Putin's Breakthrough in Political Ideology: the new Komintern
Even as a young teen I found it whimsical and totally attached from reality. Soviet propaganda, that is.
I remember my father giving me propaganda booklets made by the KGB when coming back from a trip from the Soviet Union. We both laughed especially the one's telling "the truth" about the US. Having lived as a child for two years in the US, that
Soviet/KGB propaganda followed strictly the guidelines of Marxism Leninism especially in it's depiction of the US. The cluelessness of the KGB apparatchniks is obvious from that when in the 1980's the deployment of medium range nuclear weapons to Europe create a mass peace movement against this, the KGB had no role in this. Basically the KGB resident in London simply fabricated stories to Moscow that they had some connection to the grass roots movements. The old fashioned methods worked in the Third World, but not in the First World with their fledlign communist parties.
What a difference today makes. The US president elect makes flattering remarks of the Russian leader, who Russian intelligence services de facto helped in his presidential bid and in France the far right's Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is calling for a triumvirate of Putin, Trump and herself (See Trump, Putin and Le Pen 'would be good for world peace' says far-right French party chief. Suddenly the career KGB-spy and past director of the FSB is hailed by the far-right. What happened?
It's simply a brilliant change in the political ideology and the propaganda. Basically is quite the same as with the old KGB. The difference is that if the Soviet Union depicted United State as the epitome of capitalist evil making basically no difference with US political factions, now it is about the "evil capitalist elites". And that little addition: that it's the small global elite that is the root of evil is something that brings on vast amounts of followers to the cause. And hence the US isn't the "Evil Empire", using Reagan's words, it's the "evil elite" of the US which is behind everything bad. The common American (that voted for Trump) can be praised. That it's a political ideology can be seen from the fact that Russia doesn't have to lie, make up falsehoods (which it does from time to time), but simply state it's views.
The Russian foreign policy objectives and it's agenda are totally logical. Going against NATO, against the Transatlantic connection and the EU is obvious as these supranational organizations make it possible for smaller countries in the zone of influence of Russia, like the Baltic States, to go against Russia. If relations in Europe were done on a one-to-one basis, Russia would have a very influential position. But if it has to negotiate with the EU, it is in a disadvantage. Hence the anti-EU stance of Russia. And the anti-NATO stance of Russia ought to be obvious to everybody.
Yet with supporting clandestinely Trump, giving loans to the French National Front and having connections to far-right and anti-immigration / anti-EU parties, Russia now has hit a populist streak that likely it didn't think would be possible. Above all, it's de facto enemy, is in total dissarray.
To make the point that this really is an political and ideological success story to Russia, here is Aleksandr Dugin, prominent thinker close to Putin, describing Trump's victory and the real America, which follows Alex Jones'. Not the despicable Clinton's America.
Russia and it's intelligence services are winning.
I think things are getting worse, not better...
I remember my father giving me propaganda booklets made by the KGB when coming back from a trip from the Soviet Union. We both laughed especially the one's telling "the truth" about the US. Having lived as a child for two years in the US, that
Soviet/KGB propaganda followed strictly the guidelines of Marxism Leninism especially in it's depiction of the US. The cluelessness of the KGB apparatchniks is obvious from that when in the 1980's the deployment of medium range nuclear weapons to Europe create a mass peace movement against this, the KGB had no role in this. Basically the KGB resident in London simply fabricated stories to Moscow that they had some connection to the grass roots movements. The old fashioned methods worked in the Third World, but not in the First World with their fledlign communist parties.
What a difference today makes. The US president elect makes flattering remarks of the Russian leader, who Russian intelligence services de facto helped in his presidential bid and in France the far right's Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is calling for a triumvirate of Putin, Trump and herself (See Trump, Putin and Le Pen 'would be good for world peace' says far-right French party chief. Suddenly the career KGB-spy and past director of the FSB is hailed by the far-right. What happened?
It's simply a brilliant change in the political ideology and the propaganda. Basically is quite the same as with the old KGB. The difference is that if the Soviet Union depicted United State as the epitome of capitalist evil making basically no difference with US political factions, now it is about the "evil capitalist elites". And that little addition: that it's the small global elite that is the root of evil is something that brings on vast amounts of followers to the cause. And hence the US isn't the "Evil Empire", using Reagan's words, it's the "evil elite" of the US which is behind everything bad. The common American (that voted for Trump) can be praised. That it's a political ideology can be seen from the fact that Russia doesn't have to lie, make up falsehoods (which it does from time to time), but simply state it's views.
