In light of Russia’s aggressive 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Goodbye, Eastern Europe is a crucial, elucidative read, a sweeping epic chronicling a thousand years of strife, war, and bloodshed, from pre-Christianity to the fall of Communism—illuminating the remarkable cultural significance and richness of a place perpetually lost to the margins of history.
“Eastern Europe” has gone out of fashion since the fall of the Soviet Union. Ask someone today, and they might tell you that Estonia is in the Baltics or Scandinavia, that Slovakia is in Central Europe, and that Croatia is in the eastern Adriatic or the Balkans. In fact, Eastern Europe is a place that barely exists at all, except in cultural memory. Yet it remains a powerful marker of identity for many, with a fragmented and wide-ranging history defined by texts, myths, and memories of centuries of hardship and suffering.
Goodbye, Eastern Europe is a masterful narrative about a place that has survived being forgotten. Beginning with long-lost accounts of early pagan life, Mikanowski offers a kaleidoscopic tour of the various peoples who made Eastern Europe their home over the centuries, including the Roma, Jews, and Muslims; the great kingdoms of the medieval period; the rise and fall of the Ottoman, Habsburg, and Russian empires; the dawn of the modern era; the ravages of fascism and Communism; the birth of the modern nation-state and beyond.
A student of literature, history, and the ghosts of his own family’s past, Mikanowski paints a magisterial portrait of a place united by diversity and eclecticism, and of people with the shared story of being the dominated rather than the dominating. The result is a loving and ebullient celebration of the distinctive and vibrant cultures that stubbornly persisted at the margins of Western Europe and Russia, and a powerful corrective that re-centers not only our understanding of how the modern Western world took shape but also the ways in which Eastern Europe has evolved throughout history to become what it is today.
https://www.amazon.com/Goodbye-Eastern-Europe-Intimate-History/dp/1524748501
Comment: I haven’t read this book yet so I can’t call this a review. I did read the substantial preview provided on the Amazon page and listened to a couple of extended interviews with Mikanowski talking about the book. I will call this a recommendation. The book is a far ranging, yet concise, history of Eastern Europe. The author grew up in a Catholic-Jewish Polish family in Pennsylvania, did extensive travel and research in the region, got an advanced degree in East European studies and writes in a very readable historian-journalist style. I, too, grew up in an East European family and community, got an advanced degree in East European studies and spent well over ten years working the region as both an SF and a clan intelligence officer. Still, I learned things I didn’t know in the preview provided. Is Mikanowski a disinterested observer? Hell no. But neither am I. I look forward to learning more when I finally read the entire book.
I like the way the author captures the essence of pagan ways of early Eastern Europe while acknowledging we know precious little about the details of those ways. Much of what is written was done by embellishing priests with an axe to grind. He also points out how much of the lore and legend of ancient European history is just that… lore and legend cooked up to embellish national cultures. The history of Jews in early times is covered in the preview. What a rich and fascinating history it is. In his interviews he talks about the stark differences of how the Holocaust was carried out in Eastern Europe compared to Western Europe. I was fairly familiar with the difference, but still found his description jarring. Some of his many interviews about the book are also well worth a listen.
The photos I shared the other day came to my mind as I read Mikanowski’s recounting of pre-20th century Eastern Europe. That log house that my great grandmother grew up in was from the beginning of the 20th century. Living in this house, my great grandmother’s family were devout Catholics, but they also remained mindful of the various spirits who lived in the surrounding forests and in that little log house. Those stories of the little house with the stork nest on top along with the spirits that shared her very Catholic life were passed down to me during our many conversations. BTW, that model of the house in the old country now sits in a Lithuanian museum in Putnam, Connecticut.
TTG
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QYwyB8i41A. Interview with Ryan Murdock on “Personal Landscapes”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9d5O75sAvw. Interview with A.J. Woodhams on his “War Books Podcast”
https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/jacob-mikanowski/
Dear TTG,
I have just gotten off the phone with a man who claimed to be defending Larry Johnson in a case where he stands accused of impersonating former President Ulysses S Grant. As long as he remains in Florida he should be safe? I’m not sure about that. He also said you should probably feel free to allow Fred and Eric to view these image files below but please to make sure to keep each of them leashed.
A Large Dog Teaches President Ulysses S Grant How to Prepare Coffee.
http://tinyurl.com/mun76j5v
http://tinyurl.com/2mx5py8w
http://tinyurl.com/22suvppa
http://tinyurl.com/ycyvkxy4
Ulysses S Grant, self-appointed Brevit General of the Sarasota Rifles (inside joke known only to Col Lang, Larry and myself).
Safe? Who would dare to confront such formidable and dauntless formations?
Who would dare? We think we have located precisely such individuals …
Fred & Eric’s Restaurant reviews – year of the Dragon 2024
http://tinyurl.com/4pnj9mzs
http://tinyurl.com/2evhxbe3
http://tinyurl.com/2dapatjz
You’re one odd duck, F&L.
TTG
I greatly beg to differ with your appraisal of me here TTG, and I will not be dunked into overly hot water, I think, if I mention the term “psychological projection” precisely in response to your feeble attempt to insult me by accusing me of being a species of random aquatic aviary wildlife. Please be informed should these mediation outbursts of yours persist that you are messing around with the wrong sort of odd duck, although I am not even a duck at all, in fact I am featherless and land-dwelling.
