Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pea Show,
part eleven of the Cold War series.
Speaker 2: How are you doing, Thomas, I'm.
Speaker 3: Doing very well man. Thank you for that you're hosting
me as always today. I UH an aspect of the
the later Cold War that that's been kind of neglected
by a lot of historians. There's one guy in particular.
His name is Mark Ambinder. It's kind of hard to
put his politics on the map on some uh and
some just take some kind of neo connage, something kind
of like paleoliberal even called like Walter Mondale type liberal.
He's become something of a presidential historian. He wrote a
book called The Brink, which was about which is about
the ABE. It's it's about about half it's about like
the Able Archer War scare, and the rest is kind
of about nuclear command and control in the final phase
of the Cold War, and you know the deeper parodies
they're in and kind of how this informed policy. And
it's really fascinating book. But it's about the only guy
I can think of who's written a dedicated book about
like the post they taught pre Perastrika Cold War, which
I don't really understand because that's tremendously important. A lot
of the technologies we take for granted just in day
to day life, you know, telecom stuff, it literally like
came out of that epoch. I mean, this stuff was
in people's contemplation, you know, in a research and development
capacity for decades before to it. But the perfection of
those things, you know, I mean, including the Internet, you know,
the survivable command and control platform. I mean, this stuff
all came out of like late Cold War, you know,
strategic planning, and the degree to which the potentiality of
and preparation for a general nuclear war kind of shaped
American life in ways prosaic and profound that really can't
be overstated. You know, I've people people under about forty five,
they don't remember that, and even some people are older,
it didn't like impact them in their daily life in
concrete terms. So they think I'm overstating it, but I'm not.
And if you look at the structure of the US government,
you know, as I'm always coming back to this point,
it's quite literally like structured to wage the Cold War
and not much else. And the strategic nuclear dimension of
that obviously became pre eminent owing to technological and existential realities.
But you know, what I'm getting at is that this
is not just some kind of like esoteric, like peculiar
point of interest these people who you know, right, and
it's big. It's big not to write about the deep
State in varying capacities. You know, I guess, I guess
because uh, William Cristal or whatever like you know, in
guys of that kind of ilk to right for those
kinds of publications, because you know, they since they've started
like banging the term in like the last like five
ten years now, it's like okay to do so. So
you know, people write about these things, you know, in
a very kind of contemporary way. But it's like, okay,
if you want to understand the Deep State, you've got
to understand the late Cold War. You know. It's that
that's that's that's that's why these things exist. I mean
they some some aspects are are emphasized more than others,
and you know, in some kind attract budgetary pork more
than others, you know, in the Postpullar wrapp Buck obviously,
and like there's been cosmetic changes to a lot of
these things, but that's just what they are. They're cosmetic changes.
You know, they they came out of, they came out
of the uh, the Cold War, and specif they came
out of the strategic nuclear UH paradigm that uh, you know,
the regime was was structured to UH wage what's anyway
post Vietnam. I'm of the belief, uh from you know,
seventy three to to UH to eighty three approximately, grenade
Grenado was a was a was a big moral victory
in addition, you know, being tactically significant in ways that
I think most people don't really consider. I don't want
to get into that yet, but the point being, let's
say seventy three to eighty two, perhaps, I'm of the
belief America was actively losing the Cold War militarily, Okay,
politically no, in terms of values if you will, and
and and and legitimacy, no, But that didn't really matter
because the bad in the you know, the Cold War
was the battle of hearts and minds after the after
the nineteen fifties, I mean realistically out with the exception
of Germany, which was owing the unfortunate accident of geography
and geostrategic reality, you know, they they they had to
fight a way to deal with the Soviet Union and
the Communists, but no nobody in Europe. Nobody in Europe
in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties was like, you
know what we want, we want to Marxist Lenini state,
we want we want to live like people do in
the East Bloc. Like nobody thought that way, okay, And
nobody in the developed world that you know, in North
Asia thought that way. People who did think that way
were in subsear and Africa, in Latin America, in the
Middle East, you know, and in the Global South. This
was still very much an animating principle, okay, and it
could be foreseen pretty easily. It's like, okay, it doesn't
matter if you know, in in the world in nineteen
eighty three, you know, it was clear to everybody, and
you know, kind of in in the free in the
developed free world, that the Stalinist states just generated a
lot of misery, created economies of shortage, you know, didn't
deliver on these promises of of Tulluric utopia and you
know plenty and really were just kind of uh, you know,
miserable places to live that didn't matter, like it was
foreseeable that you know, America could become this kind of
garrison state literally surrounded by a third world you know,
including you know, including Mexico and in Latin America that
basically was solidly in the Soviet Camp, was animated by
a revolutionary impulse towards Marcus Leninism, and uh, you know,
the United States basically you know what like like like
meaningful inner dependence as you know, economic or otherwise would
would would just be cut off, okay, and the only
meaningful currency would be, you know, the ability to project
military power. But again, you know, if if if the
global South and similarly situated developing states were pretty much
all in the Soviet camp, you know, the ability to
the ability to project hard power would have been profoundly
compromised too. So it was foreseeable again, you know, like
that's that's kind of like what Millis was getting out
the Red Dawn scenario. Like, yeah, it was silly to
you know, to to envision you know, Spetsna's parashooting into
Colorado Springs and shooting up the local high school. But
the political map that he kind of envisioned like an
intro where it's like, you know, West Germany becomes this,
you know West Germany with draws NATO because it's green,
and so them government you know, decides to like just
go all into the Soviet Union. NATO falls apart, the
global South goes all in with Ivan, you know, so
that you have like America kind of standing alone, you know,
with a couple of remaining states like the UK and
Australia that you know, really are kind of you know,
not meaningful powers in their own right. And you know,
it's it's it's a red world with America as kind
of this is literally this like Garrison, Okay, I mean
that was the real risk. By the late Cold War,
post Vietnam, it wasn't that it didn't matter that you know,
Marxist Lenini is Marxist Leninism had lost in like you know,
the the marketplace of ideas or whatever, you know, people
who still bandy Thomas Paine or whatever and claim that
you know, through through like the process of reason and
like meaningful discourse, we all like arrive with the truth.
Like that doesn't mean anything in the world of power politics,
and it certainly didn't mean anything amiss, you know what
a miss you know what, in less delicate times, people
are fruit. Was the colored revolt, you know, within the
developing world. You know, I mean this this was very
this very much could have become reality, and a Soviet
Union a worse up pact that basically could plunder, you know,
the the collective capital resources of you know, South Asia,
SUPs in Africa, Latin America could pretty much like stagger
on indefinitely. You know, I mean it doesn't matter if
you know, the the value added in absolute terms to
their economy is nil. It wouldn't matter if you know,
they were experiencing you know, like one point two percent
growth annually. You know, they could they could Certainly, the
Soviets were certainly going at manufacturing guns, and they could
and they could have they could poach a enough proverbial
butter as they needed to if uh, you know, they
had they had access to the world as they're kind
of proverbial orchard doesn't work. So I think that's important
to keep in mind. Okay, this is the world situation, uh,
after America withdrew from Vietnam. Now Nixon, you know, Nixon
was the author of the tent. I mean bresnev uh
obviously had to be receptive to that. But uh, it
really this, this really was a America was kind of
determining the course of uh, the conflict paradigm in the
developing world, because the Truman doctrine was what carried the day,
and you know, Nixon, the Nixon doctrine superseded the Truman doctrine.
You know. The next the Nixon doctrine, which was you know,
announced formally as you know, Saigon as a as A
as America transferred authority for uh, the defense of the
Republic of Vietnam. You know, it's a Saigon, you know,
and Nixon declared that, you know, a no uncertain terms,
America is not gonna you know, take direct action to
intervene in states where the internal situation you know, precludes
those states from you know, resisting communist version from within
or without you know, on on on their own terms.
So that gave I think, uh, I mean that was
just practical number one. I mean, there wasn't there wasn't
the political will, you know, to wage another Vietnam War
and subser in Africa or even in Latin America, you know,
in nineteen seventy three. But also, uh, it kind of
provided an opening to get the Soviets to the table
without uh, without further compromising American credibility you know, in
some in some kind of pitiable way. It didn't appear
to be it. It didn't appear to be uh America
like folding the flag and quitting the Cold War, or
even have some hawks like interpreted it that way and
the Soviets. What's important is the Soviets didn't interpret it
that way. But the uh, the real uh, the real
lynchpin of the tent was uh, the Salt Treaty strategic
arms limitation talks. I'm not gonna bore everybody with, you know,
the minutia of it. The important details is that it
limited not just nuclear forces and being and the destructive
power of existing platforms as regards like you know, how
many warheads and what kind of throw weight and mega
tonage could be packed onto those pre existing sets pre
existing platforms, but it also limited It also limited the
counter measures you know, deployment as well as purportedly uh
development of countermeasures. The idea being that you know, emergent
deeper parodies you know, including things like decoys, you know,
including things you know like interceptor UH missiles you know,
and including in including uh including next generation then next
generation early warning systems. If this kind of tech could
be frozen, or if not frozen, you know, agreed upon,
you know, to not be deployed, that this would build
in some kind of additional stability, which I think is
incredibly fatuous. But that's a different issue. And then the
event this was in May nineteen seventy two, UH, by
nineteen seventy six, UH, a few things that happened to
undermine this burgining deton regime, which ultimately was was as
you know, was unceremoniously ended in nineteen seventy nine for
one reason of material we'll get into in a minute.
But a couple of a couple of things happened subsequent
to sult First and foremost, UH, there's the nineteen seventy
three war. On October sixth, nineteen seventy three, as people know,
Syrian Egypt preemptively assaulted Israel. The Arab armies, particularly the
Syrian Army, performed better than anticipated. Frankly, this UH, Israel
had a real problem on its hands. In tactical terms.
Israel responded by marrying nuclear war heads to their Jericho
missile platforms in part to you know, try and terrify
the Arabs into submission in part as a ployee to
force a reluctant mixed administration to reprovision and resupply them
because the Israelis were desperately running short ammunitions and everything
else they needed. Deploy worked. And then Nixon tapes and
hear Nixon and Kissinger and Nixon lamenting. You know, Uh,
I'm not gonna repeat the language because they would probably
upset the YouTube sensors and that sends up on YouTube.
But you know, Nixon was not happy at the state
of affairs. The Soviets responded by deploying service warfare frigates
and amphibious assault craft to the port of Alexandria. And
this was not publicized at the time, but the White
House knew those service warfare frigates were carrying nuclear weapons.
As the IDF surrounded the Egyptian Third Army, uh Brezhnev
contacted the White House and said that if the Egyptian
Army were surrounded and destroyed, the Egyptian Third Army were
surrounded destroyed, and if the Audia have continued to Cairo,
the Soviets were gonna deploy and intervene directly, you know,
to save Egypt. Nixon responded UH by ordering death Con
three alert status, the first time they had been such
a raised an alert status since UH Cuba in sixty two.
This was really, this was this was profoundly serious. Alert
status wasn't what it is like after the Cold War
in like post nine to eleven. It wasn't this like
meaningless thing. It had actual It had actual significance and
it acts it it in material in concrete terms. That
changed the status of forces. Okay, it indicated real readiness
to wage war, is what I mean. Okay, at deaf
Con three. UH. During the Cold War, it meant that
UH strategic nuclear bomber forces were on alert status such
that in fifteen minutes they could be scrambled and deployed. UH.
It meant it meant missilliers in their silos in order
to strap in to like their command chairs and prepare
for incoming uh ICDM assault. You know. So I mean
it was. It was very very serious. The Soviets responded
in kind the UH. The Soviet defenseman at the time
was Gretzkoh It was soon to be replaced. He asked
the Kremlin for seventy thousand troops to be mobilized and
deployed in proximity to the battle space, which didn't happen. Obviously,
why that didn't happen is not entirely clear. Did bresn
have put the brakes on that at deliberately? Did the
Soviet general staff decide to wait and see, It's not
clear to me. According to UH, a guy named Andre
Daniellevich who was a he was a colonel general or
it's equivalent. I guess that'd be a three star. I
think in the NAT old tronim like military guys in
the comments correct me if I'm wrong, and I'm not
a military fit. His testimony in the nineties that he
gave to the Wilson Foundation in some of those ngeotypes,
I think is instructive and I think it's credible. What
he said was he said that the ninety Sentary three
crisis exposed real weaknesses in the Soviet commanding control system
and its ability to respond to crisis in the moment,
and that the Soviet Union wasn't really capable. Is that
the Soviet Union couldn't incrementally mobilize in that way. There
was a binary kind of alert structure, like either you know,
either you were at war, you were not. And when
you were at war, either you know, the nuclear trigger
was cocked and ready or there was no chance of
that happening. So basically and interestingly, because you know, during
the Tsarist era, one of the issues that one of
the issues that uh Hoveg was dealing with in Germany
and you know, the lead up to the Great War
is that once like the tsar Is, a mobilization protocol
was was triggered like very little could stop it, you know,
and uh to put the brakes on it would mean
that you know, the the Russian Empire returned to a
state of uh, you know, of peace time vulnerability. So
I think that's interesting, Okay, not just for trivial reasons,
but at any event, the inability, the inflexibility and the
lack of uh, you know, the lack of a nuanced
UH alert structure was something that gave the Soviet General
staff pause. And I mean the Soviet general staff it
was modeled very much on like, you know, the old
German general staff, and you know, as was the American
as wasn't his the American joint She's a staff, So
I mean these Danielovich was a powerful man and he
also he was he was kind of the statistics and
research man on the Soviet general staff. So what he
did in nineteen seventy six, and this was not accidental
nineteen seventy six is generally agreed upon some historians and
some defense intelligence types positive nineteen seventy four or seventy
five a handful as late in the nineteen seventy seven
this was when the Soviets truly achieved strategic parody in
terms of in terms of their nuclear forces and being okay.
This is when the point at which inarguably the warsaw
pick could fight a nuclear war against NATO and or
the United States, you know, jointly or severally on uh on,
on terms of parody as regards forces and being okay,
they were always disadvantaged as regarded you know, the strategic
nuclear forces until then, you know, despite despite you know,
what the Pentagon claimed, you know, in the run up
to the ninety sixty election, in spite of what you know,
subsequent administrations alleged about you know, force levels. This this,
this was the moment at which the strategic balance became
you know, one of of true parody. But what Danielovitch
did was he oversaw the first uh computer analysis scientifically
structured quantitative simulation of a general nuclear war, okay, coding
all available inputs, you know. And the Soviet general staff
was pretty uncorrupted by ideology. You know. This was not
you know, some kind of cheerleading exercise so that they
could you know, deliver you know, some kind of hackneyed
official statement, you know, to the to the General secretary
and say like, you know, see, comrade, we we we
can defeat the imperialist It was nothing like that. It
was very legit. And what Daniellovich's conclusions were was it
under best conditions and a general nuclear war, the Soviet
military would be utterly powerless. If the USSR was hit
with a splendid first strike, they have no ability to
retaliate effectively. Okay. Even if early warning did perform adequately
and the Soviets were able to retaliate, at least eighty
million Soviet citizens would be dead, and god knows how
many more you know, and more sow packed altes allied
estates who are also targeted in varying capacities. In the aftermath,
it'd be virtually impossible for the Soviet military to rebuild
and reconstitute critical infrastructure, because over three quarters of heavy
industry would have been just outright annihilated. And finally, Europe
would would be reduced to a wasteland. Like even if
you even if you reject the kind of Carl Sagan doomsday,
you know, hypothesis of nuclear winter and all that kind
of thing, there's no way Europe could survive a general
nuclear war, you know, I mean, if you're you're talking
about literally the death of Europe. And obviously that you know,
had profound implications from the Soviet Union as well, you know.
So what uh, what this led to was a couple
of things. The way to really understand the way to
really understand why the Soviets invaded Afghanistan owes to what
I just described in terms of real anxieties about their
ability to fight a nuclear war and survive, not even win,
just to survive. Okay, Now, I know nobody likes the
Russians these days, and I guess most people don't really
like the Russians anyway. I'm not trying to be like
Bigott or mean. I mean, it's a fact. Okay, however,
anyone feels about Russia, whoeverybody felt about the Soviet Union, Russia,
the Soviet Union. In the twentieth century, they lost more
p led war then all other states combined. Okay, you know,
in the between ninety forty forty five, like one in
seven of their population was like died by war attrition, okay,
or of starvation or in you know, a bombing raider
in some way proximately caused by hostilities. I mean this
this this to say this was impactful on their collective psyche,
I mean doesn't even begin to describe, you know, the
degree to which this informed policy. But beyond that, by uh,
by nineteen seventy nine, you know, we're in under conditions
of strategic true strategic parody. I mean potentially we're we're
talking about the window of decision making an event of
a general war of you know minutes, you know, like
five or ten minutes or in best case scenario, you know,
fifteen or twenty minutes. And you know, we're dealing with
weapons systems, and we're dealing with the you know, levels
of social organizations at scale wherein like human decision makers
are increasingly being sidelined. You know that that was reality. Okay,
like this idea that just oh well, if we have
if we have sensible men, you know at the controls,
you know, cooler heads will just prevail. And you know,
it's unthinkable that some general nuclear war would happen. That
was not the case at all. You can find yourself
at war before you even realize what's happening. And in the
case of nuclear war, again, we're talking about being forced
to render decisions within minutes, you know, Uh, if you
even realize you've been hit, you know, I mean there's
that too. It Uh, the possibility of decapitation raises a
whole new possibility or set of possibilities. You know, if
the enemy can potentially achieve a splendid decapitation strike, then
the issue becomes like, well, you know, how do I
identify imminent indicators of attack before there's even you know,
before there's even like a mobilization, or before like early
warning you know, is even is even activated. You know.
So these are not things that human minds can adequately identify, interpret, contemplate,
and respond to. So we're talking about incredibly dangerous conditions. Okay,
now I missed all of this, uh, this whole union
and to their credit, to the to the credit of
the General staff, I mean, as I indicated a moment ago,
they were kind of the best of that system, them
and probably some of the KGB. I mean, that's where
I drop off came from. That's where mister Putin you know,
uh rose to the ranks as well. After after this
nineteen seventy six UH wargame exercise, the Soviets realized that,
you know, they had to try and find a way
to develop a flexible response whereby you know, they had
the capability to fight and win a nuclear war or
at least you know, respond to any nuclear assault with
a devastating counter strike in the form of a survivable deterrent.
But they realized that they had du they basically the
Soviet Union by way of a frankly progressive minded general staff.
They tried to implement their own revolution and military affairs. Okay,
and this is uh, this is this is significant to
the final phase of the Cold War. But what remained
paramount was, uh, you know, was the ability of you know,
the ability to survive a smudded for a strike or
to deter it with you know, a survivable a survivable deterrent.
So another uh, another Soviet military type who offered his testimony.
You know, in the aftermath of nineteen ninety one was uh,
a guy named Alexander like Kowski, a major general. Lakowski
was present pretty much when you know, the the Inner
polic Bureau, if we can call it that way, convened
to discuss the invasion of Afghanistan. That's documented. So his
testimony at least, uh, you know, I see no reason
to think he's not a credible witness, but it's documented
that he was present when he stated he was present,
so you know, he's as much of a from him,
we get as much of an insider's perspective on the
decision making process as we're going to get. On December eighth,
nineteen seventy nine, there was a meeting held in Bresnev's
private office. You know, Bresnev was the General Secretary at
the time still you know, uh that he would be
until his death in nineteen eighty two, but he was
increasingly you know, suffering dementia on a matter of health problems,
I believe, as I've said before, that and drop of
Gramco who was the Foreign minister, and Ustinov, who was
then Secretary of Defense, and he was this big war
hero like when you think of those guys of Red
Army generals got like rose and rose and medals, you know,
and and look like they're you know, they got they
got like a viscigin looks like it's card out of
Grantite or something like. Ustanov was that was kind of
one of those guys. But the issue at hand, uh,
was the present situation in Afghanistan. And then drop Off
and Usanov in particular were gravely concerned about it. And
what like Kowski says is he said that the way
I drop of and and drop always holding court, it
wasn't bridgment of and drop Off said that, look the
efforts undertaken by the US intelligence apparatus, you know, Central Intelligence,
d I A. You know, elements of the State Department
that are in fact intelligence, you know oriented. He said that, Uh,
their big plan is to beef up Herky, you know,
concede the Turfs, you know, within reason whatever they want
in Central Asia, you know, so long as the Turks
are willing to play ball with a NATO war plan.
And ultimately he said that the goal, the Turkish goal
is to bring Sunni Moslims on the southern Soviet frontier,
like into their number or orbit, and the US ambition
is to encourage that sentiment, you know by what, by
whatever means possible. Now, the reason for this was, among
other things, by nineteen seventy nine, Soviet war planners realized
that if America was going to launch a preemptive assault
to the Soviet Union, it was going to basically force
the Soviet Union to fight a two front nuclear war
if you can think of nuclear wars that in fronts.
But the point is they're going to assault from the
Pacific ause what was from the West? Okay, They're gonna
do that for a few reasons, World War three would
have been decided by naval weapons platforms and eventually by
those like an orbital space But by nineteen seventy nine,
Asia would have been key for reasons that I we
can get into at some point, but it's it's kind
of too there's kind of too much there to you know,
de vote with the rest of this episode to that
and nothing else. But the big Soviet concern also was
that Soviet Command to control to fight a nuclear war
was based in Moscow, and it was based in Kazakhstan
where stars where Star City is, you know, there's space
Center to this day that's still are Russian space crafter
launched from. The big concern was that pursing missiles deployed UH,
you know, in proximity to Kazakhstan, would be targeted at
Star City. And you know, again like if we I
mean it's an imperfect descriptor, but if of a two
front nuclear assault in the Soviet Union, it would be
blinded and then it would be decapitated and that would
be the end of it. So why the concern in Afghanistan? Well,
Amin who was a communist, he was this revolutionary UH
firebrain in Afghanistan, you know, who'd become uh, who'd become
the president, and he was a dedicated Marxist Leninist. Oh
to the kind of peculiarities of uh or are the
kind of peculiarities of of of the culture there which
I can't speak to in any kind of you know,
meaningful capacity, but just generally and this is this is
what like Kowski he stated, you know, Amen fell back
a lot on kind of appeal to Islamic pietism and
couching Marxist Leninists kind of gobbledygook in those terms. The
Kremlin had a hard time kind of discerning those signals.
They thought that Amen was likely gonna kind of court
like an Islamist coalition around like a nominally Marxist Leninis garment,
and then it was gonna pivot to the West through
Turkey and become this client regime of the sort that
America always wanted they ran to kind of become that
would was gonna welcome, you know, force US to be
based there, you know, including things like pursing two missile
platforms and in the end drop of usanov gramco view
like this was the checkmate scenario in the Cold War.
And secondarily, a lot of people don't know this, Afghanistan
actually has fairly stantial uranium deposits. Pakistan was literally at
war at the time intermittently with the Soviet ally India,
who was their head against China, which uh in turn,
you know, uh, mister Kissinger and some of his successors
and the Chinese accorded Pakistan and started giving them everything
they needed to wage war with India. You know. Uh.
So what I'm getting at is that this was this
was not and drop off being crazy or this was
not just Soviet paranoia, like this actually was very forward thinking,
strategic logic, and they were one hundred percent wrong about
I mean, he had no intention of doing that. He
was what he appeared to be, which was a basically
doctrinaire Marxist Leninist, you know, accounting thick out of the
peculiar cultural nuances of of uh of of his country.
But UH, Unfortunately what was decided was UH. At the
conclusion of this meeting, like Cosky said, he was kind
of sitting there the thing that this was just kind
of like a typical like intelligence briefing, but and drop
of just kind of like looked at, you know, every
man in the room and said, well, you know, our
plan is gonna be this. You know, we we've got
to remove I mean, you know, by by way of
special action, I mean, which everybody understand. Meant, you know,
he's gonna be whacked. He's gonna be replaced with UH,
with with Carmel Uh, who was the Soviet Union's preferred
for whatever reason, the KGB said that this is the man,
and we can why you know, it was just some
kind of cipher. I don't know anything about the man
beyond that, but you know he I believe hen til
nineteen eighty six. So for Bosth of the Soviet war
in Afghanistan, like he was at the helm and drop offs. Said, uh,
in order to preserve you know, he anticipated, you know,
some kind of smooth transition of power. But uh, you know,
just in case, you know, he he said, we got
a plan for the continency of civil unrest, and you know,
deploy at least some contingent of forces to the ground
on the ground there. And uh, this was put to uh.
U said, I put this too, O Garkov, who was
chief of the General staff, and he was outraged. And
uh Usandov said, well, to be on the safe side,
don't worry, We're going to deploy seventy five to eighty
thousand troops in theater. Gharkov said, that's not going to
be able to stabilize the situation. And this is the
conventional military problem anyway, and uh, apparently Usanov said, are
you saying, you know, comrade, are you suggesting that you
you are to teach the you are to teach the
poet girl. And reading between the lines, uh Ogarkhov realized
that if he continued on this path of you know,
conscientious resistance, he would be disappeared. If not physically, which
was very possible. You know, he he would have found himself, uh,
you know, unpersoned and some and some basic capacity the U.
This tells you too about the divide between again the
military leadership and uh the true kind of vanguard, which
was of the Communist Party, I mean, you know, which
was uh in drop Off by that point, um Gramco
and uh Ustanov and uh, this was a totally unofficial
meeting of hand picked officialdom. You know, this didn't go
to the Supreme Soviet This, this didn't go to some
you know, officially convened subcommittee of the polit Burro. There
wasn't even any record of it other than the notes
of the meeting that I just referenced when it drop
Off died. Apparently the notes of this meeting were any safe.
Every Soviet General secretary had had a personal safe, and
when he died it was opened, which seems strange, almost
like mafia lake in my opinion. Like I'm not being corny,
I mean like quite literally when uh like when Bresnav died,
I think he had like ten thousand dollars in American
can which at that time was a lot of money.
He had, he had he had like he he has.
He had like some chiefs regal or some kind of
like mid show off like brand of American liquor, and
uh like a bunch of personal effects and drop Up
had a whole lot of he had a whole lot
of fairly sensitive stuff, including apparently the notes from this meeting,
which was the only documentation that it even occurred, which
is crazy because the Soviet Union, the Soviet was brazen.
The Soviet Union in some ways was uh it did
did didn't respect convention in the international system, you know,
stuff like the downing of Flight oh seven and other things,
but they were obsessed with their own like internal protocol,
like this is something that just like wasn't done. Like
you can tell, in my opinion that Soviet Union was
in trouble at this point that they were doing things
this way. This wasn't just ordinary. I mean, the Soviet
was secretive and paranoid, but like not that this isn't
how they did things, you know, and when uh when
when even within the the inner party, literally you've got
that kind of like mistrust, so you're resorting to this
kind of ad hoc uh decision making, you know, with
uh with kind of like a mafia coterie of official
dumb you know who are loyal to like the defect
though decision maker on more in peace questions like that's
that that's a very very bad situation. I mean just
in terms of the potential for you know, the potential
for you know, uh, catastrophic decision making. But also it means,
it means the proverbial center cannot hold. And I'm actually
someone who thinks pretty highly even drop off in the
bounded rationality of you know, rather the like the a
moral you know discussion within an am world, purely a
moral discussion of power politics, I think, and drop it
was probably the best man the system produced other than
steal and purely uh, you know, power political terms. But this, uh,
this is how, this is what underlay the decision to
go to war in Afghanistan. You know, it was not
you know, to fight Islamic fundamentalism, like Islamic consciousness definitely
was an aspect. It was a part of the constellation
of factors, but not not in the way like people
think about it. It wasn't because like Osama bin Laden was
radicalizing people or something, or because the CIA created bin
Laden or whatever kind of stupid stuff people say it
very very much absolutely had to do with critical judgment
relating to the you know, uh related to the nuclear paradigm,
you know, and then and the need of the Soviets
to protect at all costs key commanding COTRO infrastructure in
Asia in order to survive of a bull from the
blue as salt and preserve a survivable deterrent. And I
think that's fascinating. I mean not just because I you know,
I don't think it's just because I have a strong
interest in the topic. I mean, this is a It
goes to show you how during the Cold War, you know,
warfare within very within, very secondary theaters, very peripheral theaters
head you know, profound significance in a way that you
know before a sense like just wouldn't like it's not
emergent within you know, ordinary security paradigms.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you about let me get a subject
in here. It's probably too much right now to talk about.
Maybe for a subsequent episode, are you going to talk
anything at all about what the Carter White House had
to do with possibly you know, there's that famous, uh,
the famous line of we're gonna give them, We're gonna
give Russia their Vietnam by pushing them into the Afghanistan conflict.
Speaker 3: That or ride somewhat later, like as Carter was going
out movie Charlie Wilson's War. I think it's kind of lame,
and it makes Wilson himself, I look this great. It
makes him look at this big like playboy and this
like great guy as well as like this kind of
strategic genius to realize that, you know, there's a soft vulnerability,
as it were in Afghanistan. When it became clear of
the Afghames we're gonna fight and the Caesar of the
Grand Mosque by extremists in Saudi Arabia, including a lot
of guys who ended up joining Bin Laden himself, that
the Iranian Revolution, ironically, because I mean, you know, the
first two Islamic republic revolutionary Islamic Republic was like a
Shia republic that very much inspired Salafi uh muja Hadeen types.
These things kind of coalesced, and you know, guys from
far and wide started streaming into Afghanistan to fight the communists.
