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A Thousand
Balls of Flame
“Russia
is ready to respond to any provocation, but the last
thing the Russians want is another war. And that, if
you like good news, is the best news you are going
to hear.”
By
Dmitry Orlov
August 24,
2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- "ClubOrlov"
- A whiff of World War III hangs in the air. In the
US, Cold War 2.0 is on, and the anti-Russian
rhetoric emanating from the Clinton campaign, echoed
by the mass media, hearkens back to McCarthyism and
the red scare. In response, many people are starting
to think that Armageddon might be nigh—an all-out
nuclear exchange, followed by nuclear winter and
human extinction. It seems that many people in the
US like to think that way. Goodness gracious!
But, you know, this is hardly unreasonable of them.
The US is spiraling down into financial, economic
and political collapse, losing its standing in the
world and turning into a continent-sized ghetto full
of drug abuse, violence and decaying infrastructure,
its population vice-ridden, poisoned with
genetically modified food, morbidly obese, exploited
by predatory police departments and city halls, plus
a wide assortment of rackets, from medicine to
education to real estate… That we know.
We also know how painful it is to realize that the
US is damaged beyond repair, or to acquiesce to the
fact that most of the damage is self-inflicted: the
endless, useless wars, the limitless corruption of
money politics, the toxic culture and gender wars,
and the imperial hubris and willful ignorance that
underlies it all… This level of disconnect between
the expected and the observed certainly hurts, but
the pain can be avoided, for a time, through mass
delusion.
This sort of downward spiral does not automatically
spell “Apocalypse,” but the specifics of the state
cult of the US—an old-time religiosity overlaid with
the secular religion of progress—are such that there
can be no other options: either we are on our way up
to build colonies on Mars, or we perish in a ball of
flame. Since the humiliation of having to ask the
Russians for permission to fly the Soyuz to the
International Space Station makes the prospect of
American space colonies seem dubious, it’s Plan B:
balls of flame here we come!
And so, most of the recent American warmongering
toward Russia can be explained by the desire to find
anyone but oneself to blame for one’s unfolding
demise. This is a well-understood psychological
move—projecting the shadow—where one takes
everything one hates but can’t admit to about
oneself and projects it onto another. On a
subconscious level (and, in the case of some very
stupid people, even a conscious one) the Americans
would like to nuke Russia until it glows, but can’t
do so because Russia would nuke them right back. But
the Americans can project that same desire onto
Russia, and since they have to believe that they are
good while Russia is evil, this makes the Armageddon
scenario appear much more likely.
But this way of thinking involves a break with
reality. There is exactly one nation in the world
that nukes other countries, and that would be the
United States. It gratuitously nuked Japan, which
was ready to surrender anyway, just because it
could. It prepared to nuke Russia at the start of
the Cold War, but was prevented from doing so by a
lack of a sufficiently large number of nuclear bombs
at the time. And it attempted to render Russia
defenseless against nuclear attack, abandoning the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, but has been
prevented from doing so by Russia’s new weapons.
These include, among others, long-range supersonic
cruise missiles (Kalibr), and suborbital
intercontinental missiles carrying multiple nuclear
payloads capable of evasive maneuvers as they
approach their targets (Sarmat). All of these new
weapons are impossible to intercept using any
conceivable defensive technology. At the same time,
Russia has also developed its own defensive
capabilities, and its latest S-500 system will
effectively seal off Russia’s airspace, being able
to intercept targets both close to the ground and in
low Earth orbit.
In the meantime, the US has squandered a fantastic
sum of money fattening up its notoriously corrupt
defense establishment with various versions of “Star
Wars,” but none of that money has been particularly
well spent. The two installations in Europe of Aegis
Ashore (completed in Romania, planned in Poland)
won’t help against Kalibr missiles launched from
submarines or small ships in the Pacific or the
Atlantic, close to US shores, or against
intercontinental missiles that can fly around them.
The THAAD installation currently going into South
Korea (which the locals are currently protesting by
shaving their heads) won’t change the picture
either.
There is exactly one nuclear aggressor nation on the
planet, and it isn’t Russia. But this shouldn’t
matter. In spite of American efforts to undermine
it, the logic of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)
remains in effect. The probability of a nuclear
exchange is determined not by anyone’s policy but by
the likelihood of it happening by accident. Since
there is no winning strategy in a nuclear war,
nobody has any reason to try to start one. Under no
circumstances is the US ever going to be able to
dictate its terms to Russia by threatening it with
nuclear annihilation.
