Don McAlvany

The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor Special Report

BEWARE OF THE BEAR:
IS RUSSIA RISING FROM THE ASHES?

“War to the hilt between Communism and capitalism is inevitable. Today, of course, we are not strong enough to attack. Our time will come… To win, we shall need the element of surprise. The bourgeoisie will have to be put to sleep. So we shall begin by launching the most spectacular peace movement on record. There will be electrifying overtures and unheard of concession. The capitalist countries, stupid and decadent, will rejoice to cooperate in their own destruction. They will leap at another chance to be friends. As soon as their guard is down, we will smash them with our clenched fist.” – Dimitri Manuilsky, speaking at the Lenin School for Political Warfare in the 1930s.

“Political ‘liberalization’ and ‘democratization’ would follow the general lines of the Czechoslovak rehearsal in 1968. This rehearsal might well have been the kind of political experiment [KGB General] Mironov had in mind as early as 1960. The ‘liberalization’ would be spectacular and impressive. Formal pronouncements might be made about a reduction in the Communist Party’s role; its monopoly would be apparently curtailed. An ostensible separation of powers between the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary might be introduced. The Supreme Soviet would be given greater apparent power and the president and deputies greater apparent independence. The posts of president … and first secretary of the party might well be separated. The KGB would be ‘reformed.’ Dissidents at home would be amnestied; those in exile abroad would be allowed to return, and some would take up positions of leadership in government.” – KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn, New Lies for Old, 1984

“As it turned out, the crisis of August 1991 did not represent the revolutionary turning point that it was portrayed to be. A decisive break with the Soviet system of the past did not occur when the coup attempt collapsed.” – Amy Knight, Spies Without Cloaks: The KGB’s Successors, 1996

“The erosion of NATO [according to Soviet planners ] … would be completed by the withdrawal of the United States from its commitment to the defense of Europe… To this end we envisaged that it might be necessary to dissolve the Warsaw Pact, in which event we had already prepared a web of bilateral defense arrangements, to be supervised by secret committees of Comecon.” – Czech Communist defector General Jan Sejna, We Will Bury You, 1982

“I was waiting for a new general to appear, unlike any other. Or rather, a general who was like the generals I read about in books when I was young. I was waiting… Time passed, and such a general appeared. And soon after his arrival, it became obvious to our whole society how really courageous and highly professional our military people were. This ‘general’ was named Colonel Valdimir Putin.” – Boris Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries, 2000.

“Given the relatively small number of U.S. missile and bomber warheads likely to survive a Russian preemptive strike under START II, if Russia can maintain its Triad of strategic offensive and defensive forces, it will become the preeminent nuclear superpower. The Russian military and senior political officials understand this very well even if the U.S. does not.” – William T. Lee, The ABM Treaty Charade, 1998

INTRODUCTION

Over the past 25 years (with the exception of the past few years) this writer has written more about Communism and Soviet/Chinese strategic expansion plans than any other topic except the economy, the financial system, and South Africa. This writer has long believed that Communism is not dead (i.e., look at Red China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, etc.); that the Cold War is not really over; and that the Communist powers, after a decade or so of pretending to be dead, would come back with a vengeance and threaten the West (and particularly America) with war and destruction.

MIA wrote over a dozen issues in the 1980s and first half of the 1990s about Soviet strategic deception – how the Communists had staged or manufactured the collapse or death of Communism to convince the people and governments of the West that they could massively disarm; that the West would lower its guard, even as the East Bloc intelligence services reorganized under innocuous names and massively infiltrated the West; and that through massive disinformation in the global media they were hiding the Communists’ preparations for war.

This strategic deception campaign was predicted and written about in 1981 (and published in 1984) by Anatoliy Golitsyn, a former Soviet major in the KGB in his book New Lies For Old. In that book, Golitsyn predicted the “staged” fall of Communism; the “collapse” of the Iron Curtain; the rise of such so-called “democratic reformers” as Gorbachev and Yeltsin; and a massive disinformation campaign to convince the West that the Soviet military machine (the largest then and now) had been dismantled.

