Immortal Regiment

For those of us who love peace, whether religious, irreligious, or Libertarians, the news lately is discouraging. Recent analyses and articles include:

• Israel Threatens Assad: “If You Continue Allowing Iran To Operate Out Of Syria, It Will Be Your End”
• Military and non-military escalation into nuclear war.
• The Warmakers
• Is Israel Readying for War?
• Netanyahu Calls for War to ‘Stop’ Iran, Says ‘Better Now Than Later’
• Unproven Allegations Against Trump and Putin Are Risking Nuclear War

            Perhaps one bit of good news that dialog continues is this:

• Israel’s Netanyahu to be guest of honour at Russia’s Victory Day Celebration

While I’ve never met or spoken to a Russian on any of these topics face-to-face, thanks to Ron Unz’s site and the kindness of Andrei Martyanov, I was able to address questions and have a dialog with someone knowledgeable, a scholar and a gentleman and an officer, who had the patience to respond to me. I wanted to share some of his responses that are posted on Unz.com. Mr. Martyanov blogs here and his columns on Unz.com can be found here. Even if you are not of a military bent his thoughts are worth hearing and considering. This is his biography from his publisher:

Andrei Martyanov is an expert on Russian military and naval issues. He was born in Baku, USSR in 1963. He graduated from the Kirov Naval Red Banner Academy and served as an officer on the ships and staff position of Soviet Coast Guard through 1990. He took part in the events in the Caucasus which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In mid-1990s he moved to the United States where he currently works as Laboratory Director in a commercial aerospace group. He is a frequent blogger on the US Naval Institute Blog and on Unz.com.

As to my questions, they discuss military escalation, history and civilizational differences between “The West” and Russia. I asked casually, spur of the moment and I think what you see reflects that. The correspondence was over a period of days and posted on Unz.com.

Question: Is there a risk of America starting a war with Russia?

Andrei Martyanov: War is already raging, now it is just the matter of where the next theater of operations will completely open. It could be Ukraine, judging by drunk diatribe of Porky, who, obviously is losing his faculties from stress, or, indeed, it could be Syria. It is difficult to predict where but, one way or another Trump presidency is finished. He is not fit to run the country and I long ago do not view him as some kind of “hostage” of Deep State–he is himself blood and flesh of this very establishment he promised to fight in his desperate desire to get to the highest office. Appointing draft-dodger and coward (with his aggressiveness being an obverse side of him feeling how pathetic he is) Bolton as NSA was the last drop. In fact, combined West’s slide into oblivion of totalitarianism and disintegration, fast–as a result of real war, or relatively slow is unstoppable now. If Russia will be able to control escalation, and there are some signs of that, we may yet live through it.

Question: My concern is an impending war of U.S. and Israel against Iran and what would Russia do? Could that drag us into a major conflict or is Russia focused on Syria?

Andrei Martyanov: Russia can and is already doing a lot with Iran. No doubt Russia can provide military assistance if need be but also, in case of impending attack will be able to deploy some of her Air-Space Forces assets at Iranian airfields. Just one of the possible measures. In fact, Russian combat aircraft already used Iranian airfields during strikes deep into Syria against ISIS targets. Plus, of course, there is simply NO way any Israeli-US force will be able to mount a ground operation against Iran. Just count the number of tunnels at Iranian highway from Bader-Abbas to Tehran and take a look at terrain, the same goes for the approaches from Iraq to Tehran. How can one fight in forested and easily supplied by Caspian Sea East Azerbaijan or Mazendaran is altogether a mystery to me. I am 100% positive that Russian and Iranian representatives DO discuss such contingencies. So, my take on it is that the “War” on Iran may be just air operations and only under the condition that losses in aircraft will be very limited, which, given the latest performance of Syrian AD remains a very doubtful proposition. Unlike in Syria Iran’s Air Defenses boast own (North Korean too) S-300s knock-offs, they also have actual Russian made S-300s, Tor-M2s and the list is really huge. I am sure Russia will have no problems, upon Iran’s request, with providing her Southern Caspian neighbor with necessary systems.

Question: Also, I agree with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts here in this powerful piece he wrote. I am saddened that his perspective is sadly held by only a minority of my fellow Americans. “Forgive them father, for they know not what they do…” Perhaps. And not all of his questions are rhetorical. I know he and The Saker have communicated in the past.

Andrei Martyanov: PCR asks many sensible questions but in real world, especially positioned so closely to conflict between superpowers, the answers are not delivered instantly.

How can it be that the American people are undisturbed by their government’s 17 years of wars based entirely on blatant lies? How can it be that the American people and the Evangelical churches are unmoved by the millions of innocent peoples in seven countries who have been murdered, maimed, orphaned, and displaced by the profit-driven US military/security complex and by the neoconservative ideology in service to Israel?

How can it be that the US media is as effective a propaganda ministry for Washington as the German press was for the Nazis?

How can it be that the European, Canadian, and Australian governments and the citizens of these countries are not ashamed of their participation in these never-ending crimes?

My book is precisely about it. It should be available in electronic version fairly soon, then in paper. A simple answer to PCR questions is this–none of the societies in Anglophone world is shaped by warfare. Watch this May 9 Immortal Regiment March all over Russia–you may get the answer. The problem is deeper than technical or political, it is civilizational, it is cultural.

Question: Are all the world’s leaders literally or figuratively in league with the devil and we peons are being set up for mass murder?

Andrei Martyanov: No. Not all “leaders” are in the league with the devil and there are many objective factors which influence their behavior. Serious historians (I underscore that–serious) study those fundamental laws and most of them (laws) are well-known and represent no secret whatsoever. We simply observe today a collapse of the liberal world-order, including its economic system (aka liberal capitalism, FIRE economy etc.) which doesn’t work (it never did) and for people who know those laws a lot what is happening today is not a secret, all kinds external, outward manifestations such as diplomatic protocols notwithstanding. It is a turbulent time and it is only natural for many people to react to something which is not really that significant. This is apart from the fact that real diplomacy is done behind tightly closed doors.

Question: The majority of Russians (from what I read on the Saker and observe) are not spiritual, but perhaps more of the population [is] than Americans.

Andrei Martyanov: What goes in Russia under the title of “spirituality” (Duhovnost’) is much more complex phenomenon than what it is in the West which is a euphemism for some kind of religiosity. I underscored many times–the way Russian “history” is written and Russian culture is represented in the West, especially in US, it is a parody, a caricature. Russian spirituality is extremely complex and is, obviously, partially anchored in Orthodoxy in which salvation is for Mir (Community) is what matters really in the end. To understand this re-emerging, in new form spirituality, without knowing (I underscore–knowing, not being “informed”) Russia’s 20^th  Century history is impossible. I may only suggest again to watch Immortal Regiment March on May 9. Here are 800,000 marching in Moscow last year. This year they expect 1 million +.

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