Vladimir Putin, Syria’s pacifier-in-chief — Pepe Escobar

Putin is coming across as very adroit. But it must also be mentioned — which Pepe Escobar doesn't do here — that securing the Middle East and Central Asia is existential for Russia.

Jihadis present a major threat to Russia on their own and they are also a proxy force in US hybrid warfare.

Putin is not just being a nice guy in helping out Assad. Russia has a major strategic interest in Mideast stability, which entails eradication of terrorism that can be directed at Russia from the south and southeast. China faces a similar threat of jihadi terrorism from the Uighurs on its eastern flank.

Asia Times
Vladimir Putin, Syria’s pacifier-in-chief

Pepe Escobar

John Helmer — PUTIN ENDORSES NETANYAHU FOR RE-ELECTION – SHOIGU AND LAVROV REACT

Putin apparently conflicts with the Stavka (Russian General Staff) and Foreign Ministry.

(Xi is facing similar pressure from the PLA (People's Liberation Army) over what it perceives as Western aggression in the South China Sea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.)

Dances with Bears
PUTIN ENDORSES NETANYAHU FOR RE-ELECTION – SHOIGU AND LAVROV REACT
John Helmer

Rehabilitating Stalin — Paul Robinson

Paul Robinson shows how the attempt to create a "Putin is rehabilitating Stalin" meme is based on reaching and is clearly an exercise in propaganda.

Robinson makes the point that celebrating Stalin as the victor in WWII and revering his leadership as Russia's savior from a dire future under the Reich does not imply condoning his other excesses.

I would add that the US founding fathers are also celebrated and revered even though some of them, George Washington, for example, were slave-owners, and some of them, Thomas Jefferson for instance, were slave-traders and slave-breeders.

This may be criticized as "whataboutism" as a logical fallacy. But whataboutism isn't necessarily a logical failure. Comparison and contrast are legitimate logical and rhetorical tools. Whataboutism becomes an issue when used to distract and deflect in an attempt to avoid defending a difficult position directly. Is it hypocritical to recognize a person's contributions in spite of that person's faults? Often great achievement are accompanied with serious failings.

But what about proportion? Stalin allegedly killed or imprisoned millions. None of US founding fathers were involved with more than a few dozen slaves. Doesn't this pale by comparison? On that level, yes. But they authored or signed documents establishing slavery as the law of the land in perpetuity. This led to the Civil War, and an aftermath that the country is still grinding through.

When I was eighteen years old, as part of a tour of the nation's capital I visited Mount Vernon, George Washington's plantation. Part of the tour was going through the palatial home of the first American president and another was a visit to the slave "quarters," but "hovels" would be more apt term. Of course, I vaguely know about this from American history class in high school, but actually seeing the reality woke me up and I never forgot the scene. It was similar to an experience I had as a naval officer in the Pacific at the time of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. I was "woke" by the truth. I not only became a realist rather than an idealist, but I was also radicalized for life.

Irrussianality
Rehabilitating Stalin
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Freedom — Paul Robinson

This is probably a "should-read" but I consider it a must-read — all the way to the end, including two short works on freedom by Ivan Ilyin that Paul Robinson has translated for this post.

Irrussianality
Freedom
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Fred Weir: The tempest over Putin’s remarks on “liberalism”

While I agree with most of what Fred Weir writes here, I also think that Putin understands more about the Western liberal tradition that arose during the Enlightenment than Weir thinks. Nor was Russia a stranger to Enlightenment ideas then. Weir is also wrong in thinking that Russia has no liberal tradition. In fact, Russia adopted its own version of the Western liberalism in the period called "the Russian Enlightenment, which adapted Western thought to the situation prevailing at the time in the Russian Empire. Putin would certainly be aware of this.

Putin's own political party is liberal  in the broad sense and constitutes the largest and most powerful liberal political faction in Russia. This doesn't conflict with also being conservative. While Edmund Burke is considered a founder of modern Conservatism, he was solidly in the Western liberal traditions. American has a liberal and conservative faction in the context of American liberalism.