I will say however that despite these debilitating symptoms of yours on display this morning, your clumsy violence regarding my self esteem conceals a deep source of inspiration, for which I am immensely grateful. Please also understand that all of these photographs were filmed in the immediate vicinity of our nation’s Capitol.
https://fourthandlong.smugmug.com/The-Day-I-Was-Called-an-Odd-Duck/i-FJ5GLsH
https://fourthandlong.smugmug.com/The-Day-I-Was-Called-an-Odd-Duck/i-gcJ9MKx
https://fourthandlong.smugmug.com/The-Day-I-Was-Called-an-Odd-Duck/i-TwVk7rz
https://fourthandlong.smugmug.com/The-Day-I-Was-Called-an-Odd-Duck/i-nwF3pr
https://fourthandlong.smugmug.com/The-Day-I-Was-Called-an-Odd-Duck/i-JW8qXcj
https://fourthandlong.smugmug.com/The-Day-I-Was-Called-an-Odd-Duck/i-5rz9xq8
https://fourthandlong.smugmug.com/The-Day-I-Was-Called-an-Odd-Duck/i-Hdzx83J
——————————
Man Smart, Woman Smarter – The Grateful Dead
https://youtu.be/mqun85HYsVk
F&L,
I thought you’d be happy to be assessed to be an odd duck. Was it psychological projection on my part? Could be. I’ve been declared the same many times throughout my life and I wore the appellation as a badge of honor. Surely you don’t prefer the alternative, a boring drone indistinguishable from the masses.
I happen to like odd ducks, even the feathered ones. Years ago one white domesticated duck decided to have a go at life in the wild and escaped from a nearby farm. I first spotted him in the snowy woods behind the house. I fed him throughout the winter and he made it. In the spring, he linked up with a female Mallard, but lost out to some male Mallards. The same happened for several years until one spring, the romance flowered. That winter, the female Mallard stayed with the odd duck through the winter. The next spring, the male Mallards returned trying to win back the female. The female would have none of it and rebuffed their advances. The happy couple had ducklings that year. That’s my tale of an odd duck who came to known as Daddy Duck to my family.
TTG
As someone who is a bit odd himself – I appreciate your duck story.
F&L
Birds are awesome. This one is for you.
It’s not a duck but I know you appreciate a nice tune.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ElihbSM6ic
wiz,
I like it. I couldn’t help but smile and head dance to the tune. I rank it right up there with the Numa Numa song that went viral many years ago and the guy who does Punjabi Bhangra dancing in the Yukon snow. Pure joy. Listening to a mockingbird go through his repertoire while sitting at the top of a tree in my front yard does the same thing.
@TTG
Ahem…
In France we have had a “special” version of Numa Numa. 😀
(sorry for the French subtitles, I don’t have an English version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfcTRebvgbI
jld,
Looks like the official or near official O-zone video of “Dragostea Din Tei.” I first heard the tune when some kid named Gary Brolsma did his lip sync, chair dancing take off on the tune. We were alerted to its existence through an IRC discussion with a pack of international router hackers as part of our work. I still love that Numa Numa song and Gary Brolsma’s lip synching and chair dancing.
TTG
Lol IRC. One of the earliest Internet killer apps. Before web even.
I remember back in college you could always find a bunch of free, internet connected terminals until people discovered IRC.
wiz,
Before IRC, I was all over FidoNet. It was massive in the USSR.
TTG
“Cracked corn, dandelion shoots, fish, seeds ..”
From: What do ducklings eat in the wild?
This is the same academic territory magisterially surveyed by the late Tony Judt. Eastern Europe is indeed a mixing bowl and has been for thousands of years becase there are few natural barriers. Everywhere has been depopulated, repopulated, fought over, divided, reassembled and mixed. It’s people are the very definition of “opportunistic”. Only opportunists can survive in such a fluid environment.
…..Which explains why the “glorious history” of Ukraine is a crock. Why corruption is an issue in Ukraine. And of course why the western half of Ukraine – who think of themselves as “echte Deutsche” – real germans, so gleefully joined the Waffen SS and took such delight n murdering Jews. And of course the grandchildren of those Ukrainian Waffen SS are hard at work today.
Tony Judt has authored many books.
Were there specific one or two you were recommending?
Similar history explains why the glorious history of a sovereign Palestinian people is also a crock.
Only opportunists can survive in such a fluid environment.
walrus,
I thought the grandchildren of those Ukrainian Waffen SS all moved to Canada.
To be a bit serious – while I did get robbed twice in Lviv I quite liked the people there for much the same reason that I quite like the Czechs and the Poles. The vast majority of them are not Nazis but quite decent people.
Hi, TTG.
I have no expertise whatsoever in Eastern Europe,
but just as general background think the following maps showing the development of various cultures there are of interest:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZlQy6FlDBO1ypReq5m5OKOo_pcScdtDe
Soooo many people come to the New World longing to remake the old bygone times of the land they left.
Yes and sometimes things turn out well, but then again ..
http://tinyurl.com/bddpjc8s
Ttg.
I was looking through some old documents i inherited and discovered my grandfathers naturalisation certificate.
He came from a village called Raseiniai.
The story about the soviet kv tank is legendary
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Raseiniai
The other history
https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/raseiniai/Jewish-Rassein.html
mcohen,
Very interesting. I remember reading about that first encounter with the KV-1 in Paul Carell’s “Hitler Moves East” way back in high school.
Part of my family came from Šiauliai, not that far from Raseiniai, that is until those who remained were disappeared to Siberia.