And I don't think people really saw that coming. When
that became clear, Uh, it was around like Carter was
on his way out. Reagan was on his way in,
and the Reagan doctrine, you know, for the minute Reagan
took the oath of office, it was clear, uh that
you know, the team b uh Kodian went out and
the Reagan doctrine was like, we're gonna fight Ivan pretty
much wherever he's insinuated, and we're gonna give the people
under arms. We're fighting the reds anything they needed. What
Carter did, when I'm gonna get to momentarily, Carter deserves
a lot of credit. Carter totally changed the command and
control structure and brought it back within constitutional parameters as
well as just you know, putting an end of the
kind of garbage UH that UH had made America vulnerable
and UH strategic nuclear terms. You know. Carter said that
like you know this, you know, this centering debate around
you know, mutually assured destruction, which never was anything more
than a talking point. Anyway, that's over with. You know,
we're gonna I'll I'm gonna get into that now, Like
it was. The issue was this okay by by the
time Carter took office. Carter realized very quickly a few
things were a foot. First of all, Strategic Air Command
had just decided by that point that in the event
of the general nuclear war, the president and all civilian
decision makers just going to be dead within minutes. So
why bother you know, really like advising the president about
nuclear war decision making anyway, because Strategic Air Command from
the looking glass a wax aircraft, we're just going to
like fight the war, you know, from that command post.
And oh well, it sucks the president's dead, but that's
just the way it is. Carter said, that's not acceptable. Okay.
First of all, the President of United States is the
President of United States. You know, he's the sole national
representative the people of the American people. Secondly, Article two
confers upon the president, you know, uh, the power of
commander in chief. It doesn't confer that upon Strategic Air
Command or like General Curtis Leamy or General Thomas Powers
or General whoever. Okay, that's parently and constitutional. Finally, what
what the hell are we doing just saying like, you know,
we're just gonna throw our hands at and accept that
like the government is gonna die immediately an event of war.
Like that's not that's not how you're prepared to fight
and win a war. So what Carter did was and
these measures weren't perfected and implemented until about eighty five
eighty six. But a list of a designated national command
authorities what's called national command authorities. There are people from
the president on down, you know, all the way down
like forty people total. You know, if like one man
and they're almost aways men is dead, the next one
will take up a command and control authority. This is
a pre cell phone and pre GPS. So all these
people they were issued ID cards that you know, we're
we're or where. They were given a cipher that upon
being contacted you know by sick nor ed an event
of war, you know, they they'd be able to reply
to a challenge with like the correct you know, like
the cipher code or whatever. But the nancial command authorities
with the people who would direct nuclear war, like an
event that the president and his cabinet are dead, and
like on down the line. Okay, designated safe houses. Some
are on military bases. Some were purpose structures that were
designed and built for this purpose that they could be
shuttled due to survive the initial assault. They were to
report in to uh seck nor ed every day as
to what they're you knows, as did their goings coming,
some goings when they left town. You know, they had
to they had to report like every six hours or something.
I mean this this is a revolutionary system, Okay. Carter
also that was President's director of fifty eight. Carter said that,
you know, he reiterated that America will never, you know,
will never utilize a nuclear first strike in order to
resolve a national security exceptency. However, if America finds itself
in a nuclear war, and this is in the language
of PD fifty nine, America will fight to win a
nuclear war, and it will develop and maintain forces in
being to fight and win a nuclear war against the
Soviet Union Warsaw Pact, and that represented a that represents
this was the end of daytime. Okay. This is America
saying that, you know, if God forbid, we go to
war with Warsaw Pact, you know, and this escalation to
general nuclear war like America's gonna treat nuclear war like
it does any other conflict modality. America is gonna fight
to win a nuclear war. That's also one of the
reasons why continuity of government is important. That there's nobody
negotiate the end of the war is like, that's not
that's not reasonable, you know. So the idea is, you know,
civilian control as intended and demanded by the Constitution is
uh is gonna be guaranteed. You know, through these continuity
of government measures. We're gonna spare no expense in maintaining
a survivable deterrent and our strategic doctrine is gonna be
an event of war. We're going to fight and win.
We're gonna fight to win a nuclear war. National command
authorities are UH are gonna seek to endstilities as quickly
as possible, if that is possible. But uh, there's no
where this horseshit of you know, like we will not
fight a nuclear war in these weapons can never be used.
It's like, you know, you threaten those nuclear weapons, he
can deploy those weapons. You know, we're in a wage
total nuclear war against you in kind and drop of
who is becoming more powerful, you know, pretty much every
day and in the final months of the bresion of regime.
The way he interpreted that, and he could say, this
is the most cunitive possible way, but just in realist terms,
if your enemy suddenly and kind of jarringly adopts a
different strategic posture that tends to be a war indicator.
I mean, not like not of imminent attack or something.
But that's pretty much exactly what the German Reich did,
what the Kaiser Reich did. What I mean that, I'm
not saying, oh, like the Germans are bad. I'm saying
that in the Russian experience, when their primary adversary does this,
it means that something is afoot, you know, and that
something usually is that, you know, the executive of the
adversarial power was preparing the population to mobilize for war,
or at least he's doing what he has to do
in order to concentrate war fighting authority in his office
so that he has that option in order to use,
as you know, a as leverage against the Russians. And
there is some truth to that. I'm not gonna lie,
and that's that's not good or bad. I mean, that's
just state craft. But arguably this caused an escalation intensions.
But again, I mean, the Soviet Union had just gone
into Afghanistan, you know, I mean, it's not and you know,
one of the problems with these treaties, however well intentioned,
they were like salt and salt too, which was the
Cabals put on that by the invasion with Afghanistan by
the way, and then later the Start treaties. I mean,
even if you I I think, on principle, on principle,
I have a problem with that kind of uh, with
with those kinds of agreements, because because bargaining away your
preperaatedness and ability to survive is not legitimate. I realized
the Cold War was unusual conditions. But I mean, even
even if you think that those that sort of thing
is the most well intentioned, you know, mechanism for preserving
the piece, you can't somehow like stop technology, you know,
and I mean the usued with deeper parodies is that. Yeah.
A lot of this stuff that made nuclear weapons more accurate,
more deadly, more powerful was because guys that Los Alamos
or you know, guys that in Kazakhstan and USSR. You know,
we're like developing you know, weapons purpose tech to do that.
But other stuff like commanding control tech. A lot of
that stuff just it emerges. It's emergent, you know, due
to all kinds of endeavors, you know, some profit driven,
some not, some military purpose some not. I mean you
can't just say like we're gonna we're not gonna know
things that we come to know because we got to
like keep weapons from becoming even more dangerous, you know.
So that and that's really that's really what SDI was about.
And I think we're coming up on about an hour.
We'll get into that stuff next time, as well as
Able Archer and Granada and all that fun stuff. And
like I said before, I can't remember if we were
recording already or not, but a lot of the fellows
they want us to talk about stuff, especially like especially
a lot of like the English guys and French dudes.
You're not a lot of Europeans like fought in in
Goola and stuff, and it's just like a cool conflict.
We should do a dedicated episode about stuff like the
Dominican Republic, about you know, like Latin America and the
Contract War and about like in Gola. I want to
do that, like a dedicated episode. If that's cool, it's
your show. I want to tell you, like this is
what we should do.
Speaker 2: That sounds good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, thanks man, I really enjoyed this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, plugs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for the time being. Can find me on Twitter.
I don't know how long it will lasts at real
underscore Thomas seven seven seven. I relaunched a Telegram channel.
Just look for Thomas seven seven seven or three seven Mafia.
You will find it. I'm gonna be more active on
I'm gonna be active on there on the regular starting
this weekend. I've got like too much shit going on
right this minute. But join the channel. I'm gonna try
and get it popping again. You'll find me on substick
that's what the podcast is. Real Thomas seven seven seven
dot subsec dot com. I am launching my YouTube channel.
I know there's been like many many delays, things are
coming together. I got an incredible editor. I've got a
lot of people helping me because I frankly I don't
know about video protoc from at all. I promised it's
coming imminently, hopefully by next week. But it's coming. So
that's and that's Thomas TV's on YouTube. But for Thomas TV,
the first T is a seven and you will find it.
That's all I got, all right, So.
Speaker 1: The next time I appreciate it, Thomas, thank you peg.
I want to walk on everyone back to the Pekana show.
I've been waiting for this one, part twelve the Cold
War series What's happening in Thomas?
Speaker 3: Hi? How are you? Thanks as always for hosting me.
It's a great pleasure and a great honor and a privilege, legit.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Oh, no problem.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're feeling better, and yeah, let's get down
to it.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, I want to talk about the strategic paradigm
in Reagan's first term, because that's essential to understand really
the final phase of the Cold War and the reason
why it a resolution was really forced. You know, we'll
get into gorrichawf like next episode when I get back
from this weekend trip. Will we'll deal kind of more
with the Soviet side, you know, just conceptually, but also
just in terms of you know, the factual record, because
I realized we haven't dedicated a lot of attention to
that yet. But you know, the the degree to which
human decision makers were becoming less and less significant within
the strategic arms race, and I mean were fighting in general.
If you're talking about you know, kind of the zenith
of of of nuclear war technology as it was in
you know, nineteen eighty one, that can't be overstated. And
this idea that you know, just cooler heads could prevail,
you know, to invoke Curtis LeMay's kind of for rism.
That's not really possible when you're talking about uh, you know,
certain certain technological variables as well as certain uh you know,
as well as organization at scale of hundreds of millions
of people quite literally, you know, it's not you can't
even if you're a chief executive or a general who's
got a great deal of of authority, you know, intrinsic
not just to his mandate, but you know, in terms
of you know, key decision makers subservient to him being
willing to execute his orders basically without a centation. It's
just not possible. Okay, It's that's not the way, that's
not the way. That's not the way human systems work,
and that calls for certain remedies when we're talking about
something like nuclear war planning, you know, where quite literally
decisions need to be rendered in and it's you know,
but even where that not you know, necessary kind of
remedial measure, you know, to apply and aim to research
and perfect an ongoing way. It was understood that you know,
the way man related to technology was becoming kind of
the key question, not just in terms of fighting future wars,
but you know, in terms of production modalities, in terms
of how you know, people at scale perceive information and
you know develop uh developed political sensibilities, which which totally
changed with the advent of television, you know, and the
ability to broadcast you know, over across thousands and thousands
of miles, you know, and it quite literally turned the
world into one place in terms of you know, the uh,
the the concepts being you know asserted and early on
kind of the earliest game theorist, uh, I mean, he
was a game theorist some of the many other things,
but kind of the first uh, public intellectual who really
sort of articulated this and and in like a very
kind of concrete form was was a guy named Norbert
Norbert Winer. Okay, he published a book called Cybernetics, or
Control and Communication and the Animal and the Machine. That
sounds very strange and almost kind of science fiction like,
but I wire was a consumately serious person. He wasn't
some crank, and he coined the term cybernetics, and uh,
within Winer's vernacular, cybernetics quite literally referred to self regulating
mechanisms of all kinds. He cited the earliest examples of
you know, servo mechanisms, you know, be them hydraulic electric
mechanical that were error sensitive and their feedback you know,
even like something like a Roman aqueduct, you know, in
in a primitive way, not primitive in terms of its construction,
but primitive in terms of you know, the applied technology utilized,
you know was wasn't It was an example of you know,
error sensitive machine learning. Okay, Now, when you add humans
into the equation, I you need a human operator at
at least, you know, in a at least to initiate
machine processes. You've got to take care, you know, to
structure how that relationship ensues and how it is sustained
throughout the duration of processes. Okay, there's got to be
mutual intelligibility, you know, between what the human mind is
telling the machine to do. Uh, and the human mind
has to be not only comfortable, like literally physically carntible
with the machine that it's operating, but it's also got
to be sensitive to you know, the feedback emergent from
the machine. Okay. One of the reasons why and Whiner
was sensitive to this there was such a revolt of
the laboring cast. When there truly was a laboring cast,
you know, working on an assembly line of any kind,
whether it was a slaughterhouse or whether it was you know,
a or whether it was a textile mill. In the
early twentieth century, it was incredibly unpleasant. It was difficult,
it was physically painful. The there was not a good
coupling that had been achieved between the human operator and
the machine. You know, the human felt overwhelmed by the machine,
or the machine was forcing a pace of work, you
know that the human couldn't keep up without significant pain
or sometimes at all. You know, these machines often are dangerous,
and even when functioning is intended, you know, they they
they harm people, you know, And that's not that that's
gonna do a couple of things. I mean, it's gonna
do more than a couple of things. But first and foremost,
it's going to create certain inefficiencies and choke points. And
it's also gonna hurt people, which itself is not good.
I mean, I think we're gonnall agree on that. But
also it's gonna really gonna sour the human operators view
of the machine, you know, and even if only subcasually,
even if even a very duty bound or conscientious person
or a true believer, you know, particularly somebody in a
military role who you know, copies that role they're in.
You know, if if if this machine causes them pain
or difficulty or frightens them, or you know, they they
they're always worried that they're gonna be somehow harmed or
meaned by it, that that's going to compromise their ability
to interfere and function as intended. So what Winer did
was he said, look, you know, these machines need to
be accessible, you know, and the ability to initiate and
program them in a rudimentary way as intended, you know,
at the critical moment required. You know, it's gotta it's
gotta be. He's talking about like you're talking about being
user friendly. Okay, I mean, nobody use those terms then,
but that's that's what he was talking about. And he
also said that, you know, one of the ways not
just to kind of guarantee you know, an appropriate coppling
that's both safe and efficient to the human operator, but
that also you know, is gonna is gonna you know,
create a kind of punctuated advance and our ability to
develop you know, machines that truly learn, you know, through
irresensitive feedback. Is you know, He's like, we've got to
start structuring machines like we would a human nervous system. Okay,
not literally and say like, you know, okay, this is
the way the brain is structured. You know, I've got
to make my I've gotta tweak my Babbage device to
look more like that brain. Obviously, but you know, it
couldn't be something totally alien and you know, to what
I mean at the end of the day, you know,
like the human brain is just an incredibly complicated, highly
evolved like you know, uh like feedback mechanism for the
purposes we're talking about. Okay, I mean it's a lot
more than that. But you know, so uh making machine
thinking or machine learning at that you know, as it
was understood at that time as human like as possible
in rudimentary terms, Okay, that that wasn't just a way
of you know, kind of guaranteeing you know, maximum efficiency
you know, in terms of the the interface of the
human or like the animal in uh liners terminology with
the machine. But it also he said, this is the
path that kind of you know, greater development in terms
of you know, in terms of our in terms of
our design engineering. Okay, And I think I think it
goes out saying is right about that if you if
you cud of like the brass tacks, what guys like
Steve Jobs we're talking about, you know, And I'm not
I'm not a computer guy or a tech guy at all,
but I've read a lot about Jobs because for better
or worse, he was a very significant personage. And when
he talks about design, optics and aesthetics, you can tell
he's doing it like the way like a guy who's
not an engineer, but he's more an engineer than he
is like some artists, or like you know, kind of
eccentric like architect. I know, I tried to convey the
image of the latter, but he was the former. And
I guarantee that he said. I guarantee that as a
young man he definitely read cybernetics, and if he didn't,
you know, like the stuff he was reading was so
insinuated with that kind of ethos, but like everybody way
to describe it, that he very much took that on
as his own. Okay. And also just I mean Winer
didn't just make these things up. I mean, there's an
intrinsic Uh, there's a there's like an intrinsic existential reality
to these things. He was positive, you know, it's just
that's the way machines work, that's the way humans think
and feel, that's the way they interface in very basic terms,
and cybernetics and like the postulates there in. That was
really the earliest. That was really the earliest discussion of
you know, audit, automated navigation, analog computing in the way
that we understand it or understood it, you know, in
the later twentieth century, and you know, which was the
you know, the forebear of it as we know it.
This is the first time people talked about AI in
an applied capacity. It uh, it led to neuroscientific modeling,
and most importantly, uher Reiner was always it was always uh,
it was always emphasizing the importance of communication and communication
regime and also UH like physical structure like across distance
that was integrated, that was reliable, and most importantly, that
was survivable. Okay, And I said was importantly not not
just the general proposition, but in the case of nuclear war,
I mean that's everything, you know. So these are things
to understand. We're talking about nuclear war, We're talking about
the Cold War paradigm, and especially in the UH in
the final UH in the final in the final phase
of the Cold War, the Cold War conflict paradigm. Okay,
it these things, UH can't be overstated. And it like
the desires of of human decision makers, you know, particularly
those you know in public roles, it really was not
up to them, like the course of of of events
in in terms of crisis UH resolution or you know,
the deterioration of of of remedial strategies you know, in
in the general war. But the the UH, it's very
clear too, you know both. It's even people who uh,
even people who write pretty good histories of the late
Cold War, like the guy what's his freak, Yeah, Mark Ambinder, Sorry,
I was having a senior moment, Ambinder. He he deemphasizes
the degree to which kind of like the trajectory of
American policy very much had a nuclear vector. And what
I mean by that is that you know, UH us
UH global policy and in not just in a hard
power of terms, but but just in general terms, it
really orbited around you know, America's nuclear capability. Uh, it's
ability to wield Dad's a credible threat. You know, the
response of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union as
well as China, I mean, despite the China by that
point have been courted quite successfully as a strategic ali
This was the This was the variable or set of
variables that everything revolved around between the superpowers. Okay, some
mean there's that too, even Uh. It just the existence
of these capabilities and uh, you know, the continuing emergence
and new technologies to to perfect the effectiveness of these
things kind of dictated the course of policy between the superpowers.
It doesn't matter what anybody's rhetoric was. It doesn't matter
what anyboy's intentions were or how much they made very
well have been committed to peace, you know, I don't
I don't doubt that. You know, some of the things
Bredon have said before he lost his marbles, and you
know about the Soviet Union must avoid you know general
lookally word all costs. I'm sure that he meant that.
I'm sure Reagan like corny and kind of made for
sound by television, as some of the things he said
in the matter may have been. I think earnestly believe
those things. But moving on the way the Soviet Union
responded to this emergent strategic landscape was very interesting. In
nineteen eighty one, the Soviets launched the biggest peace time, dedicated,
peace time intelligence operation in its entire history, which says
a lot because the Soviet Union, for the duration of
its existence really was mobilized for war in a way
that even you know, even America in the nineteen eighties,
which which was very much you know, on a war footing,
would would would view as extreme. And drop Off, who
in nineteen eighty one was u was still a year
away from uh, you know, a sending of the role
of General secretary. As I've said before, I believe, I
believe he himself, Gramico and ustan Off were very much
kind of that tried effected the content good shadow government.
But he was the eminence behind the KGB really for
the duration of his of his of his life, okay,
and on strategic matters, oh on Sundry and I can
tell you that in nineteen eighty one, you know, the
and drop I was the key decision maker and those
in immediate orbit, what what what this this intelligence operation
was called Project Rion or Ryan literally r y a N.
It's an acronym that uh for a Russian language phrase
which translates to nuclear missile attack or nuclear missile assault
or something in that order. I'm not going to try
to pronounce it and butcher it and embarrass myself. But
the entire purpose of Rayon or Rion was this. And
drop of address he members of the poet Gul as
well as uh, the the general staff, and he said, look,
you know, we're we're losing the code war on key fronts,
you know, political and technological that very much nullify our
are the advantages we do have. And one of those
fronts was in in computing. I think there's there was
less than a thousand computers in uh the Soviet Union
in nineteen eighty one. I mean to give you an idea,
you know, which is bizarre. What do you think about it?
That the Soviet Union and they they logged far more
man hours in space flight than the United States head
and uh, you know they were they were crying out
these chess masters who you know, uh, we were schooled
in uh in formal the kind of formal logic that
that in America, like really built, you know, like the
you know, the kind of like early like analog computing industry.
But that's that warrantance dedicated episode Like how uh uh
the uh like, how how computing in the Soviet Union
really was? It really was sabotaged. Oh, you know, like
interesting rivalries within the design bureaus, you know. And you
you can't create a high tech economy, you know, based
on a central plan. I mean, I mean, I mean
you can't. You can't base the traditional manufacturing economy and
on a central plan. But particularly you're talking about high
tech and I t I mean, it's you're you know,
there's just no there's just no chance that it's going
to produce what's required, you know, in order to meet
the meet the needs of of you know, of nuclear
war command and control planning. But with what they did have,
what uh what what Project Rihannim to do was to
anticipate a bolt from the blue nuclear strike by using, uh,
the computing technology they did have alongside human analysts to
monitor indicators, to identify monitor codable indicators you know, from
the United States and NATO, and uh determine when these
indicators could be relied upon. That you know to to
that that that that an imminent nuclear assault was you know,
was a foot such that uh, with the technologies of
the day, apparently with submarine launched ballistic missile platforms, you know,
as well as intermediate range missiles, which you know, if
deployed in the theater by NATO, would reach their targets
you know, within fire or ten minutes, you know where
we're talking about. It's not you know, early warning is
not enough. I mean, no matter how sensitive it is,
no matter how possible to spoof it is. You know,
like before before there's any but there's where there's any
commanding control indicator in America in nineteen eighty one, you
know that Strategic Air Command, you know, is going to
scramble its heavy bombers. You know that that the the
miniman missiles are about to emerge in their silos. Like
you've got to be able to identify the variables before
there's any actual you know, command and control indicator, which
I mean it says a dawning proposition, I mean, doesn't
It is almost comically inadequate. But it also it creates
a very dangerous circumstance. If you've got to be able
to identify evident assault indicators you know, based upon you know, uh,
based upon apparently benign events and human behaviors at scale
that could very very easily be misread. I mean, this
goes beyond fog of work kind of stuff. But it
also this is a difficult question. You know, It's like, Okay,
let's say let's say that there could let's say, let's
say attack indicators, you know, codable attack indicators could in
fact be reliably identified, and that there was a machine that, uh,
you know, could pretty reliably evaluate these things and could
I'm smollifying this for the saying with counterfactual, you know,
spit out a probability ratio of what the likelihood is
that you know, these indicators mean, you know, an attackism
in it if there's a ten percent probability you know,
if you preempted with your own attack, if it's anything
over fifty percent, if it's one percent, like you see
what I mean, like it where you're you're you're running
into a kind of paradigm where increasingly, like the winner
is gonna be the one who just preempts in absolute
terms and when he's confident that you know, he can
at least survive a retaliatory strike, just perverse incentives to
attack even when not in a reminted threat.
Speaker 1: If you follow me, well, this wasn't anything new at
the time. I mean, Ellsberg talks in his books about how,
you know, the the department he was in in the
late fifties and early sixties, they were war gaming this.
They they had already come up with the concept of
the nuclear sponge by that point.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what changed, uh parody. It wasn't until
nineteen seventy five that there was true nuclear parody between
natal and Warsaw Pact. That's why these guys like LeMay
and even Thomas Powers, who gets kind of Thomas Powers
was actually the model for Jack d Ripper and Strange Love.
It wasn't le May, but le May was gonna similarly
Lampoon Lambastard. Their whole notion was that if you know, eventually,
you know, a general nuclear war is imminent with the
Soviet Union, We've got to go to war. Now, if
you wait ten years, there's gonna be nuclear parody. We
can't win that, you know. Now, Yeah, we'll take fifty
million dead, but will survive. They won't. Plus, there was
one of the reasons why the Salt Talks kind of
became obsolescent. It wasn't just that, you know, this Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan meant that the State Department and as
well as Congress no longer had any interest in, you know,
pursuing a follow up kind of regime until much later.
We'll talk about that later. But like deeper parodies, you know,
multiple warheads, you know, being slammed onto existing presisting platforms,
you know, creating like this, these these massive throw weights,
you know, create like reduced circular error probable, know, the
perfection of penetration aids and decoys, you know, the ability
to spoof enemy early warning, and the emergence of AI
you know, like the uh, the movie War Games is
actually a great film, and it's a smart film. I
Mean some stuff in its corny because it's Hollywood and
it's you know, uh a movie that was aimed at
like teenagers, but some of it's actually very smart and
uh the opening uh, like the opening sequence where you
know they're running this command post exercise, you know, and
one of the miss layers won't turn his key. That
was part of the issue. But then in the movie,
like the civilian advisor I think's supposed to be Thomas Schelling.
He says like, look like why we we can't we
can we can't wait until you know it's clear Ivan's
gonna assault. You know, we gotta know he's gonna assault
him before he does, you know, which he was there
was like gallows humor. But it's also not entirely inaccurate.
I mean, that's that's what was changing things. Plus the
you know, like I said, the in nuclear war, if
you're being able to identify an attack is underway, characterize
the nature of that attack, then interminal response based on
survive surviving forces or probable surviving forces, and then giving
the order to retaliate. In nineteen sixty you probably had
about an hour to do that, Okay. In nineteen eighty one,
you had ten minutes to do that. You know, arguably
you had five minutes. Like by the time the Soviet
Union fell apart. It's basic, it's basic assault strategy was
gonna be it always parked U two typhoon class submarines
within striking range of the eastern United States. Okay. The
idea was that they were going to launch a volley
of of of submarine launched boistic missiles at depressed depressed
trajectory that would air burst over the entire East coast
and you know, create an EMP blackout, then follow up
with a massive volley and basically like annihilate the eastern
United States. And you know, if they could do that
fast enough and assuming their systems went off without you know,
a glitch or whatever, they had a reasonable probability of
winning a nuclear war if it was truly like a
bolt from the blue attack. You know, stuff like this
wasn't possible in Elsberg's day. He was foreseeing that it
would be at some point, even if he couldn't foresee
the exact platforms. But by nineteen eighty one there was
parody as regards forces and being and arguably, uh, the
Soviet Union had the edge. You know. And like I said,
this is in terms of data that since the wall
came down, it's been verified. It's not just it wasn't
just like missile gap nonsense, you know, the kind that
people were banning in nineteen sixty election. Uh, you know
creates this kind of doing cityway just idea Yeah that
you know, Uh, there there's a gap in American in
uh in uh, in American in a in an American
defense capabilities, you know, visa the Warsaw Pact, that's what
that's what changed. And plus the UH you know the
I mean, that's the problem with anything else designed to
preserve the the design to preserve stability. You don't know
whether you're talking about like you know, the strategic arms
limitation talks, you know, whether you're talking about these arms
reduction agreements. You know, you can't you can't just freeze
technology in situ. You know, It's like and even if
you you know, you were, even if you live in
the number of platforms, those platforms have become more efficient,
but become more effective, you know, uh, the killing technology
will become more and more catastrophically utile, you know, things
like this, and uh. Plus to the UH orbital space,
you know, becoming the key kind of emergent battle theater
was changing things too, because you know, you launched like
the Outer Space Treaty, you know, technically banned orbit of
bombardment platforms. That didn't mean anything. And also the Space
Shuttle obviously was UH. What was a UH was was
an orbit of bombardment delivery mechanism. I mean, it was
it was uh. It was other things too, but you
know that that's that was first and foremost. Its role.
It wasn't its rule wasn't to take you know, civilian
school teachers into space to do experiments on goldfish and
zero gravity or something. But these are the things that
were kind of destabilizing what had been. I mean, the
the paradigm was never truly stable, that's by people say,
but it was becoming unmanageable, like owing to these owing
to these variables. This really reached the zenith in UH
nineteen eighty three. You know, there was the there's the
Able Archer Command Post exercise in in November seventh, and
that was really that that was really the way to
look at that too. I mean, for those that don't know,
there's this bi annual exercise called reforger UH, which was
short military short end for Return of Forces to Germany.
It was this UH. It was this mass military exercise.
We're in UH the forces and being in UH in Germany,
and there was about three hundred thousand US troops. They
are backed up by a contingent of about two hundred
thousand other natal elements, contributions by the naval omens I mean,
but the Reforger exercise was an event of a general
war in Europe with warsaw packs. How rapidly can we
can we reinforce those forces and being deployed to Europe,
you know before they were totally overrun by Warsaw pacts. Okay,
So I mean it was actually important. It wasn't just
a make work fake work thing. I mean actually on
on the logistics side and the commanding control side, this
actually was important operationally, and it also demonstrated UH political
will to the Warsaw Pact, and that was important. What
able R Trad three was was UH concombinant with Reforger.
It was a command post nuclear war simulation, and it
included even civilian UH chief executives, you know, like Margaret
Thatcher like went to her uh you know when when
when went to like the designated you know, UH follog shelter,
you know, uh the helmet cole was similarly like does
a beer from sight. I mean, when you consider Project REN,
I mean you consider, you know, the kinds of deep
parodies that were causing real alarm on on both sides
of UH the Cold War, this seems incredibly risky, you know,
because what you're doing is this command post exercise. And
you know that the Russians have been attacked many times
under the auspices of you know, peaceful military exercises by
their enemies. So there's that. But then also pretty much
every indicator of an imminent bolt from the blue nuclear
result was emergent in uh, the able Archer exercise. Okay. Now, now,
on the one hand, yeah, if you're if you're if
you're gonnapply on a nuclear ward to win it, you've
got to run those kinds of exercises, okay, and they've
got to be as real as possible. And also if
you want true data on how fast you know, the
Warsaw Pact, you know, you know, in then in existence
at that moment, you know how fast they would respond,
you know, uh to being spoofed. You know that that's
how you corral your data about you know what the
response time, how fast it's gonna be, and what stuff
it's gonna entail in a real war situation. So yeah,
I mean, there's there's there's a deep internal logic to that.