Reading Putin's interview with the Financial Times from which his recent criticism of liberalism is taken, it seems cleat that he is writing in the context of the liberal tradition and is criticizing what he sees as its contemporary excesses in the name of "freedom" and "human rights." Probably most American conservatives would agree with him, as Fred Weir opines. American conservatives regard themselves as the most genuine representation of Western values, meaning Enlightenment values.

I have been writing for some time on the paradoxes of liberalism and the transition of the historical dialectic socially and politically from the opposition of liberalism and fascism, on one hand, and communism, on the other, to the opposition of liberalism and traditionalism.

The issues have largely arisen from the West and the US especially, rushing to replace traditionalism with liberalism worldwide. As Putin observes, this has resulted in severe pushback domestically as conservatives in the liberal tradition have become uneasy with the messy process of social and political change that calls into question traditional values.

I don't see Putin as speaking philosophically here as much as pragmatically. Pushing liberalism to what many view as the extreme, especially too quickly, is resulting in dissatisfaction that is manifesting as the rise of nationalism and populism, as Putin mentions. It is also a push back against what many sees as incursions on democratic rule and national sovereignty.

So while I identify as a left libertarian, I am also a realist. But from the pragmatic point of view from which I believe Putin is speaking. I agree with him, the political idealists are getting ahead of themselves and this generating blowback.

The Committee for East-West Accord
Fred Weir: The tempest over Putin’s remarks on “liberalism”
Fred Weir

Fred Weir is a Canadian journalist who lives in Moscow and specializes in Russian affairs. He is a Moscow correspondent for the Boston-based daily The Christian Science Monitor, and for the monthly Chicago magazine In These Times — Wikipedia

Paul Robinson — Book Review – John Helmer

If you are aware of John Helmer's blog Dancing with Bears, frequently linked to here, you may be interest in this. Otherwise, not so much.

Irrussianality
Book Review – John Helmer
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Andrei Kolesnikov — Putin’s Art of the Purge

Damned if you do, and damned if you don't. The cries about rampant corruption in Russia have been going on the West since the collapse of the USSR. A couple of years ago, President Putin appointed a special investigator prosecutor to put an end to it. Now that officials are being held to account, the West is crying, "purge."

Same with China and President Xi.

Look at the credentials of the author and go figure.

Project Syndicate
Putin’s Art of the Purge

Andrei Kolesnikov | senior fellow and the chair of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center

John Helmer — KREMLIN ENDORSES KUDRIN CAPITULATION TO US “RESTRICTIONS”

Big — potentially, that is. Have to wait and see what it means. Kudrin is anathema to the Russian "deep state" (intel and military). There is apparently something of a power struggle going on in Russia now between the Western liberals and the conservative deep state, with the deep state holding the power if push comes to shove. Putin seems to be caught in the middle.

“If Kudrin joined the administration or government, it would indicate that they have agreed on a certain agenda of change, including in foreign policy, because without change in foreign policy, reforms are simply impossible in Russia… Kudrin is the only one in the top echelons with whom they will talk in the west and towards whom there is a certain trust.”

Opposition from the Russian military [who favors cutting the defense budget sharply and imposing Western neoliberal austerity] prevented Putin from following through. Instead, he gave Kudrin a caretaker role, nominating him to be Chairman of the Accounting Chamber, the state auditor....

Dances with Bears
KREMLIN ENDORSES KUDRIN CAPITULATION TO US “RESTRICTIONS”
John Helmer

See also

The Anglo-American candidate to be President of Russia, replacing Vladimir Putin, reprivatizing Russia’s resource assets, and emasculating the country’s defences, has made a fresh pitch.

Alexei Kudrin, sacked as Finance Minister, demoted as presidential economic adviser, then appointed Chairman of the Accounting Chamber five months ago, gave a speech to the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE) in Moscow on Wednesday. “Today”, Kudrin declared, “Russia’s foreign policy should be subordinated to the reduction of tension in our relations with other countries and, at least, to the preservation or reduction of the sanctions regime, not to the build-up. Today I would measure the effectiveness of our foreign policy on these indicators. We do not have such global problems for Russia — risks of military and political importance which would require increasing tension with other countries.”

