Prologue Sweden

 

That morning, Wednesday, March 24th, 1999, I, a music teacher, was on my way to, lo and behold, teach a lesson in German. The new teaching rules said that teachers must be able to go in and teach a class on any subject. One was expected to watch the students do their private individual studies. It was so that the school would not have to hire substitutes and thereby save money. Yes, nice thought, but students were not interested in it because they wanted a teacher who mastered the subject. Although I had a complete mastery of music, I felt entirely lost here in the German class.

I took a deep breath of courage and entered the hall with steady steps. Then, articulated with attractive labial plosive and booming voice, out came my poor vocabulary of German words from elementary school repertoire without any time to think about it:

 

- Guten Morgen Swedische Jugend!

The students responded with a single voice:

- Guten Morgen Mein Fuhrer!

The boys stood up together like men and made a Hitler salute. Apparently, the girls were not amused and had downturned mouths showing signs of unease and fear.

 

The old German doyen, who at the moment was teaching in the hall next door, opened the door, looked in, smiled sweetly, and then the lesson continued very well. The students studied in silence according to the instructions I gave to them.

After class, I took a break and went to the cafe to have my morning coffee before the next lesson, but it was canceled, and this free time I spent at the coffee table with a delicious cheese sandwich and freshly brewed coffee with a Mazarin pastry and read newspapers. Cafeteria staff turned on the TV, and the news trumpeted that NATO ¹ had just attacked Yugoslavia and Serbia. I now had to reluctantly see something vulgar and distasteful as the American pop singer Mariah Carey, lying lightly dressed on the wing of a B-1 bomber, singing mushily, caressed the wing plate as if it were an erotic object. This nasty process had a dominant-negative impression on me.

 

I will never forget the day when the USA and NATO attacked sovereign Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War without UN Security Council approval.

A Brief History of Russian Geopolitical Development

 

"What a colossus," I say when I look at the Russian Empire map from the 1800s. Then, Alaska still belonged to Russia, although later, it was sold to the USA.

 

On the globe, the dark green areas show the Russian Empire, when it was at its highest, from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. The light green areas show spheres of Russian influence. Wikipedia: The territories that were, at one time or another, part of the Russian Empire. April 22nd, 2011. Graphics: Shadowxfox

The expansion, expansion, and again expansion. The result is necessary to defend the geographically vulnerable European part – the country's core. There is no natural geographical protection in rivers, mountains, or swamps along the borders. People were forced to rely on climate and forests for defense.

But forests only stopped the Mongol riders temporarily. In the early 1200s, the Mongols occupied the Russian more or less independent principalities - remnants of Kievan Rus. Then Russia came to be invaded by the Mongols for the next 250 years.

First, Ivan III (Ivan the Great), in the late 1400s, began the process of consolidation around Moscow. The Russian expansion, mainly north towards the Arctic and the Ural Mountains, accelerates through the constant battles against the invaders.

Ivan IV, nicknamed Ivan the Terrible, fought against Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, and the state of the Teutonic Order in the effort to conquer and secure areas westwards. The expansion of Russia continued southwards to the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, and Grozny. The latter would be a strategic point in the Caucasus during the Chechen Wars after the USSR's dissolution in the late 1900s. They also conquered Siberia with the help of Cossackriders reaching the Pacific Ocean in the mid-1600s under the Romanov dynasty.

In the 1700s, Peter the Great came to the Baltic Sea, and the new capital of Russia, St. Petersburg, was founded. His successor, Catherine II, secured the vulnerable flanks around the Baltics and Ukraine. Thus, through the centuries, Russia had become geopolitically a vast empire that stretched itself from Eastern Europe through the Asian continent to the Pacific and from the Arctic in the north to the Black Sea and Asian deserts in the south.

 

Russia hardly needed to fear any attack from the Arctic in that situation. Nor from Siberia, where the Tien Shan Massif, an offshoot of the Himalayas, provided adequate protection.

The Caspian Sea protected Russia from Iran, and along the border in Central Asia mainly was lowland consisting of deserts that made any attack virtually unfeasible. Apart from a small area at the edge of Afghanistan. A weak point concerning Russia through the ages.

Tsar Cannon in the Kremlin. Watercolor by the author.

The Last Decades of the Soviet Union

 

 

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union). Wikipedia. Graphics: Ssolbergj. March 30th, 2009.

