Aggression by Penetration
Peace is the result of right order which means that ideas must be in harmony with each other and understood and implemented in the right context. Disorder leads to problems, suffering and strife. Nationalism is one of the ideas that has been distorted – weaponized if you will — to advance nefarious purposes of Vladimir Putin and other enemies of the United States and the countries of Europe. Populism is a word often associated with nationalism, and so it too is weaponized. Both words are vague and so the precise doctrines that may flow from them are unknown but actions flowing from these terms usually include tearing down what exists thereby advancing chaos, poverty, ill-health, ignorance and hatred. Coupled with these weaponized concepts are things like traditional values, religion, and ethnicity that are used to divide, demoralize, and restructure target societies for two reasons: first, to colonize these societies or countries so that they come under the control or influence of Russia and other foreign enemies, and, second, to restructure these societies or countries such that they become tyrannies.
The global nature of this war against societies became more evident with CPAC 2025 held earlier this month in Hungary. The methods used by Putin and the Russians are the same as those employed by the Soviets during the Cold War – “aggression by penetration” a phrase employed by John Eppstein in the 1953 edition of The Code of International Ethics. Putin and the rest of the tyrants or wannabe dictators are, and seek, devolution, a rejection of right order, a rejection of the Natural Law, a rejection of the Law of Nations. All of this today means a rejection of bridges for walls,1 order for chaos, certainty for uncertainty, construction for destruction.
Aggression by Penetration
Eppstein was one of the most incisive commentators on social organization in the Twentieth Century. He was the son of an Anglican minister, attended Wellington and Herford College, and Oxford. During the First World War he was part of the Friends’ Ambulance Unit. Eppstein was a highly decorated veteran receiving the honor of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), and the Croix de Guerre. He was named Chevalier of the Belgian Ordre de Leopold and was made a Grand Officer of the Portuguese Order of the Infante Dom Henriques. More honors awaited him.2
Eppstein came into the Catholic Church in 1919 at the hand of Father Cyril Charlie Martindale, a Catholic scholar who encouraged other scholars and a correspondent with Evelyn Waugh, Ronald Knox and Graham Greene.3 Eppstein formed the Catholic Council for International Relations in Autumn, 1923.4 That organization was a part of the Catholic Union of International Studies (CUIS) which was headquartered in Fribourg, Switzerland. The CUIS was founded and approved in November, 1917 by Pope Benedict XV, and it remained active until 1942. Affiliated groups were in Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Ireland and elsewhere under the ecclesiastical patronage of Bishop Besson of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg.5 Eppstein worked at the newly created League of Nations for a while before writing arguably one of the most important books of the Twentieth Century, The Catholic Tradition of the Law of Nations for which he was awarded a Papal medal.6
Eppstein translated and edited the Code of International Ethics published in 1953 after it was compiled by the International Union of Social Studies. This was all part of the same project or group of people that drafted the Malines Code which came about under the guidance of Desire-Joseph Cardinal Mercier after World War I (see below). Writing “A Commentary” as part of the Code, Eppstein explained the concept of aggression by penetration and society’s right and duty to defeat these efforts especially as these efforts by aggressors are designed to destroy a beneficial world order:
“the presence in the world of this militant antisocial element, committed to the `total aggression’ against society which we have described….How is this challenge to be met? The practical steps to be taken belong to the spheres of politics and strategy, but the principles concerned are sufficiently clear from our tradition. The authors of this Code (see Article 47) have no doubt that, faced with this new technique of aggression by penetration, a state has the right to defend itself by every appropriate means…and that other States ought, if they are able, to come to its aid.
“But that is only a negative and piecemeal approach to the problem, I would rather pose the problem thus: `Here are the majority of States committed to fulfilling their right and natural duty of bringing into being a positive organization of international society. Until this total attack upon the foundations of society is faced and overcome as a whole, there is no prospect whatever of attaining hat good end. The resources of the associated States must therefore be collectively applied to a complete social process designed to overcome the attack.”7
Section 47 of Eppstein’s Code stated:
“The unjust aggression against which a state is entitled to defend itself need not necessarily take the form of an unprovoked military attack. Only too often in the course of history have governments urged by ambitions of conquest which they do not avow, interfered unduly in the internal affairs of another State in order to carry out in its midst the policy of divide et impera (divide and conquer). Such action aims at overthrowing and destroying the social cohesion of the State which is the victim of it, and to weaken its means of resistance so as to reduce it to servitude without the use of force or with the minim of military compulsion.
