The following comment, in response to ‘Saker’s rant’ about Europe, was selected by mod-hs.  Auslander is both a commentor and a contributor to thesaker.is. He currently resides in Sevastopol, Crimea RF. with his wife and their dogs. The comment covers current Russia, its war’s with Europe and its historical relationship to the Byzantine Empire.

by Auslander

Saker, what you wrote is not a rant, I would liken it more to an almost primal scream of frustration and rage brought on by what you and I both understand is happening and has already happened with irreversible consequences.

I am Auslander. Most of you know what that word means and I use that pen name because that is what I am when I go ‘home’ to USA where I was born which, by the way, has as much chance of happening again as the Dark Lord driving a Kenworth with a Myers snow blade on it in his kingdom. I also use that name because when I go ‘home’ to my ethnic roots I no longer feel what I am, 100% ethnic German.

The Century of War ended on 31 December 1999 but the wars did not end on that date and have not ended to this day and may well not end by the time I’m gone in hopefully another twenty years or so.

The Century of War actually started in the late 1800’s, brought on by the constant squabbling between the interrelated ruling royalty of Europe and culminating in the total destruction of empires extant at that time. However, the war has continued and the true two main protagonists are now publicly revealed, Russia and USA, this revelation occurring to anyone with eyes and ears as Berlin was still smoldering in May of 1945. Everything that has happened in western cultures and in reality the world since that fateful day is woven in to the fabric of the ongoing struggles between the two main protagonists.

I will not go in to the details of events, most if not all of you who read this blog well know the main events that have occurred in the seventy years since the fall of the last European empire, Germany. Since that date the struggle between Russia and USA has been the foremost process in this world as other countries and continents emerged from that turmoil of the hostilities of 1932-1945.
Few, however, understand, truly understand, the one country standing in the way of total global domination of USA. Russia has never and will not ever go down on bended knee to anyone and that includes USA which was a scant couple decades ago at the disintegration of SSSR the most powerful empire in the world. It is a mark of the fear, not respect but fear, USA has of Russia that when there was in reality no definable command and control structure in Moscow USA did not attack and try to destroy Russia at last.

Russia has a long and very complicated history and culture. If you wish to begin to understand Russia you must start with a study of Byzantium, the Second Rome. As Constantinople was close to falling in 1453 most of the ruling, the wealthy and the middle classes fled as they could with many coming to the north and east shores of the Black Sea. In time many of those who fled moved north from the Sea and formed the basis for the growing Russian Culture. In my opinion Russia is the heir to the Byzantine Empire with all the good and all the not so good elements of that culture. The centuries since those times has seasoned and refined Russian Culture along with the always extant contacts with Eastern Cultures. Toss in the constant depredations of invasions from both east and west and you have what Russia is today, a mixture of cultures that makes for her very different from the rest of the world and a culture that is unfathomable to western and new world cultures.
The single most important event in Russian History since May 1945 is the ascension to leadership of V V Putin on 31 December 1999. He was faced with tasks that make The Labors of Hercules look like changing a baby’s nappy. That constant running sore of corruption, extant in both Byzantium and Russia for centuries, had run amok for a decade as Russia was looted to the very ground by the newly rich and powerful. Emigration was a massive problem as many of the best and brightest, and many of the not so ‘best and brightest’, ran from Russia. The Armed Forces were in unbelievable disarray and led by holdovers from the Great Patriotic War, which was neither great nor patriotic but a war of survival against an implacable enemy who wished to destroy Russia for all time. The physical plant was disintegrating do to many years of neglect and outright theft and corruption. In other words, Russia was a mess top to bottom.

Mr. Putin was not and is not a Czar with total power and in actual fact the Czars since after ‘Ivan the Terrible’ did not hold anything close to absolute power. Mr. Putin carefully, and craftily, began to rebuild the Russia of his mind. He did what he could to curtail the rampant corruption but of course he could only go so far in that task or he would not be alive to achieve his primary goal of restoring Russia to what she was and should be. His primary goal was to buy as much time as possible on the international stage so he could do what was needed for Russia.

