Tag Archives: terrorism

FTAC – Reflection – Moscow – Terrorism

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

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Imaginative, Jackson’s movie, but this is more the history I know:

1> http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/05/19/how-putin-became-president/

2> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_and_the_Soviet_Union

3> https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/

4> Definitely not yesterday’s news:

http://thediplomat.com/2017/01/how-russia-may-approach-the-taliban-and-afghanistan-in-2017/

Forget about books and movies. Put on the thinking cap. What comes together for you from well known history and the high-integrity independent press?

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FTAC – Briefly On American Secular Governance

11 Sunday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion

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The Constitution emphasizes equality for all beneath the law and forbids the establishment of a relationship between the state and any church, mosque, synagogue, or other symbol of faith. ALL are free here to practice their faith — in private and at private expense — in a civil and lawful manner.

The United States is a Christian-majority state, but it is not a Christian state by law or even exclusively so within the spirit of its laws. It’s true inheritance may be characterized as “Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian”. To the extent that Islam has borrowed from Judaism and recognized Christianity and in the better aspects of the Qur’an, say those emphasizing freedom of religion (“There is no compulsion”) and integrity (Muhammad’s emphasis speaking the truth), we’re good as a secular humanist society.

If one were to take the coldest view of the political science attending “Allahu Akbar Terrorism”, it would be to note that each attack has naturally promoted traditional patriotic nationalist and religious responses.  “Damned Arabs, damned Muzzies” shouts a part of the public and off it goes to Brexit in one state and resurgent white bread Christianity in another.

The truth about that comfortable extremism — often our own! — may be anchored elsewhere.

Last week, BackChannels noted the data-in-press for Bashar al-Assad’s incubation of ISIS in Syria.

In light of or coinciding with Moscow’s KGB resurrection, BackChannels has promoted note of Soviet Era Russia’s long dalliance with terrorism and the engagement of the same in the agitation and propaganda dimension known as “Active Measures”.

Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan told Al-Monitor, “The Meshaal-Lavrov meeting shows Russia’s interest in the Palestinian cause and comes as a continuation of the periodic meetings held by Hamas with regional and international parties. However, there were no discussions in the meeting regarding the possibility of Russia playing the role of a mediator to reactivate the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, although Lavrov and Meshaal have stressed its importance in general.”

Amer, Adnan Abu.  “Is Russia Hamas’ bridge to global diplomacy?”  Cynthia Milan, Translator.  Al-Monitor, August 24, 2015.

And from whence derived the “Middle East Conflict”?

Have a look at BackChannel’s October 2016 note on “Palestinian KGB”.

This blog also may be searched for “Russia, anti-Semitism” for further enrichment — but as much may return this note to the wisdom of secular governance and its producing for all of its constituents equality under the law and zero, zilch, nada, never ever compulsion to either choose an “official religion” nor feel intimidated in the classroom or anywhere else as regards having by way of choice or legacy a different minority path.

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Lunev’s Little Book – Two Excerpts

02 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Spychology, Russia

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Lunev, Stanislav and Ira Winkler. Through the Eyes of the Enemy: Russia’s highest ranking military defector reveals why Russia is more dangerous than ever. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1998.

What will be a surprise to the American people is that the GRU and KGB had a larger budget for antiwar propaganda in the United States than it did for economic and military support of the Vietnamese.  The antiwar propaganda cost the GRU more than $1 billion, but as history shows, it was a hugely successful campaign and well worth the cost.  The antiwar sentiment created an incredible momentum that greatly weakened the U.S. military.

But our instructors kept stressing that just because the Americans lost did not mean they were in total decline.  America, they sad, was becoming much more aggressive and a danger to civilization because it would have to reassert itself as a world power and avenge its defeat.  For this reason, no matter who or what our targets, we were always to prioritize America. 

p.78-79.

There was also the GRU Special Center for the training of terrorists at GRU headquarters.  The KGB provided financial and communications support to terrorists, but the operational training and support was reserved for the GRU.  The GRU has trained terrorists from almost every country in the world, including Iraq, Libya, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Italy, Germany, Spain, Turkey, and Latin America.  Where no terrorist groups existed in countries inimical to the USSR, the GRU would help to form them, and then provide them the necessary training, funding, and organizational support.  So, for example, while the terrorists involved in the World Trade Center bombing may never have attended the GRU training, the GRU was responsible for the formation of the terrorist group that they belonged to.

p. 81

Wherever one finds oneself as regards the “Open Source Intelligence” (OSI) community and, here on BackChannels, “Political Spychology“, the reading with a jaundiced eye, an appropriate skepticism, serves generally to strengthen claims when it comes to Russia’s Soviet Era intelligence history, its outlook, and its political operations.  For example, elements out of “The Russian Section” of the in-house library keep showing up across volumes compiled independently and over time by numerous authors.