But it also there's a very good chance that you know,
your enemy will perceive this as you know, indicators of
an actual attack and you can find yourself in a
general nuclear war very very easily. That Uh it's both
instructive as to you know, not how tense things were
between you know, actors, but also uh it shows you, uh,
the degree to which you know, like we were talking
about a minute ago, the degree the degree to which
you know, conditions of of absolute peace, you know, could
become conditions that general nuclear war. I mean rapidly, you know,
there wasn't. There wasn't this kind of like you know,
scaled escalation over you know, over days or weeks or
even hours. You know. The second aspect of this was Reagan, uh,
you know, kind of prompted about people like Kasper Weinberger
and a lot of the Team B types Reagan had. Reagan,
he Green led the deployment of the person too intermediate
range ballistic missile platform to Europe, to the Buddhist Republic,
to uh Italy, to the Netherlands, some of the UK,
I believe, but I don't think they ever arrived. This
would have, uh, this would have given NATO a profound
edge on in theater nuclear weapons and so deployed, Uh,
they could reach Moscow within minutes. Okay, this really terrified
Soviet war planners, and for good reason. And there's a
nuance here too that I can't remember we raised it
for or not, but ironically, owing to uh, you know, politics,
NATO was very forward deployed. Like literally the way it
was deployed in West Germany, in the Netherlands, in you know,
all all throughout the the continent. It was not deployed
at all in depth and specifically in Germany. Looking at
a map of NATO deployment, US, Benelux British forces were
in offensive deployment, Okay, like they can't be denied. So
if you're raying now, some of that had to do with,
you know, there's a way kind of placating, you know,
people like the Greens who who literally didn't want, you know,
like NATO forces to be seen, you know, and uh,
it was a way of kind of mitigating the kind
of besic hostility over the fact that Germany quite literally
was occupied. There's all kinds of things, but it was
also you know, the understanding was if warsaw if in
one warsaw pack moves, you know, like what difference does
it make we can deploy in depth a we want
they're gonna break through, you know. But from the Soviet side,
it's like, okay, we've got NATO in kind of permanent
offensive deployment. Now there deploying. Now. Now they're deploying these
pershing two platforms, which are not only not super hard,
and they're totally vulnerable. I mean, there's no such thing
as a truly defensive nuclear weapon. But the only way
you can use a persing cyst platform is if you're
on the attack, you know, like it's because if it's
it's not a survivable uh platform. You know. So the
Soviets weren't being crazy or weren't crying wolf or something.
And even even Robert Gates admitted this kind of labor
in his memoirs, you know, he said, you know, and
anybody who understands these things and understands what gupl cases
indicators were. Uh, you know, anybody looking at this on
the warsaw Pack's side would have said, you know, these
these people are basically preparing a wage in nuclear blitzkrieg,
you know. And and there was some truth to that. Frankly,
kind of the genius of Reagan, if you want to
give him cross for something. And I'm not any any
huge like Reagan fan in history. But uh what uh
what what Reagan's uh State Department did was they said, well,
you know, we'll remove uh, we'll remove the Pershing twos
from Europe. Yeah. Oh if all uh if all theater
based nuclear weapons you know, natalarsaw packed, if we agree
to move all of them, you know, but that's that's
the price essentially of of of dismantling the system. And
I mean two in defensive Reagan had been the the
impetus for the deployment of these platforms. It was because
they're a hell of a good way if you're gonna
wage not a nuclear war to to do it. But also, uh,
the Soviet Union, uh, they'd massd s S nineteen's those
are one of those those one of those physically huge
uh missile systems. You know that we're based on trucks.
It's kind of brilliant in its simplicity. For those mobile
launch vehicles. The Soviet would move them around every day,
like literally, so it's would be.
Speaker 1: Like the one from the like the one from the
movie Spies like us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, that's so I started a movie.
I saw it in the theater with my mom and
a little kid. That's hilarious, but that's actually an awesome movie.
But yeah, the UH, but the Soviet idea was, uh,
they were threatening Europe with annihilation with UH, with these deployments,
and they were doing it basically decouple UH Europe's UH
national security policy and the respective Natal States from that
of America, basically saying like, look like, you know, if uh,
if if you avail yourselves to UH, to NATO and
the United States, you know, the United States is nuclear deterrent.
You know, you're we consider you to be a fair
target and we're gonna continue to target Western Europe as
long as that indoors. I mean it was, it was
and you know, deployment of the person too, was a
way of rooking that uh, that that ambition. So it's
more complicated than just Reagan being you know, I'm gonna
it's still gonna hawk ish. Uh, it's still got a
reckless hawk and it's it's not just a matter of uh,
you know, Pentagon types and in defense intelligence types saying well,
let's spoof, let's spoof Ivan, you know, to the brink
and see what he does. I mean, there was an
aspect of that too, But it is. It is, uh,
it is slightly more complicated and more than slightly, but
it I gotta pause when it to reeth my water.
I'm really dried out. Is that okay? Yeah, I thank
THEE and yeah, the I mean, on the one hand,
I obviously and I mean this isn't really material were disgusting.
I mean, obviously, my some of these uh in history
uh uh are are what you know yackys were, And
I I realized this is very much a way of
holding Europe hostage quite literally to the Cold War. But
at the same time, I mean it within the bounded
rationality of that Europe was afforded. Your Europe was ultimately
made more secure because again Reagan's ultimatum was uh, you know,
in nuclear for Europe, and that was accomplished, you know, ultimately,
I mean it it it. It wasn't until well into
Reagan's second term and after you know, the kind of
concuord itcounts with Gruschev. But all these things were a process,
and you know, like I said, next episode, we'll get
into the view from the Soviet side quite literally, but
there had to the crisis. Uh that the crisis cycle
is becoming more and more critical and if you look
at it and you know, the uh, the Korean War,
the Chinese intervention in the Korean War, really that that
very well could have led to a general nuclear war
a N fifty three, uh not ninety fifty three, ninety
sixty two in Cuba ninety seventy three, you know, in
the Mid East War nineteen eighty three with uh, you know,
able Archer Reforger and the emergent you know, uh deep
parodies that you know, gave riseen and drop off some
project rhon like this was becoming unsustainable and more and
more dangerous basically every decade, you know, like I, had
the Cold War endured into the you know, another twenty years,
there probably would have been a nuclear war by the
late nineteen nineties. Like I firmly believe that, you know,
and Gorbachev uh gets kind of a bad rap. I mean,
he was presiding over a structural crisis that I think
is basically imprecedented in the modern era. Okay, there the
Soviet Empire constituted like one of six of the planet. Okay,
like U and every the world was literally divided such
that you know, half the world was essentially you know,
the Soviet system was insinuated into it through kind of
I mean, I mean interdependence. And when you're talking about
you know, marginist letter, This planned economy is different than
you know, globalism. We know it. But you know, about
half the planet was reliant in some way, even if
it was just you know, occasional brain deliveries, you know,
or uh or strictly you know, military hardware to wage
you know, some Simon gooing, you know, Simon gooing, uh,
localized conflict you know what about about half the about
half the planet was reliant on the Soviet Union, just
as you know the competing blogs relying on the United
States and Europe. I mean, this was i in the
in the preceding five dred years. There's nothing comparable in
that except uh, you know, the except that the fall
of the Western Roman Empire. And even that wasn't like
it's punctuated. I mean, the Soviet Union fell apart like
in months, you know, I mean, and that the fact
that there wasn't there was violence. People have forgotten that now,
but I mean, you know, the actually learned guy, but
the you know, they're and you got to look at uh,
you know, you got to look at stuff. Uh, you know,
not just you know, in like chess Fan and Dakistan,
but also like you know, the bulk At wars as
direct I mean remote as they were in relative terms
from the Soviet Union. I mean you got to look
at those things as as approximately caused you know, by
the the punctuated shock the Soviet collapse. But point being
that it, uh, this was getting the conflict diad was getting,
it was getting, it was getting impossible to control. And
garbaschewv realized that the sovietnion needed a way out of
the Cold War. Okay, and and drop off because they
drop off was the consummate realist. Uh, and drop off
realize you know, what has to contemplate is the way
out of the Cold War to you know, wage a
preemptive nuclear war against the United States. And I mean obviously,
I mean America was thinking that too, you know, and
vice versa. You know, is this the way? Is this
the way out of the Cold War? But I mean
to say that, to say that this was dangerous, uh branksmanship,
it doesn't even scratch the service. It's been ridiculous these
days and people like, you know, this is the world
you created, This is like this is the most dangerous
time ever in world history. It's like, the fuck is
the matter with you? I mean, it's it's literally insane
that people think that way. You know, like the like
the single issue basically in every presidential election for forty
years was, you know, do we have a survival nuclear deterrent?
You know? And is the man of the old love
is gonna keep us alive? You know, because there's there's
like a very real possibility that you know, we might
become to make it dead when World War three happens,
you know. I mean that's I guess people under like
forty five or so like came and conceptualized that, but
it's I'm trying. It sounds like a cantankerous old guy.
But because it made this also, this goes to show
you how how uh how critical of these these these
wars in the periphery were in the nineteen eighties and something.
You know, we'll get into this in the next episode,
but you know, the the uh, the Battle for Central America,
you know, uh, Nicaragua becoming a prox literally a proxy
regime of the d d R, the Soviet Union, you know,
the uh, the the the proxy war in Chile. You know,
which led to uh, you know, Pinochet removing you know,
the Soviets client in Alende, you know, the war El Salvador.
I mean, these the Soviets are trying to rectify the
strategic the strategic imbalance by carving out comunist blocks that
would have changed everything, you know. I mean, and it's
the Soviet Union was doing something's right. I mean, like
I said before, I think from nineteen seventy three until
about nineteen eighty two, the Soviet Union was winning the
Cold War in military terms, in political, sociological, technological terms,
they were losing. And he's been pure military terms. They
were racking up victory after victory after victory, you know,
like in Africa, in Latin America, in East Asia, like
you know, the this is not a good thing. I mean, however,
you wherever you fell on. I'm talking about, you know,
people who are saying I'm not talking about crazy is
like Peter Ronett and like the the kind of the
kind of crazy Karens you know, calling for nuclear disarmament.
And I'm talking about people actually sensible, whether whether you
love Reagan or not, or whether you or whether you know,
we're particularly on board with the kind of cold or enterprise.
You know, this was not the prosect of the Soviet
Union kind of you know, like we talked about in
previous episodes, you know, kind of becoming like the only
true superpower because the third world is you know, basically
signed on with you know, with Marxist Leninism. So America
is just kind of like it's kind of like fortress
scaring state amidst the hostile world of of of of
tinpot dictators and kind of crazy uh shaku vira types
like that would not have been a good thing. Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what is NATO today? I mean what I mean,
it's not NATO, So what the hell is it?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's the alibi America invokes for unilateral aggression.
But I mean there's something even if even if that's
your notion like NATO, those kinds of alliances are obsolete anyway.
And it's like I said before, like you know, so
uh uh America's carrying out terrorist acts against its allies
in Germany. Like even before that, it's like Turkey is
a Turkey is the only probably the only like comment
capable like other like NATO member, and like America's periodically
at war with them like by proxy. So it's like
it's America obligated to attack itself because it's like it's
ally Turkey has been attacked and like incident to the
NATO charter, it's like an express condition. I mean that's
some thing that's like goofy. This was made in the
nineties or like Kissinger said that and then late nineties
I met because during nineteen ninety nine and to his credit,
you know, he was one of the few voices it
really was coming out against Clinton's war on Serbia and
the kids that are made that pointium back then. He's
like what like what like so so so like NATO
is like, uh to provide a nuclear umbrella of defense
against like you know, the great power of slovan On Melosovich.
Like it doesn't, I mean it doesn't. Like that's not
even if even if you needed some kind of like
it namely uh you know sort of it's sort of
you know force uh structuring alliance, you know, to allow
America kind of like deploy to deploy whatever wanted, uh
willy nilly, Like it doesn't make sense to like may
try and maintain the NATO fiction. Like it just doesn't
make sense. On his face if you're gonna try and
do that. I mean, that's why the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
is actually a pretty for looking alliance all kinds of ways,
you know, and it's it's got a military aspect. It's
gonna ask an economic independence, you know. It accounts to
that kind of the fluid nature of the current music landscape.
Like Russia didn't say, like, well, warsaw packs still exists. Yeah,
you know, this is warsaw at. You know, I get
any you know, any uh and any any uh if
any foreign troops like set foot in Kazakhstan, We're gonna
wage nuclear war on you. Like when that doesn't you know,
it's like even like a principle of law too. Again,
aside from the kind of absurdity that in bad faith
the concerts natal and any contract and the treaty at
the end of the day is just a permissive contract.
The express conditions of it have to be rational, you know,
and they're just not. And it's like, okay, an attack
on an attack on Hungary as Rita as an attack
on the United States, like America is obligated to go
to war with itself because of the attagging Turkey, which
is its ally like it doesn't you know, I mean
I'm being I'm being a jig off and deliberately up two,
so I kind of am. But uh yeah, it doesn't.
It's it doesn't make any sense. And this part of it, too,
is just kind of the foolishness of the bureaucrat, Like
this idea that you know name exists for its own
sake because it's it's at the point of it is
to just exist, and like it's just it's just this
awesome thing for reasons nobody can articulate, you know. Uh,
it's like it doesn't. It's like, well, for that reason,
it's like, okay, well this does that mean that like
the America should abide like the express conditions like the Yelta,
because like that's how America and the Soviet Union won
World War Two? Like, uh, I mean, should should Austria
started invoking like cont trees, you know, uh, Entine doing
the Habsburg Empire Like I don't. It doesn't make any sense,
but it's a clumsy way of preserving the fiction that
this this is that this is some kind of like
you know that that this is some sort of like
common defense. Uh, architecture and not just you know, unilateral aggression.
That's I mean, that's that's you know, the short answer.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you got to get at Yeah, this is
really good. I know you got to get out of town.
Speaker 1: So do some plugs and uh yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, Pete. You can currently find me on
burb app uh Twitter that is at real Underscore number
seven h m as seven seven seven. You find me
on sub stack uh at real Thomas seven seven seven
dot subsack dot com. Check out the chat on there
because I'm active there. I'm back on t gram. Uh
just search out my name and you'll find the channel
at Uh. Yeah, well I got when I I'm going
out of town the next few days. I get back
on Sunday, and then Monday I'm gonna start shooting dedicated
content for the channel at long last. So that's what
I'm gonna be working on and that I will drop
that imminent leap when I get back. But for the
next two days I'm not gonna be like real active
content wise. If you got to get a hold of me,
just like be patient until Sunday. Please, That's all I got.
Speaker 2: Appreciated, Thomas, Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you much.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the show. What's
going on, Thomas, How are you doing?
Speaker 3: I'm doing well. I'm getting terrorized by Twitter again, I mean,
after for nothing. I just wanted to like put people
on notice about that because when it happens like people
seem to get upset. And I mean I appreciate that.
I appreciate people like care enough about my content that
they get upset if they think is going away. But
what happened. I realized what happened. Periodically I complaints are
lobbied against my account by the Office of the Protection
of the Constitution in the bundest Republic. I mean it's
you think they I mean realize that's like a make
work uh you know uh or William bureaucracy. But you
think there are any things to do than harass a
kind of creator in America. But they've done that before.
Every time they do it, Twitter finds some arbitrary reason
or no reason at all is suspend me or ban me.
They claim that I'm banned for a week. I mean,
I'm trying to disengage from Twitter as much as possible anyway,
you know, But I know a lot of people that's
kind of still like where they try to find me
and stuff. But if I'm not back on Twitter in
a week, I mean just like hit us up on
substick or on t Gram. And I launched the channel
promo so that people know that, you know, by April first,
I'll have uploaded the first episode, you know. And I
I owe a tremendoustetic gratitude to my guy Rake, who
you know, he's just incredible with what he can do
with you know, video editing and things like that. And
he and I are are gonna are gonna bear down
on filming next week. So I mean blown if we're
if if if if we are like permanently kicked off
bourback again, like it doesn't matter. It's happened like nine times.
So but that's that's that I just wanted to I
just I just wanted to like get people put people
in notice about that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, well one of these things what we should
do is we should go over that intro video and
just have you detail like where every I mean I
saw some video drone in there, and I saw a
couple of yeah, I saw a couple of other things
just to like.
Speaker 3: And yeah, he just asked me, uh yeah, I mean,
he's like a movie guy too. He's like, I mean
he's one of us, you know, like not just in
terms of politics, but you know, like he's like a
culture guy and like an optics guy, and he's in
a like style and stuff and movies and that's one
of the reasons we became like good friends. But he
basically asked me, like what kind of movies were Like,
He's like, I know the kind of Shoot, you're into it.
He's like, give me, like, have it us in your
favorite movies. It's like I did, and uh, like all
of them are in there, and there's like a bunch
of other just like crazy stuff. But it's yeah, it's
really incredible. Man. I'm not I'm not just like I'm
not just like stroking myself because you know, it's like
my content. I it's like really freaking cool. But uh yeah,
you know, I'm very very lucky to have him on
board man. And he'll he'll be in front of the
camera sometimes too, and like I I think people appreciate
that because he's, uh he's he's a really funny dude.
And uh you know, yeah, you'll you'll so you'll you'll
you people will get to meet him and and kind
of see like what he's about. But yeah, I the
responsibilit one has been overwhelmingly positive and I really appreciate that,
and I believe it'll be worth the way, not because
like I'm so great or anything, but I think I've
got a sense of what people want to see and
hear about, and I'm really really dedicating kind of like
all my time and energy to you know, providing that
in equality capacity. So yeah, I think he'll be very
good man. Well yeah, wiping myself and you.
Speaker 1: Know, all we have to do is make sure that
people also subscribe to the Odyssey channel, because I think
we all know that the YouTube channel is probably.
Speaker 3: Not gonna I mean it's there's gonna be like copyright
strikes all fucking day. But also as soonas they figure
out what I'm doing, I mean they're gonna cancel it.
But I mean that's fine. I'm basically gonna saturate every
platform I can. You know, everybody's like you gotta get
on Cozy. It's like, well, I don't. I don't know
Nick flent Days. I mean, I like, like at all,
I've never I've never spoken to the dude, even by
like text or something. I'm not gonna like presume like
he wants my ship on his freaking platform. I'll ask him,
you know. I mean, but it's I'm not gonna I'm
not gonna just like assume like, oh, of course he
wants my ship on his on his you know platform.
But even if we don't fuck with Cozy, you know,
there's plenty of other there's plenty of other other platforms
we can utilize that are are friendly or at least neutral.
It'll be fine. And you can you can upload video
direct or you can you can shoot directly on substack,
or you can upload the pretty much unless you're trying
to upload like an entire freaking movie link thing. I mean,
it's like I all fails. I mean, i'd yeah, i'd
be like just you know, uploading my stuff to Odyssey
and substick. I mean, we're gonna say, I trade a
lot more than myth but it'll be I I realize
I'm gonna get gangs from YouTube. The reason I dropped
it dres so that people can find us and know
about it. But yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: I streamed to YouTube yesterday in the middle of the
afternoon and then like as soon as it ended. I
immediately deleted the video because I mean I just knew
what some of the stuff, some of the stuff that
we said in it was just like it was, It's
what I've gotten strikes for before.
Speaker 3: I mean, does this one dude? Uh, I don't want
to drop his names. I don't want he seems like
an a political guy and I don't I don't want to.
I don't want to. Like people are terrorizing him, like uh,
he's like this he's just kind of like crazy like
uh like like like like horror and cult movie guy,
Like he gets strikes constantly over just like like total
bullshit like literally like it seems like and he's constantly
apologizing with subs. He's got like twenty dollars subscribers, because
like it's just caust of getting yanked and it's it's
you know, uh, I mean for the most dubious a reason.
It's like my point being, I mean, yeah, there were
absolutely gonna get terrorized like you are. But that's that
doesn't matter. The whole point is, you know, like I
do have a YouTube channel right now that people kind
of like YouTube's kind of like their first go to
for stuff. But it'll it'll be fine, man, I mean
I I built the substick basically with no social media presidents,
because it seems like I launched it that was like
the first time got perm band from Twitter. I didn't
get back on Twitter about nine months, you know, I
didn't have an Instagram. Then like I got on t
gram you know, after about six months. But it'll, I mean,
it'll be fine. You know, people people are loyal and
they follow us, and we've got we got a good
you know, community of people who know how to you know,
kind of like remain in contact.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, I've started I've started streaming. When I
do my streams to Odyssey and Rumble and immediately uploads
a bit shoot, you know, the dark side of the Internet.
Speaker 3: And yeah, no, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: So I don't even know what what do you want
to talk about today?
Speaker 3: Today? Last time we covered you know, able Archer and uh,
you know, the kind of command to control concerns relating
to the deep parodies emergent post a tent because that
that that's that that's kind of the key that kind
of nexus of events and causes, that's kind of the
key juncture of of of of you know, final Cold
War tensions that approached true crisis dimensions. But there's a
context to how and why that happened, and I want
to get into that today, like what happened to day Tant.
We're gonna go a little bit backwards, okay, And as
we mentioned, Able Archer happened in October nineteen eighty three,
there was immediate precursors to that that dramatically exacerbated tensions
and really kind of created in you know, in I
kind of generated a zeitgeist of not war fever, but
what what was What is esteemed you know, unthinkable only
a few years before suddenly became very possible again. And
there was very much an atmosphere of terror. I mean,
you remember the actually little ole than me. I was
a little kid, and my mom was singularly terrified in
nuclear war. Okay, I mean a lot of people were,
and my mom was like, I don't want to drop
some highly personal weird thing, but my mom was kind
of like apocalyptic and or thinking quite literally, and this
didn't help any And obviously my dad was reinsinuated into
the Cold War, so it was but everybody, I mean,
it was like everybody in the country was like that,
I mean, and to some degree or another. You know,
when I can't emphasize that enough to younger people, and
even as a little kid, obviously I couldn't. It was
it was a few more years before I could fully
understand what this was about. But you you fully, even
as a small boy, I fully grasped that, you know,
this was monumentally terrifying. Now. Honestly, like if they, if they,
if if i'd been like a you know, a guy
pushing fifty in nineteen eighty three, I frankly I wouldn't
really care. I mean, that's not that's not some fucking
edge of the lord shit like legit. I mean, you
just like learn like you just like learn to you
come to terms with things, and you know, the the
kind of frailial life and things don't seem scary anymore.
But yeah, as like a kid or like a young
person like it was, it was kind of awful. But
in any event, let's uh, let's dive into it, but
proceed did able. Archer by several months was the disruption
of Korean Airlines flight double O seven. What was KL
flight OH seven KL flight O seven. It was a
Korean Airlines flight obviously from New York City, or yeah,
from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, which in
those days, uh was the common flight pattern. You know, Uh,
the sol South Korea was a key kind of Cold
War proxy client state. But you know, this is not
the South Korea of the two thousands, you know, the
ninth largest economy in the world or something, you know,
other than uh, other than in in in kind of
political and military terms, the van Korea was kind of
a backwater. So on these flights to Korea there tended
to be a lot of a lot of heavy personages
from the national security establishment, the diplomatic corps, you know,
these kinds of these kinds of these kinds of you know, communities,
and and KL double seven was no exception. What befell
KAL flight O seven, well KL O seven straight into
Soviet airspace and about the same time we're talking like
within you know, a couple of hours of a of
an American aerial reconnaissance mission. During the late Cold War,
America was constantly spoofing Soviet early warning or buzzing it,
you know, to see kind of what would cause it
to light up proverbially and to kind of gauge what
their uh, you know, what their what their protocol was,
you know, the literally literally the order of operations, you know,
when when hostile aircraft reached their airspace, possibly incident to
a nuclear attack. And unfortunately for the passengers and crew
of kl O seven, a Boeing seven forty seven, even
at visual range, looks almost identical to an a wax aircraft. Okay,
And in those days still for certain UH deployment of
certain weapons platforms, you would advance deployee a UH a
what's called a masson M M A S I N
T aircraft in order to acquire targets in order to discern,
you know, what air defenses were present, as well as
to interpret, detect and interpret, you know, any electronic signaling
which could then be you know, deciphered or interpreted to
paint a picture of what the state of enemy command
and control was within the target area, you know, theater wide.
And this was also a particular concern because, as we
discussed in the last episode, American UH nuclear war planning
by nineteen eighty two eighty three essentially involved forcing warsaw
pack to fight a two front nuclear war, if we
could even think of nuclear com band is having fronts
assaulting the Soviet Union hard in the Pacific, knocking out
their commanding control in Central Asia, you know, and and
then saturating them U with you know, with with with
heavy bombers, IS and and and naval based weapons platforms
would potentially, you know, uh, it would potentially accomplish the
splendid first strike in a BOT from the Blue scenario
or in a UH in a general Wars Mario, you know,
that would be that would be the way America would
escalate anyway. So this had all the telltale signs of
something potentially very very dangerous in the eyes of you know,
the uh, the Soviet Union, and there are people uh
interpreting uh, the breaches of their airspace. So the flight
was intercepted by a Sukhoi fifteen interceptor. UH, it was destroyed,
all all everybody died. Of course, this was a huge
international incident. Okay, it was almost comparable to nine to eleven,
not in terms of the attrition and you know, the
lives lost, but it was incredibly shocking to people on
board the aircraft. Was UH, Larry McDonald, the US Congressman
who also was the chairman of the John Birch Society,
and UH one.
Speaker 2: Of he was Ron Paul's like mentor in Congress.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and confidant, and he was the last true Southern.
He was the last true Dixiecrat. McDonald was viewed as
you know, these like Mother Jones types who he was.
He was like the man they love to hate and uh,
these these uh Conservative Caucus types. He was kind of
like their their their knight in shining armor and you know, knockout, knockdown,
drag out, you know, congressional battles. But he was he
was He was a Democrat. He ran as a Democrat
for the you know, for the entirety of his career,
and he was really the last true like right wing Democrat.
But he you know again, not only was he a Bircher,
but he was you know, chairman of the Birch Society
and he'd only been nominated for that position a few
months before he died. He uh, you know again, he
was one of the founders of the Western Goals Institute, uh,
which the the British Conservative Monday Club was very much
affiliated with them, as was the World Anti Communist League.
You know, people who know the history of these Cold
War packs of the right, well these will be familiar
organizational names. But you know, uh, it's a Jesse Helms
initially was supposed to be on that flight. I mean
this was a big deal, okay. I mean not just
because you know, you had these public you had McDonald
and you had some other person Jess who weren't elected officials.
But you know, we're very much insinuated in the in
the BELWI policy corridors. But uh, you know it was there.
There was something almost kind of like cinematic about it
in all the worst ways. You know, here's this guy's
like a lifelong night communist. You know, he's been saying
his entire professional life, the Soviet Union is dangerous. It
only understands force the seeing currency. It can you know,
deploy in order to assert it's it's it's it's vision
of of ah, you know, of of of of political
order around of the world, and lo and beholding. How
does he die? You know, he he dies with you know,
dozens of other people on this on the civilian airliner.
That yeah, I think there are two hundred and sixty
nine people, you know, he dies with like, you know,
hundreds of other people on this seven forty seven. You know,
that's un ceremonials blown out of the sky by you know,
Soviet warbird. It. Uh it really really really upset people,
and uh, the Soviets, in typical fashion, you know, went
into kind of you know what, went into kind of
garrison mode. Uh, I started claiming that first they claim
that this didn't happen at all, you know. Then they
claimed that it was a deliberate provocation and the United
States wanted this to happen, you know, so that you know,
they could so that they could uh, you know, provoke
a war. And then that kind of rhetoric itself, I
mean that that was grossly irresponsible. I mean it, this
is very very bad the uh in the United States.
In turn, Reagan's people said that the Soviet Union was
obstructing search and rescue operations, which they probably were, you know,
I mean, it got it got very very ugly. And
uh this was uh, this was a couple months prior.
There had been a Reagan's uh, evil Evil Empire speech
March eighth, nineteen eighty three, just almost exactly forty years ago,
as of a couple of days ago. And I don't
know if people it's it was not a long speech,
and it hit really really hard. You can find it
obviously on YouTube or at least a used to be
able to do. I don't know if I would assume
it's still there, but you know, in some there was.
There was some of the normal, you know, kind of
State of the Union type policy stuff, but the core
of it was, you know, Reagan essentially stealing people for
the possibility of nuclear war. And I I know that,
you know, for at the time and then for decades subsequent.
It's been kind of a favorite of people on the left.
Mind you, I'm not some great Reagan apologist, because I
think people know, but it's because I got to say
that this was, in fact a great speech and it
wasn't corny. You're misplaced. And I mean people people always
accusing Reagan of being this kind of moron with his
head in the clouds, who was always invoking stuff like
Star Wars, like you know, it's why they that's where
they kind of it was. Ted Kennedy point the actual
phrase star Wars described Messdi, which itself is moronic, but
calling the Soviet Union the evil Empire wasn't just a
corny floating signifier. The actual relevant text is what Reagan said,
and I quote, let us pray for the salvation of
all those who live in that totalitarian darkness. Pray they
will cross over the joy of knowing God. But until
they do, let us be aware that well they preach
the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man,
and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth.
They're the folks of evil in the modern world. So
in your discussions of nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you
to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blankly
declaring itself above it all, and label both sides of
equally at fault. To ignore the facts of history and
the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call
the arms race a giant misunderstanding, thereby remove yourself from
the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.
That sounds like a worst speech. Okay, I'm not saying
that was misplaced. I think that was entirely a prop
for you. Within the boundary rationality of the Cold War,
a very very strong statement had to be made, and
drop Off took that to mean that Reagan is planning
to sue for war, and I it's it's it's understandable
in context why he would think that. Okay. And plus
I think this is a damn good speech. Okay, that's
that's not folk. That's not that kind of cringe soaring
language that these uh, these kind of these these belwey
types are are prone to invoke these days. I mean,
it was it didn't it didn't seem a hoky at
the time, you know, And and it was a it
was there. There was genuine there's a genuine strategic paradigm
shift underway that was profoundly destabilizing. Okay, I mean I
I I I said, frankly, the Evil Empire speech is
better than these speech Kennedy ever made. Okay, just an
objective terms. And again I'm not any kind of I'm
not kind of Reagan lover or something, but that that
can't be denied. It's kind of incredible to me. That.
But the other thing, the biggest like middling speeches by
like Churchill, we're just kind of drunk and like mumbling about,
you know, like we will never surrender, you know, or
like Martin Luther King with this kind of just these
kind of like nonsense platitudes, you know, people hold this out,
is like just this kind of an incredible example of
of of of of modern oratory. It's like, really, man,
like the Evil Empire speech is kind of is is peak, Okay,
I mean not just going to the not not not
just not just going to the you know, for fun
of the other language, but the context in which was
delivered at least I think so, Like I said, I'm
sure people just claim that that's you know, that's some
you know, love for Reagan for something.
Speaker 1: But again, is it generally accepted that Anthony Dollan wrote it?