 

The year 1945 marked for Europe, particularly the European part of the Soviet Union, the end of the devastating Second World War.

At the end of the war, Harry Truman, the U.S. President, was ultimately responsible for the mass murder of unarmed civilians on August 6th, 1945, when the USA dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, which abruptly ended the war in the Pacific Ocean area.

The Soviet Union, the biggest single winner in the Second World War and the only power to defeat Nazi Germany in a land war, secured its borders and controlled the Elbe River in eastern Germany. East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Poland were part of the Soviet Union's sphere of influence.

The Baltic States were incorporated into the Soviet Union, and thus the number of republics that the Soviet Union consisted of finally came up to fifteen. So, the open landscape along the North German plateau and Poland, which tempted outsider powers for centuries to attack Russia, was blocked.

The Soviet Union also incorporated a German territory around the former Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) and the southernmost of the Kuril Islands. Even the current situation is looked upon with disapproval by the defeated powers in WW2.

After the war, a long period during the Cold War was characterized by a massive arms race between the two superpowers, the USA and the USSR. It was a heavy burden for the Soviet system wrestling with bureaucracy and inefficiency. Mikhail Gorbachev's ²attempts to reform the Soviet economy and democratize the society resulted in the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26th, 1991.

 

In close contact with the Russian soul

 

In the 1970s, my interest in Russia was aroused, first in music, then in the country. I found the depth, power, and melodic sound of Russian folk music intertwined with the drama of the eternal struggle against invaders that characterized Russian history through the centuries. I started to read Russian. I married Russian, and we had children.

I continued to play the Russian accordion in a balalaika orchestra in Stockholm. Thanks to the orchestra, I had contact with several prominent Russian musicians.

One of them was Dmitri Pokrovsky from Moscow, who devoted his life to recording and popularizing the authentic folk music that still existed in rural areas.

I visited Moscow and met Pokrovsky as often as I could. I sang along with his fellow artists, not just in their rehearsals.

Once Pokrovsky invited me to follow him to a Suzdal concert, a small town with ancient and well-preserved architecture from ancient times. I wanted to join him but did not have a valid visa.

"It will be all right," said Pokrovsky. It was in the 1980s. Stringent rules were in force at the time, with relatively refractory acts from Russian intellectuals.

We went with the whole group of forty people by a private bus from Moscow to Suzdal, and on the way, we stopped to drink tea with piroshky buns. "We will have some coffee at an airport," said Dmitri because nowhere else was it open.

It was a military airport. I realized that when we met two armed guards at the gate. They came into the bus to check passengers, but Pokrovsky, known by the guards, said everything was okay. They did not see me because one of the singers suddenly showed an interest in me. She leaned towards me with a smile and endowed me with a wonderfully relaxed and controlled kiss.

We went through a closely guarded area and came to a building where only soldiers and airmen wore uniforms. Outside the apron, some aircraft were arranged, which I recognized as Mikoyan MiG-25. I had my heart in my mouth because if someone noticed me without my passport, which remained at the hotel, I would indeed have been arrested and deported for life. I was nervous, though I admit it was exciting.

The guards never noticed that a foreigner was in the group; the piroshky tasted excellent, so everything went well. Then, at the Suzdal concert, I was on stage and was honored to sing a song introduction that one singer usually does in Cossack songs.

On another occasion, another balalaika orchestra member and I sang when Pokrovsky gave a concert for the Soviet party elite in a cozy church on the Red Square in Moscow. We sang a Russian Cossack song with a very ancient text that described a beautifully ornate Viking ship. We were greeted with tumultuous applause. But the KGB³ security director in charge of the event got no further appreciation, as I heard later. He was unaware of the uncontrolled foreigners who would perform in front of top party officials! Yes, Pokrovsky knew the art of teasing power. Despite being so popular, he was not allowed to travel out of the country and perform in the rest of the world.

I presented Pokrovsky with the latest Sony Walkman model with high-quality recording - handy on his many trips out to the remote Russian villages where he recorded old songs. He gave me a beautifully decorated single-row accordion—a handmade Saratovskaya Harmonica ⁴ with handmade clocks and carved woodwork. I wondered how I could get the treasure out of the country.

