The 2018 Munich Security Conference continued the trend of promoting a New Cold War while diplomats openly disparaged Russia and fretted over the Trump presidency, Gilbert Doctorow reports.
By Gilbert Doctorow
The annual Munich Security Conference is to geopolitics what Davos is to global economics: a forum for public discussion of challenges and trends, as well as a venue for side meetings off the official schedule by Very Important People that are at times even more intriguing than the formal events. By the latter I have in mind, for example, the tête-à-tête behind closed doors between former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and the Russian ambassador to Germany that set tongues wagging back in Kiev and Moscow, even if it was passed up in the Euronews coverage.
The very biggest names in global politics make their appearances at Munich and occasionally catch the imagination of all with substantive as opposed to merely clever remarks. No one familiar with the venue can forget Vladimir Putin’s speech there of February 2007. It set in motion the open challenge to US global mastery that has evolved into the deep cracks in the world order which were the main theme of Munich a year ago, and which presented themselves again for consideration in the latest, 2018 edition, which took place 16-18 February.
Last year the biggest name in Munich was Chinese President Xi, who did not disappoint and stole the show by his robust defense of free trade, global cooperation to combat climate change and other leading issues of the day from which Donald Trump’s America seemed to be retreating. This year there was no one leader who commanded the attention of the audience and media. What special meaning the gathering had could be found in the Report of the organizers, which highlights the issues and guided the discussion in the various sessions over three days.
Parsing an 88-page text like the Report might be a step too far. But a word about its style is in order since that takes us directly to analysis of its content.
The Munich Security Conference takes place in Germany. Its website and promotional literature are bilingual, German-English. However, the Report is in English, and in very special English at that. No British spelling or turns of speech here, unlike so many documents of think tanks generated on the Continent. No this is the American English of the U.S establishment in the self-satisfied and coy style of Foreign Affairs magazine. Where else would you find section headings entitled “Russia: Bearly Strong?” or “United States: Home Alone?”
And while the texts in the Report allude to interviews in the press by former German Foreign Minister Walter Steinmeier, and a side column quotes from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s speech to the Conference last year, there is more than a sprinkling of references to leading personalities in America’s Council on Foreign Relations, starting with its president, Richard Haass. And what is surely the most remarkable quote in the Report (see below) comes from Council member and long-time book reviewer for Foreign Affairs, Princeton University professor G. John Ikenberry.
To cut to the quick, the American input to the agenda and posture of the Munich Security Conference is of decisive weight when you look at the recommended reading (“Food for Thought”) and special reports sections at the back. In the Acknowledgements section at the very end, we find the heavyweights RAND Corporation, North Atlantic Treaty Organization and NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence listed together with the lightweight but very voluble Freedom House.
This Establishment is Atlanticist, a promoter of the liberal institutional order that it helped to create over the past 60 plus years in the knowledge that the biggest financial and political beneficiary of an order based on rules written in Washington has been the United States. To a man, they are anti-Trump.
Indeed, the text of the Munich Report drips with anti-Trump innuendo and a good dose of despair over the ongoing triumph of the anti-Christ who is currently the U.S. President.
The introductory chapter of the Report bears the ominous title: “Present at the Erosion: International Order on the Brink?” The most striking remark on its first page is by G. John Ikenberry: “The world’s most powerful state has begun to sabotage the order it created. A hostile revisionist power has indeed arrived on the scene, but it sits in the Oval Office, the beating heart of the free world.”
Let us remember that over the course of his career Ikenberry has been a penetrating and at times courageous analyst. Back in 1992, he co-authored with Daniel Deudney a splendid article entitled “Who Won the Cold War” (Foreign Policy) explaining why it was a draw, ended by mutual agreement. He thereby went directly against the rising tide of neoconservatism and American hubris built on falsification of modern history.
American Establishment biases, willful ignorance of realities and fake news are given free rein in the page of the 2018 Report devoted to Russia. Here we read about the Kremlin’s “disinformation campaign” during the French presidential election of 2017 and about the “efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election in 2016” that have “paid dividends.” Unproven allegations of meddling and illogical conclusions about dividends, considering the track record of the Trump administration in its first year in office: the dispatch of lethal military equipment to Ukraine that even Obama hesitated to approve, the extension of sanctions and a number of other measures raising the tensions with Russia in the Baltics and in Syria.