If a nuclear war is not in the cards, how about a
conventional one? The US has been sabre-rattling by
stationing troops and holding drills in the Baltics,
right on Russia's western border, installing ABM
systems in Romania, Poland and South Korea,
supporting anti-Russian Ukrainian Nazis, etc. All of
this seems quite provocative; can it result in a
war? And what would that war look like?
Here, we have to look at how Russia has responded to
previous provocations. These are all the facts that
we know, and can use to predict what will happen, as
opposed to purely fictional, conjectural statements
unrelated to known facts.
When the US or its proxies attack an enclave of
Russian citizens outside of Russia's borders, here
are the types of responses that we have been able to
observe so far:
1. The example of Georgia. During the Summer
Olympics in Beijing (a traditional time of peace),
the Georgian military, armed and trained by the US
and Israel, invaded South Ossetia. This region was
part of Georgia in name only, being mostly inhabited
by Russian speakers and passport-holders. Georgian
troops started shelling its capital, Tskhinval,
killing some Russian peacekeeping troops stationed
in the region and causing civilian casualties. In
response, Russian troops rolled into Georgia, within
hours completely eliminating Georgia’s war-making
capability. They announced that South Ossetia was de
facto no longer part of Georgia, throwing in
Abkhazia (another disputed Russian enclave) for good
measure, and withdrew. Georgia’s warmongering
president Saakashvili was pronounced a “political
corpse” and left to molder in place. Eventually he
was forced to flee Georgia, where he has been
declared a fugitive from justice. The US State
Department recently gave him a new job, as Governor
of Odessa in the Ukraine. Recently, Russian-Georgian
relations have been on the mend.
2. The example of Crimea. During the Winter Olympics
in Sochi, in Russia (a traditional time of peace)
there occurred an illegal, violent overthrow of the
elected, constitutional government of the Ukraine,
followed by the installation of a US-picked puppet
administration. In response, the overwhelmingly
Russian population of the autonomous region of
Crimea held a referendum. Some 95% of them voted to
secede from the Ukraine and to once again become
part of Russia, which they had been for centuries
and until very recently. The Russians then used
their troops already stationed in the region under
an international agreement to make sure that the
results of the referendum were duly enacted. Not a
single shot was fired during this perfectly peaceful
exercise in direct democracy.
3. The example of Crimea again. During the Summer
Olympics in Rio (a traditional time of peace) a
number of Ukrainian operatives stormed the Crimean
border and were swiftly apprehended by Russia's
Federal Security Service, together with a cache of
weapons and explosives. A number of them were killed
in the process, along with two Russians. The
survivors immediately confessed to planning to
organize terrorist attacks at the ferry terminal
that links Crimea with the Russian mainland and a
railway station. The ringleader of the group
confessed to being promised the princely sum of $140
for carrying out these attacks. All of them are very
much looking forward to a warm, dry bunk and three
square meals of day, care of the Russian government,
which must seem like a slice of heaven compared to
the violence, chaos, destitution and desolation that
characterizes life in present-day Ukraine. In
response, the government in Kiev protested against
“Russian provocation,” and put its troops on alert
to prepare against “Russian invasion.” Perhaps the
next shipment of US aid to the Ukraine should
include a supply of chlorpromazine or some other
high-potency antipsychotic medication.
Note the constant refrain of “during the Olympics.”
This is not a coincidence but is indicative of a
certain American modus operandi. Yes, waging war
during a traditional time of peace is both cynical
and stupid. But the American motto seems to be “If
we try something repeatedly and it still doesn't
work, then we just aren’t trying hard enough.” In
the minds of those who plan these events, the reason
they never work right can’t possibly have anything
to do with it being stupid. This is known as “Level
III Stupid”: stupidity so profound that it is unable
to comprehend its own stupidity.
4. The example of Donbass. After the events
described in point 2 above, this populous,
industrialized region, which was part of Russia
until well into the 20th century and is
linguistically and culturally Russian, went into
political turmoil, because most of the locals wanted
nothing to do with the government that had been
installed in Kiev, which they saw as illegitimate.
The Kiev government proceeded to make things worse,
first by enacting laws infringing on the rights of
Russian-speakers, then by actually attacking the
region with the army, which they continue to do to
this day, with three unsuccessful invasions and
continuous shelling of both residential and
industrial areas, in the course of which over ten
thousand civilians have been murdered and many more
wounded. In response, Russia assisted with
establishing a local resistance movement supported
by a capable military contingent formed of local
volunteers. This was done by Russian volunteers,
acting in an unofficial capacity, and by Russian
private citizens donating money to the cause. In
spite of Western hysteria over “Russian invasion”
and “Russian aggression,” no evidence of it exists.