However, my little son was with me on the trip, so I merely put the accordion open in his buggy. When we went through customs at the Sheremetyevo Airport, we were checked by the young woman's customs officer. Unfortunately, she became so distracted by the charming little troll with brown eyes and blond forelock that she did not see or even pay attention to the Saratovskaya harmonica, which swung back and forth behind the loudly babbling toddler where its brass bells rang so beautifully.

On another occasion, I managed to get another rarity home to Sweden – a Viennese accordion - a Viennese harmonica from the 1800s. With Russian character, a so-called B-system, the same as the Norwegians have on their accordion. In Sweden, we have the A-system, such as in Italy.

A Soviet border officer wanted to see the instrument's export permit on the train at the border control near the Finnish border. I had none. I bought the accordion from an antiquarian trader in Moscow and never thought of any receipt. After a brief argument with the officer, I took the accordion in my lap and played a Russian polka with as much power and energy as possible.

The officer smiled and took the accordion from me, and then he played the same polka that I had just played with a passion that I had rarely heard before. I was astonished. But the officer appreciated my musical art too. So, I took the accordion home with me without any permission.

 

I helped some Swedish orchestras buy high-quality musical instruments in the Soviet Union via Vneshposiltorg, Foreign Trade Ministry. As a result, the devices left the country legally without the border officers' negligence or arbitrariness.

But negotiations could be stressful, especially when you were invited to drink vodka, which I once did. I managed to gorge myself on some sandwiches with smoked salmon before vodka with accessories was served. It saved me from falling under the table at the end of the negotiations. A full liter of Pshenichnaya vodka - the best variety I've ever tasted - was served to each participant. When the agreement was secured, I could get back to the taxi on my legs but was unsteady. For most people, it was not so good. Some of them just tumbled to the floor.

The KGB agents took an interest in me, but they were accommodating and polite and mostly wondered what attracted me to Russian music and if I knew Pokrovsky. I also got a lift to the hotel in their curtain-equipped Chaika car. It did not get more dramatic than that.

 

Soviet Union's Last Years

 

Mikhail Gorbachev tried feverishly using glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) to change the Soviet political system to a model similar to the Swedish Social Democratic. How naive can you be? A social structure like the Swedish one was developed under parliamentary forms for almost a century. Did Gorbachev suddenly forget the Western Capitalists needed a split and weak Russia to access its wealth? Russia was indeed made to experience this throughout the 1990s.

The Soviet Union's first and last president was already in the hands of the Western geostrategists. The economy was on the brink of collapse due to the arms race during the Cold War, and the West knew this very well. The United States, during Ronald Reagan's presidency, ⁵ had accepted help from Saudi Arabia to push down the price of oil, which resulted in the Soviet Union becoming insolvent. This situation, providing total press freedom, and establishing free elections in a union, which consisted of many nationalities and had hitherto been governed within the Soviet Communist Party ideology framework, was doomed to failure in advance. Nevertheless, Gorbachev was "rewarded" with the Nobel Peace Prize, which was also a sign that his policies went down well in the West.

In July 1991, Gorbachev traveled to a G7 ⁶meeting and was expected to be welcome there. But instead, Gorbachev made it clear that he would not manage the changes entirely on his authority and took to the parable, "like mountain climbers on one rope can the world countries either climb together up to the top or fall together into the abyss."

But at the G7 meeting, he got word that shock therapy was needed; otherwise, the other G7 countries would "cut the rope and let him fall alone." It was clear already that the West completely duped him. Did he forget that they were striving to access Russia's energy assets? The Soviet Union was in a precarious position now, and Gorbachev was grimly informed of it. Later that year, the Soviet Union asked for debt relief from the World Bank's IMF, whose manager was the American Joseph Stiglitz ⁷ but got a flat refusal. The debts must be paid.

That became the death blow to the Soviet Union and Gorbachev, besides evidence that the Soviet Union had made itself dependent on the West, which had been its main enemy ever since the Russian Revolution of 1917.

According to the Chicago school, Mikhail Gorbachev was forced to interrupt the peaceful democratization process of the Soviet system and go to shock therapy. ⁸It could only be implemented using violence—something the West could conceivably accept. The Economist magazine advocated a Pinochet-like⁹ figure who could replace the sluggish Gorbachev. But who would shoulder Pinochet's role in Russia?

