RUSSIAN MIGHT

STANSFIELD SMITH—It is only in military weight that Russia shows its power, but this by itself fails to make it an imperialist according to Lenin. Nor does it make Russia imperialist even in the pre-capitalist imperialist manner of ancient Rome, which required military expansion and slave labor. While Russia’s significant military might, especially its nuclear arsenal, makes it difficult for the imperialists to push around, Russia does not invade and bomb countries across the globe as the U.S. does, or even as second-rate imperial powers like Britain and France do.

GILBERT DOCTOROW—However, it is also possible to see the Kremlin announcement as presaging Russia’s taking absolute strategic military superiority over the United States, i.e., appropriating to itself what it accuses the United States of having tried to achieve vis-à-vis Russia with encirclement and the move of NATO to Russian borders.

Donald Trump, or more commonly known as Potus, say’s he’s driving it. To a certain extent he is correct. While American media insists the low oil prices are just the natural cycle of the market at work, it’s rather convenient for U.S. foreign policy. Russia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Iran all have economies centered around state-owned oil companies and oil exports, and each of these countries has suffered the sting of low oil prices. During the George W. Bush administration, oil prices were the highest they had ever been. The destruction of Iraq, sanctions on Iran and Russia, strikes and turmoil in Nigeria — these events created a shortage on the international markets, driving prices up. And this is when America discovered their grip on the oil markets and manipulated it.

THE SAKER—On January 26th 2019 the Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya, speaking at the 8452nd meeting of the UN Security Council on the topic of the situation in Venezuela, asked America (or more precisely – Mike Pompeo) a simple and rhetorical question: are you going to once again violate the UN Charter?

RS AHTHION—The British (and American) ruling classes barely denazified West Germany. From 1949 to 1973, 90 of the 170 leading judges and lawyers in the West German Justice Ministry were former members of the Nazi Party. Of them, 34 were former Sturmabteilung (SA). The SA being the paramilitary group which assisted Hitler in his rise and took part in Kristallnacht, the violent night that killed 91 Jews.