By other countries, Kudrin means the United States. By subordinating Russian foreign policy, Kudrin means withdrawal from Syria; from Crimea and the Donbass; and capitulation to US sanctions. By reduction of tension, Kudrin means regime change in the Kremlin – himself instead of Putin....

Dances with Bears

KUDRIN BIDS FOR OLIGARCH SUPPORT – CAPTAIN ALEXEI AMERICA VERSUS GENERAL SERGEI OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY
John Helmer

Paul Robinson — The Inability To See

I spend most of my time on this blog mocking all the exaggerated nonsense which passes for political commentary nowadays. It’s a rare day that I come across something which is both stimulating and well-written. Fortunately, this is one of those days. Via Facebook (which has its uses), I was pointed in the direction of an excellent article by Patrick Lawrence in this summer’s edition of the magazine Raritan Quarterly, of which I had not previously been aware. I can recommend it to you all, and you can find it here....

This criticism also applies to American commentary on China and most other things foreign. It is a consequence of the "context" issue that Paul Robinson discusses in this post. There are different cultural worldviews that imply group preference for institutional arrangements that are different among groups, especially nations with long traditions. Human understanding and appreciation are context-dependent.

The only overarching context globally is provided by formal logic, mathematics, and science. Most of the rest is culturally relative. Hence, understanding the world system requires taking this into account. This means determining where others are coming from, as well as as knowing where one's own culture and its biases came from and how they were shaped by historical circumstances.

From this standpoint it is clear why trying to export "American democracy and values" even to Great Britain is folly, or assuming that the British system and the American system are essentially the same. This being the case, how silly is it to presume that "the American way" can be exported, let alone imposed on alien cultures.

It is also interesting seeing a former diplomat and a professor agreeing on this point. Unfortunately, at this point such people have no voice and therefore no influence in US policy or the American corporate media. Without the Internet and social media, they would be unavailable, as long as the Internet and social media escape censorship, that is.

Irrussianality

The Inability To See

Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

See also
Raritan (Volume 38, Number 1, Summer 2018)

Putin: From Soulmate to Archenemy

David S. Foglesong

See also

Valdai Club
Tradition and Future: National Identity in a Changing World
Alexey Kasprzhak

Martin Armstrong — Russiagate – The Slow Drip of the Coup to Take over Russia

Martin Armstrong was on the onside on this and explains what really went down and how new of it was suppressed and is being suppressed to protect the powerful.

Putin knows this, of course. I wonder how much of it he told Trump during their private meeting.

Armstrong Economics

Russiagate – The Slow Drip of the Coup to Take over Russia

Martin Armstrong

See also

Intel Today
Two Years Ago — Blast From The Past : The NSA & the CRYPTO AG Sting (And why it matters to Dag Hammarskjöld murder investigation)

L

See also

Mint Press News
How an American Anthropologist Tied to US Regime-Change Proxies Became the MSM’s Man in Nicaragua

John Helmer — Putin Corrects Mistakes By Biting His Tongue On Telephone With Assad And Netanyahu

Last week President Vladimir Putin triggered the most serious crisis of his presidency, as the Defence Ministry and the Russian General Staff (Stavka) declared that Putin’s explanation for the downing of the Ilyushin-20 electronic reconnaissance aircraft by Israeli fighters was false, and worse –capitulation to Israel.

Sources in Moscow report the military’s loss of confidence in the Commander-in-Chief has not been seen in public since President Boris Yeltsin countermanded orders for Russian military aid to Serbia under NATO bombing between March and June 1999, dismissing Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov on the US demand.