Speaker 3: I believe so. I mean that's Reagan was not. Reagan
could shoot from the hip and speak very well. I mean,
that's why he was, you know, dubbed the great communicator.
But Reagan did not write a lot of his own,
you know, long form speeches. I believe, Uh, I can't.
Somebody will correct me if I'm wrong. I believe that
the seventies, the seventy six Republican Convention, that was Reagan's
other really famous speech. I believe he wrote most of that,
and that was remarkable because generally Reagan didn't. That's why
you know, the bit Berg speech. Buchanan wrote that and
that wasn't just Nancy Reagan. He was in as an
excuse to throw patter under the bus. But you can't
actually wrote that speech like it. And that was you know,
in Reagan's era. It wasn't yet at the point where
you know, just it was part of the chorus for
you know, presidents and candidates for the White House, you know,
just to rely on you know, people to write their
their copy for them. I mean some people did, some
people didn't, but yeah, Reagan generally didn't.
Speaker 1: I remember the uh, the Bittburg controversy is like it
was yesterday.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's well, we'll get into that on
the next episode, as as we kind of approached Pera
Streika and stuff. But that that was entirely appropriate and
how anyway, I mean, first of all, I I I
got nothing but esteem for obviously, I mean, those guys
were heroes. But even if you completely reject that take,
it was entirely appropriate what Reagan said. He said these
he said, these men were victims of the war too,
and I don't I don't see how they could be
construed as controversial and Helmet Cole essentially insisted that you know,
the the war that the German War, that'd be acknowledged.
Like if anything, if if people wanted to throw mud
on somebody for reported, you know, fascist symbo these like
Cole would kind of be the guy to hang that on.
But I think it was among gonna think it was
an excuse to sort of uh excize you can, from
the Reagan from Reagan's in her circle. Nancy real was
in some ways like Priscilla was the Elvis, you know,
and and the way she just decided that she like
hated some guy or hated some guy's wife who was
part of the Memphis mathias. So we had to go
like Nancy did that too. Like I'm not that there's
a certain kind of woman who does that. I'm not
trying to trash females at all, but I mean everybody
knows that's true. And Nancy Reagan was a very strange bird,
like she really was in all kinds of ways. I'm
frankly surprised. It's it's i mean, that's a whole other question.
It's it's strange that she was. I mean, she was
Reagan's second wife, you know, once he picked her up,
well after he had kind of decided he wanted a
political career of some sort. It's very strange, but that
that's my read on it. And yeah, obviously, you know,
like we talked about, it wasn't nearly as extreme because
Reagan truly did have a pretty remarkable mandate for a
post uh for a post war president. But there was
there wasn't there was a kind of Reagan derangement syndrome.
You remember that, Like, yeah, if it rains on Sunday,
it's because of Reagan. Like if if your corn flakes
don't taste good, it's because of Reagan. Like everything that
happened in the world is like some work by Reagan.
Like yeah, so that, I mean, that was part of it.
But but yeah, the regardless, like I said, I mean,
even even people who you know, were in our cynical
about the Cold War, even people who don't particularly even
even people think Rag was just some kind of like
glorified pitch man. I mean that that that was a
great speech, and you know, I don't think it was pratuitous,
but again it did it. It did sound like a
war speech and and drop off and uh, you know
ustinof Gromico Trenenko, I mean, all these guys who constituted
you know, the inner Inner Party. I mean they all,
they all lived through the war with with the German Reich.
I mean they to say they were sensitive to these indicators,
it doesn't even begin to kind of scratch the surface
of you know, the kind of depth of their fears
of these things. But it's this is what's important too
to keep in mind is as to why this this
you know, nineteen seventy nine to eighty four into eighty
five was so dangerous, you know, like what happened? You know,
like what what happened? What happened to Dayton? What killed it? What?
What constituted Dayton? In brass text terms? In terms of
policy of uh, you know the East Block and you
know the West slash NATO And what what kind of
treaty if not law? Because I mean we we cann't
really talk about treaties as binding law. It can never
be anything but permissive. But particularly during the Cold War
or it was kind of more like a statement of
good faith than anything. But it did you know, it
did have it did have moral force. Okay, really what
kind of constituted Dayton? Where rubber met the road? One
of its big kind of aims and for a for
a limited time. We're gonna get into why this was
problematic as it was constituted. One of its big ambitions
was to kind of take off the possibility of war
in Europe, take that off the table. You know, as
we talked about, there's basically two issues in strategic terms.
You know, there's obviously America and the Soviet Union could
come to a real blows in any number of theaters.
Although the primary diad was Europe, but the Soviet Union
visa of the Europe I mean that was that was
an open ended question. I mean, where did Europe stand.
There's several uh constituent elements in NATO, like where did
they stand in divisi dually and so far as they
did have you know, a cognizable, you know, discrete policy
independent of the NATO structure. You know, what was their
relationship to the Soviet Union in pure geostrategic terms. I mean,
this had this this had tremendous significance politically, not just
for you know, global stability or and the potential for
a crisis diads, but but also it was understood by everybody.
I mean, even a conventional war in Europe with you know,
modern combined arms it would have been utterly devastating, you know.
I mean that there would have been the end of
Europe quite literally, you know, it would not have survived,
you know, or if it did, it would it would
have been some sort of you know, it would not
have been It would not have been Europe as we
know it anymore. Okay. This kind of brought quite literally
every European state, exempting Albania, which is always you know,
which which was under the which was under the rule
of inver hawksa you know, and they had all their
little bunkers everybody knows, like what the hawks of bunkers. Well,
like Albania was protesting like any anything relating to UH
de Tante treaty making because they claimed that they supported
the people's probably in China because they were the true
like Marxist Leninist vanguard. But other than that, every every
member state in NATO and the Warsaw Pact plus UH
Norway plus you know, plus UH Spain, which I don't
think was a NATO yet because it was seventy three.
They UH signed on for what came to be called
the Conference and Security and Cooperation in Europe, which was
Canadi in ninety seven to ninety seventy five. It was
held in Helsinki, Finland, the final phase of it, which
came to be called the Helsinki Accords or the Helsinki Declaration,
between July thirtieth and August first, nine seventy five. Now,
this followed two years and negotiations of this kind of
tortured process. We're in again, uh, thirty five participating states
plus the United States and Canada. Did I did I
disconnect from it? It? No, you're good, Okay, I'm sorry.
For some reason, the freaking you're by my my video
kicked out? Okay. The Helsinki Declaration it cons dude, the
thirty five participating states, you know, all the all the
members states in NATO and Warsaw Pact, you know, plus
UH plus Sweden or plus Norway plus Spain, the United
States plus Canada. What it can with this, with this
declaration came to constitute was it was supposed to be basically,
you know, a kind of a kind of quasi bill
of rights that was understood to be, you know, kind
of like represent the fundamental rights of man de Girey
on both sides of the Iron curtain. You know. It
was a sovereigny quality, respect for the rights inherent and
sovereignty of all you know, constituent states of Natal and
Warsaw Pact refraining from the threat of use of force
to advanced policy initiatives other than defensively, which I realized
that's kind of meaningless and existential terms, but it has
political currency in these kinds of situations. You know, a
recognition of the territorial integrity estates as existed. Then you
know with the you know, the post war boundaries that
have been drawn, the peaceful settlement of disputes, not intervention
and hostile terms, and you know, the affairs of the
constituent states either NATO or worse up packed and a
basic and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. And
this was a big one, including freedom of thought, conscience,
and religion. Okay. Now presidentev made a very big deal
about this, okay, and this was before he was you
don't really compromised in terms of his mental faculties. And
so did Eric Honecker. Okay, because Honaker, especially because he's Jeremy,
always been struggling for legitimacy. You know, they weren't even
recognized as as as as a state until the seventies
by you know, a majority of this planet, but the
worst up packed or the Iron curtain. Rather the states
find the Iron curt and the constant with the Soviets
fear of influence. They were always gonna they were always
clawing for respectability, which you know, in the Cold War
context was essential because this really was u a battle
of zeitgeist and which system and which superpower would become
the world system. You know, this wasn't just cosmetic or something,
and it wasn't just you know, it wasn't just these
kind of career statesmen, you know, wanting a feather in
their cap, you know, so they could like look at,
you know, their proverbial trophy case and like Admyer, their
own you know, great career or whatever. It's had like
actual impact. That's important to keep in mind, but would
really kind of opened the door to this. What really
made this possible, what really made the tame possible, was
the situation between the two Germanys, and specifically the sendencee
of Billy Brandt. Who is Billy Brandt. Billy brand was
this crazy, uh kind of sixty eight or socialist and
he was middle aged by that epoch you know, he
was of the war generation, but he'd been the governor.
He's been the governing mayor of West Berlin, and Berlin
to this day remains like, you know, an independent polity
like all the several German states or prefectures are. But
during the Cold War it had special status or like
or you know when the inner German boards and tags.
It had special status, you know, because there was a
quasi protectorate of of you know, the the of of
of America, France and the UK. It uh, it was
situated completely within uh you know, the territory of the
d d R. So the Marror Westbroo, the governing mayor
of West Berlin. He had unusual clout. Okay Brand was
the chairman of the Social Democratic Party from sixty four
to eighty seven and most significantly and to understand his
kind of contribution to history as it were accidental or
not or uh you know, uh literally like accidental or not,
like you know what he kind of what he kind
of fumbled into. He was the chance of the Buddhist
Republic from ninety six ninety seventy five. He was this
big uh you know, he was this big liberal reformer.
He he really compromised the bon the buds uh comic capability,
which was a big deal because the BUN was the
spear point of NATO in the first decades after the
Day of Defeat. They really were like a crack military force,
and they had to be because they're opt Fur was,
you know, the notional volks Army. This should all be
very clear. You know. There was a slew of other
you know, kind of brand Brand's apologists and supporters were
his point in the fact that you know, the the
number of Germans made the poverty line, you know, like
fell from you know, two point nine percent to like,
you know, something totally marginal. But entrepreneurial activity also dropped
down to zero, you know, I mean it was a
typical kind of it was the typical kind of like
socialist stagnation written large, you know. But but hey, you know,
the and the cope for for for those that defensive
things are we got this great education system and now
nobody's poor anymore, I mean everybody. This is a very
common uh that this was a common occurrence. You know,
when when when when social democrats are Greens later on,
you know, gained majoritary and status and any of these
you know, any of these West European states. But more importantly,
Brandt's big thing was ostpolitic. He wanted a true like
reconciliation with East Germany, Okay, and towards that end, starting
nineteen sixty seven, herestad was diplomatic relations with Romania, He
entered into a trade agreement Czechoslovakia. You know, he restored
formal relations with Yugoslavia. This was set back in August
sixty eight when you know, with the Fremlins invasion in Czechoslovakia.
But uh, you know, he condemned brand formally condemned the invasion.
But uh you know he uh he when he basically
renegotiated the ruling coalition, you know, the Free Democrats and
you know who bagged to continued approachment with the worst
up act and that was that was kind of his
way of finessing you know, what could have been a
careruning crisis into a way of staying alive. But uh
it uh, this reached this kind of zena in sixty
nine when uh he agreed to meet uh he agreed
agreed to me with Willie Stuff, who was East German premier,
who was you know in this kind of byzantine DDR system,
technically the head of of state contra, you know, the
the head of government you know, to the who was
you know, the General Secretary of the se uh D,
which by then was Honiker, but he he agreed to
meet with Honiker too, and so he basically in one
fell stroke, he basically you know, gave the d DR
the legitimacy that it it had been attempting to apture
really from inception. And this, uh, understandably, this really really
outraged you know, not just people who had family behind
the wall, but also uh, you know, people who had
real concerns about the fact that the Soviet Union worse
upack that genuine momentum then in military terms and frankly
in political terms in the Third World, like we talked about,
you know, like it appeared that Brandt was was uh
was selling Europe out UH to the Stalnists in a
real way, owing either to malice or malice or naivete
it didn't matter. And this, in my opinion, it was
kind of the zenith of UH a Warsaw pack power politically,
because what had always been the way Warsaw Pact wins
is it demilitarized Germany, you know, I mean this was
the subject of the aid note as we got into
many moons ago. This is what the Soviets always wanted, okay,
and it looked like they were gonna get it, albeit
in some gradual capacity. But what what brought this down
is fascinating. Willie Brandt's or Billy Brandt's top aid you know,
his uh and and the and the and the Social
Democrat Party like secretary was a guy named Guter Gillom
okay and uh Gillam was a connected with the hip
to uh to Billy Brandt. And he was just kind
of he was just kind of he was this kind
of shifty looking guy. Frankly, you know, always were dark glasses.
He was always dressed impeccably, but you know, he truly
was ubiquitous. Like when Brandt went on vacation, you know,
Gion like went with Brandt and his family too, Like
they were close and it was believed that basically Brandt
was a womanizer, you know, he he liked pussy too much.
He was at drunk like like Brandy Villy was his
you know, kind of nickname. You know, friends and foes
alike called him that he relied on Gillam, you know,
to kind of like hold it together. Okay, Well, in
nineteen seventy four and April twenty fourth, Gillom gets arrested.
Because Gillam was he was a Stasi officer and he
had been for his whole life. He's quite literally deployed
to the Bonus Republic to get close to anybody he could,
and he got close to Billy Brandt and he quite
literally made Brandt Chancellor. I mean, I think about that,
like think about what a coup that is. And Guillam
was able to steal the uh I is only above
top secret NATO nuclear war plan from the Chancellor's safe
and he was able to deliver it to East Berlin.
And UH, from that point forward, it was never clear
like what the Stasi knew, you know, and like how
long they had known, you know. And this was this
Ode DeMarcus Wolf, who was you know, kind of the
uh it was kind of the genius of the Ministry
for State Security. He was the he was the he
was the chief of the Foreign Intelligence Directorate, the main
director for reconnaissance. And UH, Guillome was his like like
the mole that became Guillome. This I mean this was
his this was his operation, you know, from inception to conclusion.
And uh Wolf made the point that Gillom's arrest and
exposure this is really kind of what killed uh the
ambition of a Warsaw Pact and everything they'd accomplished, because
after that, the Bonis Republic became basically a police state,
you know, like they a couple of years subsequent the
bottom Miindhaw faction, you know, the Red Army faction, you know,
in nineteen seventy seven, Uh, that was the German Autumn
as it was called. You know, they they kidnapped and
murdered a number of you know, of of highly of
highly situated personages, you know, industrialists, consertive politicians, people of
this nature. You know, the uh it uh this is
really what facilitated the ascendency of a man like Helmet
Cole or the chancellorship. And this is one west, this one.
The Bonis Republic like rejoined the Cold War in earnest,
you know, and then all bets were off. And it
also there's something that profoundly sinister about this. I'm not
saying that in like a charny way, but you know,
the intelligence game, for whatever reason, the Russian the Soviets
and other Russians are very very good at it. They
were always way way better at it than NATO and
for whatever reason, and this was a testament to that.
You know, about ten years after the Guillaume affair, Hans Tige,
you know who was the who's the chief of the
counterintelligence Directorate of West German intelligence. He just literally defected
the East Germany. Okay, I mean there's nothing there, weren't
any people going the other way of that static. I mean, yeah,
there's people. There's people like you know Suberov, you know,
not the super Off, but you know, the guy whose
pen name was Victor Suvaroff. You know, there's mid level
Soviet officers, there's even a couple of generals, but nothing
like this, you know, and that's that. There's entire value
is written on why that was. But the point is
that this kind of killed anybody's idea, you know, even
kind of the most starwart you know, kind of soci
them like East Block apologists, I mean they realize that,
like the Communists, truly words aiming to subvert the Buddhist Republic,
render a defense list, you know, penetrated by any means necessary.
You know and and and thereby you know, remove Europe
from the American defense umbrella for all time. Okay, I
don't want to get into an argument about what the
implications of that are in like world historical terms, like
people know my opinion, but that that's not important. We're
talking with the bound of rationality, the Gold War and
in it's epoch, how people viewed these things because of
the tant and the hell stinky course and everything else.
So you look at that situation and then you know,
like we talked about last episode, uh, the assault in Afghanistan,
you know, the uh, the emergency deep parodies, you know,
and and uh and the Soviets attempt to to remedy that,
you know, by by deploying uh even more UH weapons platforms,
the massive throwway in the European theater, you know, and
Reagan regeway returning the serve was the deployment of intermediate
range UH nuclear weapons to uh, you know, to to
the Buddhist Republic, to Italy, to the Netherlands and another
key theaters. And that's uh, that's basically how I mean.
You can see kind of like a perfect storm of
causality leading to the leading to the status of tensions,
you know, by nineteen eighty three. I don't think that
there's I don't think that there's a comparable set a
crisis cycle in the Cold War. I mean there was,
like I said, there was nineteen seventy three, you know,
where the Soviets actually they deployed nuclear weapons, you know,
to the Middle Eastern theater in anticipation of a general
assault in support of their Egyptian ally. Nineteen sixty two. Obviously,
you know, there were the world, the United States and
the Soviet were very close to nuclear war. But that
was well before that was well before nuclear parody had
been achieved. So it yeah, okay, I mean I realized
it sounds like I'm being flippant, but if America took
twenty million dead, it still would have won. I mean,
there would have been no more Soviet Union. You know,
that's got different implications, you know, And it's not it's
not so much that you know nineteen eighty two to
eighty four, it's it's not so much that you know,
it was this punctuated moment like seventy three, when uh
America reached Defcon three, or like sixty two, when the
question was, you know, are the stories just gonna you know,
just gonna run the blockade. It was just kind of ongoing.
It was it was just kind of it was just
kind of like never ending state of elevated tension when
it seemed that at any moment, you know, uh, a
general crisis could deteriorate, it could deteriorate into nuclear war
before anybody even knew it was happening, owing a large
part two to the state of you know, weapons development
then and commanding control technology, which is essentially neutralized generally warning.
That's uh, what's important to consider, I believe, because I
do get asked by people like, well, why was this
so dangerous? There wasn't some you know, moment like in
the human missile crisis, So there wasn't some ultimatum issued,
you know, like when the Soviets declared that you know,
if the Israelis annihilated you know, the Egyptian army and
then and then Martina and Cairo that you know, the
Soviets would intervene and then if if met you know,
biconoparable American forces that you know, they resort to nuclear
weapons in order to prevent their own people from you know,
being surrounded and destroyed similarly. But that's that's kind of
what I got for today, because I don't want to
the the GORTROSSI sendency and kind of what ended this
strategic paradigm is significant. And the roll of Attias rust
the roosts, you know, the uh the kid who flew
his uh who flew his prop plane into Red Square.
That's a fascinating story and it's got huge significance for
you know, the kind of internal in like for for
Kremlin intrigues that you know led to a led to
a real policy shift. Why with the fact that it
costs many many Stalness hardliners and key rolls their jobs.
But I that I think we should say that for
next episode because again I want to deal with, you know,
the end of the drop of chert Ancle era in
the ascendency of gorbachhow next episode. So I think that's
all like.
Speaker 1: A well, let me ask you this, the shooting down
of zero zero seven. There had to have been close
calls before, There had to have been planes that flew
into airspace. Why was it that one? Yeah, not to
you know, not to put on a tinfoil hat and everything,
but it you know, and like you said, there was
always that flight would always have someone on it of significance.
But why do you think it was just at that
time it was just that was the perfect storm time.
Speaker 3: That was the perfect storm time. It's not clear why,
because you know, even in those days there was you
could recover audio from from from rex like the black Box.
I guess the Soviets tried to hail this plane and
like I said, at seven forty seven, Apparently I'm not
like an aviation guy like I like war birds. I
think they're cool, but I don't know anything about like
the you know, particulars of it. Apparently a seven forty seven,
like I said, looks basically just like an a wax
of the era, like even at visual arrange. So the
Soviets are like, you know, why why we're not just
being spoofed. This is you know, this isn't this isn't
early They're trying, they're trying to detect their early warning
and how much it's lit up. They tried to hail
the pilot on you know, whatever the you know, international
emergency frequency is, and it was dead silence. This Sukoy
got on his tail and made clear that like it
was you know, at attack range you know, and it
still didn't deviate from its course. You know, the pilot
who took it down obviously, you know, he was forced
to lie by the cremlin and stuff. You know, sometime
in the two thousands, you know, he he he testified
to this British filmmaker about everything that happened, and uh,
he's like, yeah, you know, he's like, when I got
the order to the fire, I didn't hesitate, and he's like,
I didn't think it was. He's like, I didn't think
we were gonna He's like, I didn't think it was,
you know, a precursor to an attack. But he's like,
I it didn't make sense what it was doing. You know,
He's like, I thought something wasn't right here. What some
of these FAA types, some of these like investigator types
and guys you know aviation claim or like what they think.
I mean, we take for granted that it's a hell
of a lot easier I mean, in in aviation and
anywhere else these days to identify your your true position.
In those days, it wasn't. The consensus is that these
Korean pilots were wildly off course. They had no idea
they were in the Soviet airspace at all. So like
when a sue who got on their tail ivan does
their their idea with their nose. Probably ivan does crazy
things all the time, you know. Uh, they wouldn't even
occur to them, like we're gonna get blown out of
the sky. Plus yeah, the fact it was a perfect
storm of of of concrete tensions, you know, going to
the global situation. But it's weird, and it's weird that
McDonald was just having to be on that plane, you know.
And it's like and then too like a lot of
Burcher types and stuff and not and and other just
like right wing guys not even like Bircher cranks were
like obviously the Soviets are just doing this because they can,
and they hated McDonald anyway, so they just killed it.
And I mean, honestly, I can see why people want
have thought that because it's weird, you know, and I
mean the Cold War was weird, you know, and it's uh,
and plus the they the Soviets did grindy ship. I
mean they you know, in the same epoch, you know,
they it's clear now like they they retained some freaking
you know, this this Turk to try and murder the Pope,
like you know they uh, the uh, these Popular Front
for the Liberation of Palestine guys were going berserk. You know.
They were the guys who blew up the Disco tech
in West Berlin. Like those were those guys were like
in the in the influence of the Stazi and Operation
Control of KGB was over the Stazi. It's like they
you know, obviously it's a different thing that you know,
to blow a civilian airline around the sky with with
a war bird. But it, you know, the Soviet Union
was behaving. It was behaving very much like a lawless actor,
you know.
Speaker 1: But I mean, but that wasn't top down right, I
mean with the premiere of that they were gonna do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this is just what happened, was what
I said. It was was yeah, but I understand. My
point was I could see why people who weren't crazy
you could think that, you know, this was this was
just the Soviets being brutes. I mean that. But yeah,
I mean it was it was there. There wasn't there's
not like a deeper there's not deeper lore there. But yeah,
McDonald was a and I mean it's sad McDonald died.
I mean I don't. I'm not a fan of the
Birth Society, but there's some good guys in there. Like
that is now when McDonald was probably he was not
the last Congress when it was actually worse shit, he
was a good dude, you know, I mean it, I
missed the days when there was like democrats who weren't
just like not like shit bags and perverts, but they
actually were like dude who represented their constituents. And McDonald's
a guy who did that. And arguably, I mean he
died for him. He wouldn't have been on that stupid
plane going to South Korea, like if he you know,
wasn't acting in his official capacity. I mean that, you know,
in the Cold War, I mean politicians now they're like
they're like total devans and losers because like, no man
who's got anything going on in his life like goes
into politics. But the Cold War was different. You know,
you had you had like real guys, and you had
people who had something to offer, who went into who
went into public life, you know, like McDonald. You know,
I mean it's and it's it's a tragedy, you know.
And as we're you know, the right, those other two
Hudred and six and nine people on board. You know
when there was like I said it was it was
multi official types and business people, but you know there
was still there was a couple of dozen women and kids.
I mean the thing was fucking awful. But uh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Well plugs and we're out here.
Speaker 3: Yeah like again too, like let me terrorized by bourbapps,
so like, please don't pay it any mind. I I
guess not. In a week, I'll be back on there,
but I'm trying to phase it out as we kind
of transition to the channel. But I mean in the intrum.
I mean, you can find me on t ram. Uh,
you'll find me on sub stack real Thomas seven seven seven,
that's upstack dot com. My YouTube channel is Thomas TV.
The the trailer uh or the promo is up for
the channel. The intro. Rather, I'm in the process of
recording the first episode, as I hope people gleaned from
the intro that my dear friend and bro Rake created
for us. I I want this to be very high quality.
I'm not just like throwing shit out there, you know,
so it takes time to produce it. I I'm I'm
I'm piecemeal getting the equipment I need uh to do
this in a more exponitious capacity. But like, please bear
with me. I promised by April first we will have
like actual episodes. But that's that's my that's my jive
as of today.
Speaker 1: All right, man, I appreciate it. Till the next time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, Pete.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pecana Show. Thomas,
how are you doing?
Speaker 3: I'm all right? Thanks for hosting me. Yeah. Man, So.
Speaker 1: Last time we talked talked about Yaki and talked about Spangler,
and it's time to get back to the Cold War
series episode fourteen.
Speaker 2: What he got for us today?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we left off with the able Archer and the
and drop b Era. I mean to me, the and
Droppa of Era was properly from you know, about nineteen
sixty four until he died. I mean, I you know,
like I said, I think he was. He was like
the kind of eminence behind the facade of Soviet power
that you know, when Breshnav was at the Helm. That's
not to say Bresnev was was some kind of cipher.
I when Bresnev became elderly, he was no longer you know,
I mean, he was no longer mentally commonent the last
few years of his life. But Bresna was a serious personage,
you know. I mean, there's a reason why he replaced
Khrush chief, you know, like he was writing the ship.
He was writing the ship after the you know, the
kind of disaster that was crui if in power political terms,
you know, in Brezhnev was in a lot of ways
he was kind of a true Stalinist, you know, I mean,
but the true I mean a state. It's at the
scale of the Soviet Union, you know, even even accounting
with the fact that you know, the Russian the Russian
Russian political areas, sense of constrate power in one man,
even in times of peace, like in a way that
seems peculiar in the West. I mean, I'm not even
saying that punitively. I mean, it's just like an objective
account of things. But you know, the Soviet Union at
its zenith, it just was not that the scale and complexity.
I mean when I parttically would consider you know, the
the way that Marcius lantin the states were organized, where
there you know, we're central planning, you know, truly was
the order of the day, you know, not I mean
that that's what policy was. That's that's that that's what
the production is scheme it was. It wasn't you know,
It's something that they aimed to realize. I mean that
that's how they They truly had, you know, an economy
that you know, had abolished the price mechanism and was
managed by you know, thousands upon thousands upon millions of inputs.
So I mean, no, what I'm getting at is that no,
no matter how much of a brilliant uh, you know,
personage bresident of would have might might might not have
been like no, no single man could have managed that.
So I mean the point that kind of the the
trifecta of Soviet power was really a drop of u
gram Eco and Ustinov, dmitriy Houston off the field, Marshal
and uh, you know, particularly on Mayor's a warrant peace
and drop off was kind of the final authority. And
you know, the decision to go to war in Afghanistan
is very much and drop off decision. And I think
we got into that and the uh, the decline of
that trifecta, I mean, most frankly, I mean, I drop
Off died and then Usanov died shortly after. I mean,
that's that's really what allowed Glassnos and pera strika like
as policy to become develop and evolved the way it did. However,
you know, Gerbachev was in drop offs protege, and that's
the reason why he truly was in drop off successor.
You know, this idea that Grbachev's like this kind of
crazy liberal or that he was like this kind of
yeltsin like buffoon who was just kind of like drunk
on the prospect of uh, you know, of of of
kind of like slash and burn capitalism. That's not true
at all. We'll get into the next episode, which will
probably be kind of like close to the end of
our series. That's like why you know, why why the
Soviet Union went down in flame the way it did.
But it wasn't because Gorbachev wanted to just like burn
the structure down or like pull the plug. But when
it drop off died his immediate his immediate successor was
Constantine Schernenko, you know, who was kind of like a
doddering fool in the eyes of the world, and I mean,
by that point he was totally senile. But the reason
why that this kind of placeholder was insinuated into the
General Secretariat was because there was a real battle within
the Kremlin as to which way the Soviet Union was
going to go. Not even it wasn't nobody foresaw in
the early eighties that you know, the East Blocks is
going to come apart, like nobody, you know, like we
talked about before. There's people like Kennan and people like
Yaki himself, you know, who didn't the Soviet Union as
it existed, you know, in the nineteen fifties and during
into the twenty first century. But even they did to
see the whole system just like dissolving, you know, like
the way it did. So people were suspicious of garbageow Off.
It wasn't because they thought, like, you know, he's gonna
he's gonna sell the party down the river or something.
It was because you know, you had you had these
discreete personages who you know, to whom kind of like
the up and coming uh commissars like had had like
individual loyalty to you know, and garbage Off despite the
fact that he'd been in drop offs guy, I mean
it uh that that carried a lot of cloud, but
it wasn't. It wasn't enough, you know, to just to
just hand hand him the reins and like an absolute
capacity without you know, any kind of without any without
without anything being finessed beforehand, and like you know, promises
being made and you know and kind of certain uh
ceremonies being stood upon as a word. But Tarnanko was
not and his youth, he actually the guy was kind
of like at pure commissar. I mean, obviously he's sert.
You know, he's started in the Red Army, you know,
during the you know, the Russian Soviets and the Russians
today called the Great Patriotic War. He spent his entire
career at propaganda and and and and as an ideological cadre.
