Category: PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE

Russia the Eternal Enemy Quotations

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, QUOTATIONS, SOUTH CAUCASUS, WAR ON RUSSIA

An independent state of Georgia existed for 2 ½ years, until Trotsky’s Red Army snuffed it out in 1921. Mr Yeltsin has given its successor exactly the same amount of time. More or less secretly, Russian forces have backed rebellions by Muslims in the Abkhaz region and by Georgian followers of the former president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia. In this squeeze the current president, Eduard Shevardnadze… despairingly appealed to Moscow for help, and got it on terms that in effect mortgage his country’s independence.

The Economist, 13 Nov 93

Russia Is Finished Quotations

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, QUOTATIONS, WAR ON RUSSIA

By sending in the tanks, Mr Yeltsin has placed the generals in the realm of politics something else that would be democrats should strive to avoid). The army is already too influential in Russia’s foreign policy. It has been behind Russia’s increasing readiness to throw its weight around in the rest of the former Soviet Union. The flash of gold braid is discernible in warnings to Poland and other members of the ex Warsaw Pact not to join NATO, and in Russia’s desire to rewrite the treaty governing conventional forces in Europe. At home, Mr Yeltsin’s need for armed support will make the generals harder to defeat in budgetary matters.

The Economist, editorial 9 Oct 93

Telling the Truth© By Lying

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, SYRIA, WAR ON RUSSIA

First the US “private, nonprofit” channel PBS (or, as they would say, were it Russian: mostly state-funded broadcaster) passed off Russian footage of strikes on Daesh oil facilities as US coalition strikes. This was easily caught because they left the Cyrillic letters on the footage.

Now their French allies have followed through. On a France 2 broadcast (or as they would say if this were something out of Russia – the fully state-owned France 2 TV station broadcast) while castigating the Russians for indiscriminate bombing, moaning about the very difficult choices that the US coalition have to make to seek out the targets, swaggering that every effort is made to avoid civilian casualties, illustrates the castigation, moaning and swaggering with….

….Russian videos.

This time they had the wit to crop the Cyrillic lettering out.

Watch the video for yourself.

The Collapse of Russia – Coming Soon!! Again!!

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, WAR ON RUSSIA

Stratfor – the “Shadow CIA” – has attracted some attention with its recent prediction that Russia will break apart in the next decade.

But Stratfor is very late to the party – the CIA, back around 2005, predicted that Russia “could fall apart at the seams in a decade and split into as many as eight different states”. Summarised here by The Independent.

The report, Global Trends 2015, has sparked a lively debate in Russia about the country’s territorial integrity and triggered passionate denunciations from some of Russia’s leading politicians. Its unflinchingly bleak assessment of Russia’s prospects has angered many at a time when the Russian government is doing its best to talk up the economy.

The fact that the gloomy prognosis comes from its old Cold War enemy makes it all the harder for Russia to swallow. But many ordinary Russians seem to share the CIA’s pessimism.

Blah blah blah, et cetera et cetera.

Oh, and Russia’s population is 13 million more than the CIA said it would be.

But, unfortunately for the CIA’s reputation, 2015, instead of being the Year of Russia’s Collapse turned out to be the Year of the Russian Threat Redivivus. Loudly trumpeted from all corners.

Getting back to Stratfor (The “Shadow CIA“), its prediction for 2025 is:

There will not be an uprising against Moscow, but Moscow’s withering ability to support and control the Russian Federation will leave a vacuum,” Stratfor warns. “What will exist in this vacuum will be the individual fragments of the Russian Federation.”

We expect Moscow’s authority to weaken substantially, leading to the formal and informal fragmentation of Russia” the report states, adding, “It is unlikely that the Russian Federation will survive in its current form.”

The breakout of Russia’s nuclear weapons stockpile will be “the greatest crisis of the next decade,” according to Stratfor.

And the US will have to figure out what to do about it, even if it means dispatching ground troops to secure loose weapons, materials, and delivery systems.

Note the quaint assumption that the USA will be in any sort of condition in ten years to do anything much anywhere.

So, I guess that Stratfor’s claim to the title of “Shadow CIA” mostly comes from its use of the CIA’s old, discarded and worn out crystal balls.

Either that or we have to believe that Russia breaks apart every decade and miraculously re-assembles itself without anyone noticing.

Growth of the Russian Government

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn HISTORY, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE

This from my Sitrep of 24 Sep 2010 bears repeating, I think. Many many people say Russia’s government is bigger today than it was, usually as part of a bill of indictment against Putin. The statement involves a considerable misunderstanding.

