Putin ramping up the ol' Soviet state propaganda again. At least Cold War 2 will be entertaining

Very, very interesting -- thanks for the sift!

I'd love to see more, specifically about the US / Cuba talks and the Pope's involvement. As an atheist, I tend to think of Catholicism / the Pope / organized religion in general as generally having a primarily negative influence on world affairs (Crusades, Inquisition, birth control, anti-condoms, molestation, homophobia, etc.), but negotiating peace and better relations between the US and Cuba is a pretty undeniably positive thing.

I knew Latin American countries were highly Catholic, but I kinda figured that some of the USSR anti-religious stance would have rubbed off on Cuba. I guess maybe it did, but the missile crisis and fall of the Berlin wall / end of the cold war was long enough ago that Cuba has greater freedom to make up their own minds on this sort of thing.

Enough so that perhaps the Pope's involvement was necessary, or at least very helpful, to act as a mediator between the two sides. Props where props are due.

Anyway, all quite interesting.

I'm saying that the F-35 doesn't need to do the job of the A-10 in the same style, because helicopters and drones already fill that loitering style of close air support. And they fill it better than the warthog. Drones loiter better and longer, and helicopters are less vulnerable while having just as much fire power, with the ability to keep enemies suppressed without stopping to turn around and run in again. Helicopters don't even fly that much slower than the A-10 and they have the advantage of being able to stay on the friendly side of the battle-line while firing at the enemy, as well as being able to use terrain as cover.
And fast movers do a better job of delivering bombs.

The warthog was created as a soviet tank killer and hasn't been used in the role ever, since the cold war never became a hot war. It was created in a time where high losses were acceptable. You could argue it was made to fight a war that didn't happen either. But it's been upgraded with all sorts of sensors that are already in helicopters and drones to extend it's role into something it wasn't really designed for in the first place.

I'm not beating up the warthog, it's my 2nd most favourite plane. I've logged some 400+ virtual flying hours in the A-10C in DCS World. I know what every single switch does in the cockpit. And I've dropped thousands of simulated laser and GPS guided bombs, launched thousands of mavericks, and strafed thousands of BMPs. I love the thing really
But it's duties are performed better by a range of modern aircraft now.

Ah the good old days... Like the great depression, two world wars, TV dinners, women's right to vote, racism, the cold war, disco, perms, MTV's The Real World.

What about freedom of speech? That would make for a pretty good day.

FDR didnt decide that. Truman did. Truman was a weakling. He was like a teenage bully who suddenly got unbelievable power. Even Churchill noticed how much he changed and how he always attacked and tried to provoke Stalin.
And that decision wasnt made because of fear of more lost lives. it was made because after Germany was defeated Russia very quickly advanced towards Japan. Truman didnt want want Russia to get a say in Japan at all costs. Yet they knew Japan was willing to surrender, with only one condition: The emperor would not be touched. The Americans didnt even want to accept that single condition. But the funny thing is, they did after the war. The emperor was not touched. But Truman, in his world, was pretty smart. He not only stopped any possibility of the Russians being able to get a part of Japan, he also showed Stalin what a powerful nation the USA has become, and that it should be feared. In reality, it was 2 atom bombs for NOTHING. Those 2 bombs were a huge factor in the start of the cold war, but ultimately it was Truman and the people behind him, who started that war. He always saw an enemy in Russia. He did everything to ensure they would think the USA is their enemy. Yet memos of Stalin and other documents showed clearly that Stalin never wanted a confrontation with the USA and even after the cold war started, he never took an attack on them into consideration.
Its just another chapter in the aggression and chaos the USA spreads on this planet.

Maybe she left out some ingredients she took for granted? I dunno, or it was all just bland ass food built off of post depression/WWII tastebuds. If her grandma was like my grandma, she was born in the depression, all the men in her family went to WWII, Korean War, she's a product of the Cold War, sons in Vietnam, and on and on -- she's had some rough first world problems shaping her from the get go. Poor ass family and then living off grandpa's Navy pay check.

So it may also be a way to make do with very little. My dad has some stories about my grandma feeding him some nasty concoctions and he declares spam no more. Grandma, despite having money now, still makes some gross ass food made out of random cheap things from the grocer. Campbell's + ANYTHING. Spam + ANYTHING. Saltine crackers, baby. That's the story of one of my grandma's at least.