You know. Like I said, the guy was like a
pure commissar. You know, it's just like what he did,
you know. And he he was very much an intermediary
like uh with the Defense establishment, even though he didn't
like spend a career in uniform like uh. And they
trusted him and they liked him. You know. So this
guy you can see with the Soviet Union, the fact
that they took you know, every William Odam who will
we'll talk about a little bit later in this episode. Uh,
you know, an American general and and probably the preeminent
authority on a nuclear warfare. And I say, I'd say
Thomas Schelling on the civilian side would be entitled to
the moniker. But as far as the general officer goes,
it was Odam and William Odum he was he was
kind of the one, you know, Uh, he was kind
of the one, like you know, common experience general officer
who was saying in the wake of Able Archer that
like Loo, the Soviet Union is serious, Like they're not,
They're they're not, they're not pretending to be on high
alert like they they actually are, you know, and they
actually are in a war footing. And like the more
you the more you you spoof them, you know, the
more paranoid you make them, and the more likely it
is that, you know, a real war is going to develop,
uh before we even realize what's under way. But Odam, uh,
you know, he he was right. Uh. And uh, the
Soviet Union being that it was very much on a
war footing and kind of the entire vector of policy
it had had like a strategic nuclear axis. Sharon Anko,
if you're gonna go to war, Sharon Anko is a
guy who you'd kind of want in the General secretariat. Yeah,
but at that point he was dotty in senile. But
the fact is, uh, the guy had tremendous esteem from
the military, from the uniform to the design bureaus, you know,
to the men who were suits every day to work,
but who were like the kind of military industrial complex
as representatives of the polit burero like Chernanko was like
a guy like none of them would have like disagreed
on and on the party side, you know, the guy
had been basically chief ideologists like when he was young
and had his brains. So it didn't matter that Chernanko
himself was wholly out of it because obviously like his
proteges or people very much who were you know, viewed
as carrying out like his will and legacy. And if
it was gonna come down like a general war with NATO,
he's kind of a man you'd want there. He would
not want to hand the reins to borbashaw Off, even
if he thought he was a great prodigy because uh,
you know, I mean he was in his fifties. He
wasn't like young and absolute terms, but he was like
a sprats like in the Soviet system, like he was
literally like the youngest man like in the polit Buro.
But beyond that, as much as he shadowed it drop
off and when it drop us final year when he
was you know, bedridden, basically, Garbachov would literally stand in
for him. That's definitely being the actual decision maker, particularly
a general secretary in a system like the Soviet Union.
So considering the international situation, it wasn't just internal politics
and egos and and kind of literally byzantine, you know,
intrigues that led to Scheronanko getting installed on a general
secretary there, there's like an internal logic to it, like
weird as the Soviet system was and kind of strange
to us as the Russian system is. But as uh
As Garbachev succeeded Tcheronenko who died in office just like
interrop of day and just like bresnav did you know,
and that and that hurt the Soviet Union in in
in in terms of their optics in a basic way
in eighty two, like Bresnev you know, dies like a
year and ten months later like and drop Off dies,
and then literally thirteen months later like Cheranngle dies. It's
like you've got this, you know, the world's one of
the world's you know, one of the world's only two superpowers,
you know, the mighty Soviet Union. It's like they've got
these doddering old men, like one after the other, like
who just literally keep dying. That's not a good look,
you know, and especially contra Reagan, who uh, I mean
these days, Reagan wouldn't seem like pretty elderly, but in
those days, people talk a lot of shit, like, you know,
Reagan's just this old man, even though he was only
about seventy, which was old, I mean in nineteen eighty.
But Reagan, the guy had like an absurd amount of energy,
you know, like almost Trump tried to capture some of that.
And Trump is a high energy guy pretty lately for
a guy who's like pushing eighty. But with Reagan, it
like was not at all like an affectation. So you've
got like Reagan, who's you know, Reagan's aways got a
smile on his face, so he's got perfect hair. You know,
the guy's like sharp as a fucking tack, and you know,
he's got a sense of humored arrival, like he's got
he's got a dry humored arrival Johnny Carson. You got him,
and then you got like literally doddering, shaking Bresnet, who's like,
you know, dropping dead week later. You know, you have
to replace me. And it's like even worse. I'm like,
you know, he's you know, he's dead within you know,
within less than two years. Like it it indicated like
a real, real structural problem. But that's why, that's why
there's so much uncertainty on Garbachew because, like I said,
he was, uh he was the youngest man in the
poet Burrow. His main rival was a guy named Gregory Roumanoff,
who was very much uh it was very much a
hawk uh on on on strategic matters. He uh he
staunchly opposed any kind of compromise and intermediate nuclear forces
in Europe. As we talked about last episode, that that's
what prompted the person to deployment was uh, you know,
that was the primary like theater based nuclear weapons platform
for the US Army and deployed in the Buddhist Republic
or in Italy or in the Benelux countries that's at
the cavitation range of Moscow. And the impetus for that
was a Soviet deployment of of SS nineteens and SS twenties.
Obviously the intention of Soviets with the decopple European strategic
policy from America's, you know, like if you threaten Europe
in nuclear annihilation and tell them like look and in
general war, we're gonna target you simultaneous United States and
as long as you're in NATO, like there's no way
out of this. That changed things, and I believe that's
one of the things that really put the Green Party
on the map, Okay, like environmental stuff or like social
justice stuff as we think of it today, that was incidental,
Like there is a will fly out of the Green
Party is because Germans are genuinely terrified of of Germany
being the designated like nuclear battle theater of World War three,
and like I don't follow them for that. Okay, I'm
not thinking, I say, with the Green Party, but it's
easy for people to say no, like, oh, those guys
are all just like faggots. It's like, okay, man, but
like I you know, some guy in the Buddhist Republic
in nineteen eighty, like he wasn't just being a fagot
if he's like, you know, I don't like it. I
don't want to be the designated, Like I don't my
house being like a designated you know, like like nuclear
battlefield between Ivan and America. Like you know, it's not
we can't even really be secialize what that was like.
And I mean it's also you know, West Germany was
like little like.
Speaker 1: People have no idea, people have no idea what it
was like there. I mean my parent, my parents lived
there for three years. I was born there. You know,
my dad had to go through checkpoint Charlie. Yeah, I
mean it was He's at the closest definitions of dystopian
that there ever was.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, it's like William Odom speaking of him as
well as some of these line officers, and like even
my dad was never like deployed there, but I mean
he was in the Buddhist Republic and he was at
the inner German border many times, you know, like in
that era, and he's like it was like he's like
it was like like a real war. It's like this
it wasn't like so he's like he's like the he's
like the national evokes are me and these like Soviet runts,
they were like loafing around playing cars. Like these guys
were like treating it like they were at war. And
I mean so it's like the Buddhist fair and so
was like the US army. But it's there's not there's
not like a joke or something where it's you know
like it. I think people imagine almost like old cartoon
where there's like uh, where there's a there's like the
fox and he's like trying to like get the chickens.
Then there's like the sheep dog and they like they
had clock it. He's like big Carl like Sai, you know,
and then they kind of like pretend to go through
the motions. I mean, I'm sure there, I'm sure there
are like like hostle borders like that, like inner German border,
like that was not the case. I mean like you know,
I mean yeah, but it's so you know, but be
as it may. Like Reagan's Reagan's uh like like Reagan's
big kind of first like foreign policy coup in like
diplomatic terms, was was getting to the Soviets the table
uh on the I n F Treaty. And the way
he did it was he said like look like you know,
we'll we'll take the persons out and we'll take any
any comparable and like successor systems like off the table.
Like what basically he's like, we can either have a
nuclear free Europe or like we're gonna be shoving these
theater based weapons up your assi decapitation range like in perpetuity.
In the school of conventional diplomacy, like that's not the
right way to do things, because it's like very freeing Biery.
But you're talking about when when you're talking about strategic
nuclear conditions of parody, when you're talking about kind of
the strange you're talking about it, and we're talking about
the stakes like the Soviets had in this that actually
it was like a brilliant move and Reagan deserves like
mad credit for that. But there was a lot of
resistance within uh, the Soviet military establishment, especially from people
like Usanov to this happening. So obviously Gorbachev did you know,
like succeeded Sharon succeed Sharonenko and Romanov. UH one of
his first when of Goerrichov's first act of General secretary
was like sideline Romanov. He didn't he didn't like punish
the guy, but he basically like retired to him like
you know with with in in genteel kind of powerlessness. Okay, so,
but what Gorchov still had was uh and then and
then and then Usanov died almost immediately after okay Uznov
died to believe at the restart in nineteen eighty five.
It was late eighty four or eighty five. But within
the military itself, like Goorachov, had a tremendous amount of
opposition and they had clout, I mean in America, like
the military during the Cold War had a huge cloud,
but it was like nothing to bear to the Soviet Union,
like the defense establishment even now in the Russian Federation
they I'm not saying it's like cunative leader like the
way that like Neo Kon say that like it's some
bad thing. Is that the reality, like the trajector, and
I mean Russia also was like existential threats that they
faced as a country that most states don't. But like
the traject the course of policy is set by the
defense industry in a way that it's not in a
way that it's not you know in a state like
like in like America or like the UK, even during
the Cold War. But what changed that, what kind of
allowed Gorbachev to essentially purged any kind of hostile general
officers is really fascinating. And the immediate catalyst to that
was the was the flight of a kid, like literally
a kid named Matthias rusk Roost. He was a German kid,
and he took Assessma. He didn't have many flay hours.
He only had about fifty or sixty like like hours
of flight time. He rented the Assessna one seventy two P,
which is like, you know, like Assessna like prop plane, okay,
like it. And what he did was he ripped out
a bunch of the interior like including all but like
the pilot's seat, and he replaced him with auxiliary fuel tanks.
And what he did was, uh, he tested out kind
of his chops on long flights. He flew to the
Faroe Islands, he went to Iceland. Uh. From Iceland, he
flew to Bergen and uh, ultimately he did this because
his idea was to fly to the Soviet Union, which
seems totally insane and it was, but what he what
his note He he claimed he did it as like
an emissary of peace and to build like a proverbial
bridge between the Bunus Republic and Moscow, which is actually
pretty profound. I'll get to that, and and kind of
how this this was actually videotaped by a British tourist
who was on the ground in Moscow. That's why, like
everybody saw it. There was a little kid I remember
being this was like a very like awesome event, you know,
it was like it was wild. But Matthias roost he
uh he leaves from Helsinki, Finland. He had he reached
the Soviet airspace with the intention, with the intention to
reach Moscow. Now how did he do this? Okay, we're
talking about kind of a reverse hispanically, kind of like
reverse situation of what happened with KL double O seven, okay,
which was you know shot down as it was misidentified.
Rust was flying this little plant, this little prop plane
that looks at visual range almost exactly like a Yakol
of twelve, which it was used all over the Soviet
Union for various purposes, you know, like in the UH
in the Siberian wilderness. They used them because you know,
kind of like Alaska, like that's your basic uh means
of travel in there, like on the open step, like
surveyors and like naturalists would like use them, you know,
like party members that use them. That's kind of like
shuttle around. So like the sudden appearance of of like
the cest now like it wouldn't really throw alarms in
conventional in a conventional situation, but Moscow was known to
have like the toughest air defenses in the world. Like, uh,
it's telling like during Linebacker two, you know, when downtown
Hanoi was hit, uh, the kind of kind of final
massive strategic air operation against Hanoi, Like downtown Hanoi was
considered to be the most fortified city in the world,
like the hardest target in the world other than Moscow,
and like nothing in the Soviets very much cultivated this,
not just his image, but you know, Moscow was supposed
to be like the hardest of all targets. So the
fact that the fact that this kid could fly his
aircraft into Moscow and he crossed like several uh uh
designated like air defense you know, uh checkpoints and uh
apparently at first, uh there was a there was a
rookie ground control crew and uh when they sent the
signal out for a I f F you know, identification
friend or foe RUS like switched off his uh his
communication equipment and like went dark and not knowing what
the proper code was to send out like over the
airwaves for like what the status of the aircraft was,
these guys, these Russians on the ground like dropped the
code for like friendly instead of like unknown like possibly hostile.
Like so then like, uh, when he breached, like the
next kind of uh, you know, the the next kind
of a hurdle verbially speaking, you know, he he he'd
already been like identified as like as as like a
friendly aircraft, and then like as he as he approached
like Moscow, like Moscow Air Defense, Like it's just like
you know, they saw it look to be like a
yacko leb like on the on the gate at at
the at the gates of Moscow, Like they didn't even
twice about it because it's not it's not a warplane.
I think it's here in the first place. Obviously it's okay,
I mean, so it's it's this weird kind of like failure,
you know, Like I said, it's kind of like the
splendid reverse of of what happened with the kale F
like double O seven, but but at the same time
again too. Like in under normal kind of uh peace
time conditions, this wouldn't really be an issue. But this, uh,
this this had a horrible effect that I'm like the
prestige of the Soviet military. And what Gorba job did was,
uh it gave him essentially the mandate to clear out
basically like anybody in uniform that he did not like.
And that's exactly what he did. The like the Officer
corps of of of the the Soviet military was just
completely freaking like smashed Roust himself. He literally landed in
Red Square and the footage is crazy because like this
guy just like lands like and then he landed on
a bridge adjacent to Red Square in the middle of
the afternoon. He gets down here like waves and he says,
you know, like I'm German, you know, I'm from West Germany,
and people like, you know, like what the fuck? And
he said he landed. He said originally thought about landing
in the Kremlin, but he said that then he realized
if he did that, like he'd be arrested by KGB
or f S or g r U, and uh, you know,
the Kremlin just denied that like it happened, you know,
so He's like at least I mean he had he'd
have no idea of knowing that, you know, there'd be
this like this this this British tourist like a video
camera camp quorder. But at least it'd be like eyewitnesses
and be like, hey, I saw this dude land he
like this happened. You know, you can't just say it didn't.
But he roost was, uh, you know, like like two
hours later, like he was arrested.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question, because there's something somebody
might ask this question. Yeah, everybody gets the idea that
the Soviet Union was this place that was actually absolutely
locked down. No one went in and out. And you
just said that immediately the first person who confronts him
as a British tourist, what was what was a tourism
situation as far as Soviet Union?
Speaker 3: Let I mean the Soviet Union. Actually I can't remember
the name of it, but until from the nineteen fifties
until literally nineteen ninety h the Kremlin published this magazine.
It was it was called something like Moscow Life. And
I used to see that the newsstands sometimes and like
flipped through it when I was like a little kid,
because and that was that was like the Kremlin. It was.
It was them like showcasing like why the Soviet Union
is good, but also like it was supposed to draw
like tourists, and there's a lot of stuff you couldn't
see and a lot of places you couldn't go, and
like you'd be followed, you know, uh in like at
least casually, you know, because like everybody was it was
like a foreign There was like an entire KGB direct
direct to like keep an eye on like foreign visitors.
But I mean, yeah, you could. You could visit the
Soviet Union as long as there was nothing it was
as long as there was nothing about your background that
that fled you. Like the real these were the Soviet
unions that was hard to leave. It wasn't hard to
go eastward like basically like throughout the Eastern Block. He
could basically go where if you wanted. But uh, you know,
a sist in the Soviet Union, he was not going
to be able to visit America. If he was not
gonna be able to visit the UK. He might be
able to visit the Buddhist Republic if he's like a
trusted person in related terms, but that was kind of
the issue, and it especially during the sixties. There was
a lot of guys I can remember, and this was
kind of dumb at the time, Like I really despised
Bill Clinton, but like Russia Limbaugh was. I remember when
Bill Clinton was running a ninety two was like he
visited the Soviet Union as a college student. It's like, okay,
but like a lot of guys did like that. Bark
cruise is big thing, like hey, if you want to,
you know, we're an open book. You know, we want
American college students to come see how good the Soviet
Union is. And they in turn set some of their
exchange students. But these guys were all dudes with like
party you know, their fathers were party men. There's no
way these guys are just gonna be like fuck you,
I'm defecting. Yeah, but like it, I mean if yeah,
Bill Clint's a total shit big But the point is
if you were if you were like going to Harvard
or like Yale or like Stanford and like nineteen sixty five,
there's like a good chance you would have like visited
the Soviet Union because like they cultivated that some of
that started to change. Uh, you know, kind of like
post aton like Asovie Unit started to look more and
more like scary to people, frankly, And I mean in
the I know a lot of guys who are like
five and ten years older than me, like when I
was a little kid who like visited East Germany and
then like, oh, it's crazy, but like nobody really wanted
to go to the Soviet Union frankly, Like I I mean,
whether that's like ignorant or not whatever, but you know,
by like nineteen eighty, you know, it was kind of
like why the you know that that place is fucked,
you know, like I don't want to go there, but uh,
and the like and again I think that's I think
that's kind of twisted. Frankly. I would have loved to
go to the Soviet Union because it would have been
pretty awesome, like not not cool to like live there,
but like to see you know, like it. But that
was kind of the deal and it and it's also
and and like depending on like the you know, but yeah,
the uh the uh it was basically uh, you know,
the Sovietnion like welcome tourism in its own kind of way,
and you know, but the fact is, you know, the
the kind of splendid appsentence of like Soviet citizens here
in America, like that was exactly why. But it was
like nobody had any money. It's like let's say, like
let's say I'm like Joe, like you know, I'm even
you know in uh in the USSR in nineteen nineteen eighty.
Like even if I was, even if I was like
educated at skills, I've got like no money. And even
if like somehow as a miracle I got you know,
like a visa from the Kremlin, like I'm gonna like
land in Chicago or Philly or like la, it just big, Hey,
I've got zero money. I don't really speak English, but
like give me a job. Like that's not especially in
them days too, like stuff just didn't work that way.
So yeah, but it it. But the Soviets too given
with even with some in the show the Americans, which
in some ways it's hokey, but in some ways it's
really dope. The guy and like his wife, who's yeah,
the lady who like stands in his wife, you know,
like they when they show like what he went through
like as like a kg B like deep Cover operative,
like they're basically making sure like he wouldn't defect, you know,
and like just become like enamored with the American way
of life. And that actually is like legit. Like the
guys the kgb AT in the g r U Lesser
Degree had a lot of uh sleep ragents on the ground,
like those people in that show, and they basically vetted
them to be like you're not gonna go crazy when
you know you realize you can like you know, you
can kind of like get stuff in America. You can't
hear because it's like not you're either like you're in
a seating and you and you're totally down for the party,
or you've just been kind of like you know, like
it's the kind of the you know, the kind of
fascination such things hold over you has kind of been
like bread out of you, were like smashed out of you.
But yeah, it's uh, it's do you.
Speaker 1: Ever wonder if they did you ever wonder if they
sent any of those over here like towards the end
of the so and then they're just still here and
they're just like they never went home and they're just
like that.
Speaker 3: This one guy, uh, the Soviet Union had one and
drop off speech during the able larger era. It was
kind of like it was kind of like the drop
up version of the secret speech. He addressed the polit
Burrow and he said like, look, he's like we're acting.
He's like in military terms, you know, in key theaters,
we're doing well. But he's like we were losing the
Cold War. You know. He's like, uh, you know, he's
like our textiles industry is like compared to Japan as
like primitive as hell. You know. He's like our agriculture.
He's like, we're literally dependent and America from America and
you know, you know, in a bad harvest. You know,
he's like we've got less than like a thousand you know,
like computers in America, like a computers a kid's toy.
He's just like going down the list. Okay. That so
the Soviet Union. One of the things they did was
they sent a lot of mathematicians and like guys with
formal logic knowledge or guys who'd like bet in Western Europe,
like in a formal capacity as like an operative. They
sent them to America to get jobs like in nascent
like it firms. And one of the guys who did that,
you know, he was like posing as like uh as
like at as like a West German of like Polish
dissent or something. He got a job with like this
it for him in New York in like nineteen eighty one,
and he'd do like dead drops and New York subway
and stuff. And then he said that like the last
basically after a while they just like stopped reporting, you know.
And then like he said that, like a guy came
to his apartment and just told him, like you know,
like he's like, I know what you're doing. And he's like, uh,
you know, he's like basically like you should probably commit
suicide or at some point like you're going to be killed,
you know, because you're like a loose end. So like
the guy said that, like he's like what should I do.
He's like, you thought about like mocking up like paperwork
to he like died of age or something. Is that's
like the age thing was huge. He thought about like
trying to like you know, he thought about like just
openly defecting, you know. But he's like that, he's like
he didn't have any con He's like, I'm a deep
cover agent. They're probably they're probably I mean, he's like
they're not gonna be happy about this. You know, it's like, oh, hey,
I've been spying on you to the has a decade,
but hey, can I defect because now like things went left.
But so he basically said, he's like, you know, like
by the time he had like a wife with like
no idea, like what real identity was. I mean, it's
kind of like a tragic story, but he said, he's
just like what what the fuck am I gonna do?
So like I just kept going to work and I
just kind of like kept waiting for it, and then
I turned the TV and like the Berlin walls coming down,
you know, and like so yeah, like this there was
there was a the guy got like a write off,
I think, and actually the New Yorker or something like
back in like the nineties. I'll see if I can
find it and like so you can like post a link,
but it's yeah there there there definitely were guys like that.
And in the reverse too, there was a Jens Carney. Uh,
he defect. He defected the other way to the d
d R and like nobody ever knew what happened to him,
Like he was presumed he defected, but he just like disappeared.
He was an Air Force guy. You know, he was
he was he was he had knowledge of like he
was he was, he was, he was a cryptographer. Okay,
but uh Jens Carney like if the wall comes down,
he hides out like pretending to be like a Dutchman
or something. I think that was or Dane. This cover
story is that he was a Dane. And then finally,
uh some like boon this fair or like US Army
like MP types like who the fuck is this guy?
You know, just when they were kind of like going
down the rolls like who's who actually is in the
d d R and the like that's this freaking that's
this guy like you know, a decade back just like
you know went over uh when went over the the
wall like the other way, you know, as as a
freaking defector. And and he he got he got Courtz Marshall.
He got jammed up for like seven years or something,
I mean, which I think is kind of fucked up.
I mean it's like once the coldor was over, unless
he killed somebody, unless he truly did something horrible like
like passing eyes only nuclear secrets, they should have just
let it go. But you know, the the Pentagon doesn't
seem inclined to like let things go like that, and
the guy wasn't uniform when he affected, So I mean
it's it's okay, but yeah, there are there are some
very weird stories about that. But yeah, I mean it
does beg the question like how many these guys were
They're like just nobody knew about and they just like
kept low key and like you know, went about their life. Yeah,
probably more than people think, because I mean I made
the point before and it guy named John Caller, he
wrote a really good history of the sas you know,
the kind of the one way that like the worst
up pack like consistently beat NATO was like with their espionage,
you know, like it wasn't even close like it. Uh,
and yeah, they they put a tremendous emphasis on human
intelligence in a way that you know, like we didn't.
So yeah, especially it was like more of these guys
than people think, you know, were thought. Yeah, it's a
fascinating topic. But Mattias Russ, but I mean what happened
became a him is rather tragic. He he was sent
up to four years at hard labor, but he was
actually never sent to a labor camp. He was housing
isolation in Moscow, and ultimately he was released and then
formally pardoned by Gramico when the I intermediately Nuclear Forces
Treaty was about to be signed as like a a
getric goodwill and he claimed he wasn't mistreated, and I
believe he wasn't beaten or anything, but there was something
it was like damaged about him. And he later went
to prison in Germany because he had a job in
some hospital and there was some girl that he had
like an unrequitted crush on, and he strayed just like
stabbed her. And this guy like no history of like violence,
I mean when I'm getting his in the Soviet Union
destroyed him like psychically, like whatever they did to him,
and he better believed that they didn't just treat him
like some kid pulling a prank. I mean, the then,
like I said, I'm not anti Russian at all or anything,
but there's there's a long history of guys who were
political prisoners of the Soviet Union and they somehow came
back like damaged or like not right, you know what
I mean. It's and you know there's I speculate the
same thing happened to him. And after that incident, apparently
he never got in trouble again, but he you know,
he seems to have had kind of like a sad life
after that. And you know, like I said, I as
a little kid and then later as somebody who spent
spends and spends a lot of time in the Cold War,
I I think roast in some ways. But he did
it was really a heroic I mean it was naive.
I mean, he's lucky he wasn't unceremoniously, you know, blown
out of the sky by a MiG driver or something.
But you know, I believe he was idealistic in the
way that kind of like last Cold War generation of
Germans was. And I think he really was like, look
like I don't I don't want to be a casually
a World War three as a counter value, you know,
as counter value ashes in the wind. And you know,
I I I've got love and respect to the Russian people,
and you know, like we should you know, we should,
we we should, you know, we should find a way
out of this paradigm that's going to destroy us. All
I found it like profound, as like an eleven twelve
year old kid, you know what I mean. Maybe it's
because I was a little kid. But I mean, Taine,
there was like something there and he wasn't just like
some crazy dude like I mean, he literally like learned
to fly like for this purpose, you know. I mean
it's he had it in mind that it could make it.
And frankly, I think it did. Man, you know like it,
you know, I guess, I mean you remember it was
a big deal. But the that but that, I mean
obviously the what it shows you too out like discrete
events that nobody is intending to have these reverberations. Like
literally like if Rust hadn't done that, I can easily see, uh,
I can easily see, Like you know, the USAOV loyalists
who were still in uniform is like saying, like, look
like Garbaschev is he's compromising our ability, you know, to
defend in depth. And you know, he's we cannot allow
the eye M treaty to be put the paper like
ten be put the paper and some kind of like
quasi military regime in the Soviet Union, you know, like
either like relegating gorbachoff to the role of cipher or
just like outright getting rid of him. I mean, it's
not like they weren't capable of that it like literally
like what Russ did that that that allowed Berbachov to
to decideline in sand bag like all of his enemies,
and I mean from then on at uh, it's it
really was his show until like you know that he
was until the challenge from Yelson was the emergent. But
that's what we should cover, uh next episode. And that
that's an incredibly complicated uh, like people who didn't weren't
alive then, but also even people who are pretty serious
students of the Soviet Union. The intrigues between Gorbachoff and
Yelts and and what Bush and Baker actually wanted, Like
Bush and Baker didn't want the Soviet Union to cease
to exist, like they wanted it to endure us. It's
kind of like is it kind of like federated a
like authoritary structure that it totally abolished, like the Party,
but uh, that was totally disarmed, and uh was kind
of like you know, accountable the United States as like
junior partner and like ruling the planet. It was basically
they wanted to like recreate like the New Dealer concept
for like how the world would be run and like
the tm D types who not only hated the Soviet
Union but literally wanted to see like torn apart, like
Yelton was their guy. And that's like what's key to
understanding this here, and that's why people have mixed feelings
about Yelson, I think. But it and then of course,
like the the kind of the kind of variable to
spoof things was that you know, all that the nationalities
like all went crazy, you know, and that's and and
that bears up too, like what the it goes It
shows you too, like when uh, you know, like what
what what what these fools they call the Chicken Kiev
speech where push forty one went to Ukraine is like
look like, don't like you're gonna be committing national suicide
if you decide you're gonna like fight the Russians, don't
do it, which of course is like absolutely true. That's
the idea of like you know, Boo was a pussy,
like how dear you like not back Ukraine in dependance
like what executive Ukrainians like exact of the Ukrainian has
gotten o a losing like a quarter million people, I'm
their country wrecked or like awesome things like ensuing from this.
I mean, it's not like whether you love hate or
a neutral in Ukraine. Like the idea that like Ukraine
like provoking a general war with Moscow was like this
good thing or like this like base thing, like it's
it's literally insane. But the uh, but I in my
before it became clear, like what America and it's in
geo affiliates and whatever you were doing in Ukraine. If
you're gonna tell, if you told me like twenty years ago,
like yeah, like you know, in twenty years like where
will where will like the Russian army like be engaged.
I'd be like in the Baltic, Like I see like
some kind of like really bloody you know, like asymmetrical
conflict of them like in the Baltic Like that That's
what I thought would happen. Honestly, I uh, it frankly
surprised me that like the Ukrainians were so incredibly rash.
But but that's that's the fact that Moss. That the
fact that Washington and uh kind of like the post
Reagan foreign policy team, they wanted both the Soviet Union
and Yugoslavia to endure, like you know, they this this
this kind of policy of you know, let's try and
detonate like every federated structure that exists, so then we
can kind of like finesse them into into like these
these like like fake client regimes. That's like very much
like a post Busch kind of thing. And like I'm
not saying Bush forty one had like these great ideas.
I think it was the last serious president, but uh,
I'm not saying like his KNNA, it's kind of his
kind of vision of like a neo like New Deal
was like some kind of like good thing, but there's
like an internal logic to it that like makes sense
and is like sustainable in a way that like the
competing perspective like was not and is not. But I
don't want to Uh I don't. I don't want to
deep dive into that yet because that that that's going
to take like an hour or an hour and a half.
So that's uh, that's basically I got for today. I
want to go.
Speaker 2: Let's let's talk.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the eighties because yeah,
of course I remember it, and it was a weird,
weird time it was. It was okay, so like New
York was one of the murder I mean, murder, murder, murder,
I assumed that.
Speaker 3: There were two thousand homicides a year like that. That's
wartime attrition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure Chicago. I'm sure southside of Chicago is
the same way at the time.
Speaker 3: And but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: But yet you had a great amount of abundance, You
had a lot of people getting rich, a lot of
people getting wealthy, and then you still had this like
nuclear shadow that was always overhead. It was it was
like a time when people were really a lot of
people were really having fun, but there was always this
cloud hanging over Well.
Speaker 3: I tink people understand either, and I tried to explain
it to people. My earliest memories would were being like
afraid of the Soviet Union, you know what I mean.
I lived I lived literally three miles from Glenview Naval
Air Station, which is like a priority counter worse target,
like we would have just there was no chance we
would have survived, you know. And it uh and I
mean especially because like my dad was like insinuated into
like you know, like the the policy planning establishment. I
mean I realized, like the Cold War was like talked
about in my house one than other people's, Like everybody
was like that. And like when those stupid emergency broadcasing
system tested come on, Like my mom would jump, and
like everybody would, you know, because it's like the people
don't they don't understand that. That's why I get pissed off.