More on a.mapu mentioned in my link
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Mapu
Today’s contest is to find a fully employed and paid up commanding member of the Deep State who unveils himself more overtly and clumsily than “retired” US Admiral Stavridis!
This ain’t no grey eminence, you’re supposed to be undetectable.
——
Turkey must let “defensive ships” into the Black Sea
https://www.rt.com/news/590209-anakara-british-warships-ukraine/
James Stavridis said Ankara should obey its role as a US-led military bloc’s member.
Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis has claimed that there was no justification for Ankara to prevent a fellow bloc member from donating its warships to Ukraine.
The #@&$ obviously never read the Montreux Convention. Turkey stopped all non-Black Sea ships transiting the Straits in WWII, forcing the Germans to ship submarines in pieces overland to the Black Sea. That was a feat! Now Türkiye is doing the same thing.
TTG..
I Really Enjoyed You Family History and Photos…So…Great to Have That History…
From Your Grandmother..The Log Cabin…Her Photos…I Have much Material Just Like That..And My Great grandfather Auto Biography On Thier Wagon Train Coming West from Illinois in 1859…Treasures…Roots…You Must Be very Proud…Regards..
Jim
My Mother was born in an eastern European village a couple of years after WW2 and it was a very difficult time.
During the war various armies and militias would regularly raid villages for food leaving very little to the villagers.
Add to that the loss of life and destruction due to war, and post war communist agricultural policies and food was very scarce. If they had soup it would often be just warm water with some salt.
The kids would shadow trucks transporting grain and collect whatever grain spills onto the ground.
Today, people lose their sh*t if their Amazon order is a day late.
Wiz –
That soup you mention – my first wife’s mother who was from over there, she called it “nail soup”.
leith
Indeed. Those generations often are tough as nails.
wiz
Give it time.. The destruction of Western civilization is well advanced and much of what passes for its leadership is presently co-operating enthusiastically in these efforts. Chasing grain trucks will come back into fashion one day.
Barbara Ann
I guess it’s the old cycle:
Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.
I see our Defense Secretary was hospitalized and in intensive care and no one on his staff deemed it necessary to tell the President, VP, Speaker of the House nor apparently anyone else. That staff all still has their jobs, as do Biden’s.
Best leadership ever.
Fred, That’s proof that the (real) system is in fact working like a well maintained Swiss Clock. Because the real system is a system of Deep State gray shady bureaucrats and intelligence officials who take direction from a corporate and financial “global” oligarchy. (big mistake to use that word in quotes in a land suffering from an IQ lowering plague, but ..). Biden is in charge of nothing and decides nothing, neither will Trump if he’s elected. So why inform them of anything?
Meanwhile – do you think this Bow-wing thing is a deep state (Intel agency or corporate spy henchmen) engineered occurrence which serves to keep huge numbers of planes grounded for some nefarious military purpose as a war of some sort is launched which won’t be reported in the media so this is the cover story? Or just stock option manipulation by crypto psychopaths who kidnapped former Stasi to do this?
—————————–
https://t.me/malekdudakov/6469
Boeing dives . The largest aerospace corporation in the United States is in crisis. The cause was once again the problematic Boeing 737 Max airliner. Under Trump, he was already banned from flying – after the disaster in Africa. But Biden lifted all restrictions in exchange for donations to his headquarters.
Now force majeure has occurred in Alaska – where the door of the 737 Max of the latest ninth modification suddenly flew out during the flight . Alaska Airlines immediately stopped all flights on the 737 Max. The ban was then extended to all airlines in the US. And now other countries – from Panama to Turkey – are banning flights on the 737 Max .
The bans will affect at least 200 aircraft . And the most important sources of profit for Boeing . Inspections on the 737 Max have already found unevenly drilled holes, as well as bolts that were not tightened at the factory. And even in the aircraft control system.
Boeing ended 2023 with significant losses – having lost $2 billion just on the release of the new presidential aircraft, Air Force One . The gap with Airbus is widening. And now Boeing is being denied access to the Chinese aviation market.
This is due not only to the problems of the 737 Max – but also to the release of the Chinese competitor C919 , which is already seriously eroding Boeing’s market share . Russia is also developing its own MS-21 – another competitor to the 737 Max. So Boeing found itself in a situation of existential crisis – with losses, technological turmoil and increasing competition. He miraculously avoided bankruptcy during the pandemic – but Boeing’s collapse can no longer be ruled out in the next 5-7 years .
F&L,
I don’t know if it’s the design or a real lack of quality control on the 737 line, but I agree that Boeing may be in for a world of hurt. The earlier 737s had deadly problems with the rudder. I experienced it firsthand when my youngest son and I went to Alaska for a camping trip. As we were taking off from Newark Airport, the plane was fishtailing back and forth as it accelerated down the runway. I felt something was bad wrong. Just before take off, the pilot jammed on the brakes and reversed engined. He obviously felt something was bad wrong too. We remained on the runway, but the brakes were welded shut. Didn’t have to use the emergency ramps. The pilot got a rousing ovation for his action. I never liked flying, takeoffs and landing in particular. I figured by jumping out of them, I eliminated the dangers inherent in the landings.
The C919 will definitely replace Boeing and Airbus in the Chinese market. That alone will hurt both companies. But the C919 is no cheaper than the 737 MAX and it relies on US/French engines. Don’t know how well it will do outside of the fast growing Chinese market.