As the President of the Russian Soviet Republic, Boris Yeltsin felt prompted to take on the assignment. But the overall power was still in Gorbachev's hands. However, the Soviet Union crumbled now around Gorbachev when one republic after another declared its independence. As a result of an unsuccessful attempt at democratizing an authoritarian system where no Western-style democracy had ever existed before, it caused a surge in nationalism. An outcome that really ought to have been foreseen by the Soviet strategists.

On August 19th, 1991, a three-day military coup happened in which Gorbachev was under house arrest. Conservative forces in the Communist Party felt he had gone too far with his reforming zeal. During the writing of new Union contracts, he had given the republics too much independence. Nevertheless, Gorbachev refrained from using the Brezhnev doctrine¹⁰ to knock down the independence aspirations. Maybe one reason was the economy could not stand it.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union on January 1st, 1992, the geopolitical situation of Russia is shown above. Blue areas are NATO -countries and orange areas are CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization). Wikipedia: NATO-CSTO members. July 8th, 2010. Graphics: Datastat

On Yeltsin's initiative, Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine signed a union agreement on December 8th, 1991. On December 25th, in Jeffrey Sachs' presence, Yeltsin announced that the Soviet Union no longer existed. On December 26th, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved the next day, and Gorbachev resigned as its president.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia lost its entirely particular geopolitical situation. The North Caucasus remained a part of the Russian Federation, but this sensitive flank could not be considered safe when Armenia and Georgia left.

 

Russia lost its protection in the mountains and deserts of Central Asia and could not effectively monitor any military activity that could threaten its security in the region.

An independent Ukraine and Moldova brought the risk of a hostile invasion to Russia's doorstep, so to speak. Without the Baltic States and Belarus, the buffer against the Baltic Sea and Northern European plateau also disappeared.

 

In this situation now, Boris Yeltsin had total freedom to implement the economic shock therapy according to the Chicago school's version that Western financiers, including IMF and the World Bank, demanded.

The Geo-Strategy of the United States in a Historical Perspective

The USA has an extensive system of waterways that is very impressive. The linked length in kilometers of the United States' river system is longer than that of the rest of the world put together. Moreover, waterborne transport is the most economical since it is ten times cheaper than road transport and half as expensive as the railway. One dares to say that these waterways contributed to the USA later becoming a global world power.

Wikipedia: Map of the course, watershed, and major tributaries of the Mississippi River. February 6th, 2010. Graphics: Jon Platek

The territorial growth of the USA over the years. Can Stock Photo

From the first European colonizers who began to force the Native American Indians out (the continent's population since prehistoric times) to the thirteen British colonies' Declaration of Independence in 1776, the future USA's history journey began. The American territory continued to expand westward across the continent. French-owned Louisiana was purchased in 1803. The other Western areas were conveyed during most of the 19th century by Mexico and Spain. The Western States, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, became part of the USA through agreements with the United Kingdom in 1846. There was a well-thought-out strategy in this, and it was that the United States wanted to secure the whole country from the East to the West Coast and up to the borders with Canada and Mexico. The border district with Mexico has a desert, which forms a natural barrier, and the border with Canada goes through rivers and forests.

The purchase of Alaska was the perfect option to avoid having Russia on the American continent. It could be carried out because the Russians did not consider themselves able to resist Britain's fleet in Alaska's defense. It was purchased from Russia in 1867 for 7 million USD, leasing for 100 years.

Through a historical expansion process from the mid-18th century until 1959, when the United States officially recognized Alaska's statehood in January and then Hawaii later in the year, the United States became what it is today. As a result, American geography is impressive. For example, the whole area around the eastern United States River system in the Mississippi Delta has the world's most considerable contiguous arable land. As a result, the United States has more food surpluses than all the other countries in the world put together. By a significant margin.

Two huge oceans separate the U.S. from Asia and Europe. Hawaii was annexed by political manipulation and supported a coup in 1898. It enabled the USA to ensure any Asian maritime power could not attack it from the sea.

How important Hawaii is strategically is also illustrated by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Naval war in the Pacific against Japan during the Second World War was of the utmost strategic importance for the USA. In connection with Japan's defeat and the expelling of the Japanese from the Republic of the Philippines at the end of 1944, the USA got access to bases in the Philippines' Republic. This island country is an essential strategic gateway to Asia.