Instead, the Russian government has done just three
things: it refused to interfere with the work of its
citizens coming to the aid of Donbass; it pursued a
diplomatic strategy for resolving the conflict; and
it has provided numerous convoys of humanitarian aid
to the residents of Donbass. Russia’s diplomatic
initiative resulted in two international
agreements—Minsk I and Minsk II—which compelled both
Kiev and Donbass to pursue a strategy of political
resolution of the conflict through cessation of
hostilities and the granting to Donbass of full
autonomy. Kiev has steadfastly refused to fulfill
its obligations under these agreements. The conflict
is now frozen, but continuing to bleed because of
Ukrainian shelling, waiting for the Ukrainian puppet
government to collapse.
To complete the picture, let us include Russia’s
recent military action in Syria, where it came to
the defense of the embattled Syrian government and
quickly demolished a large part of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/Islamic
Caliphate, along with various other terrorist
organizations active in the region. The rationale
for this action is that Russia saw a foreign-funded
terrorist nest in Syria as a direct threat to
Russia’s security. Two other notable facts here are
that Russia acted in accordance with international
law, having been invited by Syria’s legitimate,
internationally recognized government and that the
military action was scaled back as soon as it seemed
possible for all of the legitimate (non-terrorist)
parties to the conflict to return to the negotiating
table. These three elements—using military force as
a reactive security measure, scrupulous adherence to
international law, and seeing military action as
being in the service of diplomacy—are very important
to understanding Russia’s methods and ambitions.
Turning now to US military/diplomatic adventures, we
see a situation that is quite different. US military
spending is responsible for over half of all federal
discretionary spending, dwarfing most other vitally
important sectors, such as infrastructure, public
medicine and public education. It serves several
objectives. Most importantly, it is a public jobs
program: a way of employing people who are not
employable in any actually productive capacity due
to lack of intelligence, education and training.
Second, it is a way for politicians and defense
contractors to synergistically enrich themselves and
each other at the public’s expense. Third, it is an
advertising program for weapons sales, the US being
the top purveyor of lethal technology in the world.
Last of all, it is a way of projecting force around
the world, bombing into submission any country that
dares oppose Washington’s global hegemonic
ambitions, often in total disregard of international
law. Nowhere on this list is the actual goal of
defending the US.
None of these justifications works vis-à-vis Russia.
In dollar terms, the US outspends Russia on defense
hands down. However, viewed in terms of purchasing
parity, Russia manages to buy as much as ten times
more defensive capability per unit national wealth
than the US, largely negating this advantage. Also,
what the US gets for its money is inferior: the
Russian military gets the weapons it wants; the US
military gets what the corrupt political
establishment and their accomplices in the
military-industrial complex want in order to enrich
themselves. In terms of being an advertising
campaign for weapons sales, watching Russian
weaponry in action in Syria, effectively wiping out
terrorists in short order through a relentless
bombing campaign using scant resources, then seeing
US weaponry used by the Saudis in Yemen, with much
support and advice from the US, being continuously
defeated by lightly armed insurgents, is unlikely to
generate too many additional sales leads. Lastly,
the project of maintaining US global hegemony seems
to be on the rocks as well. Russia and China are now
in a de facto military union. Russia’s superior
weaponry, coupled with China’s almost infinitely
huge infantry, make it an undefeatable combination.
Russia now has a permanent air base in Syria, has
made a deal with Iran to use Iranian military bases,
and is in the process of prying Turkey away from
NATO. As the US military, with its numerous useless
bases around the world and piles of useless gadgets,
turns into an international embarrassment, it
remains, for the time being, a public jobs program
for employing incompetents, and a rich source of
graft.
In all, it is important to understand how actually
circumscribed American military capabilities are.