In return, for this pseudo-collapse of Communism, the Communist leaders believed (according to Golitsyn) that the West would massively disarm. [ED. NOTE: Note the 50% reduction in the U.S. military from 1992 to 2000 under Bill Clinton]; that Western financial aid would pour into Russia; and that Communist intelligence agents could with virtually no resistance infiltrate every nook and cranny of America and the West. [ED. NOTE: Note the Chinese Communist infiltration of America during the Clinton years in the 1990s.]

Golitsyn also predicted that during the so-called collapse of Communism and the period of perestroika (i.e., reorganization) that followed, that America and the Western nations would share much of their military high technology with their “defeated” Communist enemies. Indeed during the Bush Senior and Clinton years this is exactly what happened – we shared most of our nuclear, missile, space, aircraft and other sophisticated military technology with Russia and Red China.

The reality is that Communism is not dead – it merely changed its name, face, organizations and key players. The powerful Communist Party of the Soviet Union is not dead – it merely went underground and runs Russia (along with the KGB and Red Army) from behind the scenes.

The KGB is not dead – it has been renamed and reorganized at least five times over the past 15 years, it is more powerful and widespread than during the pre-collapse era (often operating under the guise of the Russian mafia, business, banking, etc.); and it has infiltrated more KGB agents into America and the West in recent years than during the so-called Cold War period. Some of these operate at or near the pinnacles of power in a number of powerful Western nations including America, England, and France.

The Russian military has not been dismantled. It has been reorganized and downsized with regard to manpower (which can be rebuilt in 12 months) but the Russian military still possesses the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, military aircraft, attack and missile submarines, tanks, artillery, and small arms in the world. And the Russian military has been very busy over the past decade developing and deploying very effective new weapons systems (in spite of Russia’s well-crafted image of being broke and in chaos).

And while the Western nations continue to disarm in this era of peace and prosperity and struggle to maintain their economic/financial equilibrium, Red China, Russia, North Korea and a number of their Communist allies are quietly but aggressively preparing for war.

During World War II we had the emergence of the Axis Powers (i.e., Germany, Japan, Italy) in the 1930s which launched World War II in 1939 and ’41. Today we have a New Axis emerging – including Russia, Red China, North Korea, Vietnam, the radical Islamic states of Iran, Iraq and Syria, and a host of smaller Communist countries including several of the former Soviet states. This New Axis is preparing for war (just as the Axis Powers were during the 1930s) against the West but especially against America.

If they conclude that America’s military decline may reverse under George W. Bush (i.e., that their “window of opportunity” could begin to close) the war could be sooner. It could begin with a North Korean attack on South Korea or a Red Chinese attack on Taiwan. In any case, war could erupt between the New Axis and the so-called New World Order countries (Western Europe, America, Canada, some of Latin America, Japan, Taiwan, etc.).

[ED. NOTE: The following article was written for MIA by J.R. Nyquist, a staff writer for WorldNetDaily and a highly respected geopolitical analyst. This will be the first in a series of articles MIA will publish over the next year or so regarding Russia/Chinese/NewAxis war preparations.]

A. THE SOVIET COLLAPSE WAS A FRAUD

While the West continues to cling to economic optimism, the East prepares for the bursting of the Great Bubble. In the last two years Russia has created and tested a new fighter, a new sniper rifle, a new tank, a new attack helicopter and a new rifle-fired grenade that can knock down a three-story building. According to NATO sources, Russia has recently tested a “vacuum bomb” artillery shell with the firepower of a tactical nuclear warhead.

But why should we worry? The Cold War is over. The Russians are America’s friends, and so are the Chinese. Perhaps you also believe that markets rise forever without crashing, that it is “peace in our time” and that we are living at “the end of history.” Children believe in Santa Claus, but grown men go further. They believe in something called the “New Economy.” They also believe in the new and improved “democratic Russia.”

Several months ago British researcher Christopher Story asked Russian defector Viktor Suvorov what he thought of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Suvorov replied that the collapse was a fraud. Story asked if Suvorov’s contacts in British intelligence understood this. When Suvorov said they did not, Story asked why. “Because they’re stupid,” quipped the Russian defector.