The Russian foreign policy objectives and it's agenda are totally logical. Going against NATO, against the Transatlantic connection and the EU is obvious as these supranational organizations make it possible for smaller countries in the zone of influence of Russia, like the Baltic States, to go against Russia. If relations in Europe were done on a one-to-one basis, Russia would have a very influential position. But if it has to negotiate with the EU, it is in a disadvantage. Hence the anti-EU stance of Russia. And the anti-NATO stance of Russia ought to be obvious to everybody.
Yet with supporting clandestinely Trump, giving loans to the French National Front and having connections to far-right and anti-immigration / anti-EU parties, Russia now has hit a populist streak that likely it didn't think would be possible. Above all, it's de facto enemy, is in total dissarray.
To make the point that this really is an political and ideological success story to Russia, here is Aleksandr Dugin, prominent thinker close to Putin, describing Trump's victory and the real America, which follows Alex Jones'. Not the despicable Clinton's America.
Russia and it's intelligence services are winning.
I think things are getting worse, not better...
Comments (40)
And while I am not for Putin - I can't be for globalism, sexual immorality, and cultural degradation either. I want a Europe (and I am European myself) which is strong, powerful and can stand up to Russia. Not a Europe ruled by Merkel - not a Europe which permits Ukraine to be handed over to the Russians. Not a Europe which is filled with vices - lust, greed, moral relativism, and so forth. Those are not European values - they never have been.
Now the reason why I can't be for Putin is that he wants to subjugate Europe. I want Europe to become a regional superpower. Europe must live up to its great heritage, Europe is much greater than Russia. But we have to break free from the globalist agenda and their lack of moral values. We have to return to those values that made Europe great in the first place: courage, dignity, integrity, perseverance, loyalty, and so forth. So yes Putin is a threat - he's a threat we should take very seriously, which means that we should stop electing weak Merkel as the leader of Europe - she can barely lead herself. And no - we shouldn't elect those right-wing lunatics that you show on the map - UKIP, Front Nationale, NPD, Viktor Orban's crooked party, and so forth. Those are just going to degrade Europe. We need new alternatives which are built around worker-friendly anti-globalist values - including morality, which is what's currently lacking. We need a leader like Putin, who can discipline member states of Europe and get them to comply with a single European policy so that we can build a united Europe, which doesn't have to be a slave to either Russia or the US. And definitely we have to free our politics from the money interests.
What evidence do you have that Putin wants to subjugate Europe?
Quoting Agustino
As Putin said, "A nation that cannot protect its own children has no future."
The simple reason that that's what anyone would do if they were in his place. Russia would be the boss, and Europe would be the second-class partner. And we would be second class partner because we have WEAK leadership. We need our own Putin.
Quoting tom
I agree.
That's been the problem with Russia all along is that they have tremendous resources, but no real boarders to protect all that wealth and, often, no way to exploit the wealth. Siberia is just no place to be and automation is rapidly making even places like Afghanistan more accessible which has a trillion dollars worth of mineral wealth just waiting to be exploited. No need to control all the idiots running around with AK 47s when robots can fly right up to them and blow up in their faces or Predators can just bomb them from high altitude. The locals can fight among themselves all they want, while the robots can do the mining and police foreign interests.
Trump showing interest in Russian affairs is simply a sign that the technology is catching up and its almost time to exploit more Russian wealth. It also happens to coincide with US politics, but I think he's jumping the gun a bit early myself. The Pentagon has plans to put 30-40 thousands drones in the ocean, the biomechanics for robots have largely been worked out, but it will still be another twenty years before the technology starts to mature. The AI is now the newest big push in the industry and once the damned things have serious brains it means there's no place on earth anyone can hide.
The real danger is American non-intervention due to a compromise with Russia. As I said before, the US doesn't give a fuck about the rest of the world. You're on a different continent! You don't really care what happens - you never did to be honest. Nobody can threaten you over there. You're as safe as you can get. Why would you really care if Russia moves in with her tanks and annexes the whole of Ukraine? To be honest, you wouldn't give a damn. America's losses out of that are ZERO. You'd be upset just because they need to know you are there, and they shouldn't take actions without your permission. That's all. You want them to bow down and be under your control.