Yeah, somewhere something got confused. My suspicion is that it became more fashionable again and then amongst some groups, they overshot the mark through the sort of one-upmanship you tend to get, particularly among college age political activists. An "I'm a more hardcore feminist than you!" type thing. That's the sort of thing that took some elements of the peace movement during the Vietnam era from basic anti-war/anti Cold war ideals, to militant factions claiming to be communists who supported the North Vietnamese regime and behaving in ways that hurt the overall peace movement (mistreating returning GIs and performing acts of sabotage and terrorism).

It seems you always get this thing with political movements. Groups with mostly but not entirely similar ideals and goals end up expending more effort opposing each other more than on their primary aims.

All that said, though I always understood the feminist movement to be concerned with social equality for all people, I wouldn't necessarily condemn them for being primarily interested in equality for women. They should, of course, be aware and acknowledge that this is just a specialized subset of the "social equality" movement as a whole.

The foreign policy of both Russia and the US is far more motivated by domestic policy than "imperialism" or "cold war tactics".

Putin just needs to appear to be winning. Winning wars, media arguments, just winning anything. Crossword competitions, ice hockey games, fishing, push-ups, literally anything. With not much to be gained in Ukraine quickly, he can switch to helping Assad to quash rebels and appear to fight the IS. Russian air support and logistics will have small losses and big PR gains. Putin is clever so he will avoid direct confrontation with the IS leading to a long stalemate and much destruction, in Iraq mainly.

Obama needs to do stupid unworkable things like "spread democracy", "help Israel no matter what", "broker peace in the middle east" and "support 'friends' of the US, some of them as bad as Assad" - its nearly impossible for him to have a sane middle east policy. There is nothing Obama can do in the short term in Syria. He probably cant reconsider his position on Assad and there is no reasonable path to topple Assad gracefully. Also no direct path to fight IS - Turkey will fight Kurds before fighting IS, Israel has to be careful.

Is Iran the key then? Iran is definitely not to be trusted http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/11903290/Eight-of-Irans-womens-football-team-are-men.html

As I said in that thread, I don't see an incentive for the US to intervene. This isn't the Cold War battle over spheres of influence, neither does oil have the same geopolitical relevance. Despite the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Libya, none has led to a spike in oil prices? Instead it's fallen precipitously. Why, because the US being the swing shale oil producer has capped world prices.

Meanwhile I listed the reasons for Russia to intervene, none of which you have challenged or refuted. TOWs have by all accounts been supplied by the Saudis. I don't think Russia is attempting to destabilize Syria, but they do wish to prop up Assad. Bombing has conveniently been primarily of non-ISIS rebels since they challenge the regime more directly than ISIS which is being bombed already.

Syria includes a litany of rebel groups some as radical as ISIS. From what I have read it is suspected that both the Syrian army and al-Nusra/ISIS used various chemical weapons. The Syrian army has undoubtedly dropped barrel bombs, weapons designed to create indiscriminate collateral damage to civilians just like chemical weapons, it is entirely consistent that they would have also tried using chemical weapons which is practical terms are no less likely to be deadly to civilians or likely to incite terror. There are by all accounts >5,000 different rebel groups in Syria. That you would ascribe them all as wanting chaos would suggest you've been fed a narrative.

A Cold War MAD mindset makes little sense today. Russian bombing of western Europe in some kind of hypothetical retaliation against the US makes no sense in this day and age. In any case it was scrapped because of Putin's paranoia.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I would agree with that. Russia does seem to be maintaining its cold war "sphere of influence" strategy against NATO in trying to maintain a buffer zone. It doesn't seem to make sense in this era, but Putin is an old KGB hand - and I'm sure that's still how he thinks.

There never was an issue about concessions. They always were ready to accept their fate. But even the peace talks before only included the condition that their emperor was left untouched. And thats exactly what the USA gave them later. So not accepting peace with them was a farce from the start, no matter from what side you look at it.

Truman didnt restrain Stalin. Truman provoked Stalin massively, making him think that they would invade Russia next or at least start a war with them, which started the cold war.
The USA was always provoking, especially at the start of the cold war. Theres a well known video on Youtube (prolly even here) that shows exactly where and when nuclear tests happened. It makes perfectly obvious how much the USA provoked the Soviets.

Well, right until Pearl Harbor there were the do-fights and don't-fights. If the anti-war party hadn't been assassinated, ran out and broken, we wouldn't have had to fight Japan at all.

The problem is these people still ruled. Imagine them pressing forward with a nuclear plan (which would have absolutely occurred if they thought they could get away with it.) Interestingly Germany sent material to them to dump on our shores as a sort of nuclear bomb but we intercepted it. It is thought that we used it against Japan, which is hilarious. But I digress.