The B737 design is excellent for its time and so was Boeing. I spent a lot of time in Seattle as a Boeing customer. I watched the contruction of the first B767 among other things and was sitting in the cockpit a year before it first flew.
There were engineering issues occasionally – that is always the case with any aircraft, and the Boeing staff, prior to buying McDonnel Douglas, handled them diligently and intelligently with a great deal of caution, humility and success.
Your “rudder issue” was not the result of bad design, quite the reverse. The problem was eventually traced to differential expansion of the piston and cylinder in the rudder servo (or was it yaw damper?) where hot hydraulic fluid met a cold component(or was it the other way around?) and the unit jammed solid. Examination at room temperature of course showed no problem. The Boeing boys and girls eventually tracked it down. That issue was caused by clearances that were too tight.
But back to the chase. Buying McDonnell Douglas was a toxic purchase. The Wall street whiz kids believed McDonnel Douglas management snake oil and forced Boeing to become less engineering oriented and more marketing driven. There was lots of bullshit about “discovering shareholder value” and suchlike. The Boeing engineering culture was destroyed and replaced by the same snake oil that destroyed McDonnel Douglas.
You are seeing the direct results of that destruction of the original Boeing culture today.
Alaska Airlines also bears some responsibility. They glossed over pressurization warning lights on three previous flights made by that aircraft involved in the incident.
I completely blame the McDonnell Douglas purchase and what came after for Boeing’s current problems. In contrast, you won’t see any senior executive in a German chemical or pharmaceutical company without a PhD in a relevant field and actual experience, anytime soon.
F&L,
Of bigger concern is the subcontractor who drilled holes in subassemblies whoopsi.
https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/extra-holes-drilled-in-max-pressure-bulkheads/
Apparently they, in the Harvard DEI tradition, plagiarized their quality control inspections, and of course, documents.
Fred –
When the shortage of Neutron Star Flakes becomes critical — An old drill is a handy standby for the officials of Crashing International Airlines.
I heard about this and it shocked me for a few seconds until I thought about it for a few more then it made perfect sense.
The level of deception, lies and trickery with these people in the Biden admin is way beyond what people think. This guy went to the ER and was seriously not going to tell anyone, thinking he was going to keep all of it to himself…meh.
He truly believed nobody would find out. Think about that for a minute. He thought he could absolutely hide it in this day and age. Everybody in the effin hospital knew! Nothing like that can be kept under wraps. He is a feeble minded idiot.
babelthuap,
Yes. And you graciously left out the part about the elements of whatever US security apparatus is reputedly in existence whose representatives told the ailing Defense Secretary either:
A) “Don’t fret Lloyd, no one can possibly find out what you were really doing or where, no, no they can’t thanks to us, so OK absolutely here’s our signature on your absence note and Scouts Honor we won’t tell ..”
B) “Lloyd – Why would a life-threatening illness brought on by an experimental untested COVID-19 vaccine and suffered by a Defense Secretary who obediently ordered the entire staff United States Military to take it or else face discharge and court-martial .. why or how could such a development present a scandal to the Biden administration? We’re not seeing it, but anyway, sure we’ll say you had elective surgery, no problem ..”
C) D) E) … Other Options
Merry Christmas!
“The yardstick by which evil is measured.” That’s from the 2012 Times article on the passing of William Heirens, the Lipstick Killer. A very controversial case, historically so. The convicted man attended the same Gibault School for wayward boys as did Charles Manson. A crazy thought for crazy times is to consider if the President is in fact always choose on Jan 7 every four years while never notifying the public. If so, who is being made President today?
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-u-s-presidential-election
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/a-case-of-split-personality-in-puzzling-chicago-murders
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/us/william-heirens-the-lipstick-killer-dies-at-83.html
http://www.fieldtripper.com/c/UghhYEf_cuM/william-heirens-the-lipstick-killer-suzanne-degnans-house
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Heirens
Still plodding along controverting Biden’s assertion that the SMO was “unprovoked”. It’s always seemed to me that the Mearsheimer explanation for the SMO was at best secondary. The primary reason for the SMO was that if Putin hadn’t moved the Kiev forces would have got into the Donbass and it’d have been mayhem. Put up this request on MOA:-
……………………..
”
Simplicius puts up this interview. The video seems to come to an end but runs on if you let it.
https://twitter.com/simpatico771/status/1744097411184644433?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
The key section, when it comes to considering the start of the SMO and the reason for it – a rough transcript of a poor translation:-
“The fact is, at the time of February 24th, in the direction of Donetsk and Crimea, a group of up to 70.000 was gathering, clearly with the aim of not conducting exercises, I mean here from the Ukrainian side.
“Well, and in order to relieve the pressure on the guys who were in that direction, that is to divide the grouping, there was this detour to Kiev, on order to divide their group into two parts for that, They had to, on an emergency basis, send roughly 35,000 people back, and while they were returning back we essentially went all the way to Kiev.”
In short, a pre-emptive attack on the Kiev forces in order to prevent them getting into the Donbass. And a diversionary attack on Kiev to split those Kiev forces.
If the Russian speakers here could do a better translation that would be useful. Because here we see laid out the justification for the SMO.
”
…………………..
Another brick in the wall of evidence that the SMO was a Western provocation? Or a Russian pilot repeating what he’d been told.
I go for the first. But I believe more such evidence is needed to counter Biden’s assertion that the SMO was “unprovoked”.