The US is very good at attacking vastly inferior
adversaries. The action against Nazi Germany only
succeeded because it was by then effectively
defeated by the Red Army—all except for the final
mop-up, which is when the US came out of its timid
isolation and joined the fray. Even North Korea and
Vietnam proved too tough for it, and even there its
poor performance would have been much poorer were it
not for the draft, which had the effect of adding
non-incompetents to the ranks, but produced the
unpleasant side-effect of enlisted men shooting
their incompetent officers—a much underreported
chapter of American military history. And now, with
the addition of LGBTQ people to the ranks, the US
military is on its way to becoming an international
laughing stock. Previously, terms like “faggot” and
“pussy” were in widespread use in the US military’s
basic training. Drill sergeants used such
terminology to exhort the “numb-nuts” placed in
their charge to start acting like men. I wonder what
words drill sergeants use now that they’ve been
tasked with training those they previously referred
to as “faggots” and “pussies”? The comedic potential
of this nuance isn’t lost on Russia’s military men.
This comedy can continue as long as the US military
continues to shy away from attacking any serious
adversary, because if it did, comedy would turn to
tragedy rather quickly.
- If,
for instance, US forces tried to attack Russian
territory by lobbing missiles across the border,
they would be neutralized in instantaneous
retaliation by Russia’s vastly superior
artillery.
- If
Americans or their proxies provoked Russians
living outside of Russia (and there are millions
of them) to the point of open rebellion, Russian
volunteers, acting in an unofficial capacity and
using private funds, would quickly train, outfit
and arm them, creating a popular insurgency that
would continue for years, if necessary, until
Americans and their proxies capitulate.
- If the
Americans do the ultimately foolish thing and
invade Russian territory, they would be kettled
and annihilated, as repeatedly happened to the
Ukrainian forces in Donbass.
- Any
attempt to attack Russia using the US aircraft
carrier fleet would result in its instantaneous
sinking using any of several weapons: ballistic
anti-ship missiles, supercavitating torpedos or
supersonic cruise missiles.
-
Strategic bombers, cruise missiles and ballistic
missiles would be eliminated by Russia’s
advanced new air defense systems.
So much for
attack; but what about defense? Well it turns out
that there is an entire separate dimension to
engaging Russia militarily. You see, Russia lost a
huge number of civilian lives while fighting off
Nazi Germany. Many people, including old people,
women and children, died of starvation and disease,
or from German shelling, or from the abuse they
suffered at the hands of German soldiers. On the
other hand, Soviet military casualties were on par
with those of the Germans. This incredible calamity
befell Russia because it had been invaded, and it
has conditioned Russian military thinking ever
since. The next large-scale war, if there ever is
one, will be fought on enemy territory. Thus, if the
US attacks Russia, Russia will counterattack the US
mainland. Keeping in mind that the US hasn’t fought
a war on its own territory in over 150 years, this
would come as quite a shock.
Of course, this would be done in ways that are
consistent with Russian military thinking. Most
importantly, the attack must be such that the
possibility of triggering a nuclear exchange remains
minimized. Second, the use of force would be kept to
the minimum required to secure a cessation of
hostilities and a return to the negotiating table on
terms favorable to Russia. Third, every effort would
be made to make good use of internal popular revolts
to create long-lasting insurgencies, letting
volunteers provide the necessary arms and training.
Lastly, winning the peace is just as important as
winning the war, and every effort would be made to
inform the American public that what they are
experiencing is just retribution for certain illegal
acts. From a diplomatic perspective, it would be
much more tidy to treat the problem of war criminals
running the US as an internal, American political
problem, to be solved by Americans themselves, with
an absolute minimum of outside help. This would best
be accomplished through a bit of friendly,
neighborly intelligence-sharing, letting all
interested parties within the US know who exactly
should be held responsible for these war crimes,
what they and their family members look like, and
where they live.
The question then is, What is the absolute minimum
of military action—what I am calling “a thousand
balls of fire,” named after George Bush Senior’s “a
thousand points of light”—to restore peace on terms
favorable to Russia? It seems to me that 1000 “balls
of fire” is just about the right number. These would
be smallish explosions—enough to demolish a building
or an industrial installation, with almost no
casualties. This last point is extremely important,
because the goal is to destroy the system without
actually directly hurting any of the people. It
wouldn’t be anyone else’s fault if people in the US
suffer because they refuse to do as their own FEMA
asks them to do: stockpile a month’s worth of food
and water and put together an emergency evacuation
plan. In addition, given the direction in which the
US is heading, getting a second passport,
expatriating your savings, and getting some firearms
training just in case you end up sticking around are
all good ideas.
The reason it is very important for this military
action to not kill anyone is this: there are some
three million Russians currently residing in the US,
and killing any of them is definitely not on
strategy. There is an even larger number of people
from populous countries friendly to Russia, such as
China and India, who should also remain unharmed.
