Douglas Valentine is an author who specializes in the study of the CIA. His most famous book – the one that started Valentine on his road to focusing on the notorious intelligence agency – is The Phoenix Program. The title is a reference to the CIA’s program to “neutralize” the Viet Cong and its sympathizers throughout the Vietnamese countryside. His new book is called The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World. The following is a 9-minute clip from a longer video interview with Valentine by Regis Tremblay about the history of the CIA and its operations. This clip focuses on the CIA’s 70-year history of secret operations in Ukraine against the Soviet Union and later the Russian Federation.
Note: I plan to post the entire interview at a later time.
The Covid-19 pandemic has reminded many of us of our vulnerability and mortality. It has also led some to realize that perhaps our nations should cooperate on behalf of the greater good. The world’s two nuclear superpowers, the U.S. and Russia, have both delivered aid to each other over the past six weeks. Moreover, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin released a joint statement honoring the 75th anniversary of the U.S. and Soviet armies meeting up at the bridge over the Elbe River in Germany during WWII, in which both countries allied to defeat Hitler’s Nazi regime.
Many of us who grew up during the subsequent Cold War, with the specter of nuclear annihilation always looming in the background, heaved a sigh of relief when the two superpowers seemed to call a halt in 1989, with several nuclear arms control treaties having been negotiated. As our media and culture moved on to other problems, one might have thought nuclear weapons were no longer a danger.
But, in fact, the U.S. and Russia together still have 1700 nuclear weapons pointed at each other on hair trigger alert. Several scientific studies have indicated that, in addition to killing millions in the immediate aftermath of the explosions, even a limited exchange of these weapons would lead to nuclear winter within a year, wiping out much of our global agriculture and killing billions of people through starvation.
The U.S. unilaterally pulled out of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019. It now appears that the remaining arms control agreement known as New START is in danger of expiring in February, despite Moscow’s repeated announcements that it is ready to renew it without preconditions. Since the U.S. Congress has passed legislation that hamstrings the president in terms of withdrawing some or all of the sanctions as a tool in any negotiations with Russia, it is imperative that the administration agree to the extension of New START, which would require no congressional action.
In response to these setbacks on arms control, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved their doomsday clock to 100 seconds to midnight in January. Later that month, the U.S. deployed its first “usable” low-yield nuke onto a submarine on patrol in the Atlantic. Last month, in response to a U.S. State Department paper suggesting that the fielding of such weapons could help counter Russia and China, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson stated unequivocally that any use of such low-yield nukes against Russia would be met with full retaliation. The Russians have also stated their fear that the deployment of a “missile defense system” in Eastern Europe by Washington has the capability of being used for a potential first strike against it.
Although it’s unlikely that either Washington or Moscow would decide to intentionally start a nuclear war, there is a documented history of accidents and close calls throughout the nuclear era that were averted by a combination of luck and cooler heads prevailing. In current conditions where controversial military exercises by both NATO and Russia occur within short distances of each other, adding “usable” nukes and dubious “defense shields” into the mix presents even greater risks.
With increased tensions and hostility between the nuclear superpowers in recent years – often enabled by sensationalist media reporting and domestic partisan fights – what might happen if a political leader or military officer in Russia had to make a quick decision on how to interpret an early warning system telling them there are incoming nuclear missiles from the U.S.? This actually happened in September of 1983 when Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov received such a message. The message was erroneous, but he couldn’t know that for certain at the time. He technically violated military protocol – and was reprimanded for it – by not reporting the warning up the chain of command, which would have set in motion a retaliatory nuclear strike on the U.S.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, John Kennedy had to deal with hardliners on his national security team who were encouraging escalation in response to the installation of Soviet nuclear missile sites in Cuba. Kennedy opted for a naval blockade rather than an attack on the island. The fact that the Kennedy administration was operating on a mistaken CIA analysis, which had concluded that nuclear warheads had not yet been delivered to Cuba, makes Kennedy’s restraint all the more critical in retrospect. Nikita Khrushchev, who had to keep his own hardliners at bay, also showed restraint when he ordered Soviet ships that were approaching the U.S. blockade to stop. The confrontation ended when Khrushchev accepted a deal conveyed by Robert Kennedy to the Soviet ambassador that, in exchange for Khrushchev withdrawing nuclear weapons systems from Cuba, the U.S. promised not to attack Cuba and to surreptitiously remove nuclear weapons in Turkey on the Soviet border.