EO,
That’s the musings of one Mi-8 pilot. He also stated he was fighting for Donbas and for the continued existence of the Motherland. That’s a steaming pile of hyperbole. If the goal was to liberate the entire oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk or even the more limited goal of ensuring the rump states of the DNR and LNR were defended, the Russians would have moved heavily into the Donbas. That’s what the Ukrainians were expecting. It would have been a clever move to enter the newly recognized states up to the LOC and stop. At that point, the West would have been hard pressed to call it an invasion. The only downside for the Kremlin is that such a limited incursion would not have removed the Zelenskiy government and would not have stopped the westernization of Ukraine, but it may have stopped NATO expansion. Instead, they triggered the revitalization and expansion of NATO.
TTG
If the plan had worked Russia would gotten most of the Russian speaking areas with very little blood spilt.
It miscalculated badly.
US/UK miscalculated as well thinking Russia would accept NATO expansion into Ukraine and beyond without a bitter fight.
The current situation is not good for Europe, not good for Russia and is disastrous for Ukraine.
Long term it is not good for the US either.
Wiz,
Yes. It seems obvious to all but the most biased that the plan was to intimidate Kiev into a quick negotiation and surrender of the Donbas. Russia gambled badly on bad intel. The US gambled badly on bad intel both by pushing NATO further East, by believing that sanctions would crush Russia and by generally hating Russia in the first place. No genius 4D chess players on any side here, but Russia/Putin as seeking to re-establish the Soviet Iron Curtain and all that nonsense? Badly manufactured LSD taken by people that should stick to sedatives in the first place.
TTG,
must the West face reality, as Nina Khrushcheva argues? Obviously, two completely incompatible, firmly held positions are facing each other (Putin’s vs Zelenskyy’s?). Nothing changed since Putin’s ultimatum
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/western-calls-for-russias-total-defeat-in-ukraine-alienates-russians-strengthens-putin-by-nina-l-khrushcheva-2023-12
Interview Democracy Now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bPQnbkZNrc
********
censored mental meanderings
TTG – I assume then that that’s a real pilot, not just someone with a mask over his face reading lines he’s been fed with.
Anyway, that’s the Russian story. That they’re ‘fighting for Donbas and for the continued existence of the Motherland.’
Most of us in the West see it as a fake story – just a cover for Russian land grabbing old style. I’m not so sure. Taking the “continued existence of the Motherland” first:-
Brzezinski – thanks spell-checker, I can never type that name right – set out the story the Russians fear. According to Brzezinski, best thing for the RF was to be broken up and for Russia to become another smallish European state. That’s very much the message I took away from “The Grand Chessboard” when I read it a while back.
The Russians know all about the Brzezinski dream. In an interview with a dissident Russian journalist a few years back Putin suddenly burst out “They want to reduce us to the Duchy of Muscovy!” – so both sides know what the game plan is.
And Brzezinski’s dream was not just the long forgotten hope of a Russophobic Polish aristocrat. The dream lives on! Blinken, giving a keynote address recently:-
“Dr. Brzezinski also believed that one of his most enduring contributions to international affairs was shaping America’s rising scholars and practitioners – including President Carter, who described himself as “an eager student” of Zbig; and Ian, Mark, Mika – all of whom have strived to bring us closer to what Zbig called the pragmatic fusion of American power with American principle.”
https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-remarks-to-the-johns-hopkins-school-of-advanced-international-studies-sais-the-power-and-purpose-of-american-diplomacy-in-a-new-era/
Now that speech reads to us like the usual politician’s boilerplate. Nothing more. But to the Russians that’s the US Secretary of State, just about the most powerful statesman in the world, reaffirming the thrust of the Grand Chessboard. The RF delenda est.
It’s a message that’s been reinforced many times since. It’s a message that’s got through to us the great unwashed of Europe. On European blogs last year I was seeing comments from Poles, Germans, English – all to the effect that Russia was done for and would be broken up. So the Russians maybe have some justification for fearing that we Westerners, politicians and voters and all, are still assiduously pursuing the message in the gospel according to “Zbig”.
……………………….
On the second point, I agree entirely that it would have been better had the Russians stopped at the Donbass. In fact I go further than that and believe Ukraine would best have been left as a fully independent state, Crimea and all.
But as Patrick Armstrong pointed out so forcefully some time ago, that chance was lost after the Maidan. Ukraine became just another means of “overextending and unbalancing Russia.” Minsk 2 could have changed that to an extent but the European duplicity over Minsk 2 removed that chance of remedy.
Westerners don’t see Minsk 2 that way. The Russians do, and it was they who had to deal with its failure. So should they have dealt with that by taking just the Donbass?
The Russians knew that Brussels and Washington had those “shock and awe” sanctions lined up. Any military steps they might have taken would have triggered those sanctions. Given that, they might as well go in and clear the whole mess up because whatever they did the sanctions were coming. That’s precisely what Putin said at the start of the SMO.
………………………
That’s the Russian story, both parts. We don’t, most of us, find it convincing. They do, all but their Atlanticists, and it’s they who have the big guns in that particular region.
On another but related matter, LeaNder recently enquired after a note I submitted a while back on the sanctions war. Might I append that as a note to this comment?
Note. The economic war against Russia.
Some time ago I assembled some references relating to Western hopes in the early period of the sanctions war. Now that has failed the ferocity of that attack on the Russian economy is played down. At the time, however, the intentions were clearly stated. The Russian economy and financial system was to be broken.