Thus, a strategy that would result in massive loss
of life would simply not be acceptable. A much
better scenario would involve producing a crisis
that would quickly convince the Russians living in
the US (along with all the other foreign nationals
and first-generation immigrants, and quite a few of
the second-generation immigrants too) that the US is
no longer a good place to live. Then all of these
people could be repatriated—a process that would no
doubt take a few years. Currently, Russia is the
number three destination worldwide for people
looking for a better place to live, after the US and
Germany. Germany is now on the verge of open revolt
against Angela Merkel’s insane pro-immigration
policies. The US is not far behind, and won’t remain
an attractive destination for much longer. And that
leaves Russia as the number one go-to place on the
whole planet. That’s a lot of pressure, even for a
country that is 11 time zones wide and has plenty of
everything except tropical fruit and people.
We must also keep in mind that Israel—which is,
let’s face it, a US protectorate temporarily parked
on Palestinian land—wouldn’t last long without
massive US support. Fully a third of Israeli
population happens to be Russian. The moment Project
Israel starts looking defunct, most of these Russian
Jews, clever people that they are, will no doubt
decide to stage an exodus and go right back to
Russia, as is their right. This will create quite a
headache for Russia’s Federal Migration Service,
because it will have to sift through them all,
letting in all the normal Russian Jews while keeping
out the Zionist zealots, the war criminals and the
ultra-religious nutcases. This will also take
considerable time.
But actions that risk major loss of life also turn
out to be entirely unnecessary, because an effective
alternative strategy is available: destroy key
pieces of government and corporate infrastructure,
then fold your arms and wait for the other side to
crawl back to the negotiating table waving a white
rag. You see, there are just a few magic ingredients
that allow the US to continue to exist as a stable,
developed country capable of projecting military
force overseas. They are: the electric grid; the
financial system; the interstate highway system;
rail and ocean freight; the airlines; and oil and
gas pipelines. Disable all of the above, and it’s
pretty much game over. How many “balls of flame”
would that take? Probably well under a thousand.
Disabling the electric grid is almost ridiculously
easy, because the system is very highly integrated
and interdependent, consisting of just three
sub-grids, called “interconnects”: western, eastern
and Texas. The most vulnerable parts of the system
are the Large Power Transformers (LPTs) which step
up voltages to millions of volts for transmission,
and step them down again for distribution. These
units are big as houses, custom-built, cost millions
of dollars and a few years to replace, and are
mostly manufactured outside the US. Also, along with
the rest of the infrastructure in the US, most of
them are quite old and prone to failure. There are
several thousand of these key pieces of equipment,
but because the electric grid in the US is working
at close to capacity, with several critical choke
points, it would be completely disabled if even a
handful of the particularly strategic LPTs were
destroyed. In the US, any extended power outage in
any of the larger urban centers automatically
triggers large-scale looting and mayhem. Some
estimate that just a two week long outage would push
the situation to a point of no return, where the
damage would become too extensive to ever be
repaired.
Disabling the financial system is likewise
relatively trivial. There are just a few choke
points, including the Federal Reserve, a few major
banks, debit and credit card company data centers,
etc. They can be disabled using a variety of
methods, such as a cruise missile strike, a
cyberattack, electric supply disruption or even
civil unrest. It bears noting that the financial
system in the US is rigged to blow even without
foreign intervention. The combination of runaway
debt, a gigantic bond bubble, the Federal Reserve
trapped into ever-lower interest rates, underfunded
pensions and other obligations, hugely overpriced
real estate and a ridiculously frothy stock market
will eventually detonate it from the inside.
A few more surgical strikes can take out the oil and
gas pipelines, import terminals, highway bridges and
tunnels, railroads and airlines. A few months
without access to money and financial services,
electricity, gasoline, diesel, natural gas, air
transport or imported spare parts needed to repair
the damage should be enough to force the US to
capitulate. If it makes any efforts to restore any
of these services, an additional strike or two would
quickly negate them.
The number of “balls of flame” can be optimized by
taking advantage of destructive synergies: a GPS
jammer deployed near the site of an attack can
prevent responders from navigating to it; taking out
a supply depot together with the facility it serves,
coupled with transportation system disruptions, can
delay repairs by many months; a simple bomb threat
can immobilize a transportation hub, making it a
sitting duck instead of a large number of moving
targets; etc.
You may think that executing such a fine-tuned
attack would require a great deal of intelligence,
which would be difficult to gather, but this is not
the case. First, a great deal of tactically useful
information is constantly being leaked by insiders,
who often consider themselves “patriots.” Second,
what hasn’t been leaked can be hacked, because of
the pitiable state of cybersecurity in the US.
