the war, Washington and London deliberately gave them more fought-over territory in the hope that reviving it would prove too much for them. The massive bombing of cities in Germany, especially in the East, was just part of the plan.
When it proved more lengthy than Washington and London wanted, the Reaganites tried to end it with a non-nuclear conclusion, but Soviet spying prevented it from happening.
Gorbachev was so shaken by the prospect of a nuclear war, though, that he agreed to policies which risked the very survival of the USSR, and it did fall apart.
Understanding this should encourage more Western phobias.
Just to add, from a quick perusal of apparent published exploits, most cars you can’t get at the steering. If you have “Parking Assist” though all bets are off.
But if you connect the car’s collision detect system to engine control I imagine you might be able to fully open the injectors at impact and rev up the fuel pump after first disabling the air-bags and brakes and dialing up 125 mph as you approached a tight corner.
I used to have a Fiat that would randomly jump from mph to kph as I drove home. That was enough car technology for me.
Interesting analysis, but no discussion of Russophobia can exclude the West’s deeply ingrained hostility to the Christian Orthodox people in general; from the Crusader’s sack of Constantinople to the NATO bombardment of Serbia, to the indifference to the predominately Orthodox Christians of the Middle East, especially in Palestine, Iraq & Syria.
@ Suhayl Saadi, re “But really, at the point when the USA assumed global dominance with the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, the USSR was wrecked and exhausted and needed rebuilt. The Red Army at that point was a resistance army.”
I think that you will find that in paradox to this, that it was your so-called “resistance” army’s remarkable Manchuria campaign, rather than Truman’s atomic bombs, that actually forced Japan to surrender.
“In the video I linked you will see they confirm an attack using the tyre wireless comms can indeed take over many modern cars.
It’s a long video and it’s late, maybe tomorrow.
But right now I doubt it. They might be able to blow the horn or wind the windows up and down but to do anything significant you have to be reprogramming the firmware and I doubt they could do that through a tyre pressure sensor.
Oh dear. You can engage the steering lock under computer control on a number of cars it seems. Don’t need to control the steering if you can use anti-theft controls to lock the steering at high speed…
“Little wonder that the Soviets were not too kind in dealing with counties and people who had favored the Nazi forces at their expense.” -Drawbridge
Terrible statement.
By favouring, I presume you mean allowing themselves to be overrun by the Nazi War Machine?
And so because of this, they deserved the not too kind punishment of being subjected to forty years of repression?
Laughable.
Fred,
Buffer overflows. Compromise the lowest level and they could escalate that to full control. They describe exactly how they did it. Basically they found viable exploits everywhere they looked with a disassembler. They could even reprogram as the car was running.
Paper at http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-usenixsec2011.pdf
Now they specifically looked at one particular car. Similar exploits will, I am certain, be available for other software combinations.
Anon; Is there confirmation?
I depend upon you over our Overlard MEdia.
Crashing cars by remote control is hopefully fairly rare. The researchers from Washington and UCSD could also switch on the the car microphones and send that out live over the management system’s cellular chip – perhaps that might not be so rare?
Cars with the Unix “vi” text editor actually installed. Don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
RUSSOPHOBIA! It’s more like RUSSOPHILIA that we are suffering from as we run to espouse the values of the former Soviet Union’s KGB/NKVD, or the equally brutal Russian Tsarist secret police, the Okhrana. Americans, in particular, with their past history of freedom, should be shocked (and ashamed) at the extent to which they are being spied on by their own government. When governments override the rule of law, or a people’s constitutional rights to privacy, officials have a duty to whistle-blow.
Ben,
No doubt what these reputable researchers are claiming is correct. Question can be asked though is did they pick an exceptionally vulnerable car by (bad) luck? Some are saying that alternative implementations are much safer. Personally I’d assume that they are all vulnerable. Some likely trickier than others.
They were never coded defensively in the first place.
Not laughable at all. The sad truth.
When the Western powers, and Poland refused to organize against growing Nazi threats – what the USSR tried to attain but without any success since they were assisting like-minded Franco’s takeover in Spain, Moscow struck a deal with Hitler to take over certain countries around the Baltic in the hope that a greater defense in depth would prove helpful in meeting the Nazi threat.
When Hitler struck, though, their people, and governments mainly supported the German efforts, And when it looked like Berlin was going to win the war, countries like Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania joined in.
And their being so occupied by the victorious Red Army was largely the result of WAshington and London agreeing to it.
And they were increasingly better treated than the Russians themselves because the Soviets believed that they would work against a Western assault.
And they did, forcing the Anglo-American forces to knock out the Soviets’ second nuclear deterrent, its submarine boomers, by a surprise attack on them and their bases on the Kola Peninsula after the Palme assassination triggered it. We only avoided a surprise nuclear one because of Soviet spying about the threat, and their taking counter measures to prevent it rather than it to occur even though it would have won it.
Has made me (aka Drawbridge apparently) develop a strong Anglo-American phobia.
Snowden, superb job, true, and more devastating still with crucial background from Russ Tice. Tice worked for the kompromat and blackmail directorate at NSA. He explained why your favorite politicians bow and scrape to the peeping toms and play those humililiating Mother, may I? games with authorities they had no role in drafting. NSA knows when a congresspuke sins in her heart: Feinstein, Alito, McCain, etc. etc., anybody who’s anybody. NSA has had Obama under the microscope since Penny Pritsker plucked him from obscurity. NSA makes mixtapes of their phonesex for comedy gold.
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/podpress_trac/web/20927/0/BF.0112.Tice_20130617.mp3
@Cryptonym
‘ Civilised, educating, good“
Can we add decorum to that list?
” It will be brought in by insurance companies offering cheap pay by the mile insurance if you let them monitor your driving.”