During the crisis, both American navy forces and Soviet nuclear submarines were in the Caribbean. At one point, the Americans detonated non-lethal depth charges in the vicinity of the B-59 Soviet submarine. Cut off from communication and believing they were under attack, two officers on the B-59 wanted to fire their nuclear torpedo. But Vasili Arkhipov, the third officer who had to grant permission for the order to be carried out, refused, thereby averting WWIII.
Historians James Blight and Janet Lang, two of the foremost experts on the Cuban Missile Crisis, have calculated that if the crisis were run 100 times with the same conditions, 95 times it would end in nuclear war. How many times will we luck out?
We should all welcome the opening that the pandemic has provided, giving both the U.S. and Russia the opportunity to make cooperative gestures in order to gradually build trust, which could lead to the repair of the tattered safety net we’re currently relying on when it comes to the still profound danger of nuclear weapons.
Classic movie buffs may remember a 1950’s film noir called Sunset Boulevard starring Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond.
Norma is a woman beyond her prime and living in the past. She cannot accept the fact that she is not the beautiful and feted movie star that she was 20+ years before, that no one hangs on her every move anymore, and no more leading roles will be forthcoming – in short, the world has moved on. To push away the pain of this rejection – as well as the courage and effort it would take to rebuild her life on a different basis, she creates an elaborate delusion to live in. Within this delusion – which is enabled by a number of others still in her orbit, namely her butler – Norma has tons of fans who still adore her and Cecil B. DeMille is going to call her any moment to give her a big role.
With the delusion having been set for a long time, everyone must tiptoe around Norma, careful not to upset the charade. They sense to do so would be dangerous. When a ne’er do well writer who has latched on to Norma, played by William Holden, decides he’s had enough of her, he says something very blunt and direct to pierce her delusion during a fight. Norma flips out and shoots him dead. The last scene of the movie is classic, showing just how insane she’s become, still failing to recognize how she has destroyed herself and others.
The final scene of Sunset Boulevard, 1950, Paramount Pictures
As a fan of old movies in general and Sunset Boulevard in particular, I keep coming back to how the psychological profile of Norma Desmond’s character seems so reminiscent of the United States right now – or more precisely the political class that dictates its policies and the narrative used to maintain the illusion. After the end of the Cold War, Washington was the grand dame on the world stage, at the peak of her powers economically and militarily. And she wielded her power without apology for years, becoming entitled to wield it – making demands and bossing others around whom she perceived to be lesser lights.
She’s declining now but doesn’t accept it – continuing to bomb other nations without remorse, assassinating foreign military leaders, sanctioning 1/3 of the world’s population, dotting every corner of the globe with military bases, and engaging in brinksmanship – all while continuing to proclaim her greatness, exceptionalism and indispensability. Other players on the world stage seem to see through the masquerade, but still feel the need to tiptoe around her.
Having a population whose life expectancy is decreasing, an infrastructure that rates a D+ from civil engineers, doesn’t manufacture much of its essential needs, and who can’t even competently handle a public health crisis doesn’t upset the story that America continues to tell herself. Rather than accept her declining stature and use whatever influence she still has to engineer a soft landing domestically and work with the rest of the world toward a multi-polar order that values peaceful co-existence, America seems to have chosen the Norma Desmond path: very entitled, very narcissistic, and dangerously deluded.
The print edition is now available for purchase at Bookshop. Due to the pandemic, Amazon is not making new book titles available in print until further notice.
Here is the book description:
Russia is the world’s other nuclear superpower – the only country that has the ability to wipe the United States off the map within 30 minutes.
With Russia and the U.S. currently having 1,700 nuclear weapons pointed at each other on hair trigger alert, our relationship with Russia is one of the most critical, requiring a rational policy.
In order to conduct a rational foreign policy, we must understand the other country’s point of view. That doesn’t mean one must agree with it, but we must know how Russia perceives its own interests so we can determine what they may be willing to risk or sacrifice on behalf of those perceived interests. It’s also essential to determine areas of common cause and cooperation. Understanding the Russian viewpoint means understanding Russia’s history, geography and culture. The western corporate media – and even some of our alternative media – has a very poor track record in providing this crucial service with respect to many of the nations with whom we’ve already gone to war. The so-called experts they consult often have conflicts of interest, nefarious agendas, and lack an objective understanding of the nation they are speaking about. This has certainly been the case when it comes to reporting on Russia, a country with which the stakes are potentially much higher for the entire world.
