Recapitulating the Nazi-Soviet Pact (RP)
(Originally posted in October 2008).
I. Past
During the 1920's and 1930's, two Powers were dramatically on the Outside of the multi-national political system that made up the League of Nations. These were Germany, which was under Versailles Treaty limitations for its role in starting the Great War; and the Soviet Union, within which festered the dark incubus of World Communism.
These two outlaw states had an obvious common interest in upsetting that world order. And, even in the days of the Weimar Republic, the Soviets secretly let the Germans conduct military maneuvers and test forbidden military technologies on their soil, in return for German industrial exports and other assistance.
In the 1920's and early 1930's of course, the Soviets were very much the senior partner in this tacit alliance. Stalin, after all, was master of a vast empire, stretching from the eastern border of Poland to the Pacific, from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea, Iran, the Himalayas and Mongolia. There was no treaty-limit imposed on Soviet arms, while Germany was limited to an army of a hundred thousand and a puny Navy and Air Force.
The arrangement must have seemed a good deal from Stalin's point of view. Germany, which might have been a source of subversion amongst his hordes of restive slaves, instead became his means of access to the wealth of the West. And of course the puny armed forces of the Weimar Republic could never threaten the might of the Red Army.
In 1933, of course, the Weimar Republic fell to Hitler, and the Third Reich was inaugurated. Even though the Nazis were ideologically very deeply opposed to the Communists (whom they identified, more than a bit irrationally, with the Jews), they still needed access to Russia as a secret maneuver-ground, on which to train their cadres. On Stalin's part, Hitler still had a puny army, and hence the Red tyrant did not feel threatened by the Brown one.
During the mid to late 1930's, the power of the Third Reich slowly grew. Even as Hitler thundered against Stalin, and Stalin against Hitler, the common cause remained of unseating the international world order represented by the League of Nations. Gradually, this became a reality, especially after Italy and Japan deserted to join the side of this revolution against the interwar international community.
By early 1939, Hitler had completely shaken off the Versailles Treaty limitations on the German armed forces. He had expanded the army, begun building battleships and submarines, and the assembly lines were turning out modern fighters and bombers of exactly the sort Versailles had prohibited. Germany had remilitarized the Rhineland, annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia, and was turning covetous eyes on Poland.
The Russians had suckled a monster, and now the monster was nearly full-grown. Stalin, who knew he was infallible, did not end his alliance with the monster. Instead, he formalized it, in the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 28 August 1939.
This Pact essentially divided up Eastern Europe. Germany was to have most of Poland, and the security of Germany's minor allies in the Balkans was guaranteed (itself a diplomatic revolution, since these had previously been France's minor allies). The Soviet Union was to have Eastern Poland and the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). Bessarabia (then part of Rumania) and the border region between Russia and Finland were not in the Nazi-Soviet Pact, but Stalin was to seize them opportunistically, while Hitler was distracted by the start of the Second World War.
It must have looked like a pretty good deal to Stalin. The Soviet Union, without much military effort, acquired Eastern Poland, the Baltic States and Bessarabia. (Finland was to prove a tougher proposition, but in August 1939 it was far from certain that there would be a war with Finland). Germany, of course, would be menaced by Britain and France, and the German Armed Forces were still fairly weak compared to Russia's, though Germany was once again a true Great Power. Certainly, Hitler would have to be mad to attack Russia while facing undefeated foes in the West, right?
It was a good deal for Hitler, too. In a stroke, the threat from the East, the one countervailing force that could have prevented him from having a free hand in Poland, and then redeploying his forces West to face the Allies, had disappeared. And the gigantic propaganda machine of the Comintern, and of all the fellow-travelers in the mainstream media of the day, was blaring out an anti-war message in the Allied Powers, hamstringing their attempts to prepare for war.
Poland fell in 1939, Scandinavia, the Low Countries and France in 1940, and Britain stood alone. Italy joined the war. Yugoslavia and Greece were crushed beneath the German war machine, now greatly-swollen by a wartime expansion and the resources of the conquered countries.
Suddenly, Germany was no longer so weak compared to Russia. But Stalin, who was after all infallible, refused to believe that the Soviet Union was in any danger. When his minions tried to point out the danger, Stalin had them killed or imprisoned.
He was still killing and imprisoning them when the first bombs fell on June 21st, 1941, and the Wehrmacht stormed across the Soviet borders in the first battles of Barbarossa.
