Russia is no Superpower, a status it acquired in some eyes, notably its own, in the aftermath of the Second World War.That status relies chiefly on three achievements: winning the Great Patriotic War against Hitler; its nuclear armoury, and Sputnik.
However, if you look at each one in detail, they fall apart. For logistic reasons Hitler’s armies never stood a chance of reaching Caucasian oil, which they absolutely had to do, having no other adequate source. A simple sum reveals that no army can advance more than a thousand kilometres during a European fighting season , especially one desperately short of fuel, as the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front was. Napoleon learned that hard lesson in 1812 at Borodino, Hitler had his comeuppance at Kursk in 1943 when his Panzers were massacred in a giant tank trap.. Although Stalin was as militarily incompetent as he was cruel ( he’d killed most of his army officers in 1938, and had a nervous breakdown following the German assault ) his forces could hardly avoid defeating the Nazis in the long run.. The Russian Bomb in 1949 was more a shock than an achievement; even morons like Kim il Jung brandish them today. And while Sputnik was another shock, it was the inevitable consequence of multi-staging V2-era technology (Tsilkovsky 1903) and never amounted to much because Soviet computer technology was so primitive at the time.
Why does it matter now? Because Putin might launch some war he won’t be able to win without going nuclear. Because Europe, terrified of the Great Imaginary Bear in the East will continue to rely on America to come to its aid — which it never will. Europe could quite easily defend itself, but only if it puts the two so-called ‘Super-Powers’ into the category where they truly belong.Nothing could be more dangerous than the present balance of terror– based on delusions.
The details behind this so far sketchy argument are given in my book “HISTORY OF THE BRITS — from a scientist’s point of view” [look under ‘My Books’ Category on this site ] or go directly to the url:
https://mjdisney.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Superpowers-are-nothist21.pdf
which also deals with with the equally fallacious superpower status of he USA.
NB This was posted in Oct, 2021, 5 months before Putin launched his brutal attack upon Ukraine!! So it may be worth reading some more, about the USA for exmple.
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