There is currently a major propaganda blitz by arms and security industries to convince us was are in a “new cold war”, and therefore should be spending even more ludicrous sums of money on weapons of mass destruction. Here are a few simple facts.
a) Russia is not a great power. Its total GDP is about the same as Spain’s – and Spain is pretty knackered. Russia has even less economic clout as a basis for world domination than the UK.
b) Russia’s economy is not diversified. It is over-dependent on raw commodity production and export. Its distribution of wealth is even worse than ours, although the Tories are doing their best to catch up. We have a totally false popular impression of Russian wealth because a few oligarchs have most of the money – and export it straight to the West. Capital flight is a huge problem for the Russian economy.
c) Russia is no threat to the UK and never has been. Centuries of Russophobia are entirely baseless. The idea of a defensive posture against Russia is ludicrous as there is no threat. Churchill, incidentally, asked Truman to nuke Moscow. A nuclear attack would be the only realistic way Russia could attack the UK – and the only thing that could make that possible are the mad calls for cold war and more weapons currently being heard in the West. None of which is to say it would be militarily sensible to attack Russia, as history shows. But Russia’s aggressive potential is very limited indeed. It will not be long before Poland plus the Baltic states are economically stronger than Russia.
None of this is to say Russia cannot continue to bully those very weak states which neighbour it. I have no time for Putin’s aggressive nationalism. But his position is fundamentally weak and his powerbase very limited. Neither the left nor the right in the UK (and in this comments section) want to hear this. The right constantly exaggerate Russia as a threat to boost their political interests and military funding. The left want desperately to believe in Putin as a strong counter to the West, as indicated by the ludicrous analyses that the Syria conflict was all about Russia’s decrepit and worthless Black Sea Fleet.
How to handle relations with Russia is not quite as much of a conundrum as it sounds, as Putin’s vaulting ambition is severely limited by his economic constraints. He is feeling that severely now, and it is nothing to do with the token and pointless economic sanctions. Russia desperately needs economic and political form – but Putin’s hand is only strengthened by the bellicose nonsense which enables him to appeal to the powerful atavistic strand in modern Russian social culture. I remain of the view that internationally supervised, genuinely fair referenda in Eastern Ukraine should be the way forward. That should include a new and properly conducted referendum in the Crimea, including free campaigns. It should be made plain that there will be a fast track into the EU for the Ukraine at the end of that process, after the secession of any districts that wish to join Russia.
US weapons look fancy,sound fancy and are expensive to maintain.
Most European nation armies have all round mechanics for their armored divisions.The US have vehicle specific mechanics.Means you need to find the right guy when there’s a breakdown.
Case in point are US v Russian made helicopters.A defence minister was heard explaning his purchase of Russian made.”Yes,they smoke and they are loud but they are cheap and THEY WORK.”
How Our People Do Their Extermination-Jobs in Ukraine
by Eric Zuesse
snip
The interesting background as to how this video (which was taken by Koval’s own troops) came to be uploaded to the Web, instead of merely filed in an accounts-payables office of the Ukrainian military in order to verify that the perpetrators had done their jobs and needed to be paid the contracted amount for the people whom they had disposed of, and for the corpses that they had produced and presumably buried, is so well explained at the linked-to site, it’ll be presented here, with full credit to them and to everyone who has enabled this information to become public at youtube, though those individuals are anonymous, for understandable reasons. Here, then, that is (with its typo uncorrected):
“Ukrainian fascists execute locals that sympathize with Donetsk People’s Republic – video”
By Lviv | October 23, 2014
Car with a mounted video camera belonging to members of Ukrainian punitive nationalist battalion was caputred earlier this week by self-defense forces of Donetsk People’s Republic. Part of the video shows Ukrainian radicals taking several locals to a large hole in the ground in a wooded area, make locals get in the hole and then shot them.
And here is that video at youtube (the scene shown here being only a frame from it which portrays the receiving team, guiding the truck-full of victims, toward the ditch):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFkSRK05u3w
http://rinf.com/alt-news/editorials/people-extermination-jobs-ukraine/
Thanks for that video Silvio, no doubt the western media will find all sorts of problems with it, questioning its legitimacy,
but, the link is not working for me.