In 1898 the USA conducted its first-ever naval war to take over all Spanish overseas possessions, including Cuba. The USA kept Cuba until 1959, then lost it after the Cuban revolution.

In principle, after the Spanish - American War, only one serious threat remained: the British fleet. Great Britain, which in the 18th century had tried to stop the foundation of the USA.

At the beginning of the 2nd World War, the solution came when Nazi Germany blocked the Atlantic with their submarines. Great Britain was forced to focus its entire fleet on combatting the German blockade of the Atlantic Ocean. For this purpose, Britain needed ships, and the Americans were willing to give them around forty destroyers, which were in mothballs in the USA. The USA put a price on providing these ships to the British, and the price was getting nearly all British naval bases under its control in the Western hemisphere. The best naval bases were in Nova Scotia and the Bahamas.

The two world wars caused great destruction for all the European powers involved. With independent economic vitality at home and military forces and colonies in other parts of the world deprived, the European empires collapsed. The USA, however, survived without a single attack against its mainland. Not a single factory was bombed. The USA not only functioned, but the country thrived with the wars in Europe and Asia.

The USA now concentrated its force entirely on consolidating its global position. In principle, all naval forces in the West except the British had been destroyed during the 2nd World War, and the USA now had a golden opportunity to take total control of all the seven oceans.

NATO was founded in 1949, in which all the surviving naval forces after the Second World War joined together under the USA's strategic leadership. The membership of Great Britain, Italy, Iceland, and Norway in NATO guaranteed the American military control over the North Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. All to prevent any European power from comeback as empires that could threaten the USA.

A single attempt by the European powers to test their skill was in the Anglo-French Sinai offensive (Suez crisis) in 1956. Both England and France then found that they lacked the strength to perform marine operations independent of the United States. The European powers failed miserably due to pressure from the USA and the Soviet Union.

The USA went on the offensive regarding the control of the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese Pacific Empire lost its strength to the USA's benefit to Japan's degree under US military protection. An alliance with Australia and New Zealand in 1951 gave the USA control over the South Pacific.

The USA's economic power was founded in 1945 in the so-called Bretton Woods system,¹¹ named after the small town of Bretton Woods in the American State of New Hampshire. The participants at the first meeting were forty-five of the allies during the Second World War, who then tried to figure out how, through economic cooperation, they could prevent any significant economic crises similar to the 1930s depression happening in the future. With its strong financial position and the United Kingdom dependent on large American loans, the USA led the Conference. The Soviet Union was involved in the system's design but did not participate. Sweden did not join either, as it was a neutral country.

The agreement meant that countries were joined to a fixed exchange rate system in which the exchange rate for the currency of each country was established regarding the US dollar. The United States guaranteed a fixed redemption price for the dollar in gold. Later, the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, was formed. The Bretton Woods system was discontinued in 1971. It was after the dollar's exchange rate had, in practice, been floating from 1968 onwards. A vital contributory factor was the United States' extremely costly Vietnam War.

Who Will be Able to Challenge the USA's Global Dominating Position?

The United States controls North America, and its security agreement with Canada and Mexico generally ensures American autocracy. Cuba in the Caribbean is an exception, as well as large parts of South America. But the USA has a naval presence in all of the oceans. It's a must to be able to exercise global power.

The only threat that could come from the South was from a South American power with global ambitions. Such power does not exist today.

What about Africa, then? In the current situation, considering the political and economic problems that many African states are wrestling with, it is hard to imagine an African superstate.

Only two parts of the world outside North America may be a future challenge against the USA's global position. One of them is South America. Its population is mainly scattered along the coasts. The continent also has a river system not far behind the USA. But the Rio de la Plata region is shared by the four powers: Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil. The problem here is that Brazil has a different culture and language. The establishment of a South American super-state is not an issue now, mainly for political reasons.

The second area is Eurasia. However, this part of the world has enormous geographical differences. Here, the varied geography makes the foundation of a global power constellation, which can challenge the USA, very difficult, if not impossible. South Asia is another possibility, but that would be most difficult. It has jungles, deserts, and high mountain passes, preventing forming a cohesive unit that can effectively challenge the USA. Finally, the Ganges River system area and arable land in India are the world's most lush. But the Ganges River is not navigable, and the low productivity, combined with the lack of a navigable river, means the region remains poor and is overpopulated.

