Ukraine, The Beginning Of Cold War II
In Part I, we discussed Russia’s move from a World War II Ally to a self-imposed isolation behind the “Iron Curtain” and how Russia went from friend to enemy. Today, we look at the Second Cold War.
Cold War I
For the next 46 years, the Soviet Union operated under the self-imposed Iron Curtain. Initially designed to keep control over its vast populace, it was seen as an object of paranoia by those of us in the West. We wondered what was happening in this very mysterious country. Only years later would we learn of the starvation and oppression that took place in the USSR, thanks mainly to writers like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He made terms like “Gulag” commonplace and opened our eyes to the evils of Soviet Communism.
A fascinating series occurred during this emerging Cold War, primarily between the USSR and the United States. These events are especially relevant given Russia’s recent Ukraine Special Military Operation (S.M.O.).
The first event was the launch, on October 4, 1957, of the world’s first manufactured earth satellite. Remarkably, it was a Soviet satellite. The United States assumed it had the lead in all rocket and space technology. After all, the U.S. had collected some of the finest rocket scientists in the world when it won the War with Germany. In a program called Operation Paperclip, America brought the cream of the crop of German rocket scientists and engineers to this country. We thought we had an insurmountable lead over the USSR in space and rockets. And now, here were those up-start Soviets beating us.
For three months, most Americans could see the tiny, silver dot over their homes about sunset each evening. It terrified the country. Before this, we thought that we were immune to overseas armies. That our twin oceans, the Atlantic and Pacific, protected us. Here now was vivid evidence that America could be reached by satellite.
The triumph of Sputnik did not go unnoticed by the Junior Senator from Massachusetts, John Kennedy, who was already planning to run for President in the next election. Kennedy recognized that the Soviets were far ahead of where the military establishment claimed. He coined the term “Missile Gap” to explain that Soviet Missile Technology was a real and present threat.
It infuriated the military establishment, especially its former leader, current President Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower was livid that Kennedy would point to any weakness in national defense, especially on Ike’s watch.
To this day, articles suggest that Kennedy exaggerated the threat and that the Soviets did not have the inventory of missiles and rockets that Kennedy implied. They miss the point. Kennedy’s message could be taken to indicate that America faced a genuine challenge, and we needed to wake up to that reality. A message we’ll see later is as accurate today as 60 years ago.
The Iron Curtain Falls
From Stalin’s death until the early 1980s, the USSR had two rulers: Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. (Georgy Malenkov ruled for less than a year and had little impact.) Both were strong leaders who maintained a fierce grip on their people and upheld the Iron Curtain. They also continued to develop the USSR Military into a significant strategic foe.
However, it was notable that Brezhnev’s health declined significantly during his rule’s last years. That would be in 1980 through 1982, at just the time when an audacious American President, Ronald Reagan, was elected. Like Kennedy, Reagan recognized the Soviet threat and proposed to meet it. However, Reagan suggested a new deterrence strategy, unlike the American presidents before him. American military doctrine throughout the Cold War was based on a strategy of “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD). Reagan considered this to be little more than a “suicide pack.”
Reagan proposed a series of missile defense strategies, which the Press dubbed “Star Wars,” after the famous George Lucas film of the same name. Mainstream media and most of Washington considered Reagan’s idea as little more than fantasy. But apparently, the Soviets took Reagan at his word. Then General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, then leader of a failing country, decided that this “Star Wars” challenge was the final straw, that the Soviet Union could not keep up with this increasingly formidable America, and still maintain the USSR’s needed economic growth.
Nearly two years after Reagan left office, the old Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of a failing economy, an overextended government, and the added boost of Reagan’s Star War challenge. America had played to its strengths: a solid manufacturing base that could produce and develop the military force needed to carry through on Reagan’s vision and the technology infrastructure to create such a program.
Cold War II
Post Soviet Russia
As Charles Dickens said, “Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.” So, too, the Soviet Union in 1992 was as dead as dead can be. The former satellite states of Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, East Germany, Albania, and Croatia (formerly part of Yugoslavia) all fled. And more than that, they all became members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the American-centric defense pact.
So, by the early days of 1992, there was little left of a corpse. A mere shadow of the former empire that would henceforth be known as the Russian Federation. A country in dire straights, barely able to keep order across its vast expanses. It is, after all, the world’s largest country by territory, expanding across 11 time zones and bordering 14 other nations. In 1992, Russia was on the dole, relying upon the generosity of the United Nations to feed its population, which was hardly a threat to anyone, much less NATO.
The Iron Curtain had crashed and burned in the most extensive conflagration since World War II. And yet, it had all been accomplished without the loss of life. A quiet implosion that many in the West failed to see. In Churchill’s immortal phrase, an Iron Curtain “…from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic…” ceased to exist in 1992.
At least the eastern half of the Iron Curtain fell. But that likely is not the case for the western half. Throughout the Russo-Ukraine conflict, increasing evidence has emerged that America is implementing a new Iron Curtain.
Shortly after Russian forces crossed over into Ukraine, rumors emerged that the Americans had been operating a series of clandestine Bio-labs in Ukraine. If the Russian troops continued their assault, they would find the labs. At first, the U.S. Government flatly denied that any such Bio-labs existed. However, some internet sleuthing revealed that under the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (C.T.R.) Program, such labs did indeed exist.