“These insidious tactics assume the most varied forms at the present time – the intrigues of a `fifth column’ disruptive propaganda, the struggle of factions or the `class war.’ All these processes aim insidiously at undermining patriotism and substituting, for the loyalty due to the legitimate authority of the State, blind adherence to an ideology of which the leaders of the aggressor State set themselves up to their own exclusive profit, as the sole authoritative exponents.
“Against this modern method of aggressive imperialism every State has the right to defend its integrity and its independence. It may, in particular, proscribe all seditious and disruptive propaganda or it may outlaw any organizations or factions which pursue objects incompatible with the loyalty due to the State, especially if they take their orders from a foreign power.”8
In many countries of the world nowadays, there exists a fifth column that was effectively put there by the Russians and their allies. Their orders come from Putin and his inner circle all to advance Russian geopolitical goals. These fifth columns are nationalist or ethnic for the most part though the tactics and methods used by the communists during the Cold War are still employed.
The Natural Law and the Law of Nations Rightly Ordering Nationalism with Internationalism
The concept of nationalism is related to the concept of internationalism in the Law of Nations, or the ius gentium. The Law of Nations sets forth the principles by which peoples and countries are to interrelate or interact with each other. It also sets out the terms of and need for right order with the proper understanding of key elements of society and their purposes. The Law of Nations exists to provide right order and peace so that the person may properly develop.
Nowadays, nationalism is emphasized so as to create an imbalance or a disorder to weaken or destroy cooperation between countries and peoples while sundering unity. The proper place for nationalism was clearly understood by the American elites at the end of the 1800s extending into the Twentieth Century and even to today. That right understanding was essential to the creation of the United Nations or the juridical establishment of the community of nations.
During the 1930s, the work at understanding and fashioning a peaceful world order was reaching a crescendo. International lawyer and counsel to government officials James Brown Scott and his fellow American elites had since the late 1890s been interested in and dedicated to the establishment of the mechanisms for the creation and maintenance of world peace. He and others worked to establish structures for the resolution of disputes between countries through international arbitration or international courts. This virtuous work began with the understanding that peace was indeed in the right, the natural, order of things and that Man was not condemned to wage eternal wars. Two associated concepts were the understanding that human race was characterized by unity and that there existed a society of nations in the Natural Law with the ideal for that society being some form of political union of the states of the world.9
One of the organizations dedicated to this study was the International Union of Social Scientsts (IUSS) also known as the Union of Malines. Begun by Desire-Josseph Cardinal Mercier, and continued by Jozef-Ernest Cardinal van Roey, the IUSS carried on its work for many decades before effectively ending in 1969. In July, 1937, it drafted a document entitled A Code of International Ethics. The Secretary of the IUSS, M. Defourney, explained that the Code was “compiled by a group of Catholics.”Among all the many issues studied and presented by this group, one of the topics explored was the right relationship between nationalism and internationalism. 10
The Code explained that nationalism and internationalism were “two apparently contradictory tendencies” that nonetheless are needed to “hold[] in equal balance…those things which are demanded by the undeniable unity of the human race….”11 Interests of the particular and the general are to be in right relation. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote “the great principle of order…. demands that the common good should always have priority over the particular good.”12 He explained that “`It is obvious…that the parts are ordained to the perfection of the whole; the whole does not exist for the parts; it is the parts which are made for the whole.’ (Contra Gentiles, Bk II, Ch. Cxii, 5.)”13 To better harmonize the particular with the common good and so to place nationalism in its right place, there would need to be a “more perfect organization of the Society of States” that “will run counter to many deeply rooted prejudices, for it will ask nationalism to make sacrifices which no one has yet dared to propose.”14
Definitions are crucial for in them we can distinguish and better understand. The authors of the Code distinguished between patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism
“is a moral virtue which leads us to love our country, and to render all the duties prescribed by filial piety towards all those who have some claim to be responsible for our existence. The first thing which patriotism leads us to venerate is our ancestral land…which we love, not for its own sake….but because it is the cradle of our race, because it gave us birth, because it is the home in which we share the thoughts and feelings of men of the same blood and culture.”15
Patriotism is therefore love of country which means the state consisting of all its institutions as that may encompass many nations. Nationalism
“is primarily concerned with this community of race and blood…it is not necessarily confined to the territories of the State; for irredentist nations, it exists beyond the frontiers; it is even found in nations which have no fatherland, such as the nomadic peoples and the Jews. Even when it most closely resembles patriotism, nationalism may still be distinguished from it by its more vigilant concern to strengthen the bonds which exist between people of the same nation, and to proclaim the undeniable priority of the common good over the interests of classes or parties….”16
