(Part 2) Top products from r/europe

I have to thread lightly here, because i'm not an expert, but i'll try to answer:

First of all, you have to see him in his own context and try not to judge by current (modern) standards. Every Western country was taking part in the Scramble for Africa, and it's not that hard to imagine that none of the participants had the wellbeing of the native population as their prime concern.

Secondly: Yes, there was wide spread abuse, atrocities, killings,... Yes, as the founder and sole owner of Congo Free State, he is/was without any doubt partly responsible. Yes, economic gain was the first goal, human rights were often not even considered. BUT: was it genocide... (and here is the controversial bit): in my humble opinion: no. Was it mismanagment and grave negligence and whatever: perhaps. But as always with history, it isn't simply a black and white story, there is always lots of nuance.

Like i said: i'm no specialist. A very interesting read about Congo (and the role, both good and bad, Leopold played) is this book.

Yeah, but there would be different issues at play, as well. There would be the whole issue, of European states looking at one another, or one European state looking at a non-European state, (i.e. Greece and Turkey) and possibly suddenly saying to themselves "I'm actually not 100% sure about that state's future intentions. I'd better make sure I'm not a paper tiger."

Slippery slope may ensue.

And it is that - in Mearsheimer's theory, that is The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (1992). (updated edition published 2014)

Lol. Ok. Good luck with that. Might actually work on people who know nothing about stats. Edit: Further reading for you

Introduction to Econometrics, Update (3rd Edition) (Pearson Series in Economics) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0133486877/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_TT8KybNYH52K9

Am I doing good? 😊

Lucky for you, I made a sticky at my sub:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ActiveMeasures/comments/6gne0u/sources_about_active_measures_you_should_follow/

Those are, IMO, the best sources to follow.

If you want specific authors like Pomerantsev, I'm afraid there are very few who talk about this stuff. Actually, I seem to have forgotten a few people in my sticky, so I'll mention them here:

• A pair of Russian journalists have written an excellent book about the Russian internet and its loud inhabitants - paid bloggers/trolls. A must read, one of the few books that discusses the Russian internet in the early 2000s, when this activity first began:
  
  
• The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia’s Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries
  
  
  
• Ion Mihai Pacepa, the single highest defector from the Eastern Bloc. This man may be the most knowledgable person in the world regarding Active Measures, considering he was intimately involved in disseminating them.
  
  
• He is the author of several must-read (IMO) books. But the one that stands out above all is this one: Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism
  
  
• He's also written several articles about the KGB's disinformation campaign to spread conspiracy theories about JFK's assassination, code name Operation Dragon.
  
  
  
  
• Finally, for some historical stuff, the Mitrokhin Archives, smuggled out by former KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin. Most of the archives are accessible in person, but there are some on the internet pertaining to Active Measures: KGB Active Measures In Southwest Asia in 1980-82. A book was also co-written by Mr. Mitrokhin and a historian.
  

I read "The Jewish War" by Josephus and it was very interesting how the radicalization and terrorist acts of his day mirrors that of today. It was particularly interesting to see how fundamentalist jews brought upon themselves the destruction of their capital but also their countryside (lots of people died of course) by continually aggravating the moderate and quite accommodating Romans whom they had absolutely zero chance of winning against. For years the Romans endured various attacks but made no retribution against the Jews as a whole, favoring peaceful co-existence and making allowance for their religion until it came to the point that the Romans just had enough. Despite some voices among the jews saying that they must make peace, simply because they couldn't possibly win against the Romans, the rebellion proceeded. In their hubris the Jews celebrated victory and even as the Romans were winning against them they continued to believe that they had a chance to win until it became painfully evident to them that they were facing crushing defeat. The terrorists died horribly, along with civilians of all ages.

What I took away from it was that the main complaint that the radicals had was that the Romans dictated how their country was run, which they did to a large extent although the Jews had some freedom of decisions. This didn't mean the Jews were made to live bad lives in oppression, simply that they weren't their own masters, and apparently this was enough to really enrage some people. Also the Romans made use of their resources. But all in all, people lived and did business like people normally do and nothing was terrible, daily life was trotting along as it customarily does.

With that in mind, I don't think you can appease the muslim radicalists in any way, because they're enraged simply because the west has the upper hand. Ok fine, maybe the west shouldn't impose on their oil/resources, but in the end of the day the west isn't making their people starve, they seem to be good at arranging that for themselves. They have this belief that with the west gone they will be better off, but in reality they won't, because they will still have problems. I really don't think you can reason with them. They have an idealistic view of how great it would be if the west weren't there but it's not like their own governments are all rainbows and unicorns.

Or what do you think?