On the trade side the EU was not only an eager participant in that sanctions war. It was the most powerful – American and UK direct trade with Russia was not so great and it was Germany above all that could damage Russia by inhibiting trade. Brief summary, therefore:-
……………………………..
This was the reasoning behind the sanctions war, set out by Bruno Le Maire at an early stage in that war (machine translation):-
“BRUNO LE MAIRE:-
“I will be very clear with you, Marc FAUVELLE, it is Russia that will suffer, not Europe. Europe will perhaps actually have a little more inflation, because perhaps gas prices will increase a little, but it is Russia which will suffer, it is the Russian economy which will suffer. And it is the Russian financial system that will collapse before our eyes. Europe, the only consequence it can have in the coming weeks is a small increase in prices, depending on the increase in energy prices.”
(Interview with Mr. Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, Finance and Recovery, to France Info on March 1, 2022, on economic sanctions against Russia after its attack on Ukraine and the economic repercussions for France)
https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/284205-bruno-le-maire-01032022-ukraine
From the same source:-
“Yes, the sanctions are effective. Economic and financial sanctions are even extremely effective. And I do not want to leave any ambiguity about European determination on this subject. We are going to wage total economic and financial war on Russia…”
“The economic and financial balance of power is totally in favor of the European Union, which is in the process of discovering its economic power…”
Also the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission Josep Borrell , at the very start of the sanctions war, stated that the sanctions had been tailored to harm the RF as much as possible while inflicting as little damage as possible on the European economy.
On the face of it Borrell’s hope looks plain foolish. The EU is dependent on supplies from Russia. How could it threaten or harm Russia by refusing to accept supplies from it? Even if that, and the financial sanctions, had devastated the Russian economy it must have devastated its own. Especially had the Russians retaliated by cutting off all supplies to Europe. It would not have taken long in that case for the European economy to go into recession.
But it does make sense, though only if the devastation of the Russian economy had been immediate. A brief period of shortage of Russian supplies, or of no Russian supplies at all, could have been weathered by the European economy, that brief period coming to an end when Russia had been defeated in the sanctions war. As a long term strategy the sanctions war could not work for Europe. But as a means of obtaining a quick kill it would have. As said in the interview the sanctions “must strike quickly and they must strike hard.”
“We will have a G7 meeting this afternoon on the subject, and I have also called a meeting of European finance ministers tomorrow, to ensure the proper execution of these sanctions. They must strike quickly, they must strike hard, and as you have already said, we can see the effects. The ruble collapsed by 30%. Russian foreign exchange reserves are melting like snow in the sun, and Vladimir PUTIN’s famous war chest is already reduced to almost nothing. We see the collapse of the market, we also see the increase in inflation.
” We are going to see lines of Russians looking to get cash in banks. And then the central bank had no choice but to increase interest rates from 10 to 20%, which means that companies will not be able to borrow, except at very high rates, to invest. and to develop the economy. We will therefore cause the collapse of the Russian economy. they must hit hard, and we see the effects, as you have already said.”
That the West was expecting, indeed thought it was witnessing, a quick kill was shown by President Biden’s Warsaw speech at much the same time. The rouble down to 200, financial chaos in Russia, increasing shortages. This was the quick kill in action, the West striking quickly and hard. President Biden:-
“As a result of these unprecedented sanctions, the ruble almost is immediately reduced to rubble. The Russian economy — (applause) — that’s true, by the way. It takes about 200 rubles to equal one dollar.
“The economy is on track to be cut in half in the coming years. It was ranked — Russia’s economy was ranked the 11th biggest economy in the world before this evasion [sic] — invasion. It will soon not even rank among the top 20 in the world. (Applause.)
“Taken together, these economic sanctions are a new kind of economic statecraft with the power to inflict damage that rivals military might.”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/03/26/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-united-efforts-of-the-free-world-to-support-the-people-of-ukraine/
And the benefits of that quick kill of the Russian economy also laid out in the two sources cited:-
“My message to the rest of Europe, this new battle for freedom has already made a few things crystal clear. First, Europe must end its dependence on Russian fossil fuels. And we, the United States will help. [Applause]
“That’s why just yesterday in Brussels I announced the plan with the president of the European Commission to get Europe through the immediate energy crisis. Over the long-term, as a matter of economic security and national security and for the survivability of the planet, we all need to move as quickly as possible to clean, renewable energy.”
That completing the Trump/Grenell drive to detach Germany from Russian suppliers. Also, it was hoped, to supply Germany LNG instead. Also further impetus for Net Zero.
.And for the Europeans?
“What this Ukrainian crisis shows, and what the European response shows, is that Europe cannot be content with being an economic and financial power, even if it is effective, it must also become a military power.
“And the paradox of this whole situation is that it is the violence of Vladimir PUTIN which will finally create European strategic independence..”
That bringing the EU further along the path of becoming the United States of Europe, with appropriate independent military power. Placing Europe in the position of being able to “Project the power of a Continent”, the dream of European integrationists for decades. Also boosting European defence industry production.
Also getting rid of a decidedly inconvenient Russian President. President Biden:-
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power..”
That early period marked the high tide of Western hopes. So many goals. So many results hoped for from the sanctions war against Russia.
And the military defeat of Russia in Ukraine was another result that would have been surely automatic. For with Putin gone, the Russian economy in tatters, and the RF itself suffering the consequences of the hoped for destabilisation, it is scarcely likely that Russia would have had the requisite resources and will to fight a large NATO trained and equipped Ukrainian army.