That's cool. I didn't realize how much of my life I spent just continually psychologically pushing back against US Cold War propaganda until I read a history of Russia. The chapters covering events of the 20th Century just about gave me a nervous breakdown. The author (Hosking) explained that the average westerner has no frame of reference for understanding how bad it was, but it wasn't until halfway through it that it dawned on me that US propaganda about how insane the Soviet Union was didn't begin to convey the truth.
What was wrong about US propaganda was its depiction of the Soviet Union as a hive-like society that would eventually far outstrip the US in productivity and wealth. Turns out Russia is in some ways what it's been since Peter the Great.. partly western, partly medieval.
They do have a lot of coal, though.
Isn't this just a baseless smear from the DNC playbook. The lie about Putin funding UKIP is in the hands of lawyers in US.
LOL, that's what Saddam Hussein thought when he invaded Kuwait which was a country that didn't even exist until the US set it up specifically to pump oil out from under his ass and sell it at cut rate prices. Get it straight, we control the entire world economy and tell everyone what they can and can't sell to whom at what price. The Soviet Union's economy failed in the first place because they wouldn't play ball and, if necessary, we will invade and nobody in the world will shed a single tear. In the meantime, Russia is rapidly dwindling in influence and power and has barely started to rebuild their economy again, while we've been supporting the Chinese building up their's for half a century. Guess who would help the US invade Russia?
Either Russia learns how to play nice and accepts their role in the empire or they will get nowhere and, if necessary, we will invade because the money has taken on a life of its own. Within twenty years commercial fishing will no longer be possible because there won't be enough wild fish in the oceans, within fifty every wild land animal larger than a dog will either be extinct or only exist in zoos. If you think sanity has anything to do with international politics and money think again. Russia is large enough it may survive what is coming, but the idea of them being able to do more than give the US a hard time in places like Syria is ludicrous.
Naturally the US uses scare tactics too. The red scare is quite comparable to the scare of "Radical Muslim extremists" we have now... even if the danger is now nothing comparable to WW3 of the Cold War era. McCarthyism went too far, but that doesn't actually mean it was a totally fabricated scare with absolutely no reason at all. Americans just have a habit to take any threat and blow it out of all proportions to get the people to support a cause.
Yet what I think is one of the typical errors we make is that when we are critical of the US and the West's actions, and may I point we should be critical about these actions, we then simply overlook and tend to forget that the Soviet system was truly totalitarian and totally on far a different scale. At worst we see Russia as a victim. Well, Russia surely isn't a victim, it was a Victor of WW2, just like the US. The fact is that the US has acted just like any "Great Power" in history, just like France, the UK or the Roman Empire, hence there is much to critisize. And yes, indeed the US has it's darker moments, for example with Herbert Hoovers FBI or the War on Terror, yet that in the end is small compared what people under the Soviets and the Russians themselves have had to suffer. And while modern Russia isn't surely the Soviet Union, it isn't a democratic justice state either. It not a thing to forget.
Basically Putin's objective has been the recovery of economic, political, and geostrategic assets lost by the Soviet state in 1991. When he took power on the last day of 1999, the Russian Federation had indeed been collapsing and nearly in a freefall during the Yeltsin years. Now that economic collapse did stop and with rising Oil prices and Putin's Russia did make a comeback, basically getting to the same Per Capita levels when Soviet Union collapsed, which still is quite rapid economic turnaround. Yet his other policies to concentrate power and how to recover those geostrategic assets has been basically quite frightening. Putin rose to power and to popularity by starting a war against Chechen secessionists with blowing up apartment buildings. Perhaps the Russo-Georgian war was initiated by Georgia (that it did on it's own territory), the intervention into Georgia still was planned two years before, which then ended up in the annexation of South Ossetia. And the annexation of Crimea and ongoing war in Ukraine shows how comfortable Putin is with war. With Putin, offense is the best defense. And indeed many Russians like it, not perhaps the intelligencia, but part of the people (who in the US would be voting Trump).
Quoting wuliheronAnd that "buffer zone" is the problem as it makes Russia quite aggressive in reality. It does seek dominance over these countries, just like the Soviet Union. Just ask yourself, why is then it acceptable for Russians to seek a "buffer zone" against a new Napoleon/Hitler coming from the West, that basically isn't coming? In reality it's Putin himself needs an enemy, the evil American elite lead globalists, to give a reason for his police state. He needs it, because otherwise the Russian would be against his cleptocratic rule.