Here we find the stubborn refusal to accept the true scale and breadth of Russia’s might. We are reminded that the country’s GDP is the size of Spain, a proposition that is distorted and misleading depending as it does on exchange rates rather than purchasing power parity. At last report, Spain was not supplying one-third of all the natural gas consumed in Europe; Russia was. At last report, Spain did not have a military budget that is second only to the United States; Russia has.
Yet, the Munich Security Conference differs in an important way from the American establishment, which is today not very welcoming of “adversaries” or “competitors” who may conceptualize the world order in their own way. Whatever its home grounds philosophically, the Munich Security Conference does try to be inclusive and brings even troublemaker countries and personalities into the tent. Moreover, the Security Conference, like Davos, has substantial continuity in the attendees. You heard from the Iranian Foreign Minister last year, and you will hear from him again this year, and probably next year as well. This does not smooth out all the rough edges in these encounters, but it keeps them somewhat in check.
One of the “regulars,” and perhaps the most remarkable performer at the 2018 Munich Security Conference was Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. I call him remarkable because of his ability to rise above his detractors in the hall through superior command of the facts, wit and daring.
At last year’s Munich Conference, a number of Lavrov’s pronouncements were met by derisive laughter from the Americans in the front rows, picked up by other Western diplomats and politicians. Yet, Lavrov took it in stride, remarking acidly that he had also found some statements by representatives of other countries to be laughable but had shown greater restraint than members of his audience.
Heckling also took place during Lavrov’s speech this year, though on a markedly lower scale. And once again, Lavrov took the upper hand, chided his detractors for their incivility and joked that it did not matter: “after all, they say laughter helps us live longer.”
Lavrov’s speech itself was a masterpiece of argumentation against the exclusion of Russia from the common European home, the descent of a divisive “us/them” thinking in Western Europe to justify the New Cold War. He specifically called out for condemnation the ongoing rewriting of history in the Baltic States, in Poland, and in Ukraine that airbrushes Russia out of the victory over Nazi Germany, encourages destruction of monuments to Soviet liberators and makes heroes of home-grown fascist movements as in Ukraine.
It bears mention that back home in Moscow, there are voices of strident nationalists like Vladimir Zhirinovsky who explain on national television day after day why it is time for Lavrov to go, because he is too soft, too easy going with the nation’s enemies in the West.
However, the skill at debate, nerves of steel and icy reserve that Lavrov displayed in Munich show yet again that he is the right man in the right place to defend Putin’s Russia.
The problem that comes out of the Report and the body language we saw in the conference proceedings is the following: whether the opposing sides of East and West were more or less restrained in their gestures and words, there lies on each side a poisonous contempt for the other that could lead to miscalculations and rash actions in the event of some incident, some mishap between our respective armed forces in any of the theaters where they are now operating in close proximity in support of opposing sides.
Gilbert Doctorow is an independent political analyst based in Brussels. His latest book, Does the United States Have a Future?was published on 12 October 2017. Both paperback and e-book versions are available for purchase on www.amazon.com and all affiliated Amazon websites worldwide.
Lavrov is a diplomatic superstar. The contrast with Nikki Haley is too great to be measured. However Haley signifies all the disgusting attributes of her country’s foreign policy to a tee – in that respect, she represents her country perfectly.
I’ve got to wonder if Obama, in spite of his misguided profound disrespect for Putin and Russia, does not have regrets as to the perilous path he has set the world upon by embracing the neocon agenda. He, much more so than Dubya, was the one who opened wide the gates to the very real prospect of a civilisation-ending war between the United States and Russia. At the least his legacy will be an interminable cold war that will threaten the safety of our descendants for decades to come, since East-West relations evolve at a rate slower than geophysical forces. In fact, this clash of cultures he initiated with the White House-instigated coup at the Maidan exactly four years ago this month is still far from reaching a peak from which the trouble waters may eventually recede.
It’s hard to believe, but matters continue to get worse, as Washington inexorably ratchets up the tension with Moscow, laying out new sanctions and leveling new accusations almost on a regular time table. If only Obama had perceived the same misgivings that the American people had about warmonger Hillary Clinton TWICE! Once when we were deluded into preferring his deceptive candidacy over hers and then when we opted for Trump over her really stinking credentials.
Either Obomber was punked by the neocons into embracing their mad scenario for our now tenuous future, or he was always just a stuffed shirt created from whole cloth by image makers from Hollywood and Madison Avenue, and never had a true grasp of the dynamics in East-West relations or the long-term consequences of his knee-jerk actions taken to ostentatiously “punish Russia” to goose his poll numbers. He was really no more cautious and wise in foreign affairs than his conspicuously unprepared successor Mr. Trump has proven to be.