But the quick kill did not succeed. It soon became apparent to all that the sanctions war had failed.
With that failure any prospect of Ukrainian military victory vanished.
EO, I only scanned it. Concerning your intro, “Some time ago … broken”. Why do you keep setting up straw men? Who plays down what? Me? EU/US mainstream media, collectively?
Besides: I thought it was all German fault. Now, there should be ample proofs available, considering your very good connections in Germany and your familiarity with German media. …
Since you mentioned Patrick Armstrong. There was a time he was even surprised about the sanctions’ backbone of the Germans concerning Nord Stream at one point in time. I was a lot less sure, it could/would work in the long term, against [topic of this thread] united US and Eastern European rejection of the project. I doubt I was the only one. This may explain the missing German response* at least to some tiny extent.
*…
There was a time he was even surprised about the sanctions’ backbone of the Germans concerning Nord Stream at one point in time.
Kept changing this sentence without looking back. You recall US North Stream sanctions?
There was a time even PA was surprised about German backbone, considering US North Stream sanctions. Mind you, it was almost finished then. What should they have done? Under very, very pro Polish Trump? Remember?
Migration.. Misery..or Tyrrany Mostly in Europe in and The British Control of The North Americas and Canada….Caused the 1500s -1600s..Pilgrims.. To come Colonize The East Coast..and its 13 Colonys..Tyrrany..Unfair Taxes..No Rule of Law Except The Kings..
These Colonists did NOT Come To “RECREATE” The Europe They Had Left
\They Came So They Could Have Religious Freedom….With NO Pressure or Power of The Church Over Them…Or escape Hardships…BUY Land..Own Homes..Create Their Own Commerce.. And When TYRRANY Applied Boot Pressre,,The Colonists said..
“Dont Tread On Me..” Freedom..a Constitutional Republic.. and a “Forge”
Regards…jim
Jim – the sequel was instructive. Instead of holding to a festering enmity the two sides sat down together and worked out the best deal they could:-
Historians such as Alvord, Harlow, and Ritcheson have emphasized that British generosity was based on a statesmanlike vision of close economic ties between Britain and the United States. … The point was that the United States would become a major trading partner.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783)
Very instructive. Westphalia in action. Unfortunately it wasn’t a model that was widely adopted. The Irish had a hell of a time arriving at their deal and when they did it was a pretty mean-spirited one they got. As for us Brits, when it came to us loosening the bonds in which we ourselves had become enmeshed it was festering enmity all the way.
So our own mini Revolutionary War recently had no such happy ending. I suppose you know the bastards pinched our fish as a self-awarded leaving present. We never pinched yours.
EO..
Thank You for Your Comments..Interesting…Ah.
1783…….””..The Treaty of Paris..”” Was That After
His Majesty Ordered The White House Burned Down…
I Am of Sussex Stock..All BRIT..100 percent..To some Extent..You..The Scots..And Irish are Mpre Independant.
Have More Freedom.. And The Press Has Been “Aware”
Of The Behavior Of The NOT so British,,”House of Windsor.
The Value is still Freedom of Expression.the PEN..Dipped..
Regards..jim
I think of The PEN…Dipped in Ink…That wrote The United States Constitution,,,
I Think of The PEN of Benjamin Franklin..Our Rirst Ambassador..
The Pens..A Free Press…a Free People..
I think of Colonel W. Patrick Lang..and Honor Him..
jim
Following up on this topic, I did buy and read:
Europe on Trial: The Story of Collaboration, Resistance, and Retribution during World War II
by Istvan Deak (Author), Norman M. Naimark (Author)
The premise is that Hitler treated Western Europe much better than Eastern Europe.
His goal to kill virtually everyone for lebensraum.
So many different groups. Interesting Class decided by language. We’ve got that here, all the people doing real work are Mexicans!
A premise to how US is devolving into lunacy…
By the way Fred, do you eat? Almost all food produced in US in by Mexicans!
Thanks TTG, I’m very interested in this subject. I’m going to get this book.
I was made aware of the messed up destiny of Eastern Europe by a novel by ODOJEWSKI WLODZIMIERZ entitled in French “Et La Neige Recouvrit Leur Trace”, in English: Then The Snow Covered Their Trail. A novel that highlights the ethnic complexity of the area and the violence involved. And it goes back a long way.
I hope your book is too about the Jewish extermination of Yiddishland (eastern Poland, the Baltic states and the “zone of residence” in Russia at the time).
Just passing this along pasted below lines from Ru Telegram channel. I have no idea as to veracity.
——————————
https://t.me/nonetutto/1540
The CIA destroyed 16 IRGC ships in an Iranian port tonight. The cargo was destined for Yemen.
Several hours before the strike on the ships, Tehran refused to register the cargo and check it as a humanitarian convoy by UN officials. After which three strategic UAVs launched a group strike.
In addition, in the port itself, four IRGC officers supervising the Houthis and their military wing were shot in the back of the head.
A series of terrorist attacks on Iranian territory is growing, and at the same time, E. Blinken is intimidating Middle Eastern actors in case they oppose Israel’s plans to gain full control over the territory of Palestine.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE are ready to recognize Israel’s full control over the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian territories according to the “Ukraine 2022” model. Where the puppet government and the Palestinian Medvedchuk will be completely controlled from Jerusalem, and the international community and the “civilized world” led by the United States will recognize their power and the fact that it was obtained democratically.