And people talk about like the COVID garbage, even like
a nine to eleven, you know, it's like there's nothing
comparable like what would have been like a general warsaw pack,
like nuclear salt the United States like mad bullshit, like
Carl SIGs nuclear winners bullshit. But it would have changed
like life as everybody knows it. You know, there would
have been one hundred million people dead, Huge swaths of
the country would have been like unlivable. The survivors would
all migrated towards the equator, So you're basically gonna have
this Like it'd be kind of like a giant Wild
West with a poison environment that was like America, like
no shit, and like just the fact that it'd be
like again, it'd be like world transform. You can't kill
tens of millions of people within hours and not like
have everything change, you know, And the fact that this
was always a possibility, and especially as human decision makers
become increasingly sidelined, you know, it became clearly like this
this could happen without even anybody intending to, just because
the trajectory of variables is such that like it has
to happen according to you know, the indicators. Yeah, it was. Uh,
it was. It was like night and day. And I
I think that some of the some of them, like
the murder rate becoming totally lit for like a whole generation,
and people it's like acting kind of crazy, Like I
think part of that that. I think part of it
was people are like, well there might this might not
exist tomorrow, you know, so like why why not? I
mean it made people more ballsy definitely, But it was
also like, uh, you know, there's there was an aspect
of like, you know, the apocalypse is like imminent, so
like who gives a fuck? And uh the uh yeah
it was. It was weird, man, And like and the
immediate Aftermaen is weird, you know, like I.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah then I was going to bring that up.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: The nineties is like, so the Soviet Union falls apart
officially and then all of a sudden New York City
gets cleaned up. Yeah, like the home the crime rate drops,
homeless people are being bust out forty second Street is
brought up by Disney. Basically, it's like it's a real
weird correlation this shit like that happened.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that's one of the reason. I mean, it's
one the reason I'm very much like a Hey Gaelien,
It's all. That's also the reason why like the early
nineties were like anarchy, you know, and then so many
shit stabilized that just like became like normal again, like
to your point around like ninety six, like ninety five,
ninety six, but like that movie Kids, you know, because
I'm more I was born in seventy six, so I'm
you know, I'm like, I'm looking at nineties dude, more
than an eighties war. It's like I was, I grew
up in the eighties, but I was like a teen
in like the nineties, and like people like kids are
just like, oh, there's just like pornographic and grow So
I'm like, yeah, it's both those things. But it's also
like on the street in nineteen ninety three, that's like
what shit was like, and like anywhere you went, like
everybody had chip on his shoulder, like like every idiot
and his brother was like gangbanging for like no reason.
It's not like now we're just like hood dude to
do it because like they sell drugs. It's like every
idiot was like, yeah, I like wrap this like nonsense
gang and oh like I I got like a gun.
I packed with me for like no reason, just because
I'm like a fucked up asshole. Like that literally was
like the way shit was and like uh you know,
and like all there was like yeah, man, there's this
like like the races like fucking hated each other and
like it's you know, yeah man, and it's like so
like that movie. Yeah, it's like okay, maybe like Larry
Larry Clark, I think he is the dude who made
that movie. It's like maybe that dude is a pervert
and like a sick fuck but like what he was
like portraying was not like in his mind, like that
ship was real and I I was a teenager in
that epoch. It was like that, you know, like uh
and I mean this particularly made an impact on me,
like psychologically because it's like I you know, I'm i'm
I'm I'm I'm just fun people think. Man. It's by
the fact like I've had like you know, I had
like a heavy fucking drug prof and shit, I'm a
pretty like square, like fucking white dude. Man, Like I'm
not I'm not into I'm not into like fucking savage shit,
and like that stuff like bothered me like as a kid.
It's like it seemed like everybody lost the fucking mind,
like totally, you know, and like a yeah, but yeah, no,
that's that's I mean again, man, that's why there's something
too like zeitgeist, not just like the random aggregation of
like pop cultural like symbols and the people's kind of
like uh, you know, the discrete experiences and aggregate or
like you know, of of of of the youthful generation
in and kind of like what they associate with the
times that they're growing up in. Like it's a real thing.
It really is like a spirit of the age. And yeah,
like why I was like every haalking for like thirty years.
Everybody was going totally insane and then suddenly like the
nuclear specter like disappears, and then like you know, there's
like three years or four years of total chaos and
then like suddenly everything's like normally in you know. Yeah,
and like in forty second Street goes from being this
like looking like a nice circle of hell to be
in like Disneyland, like literally like yeah, you can't just
say like, oh, well, that's because people got tired of
crawing for something. It's like it's not how I'm not
saying you gotta believe in God. Okay, fine, you think
God out of the equation, But there is like some
kind of like invisible hand, like even if it's just
like human decisions and arrogate developing some kind of harmonious
like you know, in intent or like vector that you
can't tell me. There's just like random shit that happens
for no reason, you know, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, man, plug whatever you got.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, I'm still Uh. I dropped on my t
gram the other day. You can find me on t Gram.
I think people are like, no, why no, I'm I'm
trying to get stuff done in earnest and just so
I gonna like shoot for my channel and I didn't
get a capacity, but I I'm gonna swamp with like
content work and other stuff lately. But I promise that's
why I haven't been really active with stuff. But I
promise that it's changing. You can still find me on Twitter.
I don't know I could be nukelere at any time.
And also as we get into the summertime, I'm gonna
like disengage there and just kind of like fuck with
my own website and my channel. But you can find
me there for now at like real underscore number seven
each one as seven seven seven. My primary home is
substack real Thomas seven seven seven dot substack dot com,
and uh my channel is Thomas TV on YouTube. We're
gonna saturate when I started uploading like fresh shit there
on like Odyssey and stuff. But for right now, like
if you join the channel on YouTube, like you'll be hipped,
would you know when like new stuff is uploaded there
and like when we kind of you know, migrate to
other places. But that's all I got, And thanks for
hosting me as always, this has been great.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it. Thank you, Tom's.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pea Show.
We're almost done with this, aren't we, Thomas the Cold
War series?
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and yeah no, indeed, it's it's been quite
a journey and we've gotten really really positive feedback, which
is great, not you know, because I need things to
prop up my ego or something, but there's a you know, everybody,
at least even people who aren't particularly plugged into revisionist history,
you know, they have an interest in World War Two
because it's just you know, the kind of symbology of
it and kind of the narrative of it is all
around everybody. Like the Cold War, like people under people
under about forty they don't. I think that's change somewhat
like actually like Corneas, it sounds like one of the
Call of Duty games was like special Work. I never
played it, but I thought that was dope that some
of these some of these game developer types, uh you know,
they were they were trying to like plug people into
the history of of the era, like with with you know,
those kinds of sims. But you know, the if you
want to like literally, if you want to understand everything
that's happening in power political terms today, like you've got
to understand of the Cold War result, you know, And
it's I think it's particularly if you identify his right wing.
It's particularly impactful in terms of you know, uh, where
we are conceptually and before we went live, like you
know you're talking about you mentioned Paul Gotfreid. Well, yeah,
I mean it's hard. It's hard as hell to find now,
which I think is very deliberate. But Godfred gave a
talk I think it was at I think it was
at the h. L. Mancoln Club. I don't even know
if that's still a thing, but uh, and his talk
was called how the Left won the Cold War? And
it was really fascinating, and uh, you know, and and
and and again. That's why even if when it is,
even if one's not ideologically situated in the same kind
of camp that I you know, Visa via the Cold
War and Francis Yaki and and that kind of hy
Gaelian view of things, you know, it's it's fun of
me if you want to understand why blood is being
shed in in Ukraine and on the Russian frontier today,
like you've got to understand what what developed between ninety
forty nine nineteen eighty nine, particularly how it resolved. So
the fact we've gotten like mad feedback is I it
is very inspiring. I feel like we're actually doing something constructive. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think we get more feedback on this one than
we did did a World War two.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, and that that I'm very excited about that. And yeah,
moving forward. Uh I uh, your idea to cover the
Spanish War is great and I'm really looking forward to
that too. But yeah, we can what I wanted to
get into today a bit. And forgive me if this
talk is a little bit it seems a little bit
scatter shut. There's a lot of discrete causes to what
caused what you know, caused the Inner German border to
literally just come apart, you know, November nine, nineteen eighty nine.
Some of those causes were laid you know, around nineteen
eighty eighty one when martial law is declared in Poland
and the Soviet response to that, or more probably the
lack of a Soviet response to that. Part of that
was kind of the bizarre nature of the d DR government.
The East German government was not at all organic it
you know, East Germany itself. It was literally a fake state.
Like there's no it's not even like the case of
like North Korea, where like Northern Korea is like is
culturally different in South Korea in some ways. You know,
they got a history of being you know, divided divided
kingdom like East Germany was literally the border was where
the Red Army just arbitrarily stopped, you know. I mean,
so it's you have this completely you have this like
rump state that you know isn't isn't precedent in terms
of it's in terms of the geograhic situated in this.
And people forget too that, you know, the guys who
became the d DR government. There was some genuine like
pipe hitterers like Eric Milk who literally wasted a cop
in Weimar and then he ran to this He ran
to Moscow because uh, you know he was a KPD
street fighter and uh then and and and the NKVD
trusted him, you know, uh, and uh you know, he
kind of became their man. Speaking of Spain, Eric Milk,
it kind of became their man in Spain. He was
like a commissar, you know, like fighting uh on the
Republican side. Guys like Eric Honecker, he somehow escaped execution
despite being uh you know, uh a pretty high level
functionary or cadre and the KPD organization. But he was
in prison, you know by uh for the duration of
the war. And some people think that he was a
double agent. And then he was like he'd fed intel
to to the Gestapo on the s D which I
don't know that it's possible. And then there was Walter Ubrick,
who was kind of this dour intellectual you know, kind
of humorless uh you know, cold cold hearted, uh, kind
of functionary, the most cliche or stereotypical sort, you know
he was. He was another guy who spent you know,
time in exile like after after the National Socialist Revolution.
It's like all these guys were there were this cadre
element that was at odds literally with their fatherland, like
whether whether in NI phase or not. The point is like,
these are the guys who will like get odds with
Germany like their own you know, cultural uh a little.
You know. They spent they spent the warriors either literally
like fighting with the Red Army or in exile in Moscow.
And then you know, when the dust settled in nineteen
forty five, they were literally just like insinuated into this role.
It's like okay, you know, like you're you're now like
the cadre of the German Democratic Republic. You know, these
and who people like, who the hell are these guys?
You know, it's not the only way they the only
the only mandate they had was uh you know, proceeded
from the barrel of Soviet guns, and UH, over time,
UH a kind of party state apparatus did develop in
the d DR, particularly like the National volks Army, which
was officer in NCO heavy compared to a NATO army,
And that was very deliberate because he had a bunch
of military career as who's you know, fortunes were inextrict,
like personal force, They're inextriguarly tethered to the survival and prosperity,
if we can call it that of the regime. You know,
in any any government that endures for decades, no matter
how kind of contrived or unpopular it is, you know,
if people are going to become just habituated to it,
and you know, the people's fortunes are going to become
bound up with it in various ways. So, I mean,
that did happen, but it was about the most like
artificial of artividual states, which is one of the things
one of the reasons I'm always kind of tongue in
cheeks saying, you know, like East Germany, he was best Germany.
I mean, you know, the d D are the reason
why they did the National Volks Army, you know, their
uniforms look like Rmack uniforms. They maintained some very into
the Prussian drill in the parade ground. You know, they
a lot of their their kind of mythology they drew
upon like Florian Geyer in the Peasants War. You know,
they they kept a lot of like you know, they
got a lot of the optics and kind of at
least super visial trappings the of Prussian statehood, which is
really the first kind of like modern welfare state. You know,
that's not they can't be denied. But the point is
the d d R is kind of cant They they're
kind of like hyper aware of like your tenuous claim
to the mantle of power and them kind of insinuating
themselves into this role ironically and and and somewhat perversely.
But if if you're a Gelien, that this makes perfect sense.
Them kind of cinema themselves as like the guardian of
like what remained of like you know, the like authentic
German culture. That's really interesting and that I think I
think people responded to that too in some basic way.
That's why, in like the decades after the Wall came down,
I think East Germans themselves like ostalgy. You know, it's
like a play on like nostalgia. You know, they that
that's that's you know, kind of a media term that's bandied,
you know about people who grew up in the East
to uh, you know, who's still pining for products you
can't find anymore and kind of like what life was
in that era. And you know, I made the point too,
like uh Proud Miracle, it's not an accident that she
came up through the d DR, you know. And interestingly,
is a law I see any any German politician you
know who uh who who who who is a citizen
of the d d R. It's literally against the law
to talk about their past, like in East Germany. So
it's it was a criminal offense. And when prow Miracle
was a chancellor to talk about her background, a lot
of people allege that she was a Stazi asset, which
is possible. She was a young pioneer, so I mean
she her folks were like Communist party people or so
that souls that there was no Communist party in the
DDR as the Socialist Unity Party. But it uh, but
the point being, I mean it wasn't she wasn't just
you know, she wasn't like an apolitical you know, like
her family was at least like regime loyal and so
far as already membership. But that miracles concord with with
mister Putin, you know, and uh, the the the gas
Prom deal which which led to the nord Stream pipeline,
all these things like oh to, like the Cold War, okay,
and like they oh to like you know, what the
d DR was and what the inner German border represented
in like power political and you know, in in his
story of graphical terms, you know, this stuff isn't just
you know, it's it's not it's not just like trivia
about you know, a strategic paradigm that's no longer extant.
But you know, last uh, last episode, we got into
you know, the kind of thaw, the Gorbachev thaw that
was made possible in large part by Matthias Roost's flight.
But before that, you know, we talked about, uh we
we talked about the NATO Dual Track uh strategy, which
ultimately led to the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty and why
this was a big deal. The Soviet Union and drop
off had been very aggressively trying to decopple you know,
Europe from the United States in terms of a strategic
doctrine and it's it's willingness to wage nuclear war against
Warsaw Pact. And the way they did this was, you know,
with the deployment of SS nineteen, S S twenty ICBM
and theater ballistic missile platforms and in Europe as as
the point of the Backfire Bomber, which was a maritime
nuclear bomber like superficially it had u add things in
common with the with the B one, but it was
purposed essentially to the nuke the Royal Navy and then
like open up the the Grainland Iceland UK Gap which
the Soviet Navy had to shoot in order to break
out of you know, uh the North Atlantic into the
open Ocean in order to you know, effectively wage war
against the United States. But the uh the when uh
I made the point that Reagan's uh dual track strategy,
which was the Reagan administration offered to remove all theater
nuclear weapons platforms from Europe, you know, ground launched cruise
missiles as well as intermediate range ballistic missiles like the
person too. If the Soviets would have bided the same, Okay,
if the Soviets wouldn't have buid the same we'll bets
were off. UH, NATO was going to continue to deploy
theater nuclear forces. Now arguably this led the Soviets to
UH to say, well, we've got nothing to lose, and
that's why they went all in Afghanistan. You can even
go a step further and say, like, as we got
into that, this caused terrible anxieties about the possibility of
a decapitation strike on you know, on on Moscow and UH.
You know, we talked about how the real impetus for
intervention in Afghanistan was was a proximity to Kazakhstan, which
was as important to the Soviet Command, nuclear command and
control as was Moscow. But as it may, what was
going on during this era as kind of the Soviet
Union was hardening its stance in power political terms, there
was odd things happening between the two Germanys. We talked
about the hell Sinki Accords, you know that was UH,
when the Warsaw Pact, you know it all the signatories
declared that, you know, they they'd honored democratic processes, you know,
people would not be discriminated against based on you know,
political affiliation sect nationality. I mean basically it was uh,
basically the Helsinki Accordus could not coext this with the
Bread doctrine, which is what the Soviet Union relied upon
with their intervention in Czechoslovakia on sixty eight. You know,
this caused a problem because on the one hand, the
wars Up Pact was desperate for, you know, like a
legitimacy and credibility in the world stage. On the other hand,
the only thing holding the structure together, particularly after the
sound of Soviets split was, uh, what was armed force.
You know. The only thing making the SOVIETI as superpower
was the fact that it had, you know, the world's
mightiest military apparatus. The only thing holding a strategic alliance together,
which it depended upon, you know, in order to the
achieve any strategic depth, you know, was the fact that
if any if any of the satellite states tried to
throw off the shackles of of of one party rule,
you know, they the Soviet Union would directly intervene in
order to defend socialism, you know, or defend the development
and survival of socialism within its sphere of influence. So
this was probably this was this was very much tested
in nineteen eighty eighty one, that's when Poland came under
martial law. Poland was an interesting case because the uh
owing Uh. One of the reasons why Carter courted Brazinski,
you know, as a key part of his ZIGNA. Brzinski
is a key figure in his national security staff was
h like Poland seemed to be the kind of the
kind of it seem it seemed to kind of like
the natural place to try and you know, create a
wedge and warsaw pact. You know, if us it was
inorganic to the d d R. It was totally alien
to Poland. You know, Poland was basically it was it
was still a largely in the amand of the war.
It was still like a largely backwards and not saying
that the punitive or mean, but it was it was.
It was still largely backwards country people westach Catholic, Uh.
They had a strong hatred of the Russians, you know,
like ethnicran So Communism really kind of had to succeed
in Poland, Okay, if if the if for for any
kind of legitimacy to improve, not just to the regime
is situated there, you know, with to a Warsaw Pact
generally and uh towards that end, Poland was the recipient
of a lot of subsidies, which, in turn they used
to build up infrastructure, including one of the what was
that that, I'm like one of the world's most advanced
uh like like like like commuter rail stations like it
like the like Warsaw Central station. Like it's still like
it's something like an architenttional marvel. And at the time
it was like, wow, this is this is this is remarkable.
But that that you like, like those kinds of public
works projects or something like the communists like seem to
do pretty well hit but he as it may. Like
one of the things the polls did with these subsidies
is they they set about to create like a fairly
diversified like manufacturing sector. And you know, the idea was
that you know, they could build up equity and you know,
create something of a like an export economy however like
regionally limited you know, and and and you know and
and then uh you know, and then become eligible for
you know, like long term developmental loans and things, and
you know basically become like a some kind of like
modern country or at least I got a par with
like easy Germany, you know, if not you know, if
not the West. But this obviously didn't work, and uh,
you know, the Poles found like half the Polish GDP
as of seventy nine. I think was was was was
debt and uh the Poles, Uh, they were dealing with
genuine shortages things like things like that there was raffic
cards handed out for like meat and eggs and sugar,
like nobody could get tobacco like cigarettes and actually were
being used as currency by nineteen eighty one. I mean
this is like prison like it's literally insane. And one
of the big one of the big problems in terms
of rendering the legitimacy crisis was, uh Polish Polish workers
were being saddled with you know, like increasing demands in
order to you know, shore up again to look like
Poland was still gambling on this idea that you know,
they could they could create like a viable manufacturing sector
like fit for export. It's like Polish workers are being
sad to look like more and more and more hours,
you know, for like diminishing returns, and they couldn't even
get like the bay is to consumer necessity is a life,
you know, like cigarettes, like sugar. I mean in a
socialist state. I mean, this is this is preposterous. You know.
So that was basically the impetus for solidarity. And you
can't you can't take a labor union in a communist
state where like, hey, we're you know, we are the
proletariat and you know we're not we're having our surplus
labor literally robbed of us. You can't like take those
people out and shoot them, okay. I mean, like you
could like a bunch of Catholics, or a bunch of
a bunch of Fascists, or a bunch of you know,
people protesting the party. I mean, so this, this is
a very tricky situation. The way it was resolved in
Poland was Jerald Zelski Uh became a general secretary and
he was a tragic figure. You know. He there's this
kind of visage of him as a sinister guy. He
was just you know, Polish military officer. He always wore
these dark sunglasses. The reason why is because he was
a lesser of lesser noble birth than when he was
a teenager when Poland was invaded by the Red Army,
he his whole family I sent to a gulag, and
he became his eyes were destroyed by the glare of
the sun off the snow in the labor camp he
was in, so like he couldn't stand light, so like
he'd he'd were sunglasses all the time. And I mean
it tells you something too, like this guy was literally
a kid who was like destroyed by the gulegg system,
like physically in some way and mentally, like he became
this kind of like this kind of military talent in
these blocked like it there's something kind of like Shakespeare
about that. But it's also it tells you something about
the way like Poland was brutalized by by Communism. It's like,
you know, there there there was no there weren't even
there weren't there wasn't even the equivalent of of of
like the d d Ar Cadre in Poland. You know,
for them to kind of insinuate us as the ruling cast,
you know, they took this guy who was literally, you know,
somebody destroyed by the gulag, you know, like and yeah,
I just find it fascinating. But so Poland stands alone
is the only it was the only it was the
only East plex satellite state that was under the direct
rule of a military man and it was literally under
martial law. Now, as this developed first under Carter then
under Reagan's first term, it raised an interesting question because
according to the if if Poland went into open a revolt,
the president of the President of Doctrine dictated that, you know,
the Soviet army would invade, you know, to to preserve
the regime and uh and drop off. You can tell
it was react with anxiety that this is what was
going to happen. That's something that's clear from you know,
the notes of uh you know meetings, uh, not just
the Presidium, but of you know, like the kind of
inner inner polt Burrow, like the facto, like you know,
the the cadre that made the decision to a celt Afghanistan,
like we talked about the other week. But simultaneous to
this going on, East and West Germany were uh engaged
in this kind of delicate minuet of UH of reproach
and Eric Honecker, uh, you know, stal War as he
was as as as a Marxist Leninist, he'd always pined for, uh,
you know, for Eastern Men to be recognized as like
the truly sovereign state, you know, with with with a
somewhat independent foreign policy. And it was bizarre because on
the one hand, on the one hand, the d d
R they reviewed UH as kind of too Stalinist, like
even prior to Gorbert shaw Off, but they were simultaneously
viewed as being too cozy and friendly with West Germany.
I mean, there's there's something bizarre about that. But in
nineteen eighty seven, Honaker finally got permission for a state
visit to the bundis Republic. And he've been trying to
accomplish this. Uh, he'd been trying to accomplish this UH
for for for for like a decade, and UH initially
in UH in nineteen eighty four, when he first put
it to UH, the Soviet Poloit Burrow and the Foreign
Ministry Sharon Anko said, you know, make a mistake. You
know that this is not a visit aimed at approachment. UH,
it's to established lines of demarcation, which is like a
typically like Soviet answer. It's like both like obnoxious and
obtuson hostile, but also it doesn't really make any sense
and like uh, but uh, so there's this weird arrangement
where Honeker goes to visit the Budist Republic and uh
the uh they flew like the DDR flag, but they
full the d DR flags slightly lower than like the
Booms Republic flag, and like uh they'd uh the uh.
He like like a band greeted him, like a military band,
like when he disembarked, you know in Bond, but like
nobody would salute him as he would like ahead of state.
It was like this goofy like half measure and there's
this really striking photographs like a helmet. Cole who uh
he and Merkele whatever their respective faults, and they are many.
I mean they they were the really the only post
war German chancellors who did anything really to restore German
sovereignty and in various capacities. Cole was a like a
huge man. He was like this huge, like bear looking guy,
you know, like this kind of like big Bavarian kind
of like a Herman Garring type, you know, like big
loud dude, you know, like uh, just like a huge person.
And like Honiker Honker was kind of like this creepy
like nerdy eye, you know, like kinda kind of how
you like imagine like you know, the kind of communists
from metal casting this kind of like this kind of
like profest storial dickhead who like nobody likes. It's like
there's this photo like you know, like huge like comet cold.
He's gotta get big grin in his face. There's this
like pissed off with a like Conker and like an
east Block suit who's like you know, five five even
like it's it's like he's like being dwarfed by like
you know, it was like kind of like you know,
metaphor that seemed really resident. I thought that as like
a little kid, and then just the other week when
I came across it in uh In uh in this
book in the nineteen eighty nine Revolutions, I'm like, wow,
that's really striking. I wasn't sure if it was just
like Mandela effect me like remembering it as being more
like profound than that. But the what ultimately happened, you know,
the convergence of all these things it became, it became
at some point unthinkable, even notwithstanding for the the intrigues
of a of a you know, within within the Kremlin
that out Garbachev to kind of rook his enemies, and
and and in sideline any true uh, you know, hard
liners aim to sabotage parastrike on policy terms. It at
some point became unthinkable for the Soviet Army to deploy
you know, in Poland or in you know, East Germany,
but came to that and and do what they've done
in Hungary and fifty six and the Czechoslovakia on sixty eight.
You know, I mean, zeitgeist is a real thing, man.
I mean, like, I think people who take historical revisionism seriously,
I don't think any of them would disagree with this.
But the but uh, even if you're not you know,
prone to kind of hay gaily and interpretations of these
things and the pressure of you know, like world moral consensus,
that's a real that is a real thing. It's not
just something that like in a history liberals bandy about.
And what was possible in nineties sixty eight or ninety
seventy eight or even nineteen eighty one was no longer
possible by like nineteen eighty six, nineteen eighty seven. I mean,
it just it just wasn't thinkable. And I that's why
when people post the question as the you know, well
why why wasn't there at Kienman Square. Moment, It's like, well,
considera like this what actually happened at the inner German border.
And in the moment it was happening, I I A
lot of people didn't even fully realize what the precipitating
catalysts were. In April of eighty nine, really the first
chink in the uh in the iron curtain, like the
physical structure of the hardened border was the Hungarian garment
finally shut off the electric fences that saturated the Austria
Austria Hungarian border. Uh. The guard towers remained, they were
still manned, but uh, there literally was an electric fence
like running the perimeter, you know it. Uh you know,
I mean and uh by may uh the boy the
border guards. Uh, there's this, there's this big deal. Uh.
The border guards uh in Hungary like met with their
like Austrian counterparts and uh began dismantling like sections of
the barrier, you know, and they like they the Autionans
obviously invited you know, like Western news crews and stuff.
And uh, this is the first kind of indication that
you know, the like Warsaw Pact could no longer exist
as it as it had you know, for decades, taking
its que from that. The Hungarian communists and I know
that Hungarians, may Garrets, are really great people and they're
really proud people, and they were actually at the forefront
of the anti communist resistance. And I'm not praising the
communist regime there at all, but to their credit, Uh,
Hungary's foreign minister horn Uh realized that, you know, travel
restrictions had to be lifted, even if his motives were cynical,
and that you know, he he was operating with an
eye to preserve the party state apparatus. The point is that,
you know, the it was, it was the Hungarian regime
that really first, you know, kind of gave way, you know,
and they they had a long they had a long
history post fifty six a compromise. And again I'm not
saying because they were good men or something or principled.
I think a lot of it old, you know, the
existential reality that in Hungary especially, they wouldn't have survived
if they hadn't made certain concessions. But people forget that.
You know, the Hungary the Austro Hungarian border is really
where where you know, the kind of thaw began and
what's fascinating too, at least I think so, because I've
got kind of a fascination, a fascination with a Habsburg
in Vienna, because i think some people know who like
follow my content during the summer season, and there was
always a lot of East German tourists in Hungary and
nineteen eighty nine was no exception, because you know, Hungary
is Hungry is a beautiful place, I'm sure, and as
such it has such a reputation. But you know, if
you were East German, Hungary is one of the places
you could visit, you know, like on vacation. And the
uh An idea which was hatched by Ottovon Habsburg, who
was the last he was he was the last crown
prince of the hats for Empire, you know he uh
he said, uh, let's invite uh let's let's let's invite
our German friends to a picnic on the uh Austro
Hungarian border. And of course, you know, like there're these
these East German you know, tourists swarm to the border,
which was then opened ups. They could you know, travel
to Austria and then from there, you know, they could
get you know, to the Bundus Republic. And this totally
neutralized uh, you know, the inner German border and its
ability to plug the verbial see that you know, had
led to their hemorrhaging of population. And from that point on,
uh and and and you know, unless unless the East
Germans were truly willing to the open fire on their
own people. And and I can't think of anybody who
would have been willing to take responsibility for that. You know,
there's nothing short of that would have uh what have
uh would have changed things. And like I said, even
before Gorbachev, the uh whatever, I I think it was
already unthinkable. You know again, like hard line is uh
the d drop of Sharon Anco regimes were I think
it was kind of the same regime as I've vindicated
for reasons I've neigated before. It was clear even by
then that you know, the prison of Doctionri was dead
for practical purposes, and the Soviet Union was a superpower.
Like people forget that sometimes you're not talking about Sam's Iraq,
you're not talking about you know, you're not, uh, you're
you're not You're not talking about North Korea. You're not
you know you were you weren't talking about you you're
you're even talking about a place like two Gemount of Croatia,
like which I think was a great regime. But my
point is, you know, this thing, the Soviet Union still
was accountable in some basic way, you know, as a superpower.
I mean they they they their territory spanned one six
of the planet, and the sphere of influence was, you know,
in territorial terms, exceeded even that of the United States,
I mean outside of you know, the Soviet Empire proper.
But what uh, what I think is key with respect
to the uh, how the Cold War ended, is what
was happening in Washington and how uh Bush forty one
and James Baker proceeded. That's the only thing that facilitated
Gorbachev's like the realization of his and Edward chevit Nardza
I always butchered the pronunciation of that name. He was
the foreign minister who succeeded rom Eco later became President
of Georgia. But in foreign policy terms, Schev Knadze was
he He was really kind of the go between in
some ways between the Kremlin and the US foreign policy establishment.
And as we talked about Team b and they kind
of hold they had over the trajectory of policy in
the Reagan administration. They've been somewhat sidelined by the Bush
forty one administration. Shaney was kind of their man who
remained in proximity to you know, to the sovereign lever
of power. But Baker and Bush, as I've discussed before,
their vision was not the Soviet Union being dismantled. Quite
the contrary. They at least wanted the Soviet Union to
endure until total disarmament was realized, you know, total nuclear
disarmament and almost total you know, reduction of conventional forces
and being and moving forward even from that, I believe, yeah, no,
please do.
Speaker 1: Would that be coming from the same faction uh that
today is responsible for wanting to topple Putin.