Time after time America entraps itself into catastrophic foreign policy by falling for the con men that the powers behind the throne offer to us as the only choices to lead this country. Never before was that perennial predicament more obvious than in the 2016 elections when “none of the above” was clearly the best choice for the top office if long-term survival were to be paramount.
I daresay most of us of a certain age, if pressed to make a judgement, would say that Richard Nixon would be better equipped to lead this country out of the morass that Slick Willy, Dubya, and Obomber painstakingly created for us than the Donald (or Hillary), and having lived through Nixon’s war (note singular) and paranoia we should all remember so well. All these fools have been the children of Nixon’s generation. What lesson did our generation fail to learn from his? How did we allow ourselves to be transmogrified into the very tyranny we so valiantly used to oppose? I want answers, Bill, George, Barack! And reasons why you should not all be in prison along with your cadres of neocon facilitators.
Nixon seems to have been most concerned about his own political ambitions. I’m not sure that he would be bucking the PTB consensus any more than the ones you mentioned.
If he could be re-animated, I’d put him in prison with the rest.
At least those personal ambitions led him to signing nuclear non-proliferation treaties with the Soviets and to open up diplomatic relations with China. I’d never say the man was a moral paragon, but at some important level he was a pragmatist who made deals with his enemies that served to stabilize the world. Yes, he had to be good at compartmentalization to do these things at the same time he was overseeing a very destructive, metastasizing war in the Far East. If only the present lot had the ability to keep absolutely everything from going to hell in a handbasket. The current mode of thinking seems to be to oppose Russia at every single level on every issue, even dragging sporting events into the fray. And when Russia is not in the cross hairs of Washington’s power elites, it is China, Iran, North Korea or some Middle Eastern stand-in to take a scorched earth beating on at least the rhetorical level. This is accomplished even if Washington has to drastically impose upon, inconvenience, or existentially threaten its cowed vassals whom it pretends are its allies. Yeah, bottom line Nixon was a creep, but the lineup of the past four presidents (and probably six but for Reagan being in office when Gorbachev decided to end the cold war) has been even worse for the USA and the world.
Realist-
I think the “Deep State” has been in nearly complete control of our foreign policy since they assassinated JFK in 1963. Whether the presidents are “stuffed shirts” or have been given a “trip to the woodshed” matters little. Russia’s vast wealth of natural resources must be secured, and Russia turned into another vassal for the PTB. To the greedy ones that run our foreign policy, it is that simple. It is either the whole pie or Armageddon, no compromise will be tolerated.
> than in the 2016 elections when “none of the above” was clearly the best choice for the top office
> if long-term survival were to be paramount.
And indeed there was a relative majority for that choice: ca. 30% of the electorate voted for Killary, almost as many for Trump — and 40% for neither.
Well stated. Nixon did get us out of Vietnam. I don’t think he had the penchent for war like the others did. Trump does seem to love golf much more than Obama and Clinton did, and he is much better at it.
The “few hundred million in cash and gold” sent to Iran as part of the nuclear agreement amounted to less than the interest on Iranian assets frozen by the US after the Shah’s overthrow and subsequent hostage situation. Small price to pay for the ability to monitor Iran’s nuclear program.
After killing their socialist government, and installing a tin pot dictator called the Shah, don’t we owe Iran some reparations?
Oh, I forgot – never saying you were wrong is part of the hegemon pose.
Fine, then don’t do it in the dark of night behind the scenes and avoid oversight by Congress when your really goal is to appease your Islamic Masters and pretend like you gained “insight” into the nuclear deal. That is a complete farce. Please take the time to read the agreement. “As the text of a side agreement released released by the AP yesterday confirms, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will actually rely on Iran to inspect itself at the crucial Parchin nuclear site, providing “mutually agreed” upon photos, videos, and environmental samples to IAEA monitors. And the deal’s broader monitoring regime eschews “anytime, anywhere” inspections in favor of a process that provides Iran written notice of requested access to suspicious sites, followed by a weeks-long dispute-resolution process that still won’t guarantee such access is granted.
Put plainly, under the terms of the deal, Iran makes promises that it does not have to keep. In exchange, it receives sanctions relief, access to international arms markets, and the ability to build ballistic missiles. This isn’t a nuclear agreement, it’s an economic treaty — an economic treaty almost perfectly designed to advance President Obama’s very particular worldview.”
https://apnews.com/bedd428e26924eed95c5ceaeec72d3a4/text-draft-agreement-between-iaea-iran
Clutching at straws! If “the true scale and breadth of Russia’s might” was anything like what Mr Doctorow claims, there would be no need to hype it as he is trying to do. It would be so obvious that no one would even dream of denying it.