@Nevermind
Re. link doesn’t work. Both links to the Youtube video and RINF post work ok for me. However, here is a link you can try to another web site that carried the same article by Eric Zuesse, How Our People Do Their Extermination-Jobs in Ukraine:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40184.htm
Here’s why “regional power” Russia could be a real menace:
Why the F-35 is a sitting duck for the Flankers.
Especially when American foreign policy is based on the premise that “We’re an empire now, we make our own reality,” with predictable results, as noted by Henry Kissinger:
Kissinger warns of West’s ‘fatal mistake’ that may lead to new Cold War
But nobody in the West is gonna worry about what ol’ Henry say, since RT, a source no respectable person in the West will ever read, is the only Web publisher that has bothered to translate Kissinger’s remarks into English.
A Russian non-governmental anti-fascist news agency has the Daily Mail all wound-up tonight
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2831714/Wanted-British-White-Widow-terrorist-killed-Ukraine-claims-Russian-news-agency.html
Off-topic, I got *another* zero-day malware containing plausible e-mail today, probably not connected with posting on Craig’s blog. They are expensive, hope the £50k was worth it!
two days before australian MSM came up with their fantastic russian navy bearing down on australia nonsense, the Frank Lowy Institute’s Interpreter had reported the wholly benign back-story!!!
10 Nov-Frank Lowy Institute, Interpreter: Putin flexes muscle ahead of G20
The flagship of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet, the guided missile cruiser Moskva, is conducting unilateral live-fire drills in the South China Sea after transiting through the Indian Ocean and Singapore. The ship’s appearance in Southeast Asia was described by the US Naval Institut e as ‘a rare show of surface presence in the region’.
Also in the region are the Russian Navy frigateYaruslov Mudry and a replenishment ship, which were until yesterday berthed in Jakarta. The ships were in town principally for last week’s Indonesian Defence Expo, at which 14 Russian defence companies were represented…
Though the presence of the Russian Navy near Australian waters is unusual, it is far from new. Australians have been thinking about Russian naval power in the Pacific for a long time, Sydney’s Fort Denison was built due to inflated concerns that Russian ships might threaten Sydney Harbour. This week, once again, Australians will be watching closely to see where the various Russian naval elements in the region move next.
http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2014/11/10/Putin-flexes-muscle-ahead-of-G20.aspx?COLLCC=729404665&
given our defence dept knew all this, why wasn’t this explained in yesterday’s propaganda?
Ms Kendall does her best to up the ante.
13 November 2014
Rhetoric hardens as fears mount of new Cold War
By Bridget Kendall
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30010263
Here’s an Indian perspective on Vlad the Bad.
“There are 7.2 billion people in this world but the United States fears only one man – Vladimir Putin. That’s because on virtually every front of the new Cold War, the Russian President is walloping the collective challenge of the West. Fear can make you do strange things. Forbes magazine has named Putin as the most powerful person on the planet for the second year running…”
http://in.rbth.com/blogs/2014/11/08/why_putin_is_winning_the_new_cold_war_39589.html
” Here’s an Indian perspective on Vlad the Bad. ”
What else would you expect from the Russian government’s official newspaper?
The BBC, today: “Nearly a million people have fled their homes since the fighting started in April, a month after Russia annexed Ukraine’s southern Crimea peninsula.”
Consummate elision/omission, there, linking the “annexation” of Crimea with the exodus, while ignoring the shelling of numerous towns and cities by the Kiev Nazis.
The state broadcaster tells no lies.
Can Speccy – it rather sounds as if you and Rory Stewart think alike at least to some extent i.e. you both see that Russia poses more of a potential threat than some would have us believe.
“What else would you expect from the Russian government’s official newspaper?”
I’m intrigued. Can you offer any evidence to back up your assertion regarding Russia and India Report. I thought we were expected to believe that RT was the Russain government’s official propaganda bullhorn.