II. Present
Today, we are fighting Islamofascism. A lot of people don't take this war seriously, because the enemy is much weaker than us; they have the capacity to resist or hide, but very little capability to strike us at home. Even when they can, their strikes are pinpricks; at a level that we could probably deal with by police or at most special-forces means, certainly not the city-busting and nation-busting threat posed by the Cold War Soviet Union.
The Islamofascists, to be sure, are acquiring better arms. Iran and Syria both have war gases and Iran is close to acquiring nuclear missiles; the Syrians would also be close if not for the recent Israeli airstrike; and of course if not for the Israeli airstrike of 1981 and the American wars of 1990-91 and 2003-04, the same would have been true for Saddam's Iraq.
The Russians logically should feel threatened by them. But the Russians have adopted a policy of supporting the Islamofascists in Southern Asia, in return for those Islamofascists not too heavily supporting those in Central Asia (the ones currently attacking the Russian Federation).
Putin the Poisoner, who like Stalin no doubt considers himself infallible, has decided that he can control the situation and use it for his own benefit. After all, Russia is a Power who, by her own economic incompetence, is pretty much on the "outside" of the current international world order (he has made this even more inevitable by his invasion of Georgia), as are the Islamofascists of Iran and Syria. Why not tacitly ally with Iran and Syria, aiding their WMD programs, to keep them a thorn in the side of the West? While the West is preoccupied with the Islamofascists, he can reconquer the old Soviet Empire, and restore Russia to the heights of power that she knew in the days of the Cold War.
What could possibly go wrong?
III. Future
Well, for one thing, Russia is not a rising Power today, as she was in the Interwar Era. Then she was recovering from the damage of the Great and Russian Civil Wars, by burning up her least popular people to feed the economy. Most of the population still had habits of work and life left over from the booms before the Great War; many still hoped that they could construct a Communist Paradise.
Today, Russia is in a steep cultural and demographic decline. Her people, both morally and physically poisoned by generations of Communism, have become amoral, apathetic, and lazy. Their birth rate has dropped to less than 1.5 per woman -- in other words, their population is shrinking by more than 25% each generation. This is considerably worse than even in Western Europe; unlike Western Europe, this is not in response to lengthening lifespans (the Russians have very low life expectancies), and almost all the immigration to Russia is from countries that hate the ethnic Russians (to a far greater degree than is the case in Western Europe).
The purely economic damage done by Communism has also been extreme. The economy never really recovered after the Cold War; it is still a basket case. Putin the Poisoner does not understand capitalism; he thinks it equivalent to "gangsterism" and all he has accomplished is to put himself in charge of the gangsters. The combination of the world financial crash and Russia's new unpopularity after the Georgia invasion is very likely to damage the Russian economy further.
Russia still has a lot of military equipment left over from the days when she had an empire to draw on for tribute. Much of this, however, is ill-maintained -- for instance, it is likely that half or more of the Soviet nuclear arsenal is too decrepit to actually work, and the maintenance situation is not improving. Russia being a big country, she can still focus her military production efforts to make a few very good pieces of equipment, but she has lost the power to put them into efficient mass production.
The human quality of the Russian armed forces is abyssmal. Anarchy and violence are so common within the Russian Army that thousands of soldiers are murdered each year by their comrades; tens to hundreds of thousands more suffer bullying sufficient to seriously degrade their physical and mental condition. Training, morale and doctrine have actually degraded since the Soviet-Afghan War. There are disturbing reports from Chechnya of regular formations refusing to advance against the enemy, or disintegrating on contact with them. And the Chechens are a weak and poorly-armed enemy, at that!
Again, being a big country, Russia can focus its efforts to supply and train a few exceedingly good units. But what this means is that the mass of the Russian "steamroller" cannot be counted upon; in an actual war, large-scale desertion and brigandage would be extremely likely. Very poor supply arrangements render much of the Russian Armed Forces barely mobile, let alone "maneuverable" by the standards of modern war.
Meanwhile, the Central and South Asian Islamofascists are growing both in population and in military might -- much of the latter being provided by Russian arms exports. In particular, the Russians are actively assisting the Iranians in their nuclear power program, and presumably also their nuclear weapons program.
Putin's strategy in this is obvious. America will counter the Islamofascists, but Russian propaganda will help ensure that the Americans do not quickly master them. While America is involved doing this, Russia's path is clear in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. In any case, even a nuclear-armed Iran would obviously be deterred by Russia's far-vaster nuclear might and territorial extent from any use of WMD against Russia.