I have downloaded the official Foreign Ministry version of Lavrov’s speech and I can find no reference to Poland or the Balkans. Ukraine is mentioned but he refers to the Azov Battalion’s symbol as being “a replica of SS symbols” only in answer to a question. He makes no claim whatsoever that they are “heroes” in Ukraine nor did he mention any “rewriting of history”. He makes no mention of the Russian Federation being “excluded” from the common European house but says “there is no alternative to building a common European home where people will not be divided into “us” and “them”. That, of course is the underlying logic of the European Union and Lavrov is perfectly right that the alternative to the European integration process is war. However, it is Putin’s blundering in Ukraine and his attempts to undermine EU governments that have “excluded” Russia, temporarily, from that process. Implicit in Lavrov’s remarks, therefore, is that Putin’s error was to ally with the US against the EU rather than continuing his previous policy of allying with the EU against the US. Both Lavrov and Mr Doctorow also employ the standard pro-Putin propaganda trick of using “Russia” to designate both the former Soviet Union and the present day Russian Federation, which is merely one of the 15 successor state to the Soviet Union. Thus, “Russia” was not even a party to WWII, the Soviet Union was.
What’s striking though is that, although the article is Mr Doctorow’s standard “let Putin in Ukraine” line, it is clear from the last paragraph that the tone is now almost bended-knee begging instead of the cocky assertiveness we’ve been getting up to now. With Putin openly intervening in the Italian election, it’s no longer possible to deny Russian government interference in the US election. It is perhaps that that has knocked the wind out of Mr Doctorow’s sails.
The New World Order and plans by Globalsists at the Munich Security Conference should not be happy with the new administration. Our current President has altered their plans for numerous interests paid for by the American taxpayers. After Obama sent a few hundred million in cash and gold to his Iranian backers behind the backs of the American people and capitulation at the dubious Paris Climate Accords, which should have been sent through the Senate for ratification as a treaty it is no wonder that Trump beat out the Globalists darling Clinton who would have continued the Obama plan for “Fundamental Transformation” and capitulation to tin pot dictators in Iran, Syria, and Russia. If the Conference carries that much weight it is further conformation that the US should further defund the UN and close the building in NYC. Make it a new Trump casino.
The main problem now is that Trump himself is caving in to the globalists: endless Pentagon provocations against the Russians in Syria, more threats against Iran, more weapons for Ukraine. Oh–and where’s our border wall? Whether by choice or not, Trump has been thoroughly co-opted by ‘the swamp’.
WG must stand for War God. Having fun WG, trolling for war?
Haaaa.. you are the only one here trolling my friend, “K” must stand for ketamine. Go to war if you please, just stop spending my taxpayer dollars on cash for appeasement with Iranian terrorists who killed hundreds of Americans in Iraq and are now looking to launch their Pakistan missiles and nuclear technology to Israel. The destruction of US Sovereignty by the Marxist and Islamic administration of Obama has awoken a giant back lash against the Progressive policy that Progressive Liberal Marxists so love in America. Anything we can do to draw attention to that and destroy it, I’m all in.
In his book The Next Decade, George Friedman (founder of Stratfor) points out that when America inherited the mantle of superpower from Britain it also inherited their policy of playing off nations against each other. For a small nation like Britain it was a necessity; for America it was cheap and effective as was demonstrated when George WTF Bush abandoned this policy in the Middle East with his military adventurism. On the continent the strategy is to keep Europe (especially Germany) and Russia at odds with each other. If Germany (capital and know-how) and Russia (resources and a large educated populace) develop good relations and China completes its One Belt One Road project America will be nothing more than the biggest banana republic in that other hemisphere.
Good to see mention of Zhirinovsky. America is always pressing for regime change in Russia, but have they really thought this out? The Communist Party always finishes second and Zhirinovsky third in Russian elections and neither of them would be acceptable to NATO. Former world chess champion (and current champion of oligarch Khodorkovsky) Gary Kasparov was invited to a Bilderberg meeting but neither Bilderbergers nor Russian voters were impressed. Putin scores well with the electorate on foreign affairs so even if it were proven that “he stole our election with puppy pictures” the Russian people would more likely be proud than outraged.