His success, and his ongoing labors which never cease, became evident in February 2014 when landing ships from Novorossiysk Navy Base on the Russian Mainland put their bows to the quays near Kerch and Feodosya in east Krimea and disgorged Russian troops to secure the citizens of Krimea and Sevastopol, this action done at the request of the new governments in Sevastopol and Simferopol. At the same time airborne forces covered the skies of Krimea and Russian troops landed by transport at Simferopol Aerodrome which was under the control of Opolchensya, the local Self Defense Troop activated as the Ukraine Government was requested to pack up and leave.
While the operation in and of itself was not a logistic or operational difficulty the surprise to USA and EU of the sudden operation was total, in other words they had not a clue, no one so much as whispered about this sudden operation beforehand. This was a massive shift of attitude because before that operation US/EU had deep penetration of the working apparatus of the Russian Armed Forces and were simply left mouths agape as the first indication they had of the operation was news and social media passing about informations of Russian troops, ships and air assets suddenly in Krimea and Sevastopol and in force.

In the ensuing year and a half as Russia was massively pilloried and sanctioned by US/EU Mr. Putin never strayed from his tasks and fought tooth and claw to preserve and enhance Russian economies and forces. The next, and probably most important, surprise for US/EU was his agreement to a request from President Assad of Syria for assistance in Assad’s almost lost ‘war of liberation’ in Syria. Within days of their agreement Mr. Putin put in the Russian Air Force which proceeded to go from a western laughingstock to suddenly being a force to be reckoned with and feared by US/EU. Perhaps they believed their own propaganda, I don’t know, but the shock to US/EU was again total. As US/EU was struggling to curtail the sudden Russian operations and success against Mr. Assad’s assailants another threat was unleashed on the US/EU sponsored terrorists trying to destroy Syria.

On 27.10.2015 the little known, and little regarded, Russian Navy Caspian Sea Fleet unleashed a storm of 26 Kalibr Missiles on targets 1600 kilometers distant from the ships. All hit within five meters of their programmed targets. Within days more Kalibr and other missiles were targeted on the terrorists from Black Sea Fleet ships operating in the Mediterranean Sea and from air assets based as far away as Murmansk and Mozdok Aerodrome in Russia. The Caspian Sea Fleet operation was a game changer on the world stage. The Kalibr Missile was unseen in flight until the final kilometer of its flight when it went supersonic to its target. There is no defense against this missile beyond taking out the launch systems before launch. This system is also small enough to fit a double launch system in a standard rail and ship shipping container. The fact that the little Caspian Sea Fleet ships can navigate up the river systems to well within range of Europe means nothing, the ability to fit the Kalibr System in a shipping container means everything. Where are those containers now? EU is still casting a worried eye over their shoulders.

Russia has clearly announced ‘I am back’.

Now, the meat of the current turmoil in EU. I have no idea who unleashed the millions of sudden emigrants on EU but I do know EU has no idea how to cope with this mess and it is a cast iron fact that not one of those emigrants could have made it out of Turkey without the active participation of the Turkish Government. The actions and reactions of the powerless minions of governments in Occupied Europe are shown to have precisely zero power to follow the will of their disparate peoples occupying this Tower of Babel they call European Union. The very fact that these powerless minions are quite willing to unleash their various Gestapos on their own people to enforce their policies on their citizens points in one direction and that direction is west, ‘across the pond’ as the Brits say.

What is the advantage to Langley in regards to this massive wave of emigrants? Is this a reaction to the beginnings of grumbles from the powers ‘ruling’ EU about the huge economic losses because of the sanctions they themselves imposed on Russia and which were promptly returned to them in spades, much to their stunned surprise? Is this simply a way to show the Tower of Babel who is the real power there? Or is the reality this massive wave of emigrants is to be the final and total destruction of Europe and her many and diversified cultures.

Reality is thus. France died on the icy roads back to Poland from Moscow under Napoleon two centuries ago . The corpse was twitching until the disaster of Verdun in the ‘first’ war, the War to End All Wars. England and her empire died on Flanders Fields. Old Germany ceased to exist in fall of 1944 under the relentless air attacks of Bomber Harris in England by US Air Forces under his command. Japan died in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Vestiges of these vibrant cultures survive today but the reality is they are dead and gone. Some of us remember these vestiges fondly but what we were looking at was simply a dream within a dream, gone like the delicate sound of a spring butterfly’s wings as she passes in to the sunset.

Auslander
Author, Never The Last One, a deep look in to current Russian culture and society.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGCY8KK
An Incident on Simonka. NATO is invited to leave, coming in days.