But this strategy could easily go wrong, even in the near-term future. What if the West, perhaps because of a too-successful antiwar propaganda campaign, fails to check the Islamofascists? After all, the threat to America is very indirect; even Europe has the power to expel its Muslims and defend continuous frontiers. Russia, on the other hand, has large and difficult-to-police land frontiers with the Central Asian Islamofascists.
Logically, Iran should be deterred by Russia's might; and of course attacking Russia would be biting the hand that feeds Iran itself. But then the Iranians are not very rational: their leadership explicitly subscribes to the belief that it is essential to get a lot of Muslims "martyred" so as to trigger Divine Intervention and thus attain world dominion. Right now it looks as if the Iranians are trying to get the Americans or Israelis to do the job of "martyring" them, but the Russians would also work well for this purpose.
And a small Iranian nuclear attack against Russia would be far more crippling to the Russians than the same sort of attack would be against Europe or America. Russia has vast territories, but a shrinking and demoralized population -- and the elites are concentrated in the cities. Any serious losses -- above the level of a million or so -- would probably accelerate the Russian demographic decline, and kill the Russian economy. By contrast, America is far more vital, and Europe more decentralized.
Of course, the Russian counterattack would mean the end of Iran as a Power, and possibly as a people (the Russians might well be so furious that they would follow up their initial attacks with a concentrated effort to exterminate all the Iranians in Iran, since they are not restrained by the same moral considerations as are Americans). But, so what? There are other Islamofascists waiting in the wings; some of them as close as Chechnya.
In the long run, Russia might be facing a protracted genocidal war between Christians and Muslims in Asia and Eastern Europe -- and the Russians are arming the Muslims.
Putin the Poisoner is recapitulating Stalin's mistake. And, given the current decline of Russia, the Islamist-Russian Pact may have an even unhappier outcome than did the Nazi-Soviet one.
[2011 Addendum: Sadly, the situation is now as bad or worse as it was in 2008 when I first wrote the above lines. Putin the Poisoner still keeps a tight grip on power and a weak grip on reality, while Obama's feckless diplomacy, epitomized by his absurd "reset button," have let matters drift. The recent Russian war against Georgia is analogous to Soviet expansionism of the late 1930's. And the Russians are continuing to arm their future executioners.
As I love Russia (and I do) may Russia awake to its peril in time!]
I. Past
During the 1920's and 1930's, two Powers were dramatically on the Outside of the multi-national political system that made up the League of Nations. These were Germany, which was under Versailles Treaty limitations for its role in starting the Great War; and the Soviet Union, within which festered the dark incubus of World Communism.
These two outlaw states had an obvious common interest in upsetting that world order. And, even in the days of the Weimar Republic, the Soviets secretly let the Germans conduct military maneuvers and test forbidden military technologies on their soil, in return for German industrial exports and other assistance.
In the 1920's and early 1930's of course, the Soviets were very much the senior partner in this tacit alliance. Stalin, after all, was master of a vast empire, stretching from the eastern border of Poland to the Pacific, from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea, Iran, the Himalayas and Mongolia. There was no treaty-limit imposed on Soviet arms, while Germany was limited to an army of a hundred thousand and a puny Navy and Air Force.
The arrangement must have seemed a good deal from Stalin's point of view. Germany, which might have been a source of subversion amongst his hordes of restive slaves, instead became his means of access to the wealth of the West. And of course the puny armed forces of the Weimar Republic could never threaten the might of the Red Army.
In 1933, of course, the Weimar Republic fell to Hitler, and the Third Reich was inaugurated. Even though the Nazis were ideologically very deeply opposed to the Communists (whom they identified, more than a bit irrationally, with the Jews), they still needed access to Russia as a secret maneuver-ground, on which to train their cadres. On Stalin's part, Hitler still had a puny army, and hence the Red tyrant did not feel threatened by the Brown one.
During the mid to late 1930's, the power of the Third Reich slowly grew. Even as Hitler thundered against Stalin, and Stalin against Hitler, the common cause remained of unseating the international world order represented by the League of Nations. Gradually, this became a reality, especially after Italy and Japan deserted to join the side of this revolution against the interwar international community.
By early 1939, Hitler had completely shaken off the Versailles Treaty limitations on the German armed forces. He had expanded the army, begun building battleships and submarines, and the assembly lines were turning out modern fighters and bombers of exactly the sort Versailles had prohibited. Germany had remilitarized the Rhineland, annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia, and was turning covetous eyes on Poland.