And just to give an example of the aggressiveness of Russia against NATO countries:
After the annexation of Crimea, Obama visited Estonia and promised that the US would stand by it's Baltic NATO allies. Russia responded to this asymmetrically by later kidnapping an Estonian intelligence officer Eston Kohver in Estonia itself during a NATO summit in September 2015, smuggled him into Russia and charged him with spying and gave him a sentence of 15 years in prison. This provocation didn't go unnoticed with either the Baltic States or the Nordic States and even "neutral" Sweden and Finland condemned the action in a harsh tone. The Intelligence officer was later exchanged for a Russian spy, just like during the Cold War.
Eston Kohver in custody with presumably Russian FSB agents, notice they are masked.
Russians support strong men dictators like Putin precisely because that is what their situation requires, but its simply not in the US interest to allow them to take those territories without paying the price. Either they learn how to play ball with the US or we'll prevent them from protecting themselves. They know it, we know it, and Putin can threaten nuclear war all he wants and we'll just invade Russia. We've been cussed out by more vicious dictators before and the US has already installed the first Star Wars defense system in response. What we cannot tolerate is someone thinking they can get anything for free.
UKIP hasn't made it books public where it has gotten money, just like well, Trump hasn't given his tax records. Yet here it should be noticed that parties like UKIP or the National Front aren't parties invented by Moscow and directly lead by Moscow as the historical Komintern. Still, obviously there is a link. When a politician praises a dictator like Putin, there usually is a reason... like money.
For example, Sweden Democrats (if I am correct) are a party that indeed does have it's Neo-nazi roots and has it admirers of Putin, yet it isn't linked to Russia as some other far right wing parties are. And actually it voted in favour of the new treaty between Sweden and NATO, which Russia was totally against.
Does anybody actually believe this crap? USA can't even quell a tiny enclave of religious fanatics in the Middle East. Russia occupies 1/8 of the world's total land mass!
Quoting wuliheron
And it doesn't work!
Hahahaha! That's why Obama talks like a kitten to all world leaders and went on an apology tour. That's why Obama has been allowing the Russians to take Ukraine and install their support for the Assad regime. Remember the line in the sand? >:O
Actually Russians are far more like Americans. They absolutely distrust their government. Yet as there hasn't been a democracy and above all, no justice state, people have a quite "realpolitik" attitude about politics. And the fear of the state is still there in the closet. And of course there's the "uninformed rabble" that is totally pro-Putin and goes along with the state propaganda: they will carry his picture after Putin has died just as they carry around Stalin's picture.
Later from now it likely will be Putin's picture...
I find it quite condescending to say that some nation that has given so much in culture (and science too) needs a strong man, a dictator. The argument that "some countries need strong men" is in the end quite condescending towards the people.
Quoting wuliheronActually it's not about territories, it's about influence. It's about getting East European NATO members to be subjected to Finlandization, to fall under the influence of Russia in agree with policy issues that Russia upholds, and hence make NATO not to work. And perhaps that NATO goes to the dustbin of SEATO and CENTO before it.
Not that Putin conquers the whole of Europe.
Why? This is only condescending if you presuppose that not having a strong man is better than having one. I think that's false. I think great nations have always been ruled by strong men, and will always be ruled thusly. Though it is true that there have also been many despicable strong men.
"Strong men" in my view means rulers that don't care about the rule of law, human rights or basic norms. Strong men kill their opponents and use fear as a way to rule. Now the countries don't have to be total police states, but there is the feeling that laws basically don't matter, men do.
The idea that a country cannot exist in any other way than have a "Strong man" to rule it indeed says a lot what foreigners think what the people of the country can do.
A very interesting video. Though I presume it was done in the 1980's and hence is a bit too alarmist, it very well shows the World view of a KGB insider. And let's remember that the KGB people do rule Russia.
Russia is not the whole continent. If Putin wants to live in Siberia I'm sure we can make arrangements. Russia proper is just another country surrounded by border states where familiarity doth breed contempt. If Putin doesn't play nice we'll just keep taking them away from him. "Liberating" them. That's why he hates NATO because he knows Russia has almost no neighbors or anyone else willing to back them up.
Timing is everything and in international politics my enemy's enemy is my best friend, but Russia is nobody's friend and everyone's enemy. Obama can sweet talk Putin all he wants, and Putin knows the reality of the situation that there are no friends in politics and he has no allies. So long as the oil in the mideast keeps flowing dirt cheap to support Assad's war effort the US is looking great with $2.28 gas.