It’s already here. My stepdaughter gets low cost insurance through having one of these devices fitted. I can go to a web site and see where she is, and how fast she drove to get there.
Hypocrisy from Obama in his message to Russia and China with absolutely no irony.
“He also called on Russia to “live by the standards of the law because that’s in the interests of everybody”.”
From the state broadcaster’s report on the ‘fugitive’ as they refer to Mr Snowden.
Edward Snowden: US anger at Russia and China
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23031801
You can now add Sinophobia to your post Craig.
~~~
“We’ve prepared this room for you, Mr.Snowden. If you should need anything, just scream.”
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/6/24/1372108454878/25.06.13-Steve-Bell-on-Gu-003.jpg
I found this out while researching Muslim Anarchism. Anarchism tends to present itself in terms of Eurocentric (and mostly male) historiographies, but clearly, some of the ‘canonical’ figures in anarchism are Russian. I thought Russian anarchists undermined my thesis, at first, but after some sniffing around, discovered Craig’s thesis.
For evidence that radical left politics developed significantly outside and to some extent independently of Europe/USA, see e.g. Levy, C. (2010) Social Histories of Anarchism, Journal for the Study of Radicalism, Volume 4, Number 2, Fall 2010 p.1-44, plus, Khuri-Makdisi, I. (2010) The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860-1914 (University of California Press).
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Americas/US-officials-don-t-know-how-much-secret-material-Snowden-took/Article1-1082023.aspx
Ironic, really. The NSA’s own security is about as effective as a chocolate bike lock….
Anon
“Buffer overflows. Compromise the lowest level and they could escalate that to full control.”
Buffer overflows don’t escalate to anything, they result in the system crashing or erratic behaviour depending on what they overflow into.
I read through the link and eventually came to the part about tyre pressure monitors. They first gain access to the car, reprogram the control modules and just use the sensors as a trigger. While they had access to the car they could just have connected a radio receiver to the can bus and had some real control.
It’s pointless picking a lock when you can just knock the pins out of the hinges.
Hello Everybody!
I have just changed my name to Edward Snowdon by deedpoll. We should all do that!
Now, I can honestly say, “I am Edward Snowdon, and so am I”
There is only one reason Putin is the Media bogey man de jour – he kicked out the Banksters that Yeltsin let over-run the country. I would rather have a Putin, who supports his nations interests, than a Bankster like Cameron, who supports the internationalist interest at the cost of the national interest.
British people are constantly being suckered into believing the interests of a very small minority are their interests when nothing could be further from the truth. The Western world’s economy has been destroyed by selfish interest and now they are looking for distractions and someone to blame.
Putin speaks more sense on the current situation in the world than the totally deluded and criminal arseholes in Whitehall, that’s a fact you can take to the bank.
Where the Russophobes got it seriously wrong was their political analysis. A successful Russian invasion of India would have taken enormous resources and been a massive strain on the Russian state, and would certainly have precipitated a major European war. Russia’s economy was still recovering from Napoleonic devastation. Her foreign policy priorities were focused on the richer and more central lands of the Mediterranean and Caspian. Russia’s desire to divest Persia and Ottoman Turkey of vast provinces and to become a Mediterranean power was the consuming passion of the Tsar’s ministers, and Nesselrode in particular. Bringing Central Asia into play may occasionally be a useful bargaining chip with Britain, but was never more than that.
I wonder. Afghanistan and what is now Pakistan were key (then as now) to any designs Russia may have had on Persia, while the east of Turkey actually proved to be an easier door to force, ca.WW1, than the expensive defeat of the Crimean War showed the direct approach to the Mediterranean to be.
Imperial Russia may only have wanted to flourish its flags in the Mediterranean: I bow respectfully to your greater knowledge of the politics of the time (and now!) but had it taken Constantinople/Istanbul, that would have been a game changer for the British…and the Greeks, and the Balkans, not to mention the Ottomans. Stability in the Med suited the British very well, and the Russian threat was a real one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Edward Snowdon” Ah, You’re the Edward Snowden who can’t spell his name, aren’t you?
Veterans Today has put a different slant on the Assange/Wikileaks/Snowden/Russia affair.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/06/23/veil-of-lies-snowden-and-wikileaks/
All points of view are worthy of consideration. It’s not the slant I would put on it. Assange is not in the Ecuadorian embassy for the good of his health. I agree that there might be Zionist money behind Wikileaks, but there is Zionist money behind nearly all successful organisations. It’s how Zionists play the geopolitical game. They were in charge in imperialist Russia, in charge in the Kerensky government (most of the cabinet were freemasons) and continued to have a big influence in Soviet Russia. (In fact the secret agreement between Germany and Soviet Russia at Rapallo, signed by Chicherin and Rathenau while the Great Powers were imposing and endorsing over-stringent reparations on Germany at Genoa, was brought about through freemasonry). Zionists, cabalists and masons continue to have similar influence in Russia today. Snowden is unlikely to have put his life on the line if he did not genuinely make the disclosure because he thought it was the right thing to do. He has made himself as vulnerable to any bounty-hunter as Trotsky did.
But you have to form your own views.
Interestingly Russian (Czarist) expansion in central asia was often driven by people “on the ground” rather than State Policy (see Travels in the Tian’-Shan’, 1856-57 (Hakluyt Society Second)
Petr Petrovich Semenov, et al) <- great read!.
Younghusband of the machine gunning people walking away fame was a totally lose cannon if you pardon the pun. Whatever rivalry there was between Europeans quickly disappears when something like the Boxer Rebellion started.
Interesting tittle-tattle on-wire. Ed Snowden seems so well connected and able to dodge NSA at every turn. Hilarious. Rumors are he is operating with CIA help, maybe even under CIA orders. It looks like a turf war