Nationalism is the source of much disorder or imbalance which leads to conflict, war, or at least an absence of lasting peace. In countries where there are several nationalities, “nationalism sometimes opposes itself to patriotism; national minorities wish to detach themselves from the common fatherland, and claim the right to dispose freely of their new autonomy.”17 Nationalism, while being “a good and sound thing in itself,…becomes a lawless and baneful passion when national culture, which is truly valuable and important, is made an absolute value.”18 Nationalism
“forgets that `each nation is the vehicle of a type of human culture, more or less elevated; but that none fully expresses the ideal of human culture or civilization. No given national culture may be identified with culture or civilization as such and absolutely; for none is anything more than one possible form , a contingent consequence of historical development.’”19
The authors went on, “Exaggerated nationalism does not hesitate to sacrifice the cultural values of other nations to this relative value which it has arbitrarily made absolute.; it will even claim to subordinate to it the transcendental and universal notions of Right, Morality, truth and Religion.”20 So, “when nationalism has reached this pitch, it can no longer be reconciled with the precepts of Right and Christian Ethics….”21
Internationalism is an “antidote to excessive nationalism” but it must be understood as consisting of two different ideas. The one is an internationalism that “implies the suppression of frontiers, the abolition of nationalities, making the world a vast battleground in which a merciless class war will replace national antagonisms.”22 The other internationalism is called universalism as it is complementary to “national particularism” as universalism
“does not disdain the very diverse cultural values which distinguish the various national groups and form their heritage. It respects them fully, for it knows their worth. But it goes beyond these contingent aspects of human life to discover and retain as a higher reality that identity of nature which makes all human beings to be members of one family, and all nations the constituent parts of a much vaster, supra-national, universal society.”23
The community of nations, or international society, exists as a matter of the Natural Law. As a result,
“national societies must find their place in international society, without being absorbed by it. They remain responsible for the common good of their subjects, but must subordinate this special good to the universal good, which is the specific end of international society….Of itself the national common good implies the universal common good; nations are working for the fulfillment of their own special mission when they help in the achievement of the universal common good, upon which their own is dependent.”24
The national common good is “a particular good and therefore subordinate to the universal good” and does not permit that the state be “independent of the authority responsible for the higher common good of humanity. On the contrary, since this higher good can only result from the collaboration of all the members of international society, the authority entrusted with the task of guiding and co-ordinating their efforts must obviously be provided with adequate powers for its mission.”25 Such international authority, for lack of a better term, “must be able to command, control, arbitrate and judge in all that pertains to international life” and has “these powers by virtue of its natural mission” not by any “voluntary delegation of the associated States” which “have no right to question them” but “must accept them with submission, even though it may be their task to actualize them.”26
As Luigi Taparelli, SJ wrote in the middle of the Nineteenth Century, states are like the family which does not lose “its domestic liberty when united to civil society” so a “nation does not lose its political liberty when it belongs to international society” and “the sovereignty of States does not in any way imply their total independence of every created power” for “in accepting the law of a higher international authority, they do not lose any of their autonomous rights.”27 Accepting international authority is part of “the true sovereignty” needed “to fulfill their mission properly” while greatly strengthening this sovereignty.28 If states reject international authority, then they are forced to choose between
“complete isolation or voluntary association. The former leaves their precarious sovereignty open to all the attacks of force and violence. The latter implies at least a partial renunciation of that total independence which they were so anxious to safeguard; yet the guarantees it brings cannot be compared with those which a universally recognized and respected international authority could give.”29
International society with an international authority has its “source in nature, and has, consequently, God for its author.”30 As St Augustine made clear, the “family, political society and international society – domus, urbs, orbis – are institutions of natural law” as “they correspond to certain fundamental needs of human nature.”31 International society, and indeed the very realization of its existence and necessity, has taken a while to develop but it “has to be actualized and brought into being in an effective manner.”32 The ideal of human, and international society or the community of nations, is unity with a common government. Since 1919, that process accelerated with the help and dedication of a lawyer and United States Senator from Tennessee, Cordell Hull, and the Americans.
Cordell Hull and The Americans As Builders
If there is anyone who is most responsible for the United Nations and the post World War II order it is Cordell Hull. Cordell Hull and the American elites were determined to achieve the ideal of which Pope Leo XIII and St Thomas Aquinas spoke. In the course of his career, Hull realized the truths put forth by the IUSS. He saw the dangers of nationalism, the need for commerce, and the need for the building of bridges while reducing barriers. He knew the immense importance of justice and a legal means of adjudicating differences between countries so as to avoid war and encourage peace which itself was to be the norm of human existence.