They aren't a single culture or even a single nation, but a bunch of warring states that been fighting among themselves forever and repeatedly invaded by outsiders. Europeans understand Americans better, just one of our fifty states is the size of an average country, almost everyone speaks the same language and we even tend to all dress the same, yet, we are also the third most populous country in the world and you can drive anywhere in the country without crossing a border. You might as well compare Malaysia to the US as compare Russia because its another marriage of convenience made at the point of a shotgun. Hell, even with all our shared commonalities the US had a civil war, and even China has a lot more unity going for it than Russia.
China and Russia come along far better than the US and China. Even if there is Siberia and the Chinese moving there, still...
And don't forget those Slavic friends that basically are quite friendly to Russia, Serbia and Bulgaria. And Serbia, it should be noted, is a country where the US could help a revolution to happen that toppled Slobodan Milosevic, something that NATO's bombs couldn't do. Yet now even after that, Serbia is close friends with Russia.
Russian defense minister with his Serbian counterpart:
And here we get to the topic of this thread: just how many friends will Putin have in Europe in a few years? Not perhaps only Syria, Cuba and Venezuela. This can change...
Quoting wuliheron???
Now I don't understand. Are you saying that Russia isn't a nation state or what? Russia isn't as artificial as Iraq. What do you think it's made of? Muscovites and the Novgorodians?
You are a fantasist, conspiracy theorist with no evidence.
Ok, here's the reference:
On UKIP, just one article:
See (The Telegraph article): Ukip under fire after blocking scrutiny of party donations
Sweden democrats, and there stance on NATO and Russian dissapproval:
See (Sputnik article)True Colors: Nominally Populist Sweden Democrats Help Ratify NATO Deal
* * *
Do correct me if I'm wrong, but then make the point just why I'm wrong, not just make accusations, Tom.
The Soviet's realized that they could not keep up with the efficiency of free markets (I suspect this to be a "truth" only the elite realized on both sides, which the West exploited with Reagans policies and then the collapse of the Soviet union in trying to keep up with all the race's between the two countries). Once the Soviet Union realized this they had a shift in their strategy against the West and its allies in that they could not be defeated by brute force; but, rather by a slow process of subverting the masses of their rivals through the vulnerability that any uneducated democracy exposes itself to.
Mind you, this is a slow and tedious process that takes many years as mentioned by the ex-KGB agent mentioned in my previous post.
I would also assume that with the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the utter failure of its socio-economic policies, we don't have anything to point towards in saying something like "Hey, look at how bad those guys have it in comparison to us!"...
So, anyway the slow and tedious process of subverting a public to your way of thinking can be negated by educating the public about the past, which is desperately needed in my opinion in the West and other countries.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-us-election-experts-say-20161125-gsxf9l.html
A lot of that crap about 'lying Hillary' was aided and abetted by this misinformation. Meanwhile, an obviously mendacious candidate won the election.
Yeah it's a loaf of pahatastoc kodswullip uf oi heffer herd won.
And more interestingly, the hackings of the DNC (both Podesta and the earlier ones) do seem to have been done by Russians. What the US does about this is an open question. Likely the honeymoon Trump has with Putin won't last long, but what can Russia take out of is interesting to see.
Be it misinformation or subversion, which Russia does engage from time to time, one really should notice that in many parts it is the simple reasoning that many people agree with. Putin's policies and viewpoints is something that appeals to many. That's perhaps one of my main points. (And one interesting point is that basically the Russian Federation ought not to have a state ideology.) The Soviet Marxism Leninism didn't, even the Marxists here would be (or were) critical of the Soviet policies.
The typical Russia Today news coverage might be a little bit biased by picking just what to say, but surely not fake news. For example the coverage the RT made of the Occupy Wall Street movement was quite objective, OK journalism. Of course when there was afterwards demonstrations against Putin's third term in Russia, RT was far more subtle in the coverage. Putin actually is a good communicator and can take his audience.
Furthermore, there is in my view a good reason to critisize current trends in globalization and the idea that the EU can be made into a federal state like the US. That kind of critique partly coincides with Russia's objectives and thus there is the reason for Russia to support events or political parties that in the end wouldn't be allies (or proxies) of Russia.
To give an example, Russia was clearly in favour of the secession of Scotland, yet unlikely would share much with the pro-EU leadership of a possible Independent Scotland.
