Newsgroup: it.cultura.militare
Titolo: Military tracks Russian subs off Norway's coast

Norwegian officials have attributed the flights to an apparent need by 
the Russians to show renewed strength. They're not particularly alarmed 
over the emergence of the submarines as well.
"They showing off both a will and an ability to be a super power to be 
reckoned with," State Secretary Espen Barth Eide in the Defense Ministry 
told newspaper Aftenposten. "The u-boats are a Russian comment to the 
day's international themes."
Among those "themes" are the US' controversial plans to place a rocket 
shield system on the European continent. The Russians vigorously oppose 
the plans, and Barth Eide believes the dispatch of fighter jets and 
submarines is part of the official response.
The "comment," Barth Eide said, "isn't directed at any one country, and 
not at us (Norway)."
Norwegian Orion suveillance flights have determined that Russian subs 
are active just off Norwegian territory. The Orion aircraft can localize 
the subs, whose crews become aware that they've been spotted.
The dispatch of fighter jets and especially submarines was a common 
Soviet tactic during the Cold War, and awakens uncomfortable memories 
among many Norwegians. Barth Eide downplayed any threat.
"I don't view the heightened Russian activity as alarming," he said.
-- 
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, 
stand like a rock. -- Thomas Jefferson

 "I don't view the heightened Russian activity as alarming," he said.
Oddio, proprio tranquilli non mi sembra il caso di essere... anche 
perchè Putin sta dando alla Russia una nuova ideologia, quella della 
"Democrazia sovrana", che assomiglia tanto ad un nazionalismo incentrato 
sul culto dell'"uomo forte":
The rewriting of history
Nov 8th 2007 | MOSCOW
 From The Economist print edition
The Kremlin uses its version of the past to forge a new ideology for the 
present
Get article background
"RUSSIA'S past was admirable, its present is more than magnificent and 
as for its future—it is beyond anything that the boldest mind can 
imagine." Thus Count Alexander Benckendorff in the 1830s, on how 
Russia's history should be viewed and written. This advice from the head 
of the country's first secret police is now being heeded in the Kremlin, 
where a new Russian history is being forged.
The decade after the collapse of communism was notable for the absence 
of any official ideology. Weary of grand designs, the Russian elite 
preferred pragmatism and enrichment. Asked about his national dream in 
2004, President Vladimir Putin said that it was to make Russia 
competitive. But Russia's new oil-driven strength and its aspirations to 
be a world player have once more created a demand for something more 
victorious and uplifting. And as Mr Putin looks for ways to stay in 
power after his second presidential term expires next March, his 
ideological comrades are placing him in a gallery of Russia's great 
leaders, a quasi-tsar.
"The attitude towards the past is the central element of any ideology," 
Yury Afanasyev, a Russian liberal historian, has written in Novaya 
Gazeta. Indeed, in Russia arguments about history often stir greater 
passions than do debates about the present or future. What kind of 
country Russia becomes will depend in large part on what kind of history 
it chooses. And that is why the Kremlin has decided that it cannot 
afford to leave history teaching to the historians.
Earlier this year it organised a conference for history teachers at 
which Mr Putin plugged a new history manual to help sort out what he 
called "the muddle" in teachers' heads. "Russian history did contain 
some problematic pages," Mr Putin told the teachers. "But so did other 
states' histories. We have fewer of them than other countries. And they 
were less terrible than in some other countries." His message was that 
"we can't allow anyone to impose a sense of guilt on us."
This is the thrust of the manual, entitled "A Modern History of Russia: 
1945-2006: A Manual for History Teachers". Were it not for the Kremlin's 
backing, it would probably be gathering dust on bookshelves. But Mr 
Putin's endorsement has made it one of the most discussed books of the 
year. New textbooks based on it will come into circulation next year. 
Russian schools are still free to choose which textbook to teach. But 
the version of history now proposed by the Kremlin suggests that freedom 
may not last.
The manual's choice of period is suggestive: from Stalin's victory in 
the "great patriotic war" to the victory of Mr Putin's regime. It 
celebrates all contributors to Russia's greatness, and denounces those 
responsible for the loss of empire, regardless of their politics. The 
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 is not seen as a watershed from 
which a new history begins, but as an unfortunate and tragic mistake 
that hindered Russia's progress. "The Soviet Union was not a democracy, 
but it was an example for millions of people around the world of the 
best and fairest society."
The manual does not deny Stalin's repressions; nor is it silent about 
the suppression of protest movements in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. It 
does something more dangerous, justifying Stalin's dictatorship as a 
necessary evil in response to a cold war started by America against the 
Soviet Union. "The domestic politics of the Soviet Union after the war 
fulfilled the tasks of mobilisation which the government set. In the 
circumstances of the cold war...democratisation was not an option for 
Stalin's government." The concentration of power in Stalin's hands 
suited the country; indeed, the conditions of the time "demanded" it.
As Marietta Chudakova, an historian of Russian culture, puts it, for the 
manual's author totalitarianism "is a warm bath. He splashes in it and 
enjoys it. The book tries to convince the reader that there was no other 
way, and most importantly that there was no need for one. Everything was 
motivated and clear in that social structure." The book backs its 
assessment of Stalin by citing recent opinion polls that give him an 
approval rating of 47%.
It is less kind to Mikhail Gorbachev. It was his policies, not the 
Soviet system, that "led to the slowest economic growth in the 20th 
century." He is blamed for giving up central and eastern Europe. "Thus 
the Soviet Union lost its security belt, which a few years later would 
become a zone of foreign influence, with NATO bases an hour away from St 
Petersburg."
Rabid anti-Westernism is the leitmotiv of the new ideology. In return 
for Russia ending the cold war ("we did not lose it", the manual 
insists), America pursued an anti-Russian policy and fomented colour 
revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, turning them into springboards for 
possible future attacks. "We are talking about the failure of the course 
started by Peter the Great and pathetically continued by pro-Western 
democrats after 1988. We are talking about a new isolation of Russia."
How should Russia respond? The manual's answer is a new mobilisation of 
resources and a consolidation of power in the hands of a strong leader 
(no prizes for guessing who). "If the national economy is dependent on 
foreign capital, on imports or the terms of the world market, such a 
country cannot defend its own interests," it argues. And it justifies Mr 
Putin's attacks on the oligarchs and the imprisonment of Mikhail 
Khodorkovsky. "Don't put yourself above the state."
The manual's final chapter, on "Sovereign Democracy", reflects the views 
of one of the Kremlin's chief ideologues, Vladislav Surkov, deputy head 
of the presidential administration, who invented the phrase. Mr Surkov 
argues that Russia needs a political system to suit its national 
character and that it should disregard international norms of behaviour 
as "foreign pressure". In a lecture to the Academy of Sciences, he 
suggested that such a system was predetermined by the national character 
and an instinctive longing for a strong hand. Centralisation, 
personification and idealisation of power drive Russia's political 
culture. A strong and wise leader is more important than institutions—in 
fact, he is in Russians' eyes the most important institution.
The problem with such an ideological construct, says Andrei Zorin, a 
professor of Russian culture at Britain's Oxford University, is that its 
sole purpose is to preserve the status quo and keep Mr Putin in power. 
"But a conservative ideology demands respect for institutions, while an 
ideology of a charismatic leader requires a grand vision. They have 
neither."
--------------------
    Luca Morandini
www.lucamorandini.it
--------------------

