But Andropov Drinks Scotch!

"Meet Marina Kalashnikova: a Moscow-based historian, researcher and journalist. Last August she criticized foreign 'experts' for suggesting that a conflict with Moscow will not happen because Russia's elite is too closely associated with the West. ... The West has been dreaming, and the West will suffer the consequences. ... We should remind our politicians, with their short memories, that Stalin and his secret police did not run a Sunday school. ... Russia has built an alliance of dictators, what Kalashnikova calls an 'alliance of the most unbridled forces and regimes.' ... In other words, the West has already been outmaneuvered. The KGB and the Russian General Staff have taken our measure, and they are laughing at us. ... As a nation, we are confused and disoriented, believing that the world is beholden to the West's money power--and therefore, peace can be purchased. ... Yet the American president is preparing to surrender that power in a series of arms control agreements that will leave the [US] vulnerable to a first strike. Placing this in context, nuclear weapons are ultimate weapons, so that the West's superiority in conventional weapons is therefore meaningless. Whoever gains strategic nuclear supremacy will rule the world; and the Russian strategic rocket forces are in place, ready to launch, while America's nuclear forces are rotting from neglect. ... Mao Zedong said that political power 'flows from the barrel of a gun.' Therefore, the Kremlin's logic is ironclad: Let the West keep its worthless currency. Moscow will have weapons, and in the end Moscow and its allies will control everything. The liberals may believe that money makes the world go 'round. Let them try to stop a salvo of ICBMs with liberal sentiment and cash. As far as the laws of physics are concerned, their favored instruments cannot stop a single missle. ... Do the Americans have sense? Are they serious people? No, said Suvorov more than two decades ago", my emphasis, JR Nyquist (JRN), 17 July 2009, link: http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2009/0717.html.

I doubt war with Russia is inevitable. If it happens, it will result from American weakness, not strength. Suppose the US had 100,000 "second-strike" warheads it could deliver to Russia. Even if unable to destroy hardened targets, I think a war with Russia unlikely. Why? If 50% of them landed where aimed, what would Russia look like? Russian generals are as aware of Lenin's dictum, "War is the cradle of revolution" as anyone else. Even if they emerged from bunkers after 30 days, what would they find? Likely 90 million dead, 50 million alive and very angry Russians. And 1.3 billion Chinese waiting to pick up the pieces. This piece reminded me of the nonsense peddled when Yuri Andropov (YA) 1914-84, became USSR head in 1982. The press told us YA, formerly KGB head was a Western sympathizer. Why? He drank Scotch instead of Vodka. Really. How superficial can you be? If you can find it, read Suvorov's Icebreaker, 1990. I first said 29 years ago, when push comes to shove, you are better off with a 357 magnum and 200 rounds of ammunition than a pile of kruggerands. Why? At the end of the day, you will have the: gun, ammo and kruggerands. I'm sure JRN would agree.