“[Putin] has blundered with Erdogan, with Netanyahu,” commented one Moscow source. “In making all his concessions, one after another, Putin has been watched very carefully. His civilian advisors – [Foreign Policy Advisor Yury] Ushakov in particular – are making mistakes. They expect[ed] the show of strength in Syria would have changed US and European attitudes, and they would listen. They didn’t. So the Russian military have reminded Putin – we told you so.”

On Monday morning, following an unprecedented Sunday briefing at the Defence Ministry, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu announced measures which Putin has repeatedly dismissed over many years. The new Russian war policy puts a stop to Putin’s assurances to the US, the European NATO powers and Israel that he was resisting the recommendations of his General Staff. Putin’s resistance ended on Monday morning. Shoigu and the Stavka ended it....

Dances with Bears
Putin Corrects Mistakes By Biting His Tongue On Telephone With Assad And Netanyahu
John Helmer

US to match?

The logical conclusion of the US-Israeli project lies in the removal of the Russian bases from Syrian territory. Neither the US nor Israel can countenance a military presence superior to Israel’s in the entire Middle East region. The actual Russian deployment to Syria may not be big, but Israel is very well aware that Russia has vast strategic depth, which it cannot hope to match.

The bottom line is that so long as Russia has a strategic presence in the Middle East, Israel cannot regain its military dominance in the region. And time doesn’t work in Israel’s favour, either. Iran is rising and Turkey remains unfriendly. The sooner things get done, the better for Israel – preferably while Trump remains in office.

Clearly, Bolton has thrown down the gauntlet. The tragic incident of September 17 cannot be viewed in isolation.

Setting the stage for WWIII?

The Russian general staff will view it this way.

Strategic Culture Foundation
Syria: Bolton Throws Down the Gauntlet

Melkulangara Bhadrakumar | Former career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service

See also

Strategic Culture Foundation
The Path to World War III
Philip Giraldi, former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer, now Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Eric Zuesse — Vladimir Putin’s Basic Disagreement with The West

In summary, Putin advocates national sovereignty and opposes liberal internationalism and liberal interventionism based on as another form of imperialism. The West, the reverse.

More broadly, Russia is traditional while the West is liberal.

This basis of the broader conflict between the East and West, Global North and Global South. 

This conflict is dialectical.

The economic basis is capitalism versus socialism.

Both capitalism and socialism are internationalist.

This indicates that the historical dialectic at this point is about the determining the type of globalization in terms of ideological framework and political control.

Will the future be dominated by global capital or something else more along traditional lines.

The present from of capitalism is neoliberalism, which implies neo-imperialism and neocolonialism.

If this is not to become the dominant framework, what is?

I don't see Putin or anyone else very being clear on this. As a Russian Orthodox traditionalist and Westphalian nationalist, he seems to be looking backward rather than forward. 

The Chinese leadership has the most articulated and nuance alternative that combines elements of traditionalism, nationalism, globalism, socialism, and capitalism.

We probably won't know much about this until the fog of war clears and the dust begins to settle.

The Vineyard of the Saker
Vladimir Putin’s Basic Disagreement with The West
Eric Zuesse

See also

As US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin prepare to meet in Helsinki, all eyes are on what generally are regarded as the “usual” political issues that divide the world’s two foremost military powers: Ukraine, Syria, sanctions, claims of election interference, and so forth. This reflects the near-universal but erroneous view that this current, second Cold War is not ideological, as opposed to the first Cold War that pitted atheistic Soviet communism against America’s “in God we trust” capitalism. (Leave aside whether “capitalism,” an anarcho-socialist term popularized by Marxists, is the proper description of contemporary neoliberal corporatism.)…

Such a view totally dismisses the fact that following the demise of communism as a global power bloc there has been an eerie spiritual role reversal between East and West. While it’s true that during original Cold War the nonreligious ruling cliques in Washington and Moscow held basically compatible progressive values, ordinary Christian Americans (mainly Protestants, with a large number of Roman Catholics) perceived communism as a murderous, godless machine of oppression (think of the Knights of Columbus’ campaign to insert “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance). Conversely, today it is western elites who rely upon an ideological imperative of “democracy” and “human rights” promotion to justify a materialist global empire and endless wars, much like the old Soviet nomenklatura depended on Marxism-Leninism both as a working methodology and as a justification for their prerogatives and privileges,. In that regard, promotion of nihilist, post-Christian morality – especially in sexual matters – has become a major item in the West’s toolkit.…

