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GAITHER STEWART—Solidarnosc had the solid backing of a powerful man and institution: Karol Wojtyla from Krakow, then known as Pope John Paul II, tough but widely loved boss of the Roman Catholic Church in Rome. Devout Catholics forever, those Poles! And now Solidarnosc, the mortal enemy of Communism, had their man in Rome who dedicated his Papacy to undermining the foundations of world Communism in Moscow. Operation Overthrow was underway. In Poland, in the Vatican, in Washington. 

From 1985, the new General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev, launched his program of glasnost and perestroika (openness and restructuring) headed pell-mell toward social democracy and free-market capitalism. Walesa and Solidarnosc, Wojtyla and the Vatican and Washington were right on schedule. 

PEPE ESCOBAR—The Boao audience, in a sort of Sino-Davos gathering, was composed not only of pan-Asian guests. Significantly, Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman and Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio, among others, were giving Xi their full attention.

In a relatively compact speech, Xi once again exposed the architecture of multilateralism – and how a back-to-superpower-status China fits in. The message may have been subtly directed to the Hegemon, but most of all to a fast integrating Eurasia, as well as the whole Global South.

ERIC ZUESSE—America’s meta-strategy, at least since 2006, has been to ‘win’ WW III against Russia, whereas Russia has always remained with what had been the meta-strategy on both sides, of having nuclear weapons only in order to be able to deliver an annihilating retaliatory response if the opposite side blitz-attacks it with nuclear weapons. That previous (in the United States, but still current in Russia) meta-strategy is called “Mutually Assured Destruction,” or “M.A.D.” for short.

MOA—I am not that optimistic. The Blob is resistant to change because those who are inside it tend to bite away anyone with even a slightly different view.

Consider the case of Matthew Rojansky, Director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is known as a middle-of-the-road expert of U.S. and Soviet/Russian relations – not a hawk, but also not an appeaser.

Rojansky was supposed to chair the Russia desk in Biden’s National Security Council. As soon as that became know the ‘Putin Whisperers’ came out in force to fight the nomination. Axios led the charge: Rojansky has been praised for his scholarship on Russia and is frequently cited in U.S. media for his expert commentary. But his work has drawn criticism — including in a 2018 open letter from Ukrainian alumni of Kennan that blasted the think tank he runs as an “unwitting tool of Russia’s political interference.”

The FSB added that Zyankovich and Feduta met secretly with so-called “Belarusian generals” at a Moscow restaurant to discuss details of the coup scheduled on May 9, when a Victory Day parade will be held in Minsk.

“At the meeting, the conspirators told the ‘Belarusian generals’ that to succeed in implementing their plan, it was necessary to physically remove nearly all the top figures of the republic. They described in detail the plan of a military coup, including the seizure of radio and television centres to broadcast their address to the nation and the blocking of internal troops and OMON (riot police) loyal to the authorities in the capital.