General Jan Sejna was the highest ranking Communist bloc official ever to defect. He fled Communist Czechoslovakia in 1968. In 1982 he wrote a book, We Will Bury You, which said that Moscow had a long-range strategy for defeating the West. “[The] main target of the Strategic Plan is the United States,” wrote Sejna. “…the Plan calls for the isolation of the ‘main enemy’ by the ‘Finlandization’ of Europe; reduction of Western political and economic access to the Third World by establishing… [insurgencies] in areas of importance to the U.S.”

As we look around the world today we find a large Communist insurgency just below Panama, in the nation of Colombia. We also find President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela concluding a military pact with Russia and announcing himself on a visit to Beijing as Latin America’s “second Fidel Castro.” We see South Africa and the Cape Sea route under control of the Communist-dominated ANC, which has consolidated military agreements with Moscow and Beijing. We find the radical Arab and Muslim states of the Middle East being supplied with Russian and Chinese weapons, even as the Middle East threatens to erupt into war.

B. THE SOVIET STRATEGIC PLAN

In 1982, Sejna mentioned oil as a component in Moscow’s long-range plan, stating: “From about 1977, according to the forecasts in the Plan [as it existed in 1967], the new Middle East regimes would respond to our strategy and, through their oil, give us the ability to deliver a paralyzing blow to Capitalism.”

If you are skeptical about the existence of a long-range Kremlin strategy, you are not alone. “One of the basic problems of the West,” wrote Sejna, “is its frequent failure to recognize the existence of any Soviet ‘grand design’ at all.”

Western policy elites refuse to believe in the reality of a Soviet Strategic Plan. Against this skepticism, Sejna wrote: “The Soviet Strategic Plan for the establishment of their ‘Socialism’ worldwide does, without doubt, exist and, however flexible and pragmatic Soviet policy appears, it is essentially directed towards the achievement of the Plan’s objectives – objectives which have been, are and will remain utterly inimical to and subversive of the freedoms enjoyed by the states of the Western world.”

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was typical of those who took the lead in discounting the idea of a Soviet Strategic Plan. “It seems to me more useful,” wrote Kissinger in his memoirs, “to view Soviet strategy as essentially one of ruthless opportunism.” For whatever reason, Kissinger failed to see a larger pattern, an overarching design in Moscow’s policies. This failure has remained with us for three solid decades.

About this failure, Sejna warned: “Those rejecting the concept [of a Soviet Strategic Plan] unwittingly serve Soviet efforts to conceal their objectives and further complicate the process of determining such objectives.”

As it happens, other significant defectors have corroborated Sejna’s testimony about a long-range Kremlin strategy. Ladislav Bittman, former deputy chief of Department D of the Czech Intelligence Service, acknowledged the reality of a long-range Soviet plan. According to Bittman, KGB General Agayants, chief of the KGB’s Disinformation Department, frequently came to Prague in person to ensure the plan was being followed. But the most dramatic testimony about a Communist bloc strategic plan comes from KGB Major Anatoliy Golitsyn, who outlined the Kremlin’s grand deception strategy in his 1984 book, New Lies For Old.

C. GOLITSYN’S PREDICTIONS OF THE GREAT SOVIET DECEPTION

According to Golitsyn, who worked in a KGB think tank during the late 1950s, the Kremlin had developed a long-term policy. In its “final phase,” the policy called for the deceptive liberalization of Eastern Europe and the “exhibition of spurious independence on the part of the regimes in Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland.”

False liberalization and democratization would coincide with radical arms control proposals that would – if adopted – leave the West defenseless to a new and secretly constructed generation of Russian weapons. False liberalization would also mask a new alliance between Russia and China, which Golitsyn said might upset the global balance.

In 1984 Golitsyn predicted the emergence of a liberal Soviet leader. He also predicted the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the disempowerment of the Communist Party Soviet Union, and the liquidation of the Warsaw Pace alliance. “But,” warned Golitsyn, “the ‘liberalization’ would be calculated and deceptive in that it would be introduced from above. It would be carried out by the party through its cells and individual members in government, the Supreme Soviet, the courts, and the electoral machinery and by the KGB through its agents among the intellectuals and scientists.”