This has a special importance with regard to Russia, where under Putin the Orthodox Church has largely resumed its pre-1917 role as the moral anchor of society. This elicits not only political opposition but a genuine and heartfelt hatred from the postmodern elites of an increasingly post-Christian West, not only for Putin personally and Russia generally but against the Russian Orthodox Church – and by extension against Orthodox Christianity itself....

 The article is longish and somewhat detailed, but it relates to the Zuesse article posted above. Many Americans would likely regard it as somewhat arcane and irrelevant in today's world as they experience it. Well, wait for what's coming in the political tussle over the Donald Trump's nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court.

These issues are already hot-buttons in the US. In the argument over what "religious freedom" means in the text, context and historical intent of the US Constitution, The liberal side argues it means freedom from religion and the traditionalist (conservative) side argues it means freedom to practice one's religion without government interference. Stay tuned.

Strategic Culture Foundation
The two-pronged attack on Orthodoxy and Russia

James George Jatras | Analyst, former U.S. diplomat and foreign policy adviser to the Senate GOP leadership

See also

More traditionalism vs. liberalism.

The fact that the Catholic Church is strong in Poland makes a difference, because it gives us a mental and spiritual access to ideas and sensibilities that have evaporated in the secular West.…

Is liberalism on a collision course with Christianity as well as Islam?

Zero Hedge
Polish Politician Warns Of Europe's "Degenerate Liberalism"
Tunku Varadarajan, originally published op-ed at The Wall Street Journal

See also

Zero Hedge
The End Is Near? Pope Decries Governments Turning Earth Into Vast Pile Of "Rubble, Deserts, & Refuse"

Tyler Durden

Ivan Ilyin — How to Destroy Hate, Foster Love

Ivan Ilyin was an influential nationalist political and Orthodox Christian philosopher active in the Russian Emigre movement in Europe after the revolution. He heavily influenced Solzhenitsyn. Putin, a great admirer, personally supported repatriating his remains to Russia in 2009, and attended the consecration of his grave.

For more articles on RI by or about Ilyin, click here.

For a selection of his Christian writings on the Russian Faith site, click here.

Ivan Ilyin is one of the foremost Russian philosophers along with Nikolai Berdyaev and Vladimir Solovyov (also transliterated as Soloviev), both of whom are better known in the West than Ilyin. Vladimir Putin cited these three thinkers as important reading for Russian leaders (which he has never done for Alexander Dugin).

Ilyin is now being depicted in the West as a fascist, which is complete nonsense. See Paul Robinson's takedown of Timothy Synder's hit piece on Ilyin, Book Review: The Road To Unfreedom

There are a couple of problems with all this. First, Snyder greatly exaggerates Ilyin’s influence. Second, his interpretation of Ilyin’s philosophy is decidedly odd.

Forget the Wikipedia article on Ilyin. It is completely biased.

Read the following excerpt from Ilyin and judge for yourself.

Russia Insider
How to Destroy Hate, Foster Love - Great 20th C. Russian Christian Philosopher (Ilyin)

Ivan Ilyin (excerpt from his book “Singing heart – a book of quiet contemplations)

Translated from the Russian by Edvin Buday

Tom Luongo — Trump Dangles Wooden Carrots at Russia over Crimea

Typically good analysis and assessment from Tom Luongo.

Strategic Culture Foundation
Trump Dangles Wooden Carrots at Russia over Crimea

Tom Luongo

See also

Also good.

DJT read this right. Brilliant on many levels. Even if this is all he accomplishes, he has secured his legacy and may emerge in historical reflection as a great president.

But this summit between what is surely the oddest couple in modern diplomatic history may well launch the most serious effort yet to end the U.S.-North Korean conflict.