Remember, Russia is where anti-virus software is
made—and a few of the viruses too. The National
Security Agency was recently hacked, and its crown
jewels stolen; if it can be hacked, what about all
those whose security it supposedly protects?
You might also think that the US, if attacked in
this manner, could effectively retaliate in kind,
but this scenario is rather difficult to imagine.
Many Russians don’t find English too difficult, are
generally familiar with the US through exposure to
US media, and the specialists among them, especially
those who have studied or taught at universities in
the US, can navigate their field of expertise in the
US almost as easily as in Russia. Most Americans, on
the other hand, can barely find Russia on a map,
can’t get past the Cyrillic alphabet and find
Russian utterly incomprehensible.
Also consider that Russia’s defense establishment is
mainly focused on... defense. Offending people in
foreign lands is not generally seen as strategically
important. “A hundred friends is better than a
hundred rubles” is a popular saying. And so Russia
manages to be friends with India and Pakistan at the
same time, and with China and Vietnam. In the Middle
East, it maintains cordial relations with Turkey,
Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt and Iran,
also all at the same time. Russian diplomats are
required to keep channels of communication open with
friends and adversaries alike, at all times. Yes,
being inexplicably adversarial toward Russia can be
excruciatingly painful, but you can make it stop any
time! All it takes is a phone call.
Add to this the fact that the vicissitudes of
Russian history have conditioned Russia’s population
to expect the worst, and simply deal with it. “They
can’t kill us all!” is another favorite saying. If
Americans manage to make them suffer, the Russian
people would no doubt find great solace in the fact
they are making the Americans suffer even worse, and
many among them would think that this achievement,
in itself, is already a victory. Nor will they
remain without help; it is no accident that Russia’s
Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, previously ran
the Emergencies Ministry, and his performance at his
job there won him much adulation and praise. In
short, if attacked, the Russians will simply take
their lumps—as they always have—and then go on to
conquer and win, as they always have.
It doesn’t help matters that most of what little
Americans have been told about Russia by their
political leaders and mass media is almost entirely
wrong. They keep hearing about Putin and the
“Russian bear,” and so they are probably imagining
Russia to be a vast wasteland where Vladimir Putin
keeps company with a chess-playing, internet
server-hacking, nuclear physicist, rocket scientist,
Ebola vaccine-inventing, polyglot, polymath bear.
Bears are wonderful, Russians love bears, but let’s
not overstate things. Yes, Russian bears can ride
bicycles and are sometimes even good with children,
but they are still just wild animals and/or pets
(many Russians can’t draw that distinction). And so
when the Americans growl about the “Russian bear,”
the Russians wonder, Which one?
In short, Russia is to most Americans a mystery
wrapped in an enigma, and there simply isn’t a large
enough pool of intelligent Americans with good
knowledge of Russia to draw upon, whereas to many
Russians the US is an open book. As far as the
actual American “intelligence” and “security”
services, they are all bloated bureaucratic
boondoggles mired in political opportunism and
groupthink that excel at just two things:
unquestioningly following idiotic procedures, and
creatively fitting the facts to the politics du
jour. “Proving” that Iraq has “weapons of mass
destruction”—no problem! Telling Islamist terrorists
apart from elderly midwestern grandmothers at an
airport security checkpoint—no can do!
Russia will not resort to military measures against
the US unless sorely provoked. Time and patience are
on Russia’s side. With each passing year, the US
grows weaker and loses friends and allies, while
Russia grows stronger and gains friends and allies.
The US, with its political dysfunction, runaway
debt, decaying infrastructure and spreading civil
unrest, is a dead nation walking. It will take time
for each of the United States to neatly demolish
themselves into their own footprints, like those
three New York skyscrapers did on 9/11 (WTC #1, #2
and #7) but Russia is very patient. Russia is ready
to respond to any provocation, but the last thing
the Russians want is another war. And that, if you
like good news, is the best news you are going to
hear. But if you still think that there is going to
be a war with Russia, don’t think “Armageddon”;
think “a thousand balls of flame,” and
then—crickets!
Dmitry
Orlov
was born in Leningrad and immigrated to the United
States in the 1970’s. He is the author of
Reinventing Collapse, Hold Your Applause! and
Absolutely Positive, and publishes weekly at the
phenomenally popular blog
www.ClubOrlov.com
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