On a related note, I read (I think it was in Christopher Browning's "Ordinary Men" ) how the Nazi soldiers reacted when first encountering those Jewish communities during their invasion of Poland.
Like, those Polish Jews actually looked exactly like those caricatures which the propaganda had fed them for years, while German Jews mostly looked and dressed like regular Germans.
Many soldiers were flabbergasted that those people actually existed- and believed that this means that probably everything else the propaganda had told them about the Jews had to be true just as well.
It was then that their leadership was seriously developing plans that lead to the genocide a.k.a. "Endlösung"

I'd recommend the Christopher Clark book 'Iron Kingdom' a history of Prussia from the 1600's to WW2 where he makes a pretty strong case that the whole 'Prussians=proto-nazi's' argument is a lazy generalization, showing for example how Prussia state ideology was the antithesis of National Socialism, and how anti-semitism was much stronger in Bavaria and Austria (where more High ranking Nazi's were found) Its just a good read for German history in general, specially on how such a tiny shitty region (the Brandenberg mark) was able to survive and become a major power.

Friedman has always had a boner for Japan for some reason.

Russia will become irrelevant, it's time is over as a global power.

Population is important, but geography is the name of the game. He does make some unorthodox prediction through the book, but I think he was completely right with Russia. It was pretty obvious if you were looking for it.

Most of the people there were still in the Iron Age. This is a amazing book on the subject, filled with first-hand accounts. The writer made it his life's work, going to villages all over Congo to gather first-hand accounts of what happened, and how the Congolese perceived it all.

It's mostly a problem in medical research. I can't explain it all how and why but a good introductory read is Ben Goldacre's book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0007350740/ref=nosim?tag=bs0b-21

They both simultaneously believe it and know that it is all bullshit. This is what institutionalized postmodernism looks like. Truth is a tool, to be used at your discretion, just like lies. Read this, it is an enlightening lecture.

You never retire from GRU.

There is a quite interesting autobiographical book, Inside the Aquarium: The Making of a Top Soviet Spy, written by Viktor Suvorov, a GRU officer who defected in the '80s. If you have a chance, read it.

One reviewer wrote:

>In the opening pages of "Inside the Aquarium" the narrator, ex-Soviet agent Viktor Suvorov, describes his first memory as a member of Soviet Military Intelligence: watching a film of an execution of a would-be defector. The officer in question was strapped into a coffin with an open lid, elevated slightly so he could see what was coming, and then traversed slowly down a conveyor belt into a blast furnace, screaming all the way.

>

are you implying only the lives of citizens in NATO countries are worth caring about?

in case you've missed the lesson about America's crimes, you could check these links out :

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

https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/

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

for some of America's internal problems, check out this good introduction http://www.amazon.ca/A-Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0060838655

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-The-God-That-Failed-Economics/dp/0765808684

relevant link http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-The-God-That-Failed-Economics/dp/0765808684

Russia - Where everything is possible

Here you need one of those

http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728

Browning's Ordinary Men. We read that in school.

> For example some german policemen in Hamburg were sure jews need tools and other things with them as they were supposed to bulid houses for themselves there.

They were of course supposed to round them up and shoot them.

I'm currently reading When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler, by David Glantz.

It is based mostly on Soviet archives which opened to the West after the Iron Curtain fell. It is quite interesting, but can be incredibly dry at times. Lots of "General Sosoandsovski's Xth Rifle Division attacked General von Soandsohoffen's Xth Panzer Corps near Bumfuckėžys, Lithuania, supported by..." for pages and pages and pages.

> Really made me think how suddenly we've been having these (very-organized,some would say forced)pro-EU marches across eastern europe, it's like there's something there who wants to divide the people...

That statement would go well with this tinfoil hat you can buy for only $9,99! Too bad it's not in stock anymore - it's been in really high demand around these parts lately.

Looking at the details of the book, I found it was 172 pages instead of 100. Still ridiculous though.

Anyway, it's this one.

My understanding is that there is consensus on the USSR's motives for invading Poland, which was to by time for the inevitable war with Germany.

I've been reading this recently, and the author sure interprets the things that way.

https://www.amazon.com/When-Titans-Clashed-Stopped-Studies/dp/0700608990

> Our forthcoming book, “Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust,” documents 219 such pogroms in cities and small towns across eastern Poland, nearly 10 percent of the 2,304 localities where Jews and non-Jews dwelled together. Ethnic Poles were the primary perpetrators in approximately 25 percent of the pogroms; in the remaining instances, ethnic Ukrainians predominated.

They are University profs who wrote a book about pogroms. Why would Cornell allow them to publish anti-Polish propaganda and why would other historians support their research?