To this I would add that a big reason that this is happening is that Kim and Trump are alike in key respects, enabling them to sense that a deal was in the making. 

For example, notice the dismissive way that DJT treated the other G-7 leaders and how he treats Kim, Xi and Putin. And it is not that they are fellow "authoritarians" either. This gives credence to the "great man" theory of history.
US Public Being Misled on Trump-Kim Summit

Gareth Porter

Gordon M. Hahn — PUTIN 5.0: Tea Leaves

Russian politics.

Russian and Eurasian Politics
PUTIN 5.0: Tea Leaves
Gordon M. Hahn, analyst and Advisory Board member at Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, member of the Executive Advisory Board at the American Institute of Geostrategy, a contributing expert for Russia Direct, a senior researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies, Akribis Group, and; and an analyst and consultant for Russia – Other Points of View

Russia Insider — Putin Starts Fourth Term by Sacking Several Senior Ministers

No post for the liberal Kudrin, but the fiscal hawk Siluanov heading the treasury is promoted to First Deputy Prime Minister

Russia Insider
Putin Starts Fourth Term by Sacking Several Senior Ministers

Sputnik — Putin Names Key Task for Russian Government in Coming Years

"In general, our key task for the next few years is a significant raise of the citizens' real income. And there is a good foundation for that now. The economy has grown more stable, it has handled the sharp fall of oil prices, attempts to put pressure via sanctions, the changes of the global political settings," the president said, as quoted in the press release of the Kremlin, issued Monday.

Sputnik International

Putin Names Key Task for Russian Government in Coming Years

John Helmer — Vice President for Capitulation – Putin Decides What Job to Give Kudrin

Is Putin planning to cave to the US? If so, will the Russian military permit it or conduct a coup? Or are these just rumors?

Dances with Bears
Vice President for Capitulation – Putin Decides What Job to Give Kudrin
John Helmer also

See also

Fort Russ
Putin’s key task for next six years – find a successor

Inessa S

John Helmer — US Reprieve for Rusal Does Not Relieve President Putin of Fatal Choice for Oleg Deripaska

There are two reasons why the aluminium metal markets are not making long-term bets on the price of the metal, the alumina required to make it, and the share prices of the metal producers, including Russia’s aluminium monopoly United Company Rusal. The first reason is that the US Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin (lead image, right) has decided to eliminate Rusal’s controlling shareholder, Oleg Deripaska (left), but leave Rusal to carry on its business without him. The second reason is that President Vladimir Putin cannot make up his mind on whether to sacrifice Deripaska for the good of the company and Russia’s metal industry. If Putin refuses Mnuchin’s deal, the US sanctions to put the company out of business, announced on April 6, will be enforced in full. Pricing the consequences now of then is next to impossible.

According to Mnuchin’s statement on Monday, “RUSAL has felt the impact of U.S. sanctions because of its entanglement with Oleg Deripaska, but the U.S. government is not targeting the hardworking people who depend on RUSAL and its subsidiaries. RUSAL has approached us to petition for delisting. Given the impact on our partners and allies, we are issuing a general license extending the maintenance and wind-down period while we consider RUSAL’s petition.”

On Tuesday Putin responded through his spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “so far it is difficult to say how consistent our American counterparts are in their approach. We still consider these sanctions to be illegal. We believe that in relation to a single company such actions are akin to asset grabbing.”

That is Deripaska himself doing the talking. The only man in Russia who thinks that state recovery of a heavily indebted asset from an oligarch is an asset grab is Deripaska. Putin has yet to disagree. Mnuchin has given Putin six months until October 23 to make up his mind.…

Dances with Bears
Us Reprieve for Rusal Does Not Relieve President Putin of Fatal Choice for Oleg Deripaska
John Helmer

See also

Bloomberg View
The Rusal Case Is a Failure of U.S. Sanctions
Leonid Bershidsky

Dave Majumdar — Could America Stop a Cruise Missile or Hypersonic Weapons Attack by Russia or China?

