Martyanov produces plenty of snapshots. For instance, "Russia "without any unnecessary fanfare, launched a complete upgrade of her naval nuclear deterrent with state of the art ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) of the Borey-class (Project 955 and 955A)... This is the program which most Russia 'analysts' were laughing at 10 years ago. They are not laughing any more."
A central tenet of the book is to debunk American military mythology. That must include in-depth reappraisal of World War II and a re-examination of how the Soviet Navy was closing the technological gap with the US Navy already by the mid-1970s, even as it remained "a dedicated sea denial force designed strictly for deterrent." The Soviet Navy, as the Russian Navy today, "was built largely for a single purpose: to prevent a NATO attack on the USSR from the sea."
Moving to the post-USSR era, it's inevitable that Russia had to come up with a concerted strategy to counteract the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's relentlessly moving east -- a clear violation of the (verbal) agreement between George Bush Senior and Mikhail Gorbachev.
And that leads us to the holy of the holies concerning the favorite Beltway mantra, "Russian aggression." Even as Russia "does have the capability to deal major damage to NATO," as Martyanov reminds us, "why would Russia attack or damage European countries which are worth way more for Russia free and prosperous than they would be if damaged and, theoretically, subjugated?"
The book's Chapter 7, titled "The Failure to Come to Grips with the Modern Geopolitical Realignment," brings us back to another game-changing moment: the 2015 Victory Parade in Moscow, with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping sitting next to each other, graphically exposing the worst Zbigniew "Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski nightmare of the "two most powerful Eurasian nations declaring full independence from the American vision of the world."
And then there was Russia's campaign in Syria; on October 7, 2015, six 3M14 Kalibr cruise missiles were launched in intervals of five seconds from the Russian Navy's small missile ships in the Caspian Sea, aimed at Daesh targets in Syria. The USS Theodore Roosevelt and its carrier battle group immediately understood the message -- exiting the Persian Gulf in a flash.
Since then, the message has been amplified: the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, or "the Russian Navy's Pacific zones of responsibility" are becoming "completely closed zones for any adversary."
The lesson from the Kalibr-in-the-Caspian saga, writes Martyanov, is that "for the first time it was openly demonstrated, and the world took note, that the American monopoly on symbols of power was officially broken."
As Martyanov shows how "in both Donbass and especially in Syria, Russia called the American geopolitical and military bluff," there's no question this Syria-Ukraine interconnection -- which I analyzed here -- is the foundation stone of the current "historically unprecedented anti-Russian hysteria in the US."
So the ball -- just like the one offered by Putin to Trump in Helsinki -- is in the United States' court. What Martyanov describes as "the deadly combination of contemporary American elites' ignorance, hubris and desperation," though, cannot be underestimated.
Already during his election campaign, Trump announced multiple times that he would contest the post-Cold War international (dis)order. Helsinki was a graphic demonstration that now Trump's "drain the swamp" faces a massive immovable object, as the swamp will take no prisoners to preserve its trillion-dollar power.
In contrast, Russian diplomacy, as explicitly reaffirmed once again this week by Putin himself, is adamant that anything is permitted when it comes to avoiding Cold War 2.0.
But just in case, Russia's new-generation weapons have now been formally unveiled by the Defense Ministry, and some of them are already operational.
"Pearl Harbor meets Stalingrad"It's crystal clear that President Trump is applying Kissingerian divide-and-rule tactics, trying to reduce Russian political/economic connectivity with the two other Eurasian integration poles, China and Iran.
Still, the swamp cannot possibly contemplate The Big Picture -- as this must-watch conversation between two of the very few Americans who actually know Russia in-depth attests. Professor Stephen Cohen and Professor John Mearsheimer go to the jugular: Nothing can be done when Russophobia is the law of the land.
Over and over again, we must go back to Putin's March 1 speech, which presented the US with what can only be described, writes Martyanov, as "a military-technological Pearl Harbor-meets-Stalingrad."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
6
5
4