Speaker 3: That's the team the legacy that those guys are, the
legacy of Team B and in some places the very
sane people, because like Bush and Baker, their idea was like, okay,
they basically wanted to like reinstitute what it been, kind
of like the New Deal idea, like the New Deal
concord of like the world ruled by the United States,
the Soviet Union, or like something like a Commonwealth of
Independent states like succeeding it as like junior partner Kane,
he was on a records literally saying like fuck them,
I mean the sty Union they lost. You know, let's
detonate it. Let's let's basically detonate like all the all
the republics, you know, the nationalities. You know, let's tear
the sovieni apart. Let's like loot what we can keep
Russia permanently down, you know, let's surround it based you know,
we'll turn it. We'll we'll turn Ukraine into like a
garrison state, will turn Georgia into a garrison state. You know.
Uh and basically you know, keep our basically you know,
Morgan foul play in Russia. Okay, those are the guys
who went out from Clinton administration onward. I mean Clinton
was a complete buffoon in foreign policy. Like he literally
was just like a fucking buffoon. He was basically he
basically was. He was basically a machiavilion on on the
order of LBJ like his in terms of his politicking,
he was like a manchafule politician, like what he I
think that's like a lot of what or not kind
of depends on your perspective. But he had like the
zero interest, no understanding of foreign policy, like none, so
uh basically it was like available to highest bidder, you know.
And that's why everything all the goodwill like achieved by
the Bush Baker concord was just like it was just
like you know, nuke to like proverbially subsequently. And then
you know the uh, the uh the assault on Serbia,
you know, which was deployed a strategic logic other than
basically just to say, like you know, we're gonna like
we're gonna break Ivan's face and get him out of
the Balkans, Like like why would you even do that?
But I mean it's some you know that. Uh, those
those the two that's that's what's underway today. That's why
these like neo con types and and like they're they're
kind of a sentence. They they still this day like
Rake Bush forty one over the close but believe the
Chicken Kief speech like how dare he? Like and modern
the Ukrainians not to wage some like suicide suicidal war
against Moscow for no reason. I mean like it's but
that's uh yeah, I mean that's a post understand me too,
Like I'm not saying Obviously, anybody who's not a freaking
idiot should realize that I'm not advocating like some kind
of like new deal or revision of the world like
two point zero. But what Bush and Baker accomplished was
truly masterful. The golfer a coalition is unprecedented, you know.
And the fact that basically like Busch forty one like
at the whole world like like freaking in the palm
of his hand, like that's crazy, you know, and he uh,
he courted the Arab world in a way that was
with an eye towards genuinely like normalizing you know, the
Middle East and and kind of defanging uh Desigonist lobby.
Like that's not just again, I'm not saying Bush forty
one was like our guy like at all, but he
represented something very different than the neo cons and different
from like even you know, even most like Rhino types
you know, like that, and same thing with Baker, like
these guys were like the old you want to, like,
like the old Protestant establishment the last time they were
like at the Helm like that was it okay? So
and frankly like in some basic way, like those guys
are like my teen like even though like class divides
us like it, I'm I'm not gonna sit here and
like out and out like trash them because frankly, like
their vision was like far better than anybody else's, like
post war like now withsaying the fact, you know, the
war shouldn't have happened. But that's that's what I want
to get into next week. And the Gulf War. Uh,
the Golfer is like an Adam Dam to the Cold War,
like it really is, and like the even you know,
uh black Horse Regiment Armored cavalry you know who patrolled
the full the gap like they fought like at the
seventy three East thing. That's where Darelas McGregor like he
was a black Horse regiment. Like there's all kinds of
plus two. I mean, it's that's that's where you got
to see the you know, the bay like the post
revolution in military affairs like US Army, which I believe
was like the US Army at Zenith like at that
that can be argued you know, fight against like warsaw
pack weapons platforms and and just and the political climate
globally like it's just something that like has never been
seen before and will like like will never be duplicated,
you know, And that's and and that that was. So
it's not just I it's not just an addendum because
it was post November ninete eighty nine, but pre you know,
uh pre uh dissolution of the the USSR. It like
you've got to really understand that it's kind of not
just the zenith of American power and absolute terms, but
also kind of like the realization of like the Bush
and Baker kind of a vision of a of of
of of foreign policy moving forward, other of globalism rather
like which was you know, burn to the ground within
half a decade by by uh by the foods like
Clinton and you know people who would uh you know
who would would place h they're pretty you know, kind
of ancestral hatreds overall over a meaningful you know, historical development.
But yeah, that's what all I got for today.
Speaker 2: Man, Well, let me ask you this before we go.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was watching I was watching it on
TV on November ninth. Wasn't anything that you know, I
expected then. We didn't have the internet, we couldn't keep CNN. Yeah,
and so how did that? How did that happen? Because
you you can go on YouTube now and you can
watch there's videos of seeing people pouring over the border,
ladies like you know, screaming at at East German officers
saying just let me go, let me go.
Speaker 3: Well, what happened at UH, what happened at the East
German border was the UH. As the situation in Hungary,
he kind of became like more and more unmanageable, you know,
with like East Germans just UH, you know, hopping over
to UH Austria and then to you know, and then
and then UH and then to the West German Embassy
and then like onward, you know, the Buddhist Republic, the UH,
the the Volkes commer Well, first of all, Eric Honecker.
Honeker stepped down because there was you know a lot
of these protests that were underway in easter in the
d d R. We're demanding that Honeker resign among other things.
Honeker steps down. The Volkes Comma UH appoints Egon Krenz,
which was who was like the air apparent anyway, he
was the guy who was like being groomed like as
you know, successor Krans Uh ordered UH the Interior Ministry
to draft UH regulations that were less uh that were
less uh less oppressive unless byzantine that would allow people
exit visas, you know, which it was totally arbitrary and capricious,
like who would be a grand one and who wouldn't
be like like it didn't make any sense. But uh,
the uh credsass Gerald Gerhard Gerhard Gerhard Louder, who was,
among other things, uh, the volks Politici chief who were
responsible for you know, border checkpoint security among other things,
he heard the hymn to order the Interior Ministry you know,
to draft some kind of workable uh you know, like
visa applications some that in there. What they were hoping
was that people who were political unreliable, they could basically
just like send them away to West Berlin, you know,
with good riddance. But you know they could uh find
some way you know to grant visa the people that
appeared like nominally like democratic, but you know, would would
there there'd still be incentives them to like remain in
you know, not not defect basically generally that would be
you know, to not like the only like you have
a ford like one member of a family, like a visa,
you know, stuff like that. But the way this was
communicated was Uh you had people already like massing at
the checkpoints, you know, in anticipation of like what the
new like law would be, like awaiting the announcement, and
uh you had louder and uh these Interior Ministry officials,
you know, who are being bombarded with with questions, not
just from like d d R state media, but although
from like Western uh television and radio reps. And finally, uh,
this spokesman uh for the Interior Ministry, he read aloud,
uh the statement from the Vogues Comma about the status
of the new law, which was that private travel restriction
was now permitted. And it's not clear if this was
a broken memo or like you know, uh tell whatsoever,
or if it was just poorly drafted. But then a
reporter said, could you repeat that? Does that mean that
there's no longer any travel restrictions? And when does this
go into effect? And uh this this this spokesman said, well,
I believe it goes into effect immediately. And then the
people the checkpoints I started charging the border. Now, nobody
was willing to open fire on these people, so the
or cops like overwhelmed. After a while, they just like
threw open the gate, you know, because like what are
they gonna do. It's like they were they gonna get stampeded.
They's either gonna be a riot or there's gonna be
a riot, or you know, the Stasi was going to
deploy like you know, the internal security troops and start
you know, like killing people. And like none of these
guys wanted any part of that, I mean, if not
for ethical objections, because they didn't want to be held responsible.
So it was basically just like the momentum of of
you know, the will to kind of make this happen,
you know, like corneys. It sounds like people power if
you can get me, just sounding like a forgetting hippie
or something. But that's basically what went down.
Speaker 1: And then and then forty days later, remaining had decided
that it was u.
Speaker 3: Romania is kind of horrifying, man, like, not not the country.
It did. Romania is freaking awesome. It's like fascinating. But
Usescu was the one man, the one of the final
warsaw packed summits. Romania is fascinating because Sescu he played
both sides of the aisle. He got Kennedy to take
Romania off the target list for strategic nuclear weapons and uh.
He basically drew down the Romanian Army to like nothing
but like an internal like it means an internal oppression
for all practical purposes. He quit Warsaw Packed. Okay, you
know it was uh, it was not despite beings. That's
kind of arch Stalinist. He was not pretty clarly cozy
with the Kremlin. But he during the final October eighty
nine and the final Warsaw Packed summit, where internal security
was obviously on everybody's mind, he said, like we've got
to do with the Chinese comrades did at Tim and
even Honeker apparently looked at him. He was like, what
the hell is the matter with you? At least don't
say that out loud, like you know, like that's uh.
But yeah, the uh, we'll get into that too, because
that's fascinating and it's it's the outlier. Yeah, and I
mean for all kinds of reasons, but yeah, the uh,
the uh And then then and then mister and missus,
I saw that when I was in my aunt's house
and Mentura that Christmas, and I seeing that Cescu was
getting getting blown away like on TV and that and
this is this is like young people understand. This is
like you know, consumer internet was basically where you can
see video was like ten years away, fifteen years away.
Like this was like that's freaking crazy. It's like and
it's it's I shook me up as like a young team.
Then he killed his wife too, because there was like
I mean, she was she was a terrible person, but
like she was an old lady. They just like wasted
her like and I remember like one of the guards
they were leading leading them to the you know, the
to uh to the courtyard to be shot, Like the
one guard like put his hand in his album and
she just like shakes it off like that. I mean,
she was like a hard lady. But it's like the
point is she was like an old woman. I mean
it's like that kind of shocked me as a kid man.
But yeah, we'll uh well, uh yeah, we'll we'll cover uh,
we'll cover that. We'll cover Gulf War and bush Baker
in uh the final episode, we'll get into like Borwich
offers Yelton too, and so yeah, we we might go
a little bit longer next time. And that's okay with you,
but I think that'll be great.
Speaker 2: All right plugs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean for the time being, I'm still on Twitter,
so seek me out there. Uh it's Thomas seventh number
seven hl A S seven seven seven. It's official Underscore
Thomas seven seven seven. My primary home right now is
sub stack. Uh real Thomas seven seven seven. That's subset
dot com. I'm back on Instagram, I am. I I
gotta go out of town end of April, but May
first week in May, I promise. The channel is we're
shooting dedicated content like my crime partner and my my
my erstwhile editor who is is a is a prince
of the realm. I swear like the he's the reason
why all this stuff gets done because I I'm freaking
illiterate with this stuff. But I uh, we're we're we're
we're cranking out like fire ship, like I promise, But
I am like he and I really a two man
freaking operation. I mean, it's a lot of work, and
I I'm not being a murder. I'm an incredibly lucky person.
But that coupled with these manuscripts I'm trying to finish,
coupled with keeping up with all this other ship, I mean,
it's it's it's a freaking lot of work, man, But
it's come and I promise, man, Yeah, that's what I got.
Speaker 2: Yep, appreciate it's all the next time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, Pete.
Speaker 1: All right, I don't want to welcome everyone to the
uh the Q and a wrap up show for the
Cold War series with Thomas seven seven seven.
Speaker 3: You don't I'm very well, thanks and yeah, thanks for
commentating this format. Like I said, it just seems to
make sense. And I know that a lot of the
subscribers have been eager to you know, ask questions and
stuff and kind of get a more discussion based format going.
So yeah, that's great, man.
Speaker 2: Can I can I start with a question for me?
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, all right.
Speaker 2: Cool. We talked about this in the Yaki Spangler episode.
I did.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people who have just start hearing
about Yaki here that Yaki was, uh, you know after
World War Two and especially you know from after nineteen
fifty ish, he took the side of the Soviet Union
over America.
Speaker 2: Can you explain why he would do that?
Speaker 3: I mean, in geostrategic terms, it it's the perennial principle
that the only way that Europe is truly going to
be an autonomous actor. The only way it's going to
be able to compete as a superpower is if some
sort of concord is accomplished with Russia. You know this. Uh,
some people suggest that this is the Kinders world island
hypothers this, I mean, it isn't. It isn't. It's not. Uh,
it's not as so much a geography as destiny calculus.
It Uh, it has it has to do with power potential,
not just of material resources, but you know of uh
of mentioned material as you know that Germans used to
refer to, you know, human population. It's not just in
terms of their biology, but in terms of their capacity
to bear culture and things like that. Europe as this
kind of rump peninsula, you know, forever on an enemy
footing with Russia, artificially instigated and maintained by the United States,
is never even if the United States withdrew its forces
and being from Europe, but that status quo remained, Europe
would never ever be able to you know, emerge again
as as as a true power political actor of any
of any significance and hard power terms, I mean obviously
in economic terms and in cultural terms. You know, your
Europe is always you know, the kind of the center
of the world. Okay, and in many respects, but so
there's that part of it. Secondly, YACKI not incorrectly he identified, uh,
what the Cold War is basically and in house controversy
in ideological terms. You know, it was the the New
Dealer alliance with Moscow. Wasn't just a sort of alliance
of convenience because Europe was in the third right, which
is so evil like on his face, that doesn't make
any sense. You know, what this was is it was uh,
competing viewpoints of a global socialist order, you know, one
being the New Dealer perspective, the other being the marcis
leninst perspective, colluding in order to annihilate fascism and any
competing iteration of political order that would uh, you know,
come to dominate the twentieth century and in all centuries subsequent.
So you know what, one was not superior to the other.
You know, it's not like America represented the West. Contrary,
you know, the the alien Soviet Union or the Socialist
Soviet Union and America and a lot of it is
more insidious because it had an ability to insinuate itself
in the European cultural life. You know, I missed the
occupation regime. I mean in a way that the Soviet
just we're not able to. And finally, there was just
a difference there. There was there was a divergence of intent.
The Soviet Union wasn't trying to socially engineer you know,
white Europe out of existence, you know, I mean, yeah,
Marcius Leninism was a horrible system. It was brutal. It
persecuted people, It was hostile to religion, it was it Uh,
it persecuted people who were who were deemed politically unreliable.
It was anti human. I'm not acquitting that at all.
But again, it didn't aim to tear out the root
of cultural life and carry out uh a programmatic genocide
quite literally, you know, by annihilating uh, by annihilating European
culture at the root. And that's exactly what America aimed
to do, and in more concrete terms and in more
crude terms, not crude in terms of you know, disreputable
or something, but just in in kind of more basic terms. Also,
so you know, Yaki pointed to the Prague trials, uh,
the Prague trial relating to what came to be known
as the Doctor's plot, you know, where these twelve, these
twelve medical people were were tried for treason and conspiring
against you know, the Communist Party UH in Czechoslovakia, and
eleven of twelve of these people were Jews. Okay, a
lot of them were involved as Zionism, you know, they
it was obviously the Warsaw what was to become the
Warsaw Pact, the East Bloc. It was obviously them purging,
you know, the Jewish element from their leadership cast. And
they weren't doing it on some quote unquote racial basis
or some kind of sectarian basis, and their alibi was, well,
you know, it's it's incidental that these people are Jewish.
You know, we we can't abide this kind of counter
revolutionary treason, this activity. You know, it doesn't matter if
you know, it hurts people's feelings that you know, there's
certain certain ethnic groups are concentrated in the ranks of
these these undesirable elements. You know, we're gonna, we're gonna realize,
you know, justice no matter what. But it was obviously,
you know, a deliberate effort to purge Jewish influences from
from the ranks of the of of Fadres and in
in the Eastern Bloc. So if your notion is that,
you know, as Jackey's was, you know that that Europe
has to be liberated from enemy influences if it's going
to survive, let alone thrive. And if your idea is that,
you know, the traditional enemy of the West is UH,
you know is the Jewish dias for, and that that
dias for is is that their world of social existence
is the progenitor of UH. You know, the most the
the ideological tendencies most in nymical to Western survival. And finally,
again if if you view Europe's path to salvation and
paraplitical terms as you know, a concord with Moscow, I
mean all those things, you know, all the worlds need
to Moscow, if you'll allow the metaphor, I mean that
was Yaqui's perspective, you know, the and that's basically shouldn't
be controversial. I mean, the reason why the Soviet Union
was dangerous, the reason why it was insidious wasn't because
it was it was going around doing the kinds of
things that like the American government does today. You know,
it's not it wasn't trying to. It wasn't going around
declaring that like gender doesn't exist, or that, you know,
you everybody needs to breed, you know, the everybody needs
to breed into like one kind of like non race,
and you know, you know, all all all kind of
historical existences need to be eradicated, you know, so that
some kind of like equity can be achieved, or like
nobody has a historical memory, so we're all the same.
Like that that would never occur to the sol Union. Okay,
that doesn't make them good guys, but it makes them
far far less dangerous to uh, you know, racial survival
and and and kind of human culture in any in
any form than that. In America wasn't his you know,
and I I homatize that people that what what what
the American regime does today? This isn't something of like
recent vintage. You know, it's not like it's not like
the US government was like doing good things or wasn't
insane until like nineteen ninety or something, or until like
twenty sixteen, like they've always been. I mean, the New
Deal regime from inception, it was totally insane, and it's
totally insane ideas. It it was always sexually perverted. It
always it always wanted to eradicate people's understanding themselves as
as cultural you know, as culturally situated like it it uh,
it literally plotted to genocide Europe and you know, and
drafted up entire treaties. Is I don't even like the
sexual habits of Germans and how we can work. You
utilize this to undermine their potential to breed. I mean
they're like this really really sick stuff, you know, and
I mean some people can't accept that. I mean whatever, Okay,
if people have some like vestigial attachment to America, like
as a government, I I I don't care, but they're
they're not people I have any common cause with, and
I think they're incredibly diluted if they insist on retaining
that sensibility, will also insisting that they're somehow right ing
or opposed what is going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah's when somebody will bring up like you'll talk about
I'll do cha, and somebody will post the picture of
him hanging upside down, and this person is like somebody
who's like pro America, pro you know, what would seemingly
be on our side. I remind them that the people
who did that to him are the people who are
ruling over you today. They're the they're the same people,
and you're you're just basically cheering on the people who well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it wasn't a bunch of guys. It wasn't
like a bunch of like good old southern guys who
were like, we don't like Mussolini because he's a socialist
and he's not keen to the Second Amendment. Like they
were like, yeah, they were like out and out communists.
I'm not just out and out communists, but you know
of the kind of the kind of a Dorno and
Gramsey type who were you know, very much quote cultural Marxists.
I find it to be a troubling term. I don't
like it. But just for the sake of coherence, you
know that that's that's like the verdicular. But yeah, I don't,
I don't, Yeah, I don't understand how. I mean, Like,
it's like even even if even if you've got no
affinity for you know, kind of like European ideological tendencies,
or even if you know you you don't like national
socialism or fascism, like if you don't like any of
this stuff like why why would you celebrate this destruction,
Like why would you celebrate like Europe being literally annihilated
by by uh by cop I mean this and by
these like crazy new dealers want to like eradicate the
concept of race from this planet and and and do
like man as some kind of like instrumentality to serve
like good government. I mean that's completely perverted. But like
I said, I think it's that there really is uh
like a bougie kind of fixation, like really an obsession
with like respectability. And there's people they want to like
purge them people. People are like ambitious in the wrong ways.
They want to like purge their own minds of like
unclean thoughts and and and and and and not hating
fascism is an unclean thought. So they try and cope
by saying like, yeah, like I hate the regime, but
you know I hate you know, Hitler even more and
and and that's the worst thing ever, Like I I mean,
I don't know, I try. I I think I'm I
think I'm somewhat empathetic in terms that I I'm pretty
good at putting myself in the position of other people.
I mean just in in like practical terms. I mean,
that's there's a heavily psychological aspect to political life, you know.
And so I'm not saying I've got like great insights
or something, but I've thought about this a lot, and
I believe what I just indicated is like the source
of a lot of that foolishness. I got another.
Speaker 2: I got another question that was submitted before I do that.
Speaker 1: If anybody is watching on YouTube and they want to
go up to the pin comment, that connects you to
entropy and you can do super chats there. All right,
someone asked you mentioned a couple of times but didn't
get into it. Can you do a quick overview of
the Red Army Faction.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Red Army Faction or the Bottom miine Hoff Gang.
They they were kind of unique because they were emergent
in night like in nineteen sixty eight. I mean a
lot of things happened of a revolutionary nature, including splintering
within the socialist camp. You know, that's when we talk
about cultural Marxism. That's really with under the euro Communists
and and socially radical element kind of split off from
orthodox Marxist Leninism. Well, the Bottom Meinhoff Faction they kind
of had one foot in both camps. And as it
turned out, they were very much a client, uh actor
of UH the Eastern Ministry, Ministry for State Security, and
they were they were very much kind of like the Branchell,
the Marcus Wolf, who was an incredibly dangerous individual and
he was the best intelligence man that Warsaw Facts had,
in my opinion, in he's the best intelligence man and
the best intelligence organization probably field by anybody in the
Cold War. But the bottom Mine Off faction they uh,
their their notion was to basically render the Buddhist Republic
ungovernable through terrorist activity, you know, just in kind of
conventional the kind of conventional terms that that nacate the
actors under arms, especially during the Cold War, like going
to the unique paradigm they're in like proceeded. But they
also that was during the period when uh, you know,
Billy Brandt was uh was seeking genuine reconciliation with East Germany,
and UH the idea was uh, it was, it was,
it was. It was very layered, okay, because on the
one hand, UH, on the one hand, the idea was
very simply like strike a blow against you know, like
America and the and uh and the bundes and UH
and and and sympathetic forces you know, within the Federal Republic.
But secondly, it also gave people like Brandt like an
alibi like, see, these are extremes, you know, we have
We're nothing like them. You know, we want an approachment
with the d d R and the Soviet Union for Peace.
So this kind of thing will no longer be happening
like which is really kind of brilliant. But they they
were very effective and they uh, they had they had
substantial contacts with a Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine General Command. They uh, I think they probably were uh.
I think they probably had contacts with the Provisional IRA,
although some people the ass debatable and I don't want
to I don't want to start some sort of argument
with people who have those kinds of sympathies. But that
was basically the Red Army faction and they folded their
flag like officially in nineteen ninety I mean, which which
goes to show and people acting like this was strange
at the time, but I mean the Epochet it should
have made sense that it's like, well, I mean, these
this isn't some fake organization. I mean they hit. They
did have grassroots support, especially among you know, the student
population and younger people, but they very much were like
at operational terms, they were very much like an organ
of the Sazi and horse to Maller interestingly, u uh,
he wasn't a direct action element within the bottom Minehoff gang,
but he was a lawyer who worked closely with them.
He became he ended up going to prison for quote
Holocaust denial and quote promoting racial hatred, you know, a
few years back. And because like immediately after the wall
came down, like he he took up with the the NPD,
you know, which is the legacy party of the Socialist Party.
So I mean there you go, and like people like
their Spiegel, which says incredibly stupid things with alarming regularity.
They were like, see this man's insane. He was a
communist and now he's anti Semitic. But it's like anybody
with like a fucking brain, Like it's like we're just
like explicated about you know, uh, why a pro Soviet
disposition is what any like you know, quote unquote neo
fascist would basically you know, be be disposed to. I
mean that's and I that that's I mean that that
it's just a case in point. I mean, it shouldn't
surprise anybody, but I they they were interesting. They were
an interesting case and an interesting element within the Cold War.
But that's the good film about him, called The Bottom
Off Complex. I highly recommend it. It's got Bruno gans
and it's Bruno Ganz. He's the guy who played Adolf
Hitler in Dirt Untergang.
Speaker 1: All right, Uh, Muzio Savola over here, five dollars super chat.
What does Thomas think of Stalin's War by McMeekin.
Speaker 2: Have you read it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's shockfull of data and that data is
well sourced. Other than that, I it's it's typical court
history that was written in deliberate uh Houstle dialogue with
uh with Suvarov and Yackham Hoffman, and it came out
at the same time as Hoffman's book Memory Serves. You know,
it's just the the implication. Obviously, somehow the Soviet Union
created the world's first like truly modern like warfare state.
It created like the mightiest war machine the world has
ever seen, arguably will ever see. Yet this was exclusively
for peaceful purposes or for no reason? You know, when
the Germans attacked for no reason because they're evil. I mean,
that's I mean that. I maybe it's just me becoming
cantanker as an old but I think it's just me
becoming a more rigorous and discriminating historical writer and researcher.
Anybody who accepts that conceptual narrative is it taints the
entire rest of their research, even if they're facts and
their data, like the rot data is good and well,
so it's nothing wrong with citing those kinds of sources.
And I'm sure people who dislike me or dislike the
kinds of things that right will turn around and say, like, well,
you know, you're just you're abolishing the fact value distinction
in your own way, and you know you're you're reducing
a history of polemic No, I'm not, But you don't
have to be like pro fascists or anything to accept that.
The Soviet Union was what I just said. It was
the first fully realized warfare state that was totally mobilized
for war. It was animated by a doctrine of revolutionary
warfare and exporting revolution, and it was the single most
powerful military actor on the world stage. On the eve
of Barbarossa. And this is the only way to understand
the Second World War that was, that was the catalyst,
you know, And as any military type will tell you, capabilities,
let alone forces and being are not are never benign.
You know, they only have one purpose, and that is
to wage war. And the capability to weigh. The capability
to wage war equates to power in uh it most
distilled sense and is the currency of politics. That's the
only currency olypics. Everything else is drestling. So I state
that is always such a degree as the Soviet Union was.
Not only is it never tweet be nine, it is
actually the precise opposite.
Speaker 1: So Jmr Cowboy asked, was that the same Red Army
wrangles White Army fought against or.
Speaker 2: A different one.
Speaker 3: What we're talking about the Red Army faction.
Speaker 2: That's what I'll wait and see, but I'm gonna take that.
I'll take a question.
Speaker 1: I'll take a question off of off of Twitter from
under your Europe posts, he said, So, I would like
to hear mention of a James Gregor brought up in
Faces a Janus the possibility that instead of Gorbachev, the
USSR would end up with a version of what basically
could be called Russian fascism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't accept that, and Russia's conceptual pole stars
are totally different. That's why I try to explain to
people when Moscow talks about you know, when when Moscow
calls its enemies Nazis. I mean, first of all, Ukrainians
are are idiots, So I mean they they they'll they'll
run around like slaughtering slobs and the order with some
like crazy jew and claim they're doing it like for
the white race or something, because they're they're fucking crazy
and they're morons. But beyond that, the uh, the Russians
lost thirty million people fighting the Third Reich. So like
they they're they're they call people Nazis and fascists as
like a stand in for enemy. It's not because like
they're they're pink haired, fat girls who are into like lesbianism.
It's not because they're it's not. It's not because they're
like a bunch of crazy Jewish people. It's not. It's
not because you know, they they listen to dead Kennedy's records.
Like it makes conceptual sense the way a kind of
a kind of nationalist authoritarian Russia that would definitely be possible,
but it wouldn't It wouldn't look like it would It
wouldn't look like Mussolini's Italy, did you know, transpose the
twenty first century, and it wouldn't even look like uh,
it wouldn't even look like this, you know, the Syrian
bath rule in Syria. Like it'd be like weirdly Russian.
Its optics would even if only superficially, be very much
bound up with Orthodox Christianity. The uh, the uh. The
military would have disproportionate clout, you know, more than like
you know, the political cast, which would kind of like
neutralize any like truly political projects of an ongoing nature,
you know, Like it'd be it'd be kind of like
it'd be kind of like ten miles wide and like
one inch thick. Okay, Like it's not to say it
be like a weak state, but I'm talking in terms
of like an ideological chalist there just like wouldn't be
much there, Okay. I think Russia is Frankly, I think
when Putin goes, either because he dies or or he
actually finds a successor that you're not in Russia can
live with, That's probably what you're going to have Okay,
but it's not. It's not gonna be it's not gonna
be fascistic in any meaningful way. And it's not it's
not gonna be some weird like Eurasianism like Alexander Dugan
like fantasizes about, like this is not that would have
no currency, you know, and and if there's something like
they had to take off the former Soviet republics in
Central Asia, like the stands to be kind of colloquial
and like dumb about it, like they'd have to be
looking to Moscow for their cues like culturally, politically, and
and and strategically, and they're like not doing that at all,
you know, Like Eurasianism doesn't have any legs, you know,
like it's like something cool that Russians like to talk about,
and that it's like as a thought experiment. It's certainly
like not impossible, but that the Eurasian moment was the
Soviet Union, okay, and like that's gone, it's not ever
coming back.
Speaker 1: Here's another question from Twitter. How brutal was so Vi
occupation of Eastern Europe. It always seemed to me that
Stalin's crimes from the post war era get brushed over
by mainstream historians.
Speaker 3: No, that's a great question. And yeah, I saw that
on my timeline earlier this morning, and it was stuck
in my mind. There were the true true Soviet brutality,
true communist brutality in the Soviet Union as well as
in the states that emulated the Soviet Union reached zenith
and the revolutionary phase. Uh Soviet Union exterminated around ten
million people before a shot was fired in the Second
World War. You know, these were political unreliables, These were
ethnic groups that the regime didn't like. You know, these
were people who, as kind McDonald exhaustively researched and pointed
out in his paper Stalins Willing Executioners, which was very
cleverly returning to serve a Goldhagen. You know, when you
something like seventy percent of the NKVD like direct action
meant was Jewish during like the the the height of
the revolutionary phase. And these people were just like suddenly
account so like people they didn't like, you know, whether
they were Kulos, whether they were like you know, Belarusians,
whether you know, they there were people who you know
a lot of radicalized, very very vicious, you know, Jewish
people under arms didn't like, I mean, this was what
it was was it was neither it was neither truly organized,
nor was it truly scattershot. But that's that's really where
the bodies got stacked up. And there really wasn't there.