[Book.] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1501715259?ie=UTF8&tag=washpost-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=1501715259)

From the article.

> Scholars do not, as a rule, refer to the camps as Polish. However, a growing body of research both within and outside Poland has established that some Poles were indeed complicit in the Nazi crimes. Even if Poles did not create the extermination camps, some of them collaborated. That cannot be legislated away.

That is bullshit. At least since the 1860s till the 1940s Germany was a scientific power house and was arguably one of the biggest science hubs in the world. I can recommend you a book about this topic.

It's called The German Genius: Europe's Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution, and the Twentieth Century by Peter Watson.

This entire conversation is basically a way of saying "how can we prove neorealism wrong?" Neorealism says that it is the nation state that's important, and liberal institutionalism says that it is institutions that are important (constructivism focuses on identity). The EU is a supranational institution, and with the problems caused by forces of nationalism during the 20th century in Europe and how they led to war, and because nobody wants war, some Europeans thought they could overcome the nation-state, and therefore overcome war.

And that's why its a 'tragedy' that neorealism is right. If you want to find out how the world really works, I can't suggest anyone better than John Mearsheimer (along with Stephen Walt). They're both neorealist theorists, Mearsheimer being an offensive neorealist, Walt a defensive neorealist; they agree on most points.

After years of studying this stuff, I couldn't find anyone apart from these two academics who explained international politics better. As an example, check out this book and all the controversy it created.

They are not popular in Europe, for reasons such as neorealism being pessimistic, nation state-centric, and concerned with questions such as survival, rather than the thriving of a society (they would say geopolitics trumps economics, or that you can't have economics without first taking the security and defense issues off the table as it were). They would say that it was not the EU which deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, but that it should have gone to NATO, as an example. They would likely say that the democratic peace thesis is wrong, because it is non-falsifiable; no democracy would call the country it is going to war with a proper democracy like it is.

There's more to say, but when I found out about these guys, it was like a bomb going off in my head. Finally, everything made sense, instead of things always being twisted around like a pretzel. In conclusion, they'd likely say the dream of a properly federalized Europe is a waste of time, and your time and personal political philosophy would best be spent elsewhere. Oh, one last thing - they're just as harsh on the US as they are on Europe!

I think that's a great argument for the rising importance and power of Poland. But his simultaneous argument that the EU is inevitably going to fail in the face of nationalism seems to gloss over the mammoth amount of thought every architect of the EU has given to exactly this problem. It's a huge obstacle to overcome, no doubt; but simply pointing to it doesn't make it insurmountable.

Let's just hope he's as wrong about this as he was when he predicted war between Japan and the US during the 90s.

Same article

>The German resistance consisted of small and usually isolated groups. They were unable to mobilize political opposition. Save for individual attacks on Nazis (including Hitler) or sabotage acts, the only real strategy was to persuade leaders of the Wehrmacht to stage a coup against the regime: the 1944 assassination attempt against Hitler was intended to trigger such a coup.

German Résistance sadly was political irrelevant, because Hitlers regime was never endangered by a considerable amount of opponents. This is particular true for the last months of the war, even-though it was already obvious that the war can't be won anymore. I recommend you to read [The End by Ian Kershaw] (https://www.amazon.de/End-Germany-1944-45-Ian-Kershaw/dp/0141014210/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493118993&sr=8-1&keywords=the+end+ian+kershaw)

Your links don't refute what I said dude your just going back to the embedded refutal argument you were thought without actually reading what'd being said to you

Never said the government helped the Nazis...there was no polish government during occupation making your point pointless

Never said they guarded the concentration camps I said they guarded the holding camps and ghettos which is true

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/02/poland-holocaust-death-camps/552455/

The polish blue Police at the time were working for the Nazis


The polish government before world war 2 did bring in laws to restrict Jews serving in public office and other roles and were discussing deportation laws, if they weren't invaded before they were completed they would have come into affect

https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/tagungsberichte-7975


Here's more info on the 200'000 Jews killed by poles directly or indirectly through selling them out to Nazis


Here is a link discussing the towns in eastern poland where locals raped and murdered the Jews in their towns

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/02/02/yes-some-poles-were-nazi-collaborators-the-polish-parliament-is-trying-to-legislate-that-away/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a760eacc326a

> In many communities, local Poles and other non-Jews beat, robbed, raped and murdered their Jewish neighbors. Our forthcoming book, “Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust,” documents 219 such pogroms in cities and small towns across eastern Poland, nearly 10 percent of the 2,304 localities where Jews and non-Jews dwelled together. Ethnic Poles were the primary perpetrators in approximately 25 percent of the pogroms;



Learn your actual history not just your governments version of it