If the seasons are metaphors, one might say that the Americans have enjoyed a great summer. But summer has drawn to an end, and the days are growing shorter. It is a case of impending winter. The U.S. economy is encumbered by debt. The U.S. military is bogged down and diverted in Iraq. The U.S. intelligence community doesn't seem to know what it's doing. And the President of the United States is engaged in a hopeless utopian venture to bring democracy to people who don't care about democracy.
Winter is coming. But who is preparing? The Americans do not want to prepare. Each has his political fantasy or hobbyhorse. Each imagines that summer will last indefinitely. Peace and prosperity are now entrenched, and those pesky little enemies of mankind (the terrorists) will be hunted down one by one, even if it takes a million years. Americans do not allow themselves to contemplate actual vulnerabilities. The business elite doesn't want to hear that a storm is coming, that the plentiful harvest of days past is drawing to an end. Since preparations are expensive and inconvenient, it's better to ignore existing threats.
Despite what you may have heard, history is not a tale of progress, with each generation improving on the next. It is a tale of rise and fall. There are ages of progress and ages of decline. Human beings are not destined to advance in one direction, upward and onward. Life has its ups and downs. The idea that seems to prevail in today's America, the assumption that mankind is on a track of guaranteed progress, is fallacious. There will be a highpoint, a pinnacle, and there will be a decline or a downward spiral. Every civilization rises, then it declines. It succumbs to internal decay, civil strife, foreign invasion and eventual destruction. Summer is followed by fall and winter. Then comes spring again.
People living a hundred years from now will be puzzled by today's America. The signs of impending destructive war are everywhere. We do not see the signs because we do not want to see them. This is true in the White House, at the CIA, in the major newspapers and within major corporations. Russia and China are maneuvering against the United States on all fronts. Russia and China are supporting Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, Syria, etc. All the worst regimes, led by criminals and butchers, are supported by Moscow and Beijing. The objective is to arm as many rogue states as possible. And the reason for doing so is transparent.
A researcher and former news editor wrote the following note to me last week: "Russia has been conducting war in Chechnya for years, slaughtering, raping, imprisoning and displacing Muslims. Russia slaughtered Muslims for ten years in Afghanistan. Russia is 'right next door' [to the terrorists]. Yet bin Laden, allegedly tired of what has been done to Muslim peoples, chose to attack ... the United States. Bin Laden ignores the enemy who has been slaughtering Muslims in his backyard for two decades and instead targets a nation thousands of miles away...."
I am also reminded of what KGB/FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko pointed out in his book on the subject (Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror). He described how Russia's special services organized abductions, assassinations and terrorist acts on Russian soil attributed to the Chechens. In other words, the Russian special services tried the following experiment: to see if they could organize terror against the Russian people while blaming the terrorism on others. After his book was published, Litvinenko told an interviewer that Putin was behind al Qaeda's terrorism, that leading members of al Qaeda were longtime KGB agents. And for his trouble, Mr. Litvinenko was poisoned with a rare radioactive substance, on orders from the Kremlin. His mouth was stopped shut. Did the Western media take a closer look at his actual message? Or did they ignore his repeated warnings about a KGB-inspired false flag terror campaign against the West?
I am reminded of a book by a Soviet defector writing under the pen name Viktor Suvorov. The book, which was titled Spetsnaz, was about Russian commando operations, with a special chapter on pre-war sabotage and diversionary terrorism. Before the outbreak of open hostilities, Suvorov explained, "a series of large and small operations [would be used] to weaken the enemy's morale, create an atmosphere of suspicion, fear and uncertainty, and divert the attention of the enemy's armies and police forces to a huge number of different targets, each of which may be the object of the next attack." He further stated: "[The terror] is carried out by ... mercenaries recruited by intermediaries. The principal method employed at this stage is 'gray terror,' that is, a kind of terror which is not conducted in the name of the Soviet Union. The Soviet secret services do not at this stage leave their visiting cards, or leave other people's cards. The terror is carried out in the name of already existing extremist groups not connected in any way with the Soviet Union, or in the name of fictitious organizations."
Winter is coming. It is almost here. The Chinese have joined the Russians and are making open preparations for war. Washington wants China to explain these preparations. China points to Taiwan, but let us not be naïve. China seeks a greater prize. Why should China think small? Entire regions of the earth will soon be defenseless because America is disintegrating from a combination of permissiveness, distraction and false principles. One day soon America's financial structures won't be able to support the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force. And when that happens, the balance of power will shift dramatically from West to East.
There is a relevant news item that has appeared every few years since the "collapse" of the Soviet Union. The headline reads: "Russia Spying Returns to 'Cold War Levels.'" I have collected similar headlines from as far back as 1993. The secret, of course, is that Russia's Cold War levels of spying have remained throughout. A Reuters news piece, dated 29 March 2007, tells of "Russia efforts to obtain secrets on U.S. political and military decision-making...." When engaged in a major strategic deception, it is necessary to know the internal thought-process of the enemy. According to the Bush administration's Counterintelligence Executive, Joel Brenner, the Russians have launched an "intensive assault" to penetrate "the upper echelon of U.S. decision-making." Brenner says that Moscow already has enough knowledge of the U.S. government's internal mechanisms to "decapitate" the country's leadership in the event of war. Brenner was careful to add, "It's not a strike threat they're after. I don't want to give that impression."
One wonders why Mr. Brenner couldn't let the chips fall where they may. If the Russians are gathering information helpful to a decapitation strike, then perhaps a decapitation strike is what they're planning. Of course, a responsible official must studiously avoid economic pessimism. He cannot suggest that war preparations have anything to do with preparing for a real war; or that intensive espionage has any military consequences. "I don't want to give that impression," he protested. And yet, the information itself creates the impression nonetheless.
Meanwhile, China's ecosystem is collapsing. What else can you expect with 1.3 billion people crammed into one country? We ought to wonder out loud, with plans to move 300 million Chinese from their homes (due to the building of a dam), whether there isn't an unoccupied continent for them to migrate to. (If not now, then perhaps one will soon "open up.") One might say that the Chinese are preparing for winter.
But not the Americans.