In the Middle East, the countries consist mainly of the desert, with the population primarily living along the coasts. The areas are therefore vulnerable to the American Navy. The only parts remaining will be Northern Eurasia, Europe, the former Soviet territories, and China. This part of the world has more agricultural land than North America. Still, it is scattered in three areas: The northern European plateau, the Central Asian steppe, and the Yellow River basin in China. But the river system in Europe is not integrated. Although attempts have been made through the ages, such as channels linking the Volga River, these freeze in winter. These three areas are not connected with an integrated river system. However, there is a potential for some economic/military alliance.

Northern Europe's many navigable rivers make this area the world's second strongest capital region after the United States. Moreover, a combination of European states, China's Yellow River area, and Russia's vast energy resources could effectively counter the American hegemony.

The United States rules by division and negotiates defense agreements with countries that feel physically threatened by their larger neighbors. Therefore the U.S. entered into agreements with Taiwan, which China threatened. An excellent example in Southeast Asia is perhaps South Korea, which feels threatened by North Korea, China's neighboring great power as an ally. Israel has been the U.S. priority for a long time in the Middle East because the country has the entire Muslim world against it. Saudi Arabia enjoys U.S. protection against Iran. The Philippines, the gateway to Asia, feels threatened by China and Japan. This fear is caused by a territorial dispute in the South China Sea, and the U.S. has agreements with both Japan and the Philippines. In Europe, NATO extends close to Russia's western border.

But there is also another critical strategy to keep Eurasia divided, and it is through direct military intervention. Because any marine transportation of goods works out the cheapest, it is valid even for military transport at sea. And with its military dominance of maritime forces, the USA, in principle, intervenes anywhere on the planet.

The USA's repeated intervention in Eurasia aims to prevent a European or Asian power from threatening the United States. The United States intervened in both world wars to prevent Germany from becoming such a power. Then the United States occupied West Germany during the Cold War to counter Soviet domination. It was done with the help of NATO. Even the Korea and Vietnam Wars could be regarded as limiting Soviet hegemony.

Iraq may also be seen from such a perspective. Namely, to prevent the emergence of a new Caliphate under al-Qaeda ¹²leadership. A pan-nationalist coalition that would extend from Morocco to the Philippines. The war in Afghanistan arose to eliminate al-Qaeda leaders. Saudi Arabia and Syria, as well as Iran, have supported al-Qaeda in various ways. The United States lacked the military capacity to attack all three countries simultaneously. However, by striking Iraq, the USA made it clear to the other countries the cost of supporting al-Qaeda.

As a result, these countries changed their policy toward al-Qaeda, and the reestablishment of the new Caliphate seems to be more distant than before currently.

But, engaging in such Eurasian military operations has its weaknesses too. Although the United States can move troops quickly and relatively cheaply by sea, they find themselves precarious when the soldiers arrive. There is insufficient military personnel to control and maintain a military target effectively in most cases. This situation forces the United States to act along with their allies, or preferably, let them take care of the United States' war, which is more or less what happened in the Libyan War recently. Ultimately the United States can use its military as an extra trump card.

It may be noted that during both world wars, the United States did not participate early on but came into the conflict only after about three years, when it looked like some European power would be too dominant. The USA let the fighting countries tire each other out and intervened only when it was clear that someone would be the sole conqueror. In the Second World War, it was the Soviet Union.

The front lines were set up in Western Europe and South Korea during the Cold War, but only in alliances. Using the allies as a tool after the end of the Cold War meant that the United States ensured no regional power that could threaten them would exist for the foreseeable future.

The Comeback of Capitalism to Russia

Boris Yeltsin, the first president of the new Russia, faced economic and political governance. Capitalism would be brought back, and the public funds would be privatized.

Yeltsin was pressed for time. Therefore, he requested parliament, which had helped him to power in the coup attempt, for extraordinary powers to govern Russia for a year by presidential decree. A procedure that would never have been allowed, neither in the United States nor in any other democratic country in the West. He wanted to change Russians' living conditions for the better one during this time and gave generous promises to make Russia one of the world's largest economies. Yeltsin was supported by "the Russian Reformers" led by Yegor Gaidar¹³ , an eager admirer of the liberalism of Milton Friedman¹⁴ and Friedrich von Hayek ¹⁵. In Russia, no planning was needed, they thought, for the capitalist game rules would automatically adapt to the national economy. A whole series of famous Western economists invaded the country, acting as advisers.

