US Aggression vs. Germany--UPDATE as 'alternative' / legacy media begins to pick up on the file + a comment by Thomas Röper

So far, no denials from anyone that the RAND paper wasn't genuine

EDIT (15 Sept. 2022): since this post appeared, RAND Corp. has issued a statement denying the authenticity of the document in question. For accountability reasons, I shall not change or delete the posting, but you are encouraged to check out my dedicated posting on this subject matter.

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Since Tuesday’s posting about the (possible) RAND Corp. paper on US aggression against Germany and Europe’s peoples, a lot of things happened, and today’s posting is a follow-up on what has transpired in the past 48 hours.

First, background: the below relates to this posting:

US Aggression vs. Germany is the Real Driving Force in the Russian-Ukrainian Quagmire

Second, I’ve published a German-language version over at tkp.at, which also takes up some of the criticism I’ve received here:

https://tkp.at/2022/09/14/amerikas-krieg-gegen-europas-voelker-das-ist-brutalitaet/

In both postings, the comments were quite divided—one side argued that ‘this can’t be true’ while the other side suggested that it’s very well plausible, even if the document in question might be fake.

And now two things have happened: on the one hand, a lot of other places have picked up on the document, and they did so irrespective of Thomas Röper’s original posting or Larry Johnson’s piece (references in my Substack posting).

On the other hand, there has been no denial coming from any of the letter-soup agencies or any government. Sure, you could argue that this is kinda ‘beneath’ them, but the document is out there—and some legacy media outlets are also publishing on the document.

Legacy Media Begins to Report on the RAND Paper

Sweden’s Nya Dagbladet has picked up on it and wrote the following (I’ve omitted the direct quotations from the paper, which you can find in my above-linked posting; emphases mine):

The RAND think tank, which has a whopping 1,850 employees with a budget of $350 million, has the official purpose of ‘improving policy and decision-making through research and analysis’. It is primarily connected to the Department of Defense in the United States and is notorious for having been influential in developing military and other strategy during the Cold War.

In a document signed by RAND, under the opening heading ‘Weakening Germany, strengthening the USA’, it is believed that there is an ‘urgent need’ for an influx of resources from outside to maintain the American economy in general, but ‘especially the financial system’.[…]

The biggest obstacle to this according to RAND is the growing independence of Germany. Among other things, it is pointed out that Brexit has given Germany greater independence and made it more difficult for the US to influence the decisions of [EU] European governments.

A key goal that pervades the cynical strategy is above all to destroy the cooperation between Germany and Russia, and also France, which is seen as the biggest economic and political threat to the United States.

Only Way: ‘Drag both sides into war in Ukraine’

To crush this political threat, a strategic plan is presented which is primarily aimed at destroying the German economy […]

Green parties will make Germany ‘fall into the trap’

In particular, Green parties in Europe are described as easy to manipulate to do the bidding of American imperialism […]

Among other things, Baerbock has made a name for herself by declaring that she will maintain the stoppage of Russian gas even during the winter—regardless of what her constituents think about the matter and what the consequences are for the German population […]

The authors express a hope that the damage between Germany and Russia will be so great that it will be impossible for the countries to re-establish normal relations later […]

Ultimately, a complete collapse of Europe's economy is seen as both probable and desirable […]

They further point out the advantages of US-based companies having less competition on the world market, logistical advantages and the outflow of capital from Europe, it is estimated that it will be able to benefit the US economy by 7-9 trillion dollars. In addition, the important effect that many well-educated and young Europeans will be forced to emigrate to the USA is also emphasised.

I’ll limit myself to merely noting that the journalist, Icac Boman, never questions the veracity or authenticity of the document.

I would like to invite Swedish readers—here’s looking at you, Rikard—to perhaps elaborate on the news outlet, Nya Dagbladet. It’s important to note, too, I suppose, that the Ministry of Truth considers the news outlet to be a catch-all outlet for ‘vaccine hesitancy, conspiracy theories on EM radiation coming from cell phones, climate scepticism, and green policies’. Of course, allegations of ‘espousing extremist content’ are also in the Wikipedia piece, so maybe there’s also Swedish readers who can weigh in on this one?