According to researcher Mark Riebling, the author of Wedge: The Secret War Between FBI and CIA, Golitsyn made 148 predictions in his 1984 book. By 1993, “139 out of 148 were fulfilled…” This gives Golitsyn an accuracy of almost 94 percent.

In political science, predictions are usually a source of later amusement. Experts are typically wrong. The well-foddered, famous wise ones dismissed Golitsyn in 1984 as “totally inaccurate” if not “demented.” British author Tom Mangold, in his biography of CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton, charged that Golitsyn was mentally ill, falsely alleging that Golitsyn “As a crystal-ball gazer…has been unimpressive.”

The smears and the misrepresentations of historical facts never cease to amaze the careful researcher. One of Golitsyn’s most frequently laughed-at predictions concerned Russia and China. In 1984 Golitsyn wrote: “…in the early stages of the final phase of policy, a Sino-Soviet reconciliation could be expected. It is contemplated and implied by the long-range policy and by strategic disinformation on the split.”

By 1999, thousands of Russian scientists were working in China, helping the People’s Liberation Army develop weapons of mass destruction. Today Russia is selling its latest weapons to China, including modern destroyers, jet fighters and missiles. Since November 1998, Russia and China have openly acknowledged their “strategic partnership.” According to the official Chinese press, this partnership has been developed to “challenge the perceived global dominance of the United States.”

According to Col Stanislav Lunev, a ranking defector from the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff (GRU), the Russians and Chinese have been sharing military intelligence sources since 1992. He also stated in a 1998 interview that a Sino-Russian military alliance could defeat the United States in a future world war.

D. RUSSIAN ALLIANCES AROUND THE GLOBE: THE NEW AXIS

If you look around the globe today you will find numerous areas of danger. Behind every one of these dangers is a line of support running back to China or Russia. In Central Asia, former Soviet structures are being used to support an ongoing war against Afghanistan. In mid-June, leaders from Russia, China and four Central Asian republics gathered in Shanghai for a meeting. According to Chinese officials, the summit aimed at “combating militant Islam.” In other words, the war in Afghanistan will continue. This also dramatically shows that even the war in Afghanistan did not end in 1988. The same goes for the war in Angola, in the Congo, in Colombia, etc. Once again, the Kremlin – or its organized crime surrogates – can be seen supporting Communist governments or Communist rebels in case after case.

If Communism has been discredited in Russia, how could this policy be politically supportable? For that matter, how does “democratic” Russia’s support for Communist China make sense? Or Russia’s renewed alliances with Fidel Castro and Communist Vietnam?

On June 5, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien met in Moscow to declare a new “strategic partnership” between Russia and Vietnam. Last March, Russian president Vladimir Putin traveled to Vietnam specifically to restore close ties between the Soviet-era allies. During that visit, Putin and Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong signed an accord to facilitate military and economic cooperation. “The relations between Vietnam and Russia are based on a very strong foundation,” said Nien, “which has not changed.”

1. NORTH KOREA – Russia has also been strengthening its ties with North Korea. In fact, there were stories out of Korea this May that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il had slipped across the border into China, then into Siberia, for a secret meeting with Russian President Putin and high ranking Chinese officials.

North Korea is of particular concern. During an April 17 military briefing at the George Bush School on the Texas A&M campus, Major Gen. Jerry Humble painted a terrifying picture of North Korea’s military buildup. Speaking before luminaries like former Defense Secretary William Perry, Korean Ambassador Yang Sung-chul, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin, former U.S. Ambassador to China and Korea, James Lilley and Vice Adm. Paul Gaffney, Gen. Humble said that North Korea’s armed forces had grown by 10 percent during the previous year. At the present time, said Humble, the Communists have deployed more than 1.1 million troops, 4,300 tanks, 13,000 artillery tubes and 600 ballistic missiles. Even more alarming, the North Koreans have pushed their forces, including artillery, right up to the DMZ. “These are not defensive positions,” explained Humble.