However, the problem was that the IMF and the World Bank were reluctant to assist Russia to the same degree that they had offered it to Poland earlier. Jeffrey Sachs, an American economics professor who Yeltsin first hired as a private adviser, was suddenly under the United States' Government influence and adapted his advice according to the United States' intentions.

After this year, when Yeltsin was in practice a dictator, everything went wrong, and the result was that the middle-class Russians lost all their savings. Poverty increased so that a third of the population lived below the poverty line.

Now, Parliament was against Yeltsin. First, they wanted Prime Minister Yegor Gaydar to be dismissed in December 1992. Then, in March 1993, the Parliament demanded that Yeltsin's extra powers are withdrawn and the Constitution be followed. Finally, however, Boris the First, which Yeltsin called himself, proclaimed a state of emergency in this situation.

A few days later, the Constitutional Court in Russia declared that Yeltsin had seriously violated the Constitution on eight points. The Constitution, which he had vowed to follow in his presidency.

Then, Yeltsin decided to hold a referendum asking the people whether they agreed to dissolve the Parliament. Not enough people supported him, but Yeltsin announced that he still had their support. Here Yeltsin conflicted with the democratically elected Parliament.

In this dramatic situation, Yeltsin was fully supported by the United States during the Presidency of Bill Clinton ¹⁶and most Western countries and their mass media. They accused the elected Russian Parliament of being reactionaries and hardened communists.

In 1993, the conflict strengthened when the IMF rejected Parliament since the monetary fund believed that the reforms were not rigorous enough for the IMF's criteria.

The Constitutional Court declared that Yeltsin grossly violated the Constitution; nevertheless, the US president still supported Yeltsin. The US Congress then gave Russia aid of 2.5 billion dollars. Afterward, Yeltsin took the courage to attack the Parliament and dissolved Parliament, including the Constitutional Court.

Can you even imagine that an American president could dissolve Congress? But in the nascent Russian democracy, it went well. The West accepted it, and the United States' foreign minister expressed his support for Yeltsin and Gaidar. Even if the United States commented on the dissolution of the Parliament.

Russia was now a dictatorship with all the democratic institutions wrecked but at the same time supported by the West. But the only organization which was intact was the FSB. ¹⁷So it would play a crucial role in the future.

The sale of large Russian companies for tiny sums of their annual profits began. However, Yeltsin did not fully follow the Chicago School Friedmanism of allowing foreigners to buy up companies. Instead, they were bought up by the future Russian oligarchs who had seized the state properties. But foreigners could invest in the Russian stock market and pull off breathtaking wins from the country at about 2 billion dollars per month for several years.

Yeltsin has narrowly re-elected in 1996 thanks to hundreds of millions of dollars of aid from the oligarchs. But his popularity was too weak, so he needed to do something drastic to strike against the breakaway Chechen Republic. However, this became a fiasco as the Russian troops were not prepared sufficiently. Moreover, Chechnya is located very strategically in the Northern Caucasus. If Russia lost control over this part of the country, especially Grozny, its Caucasus flank would become completely unprotected.

The Asian crisis in 1998 made the Russian economy come entirely to a standstill. First, Yeltsin gave priority to himself and his family members, who became enormously wealthy and got high posts in the private business world. Then, later they sought an explanation as to why the country's transformation had gone so wrong. Jeffrey Sachs was silent, with not even an attempt at an answer. The Swede Anders Åslund, an advisor in Russia, just shook his head and exclaimed, "Corruption, corruption."

But one cannot merely wave aside this enormous failure, where a golden opportunity to help Russia become democratic in the Western-style was lost. Or did one not want to help but instead be a hindrance?

*****

Then, once in 2005, I visited Cyprus and Pano Lefkara, where I spoke with a lady embroidered on their Lefkara tablecloths. Pano Lefkara is well known throughout the world for its beautiful craftsmanship.

While the lady embroidered, she told me that embroidering was like reading history—a timeless pattern. She thought that Cyprus had always been in the hands of empires, and the EU was no exception. She added that the United States was already in decline, to which she was not too sad. And already in elementary schools, she said, they learn that the West wants to split up Russia to control its enormous empire more easily.