As for the author, Rakesh Krishnan Simha. He is a New Zealand-based journalist and foreign affairs analyst. According to him the only inspiration he needs is outrage – when he sees propaganda masquerading as journalism. He writes on stuff he feels the media distorts, misses or ignores.
Rakesh started his career in 1995 with New Delhi-based Business World magazine, and later worked in a string of positions at other leading media houses such as India Today, Hindustan Times, Business Standard and the Financial Express, where he was the news editor. Hardly the standard trajectory one would expect for a Russian propaganda shill.
Kempe. Is there any chance that you can risk reading his words and then offering a critique.
@Fool
Can Speccy – it rather sounds as if you and Rory Stewart think alike at least to some extent i.e. you both see that Russia poses more of a potential threat than some would have us believe.
Balls.
Stewart accuses Russia of the theft of Crimea and, indirectly, of the mass murder of MH17 passengers.
His claim that Russia “took” Crimea is an inanity that only any ignoramus would swallow. The Crimean Parliament applied for accession to the Russian Federation based on a mandate for independence provided in a referendum the results of which even Craig Murray admits reflected the will of the majority of the people.
Stewart’s unsubstantiated claim that “Russian backed separatists shot down a passenger plane and killed hundreds,” becomes more improbably the longer the inquiry commission delays presenting any critical evidence about what happened — a delay that, by agreement among the investigating states, the Ukraine can make permanent.
So, no, Rory Steward and I do not think in the least bit alike and only a fool or a liar would suggest otherwise. Rory Stewart is a jackass or shill. You, apparently, the same.
“Kempe. Is there any chance that you can risk reading his words and then offering a critique.”
Sofia, Kempe and RD have left the building to disrupt another thread.
Rory (the Tory) Stewart, of the pile of rubble and building waste, once pretending to be a cairn, of which every and all trace has since been quickly and wisely eliminated, has become the BBC’s ‘go to’ talking head on everything from crinolines to the Corn Laws. After some ill-judged over-exposure on TV of his unfortunate physiognomy, which was quickly curtailed after a direct correlation was found with licence fee cancellations, he now disgraces almost every radio documentary instead where his stutters and stammers turn a sound-bite into a lengthy but empty treatise. A jack of all trades and master of none talking head shill, living in a bygone world of propagandist John Buchan novels, there is seemingly no end to his inexpertise or ill-judged cant, but as an unlikely and wholly unlikeable media darling creation, he’s inflicted on us I think merely to punish and to torment.
RBTH (Russia Beyond The Headlines) is funded by Rossiyskaya Gazeta which is the Russian government newspaper, 100% state funded. It’s old style Soviet propaganda dressed up for the 21st century. Hilarious that posters here who are quick to condemn the BBC for spreading state propaganda are leaping to it’s defence.
If it weren’t for Putin we wouldn’t be having another cold war.
Can Speccy, I take it that you come from the Ukraine, in which case I apologise for stepping on corns. Of course I know very little about the real events and complexities of relations and the history of the country. I can only imagine therefore how annoying it must be for you to read arm chair theories from these shores, although I didn’t actually expound any theory.
I posted the Rory Stewart link because although his conclusion is somewhat different to Craig’s both would appear to be honest men of intelligence and with a conscience. The FO needs more of them. It is unfortunate that it treated Craig so badly.
Stewart’s ability to recognize failure and the hopelessness of many aspects of a bland international interventionism which fails to stick around or bother to take a prolonged study of a country is worth considering. He makes a point when he says that the new breed of neo-colonial administrators falls short even of the racist and exploitative C19th colonial administrator in that at least the old colonialist was prepared to stick it out, learn the languages and culture (sometimes even going native) whereas post- conflict experts today flounce in and out without neither the prestige or stigma of imperialism, their policies fail but no one notices as they are gone within 2 years and all record everything as having been a success. he notes that whenever interventionism has anything to do with anything local it fails.
Kempe.
Is there any chance that you can risk reading Rakesh Krishnan Simha’s words and then offering a critique.
Otherwise you just sound like a cult follower who can only close his eyes to heretical texts.
What is is about what Rakesh writes that is wrong, and why?
For those who can’t view the Forbidden Texts.