There truly was as a rubber conquest documented you know,
a Soviet death camp system. I'm not being colloquial or
using you know, hysterical language or something. They're really brutal aspects,
programmatic aspects. After the Day of Defeat in nineteen forty five,
the uh, then the uh, the American authorities were just
as bad, you know, they uh, they starved out millions
of Germans. Was endemic, you know, and and and and
and and if not encouraged, you know, like just just
tolerated more than tacitly. You know. The the Morgans out
plan in a sense very much was implemented, although not
realized to its full event as a vision owing to
the strategic situation. But I'd say back to your question
and the kind of four corners of it, the uh,
the force population transfers, the literal ethnic cleansing from and
you know of millions of German people from lands that
they had occupied in some cases for a thousand years.
That was very much something Washington encouraged in some ways
participated in the planning of directly, but operationally it was
the Soviet army and and and police who made that happen.
My opinion is that's the most uh kinda that's gone
of the most like that's the strongest example of like
naked brutality. And I mean people will come back and say, like, well,
you know, the the Germans were ethnically cleansing you know, uh,
the Soviet Union, and they were, but it was a
race war, okay, And there's a difference between that sort
of activity underway terrible as it is, it's into a
total war and you know, just perpetuating a programmatic campaign
of ethnic violence after a cessation of hostilities. You know,
there's I I don't really think that the latter can
be justified in any absolute sense. And it's it's not
it's what about ism o. But the Germans did bad
things as any place. And also finally, and I know
nobody asked, but I'm gonna see way my own take. Anyway,
you know, if you're a man of the West, and
if you're pro white and if you want your race
to survive, you even if, even if the Third Wig
was literally the most evil regime that ever existed, you
don't you don't. You don't cheer on the ethnic cleansing
of your own people. I mean, this is this is
uh brass tax stuff, you know, and one doesn't need
to be something of died in the little Machiavellian to
understand aside from that that, uh, you know, politics power,
politics does take place somewhere beyond beyond a good and
evil if you'll allow the overused you know kind of
kind of reference.
Speaker 1: So you've got a question here, what was the deal
with the Rosenbergs. You said you'd talk about them in
one episode, but never got around to it.
Speaker 3: I totally forgot about that. Yeah, no, we can. I
thought about having like just a dedicated like atomic age episode,
you know, like beginning with the proliferation of the bomb
in nineteen forty nine, forty eight, forty nine, you know,
going through the the early Cold War and the New
Look and and you know kind of when when when
every everybody in the national security of Paratus had like
you know, atomic weapons on the brain, like through you know, deatons,
and then finally SDI the Rosenbergs are basically what they
appeared to be. I think, uh, I certainly don't. They
certainly should have been executed. I think, uh, at least
Julius Rosenberg. I think Ethel Rosenberg wasn't like I'm not
I'm not saying she was just like a stupid woman
or something. There's plenty of women, particularly in radical politics
through wherever he's smart and very dangerous. I think Ethel
Rosenberg was not one of those. I think she was
kind of along for the ride. Okay, that doesn't excuse
her whole liability. But Julius Rosenberg, he was kind of
like an Orthodox like Jewish radical. Not Orthodox Jewish, I mean,
like an Orthodox radical who was Jewish. But he I
think I think in some ways though his from what
by from his own testimony, just to his own intimate,
it's not under oath or anything, I believe his notion
was somewhat like that of Chris boys the guy who's
the subject of The Falcon and the Snowman, although Boyce
obviously is a far more sympathetic character. I believe, aside
from Rosenberg's own kind of socialist leanings, he believed in
order for stability to reign you know, the burgening kind
of bipolar system and prevent you know, the honset of
another round of of of of just massive you know,
interstate violence. There would have to be you know, a
true balance of forces between the superpowers, and that can
only be achieved if if, uh if Moscow had the
mom you know. And again, like I said, like I
he didn't say this in open quart or something, or
you know, he didn't he didn't raise us to the judge,
you know, in the hopes that he'd be spared the gallows.
These kinds of things he said to like his friends,
you know, like reading between the lines. H m. That
was why the Rosenbergers became these kinds why the Rosenbergers
became these people who were held out by the usual
suspects that see this, this horrible anti semitic lynching of
these people. That's incredibly weird because they're about the least
sympathetic defendants I can think of. But that's there's like
not really anything there. I mean, it's like Leo Frank,
like like Leo Frank was uh, Leo Leo Frank was
a child molester and a murderer, But like you're supposed
to feel bad that he got lynched, because apparently it
was like terrible that this guy who like victimized the
little kids got lynched. I know, I don't know, I
don't quite understand that, but it's something, uh it goes
to some of the kind of like moral bankruptcy of
the of the people who who come to the defense
of these of these personages and history. Like I'm not,
I'm not saying that like lynching is good. I mean,
he's a frank I mean, I I believe in due
process in a real sense, but I also don't feel
bad if child molesters and people will harm children get killed, Okay,
And anybody who makes it out like this is some terrible,
you know, terrible instance of uh of of of rough justice.
I mean, I'm not, I'm not And I'm not comparing
selling nuclear secrets some listing kids at all, like they
have nothing at all in common, Okay, And I can
easily see myself like Pat passing nuclear secrets, not the ivan,
but uh, you know, and the last man is gonna
sit here and and and I like fucking prissy about
such things. But you know, if there's in the modern
era there's really no clear case of high treason than
what the Rosenberg did and what the Rosenbergs did, except
maybe for the Cambridge five just in terms of they
share kind of like gravity of of of their ongoing espionage.
But yeah, there you go. I realized that was long winded.
But the short answer is like, there's there's nothing there.
It's exactly what it appears to be. You're supposed to
feel bad for Jewish communists for some reason because you know,
any anytime they face consequences, it's because of med anti
Semitism or something.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I just want to remind people that in the pinned
comment and the chat there, you can do super chats
over on entropy. But let's get another question from Twitter.
In one episode, you mentioned the Marine Corps and Air
Force were able to adapt to Vietnam but not the Army.
Speaker 3: Can you elaborate, sure, that's a great question. The Air
Force was interesting and it was very dynamic in that era.
We'll started the Air Force first, okay, they became an
independent service branch. People like Billy Mitchell even before or
you know, the Second World War. I pushed for that because, uh,
there was an understanding that you know Army thinking had
become kind of stagnant, Okay. And also it's just the
Army was not particularly carptible with with with new technology.
They just weren't. That's not a polemical take, that's a fact.
But it's also too it was like the the science
of aviation, and particularly military aviation, it was something everybody
was learning by doing. You know, like when Curtis Lamay
first started flying and you know in the Inner Warriors, Uh,
that's when pilots were still like flying by like visual
sight of like you know, terrestrial land features and things,
you know, and trying to match it up to like
a paper map. Okay. Now, the Earth Force obviously by
uh by the time via but by the time the
real escalation got underway in Vietnam in sixty five, the
UH there was uh, you know, the Air Force. Uh.
They'd been their bread and butter was Strategic Air Command.
And that also is what they owed not just their
lobbying power too, but also there kind of pre eminent
position in in the UH, in the kind of American
defense establishment structure, they were able to pretty rapidly repurpose
to a conventional role. But a conventional role that was Uh,
it was difficult to realize. You know, these arc light bombers,
these BFFD two's, those were those were purpose those were
those were those were purpose to attack with nuclear weapons, okay,
and a strategic capacity switching them to a conventional repurposing
them to a conventional role, you know, in a conflict
like Vietnam where frankly until uh, you know, nineteen seventy two,
you didn't even really have like through combin or of
set piece battles where they could really kind of shine
the fact that they were able to, you know, kind
of wreak so much havoc on uh, the ability of
the North Vietnamese uh, not just reconstitute forces, but you know,
to uh sustain infrastructure, not just command and control, but
you know any any know, all kind of basic infrastructure
relating to the war effort. That's pretty remarkable. And it's
also the uh it was more more naval aviators, but
some air force aviators too. They got engaged over the
battlespace tactically, and uh, Vietnamese pilots are pretty good and
you're obviously we're Soviet pilots like flying sorties too. As
it brought dog fighting back, you know that that's the
all reason why why uh why you know Tagle Air
Command like uh, you know, got got a boom and
that's why. Uh, And that's why in the naval side,
like you know, top gun got created in the first place.
That's what I meant about the Air Force and against
the Marine Corps. The Marines, they were used to doing
more with less just because of the nature of their
missions and deployments. You know. The Small Wars Manual was
uh was written by uh, you know officers and n
c o s who've been fighting in nicaraguall like in
the twenties and things. The Marines better understood how to
like you know that the need for you know kind
of like in the field diplomacy with indigenous elements like
stuff like that. And the the US Army, you know,
after World War Two, it was just like senerally obsessed
with firepower, you know, and like look what they did
in Vietnam. It's like, uh, you know, let's let's show
up as heavy as possible. Let's have guys wearing fatigues
that we don't wearing in the inner German border, you know,
like carrying around like rations and metal tns, you know, uh,
and toting like sixty pounds worth of gear on their
back and like one hundred and ten degree tropical heat.
Like that's not I mean that that's the whole thing's absurd.
Like Army Special Forces totally shined, you know. But that's
but this was before like SOCOM was like it was
like bros with like goofy beards and sleeved hats who
like think that they're the police or something like. This
was when like these guys were like genuine weirdos who
were like kind of like their own branch the military,
and they were really they were really up on some
progressive and dynamic, like tactical doctrines. That's what I meant.
And I think that in the nineteen sixties Army was
actually pretty squared away. Okay, they were very very well
suited to fight Warsaw Pact, but they were not. They
just lacked like operational flexibility in the with that in
a way that was needed. But it's just I mean
the US Army, the US Army had a hell of
a time in the in the Far East. One of
the reasons. I like the way The Thin Red Line,
Like nobody likes that movie, but I think it's a
dope movie that is like love Terrence mal like, but
it's about the US Army in the Pacific and like
nobody thinks about that, and you know it's all about
the Marines and the Navy, and I mean which and
then that's where like a lot of naval and marine
re legends were made. But the U. S R. And
the Pacific was fubar and like uh like in all
kinds of ways, not just because it was view as
the secondary theater, but it's just because like the army
was fucked up, like fighting in Asia, you know, like
and they were, it's they they they were not like
at the command level. I'm not talking about you know,
the guys in the field like doing you know, not
talking with the actual infantry man where game is fucked,
but like the guys making operational decisions. It's like they
didn't it, like didn't compute that. You know, this was
not we're not We're not We're not we're not fighting
Verdun or bellow Wood, you know, just against the against
the jabs. You know, it's not all the same. Yeah,
That's what I'm meant. But I'm not I'm not a
military man, so I mean look at me obviously, okay,
but I I'm sure that military will say, I don't
know what the hell I'm talking about, but I I
mean whatever, Okay, I mean that's that's my position. I
think I can back it up.
Speaker 1: So over here on YouTube Viva Crista re Is, he
has a comment and then a question says, I saw
I saw a B one Lancer flying low over Chicago
the other day. I thought Red Dawn was happening, but
it was just opening It was just opening day for
the Cubs.
Speaker 3: Now they're they're, uh that that aircraft, as you know,
I mean, that was meant. Uh, that was that was
that was meant to go in low, going fast, uh
and strike super hard on targets and in the Soviet
Union with nuclear weapons, it was. It was a bad bitch.
And the B two was the B two. It was
a it's immediate successor. It was a B one on
steroids with stealth capability. Yeah, it's uh, it's a fascinating aircraft.
And the Ivan's answer to that was the backfire, or
what NATO called the backfire. It was, uh, its actual
name is the TUPELIV something. But yeah, no, that's you see, uh,
you see some uh you see some cool aircraft over
orger Chicago game.
Speaker 1: So his question was why was the Soviet Union and
Company so hostile to freemasonry and why was the sentiment
shared with their right Hegelian enemies.
Speaker 3: I'm not an expert on freemasonry at all. What I
do know about it is that uh people on the
right always hated freemasonry, and like in America, Freemasonry like
is nothing and all some people in the commerce are
gonna be like O bullshoot like they wrote everything or whatever,
like there's I can like you have. It wasn't like
fraternal organizations that have way more cloud than is now
than the Freemasons and America, like the Masons are actually
viewed as kind of like lower bougie kind of trashy
stuff here by a lot of people. They are I'm
just telling you what I'm not saying. I think that
I'm telling you that's the way like a lot of
fucking people look at it, especially like social registered types
back when they had clout in Europe as a totally
different story. The uh the Freemasons are reviewed by uh
by by the Third Reich as like Roasta Crucian types,
you know, they're like these fifth columnists, who are you know,
they're degenerate. They're they're they're neither loyal to race, nor king,
nor country nor kin. You know, they're they're they're you know,
they're they're basically, uh, they're basically like a bourgeois fraternal
society that's intrinsically subversive, you know, and that is you know, uh,
these these these people, these people can't be relied upon
because they're only loyalty is to is this kind of
like odd set of beliefs which every reality often is
nothing deeper than kind of cover for uh, you know, ambition,
ambitious social climbers to pretend as if there's you know,
it's some kind of deeper ethos to their you know,
to their convetousness of station and things. Okay, In terms
of the Russians, I don't have a good understanding of
Russian culture at all. I don't readers speak Russian. I Uh,
I think I've got a good understanding of their political
heritage and how their decision making process in war and
peace terms plays out. But I I cannot tell you,
like what the Russian take is on Freemasonry, Like why
the Ivens like viewed them as insidious, like why why
why the Germans viewed them that way? And this proceeded
like the you know, the the national social revolution, but
why why the why the Third Reigen in particular like
viewed them as like a a an undesirable element, Like
that's why there's a dedicated Uh, there's a there's a
dedicated police uh creeple department or directorate, uh, dedicated to
like spying on Freemasons. And like I think in some capacity,
like it endured after the war, like a memory serves
like when, uh, when when the West German when the
Buddhist republic like national police were restructured, and like that's
when like GSG nine became this like badass special ops force.
Like I think I remember reading something like they were
still like spying on Freemasons and fucking with them, and
they made a bunch of people mad, like oh, this
is like you know nuts use some rebooks like godar
you like uh, but yeah, I don't, I don't have
any insight in on that man, Like you'd have to
talk to the Russian fellas in our circles or or
some of the European guys.
Speaker 1: Where was the one of The other questions was, can
you give your opinion of Yuri Besmanoff.
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't really have one because I haven't
I haven't like read enough of his stuff, like what
what uh like specifically like his take on Peristrika and
glass nos or like character or what it's honestly, what's it?
Speaker 1: There's a famous video in nineteen eighty two eighty three
where he he's talking about how it was a Soviets
who subverted the subverted the yeah, the institutions and everything
that basically every.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, he's one of those
guys who he the guys who yeah, the Peristrika deception,
like the guys the same guys who were to that,
like cite him a lot, I don't. The Soviet Union
was basically what it appeared to be man from UH
from especially from President of Onward. I cruised if was
kind of a wild card in like policy terms, I
don't mean like ideological terms, but it I mean like
the the subversion something was coming from Moscow. It UH
in the in the in the in the the labor
movement was UH was truly a national phenomenon with with
political cloud manufacturing economy, the terrestrial manufacturing, like national economics
was the order of the day, you know, really until uh,
until nineteen sixty they're about, Yeah, you better believe that.
Uh you better believe the common term in later common
form they were. They were totally insinuated into that, you know.
And there was major unions that were shot through with
like Soviet influence. Okay, last gas at was like the
Welsh minor strike, so like the Kremlin was pouring a
munch money into those efforts. Okay, But that's the reason why.
And again I view it as a very imperfect signifier
for all kinds of reasons. But I understand why people
about cultural Marxism. Digital Marxist Leninism does not emphasize culture.
Everything is superstructure. It's all labor, it's all production, it's
all capital, you know, it's all it's all how people's
conceptual horizons and social behavior and and and and and
class and cast structuring like derives from labor and production
to schema. You know. So like if you asked, like
even the most radical kind of mark like traditional Marxist
lenin Is in nineteen fifty, if you like ask them
about stuff like homosexuality, or like feminism or like about
race relations. You just like tell you like, none of
that is important, Like these are bourgeois fixations or concerns,
and you know, over to the alienation of of the
of you know, not just the not just the exploited proletariat,
but you know the people who profit from it. You know,
they exist also in debate circumstances and you know, not
not being not being invested in actual like you know,
power processes of production, as humans need to be you know,
to live, you know, psychologically healthy lives. You know, they're
they're drawing upon you know, these these kind of super
structural meaningless like ephemora, like the surrounds, like human life.
These are these things don't matter. Like that's literally what
their take would be, Like they'd have no they have
no interest. They either have no interest and these kinds
of culture aspects that we are so familiar with, or
they'd say, you know, that's just not important. You know, Okay,
it was interesting, maybe it's useful, maybe it can be
exploded to some discreete purpose, but it's just not important.
You know. That's that's the key difference. So when these
Bircher types would talk into the eighties about how like
everything bad that happens is coming from Oscow. I mean,
that was like a fucked up perspective of all kinds
of reasons. And it's just like, I mean not not
sensible and pregnant reasons and obvious ones. But that's also
just like not that is not what like Sowetism was about.
You know, it just wasn't.
Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about talk a little more about
Latin America and how why was the Marxism of Moscow?
Why was the way Moscow ran things ran things so
attractive to so many in Latin America, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, because the whole Marxist Leninist uh, particularly Leninist you
read Lenin's imperialism, the process that he describes like in
today's terms, the legacy of Marxism is is global systems theory,
you know, like a manual Wallerstein kind of stuff. Okay,
even after Marxist Leninism kind of like lost its animating
power and kind of context and much of the world still,
especially kind of some of its successor iterations captured sort
of the the fascination of Latin Americans because it it
very much was contextual error. Okay, like Latin America was
and is kind of this hyper exploited, primitive economic backwater,
you know that's like resource rich in terms of things
like agricultural commodities and not really owing to any kind
of conspiracy, but gowing definitely to kind of structural design.
It remains mired in this kind of primitiveness, you know,
owing to the kind of odd racial dynamics. There's like
this incredibly sharp cast distinction, you know, like there's uh
like pretty much every kind of cliche that uh, you know,
from the Leninists, specifically the Leninist kind of play bulk
of history that's described, uh that describes capitalism and punitive terms,
you know, is like very is like plainly evident in
Latin America. Okay, and again not not for conspiratorial reasons,
but for you know, the peculiar and kind of somewhat
tragic heritage of the region. That's why it's it's interesting
you raised that. I was reading the Wilton Center, which
I think is kind of abominable in a lot of ways,
but their archives are very useful and very interesting. When
Bush and Scowcroft Bush forty one obviously, and Baker and
Helmet Coal, you know, we're negotiating with Garbagehew, particularly as
regarded specifically as you know, the art Tree, but generally,
you know, the kind of extancies related to ending the
Cold War, something that Coal and Bush and Scowcroft also
to Gorrishev was like, look like, however, we leave this,
you know, assuming that you know, we can cut terms
on a nuclear weapons, assuming we can come to terms
on you know, a basically complete drawdown and forces and
being in Europe. You know, he's like, we need your
guarantee that your satellites in Latin America are gonna stop
exporting revolution, you know. And obviously they couch this in
like the language of diplomacy and in the language of
of of of American propaganda, you know, like subverting the
democracies in Latin America. But this is very much on
their mind, which is fascinating, and this makes sense. But
that's that's why. And but there's also I mean, like
Latin people's are they're uh, they're they're they're political romantics, man.
You know, I'm not saying that like to make fun
of them or in a negative way, like quite the contrary.
It's like it makes them like effective partisans, you know,
so you're gonna you're gonna be able to get You're
gonna be able to get a bunch of Kubanos. There
are a bunch of Argentines or a bunch of Salvadorans.
You're gonna be able to get them to kind of
export the revolution in a way that you wouldn't a
bunch of North Koreans. Okay, I mean, let's be honest.
I mean it's like all those things. It's like historical
as anthropological, it's it's it's cultural, it's dare I say racial?
I mean that's why.
Speaker 1: Well do you had mentioned before we started going live
that there were a couple of things you might want
to comment on your self.
Speaker 2: Is there anything you uh he wanted to get out there?
Speaker 3: I just yeah, I want to. I want to and
we will deal with this more in a dedicated pass
and more kind of events discussion. But I the degree
of which the uh what people like Bush forty one, Scowcroft, Baker,
Nixon himself, and I mean make mistake like Nixon Platt
a key role in ending the Cold War, like the
vision that they had for world order. Obviously, you know
I don't agree with that vision, but there was something
noble about it and something both pragmatic and uh and
developed about it, the degree to which this was just
utterly sabotaged, deliberately thrown in the trash, so that uh,
you know, we could have you know, we can have
this kind of free for all uh in in these
states like Ukraine, and they can be turned against Russia's
as these kind of like suicide torpedoes, you know, with
the ultimate purpose in mind of you know, ultimately deteriorating
Russia's ability to defend itself from such a text the
point that you know it it Russia can be stript
of its natural wealth and looted. I mean that's incredibly grotesque, man,
Like everything everything about how what developed subsequent term you know,
the bush Baker regime is this grotesque. That's the only
word for it. And it really is. It's it's it's
it literally is criminal, you know, and that should That's
why I get still offended when these idiots like wave
these like Ukrainian flags, like like what they're cheering on,
Like you're you're you're cheering on destruction and mass homicide
literally for no reason, you know, for the profit of
a handful of incredibly evil people, you know, like this,
the fact that anybody can look at that is like
some good thing or that that's like preferable to like
what was accomplished in UH nineteen nine. It's just unconscionable, Okay.
And I realized it's a board of ignorance because these
people don't know anything, but it's that doesn't make it
any less disgusting, you know, And I I behoove people.
I want to do a dedicated Gulf War episode because
that that's a that's a natural kind of like bookend
to the Cold War, not just like in linear terms,
but like in conceptual ones, and that I want people
to understand why I defend Bush forty one a lot.
I don't defend Bush forty one because I like, I
like these fucking Yale assholes, or because like I have
something to common with social registered types. I get tired
of that too. Like I don't like when people call
me like a quote wasp. It's like, look at me, like,
don't be fucking basic. Do I look like a wasp
to you? Like, you know, if I wanted to be
a wasp, which I don't like, I would never ever
be allowed like in their environs. Okay, Like de fact. Uh,
you know, yeah, there is like some sort of like
tribal commonality between people like me and the bushes, but.
Speaker 1: It's I'm gonna I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna out
you right now. But your last name is like Norman dynasty.
Speaker 3: No, I mean that's true. Like, uh, but I I've
got some people in my LEAs were like incredibly like prestigious,
but we're also like unbmolievably fucking trashy.
Speaker 2: Same, it's same, same, But like my point is, like.
Speaker 3: If I showed up at if I showed kinds of
places that like the boishes hang around like, un if
I was like flush of money, like I'd be like
showing the door, even if I was, like even if
I was, you know, if I wasn't you know, like
you know, even if I like got a haircut and
was like behaving myself. I guess that's kind of my point.
But aside from all of that, like you know, we
we we don't need to agree with you know, the
kind of conceptual perspective of like Nixon or forty one.
But these guys were motivated by good intentions, you know,
at least as much as intentions can be good like
in power political manner. And even if they weren't, I mean,
even like let's say let's play Devil's abac and say, oh,
there's nothing good about this and like moral terms, but
it was, it was incredibly ambitious and it was you know,
it was world transforming in a way that is laudable
and for it, you know, the the uh, the kind
of impactful list of things like that I think is
is it represents like a good and its own terms.
And the uh, the fact that that was immediately succeeded
by these like you know, by by these conceptual literates
and and just you know, like like literal like bandits,
you know, say, just just like bandits MAFIOSI, like, you know,
just kind of like the lowest of the low, like uh,
like kind of human carrion animals, eaters of the dead. Literally.
I mean that that's uncomfortable and that's and also it
also I mean it forces a question as to what
you know, what what I mean you know, people people
fought and waging the Cold War. I'm not talking I'm
not talking about these fools in Washington. I mean like
regular guys, you know, and this was this was this
wasn't the time, and you got you got a draft card,
you got forced to do it. You know what we
didn't have like this like Dickhead police department for an army,
you know, like it was you know, like what basically
like all the sacrifices that those guys made, you know, uh,
and they were they were a bunch of white Christian
guys mostly. Uh. That was essentially like completely fucking neutralized
among everything else by this by this kind of like
you know, uh Semitic crusade against you know, Byzantium. But yeah, no, yeah,
this was really great. Man.
Speaker 1: I hope we got one. We got an we got
a lake if you're okay with that. It's from williams
over on Entropy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, would NATO.
Speaker 1: Would NATO have been able to hold West Germany in
a seven days to the Rhine scenario?
Speaker 3: No, I don't think so. No, definitely not. And that's
what that was. That is an interesting point a game
that scenario, like many many times with a couple with
with a couple of different game platforms, and I think
are are basically the variables are the variables they chose
to code and when they code and are basically accurate. No,
the only thing that that that was William Odom's UH
A big concern because UH, the only thing that would
have stopped that onslaught is UH is theater nuclear weapons, Okay,
and to hold UH if to hold UH, to hold
warsaw bag armor and say nineteen eighty five in the
North German plane and the fold the gap. You know,
if you're gonna you're gonna start, You're you had to
start hitting them with miss and Pershing Two's okay, And
what would the Soviets do? You know? UH? Would they like?
Would they escalate, I mean to counter value with salt?
I mean, I don't know. But even if they didn't,
it's like, okay, well, now now the Bones Republic is
is a nuclear battlefield, you know. I mean that's and
that's somewhat pure. But I don't no, I don't think UH,
I don't think no. I they War's up Pact would
have UH War's up pack would have reached UH what
would have reached the Ryan in five to seven days
and UH and and nothing could have stopped them. The
the idea was NATO war planning was like late in
the game. I'm talking like kind of the final literation
of UH of of NATO war gaming was that uh
the UH American, UH, British and UH and Benelux UH
tankers like the British and the Benelux guys, they were
a response for the North German plane like American uh
and like a look like black horses the fold the gap. Basically,
they the idea was that if they could hold warsaw
pack for seventy two hours, NATO could be rapidly reinforced
and uh uh presumably like stage uh you know, a
counter offensive that uh you know, under best of circumstances,
uh would have been able to hold uh the enemy
at the north at the inner German border. But it's
a fascinating question. I highly recommend Russell Stofeley's uh stuff
on UH on NATO and he he gained a lot
of this stuff with a bunch of former Wehrmacht officers.
It's really freaking cool. But yeah, that's a great question, man,
I mean, I love that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Year Robert in the comments as seven days they would
have been in Rotterdam and antwarpon, they would.
Speaker 3: They would have been chilling on the river era like
like whistling rooms.
Speaker 1: All right, man, do your plugs and we'll end this.
We really appreciate I know everyone appreciate this. We got
one hundred and twenty six people watching on a on
a last minute unannounced stream, So.
Speaker 3: No, awesome man, no I I yeah again, sorry man,
like I was feeling probably since the guy, I feel
a lot better now, I feel from you, since I
got back from Lynchburg, and I should have announced, like
check with you if you want to do this sooner,
but I I I'm stoked that I'm stoked that people
were happy with this kind of change in format. It
seemed appropriate. But you can find me on substack at
real Thomas seven seven seven that substack dot com. Probably
most the people who tuned in regularly know that the
channel is on track. I uh, I've been apologizing well
being kind of inerd lately because I've been I've needed
time to get back to people because I was feeling
really shitty. But every like we're on track for like
production and stuff, and a bunch of a bunch of
people been donating to like help explain the process, like
which is awesome. And I mean, like I said, I
included the caveat, like if we raise zero dollars that
is totally fine. Like nobody should feel obligated to you know,
to to to donate, you know, harder in cash, just
for the sake like exciting, like content production, like the
something is important in this world that we do something
is not so important, like our content is not one
of those more important things. But like a bunch of
people have donated and that is that that's like incredible, man,
and that like that just is dope. But don't anyone
ever feel obligated, man, like one hundred percent, Like I'm
not just being like gracious, but we're still on burb app.
I'm gonna disengage as the summer goes on, but right now,
that's right, drop a lot of stuff just kind of
like housekeeping stuff as well as like you know, notifying
people we're doing. It's real all caps R E A
L underscore number seven h m as seven seven seven.
I'm still on t gram. I'm gonna up my t
gram game and get more active there, especially as I
kind of like slide back from Burbap. I'm on Instagram.
I'm TikTok, and TikTok is like fucking retarded, but like
a lady friend of mine, like uh uh she had
the idea that, like I can make some funny TikTok
videos and I'm gonna start like experimenting with that some
and she only takes them to like nuke me for
like you know a number of things. But uh, yeah,
that's where we're at right now, man, and you know,
and then June ninth, uh Unlike some fucking people who
will go a named who like organize like really gay
events where gay things go on, and they like charge
people like fucking half a stack to like go hear
about gay stuff like once a year or so, Like
I just see if people like convenient shytown to hang out.
And like last year, we want to see craft work
and it was fucking awesome. Like this year, we're gonna
go see the murder junkies at Reggie's in on the
South Loop. If you're gonna like scrounge you up like
fifteen dollars and get here, like you can go. It's
like fifteen bucks at the door. But uh, a lot
of people are are excited about that from what I'm
leaning from the feedback. So it's June nights if you
want to go, like save the date, And like I said,
last year, we had a lot of fun, man, and
well will you hang out and stuff too, like before
we enter the show. But that yeah, that's that's all
I got man for Mike Flugs.
Speaker 1: All right, man, I'm gonna stop the recording now and
then uh YouTube afterwards.
Speaker 2: So uh, thanks a lot until the next time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, man.
Speaker 2: I want to thank.
Speaker 1: Everyone on YouTube who showed up to uh at the
last minute, I mean, this was more than we expected
at the last minute. And uh, thank you for the
the couple people who dropped dropped super chats. I really
appreciate that, especially since YouTube has basically taken away all
my monetization and everything.
Speaker 3: So no, that's that's uh yeah, they're they're freaking vultures, man,
But no, this this was great man. Again, thanks thank
some thanks for abiding the kind of change in format.
Just like I said, a lot of people, I mean
not just lately, but like since we started the series
they wanted like a Q and a kind of format,
so I figured that it would this would be like
a good time for it. So yeah, this was this
was great man.