So far, a pool of countries consisting of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar and Lebanon is categorically against this.
“Just unscrew the bolts, OK?”
OK – just unscrew the bolts, got it.
———————
United finds loose bolts on Boeing jets grounded after blowout incident
The findings, as part of a preliminary inspection ordered by FAA, raises questions about possible systematic problems with the Boeing 737 Max 9 jet.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/01/08/boeing-737-max-inspections-begin/
United Airlines on Monday said preliminary inspections of grounded Boeing 737 Max 9 planes have turned up loose bolts and other issues with the part of the aircraft that failed on an Alaska Airlines flight over Portland last week, raising concerns of a systematic problem with jetliner.
In some cases, bolts needed additional tightening, the carrier said. The inspections of more than 100 Alaska and United planes manufactured by Boeing were ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration after a door plug blew out of the Alaska flight midflight Friday, causing injuries and chaos but no fatalities. (More at link)
F&L,
No no no. Just do like Dr. Gay of Harvard and plagiarize your quality documents. The other guy/gal/xer got it right, why should you do the work?
Fred,
I am very very sorry to shock you but in 1969 while we were grading the calculus exams at a fairly good University, one of the university dean’s henchmen opened the grading room door and before reading a list of names to us taken from a large manila envelope, announced “grading must cease on the papers of the following individuals, you must hand their papers over to me immediately and speak no further of this .. these are the orders of the blah blah blah (high Muckety mucks)”. Then he read the names out, collected them into the envelope and while shaking his head up and down repeatedly shot me a look that was the equivalent of “it’s not good but wtf can you do?” The names were all names of African-American individuals. That happened several times during my short career helping out the math department as a TA.
Many years later while being treated for a very serious illness, feeling too weak to walk across the room to fish my address book out from its nest in a tray of daily essentials and needing to call my specialist doctor who came specially recommended by some people I prefer not to mention, .. sitting with my laptop on my lap, I googled his office address to get his office phone number without standing up. By pure serendipity, after I typed the doctor’s name and the Google routines offered several choices I clicked on one which said something like “PDF files of NY State MDs convicted of felonies” because my doctor’s name appeared there. He wasn’t black, he was Jewish, and he’d been convicted of signing attendance sheets to official rosters in Bellevue hospital which entitled him to pay for being in house and on call for the emergency room, when in fact he was not on the premises. It was a ring of interns doing it. I read all about his case and dozens of others and it was really interesting to discover how numerous these doctor felons are. Very. Purely by luck and because I had included something in my search text string which triggered the PDF files archive location of these felons I discovered that my own doctor was a felon. Guess what Fred? Doctors like that are in a pickle. And by doing what their accreditation overseers tell them they must do they are allowed to practice, but they are henceforth members of a necessarily secret, (but not officially secret) brotherhood – who can be and are called on by certain authorities if need be (and such needs may in some instances be quite nefarious) to do certain types of unspecified “work” that sometimes is not necessarily at all in the interests of their patients. The government has doctors in its employ and so do the various mafias which as you know are often if not always ethnic. The long lists of felon doctors was quite eye-opening. It’s all a small small part of what some “folks” call “the deep state.” There’s a story that James Earl Ray was released from prison specifically to shoot MLK. But on his release papers it wasn’t printed “because he’s going to shoot MLK on the orders of … . ” And some doctors are just naturally pickles, who decide it might pay to tell a patient he has a condition he doesn’t have because the doctor wants to get paid for a procedure as you certainly either know or have heard about or surmised.
Yes – Doctor Gay. Remember that, a Doctor was forced to resign. Doctor Jill is also a Doctor, and Reverend Al Sharpton is a Reverend. Jimmy Swaggart, Tammy Faye ..
Fred – do you consider yourself vindictive and cruel or just a stickler for the rules? My opinion is that Geraldine Gay was railroaded by powerful and highly unscrupulous people to quit and that yes she probably did a bit of plagiarism but that had nothing to do with why she was canned, it was just convenient. I also suspect that she was generously rewarded for stepping down so that the Jewish mafia in business, media, education and government could make its point, as well as write that sixth grade level mea culpa of hers in a new york times oped, which omitted, by design, to mention the real issues at play in her faux (because forced and likely well-remunerated, but obscured through NDA, though admittedly this is guesswork and speculation on my part) act of resignation.
Benjamin Franklin…..had First Visited London..as a teenager
in the mid…1720s..and stayed for Eighteen Months.
,,to Learn Printing,,He returned in 1725,,,,His Only Known Existing
Home…Is In England,,,
jim
Popped up this morning
I been thinking of moving to megiddo
Can hear the ring bell
Just one more domino
Before the gates of hell
I heard the devil say
Floor it on the back straight
The game is in play
Before you’re too late.
Hmm, floor it? Where did you say you are at:
An American guy approaches a Brit, and asks, “Excuse me, where is the restroom at?”
Brit, trying to be clever, says “In the English language, my dear chap, it is frowned up on to end a sentence with a preposition”
“OK”, says the American, “where’s the restroom at, asshole?”
If one is moving to Megiddo does one use U-Saul?
TTG
I’d be interested on your views on Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Ben Hodges’ latest interview with a German publication: Machine translation:
https://www.rnd.de/politik/ukraine-krieg-der-ukrainischen-armee-geht-die-munition-aus-das-albtraumszenario-wird-realitaet-Q7NNVH2MO5BHPNXKJFLZUN46DY.html