This book fills the void left by much of our media in understanding the Russian point of view, which can help us formulate a reasoned policy toward the world’s other nuclear superpower.
Pedestrian thoroughfare in Krasnodar. Photo by Natylie Baldwin, Oct. 2015
As I reported in a previous post, Putin’s announcement in April of quarantines and “work holidays” throughout Russia in response to Covid-19 included promises of these work holidays being paid, along with a package of measures to provide some economic support to Russian households. The economic support included faster and additional payments to families with young children as well as unemployment benefits.
On the May 7th edition of Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman and her team interviewed the New Yorker‘s Moscow correspondent, Joshua Yaffa, who stated that “there frankly haven’t been many [economic safety net] measures at all.” Before I dissect how that statement is misleading, I will acknowledge here that Yaffa’s report on Russia was overall not bad in comparison to a lot of the trash that passes for such in the US/UK media. He did not jump to sensationalist conclusions when asked about the deaths of 3 doctors recently in the country. Additionally, it has been well-established for several years that Russia’s attempted “reforms” of the health care system have often created more problems than they solved in the regions farther out, particularly in terms of access. The results of Russia’s modernization of its health facilities have been uneven. These conditions are, of course, as Yaffa explains, going to make things more difficult during a public health crisis like Covid-19.
But in terms of Yaffa’s claims about economic support, this obviously didn’t line up with my earlier posting, so I checked with a couple of sources in Krasnodar and Crimea as well as another source who is well-informed about Moscow to find out if Russians were still being paid during quarantine, if businesses were getting any assistance from the government to meet payroll, and if unemployment was easily available to those who may have lost their job during this crisis.
I received general confirmation that state workers are being paid their salaries during the quarantine. Private sector workers are in a more complicated situation. There is government assistance for private businesses if they apply, but it has been noted that the demand is heavy. Unemployment is available to those who have lost their jobs at a rate of 19,000 rubles per month in Moscow and 12,000 rubles per month outside of Moscow. In terms of the purchasing power parity breakdown, this comes out to around $758 per month.
There are a few things to keep in mind when looking at these figures. The first is that, according to Jon Hellevig at Awara Group, around 70% of Russians report having enough savings to get them through 1-2 months of a loss of income. Russians also tend to have less personal debt compared to Americans.
Second, the national monthly average salary for Russia in 2018 was $800 per month. That may not sound like much to the average American but the relative cost of living is much cheaper in Russia, with a $1600 monthly salary in Moscow being calculated as equivalent in purchasing power to $6,000 a month in Chicago.
One of my sources in Krasnodar who knows people who have small businesses provided me a description of what he government is offering in terms of asssistance:
They are supposed to get the assistance from the state – that is – get deferred tax payments, postponement of land tax, transport tax, tax on the company property, deferred lease of real estate and land plots in state ownership.
Businesses that are among the industries affected by coronavirus can receive preferential loans. Business owners are supposed to pay monthly salaries to their employees, at least minimum salaries which amount to 12134 (Ru) –equals 150 US dollars). Those business owners who haven’t reduced their personnel may apply to the bank for free loan in order to be able to pay money to the workers. Employees who lost their jobs may apply for the minimum wages as well.
I was further told that small business owners they know do not want to take on loans – even on preferential terms – in the midst of such uncertainty. Many private small business owners are, thus, finding that it makes more sense for them to lay off employees and let those people file for unemployment. The process for filing for unemployment benefits is described as frustrating due to the red tape of having to provide paperwork to prove one has lost their job due to the pandemic. Another obstacle is the fact that many people were employed in the gray economy – in other words, in businesses that aren’t officially registered – or are freelancers. These people are not eligible for unemployment.
My source in Crimea has told me that there are some variations by region, with some state employees there working part-time or being paid partial wages. Certain private sector employees who’ve been affected by the pandemic – such as tourism – are receiving compensation from the government.
Overall, I get the sense that – like in other countries – there is frustration in dealing with the government to access what assistance is available and a sense of insecurity from not knowing how long exactly this unusual situation will last.
In a revelation that surprised even me, the IMF has projected that Russia will now surpass Germany as the largest economy in Europe in terms of purchasing power parity and will be number 5 in the world this year. Something to keep in mind when you encounter the next predictable round – using the Covid-19 crisis – of “Russia is collapsing’ stories from the US/UK media.