It’s ironic but their best shot is probably to cultivate Trump’s connections to the Russian Mafia!
Where there was once a time an American delegation would have compromised and drilled down onto their teams commonalities to then go run out to confront the world, by the likes of Mr Doctotrow’s report those days of togetherness are now officially over. Here is where I ask you, ‘should we possibly look upon this outward insulting backstabbing performance by the members of America’s CFR at the 2018 Munich Security Conference, as their insulting mannerisms being one of those signs that we are now at the beginning to the end.
It’s regretful the Russians had to suffer even more humiliation by the vocal annoyance of the American CFR elite, but as Michele Obama always says, ‘we go high, when they go low’, would be Lavrov’s best line to use to comfort the soul, and for him to prove himself the better guy.
The funny thing is, that under fair trade agreements there isn’t a nation in the world who wouldn’t do business with the U.S., because they would all love to. Only the U.S. wants to do business under colonial business arrangements, and there’s where the military comes in. At this current time in mankind’s evolvement it is insane to have the belief that we can have a One World Order anyway, why because we are not there yet, if ever we will be. We must be a world of Multi-Polar Sovereign Nations first, and possibly always in order to continue our survival on this ever growing smaller by the day planet…so tell your congressperson to volunteer America’s services as we Americans go join the rest of the world.
Here is a little more to read on the 2018 Munich Security Conference….
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-19/munich-conference-first-time-decades-we-are-facing-threat-nuclear-conflict
While one might see by the U.S. confrontational stand against Russia this being a line in the sand, others could see this outward honest of the attempts to secure peace as being even dimmer by the decade as being a way of identifying the world’s so worrisome growing problem, so as you now know what’s wrong so you fix it. Both opinions could find their own validity, but the chances of a wider confrontation with Russia by the U.S. I’m afraid is the one that will bare history’s narrative one day upon this event.
Don’t kid yourself by the way the CFR elite paraded their anti-Trump rants and trashy rhetoric around at the Munich Conferences on purpose, as they let it be known to all of those world dignitaries to who’s really boss of this there American U.S. Empire.
It is odd that the West was represented at a “security conference” by the right wing “CFR elite” rather than those concerned with progress. Any “security” event becomes a stage for the tyrant demagogues to pose with the flag as fake patriots, denounce their moral superiors, and demand domestic power. They do parade to announce their dominance of US perceptions via mass media.
You are right SamF, but as I understand it, it’s a Cecil Rhodes thing. Joe
Read about how Bibi mingled around with the crowd at the 2018 Munich Security Conference.
https://www.sott.net/article/377848-Netanyahu-Israel-could-itself-act-against-Irans-empire
“The United States of America is the number one purveyor of violence in the world.”
I can say here what Dr. King said years ago, and not be assassinated, because I do not have the standing that Dr. King had. The biggest problem in the world today is the criminal behavior of the US. If we cannot stop the oligarch militarists here, they will destroy everything that gives life meaning and beauty.
A little off topic but here is some recent Russian history we aren’t supposed to know about in the U.S. It is an interview featuring Abby Martin and Mark Ames from about a year ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7HwvFyMg7A
Stephen, Excellent Video, a must watch rating. Thanks for posting the link.
I watched the video of this Abby Martin’s interview with Mark Ames last year when it came out. Mark Ames lived in Russia for well over a decade during those tragic times in Russia during 1990’s extending into early 2000’s. I hope they show this video on PBS. It will go a long way in educating the people here about those dark times in Russia, and U.S.’s role in it.
Lavrov might be a successor to Putin.
Naw, will never happen. Lavrov is to Putin like Zhou Enlai was to Mao. The reason Zhou became one of the most effective diplomats in the 20th century is because he had no ambitions to replace Mao. I see Lavrov in a similar role to Putin.
The relentlessly increasing alliance between Russia and China, augmented by Iran and others, has the neophyte white emperor and his sycophants quaking in their knee-length shiny boots. The Project for the New American Century has been side-tracked in a most unexpected and interesting way.
Gilbert Doctorow’s characterization of Lavrov is right on the money. Having watched Lavrov”s retorts to many provocations it has become obvious to me that he has a cool head and a quick wit. It would be interesting to know how many of the journalists at these conferences have been bought off by bribes from Western “intelligence”.