Hull reflected in his Memoirs on the cause of World War I. He wrote the war
“was a culmination of years of intense, bitter rivalry among a number of daring and desperate powers seeking territory, trade advantage, raw materials, control of trade routes, and political, economic,, or military domination of small and helpless peoples. This strife, much of it just below the surface, had been steadily growing more bitter and dangerous. Some of Europe’s rulers more than once had resorted to tactics of threatening and bluffing and engaging in dangerous casts on the very verge of war. Underlying conditions of hostility, readiness of military conflict and determination to seek certain objections were ripe for a surface occurrence, such as the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand to touch off a great war.”33
With the Great War’s advent, Hull strove to advance
“the broad policy of removing or lowering all excessive barriers to international trade, exchange and finance of whatsoever kind, and to adopt commercial policies that would make possible the development of vastly increased trade among the nations. This part of my proposal was based on a conviction that such liberal commercial policies and such development of the volume of commerce would constitute an essential foundation of any peace structure the civilized nations might erect following the war.”34
By increasing commercial exchanges as a result of removing barriers to trade, Hull wrote, “we would go a long way toward eliminating war itself.”35
Hull’s “philosophy for peace” consisted of dismantling the “colonial or empire system” along with a “reasonable system of commercial arbitration” for dealings “between traders of different countries.” These ideas he took to some of the same places frequented by James Brown Scott such as the Montevideo Conference of 1933 and the London Economic Conference. 36
As a Congressman from Tennessee (1907-1921; 1923-1931) and a Senator from the same state (1931 to 1933), Hull’s efforts were directed primarily towards a foreign policy that promoted cooperation and peace between countries. In the years following 1925, he vainly sought to “hammer some headway with my ideas on lower tariffs, equitable taxation, and international economic and political cooperation. “ However, “isolation was in the saddle, the League of Nations almost a byword for ridicule with many millions, and the stock market a panacea and a promise for all time to come.” One of Hull’s key tenets was “peace through economics” which he had been advancing since 1916 and which motivated him to attend as a delegate to the World Congress of the International Chamber of Commerce at Brussels, Belgium in 1925.37
Democracy was also essential to peace. Hull delivered a talk in York, Pennsylvania on December 28, 1926 which was the anniversary of President Woodrow Wilson’s birth. He said
“that the supreme question was whether democracy would be able to justify and sustain itself. It means rule by the people. If the world is to progress, the standard of world democracy which Wilson so ably carried must be upheld to the uttermost in the future. The alternative will be the lapse of the world back to the control of hereditary and arbitrary kings, dictators, and other autocrats, with every prospect of recurring wars and of government alone by hereditary or similar autocracies or aristocracies. The voice of the people will again be stifled.”38
In Woodward Oklahoma on April 13, 1927, he remarked on America’s moral power as unequaled in the world, but that we had lost our way. He said
“Six years ago, America was the greatest moral force of any nation in the world or in history….Six years ago the attitude of other nations toward the united States was never better; today it was never worse. The lack of vision, practical knowledge and morality in our foreign policies has been disastrous in the extreme. We have reaped a world harvest of economic and trade losses and of suspicion, contempt, and ill will…
“….for six years our Government has had no definite or adequate foreign policy. Under our slipshod and piecemeal policies we have drifted and muddled along until our moral influence has vanished utterly…..this nation must speedily adopt a constructive foreign policy embracing intelligent, practical and systematic cooperation. There are many ways of sane cooperation to promote better understanding friendship, good will, peace, and justice consistent with our Constitution and traditions.”39
With comments that could have been made during Trump 2.0, the US policy, Hull found, was “entirely materialistic, based on high tariffs and such nationalistic considerations.” Hull warned that
“This is the coarse and sordid doctrine of materialism which is rooted in selfishness and repugnant to the original ideals on which the Government was founded. Human rights, human welfare, national character, high ideals, morals and Christian vitality, on which freedom and civilization must continue to rest if they are to endure, are matters of secondary consideration under our present purely materialistic Government since 1920.”40
Perhaps because of Hull’s long history in advocating for international peace and sound US foreign policy as well as his training as a lawyer, FDR wanted him to serve as his Secretary of State. Hull met with FDR in February, 1933 as he was considering the office, and his thoughts remained that economic cooperation and political peace were interrelated. The “the granite rock of isolation and narrow nationalism still stood in the middle of the road to the necessary international cooperation for a future world of peace and economic well-being. Only by the most desperate grappling with these terrific obstacles could this country and other peaceful democracies army against danger and strive on to the ultimate goal.”41
Upon confirmation as Secretary of State, Hull said “demoralization and chaos, including the complete dislocation of the economic relationships of nations, characterized political and economic affairs.” He said
“`There has been, too, a general letting down since the war of moral and political standards by both peoples and governments….There should be no laxity on the part of this or any other nation in the observance of both the letter and spirit of treaties and of international good faith.
