Bobzhuman

Missile Defense and the (Old) New The Russian Empire

A must read.

From Mike Walker, Col. USMC (retired), with a footnote from Mike and an introduction of a companion piece by Dr. Wayne Downing.

All,

Another contrarian view to make you think:

To try to figure out the ramifications of the recent abandonment of our allies in Poland and the Czech Republic, it may be worth pointing out that you could learn more about modern Eastern European history by reading up on what was happening in 1839 or 1909 or even 1929 than by looking back to 1999 or 1989.

You may also like to read up on Russian-Persian history and skip all the cold war Soviet-Iran stuff - too politicized to be of much value.

The so-so news is that we have a decade or so reestablish the defenses in Eastern Europe. The bad news is that we have helped to potentially destabilize the region if we are seen by the Russian Empire to be passively accepting a new and politically correct version of the "iron curtain."

Let there be no doubt about the goal of the Russian Empire, they want suzerianty over Eastern Europe. They will achieve this goal through a campaign launched along three simultaneous lines of operation: political, economic, and through their military.

They would prefer to achieve it through economic and political warfare alone but Putin knows that none of these states will willingly knuckle under to the Kremlin unless the military threat is real.

Now I am not (yet) talking about a Russian military move against any state in Eastern Europe. That is too crude even for Putin as he prefers to limit that option for Central Asia and the Caucasus for now.

No, the military threat I am referring to is from Iran. It is in the strategic interests of the Russian Empire to have Iran armed with medium range ballistic missiles topped with nuclear warheads.

At that point Russia will make Eastern Europe an offer they cannot refuse: Accept Russian hegemony and protection or face political isolation and economic ruin, all the while living under the constant fear of a nuclear attack by Iran. At least you can forget about Israel as a problem.

And how about the latest "good" news being foisted by the US media that Russia announced it will NOT deploy missiles near Poland?

What the heck does that mean? Let me see if I can try to get this: If we agree not to deploy DEFENSIVE missiles in order to protect Poland from missile attacks by aggressor rogue states such as Iran then Russia agrees to cancel the deployment of its OFFENSIVE missiles intended to attack peaceful Poland?

That gives Realpolitik quid-pro-quo a whole new meaning because at the end of the day Poland is left defenseless. Hey, with friends like the United States, who needs enemies? Putin is playing the US like a bunch of amateur hayseeds.

Perhaps wars in Europe are not so much a thing of the past as we once thought.

Semper Fi,

Mike

Part 2 (Col. Walker)

All, A short note from Dr. Downing, Ph.D, on the situation in Eastern Europe. It is as subtly brilliant as it is succinct. By the way, when I was in Iraq the Poles still had the heart of lions in combat. The overwhelming majority had their hands tied by an all too common Coalition "domestic appeasement" government which would brook no casualties. Make no assessment as to the fighting spirit of the Poles based upon that constraint. The Polish special forces and paratroopers are as "tough gunslingers" as you could hope to have on your flank in combat. They are every inch the same steely-eyed warriors who crossed the Rhine under deadly Nazi fire to help the Brit "Paras" at Arnhem in September 1944. Semper Fi, Mike Part 3 (Dr. Downing) Hi Mike, An interesting missive on the recent decision to drop the missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. This is my take on the situation based on my understanding of the historical realties of this part of Europe. There were three conflicts that dominated world affairs throughout the 20th century and all had their origins in Eastern Europe. These are the Great War of 1914-1918, World War II 1939-1945 and the Cold War 1945-1991. What dominates my thinking is the central role of Russia in all three of these contests. Historians call World War I (or the Great War) the graveyard of empires. German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian Empires collapsed as a result of this war or so the conventional thinking goes. The Russians were withdrawn from the war 8 months before the war ended by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March, 1918. Since the Russians were not around for the finish their new czar and his boyars (Lenin, Trotsky and the like) were allowed to consolidate their grip on the country they had seized the previous October from the weak Provisional Government that had succeeded the Romanovs. Wrapped in Marxist-Leninist propaganda the old Russian Empire suffered a grievous Civil War but the communists emerged triumphant and under Stalin the newly named USSR quickly adopted the old imperialist ideas of the czars. Faced with a newly rearmed and reinvigorated Germany in 1939 Stalin moved to reacquire much of Poland and the three Baltic republics after having seized the Finnish border regions the previous winter. Only Russian complicity allowed Hitler to crush Poland from the west while Stalin's Russians seized the eastern third of Poland for themselves. Sounds like recreating the Russian Empire to me. After having been betrayed by Hitler in 1941, the Russians bore the brunt of Germany's military onslaught for most of the rest of the war. There was almost no cooperation with the western Allies throughout the war. Stalin urged his troops to fight for holy mother Russia, not communism. As the war was reaching its conclusion Stalin seized another opportunity at Yalta to seize all of eastern Europe and thoroughly communize the nations his forces had overrun and seized from the Germans. I'm sure that eastern Europeans have not forgotten any of this. The betrayal of Czechoslovakia at Munich by France and Great Britain, the refusal of the democratic nations of the world to assist the Spanish republic during Spain's civil war would cause the (now) democratic nations of eastern Europe to doubt the commitment of western democracies to their defense. What other conclusion is possible? FDR sold out Poland and the eastern Europeans at Yalta in 1945. The Russians saw this weakness and took full advantage of it. The British and French abandoned the Czechs in 1938 and allow Hitler to absorb what was left in 1939. No democratic power lifted a finger. When Czar Nicholas II promulgated his absurd policy of "Pan-Slavism" in the decade before World War I the allies of Russia (the democratic nations of France and Great Britain) did nothing to restrain the dangerous policy of the ally they were bound to defend if attacked. If you were a Pole or a Czech and remembered this rather sordid past what would you expect from the successor to the Triple Entente, now known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization? When has any nation marched to the defense of eastern European democracies prior to the commencement of hostilities? Worse yet, what will conclusion will the democratic government of Ukraine draw from this? Will they drop their prospective membership in NATO? Why shouldn't they when they know better than anyone the character of the Russian regime and its ex-KGB chief who is now Russia's prime minister and is still president in all but name only? My final point is to ask why would the Obama Administration renege on its promise to deploy the defensive missile shield in Poland and its radar network in the Czech Republic? As Secretary of State Clinton once stated was he "hitting the reset button on our relationship with Russia" or was he was cravenly abandoning (yet again) the democracies we are also treaty bound to defend? Or, and this is even more disconcerting, was he courting favor in Iran, a rogue state that is built on anti-Americanism and hostility to us, our interests and our friends, especially Israel? Will this decision encourage Iranian adventurism? What will the Netanyahu government do in the face of a newly recalcitrant Iranian regime of Islamic fanatics? Does this make an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities more or less likely? What will Obama do to support Israel if the Israelis feel they must strike first rather than absorb an Iranian nuclear, chemical or biological attack? Why would any American administration send such a message to the world's number one supporter of Islamic terrorism? The reversal of our commitment to defend eastern Europe is just another form of appeasement. It didn't work at Munich in 1938, it didn't work at Yalta in 1945 and I can only shudder at what may happen in 2009. Turning the defense of the democratic world over to a man with absolutely no experience or credibility in either foreign policy or national security affairs only invites our enemies to become even bolder than they have been thus far. It seems the slogan "Yes We Can" now means "No We Won't." Just some ramblings on a September afternoon. Wayne D.