BUREAUCRACY. The Finance Minister said the other day that the number of federal bureaucrats was to be reduced by 100,000 over the next 3 years. World experience shows that this is much easier to say than to do. By the way, one of the many wrong things repeated by the Kommentariat is that Russia’s bureaucracy is bigger than it was in the Communist days. Not so: they forget the enormous CPSU structure that paralleled and directed the government structure. The overall total of state functionaries is surely much lower today. There was a sort of coup that took place in the 1990s in which the local GorIspolKoms (ie “government”) took over the local GorKom (CPSU) building. This can be seen in towns all over Russia if you look: the huge building on Lenin/October/Revolution Square that used to be the local Party HQ is now the City government. Vide Smolniy in St Petersburg.

Really Stupid Things Said About Russia

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, QUOTATIONS

but why not try to measure Russia’s greatness by its ability to build a free and prosperous country, a good global citizen at peace with its neighbors? This kind of Russia might also fare better at the Olympics. The four leading medals winners in Vancouver are free-market democracies.

“The Pride of Russia: An Olympic lesson for the Kremlin”, The Wall St Journal, 27 February 2010

 

How to Read the Western Media

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE

HOW TO READ THE WESTERN MEDIA. When they say Kiev forces have re-taken the airport, know that they have lost it. When they say giving up South Stream was a defeat for Putin, know it was a brilliant counter-move. When they say Russia is isolated (a stopped clock, here’s The Economist in 1999!), know that it is expanding its influence and connections every day. When they say Russians are turning against Putin, know that the opposite is true. When they speak of nation-building in the new Ukraine, know it’s degenerating into armed thuggery (see video). Know that when they speak of Kyrzbekistan, they’re not just stenographers, they’re incompetent stenographers. Take what they say, turn it upside down, and you’ll have a better take on reality.

RF Sitrep 20150129

We May be a Think Tank, But Don’t ask Us to Think

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, WAR ON RUSSIA

Putin, China, Iran, Al Quaeda and ISIS, together again at last! The new neocon nightmare!!!!

Al Qaeda and ISIS also pose a threat to the continued existence of the world order we have known for decades through their constant and periodically-successful efforts to destroy states on which regional order depends.

Those efforts unintentionally cohere with Putin’s drive to reverse the outcome of the Cold War by truncating the territory and sovereignty of Soviet successor states, separating Europe from the U.S., and breaking both NATO and the European Union. They coincide with Chinese undertakings through the finely-calibrated use and threat of force to gain territory, separate the U.S. from its Asian allies, and acquire hegemony in the western Pacific. They interact with Iranian efforts to expel the United States, Britain, and the West from the Middle East and establish Persian hegemony from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean.

Frederick W. Kagan, Kimberly Kagan, Jennifer Cafarella, Harleen Gambhir, and Katherine Zimmerman: U.S. GRAND STRATEGY: DESTROYING ISIS AND AL QAEDA, REPORT ONE; AL QAEDA AND ISIS: EXISTENTIAL THREATS TO THE U.S. AND EUROPE; January 2016

http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/PLANEX_Report1_FINAL.pdf

Corruption is More Complicated Than That

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE

I am tired of people talking about “corruption” in a simple-minded way.

Imagine three cases.

  1. The government spends tax money on a hospital but, in order to get any service, the patients must hand over small bribes to doctors, nurses and staff.
  2. The hospital is built, but the money for operating costs has been embezzled.
  3. The money for the hospital, operating costs and everything else is stolen before it leaves the capital.

Ask yourself these two questions.

  1. Which is the worst case of corruption? The answer is obvious: the third case although very few people know it even happened.
  2. Which is the most visible form of corruption? Again, obviously the first case because hundreds of people know about it.

And that is why I don’t take perceptions of corruption indices very seriously.

And it is why I think that, when people are speaking of corruption, they should think harder about big corruption and less about petty corruption.

For example: “Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.” Or, in plainer language: “When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose.” And that is certainly corruption.

I would suggest that our part of the world has a lot more invisible corruption than Russia even if the latter has more visible corruption.

So, the question of whether Russia is more corrupt than some other country needs much more careful thinking than it generally gets.

Let’s Sanction Those Pesky Russians

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn ACCUSATIONS, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, UKRAINE

Kiev’s envoy at the Trilateral Contact Group Leonid Kuchma says it is impossible to talk about elections or constitutional changes in Eastern Ukraine without resuming control over the Ukraine-Russian Federation border.

Here’s the text of the Minsk II agreement. (My italics) “9. Restore control of the state border to the Ukrainian government in the whole conflict zone, which has to start on the first day after the local election and end after the full political regulation (local elections in particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts based on the law of Ukraine and Constitutional reform) by the end of 2015, on the condition of fulfillment of Point 11 – in consultations and in agreement with representatives of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts within the framework of the Trilateral Contact Group.”

Let’s blame the Russians for not sticking to the Minsk Agreement, shall we?