Keep the Faith! 🙂
http://tpc.pc2.netdna-cdn.com/images/Obama_Putin_Differences.jpg
Hi Craig,
Some months ago you insisted that ‘pro-Russian rebels’ shot down flight MH17. If I remember correctly, you told a commentator (who challenged you) on here that he should ‘stick to Tass or Russia Today’. Since you were wrong about MH17, perhaps you’d like to admit it?
@Fool
both [Craig Murray and Rory Stewart] would appear to be honest men of intelligence and with a conscience.
What’s honest about stating as a bald fact what is not the case or what cannot be known to be the case.
Stewart, says Russia “took” Crimea, which is a total misrepresentation of what occurred, which was in accordance with the apparent will of the majority of the people of Crimea.
Indirectly, Stewart accuses Russia of responsibility for the killing of the 298 people on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH-17, whereas the evidence publicly available strongly suggests that responsibility lies with genocidal maniacs in Kiev. If you don’t know that, why don’t you study the evidence before rushing to the defense of the indefensible claim that Steward is making?
Both of Stewart’s totally unsubstantiated claims amount to a cause for war.
Nothing could be more contemptibly dishonest than making bogus claims to justify a war. Far from being an honest man, Stewart appears to be either a scoundrel of the lowest order or an utter fool.
Here’s an interesting BBC report, now removed from the BBC Web site, on the downing of MH-17:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa_R2NA1txc
They must have good eyesight to be able to identify an aircraft flying at 30,000 ft (5.5 miles)!
They must have good eyesight to be able to identify an aircraft flying at 30,000 ft (5.5 miles)!
In a clear sky it’s easy enough to spot an airliner at 31,000 feet, and I suppose a nearby fighter would also be visible, though smaller. So as it was too small to be another airliner it must have been a fighter! An inference, but not unreasonable. In itself, not conclusive of anything either. But it is consistent with the latest radar data released by Russia.
More conclusive, though, is the circumstantial evidence, including the failure of the crash investigation to come to a conclusion and release their data, which suggests that Ukraine is applying its right of veto on a release, and if so, the implication is obvious.
Isn’t Rory Stewart one who has argued against intervention in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Ukraine?
The Mail Online has this story: Is this the moment MH17 was shot down as it flew over Ukraine? Russian state broadcaster produces ‘satellite images’ showing alleged fighter jet attack.
Here’s the Mirror’s version of the same story: Russia claims this satellite image shows moment flight MH17 was shot down by fighter jet.
No doubt other papers have similar. The photo is a fake, created using a Google Earth image taken on 9/17/2011. Don’t know why the Mail and Mirror are doing this, maybe so they can in the future discredit Russia for supplying fake evidence.
Well by providing such an obvious fake the Russians have shot themselves in the foot; and admitted their guilt.
No one’s doubting that there was another aircraft in the vicinity, it’s what the BUK operators were trying to shoot down, it’s just a question of how close it was and the radar image suggests a distance of 3 miles not the 800 yards in the photographs.
Another reason it’s unlikely that an Su 25 was responsible is that the R60 missiles it carries simply aren’t powerful enough. They only have a 6lb warhead. In 1988 a BAe 125 (about the size of a Lear Jet) carrying the President of Botswana was attacked by a Mig 23 which fired two R60s. One hit the right hand engine which was blown off but the aircraft was able to make an emergency landing, was repaired and is still in service. The idea that an R60 could bring instant destruction, blow apart, an aircraft the size of B777 is not credible.
http://s194.photobucket.com/user/redlum5x5/media/botswana_bae.jpg.html
” Isn’t Rory Stewart one who has argued against intervention in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Ukraine? ”
He’s certainly made some caustic comments about Afghanistan and Iraq so I wouldn’t be surprised.
@Node
The photo is a fake, created using a Google Earth image taken on 9/17/2011.
Maybe, although it is unlikely that the Government of Russia would stake its reputation on a fake that just anybody can see through at a glance.
So, first, on what basis do you say “Russian claims this satellite image ….”
And, second, please explain on what basis you so confidently dismiss the image as a fake.
Thank you.