Here’s what Thomas Röper has to say

Mr. Röper, where I read the paper first, also posted something like a follow-up over at his website, Anti-Spiegel.de, which I translated (emphases mine):

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On 1 September, I reported on a document that a colleague gave me to evaluate. It was a summary of a study by the very influential RAND Corporation, which stated in the paper that the economy and political dominance of the USA can only be maintained if sufficient money flows can be directed from Europe to the USA and if the German economy is destroyed so that a possible rapprochement of Germany and Russia cannot become a threat to the USA.

The Document

The paper is dated 25 January 2022, so it was written a month before the Russian intervention in Ukraine began. The document already predicted the escalation of the military conflict, with the authors considering it desirable to draw Germany into the coming military confrontation with Russia in Ukraine in order to deepen the rifts between Russia and Germany. But "only" supplying Germany with weapons for the Ukrainian war against Russia was also highly desirable because it would increase Russian distrust of Germany and make a possible rapprochement more difficult.

The key to the success of the plan were the Greens, Habeck and Baerbock were mentioned by name, and it was stated [omitted here]

So, in the USA, if the document is genuine, one is deliberately relying on the ideological delusion and incompetence of the Green ‘top personnel’ to decisively weaken Germany. And you can say what you want, Baerbock and Habeck are doing their job excellently, if your aim would be destruction of the German economy.

The question is whether the document was genuine. I am now convinced of that, because a few days after my article, other portals started reporting on the document. In some cases, I know that my publication was their source, but in some portals I know that my report can have nothing to do with it. This suggests that the document was indeed leaked by someone in Washington and not just made available to me and my source.

You can find my article with the translation of the paper here.

More Reports on The Paper

I did not publish the original text of the document, so the portal Weltexpress must have got it from someone else, because they reported about it on 6 September and also published pictures of the document, which I did not publish, so they cannot be mine.

RT-DE has published analyses of it based on my article as well as an article about it that is not based on my piece, which also included pictures showing that it was leaked to the author by another source.

In English, there are also many publications that are not based on my report. However, on 10 September I forwarded the document to my American colleague John Marc Dougan, who did a livestream on it on 12 September and posted the document online. So, you can now see the original here.

Thus, I can at least say for sure that all the images of the English text of the document that were published before 10 September did not come from me [or Röper’s source]. All those who wrote about it before 10 September received the document through other channels.

A Clarification

By the way, there were many readers who wrote to me about this because they tried on their own to verify the authenticity of the document. As a result, some told me the document was genuine and sent me links to it. Others said I was a bit stupid because the document was not only genuine, but not at all secret or new, because it dated from 2019.

Almost all readers who wrote to me made a mistake: they confused the current document with a study by the RAND Corporation, which was published in 2019 and titled Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground. I reported on the study years ago in a 20-part series, the first part of which can be found here.

I am making this comment because I have received a great many emails in which readers have made this confusion. Therefore, I point out that these are two different studies by the RAND Corporation.

I recommend that everyone read my translation of the actual document carefully, because I now clearly believe it to be genuine. The exciting thing about reading the document is that it was already written on 25 January, which shows once again how long the US has been planning to push Russia into the Ukrainian trap.

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Bottom Lines

So, I restrict myself to noting that Thomas Röper wrote about the document on 1 Sept. 2022; Weltexpress did so on 6 Sept.—and Röper denies that the latter received the file from him.

Does that make the document authentic and genuine? I’m still unsure, but I do tend to agree with Röper: whoever made the leak distributed it quite widely, which is why I consider the assessments by Röper and Johnson quite right on the money.

Could that be a ‘controlled opposition’ move? Well, sure thing, but I do note that both Röper and Johnson—independent from each other—got a lot of things right about the quagmire in Ukraine.

Furthermore, it’s not a secret that the US dominates the losers of WW2, and that the veracity of the claims made in the file—that the price to be paid by Washington to devour its ‘European allies and partners’ is quite small—are factually correct.

Note further that the European governments’ timid, if not outright cowardly, response to the Snowden revelation underscores this aspect of policy considerations.

This is interesting, so we’ll stay on top of it.