 sul culto dell'"uomo forte":
Vedremo.
Ma credo che questi rivolgimenti sono volti più verso la politica 
interna che estera.


 
§Una dittatura che non applica la pena di morte non è una dittatura

 the subs, whose crews become aware that they've been spotted.
A me tutto ciò dice solo una cosa: cioè che la NATO è sempre abbastanza 
in gamba nella lotta antisom. Magari non come ai vecchi tempi, ma a 
sufficienza da tenere sotto controllo quei tre-quattro rottami che i 
Russi riescono a tenere a galla. Come sono lontani i tempi della Guerra 
Fredda!
-- 
Ciao,
Ander
www.anderopoli.it

Ander ha scritto:

rottami saranno i sub che progetti tu... :-P


ma no baroon, i russi avevano fatto dei bellissimi progetti da ultimo... 
a cominciare dai viktor iii per arrivare agli akula;
anche gli alfa e i tifone erano interessanti per certi aspetti 
rivoluzionari...
quello che voglio dire è che è un peccato è come si è ridotta la flotta 
lasciata andare, ecco
-- 
Ciao,
Ander
www.anderopoli.it

Ander ha scritto:

beh dai guarda che è da un po' di anni che hanno ricominciato a ricevere 
fondi, il fatto che vengano segnalati vuol dire che i mezzi escono in 
mare gli equipaggi si addestrano ecc. Ovviamente restano decine di 
vecchi sub ad arrugginire e inquinare.