Lunev’s book has a bit of Bondish fun in it, as when he claims to have hitched a ride on the undercarriage of a train across a river to meet a Chinese source (China, for Moscow, had been at the time Enemy Number Two for intelligence trawling) — and never mind his beating up the thieves who greeted him when he rolled off on the opposite bank.

Related Reference

Kuzio, Taras.  “Is Russia a State Sponsor of Terrorism?”  New Eastern Europe, January 22, 2015.

Motyl, Alexander J. “Putin’s Russia as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.”  World Affairs, April 14, 2014.

Orton, Kyle.  “How Russia Manipulates Islamic Terrorism.”  The Syrian Intifada, September 8, 2015.

Schindler, John R.  “Putin’s Support for Europe’s Far-Right Just Turned Lethal.”  Observer, October 27, 2016.

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Arson as Terror – Haifa: Known – Gatlinburg, Tennessee – Under Investigation

30 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, North America, Russia, United States of America

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Update – December 1, 2016

God may have given man imagination for fun —  and we may have given ourselves empiricism to outwit imagination and defend ourselves from our own God-given errors.

Accused of setting the Gatlinburg fires, or at least two of them: Keith Eugene Mann, 49, of Franklin, North Carolina.

http://www.ky3.com/content/news/Death-toll-climbs-to-7-for-wildfires-in-Tennessee-403858096.html – 11/30/2016

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdnc/pr/franklin-nc-man-arrested-federal-arson-charge – 11/30/2016.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article118033648.html – 11/30/2016.

Sorry, Russia; sorry, Mr. Putin — on this one, BackChannels may have been wrong . . . but this is how it may go with “hybrid warfare” and the keeping of kleptocratic fellow travelers like that Ayatollah Khamenei.  With the appearance of a mysterious and large fire in an iconic American setting, one might well be found a little bit . . . touchy.

However, the Charlotte Observer piece wraps up with this note:

Officials have said some of the wildfires in the western part of the state are believed to be the work of arsonists. Gov. Pat McCrory has posted rewards up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of arsonists.

This note will have to be about national security and possibility in light of the “Phantoms of the Cold War” (e.g., Putin’s revival of the KGB, Russia’s behavior in Syria, and the invasion and, for the time being, annexation of Crimea) and the fact that “active measures”, “hybrid warfare”, the long Soviet relationship with terrorism and Moscow’s present inability to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organizations are real things.

Investigators (and armchair adventurers): leave no stone unturned.

Background — It Makes for Good Fiction, But It May Have Applied

Moscow Apartment Bombings

Satter, David.  “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror that Brought Putin to Power.”  National Review, August 17, 2016.

Two Major Fires

Haifa, Israel

Amid warnings from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel will consider arson an act of terrorism, Israeli police have arrested at least 13 people suspected of starting a series of wildfires that have burned around the country for four days . . . .

There is video evidence that the Haifa fire was an act of arson, a spokesman for the Haifa Fire Department told Israel’s Channel 2 Friday.

A blaze Thursday in Zichron Ya’acov, about 20 miles south of Haifa, also was caused by arsonists, Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan said Thursday.

http://www.wnd.com/2016/11/arrests-after-arson-terrorism-in-israel/#4qgbbg4LwUuFTwIy.99

Gatlinburg, Tennessee, USA

gat-prkhqtwcrpav

Google Maps, November 30, 2016.

Officials initially reported additional fire activity near the Park Headquarters area, as well as a spot fire between Elkmont and Newfound Gap Road off of the Sugarland Mountain Trail approximately 1 mile south of the Husky Gap Trail intersection.

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/us/wildfires-lead-to-evacuation-of-gatlinburg/ar-AAkSBHh – 11/29/2016.

The fire that sparked the dozen other blazes was “human-caused,” National Park Service spokeswoman Dana Soehn said, without elaborating.

The blaze is under investigation.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/29/us/gatlinburg-fires/ – 11/30/2016.

Manipulation — “gaslighting” – has long been associated with “malignant narcissism“.

In  the original sense of the word, the narcissist would rearrange his intended victim’s surroundings without the victim’s knowledge, an effort made to drive the same into madness.

For the purposes of political psychology, BackChannels applies the term to the creation of an entire “theater of the real”, i.e., and as with the “Moscow Apartment Bombings” (cited for background at the top of this post), the intent is to produce an event and spectacle designed to promote a political outcome favorable to the actor.