There is not a single (sane) military strategist in the world that thinks an invasion of Russia is doable. The scary thing for Europeans who would undoubtedly bear the brunt of the fallout from any attempt at it is that there's now someone in the White House just barking enough to try it anyway!
Again, my enemy's enemy is my best friend and if Russia thinks that China, Belarus, and India will come to their rescue if they aggressively attempt to expand their borders or start a serious fight with the US they are sadly mistaken. Cutthroat poker is the game, and Russia would not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning that fight even if they all combined their efforts. Its political suicide which is something even insane megalomaniacs like Saddam Hussein and Idi Amin understood.
Britain ruled the waves, and after WWII the US ruled the waves, the air, and space itself. The next race is to conquer self-assembling robots with the navy putting 30-40 thousand robots in the oceans alone. Swarm technology is going to make predator missiles look quaint with millimeter size robots that hunt your down wherever you go and larger ones that blow up in your face. With quantum technology they are even intent on conquering time itself and China has already forbidden the use of time travel as a plot device in their mass media. You can run, you can hide, you can threaten all you want, but your ass will belong to someone else. That's what has Putin all pissed off.
Do you actually believe this Sci-Fi stuff of self-assembling robots? >:O We can't even cure diseases - like cancer for example - and we'll create self-assembling robots which swarm the ocean, and self-assembling robots of milimeter size which hunt you down? >:O Like for real?
There are already contingency plains to put self-assembling robots on the moon to mine helium 3 for nuclear fusion. You send one assembled robot and have it assemble the rest from parts when it gets there. Then you reprogram them to do whatever you want. A 150 million dollar consortium has already formed to explore the technology required to capture an asteroid, bring it to geosynchronous orbit, and mine it for enough platinum alone to replace every aluminum and copper telephone cable and circuit board in the world. Empires are ruled by the distribution of materials and already there are people also investigating mining the ocean floor with robots. The Pentagon has spent over twenty years perfecting the biomechanics, still has research to do on its actual implantation, but the semi-conducting industry is already moving towards putting artificial intelligence in every desktop within five years, and IBM should be finished at that time with their plans to put somewhere between the intelligence of a cat and a human being inside a coffee can sized container that uses a 100 watts.
The planned drones the Pentagon is working on filling the oceans with some 30-40 thousand of can operate on their own for up to a year drawing power from the water itself without having to be recharged. Its what is now referred to as "disruptive technology" that could ruin the world economy overnight, with the looming issue being who gets to disrupt the world economy, how, and when. The money, technology, and weapons are literally taking on a life of their own and the Pentagon has no clue as to how to begin to address such issues. Success has bred paranoia and they have every reason to be very afraid because nuclear weapons were just the beginning of how easy it is becoming for anyone to destroy the world.
The last estimates I saw for genetic engineering suggested anyone with a few million dollars can design their own biological warfare.
Any proof or evidence for any of this? Where do you get this stuff from?
I offer free lessons in how to use a dictionary and search engine. These are just the things they allow the public to know about. Micrsoft just announced they are about to build a topological quantum computer and the race is heating up to produce the next scientific revolution. The world is about to change fundamentally and either you can follow all the action going on or you will be left behind with your head spinning. However, the next five years should be the beginning of the end where a new disruptive technology is introduced every few years.
Flat lenses, graphene supercapacitors and dirt cheap high performance motors in everything will be among the first things people will notice on the market. A single supercapacitor can charge your phone in seconds with enough juice to last a week and should eventually be enough for a month and half. It means what costs $1,500.oo bucks now for a motorized skateboard or bike or whatever should come down to a couple of hundred bucks and eventually be solar powered and as environmentally benign as throwing leaves on the ground, while with flat lenses your cellphone would act as though it had a foot long telephoto lens. Cameras are about to follow everyone everywhere with enough fidelity to diagnose you with skin cancer.
The NSA already has the first gigapixel camera in orbit that can take a single photograph of Manhattan and read any gum wrapper on the sidewalk. They are also making significant strides with terahertz radiation towards building a cellphone sized device that can see right though your cloths and a shoebox sized one that can look through walls merely by shinning the equivalent of an infrared flashlight. You can already buy a cellphone with its own built in microscope.
The definition of a Superpower is a country "capable of influencing international events and the acts and policies of less powerful nations". Great powers are similar, but don't have a global reach.