The point is--even if they planned on surrendering, they had no intention of concessions. Would those in power (who were as guilty as the Nazi) willingly turn themselves over for trial? Huehue.

As far as the Soviet issue, yeah, your facts go without saying. And Truman did get his results--he got Stalin to restrain himself (In a certain way...though there was the cold war.)

Very. Even radio messages were intercepted that made that clear. The USA chose to ignore those, play them down.
Truman had his agenda with the Soviets. What does Russia has to do with Japan? Pretty simple actually. After Germany was defeated Russia was advancing very quickly towards Japan, and Truman didnt want them in Japan. Truman hated Stalin with a passion and used every opportunity to humiliate him or show Americas strength to him. One particular event was very telling, after he announced the nuclear bombs to Stalin and expected respect, fear and acknowledgement from Stalin but instead got indifference and burst in rage about Stalins reaction. Even Churchill noticed how much Truman changed after he got the bomb. He seemed like an insecure boy who suddenly got the power of a superhero. A very dangerous combination and it proved to be fatal for at least the Japanese and was pretty much the sole reason for the cold war.
Japan was bombed not only once but twice, even though the USA knew they would surrender soon, not because of them fearing more human loss on their side, but because they feared Russia would be able to reach Japan if they waited longer.

@Asmo

Don't really want to get a more general argument about the history of US foreign policy, I was talking more about the present day. The US's rationale for intervention during the Cold War was an exaggerated sense of the spread of communism and later to prevent anything that might precipitate an oil price spike like in the 1973-74/79. Nowadays with greatly expanded US shale oil supply and no Cold War I simply don't see any real incentive, if anything with the furore over debt, quite the opposite.

@enoch

Successful US intervention in the previous century generally involved large sums of money, whether it be propping up a government (Zaire/Congo) or funding an insurgent militia (Guatemala). Same thing with the USSR (North Korea). The ability to influence public opinion or mount credible propaganda campaigns in my opinion is generally exaggerated especially in a large, modern and educated country like Iran. It's also the conspiratorial myth that repressive regimes (like Iran, Russia) frequently turn to when they need to discredit dissent. A good example is:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2013/11/arab-conspiracy-theories

I mention Russia because this is the line pushed aggressively to both his domestic audience by it's wholly state controlled television media and to a mix of foreign and expatriate audiences (of which Russia Today is most successful) through a web of shadowy funding and home grown sounding organisations (see link below for a nice overview, e.g. http://www.globalresearch.ca/). It's pretty important to view what he says as part of a narrative to vastly exaggerate US and western intervention in Ukraine and previously Georgia, because that allows him to construct his myth of being a counterbalance to present day western imperialism.

https://criticusnixalsverdruss.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/propagramm3.jpg

@Asmo

On your comment:

The CIA's role in the 1953 Iran ouster is generally exaggerated. Several things - (1) by 1953, the Islamic clergy supported Mossadeq's ouster, something they have been suppressing ever since in inflating their anti-US stance (2) by the time of his ouster he also lacked the support of either his parliament or the people, (3) prior to it that year, he deposed his disapproving parliament with a clearly fraudulent 99% of the vote in a national referendum, (4) strictly speaking Iran was still a monarchy and the shah deposed his PM legally under the constitution, something that Mossadeq refused to abide by.

Did the UK put economic pressure on Iran when it threatened to nationalize its oil and usurp its remnants of imperialism? Sure. Did the UK then convince Eisenhower to mount a political and propaganda campaign against Mossadeq? Sure. Was that instrumental in fomenting a popular uprising of the parliament, the clergy and large portions of the 20m general population against him? Probably not.

Also I listened to it. Really, it's a meandering, probably scripted (the parts where he feigns surprise at the questioning is particularly humorous) that tries to generalize US actions, some of which were obviously harmful and support his argument. Putting Stalin in a positive light relative to the willingness of the US to use the bomb is, amusing? I'm not sure what to call it.

That the US needs a common threat to unite against holds some grains of truth in the present day but is really part of a wider narrative by Putin to construct the US as imperalist and domineering when by all accounts since the end of the Cold War, excluding GWB's term, it has been pulling back. It hardly needed to invent Iran's covert nuclear ambitions in the early 2000s, NK's saber rattling or China's stakes on the South China Sea islands.

Modern US foreign policy largely relies on reciprocation. The US provides a military alliance and counterweight to China's military for small SE Asian nations at a hefty cost to itself, and presumably gets various trade concession and voting support in various international agencies. The key word being reciprocation, something that Russia could learn a fair bit from in its own foreign policy.