The Russians had suckled a monster, and now the monster was nearly full-grown. Stalin, who knew he was infallible, did not end his alliance with the monster. Instead, he formalized it, in the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 28 August 1939.
This Pact essentially divided up Eastern Europe. Germany was to have most of Poland, and the security of Germany's minor allies in the Balkans was guaranteed (itself a diplomatic revolution, since these had previously been France's minor allies). The Soviet Union was to have Eastern Poland and the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). Bessarabia (then part of Rumania) and the border region between Russia and Finland were not in the Nazi-Soviet Pact, but Stalin was to seize them opportunistically, while Hitler was distracted by the start of the Second World War.
It must have looked like a pretty good deal to Stalin. The Soviet Union, without much military effort, acquired Eastern Poland, the Baltic States and Bessarabia. (Finland was to prove a tougher proposition, but in August 1939 it was far from certain that there would be a war with Finland). Germany, of course, would be menaced by Britain and France, and the German Armed Forces were still fairly weak compared to Russia's, though Germany was once again a true Great Power. Certainly, Hitler would have to be mad to attack Russia while facing undefeated foes in the West, right?
It was a good deal for Hitler, too. In a stroke, the threat from the East, the one countervailing force that could have prevented him from having a free hand in Poland, and then redeploying his forces West to face the Allies, had disappeared. And the gigantic propaganda machine of the Comintern, and of all the fellow-travelers in the mainstream media of the day, was blaring out an anti-war message in the Allied Powers, hamstringing their attempts to prepare for war.
Poland fell in 1939, Scandinavia, the Low Countries and France in 1940, and Britain stood alone. Italy joined the war. Yugoslavia and Greece were crushed beneath the German war machine, now greatly-swollen by a wartime expansion and the resources of the conquered countries.
Suddenly, Germany was no longer so weak compared to Russia. But Stalin, who was after all infallible, refused to believe that the Soviet Union was in any danger. When his minions tried to point out the danger, Stalin had them killed or imprisoned.
He was still killing and imprisoning them when the first bombs fell on June 21st, 1941, and the Wehrmacht stormed across the Soviet borders in the first battles of Barbarossa.
II. Present
Today, we are fighting Islamofascism. A lot of people don't take this war seriously, because the enemy is much weaker than us; they have the capacity to resist or hide, but very little capability to strike us at home. Even when they can, their strikes are pinpricks; at a level that we could probably deal with by police or at most special-forces means, certainly not the city-busting and nation-busting threat posed by the Cold War Soviet Union.
The Islamofascists, to be sure, are acquiring better arms. Iran and Syria both have war gases and Iran is close to acquiring nuclear missiles; the Syrians would also be close if not for the recent Israeli airstrike; and of course if not for the Israeli airstrike of 1981 and the American wars of 1990-91 and 2003-04, the same would have been true for Saddam's Iraq.
The Russians logically should feel threatened by them. But the Russians have adopted a policy of supporting the Islamofascists in Southern Asia, in return for those Islamofascists not too heavily supporting those in Central Asia (the ones currently attacking the Russian Federation).
Putin the Poisoner, who like Stalin no doubt considers himself infallible, has decided that he can control the situation and use it for his own benefit. After all, Russia is a Power who, by her own economic incompetence, is pretty much on the "outside" of the current international world order (he has made this even more inevitable by his invasion of Georgia), as are the Islamofascists of Iran and Syria. Why not tacitly ally with Iran and Syria, aiding their WMD programs, to keep them a thorn in the side of the West? While the West is preoccupied with the Islamofascists, he can reconquer the old Soviet Empire, and restore Russia to the heights of power that she knew in the days of the Cold War.
What could possibly go wrong?
III. Future
Well, for one thing, Russia is not a rising Power today, as she was in the Interwar Era. Then she was recovering from the damage of the Great and Russian Civil Wars, by burning up her least popular people to feed the economy. Most of the population still had habits of work and life left over from the booms before the Great War; many still hoped that they could construct a Communist Paradise.
Today, Russia is in a steep cultural and demographic decline. Her people, both morally and physically poisoned by generations of Communism, have become amoral, apathetic, and lazy. Their birth rate has dropped to less than 1.5 per woman -- in other words, their population is shrinking by more than 25% each generation. This is considerably worse than even in Western Europe; unlike Western Europe, this is not in response to lengthening lifespans (the Russians have very low life expectancies), and almost all the immigration to Russia is from countries that hate the ethnic Russians (to a far greater degree than is the case in Western Europe).