Although the U.S. Department of Defense indicated that these labs were in place only to dispose of old Soviet Union bio-weapons, two salient facts remain. First, the labs were operational from 1992 until 2022 (the time of the Russian Invasion), an extraordinarily long period. And secondly, the number of labs increased during that time, from about a dozen immediately after the fall of the USSR in 1992 to an estimated 46 in 2022. In light of these two facts, it would appear that the lab’s mission, far from declining as Soviet stocks were destroyed, kept increasing. Odd.
As suspicions continue to rise about whether the United States is continuing the old Cold War, the New York Times published a blockbuster article that confirms many of our worst fears. The article is entitled “The Spy War: How The C.I.A. Helps Ukraine Fight Putin’s Russia.”
The Times article outlines the increasing role of the C.I.A. and other European Spy Agencies in monitoring Russian activity in Ukraine and worldwide. Ukraine, bordering Russia as it does, provides the perfect outpost for the U.S. and NATO to keep tabs on its neighbor.
We’re not naive to believe that all “spying” is terrible. I think that some monitoring is essential to avoid catastrophic missteps. I wish that we’d had better “spying” when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Had we seen them coming, we might have avoided all-out War.
But as the Times points out, the C.I.A. activities included active targeting of Russian Troops, Ships, and Planes, giving Ukraine real-time positioning, weapons, and troop levels. The Times also implies that the C.I.A. provides overall strategies and battle plans. The question then becomes, is the C.I.A. an active participant in the War? More bluntly, is the U.S. at War with Russia?
Putin’s Strategic Vision
Through these past three decades of Russian history, one man has been the common denominator: Vladimir Putin, the unbreakable thread that has led the nation. The West, and particularly Americans, like to vilify him. He reminds me of some of the best of American corporate leadership. He is a true technocrat who has welded together the divergent elements of a multicultural society into a smooth-operating war machine.
Putin saw firsthand how Ronald Reagan’s formula of a robust manufacturing economy and cutting-edge military technology defeated the old USSR. Like any good manager, Putin has used the best of his opponents’ strategies against them.
Putin took Russia from when food needed to be imported to feed its people to the most significant food exporter in the world. Today, Russian war factories outproduce America’s by a factor as high as ten to one. That’s how many more artillery shells Russia uses compared with Ukraine. Remember, Ukraine shells are the product of all of NATO, which includes much of European and American production combined. Yet Russia still outproduces them all.
When the War began, Russia had little apparent drone technology available. Instead, they imported Drones primarily from North Korea and Iran. Today, Russia has caught up and enjoys an advantage over the NATO/Ukraine forces in drones. There is one unconfirmed report that by early next year, Russia will be producing a drone for each Ukrainian soldier, a frightening thought!
All of this is right out of the American Textbook. Every history written about the Second World War indicates that the power of the American factories was the vital element that turned the tide against Germany and Japan. Production and logistics win wars. The Americans perfected that a generation ago; the Russians are today’s masters.
But there is one Russian development that should have us all concerned. This Ukraine war’s one “super weapon” has out-shown all the rest. Twice in less than 70 years, the United States has woefully misjudged the capability of its most capable opponent. Once again, Russia claimed to have developed a super weapon, a missile capable of reaching a hypersonic speed of Mach 10 (ten times the speed of sound). They named it the Kinzhal Missile. Nonsense, said Washington, hypersonic speed is not possible with today’s technology, and indeed, the Russians can’t produce such a weapon.
Moscow vividly demonstrated that the Kinzhal could meet such speeds, as they used the Kinzhal to destroy not one but at least two of America’s premier anti-missile batteries, the Patriot System. Since 1984, the Patriot system has enjoyed great success in such diverse battlefields as the Gulf War and the Iraqi War. It is the Army’s principal High to Medium Air Defense System and is projected to be used against any Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) that might attack the homeland. The U.S. anticipates using the Patriot System as its principal air defense for the next 16 years.
Those plans may need to be revised.
Russia’s Dominance In The Ukraine War
Despite all the propaganda and spin, the reality is that Russia has demonstrated capabilities that we never thought they possessed in the Ukraine Special Military Operation. They have proven to be a technologically advanced, highly lethal fighting force. Today, Russia stands at the apex of victory, having defeated the Ukrainian Army and the combined resources of the United States and NATO. It’s no small accomplishment.
Yet Washington continues to ignore this reality, pretending that money can substitute for soldiers. Ukraine President Zelensky said they need 500,000 recruits to continue fighting Russia. America’s answer: send them $60 Billion. Unfortunately, the War in Ukraine will be won on the battlefield, not by throwing money at it.
Well, I remember the fear and anxiety that Americans felt as a small satellite, Sputnik, passed over our heads. The Sputnik did not represent a threat to us at about the size of two basketballs, with only a couple of radios. But for Americans, the terror of World War II was still fresh in their minds. The G.I.s returned home only 12 years before. They understood what a threat that little silver ball represented. Suddenly, Russia could send a satellite to our shores, and people literally “freaked out.” Today, we live in a world where a genuine threat exists, yet we seem to ignore it.
Our President is so nonchalant that he hasn’t even picked up the phone to call Vladimir Putin. That is a significant miscalculation. It is well past the time that we engage Russia in diplomatic negotiations to end the War in Ukraine and ease the tensions between the two most significant nuclear powers. Let’s talk before we are missing an aircraft carrier or a city.
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From the Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy:
So let us begin anew — remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
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