It crossed my mind that even this tiny village, which is so beautifully situated up in the foothills of the Troodos Mountains and has been a trading center since the Middle Ages, showed that the United States' advance in the world was not apparent any longer and that Russia was still a tidbit for a capitalism conquest from the outside.

So, one can assume that there were forces that profited from this unsuccessful democratization and the changes in Russia. So, first, reduce the country economically and then perform other geopolitical maneuvers in its split state.

How can anyone imagine that "let go liberalism" with minimal governmental control can work in a geopolitically unstable federation such as Russia was then? During the Soviet era of a tightly controlled, planned economy in a state whose ideology was firmly in line with a Hegel-inspired conservatism within Marxist - the Communist framework, it had to go wrong, and it did, which the West already knew when they started the experiment. The apparent aim was to weaken Russia further geopolitically after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. That was and still is the United States' primary objective.

Since 1991, the Yugoslav Wars have been ongoing in the Balkans, and in 1996 the war in Kosovo began when the Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic brought the army into action against KLA ¹⁸ guerrillas who wanted to separate Kosovo from Serbia. The West and NATO supported the KLA, and after numerous attempts at mediation, talks broke down. In this situation, negotiations with Russia, which opposed the NATO intervention, were also happening. The day before NATO decided, the Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov flew to the United States to go to the United Nations. Still, during the journey, the message went out that the United States and NATO unanimously and unilaterally had decided to attack Yugoslavia and Serbia without the Security Council's approval. It was the first war that NATO became involved in. Then, Yevgeny Primakov complained that there was something wrong with international relations. During the war, Serbia was informed by Viktor Chernomyrdin¹⁹ that "this is a war you cannot win." NATO had been extended only 12 days earlier to include Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The air war did not go as planned, and the United States' F 117 A stealth airplane was shot down by the Serbian Isayev S-125 air defense system of the Soviet model. The predecessor of the S-300 and S-400 systems. When NATO talked about putting troops on the ground, Hungary refused to use its territory to fear the Serb population there.

When NATO forces occupied the Pristina airport, the Russian Spetsnaz, Units²⁰ were there already. It could have started a war between NATO and Russia as a NATO force was ordered to attack the Russians. The officer in charge, however, refused to obey orders. The European NATO commander said that the United States should not come to Europe and start a war once again.

In September 1999, the terrorist attacks against residential buildings in Moscow killed more than 300 people. The former FSB chief, who was now the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, was elected to lead the efforts to combat terrorism in Russia.

His name was Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

Vladimir Putin

 

Vladimir Putin was born on October 7th, 1952, in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, and has received a degree in international law at Leningrad State University. Also, he has a degree in economics.

For five years until the end of the Cold War, he was a colonel in the KGB in former East Germany. In 1998, he was appointed by the Russian President to be the head of the FSB, the successor to the KGB. This appointment was preceded by Putin's work on international relations in St. Petersburg for a few years and later in Boris Yeltsin's administration. On March 29th, 1999, he became the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, only five days after the USA/NATO attacked Yugoslavia.

On August 9th, 1999, Vladimir Putin was appointed as one of three Deputy Prime Ministers. Later that day, after the Government led by Sergei Stepashin was dismissed, Putin was appointed as Acting Prime minister by President Boris Yeltsin. In that respect, Yeltsin announced that he wanted to see Putin as his successor to the Presidency. On the same day, Putin stood as a candidate in the presidential elections in 2000.

 

Acting President Vladimir Putin arrived in Grozny on March 20th, 2000, in a SU-27 fighter aircraft. www.kremlin.ru. The www.kremlin.ru Presidential Press Service.

Putin was not formally associated with any party but promised his support to the newly founded Unity party.²¹

On December 31st, 1999, President Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly, and according to the Constitution, Putin became acting president of the Russian Federation. He celebrated this by visiting the Russian troops in Chechnya.

Yeltsin's resignation brought forward the presidential elections in Russia. The crisis in the Caucasus escalated quickly. Putin's robust handling of the situation increased his popularity, and he was able to easily outmaneuver his rivals: Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov. On March 26th, 2000, Putin won the presidential election in the first round.

 

 

The St. Andrew's Hall in the Kremlin, Moscow, May 7th, 2000. The inauguration of President Vladimir Putin. Mr. Putin takes the oath to the people of Russia. www.kremlin.ru. The Presidential Press Service.