The purely economic damage done by Communism has also been extreme. The economy never really recovered after the Cold War; it is still a basket case. Putin the Poisoner does not understand capitalism; he thinks it equivalent to "gangsterism" and all he has accomplished is to put himself in charge of the gangsters. The combination of the world financial crash and Russia's new unpopularity after the Georgia invasion is very likely to damage the Russian economy further.
Russia still has a lot of military equipment left over from the days when she had an empire to draw on for tribute. Much of this, however, is ill-maintained -- for instance, it is likely that half or more of the Soviet nuclear arsenal is too decrepit to actually work, and the maintenance situation is not improving. Russia being a big country, she can still focus her military production efforts to make a few very good pieces of equipment, but she has lost the power to put them into efficient mass production.
The human quality of the Russian armed forces is abyssmal. Anarchy and violence are so common within the Russian Army that thousands of soldiers are murdered each year by their comrades; tens to hundreds of thousands more suffer bullying sufficient to seriously degrade their physical and mental condition. Training, morale and doctrine have actually degraded since the Soviet-Afghan War. There are disturbing reports from Chechnya of regular formations refusing to advance against the enemy, or disintegrating on contact with them. And the Chechens are a weak and poorly-armed enemy, at that!
Again, being a big country, Russia can focus its efforts to supply and train a few exceedingly good units. But what this means is that the mass of the Russian "steamroller" cannot be counted upon; in an actual war, large-scale desertion and brigandage would be extremely likely. Very poor supply arrangements render much of the Russian Armed Forces barely mobile, let alone "maneuverable" by the standards of modern war.
Meanwhile, the Central and South Asian Islamofascists are growing both in population and in military might -- much of the latter being provided by Russian arms exports. In particular, the Russians are actively assisting the Iranians in their nuclear power program, and presumably also their nuclear weapons program.
Putin's strategy in this is obvious. America will counter the Islamofascists, but Russian propaganda will help ensure that the Americans do not quickly master them. While America is involved doing this, Russia's path is clear in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. In any case, even a nuclear-armed Iran would obviously be deterred by Russia's far-vaster nuclear might and territorial extent from any use of WMD against Russia.
But this strategy could easily go wrong, even in the near-term future. What if the West, perhaps because of a too-successful antiwar propaganda campaign, fails to check the Islamofascists? After all, the threat to America is very indirect; even Europe has the power to expel its Muslims and defend continuous frontiers. Russia, on the other hand, has large and difficult-to-police land frontiers with the Central Asian Islamofascists.
Logically, Iran should be deterred by Russia's might; and of course attacking Russia would be biting the hand that feeds Iran itself. But then the Iranians are not very rational: their leadership explicitly subscribes to the belief that it is essential to get a lot of Muslims "martyred" so as to trigger Divine Intervention and thus attain world dominion. Right now it looks as if the Iranians are trying to get the Americans or Israelis to do the job of "martyring" them, but the Russians would also work well for this purpose.
And a small Iranian nuclear attack against Russia would be far more crippling to the Russians than the same sort of attack would be against Europe or America. Russia has vast territories, but a shrinking and demoralized population -- and the elites are concentrated in the cities. Any serious losses -- above the level of a million or so -- would probably accelerate the Russian demographic decline, and kill the Russian economy. By contrast, America is far more vital, and Europe more decentralized.
Of course, the Russian counterattack would mean the end of Iran as a Power, and possibly as a people (the Russians might well be so furious that they would follow up their initial attacks with a concentrated effort to exterminate all the Iranians in Iran, since they are not restrained by the same moral considerations as are Americans). But, so what? There are other Islamofascists waiting in the wings; some of them as close as Chechnya.
In the long run, Russia might be facing a protracted genocidal war between Christians and Muslims in Asia and Eastern Europe -- and the Russians are arming the Muslims.
Putin the Poisoner is recapitulating Stalin's mistake. And, given the current decline of Russia, the Islamist-Russian Pact may have an even unhappier outcome than did the Nazi-Soviet one.
[2011 Addendum: Sadly, the situation is now as bad or worse as it was in 2008 when I first wrote the above lines. Putin the Poisoner still keeps a tight grip on power and a weak grip on reality, while Obama's feckless diplomacy, epitomized by his absurd "reset button," have let matters drift. The recent Russian war against Georgia is analogous to Soviet expansionism of the late 1930's. And the Russians are continuing to arm their future executioners.
As I love Russia (and I do) may Russia awake to its peril in time!]