BobH(ope) —
Yes, I’ve watched Lavrov for a long time. Like Putin, he’s so very diplomatic and level headed, he puts our “diplomats; i.e., Tillerson” to shame by comparison. Indeed, Doctorow’s description: “…Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. I call him remarkable because of his ability to rise above his detractors in the hall through superior command of the facts, wit and daring.” Lavrov IS remarkable, as is Doctorow for presenting us with such a thorough review of the Munich Security Conference 2018. I plan to try to find the speeches he referenced from prior years, and also a famous speech by Putin in 2015, though I don’t recall the venue of that one.
Hey Virginia I’m with you and Bob,
In Mr. Lavrov I have found a new model for clarity, wit, historical and legal reference, rhetorical style, humor, and contempt.
A sorry and well deserved liberty lashing of US and EU ‘statesmen’ that couldn’t hold a candle. Makes me laugh twice.
We have been so outgunned by Lavrov and Churkin (R.I.P.) that our diplomats only have the option of making ridiculous claims and threats. Russians, take it easy on our guys. They are no match for you. Please? And toss Nikki a bone once in a while. We’re afraid she may turn on us.
I have stated and praised Sergei Lavrov as one of the only true statesman around today, the other is Vladimir Putin. In regards our UN spokeshole (not a sexist comment-I call anyone with a vacuous command of the facts that), I call her Nicki Hoeky, after P.J.’s 1967 hit. You may recall it?
And thank you for reminding us of Vitaly Churkin. His very surprising passing was just what Nicki Hoeky needed ’cause Mr. Churkin would have constantly corrected her to show her she has no command of the facts and the history.
I don’t recall that song. However, looking on utube turned up an Aretha cover so thanks.
The only threat to global security is the Zio-Saudi-Washington-militarist Terror Network. This bloodthirsty group along with their mainstream media lackeys and parasitic Wall Street hustlers are the direct cause of the vast majority of violence, misery and destabilization around the world, of course including here at home too.
Until the American population wakes up to the reality I just quickly outlined above, things will only get worse. The only entities that occasionally stand up to the Zio-Saudi-militarist Terror Network are Putin, China, Hezbollah, DPRK and Rouhani. Ergo, the only entities under a ruthless and unrelenting demonization campaign are Putin, China, Rouhani, Hezbollah and the DPRK.
Any independent sovereign state must be ever vigilant, regardless of its political system or politico-economic make-up, independence and a refusal to kowtow to Washington imperialism is all it takes to be on the blunt end of Western media vilification campaign.
Any independent sovereign state that tells the parasitic Wall Street investors (and their creepy white-shoe Manhattan law firms) to go jump in a lake, or offers diplomatic or substantive support to the Palestinians, or bemoans the countless Washington military bases on its doorstep, or uses some of its natural resources to the benefit of its majority populace and not Western connected elites must be ever vigilant.
Just a reminder. Rather than personalize the attacks you make against Zionists and Saudis, etc. you should generalize them like Mao did. It’s not just groups of people. It’s the imperialist mindset.
Mao:
Make trouble, fail, make trouble again, fail again . . . until their doom — that is the logic of the imperialists and all reactionaries the world over in dealing with the people’s cause and they will never go against this logic. This is a Marxist law. When we say “imperialism is ferocious”, we mean that its nature will never change, that the imperialists will never lay down their butcher knives, that they will never become Buddhas, till their doom.
Fight, fail, fight again, fail again, fight again . . . until their victory; that is the logic of the people, and they too will never go against this logic. This is another Marxist law. The Russian people’s revolution followed this law, and so has the Chinese people’s revolution.
“Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle” (August 14, 1949), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 428
If the U.S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when the people of the whole world will hang them. The same fate awaits the accomplices of the United States.
Speech at the Supreme State Conference (September 8, 1958).
Sorry, and I don’t mean this to come off as too harsh, as your heart is definitely in the right place, but mealy-mouthed generalizations will get us absolutely nowhere at this pressing time in history. Honest leftists, progressives, and peace activists must specifically call out and denounce the responsible parties, in all forums and at every opportunity.
The world’s on the brink of nuclear war, we don’t have time for semantic games. And we definitely don’t have the luxury of coddling the sensibilities of certain folks in the left-progressive anti-war community.
Good point Drew. We don’t have time for a lot of niceties.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/19/there-is-no-time-left/
Both views are true: imperialism describes the foreign policy, caused by oligarchy control of US institutions to serve zionist/MIC/WallSt/Saudi influence, which also causes domestic wrongs. Some see classical Marxist terms as dogmatic, so I refer to the common origins in the zionist/KSA/MIC/WallSt oligarchy.
Like Venezuela, which seems to be about to be ‘rescued’ by the US……..