Debunking the notion that things have settled down in Korea since the summit of last June, Humble said, “Things aren’t always as we see and hear.” Part of Humble’s presentation was entitled “Perceptions vs. Realities.”

Perception: That North Korea no longer poses a threat.

Reality: Kim Jong-il has reinforced his military and increased his capabilities.

“We’re going to defeat this aggression,” said Humble, referring to the possibility that an attack may be imminent. But victory will come at a tremendous cost. He further stated, “there’s some terrible, terrible capabilities on the North Korean side.”

It should also be pointed out that North Korea’s economy collapsed in 1993, but the war machine continued to grow. In fact, the growth has intensified. If the North Koreans lack the resources to feed themselves, how have they managed to put together one of the largest armies on earth, with 5 million reservists ready for action? [ED. NOTE: The same question could be asked regarding Russia.]

2. VENEZUELA – The Russians and Chinese know the answer to this question. In region after region we see that the Communist bloc is coming together again, just as KGB defector Golitsyn predicted. The false collapse of Communism has paved the way for a silent offensive during which new countries have entered the Kremlin fold. Consider Venezuela and its Castro-loving president, Hugo Chavez. While the Chinese grasp at the Panama Canal through front companies, Russia agrees to build weapons factories in Venezuela, just across the border from Colombia’s Communist insurgency.

Chavez is a leftist who masks his love of Marxism in nationalist rhetoric. He is a “man of the people” who supposedly models himself after Simon Bolivar. But in reality, his model is Fidel Castro. Once a week Chavez imitates his Cuban hero by making windy, rambling speeches on national television. Recently he has lamented that his “peaceful revolution” has failed, hinting that a violent revolution may be necessary to solve Venezuelan poverty. Last year Chavez claimed responsibility for the high price of American gasoline. He has shown himself friendly to Communist rebels in at least two Latin American countries, and with the chairmanship of OPEC in his pocket, Chavez became the first world leader to shake Saddam Hussein’s hand since the Gulf War.

In June, Chavez toyed with the idea of declaring a state of emergency to combat corruption and implement reforms. “We are involved in a superhuman effort to make a peaceful revolution without arms,” said Chavez, “but it has been very difficult. I am convinced that if for some reason this attempt to forge a revolution without arms fails, what would come next would be a revolution with arms because that is the only way out that we Venezuelans have.”

These are ominous words coming from an admirer of Fidel Castro. But many pundits and analysts treat Chavez as a joke. For that matter, Castro himself even looks like a clown in his military fatigues. Such clowns, however, have proven themselves quite lethal in the past. And here is a clown whose knife is within reach of our oil jugular.

Venezuela is not the only oil exporting country supported by Moscow. Iran’s president traveled to Moscow in mid-March to conclude a huge arms pact with Russia and to sign a defense treaty. Libya and Iraq have also strengthened their ties to Russia in recent months.

If this were not enough, the Chinese have added to the pressure on the world’s oil lifeline by securing for themselves a major port in western Pakistan which might be used to deploy submarines against the main shipping arteries of the Persian Gulf.

CONCLUSION: The strategic intentions of Russia and China have been signaled in a hundred little ways. By building an alliance of anti-American powers, by arming Communist governments in Africa and Marxist insurgents in Latin America, by aligning with the militant Communist leadership in North Korea and Vietnam, the strategic direction of Moscow’s policies confirm KGB Major Anatoliy Golitsyn’s predictions.

When you contemplate future investments consider the trends we are now seeing. Think of Golitsyn’s prediction in his 1984 book, where he stated, “Before long, the Communist strategists might be persuaded that the balance had swung irreversibly in their favor. In that event they might well decide on a Sino-Soviet ‘reconciliation.’ The scissors strategy would give way to the strategy of ‘one clenched fist.’ At that point the shift in the political and military balance would be plain for all to see.” [End of Nyquist article.]

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The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor edited by Donald S. McAlvany is a monthly analysis of global economic, monetary, and geo-political trends which impact the gold and precious metals markets and is explicitly Christian, conservative, and free-market in its perspective. Information contained herein has been carefully selected from sources believed reliable, but absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed.

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