A near example would be that of the fireman-arsonist who sets the fire, so that he may later show up and share in the heroic glory of putting it out.

The disconnections between Moscow, the encouragement of the terrorism produced by others (or Moscow would have refused to meet with PFLP – Nov. 2014) and would have long ago designated Hamas a terrorist organizations — it has so far refused to take that step), may make the discovery of empirical linkage all but impossible — but revisit the “Moscow Apartment Bombings” and then have a look at the almost under-the-radar firebombings of Haifa and, potentially, the fires burning in the mountains in the vicinity of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, one of America’s true heartland locations, Dollywood and all.

Stockholm, Sweden

The Scandinavian country has been plagued with arsonist thugs setting vehicles alight, with hundreds of cars burning out since 2015.

In 2016 alone, more than 70 cars have been destroyed as police struggle to combat the increasing violence and criminal activity in the famously liberal country.

The latest video shows three cars in Hallunda in southern Stockholm engulfed by flames as firefighters battle to put out the blaze.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/738151/Sweden-Stockholm-car-fire-epidemic-rage-no-go-zone – 11/30/2016.

Is the hand of Moscow behind “Islamic Terrorism” in the United States?

Is there a “meta”connection between fires set in Haifa, Gatlinburg, and Stockholm?

BackChannels invites readers to explore its references and sources and weigh for themselves the depth of the presence of the “Phantoms of the Cold War”, if any, in the recent spate of arson with the public as target.

Additional Reference

BackChannels.  “FTAC — ‘How ISIL Developed'”.  November 12, 2016.

BackChannels.  “It’s Not Islam — It’s Moscow.”  July 15, 2016.

Batchelor, Tom.  “Russian spies are influencing major EU decisions.”  Express UK, January 18, 2016.

Collinson, Stephen.  “Why the alleged Russian spy ring matters.”  CNN Politics, January 28, 2015.

McGreal, Chris.  “How Russian spies infiltrated suburban America.”  The Guardian, June 29, 2010.

Orton, Kyle.  “How Russia Manipulates Islamic Terrorism.”  The Syrian Intifada, September 8, 2015.

Staff.  “One-third of about 90 fires caused by arson, police estimate.”  The Times of Israel, November 27, 2016.

Wikipedia.  “Active Measures”.

Wikipedia.  “Illegals Program” (Russian Agents).

Wikipedia.  “Soviet espionage in the United States”.

Wikipedia.  “Spetsnaz” (Russian Sabateur and Special Forces).

Wikipedia.  “Terrorism and the Soviet Union”.

Related News – Updated

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/gatlinburg-officials-a-fire-for-the-history-books/357912872 – 11/30/2016/1347 (time is time first posted for the cited URL).

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/11/what_caused_the_gatlinburg_wil.html – last updated 12/1/2016.

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/12/gatlinburg_fire_update_death_t.html – last updated 12/2/2016.

http://heavy.com/news/2016/11/gatlinburg-tennessee-fire-cause-arson-arrest-arrests-terrorism-isis-al-qaeda-terrorist-israel-fires-ember-bomb-suspect-forest-jihad/ – 11/30/2016.

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FTAC – Israel Not At War With the ‘Arab World’

19 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia

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Well, the Jews are not “fighting the Arab World” — there’s a kind of defamation in that statement.

Israelis are defending themselves from those who wish to annihilate them — and considering who has been friendly toward and paying for Hamas and Hezbollah, well, gosh, it’s just not the Arab world after all.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/10/03/palestinian-kgb/

Moscow-Tehran as an axis appears to want to maintain a common interest in positively medieval political absolutism. Somebody has learned how to make a lot of money (for themselves, their cronies, their lackeys, and their tools) that way.

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/iran/#article/part1

http://Politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-resurrects-the-kgb-moscow-security/

Of course the Arab and Muslim worlds have within them strong anti-Semitic currents, but let’s go back to the 1920s and endemic 19th Century Russian anti-Semitism  and the echoes of other medieval anti-Semitism, the same that compelled Herschel and others to entertain the idea of establishing a Jewish homeland in Israel, and come forward to three distinct aspects in the character of the 1920s: Stalin’s installment in power in Russia as the dominant state in the Soviet Union; the development in the universities of an intellectual path leading to Nazism; and the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood (1928).

All mere coincidence?