Arms race on. Defense industry, a euphemism for the military industrial complex, salivates.

As DefSec Mattis admits, the US cannot stop an ICBM attack by capabilities that already exists, so new technology doesn't increase the threat. The US strategy is not to counter an attack directly with through deterrence based on the the nuclear triad, or "trident."

No matter, huge increases in defense spending are already on the way.

The National Interest
Could America Stop a Cruise Missile or Hypersonic Weapons Attack by Russia or China?

Dave Majumdar | Defense Editor

See also

The RS-28 [Sarmat] is far more than a follow-on to the aging R-36 [Satan] missile —it is, fundamentally, an entirely new weapon the likes of which the United States has never before seen. The “Sarmat” retains its impressive throw-weight while reducing its overall weight by nearly 50 percent by using advanced composite materials for the missile airframe and employing a new type of liquid-fuel propulsion system—the PDY-99 “pulse detonation” engine—that hyper-accelerates the RS-28 into orbit, reducing the infrared signature of the launch as well as the time available to American early-warning satellites to detect such a launch. The RS-28 is designed to either be armed with 10 750-kiloton independently targeted maneuvering warheads, each of which can destroy an American ICBM silo or launch control facility, or between 16 and 24 new hypersonic glide vehicles, each tipped with a 150-kiloton nuclear warhead, and likewise capable of taking out any hardened site on American soil. Either configuration provides Russia with the means to avoid launch detection, evade all missile defense systems, and destroy America’s land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) nuclear force. In short, with the RS-28, Russia possesses a genuine first-strike capability that nullifies one third of America’s nuclear triad.

Contrary to Secretary Mattis’s dismissive commentary, the RS-28 does, in fact, fundamentally alter the strategic balance between Russia and the United States. Moreover, Mike Pompeo knows full well that the Russians are not bluffing. Both Mattis and Pompeo had been laboring under the false impression that Russia could not afford to field a follow-on to the R-36 missile, especially considering that that missile had been built in the Ukraine during Soviet times, and as such those capabilities were lost to Russian defense industry. The RS-28, however, is a reality—the Russians simply reconfigured their own indigenous missile production capability and will have at least 50 of the new missiles operational by 2020. It’s a reality that America’s leadership might want to factor into any future policy toward Moscow....

The American Conservative

No, Putin Isn’t Bluffing on Nukes

Scott Ritter

Also

Exposé of John Bolton lying the US into war.

The American Conservative
The Untold Story of John Bolton’s Campaign for War With Iran

Gareth Porter

See also

Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab reportedly busted a major US military asset when it exposed a sophisticated cyber-espionage operation that targeted computer networks in the Middle East.

On March 9, the leading Russia-based cybersecurity company reported their research on a program it called Slingshot, which used a highly sophisticated approach to infect computers with malware through infected routers. The operation had targeted computers throughout the Middle East and some parts of Africa since at least 2012, and required a lot of money and expertise from its creators. A report by an industry news publication, CyberScoop, claims Slingshot was run by the Special Operations Command (SOCOM)....

RT
‘Pentagon cyber-espionage op’: US reportedly behind Slingshot malware targeting Mid East & Africa

Also

Any claims that a specific piece of U.S. malware—in this case, Slingshot—was targeting only al-Qaeda or ISIS bad guys is disingenuous as well. The exploit on routers is hitting an entire region, infecting an untold number of innocent people. Internet cafés are said to have been hit in this, meaning everyone going into the cafes is at risk.

Probing aka fishing rather than targeting suspects.

The American Conservative
Was Destructive ‘Slingshot’ Malware Deployed by the Pentagon?

Jason Ditz


Also

Former Aerospace Forces Commander and Russian Senate Defense Committee Chairman Viktor Bondarev says it would take at least 500 American anti-missile missiles to intercept a single Sarmat ICBM....

Sputnik International

Russian Military Reveals How US Could Intercept New Sarmat Missile

See also

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Harper: West Broke Promise To Yeltsin Of No Nato Expansion