I've noticed that speaking of international politics and the present power plays, far too often the debate evolves into the "WW3 topic". That evidentually every conflict would mean that the crisis develops into WW3. This idea is in public very dominant in the discourse, just like in the last US elections, were there was fearmongering that a Clinton presidency would mean that WW3 is closer with Russia. And then there is the naive and in the end ignorant view of simply looking at total amounts of men, tanks and aircraft and them compared means that Russia has no chance. Things aren't that simple. One has to look at what are the actual forces that would be likely deployed, what is the actual power projection and especially what is the will to use force, how credible is the deterrent? For example Ukraine's military was very strong on paper, but when Russia attacked it it could muster only a few units to move against Russia. And above all, there have been a multitude of crises between the US and Russia, and previously US and the Soviet Union, and the crises have gone their way without WW3 erupting. Even the many wrong alarms of an out of the blue nuclear attack on both sides have had cooler heads prevailing.
Hence crises can happen, and sooner or later will happen. And what the political atmosphere and situation is then is far more important than some technogadgetry. Technogadgetry is totally a side issue, basically a distraction in this competition, as it takes a decade or two for any weapon system to be brought into service and longer for the organizations of armed forces in the way that they are truly used on a strategic level. Falling behind/catching up in technological development is important, but not that important. 50's and 60's era equipment is quite capable to fight the most advanced superpower, just as the tactics and strategy are chosen correctly.
Yeah... might be cool, but no, not a game changer. Not in the near future at least...
Even more powerfull is political influence, as this can bring "victories" even without any shots fired. And here the ideological aspects comes to play. The Russian type of right wing anti-globalist authoritarianism, with a nearly obsessive hatred of homosexuality is actually popular. And Russia plays this card very well against the supra-national organizations like NATO and EU.
Perhaps it's fitting that it's Pravda, the follower of the Soviet era iconic Pravda, which publishes articles like this one, Russia has become the only defender of Christian values.
Well that just quite possibly happens to be true, to the West's great shame. The West isn't Christian anymore, and has little knowledge or respect for Christianity - hence the anti-Christian pro-greed, lust and sexual immorality propaganda that screams out from literarily every Hollywood movie. You almost can't watch a movie without seeing sex. If that's not obsessive I don't know what is.
But that does not happen to be true at all. Because Russia actually isn't as Christian or religious as, well the US. Not by any measure. The Russian elite is promoting this image of basically the Russian state being close to Orthodoxy, but people aren't. That means a lot, there is a difference between an image and reality.
Russians and their faith:
Or with another study, the importance of religion:
Poles are religious. American's are religious. Russian's aren't. Not by any measure compared to Poles or Americans. People don't suddenly wake up in masses to flock Church sermons after they were for nearly a Century deliberately made atheists. Old people in Russia are religious. Just like uh, in my country, with a state religion. The ruling elite chose to pick the Orthodox Church as one ideological pillars of the new (old) Russian state after Communism fell. It started during Yeltsin's time and has continued during Putin. They weren't anymore communists and they felt a void.
It's just rhetoric, propaganda or an agenda to promote. Similar like the belief that what, pinko-liberal gay SJW's are destroying the Western culture by individual hedonism and decadence?
It is accurate to say that this truly about creating an image. Not about truly taking Christianity as a true ideological guideline in Russian politics. I think it is more using Christianity, or here more specifically the Orthodox Church, for political reasons than using politics for a Christian agenda.
Quoting AgustinoYoung are just as heterogenous as middle aged people. And I don't think they are more immoral than their parents were when they were young. Stereotypes just go so far to portray large groups of people.
I think that Americans are religious exactly because there hasn't been a direct link between the state and one Church. When the state and church are one, when there is a state religion, there isn't grass roots connection to the people and the competition, the incentive for the Church to actively look for members, to actively give them what they want, even to listen to them.
Here in my country in 1900 as high as 98,1% belonged to the Protestant state Church, in 1980 the percentage still was 90,3% and today Chruch membership is still 73% of the population, even if resigning from the Church (and having less taxes) is just one click-away with dedicated internet sites promoting people to leave the Church. With membership rates, it looks still that people would be religious. Yet a study in 2011 showed that only 27% of people believe in God as the Church teaches and 23% believed in God in some way. The rest were agnostics and outright atheists. I think the reason isn't Hollywood, but far more the Church itself and it's own actions or non-action.