Additional Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_and_the_Soviet_Union
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/140328/timmerman-disinformation – 8/7/2013.
http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/the_czars_and_the_jews/
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/protocols.html

The mercurial, paranoid seventy-four-year-old tyrant was certainly capable of ordering the mass deportations. During the Second World War, he removed Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Balkars, ethnic Germans, and Crimean Tatars from their homelands—more than two million Soviet citizens in all. He was no novice, either, when it came to purges and show trials. In the Pravda report, most of the accused “murderers in white smocks” were identified as Jewish and agents of the U.S. and Israel. There were further arrests of Soviet Jews, exemplars of “national and racist chauvinism.” Jews were dismissed from their jobs. They were insulted on the streets, in shops, and on public transportation, according to Arno Lustiger, author of “Stalin and the Jews.”

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/imagining-stalins-plot-to-exile-the-jews – 2/1/2016.

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FTAC – Russian Security State – The Shortest ‘Primer’ Syllabus

11 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Politics, Russia

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Before Donald J. Trump does anything else, he’s going to have to articulate and navigate a position with Putin and a re-medievalized Russian security state.

http://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-resurrects-the-kgb-moscow-security/

https://www.amazon.com/Putins-Kleptocracy-Who-Owns-Russia/dp/1476795207

Americans — Far Left, Far Left, Down the Middle, I don’t care — may need a good review of the Cold War

https://www.amazon.com/Cold-War-New-History/dp/0143038273/

plus familiarity with “Active Measures” and the state’s history in relation to “Disinformation” and “Terrorism”

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/09/counter-russian-disinformation-look-cold-war-tactics/131674/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_and_the_Soviet_Union

Consider it a syllabus.

One day, BackChannels will collect the books around the place and write a 3×5 card for each and by category — there are more volumes in “The Russian Section” than appear online.  Nonetheless, and especially online for readers who arrive, much like the editor, with more curiosity than formal background in foreign affairs, international studies, and political science, there may be greater value in a short list — a short hallways with half a dozen doors — than in a comprehensive one.

In the online environment, such posts are stepping stones — no need to dwell: click on a selection and move on!

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FTAC – Soviet / Post-Soviet ‘Active Measures’ – Elections – Terrorism

08 Tuesday Nov 2016

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The role of the Soviet Union and KGB “Active Measures” — a term of art that may be looked up online — in the amplifying anti-western anti-Semitic animus has been far overlooked by the public focused – by related political manipulation – on Islamic Terrorism. Whether following the timeline from the establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood, the early appearance of Hitlerism, and the Stalin Era or coming forward to the Vietnam War Era or on to this day, you will find the Russian state deeply involved either with the sponsorship of terrorism (see Wikiepedia “Terrorism in the Soviet Era”) or the tolerance of it!

Today, Russia will not condemn Hamas, Hezbollah, or PFLP as terrorist organizations.

Russ-AS-04

Soviet cartoons distributed in the Middle East to leverage “the masses” into the Soviet camp.  This one may date from the early 1970s.

This piece on my blog perhaps needs an update — https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/07/15/ftac-its-not-islam-its-moscow/ — but it’s message remains factual and clear.

When the Soviet Union dissolved 25 years — December 8 (in secret), 25 (public declaration), 26 (Russian tricolor raised above the Kremlin), 1991 — the west may have been both too confident and too eager to establish business and cooperation with the new criminally wild but proto-democratic state, which unbeknownst to the west had already had in place a transition plan to attempt to maintain the architecture and privileges of the Party nomenklatura (reference _Putin’s Kleptocracy_ by Miami University scholar Karen Dawisha).

Vladimir Putin’s complete “pivot” at Syria — not to mention those “little green men” who invaded Crimea — tells of a Russian revanche this time as a feudal, neo-imperial totalitarian and ultra-nationalist state that may manipulate terrorism to suits its ends.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/09/14/isil-groomed-for-a-role-in-assad-vs-the-terrorists/

Pat Condell – what binds Putin, Assad, and Khamenei (to lesser extent Putin and Orban plus Putin and Erdogan) is the shared drive for absolute power, or medieval political absolutism, which might remind us of someone else. The malignant narcissists who become dictators — “different talks — same walk!” — appear to have an affinity for one another. As much would seem to inform the world’s code “Brown” “New Nationalism” and the familiar “Red-Green” alliance of old “comrade networks” and the strident among Muslims.

Thank Moscow for once again driving both Far Right and Far Left extremism — and with that, perhaps also our own division today in the United States. The rancor serves to weaken EU / NATO cohesion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_and_the_Soviet_Union

FTAC -America’s Election and Putin’s Opera – ‘Phantoms of the Soviet’

04 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Russia

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For the “Kingdom”, al-Qaeda and others represent challenges to royal authority. In that too much takes place “behind the curtains” in the medieval states, it’s hard to defend the whole “family”, but certainly the official position has for some time been one of enmity toward the Brotherhood umbrella. Basically: we’re not at war with Saudi Arabia.

Another approach to the same matter would stem from my pet peeves with Soviet / post-Soviet political manipulation and Moscow’s history of encouragement for terrorism going back to the 1920s and forward to the grand old time had in the 1970s with the PFLP and so many others aligned or working with winks from the Soviet enterprise. Today, of course, Hezbollah is in Syria fighting on behalf of Moscow, Damascus, and Tehran; Hamas remains okey dokey as far as Mikhail Bogdanov is concerned, and as often noted in my tout for Back-Channels, ISIL itself may unwitting serve Moscow-Damascus-Tehran by having been less bombed and combated than western-associated rebel organizations and Syrian noncombatants throughout the earlier years of that civil war.

Given my take on Putin’s world, which is turning out fairly awful by humanist standards, much less western ones, Trump’s earlier relationship with Paul Manafort and what he has going today with Sergei Millian — http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-suffers-bout-russian-amnesia/story?id=42325517 — should be as troubling to the public as Hillary Clinton’s taking of tribute in relation shepherding law and policy.

Things are never so simple as they may look, but the public may look twice — and needs to look twice — online to better comprehend true states of affairs.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/04/ftac-trumps-entanglements/

The thing to really keep in mind on Trump vs Clinton | Moscow is Putin’s timing between the dissolving of the Soviet Union 25 years ago and his transforming the nascent democracy into a fascistic ultra-nationalist enterprise. Syria may be turning out one of those “hinges of history”, and the American position should be to lay to rest the barbarism and totalitarianism represented through Putin today in Syria and other phantoms associated with Soviet behavior.

Hypothesizing with a Crayon

When the Soviet dissolved, western businessmen and diplomats may have been quick to get in (early) and forgive.  The general lawlessness of the stateless state then quickly dampened that enthusiasm but not the hope for the development of a capitalist open democracy with a modern approach to law.  Blame Berezovsky — who would come to blame himself — but that’s not how things developed even though the thaw produced unprecedented cooperation in the Moscow-Washington relationship.

We are today in a different place, and Syria and Crimea may stand signal of exactly where that is in political time.

The response within the Awesome Conversation began with a rejection of official Saudi collusion in events leading to 9/11.

As the Kingdom regards itself as the truest authority on Islam and with that the imprimatur to rule by divine right, the Brotherhood organizations may be regarded primarily as challengers to the authority of the royals.  As noted, much may go on “behind the curtains” or just plain out of sight.

By far, in any case, Moscow has long developed the greater track record as regards support for terrorism on general principles, and, to this day, neutral to positive relations with Hamas, Hezbollah, and PFLP, if not others.

In reference below, the reader will find in Andrei Soldatov’s writing for Foreign Policy a recap of Putin’s most recent reconstruction of a KGB-like organization.  Add to Soldatov’s observations the demonstration of a merciless barbarism in Syria — long commented on by this blog — and an aggression, as unjustified as it has been plain sneaky, exhibited in Crimea.  Credit such handiwork to the “phantoms of the Soviet” brought back to life by none other than Putin.

Related Reference

Fox, Wesley.  “The new Russian MGB looks a lot like the KGB–coups included.”  American Enterprise Institute, October 4, 2016.

Since Peter the Great, Russia demonstrated a highly selective approach to utilizing the European experience in various fields. For more than three centuries Russian rulers from the Romanov’s dynasty to Politburo members, tried to borrow from Europe the needed technologies, experts and managerial models without importing European social and political practices. This approach produced mixed results: the Russian modernization trajectory had its historic highs and lows; it was constantly criticized from both liberal and conservative sides, but in most cases it reflected an attempt by the authorities to keep a delicate balance between the urgent economic needs and the commitment to a political and social status quo.

Kortunov, Andrey.  “Seven Phantoms of the Russia’s Policy Toward the European Union.”  Russian International Affairs Council, April 6, 2016.

The KGB, it should be remembered, was not a traditional security service in the Western sense — that is, an agency charged with protecting the interests of a country and its citizens. Its primary task was protecting the regime. Its activities included hunting down spies and dissidents and supervising media, sports, and even the church. It ran operations both inside and outside the country, but in both spheres the main task was always to protect the interests of whoever currently resided in the Kremlin. With this new agency, we’re seeing a return to form — one that’s been a long time in the making.

Soldatov, Andrei.  “Putin Has Finally Reincarnated the KGB.”  Foreign Policy, September 21, 2016.

Whitmore, Brian.  “Power Vertical Podcast: Putin’s Sword and Shield”.  RFE/RL, September 23, 2016.

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