“`There should be sane and realistic international cooperation, keeping in mind our traditions and our Constitution, to aid in preserving the peace of the world. This policy is vital. This nation henceforth must play its full part in effecting the normal restoration of national economic relationships and in world commercial rehabilitation, from which alone business recovery in satisfactory measure can be hoped for. That the war debts owed our government are but one factor, will not be controverted. The policy of international readjustment assumes that all fundamental domestic remedies for trade improvement also will be pursued….
“`The success of the principal foreign policies of the incoming administration, therefore, will be determined by the extent of its aid in restoring world commerce, which would include our commerce at home; and its aid in maintaining world peace under the fundamental policy of right and justice. This great young country of ours possesses resources and wealth unequaled in all the past, and, under a sound and suitable program of fiscal and economic policies such as will be proposed, there can be no reasonable doubt about early revival.’…”42
Like Lincoln, he saw the vital importance of the “axioms of free society and also the political truths applicable to free institutions and the spirit of individual liberty.” Hull knew that human rights applied to all people and that this would elevate the dialogue and improve relations between countries. He recognized the importance of implementing and observing the Law of Nations between countries, as well as the Natural Law. These
“principles were extremely important in the domestic life of nations everywhere, because they raised peoples to higher levels and made them all the stronger in their support of peace and of organizations to preserve the peace. I was determined to preach a revival and restoration of all these axioms of organized domestic and international society, not only to our own people but also to the Governments and peoples of other countries…I felt the urgent need of an awakening and revival in the people’s minds and hearts of the doctrines, in both letter and spirit, of human rights, individual liberty, and freedom. There had to be a revitalization and restoration of higher levels of morals, truth, respect, and trust among nations, all official standards of conduct having greatly deteriorated in international relations.”43
Nations needed to “make their chief rallying point the establishment of a state of world order under law, so as to maintain conditions of permanent peace. This would include justice, equality, fair-dealing, observance of treaties, peaceful settlement of disputes, and nonintervention in the internal affairs of other nations.”44
In the domestic arena, partisan politics had no place in foreign policy formulation as he wrote that “foreign affairs had to be kept out of domestic politics.”45 There needed to be the “constant pursuit of human liberties” around the globe and the better recognition of basic human rights, the more solid a foundation for peace and well-being there would be established. Hull explained “international law was virtually unknown during the first three thousand years of history” and that it was “only at the end of the Thirty Years’ War, with its indescribable brutalities and savagery, that the great Dutch jurist Grotius really founded this system of law.” Hull said the
“persistent effort through succeeding centuries was necessary to extend it to the preservation of peace as well as the regulation of warfare. This phase, however, is not so surprising when we recall that the term `human rights’ was scarcely conceived until within the last eight hundred years, and that the common lot of 90 per cent to 95 per cent of the human race, until within the last two hundred years, was that of slavery, serfdom or enforced war service, mainly to gratify the ambition of rulers.”46
As he took office, Hull saw the global situation deteriorating. He wrote “one thing I felt dead sure: namely, that in the chaotic international situation existing when I took office, if the United States did not take the lead toward sanity, no other nation would. The United States had frittered away its chance for leadership once before, when Wilson’s ideas were rejected, and I felt that we now had a double responsibility.” The isolationists opposed his efforts from 1933 to 1941. In describing them, he said these were
”Americans who believed in isolation were well-meaning, patriotic citizens and thought they were pursuing this country’s more or less traditional policies. This attitude of good faith by most of the isolationists made it all the more difficult to prevail on them to take note of external danger, imminent and inevitable it might be. They failed to realize that a policy of isolation would make us as lonely in the family of nations as a martin on a fodder pole.”47
One of the voices listened to by the isolationists, especially when the USA was trying to buttress the authority of the League of Nations by appointing an American ambassador to the organization and to obtain Congressional approval of US adherence to the World Court, was the “radio priest,” Fr. Charles Coughlin. The matter had to go to a vote of the Senate. Hull explained
“The Senate recessed on Friday, January 25 [1935], before which time the vote should have been taken. Over the week end the adverse propaganda increased furiously. Father Coughlin, who was closely listened to and blindly followed by a large mass of uninformed prejudiced persons, bitterly opposed the resolution. So did the cowboy radio orator, Will Rogers. Neither Coughlin nor Rogers knew the real issues involved, but their opposition hurt painfully.”
The resolution was defeated.48
Almost immediately with the German invasion of Poland, Hull began planning for the creation of what became known as the United Nations. The principles that he espoused years earlier comprised the foundation of the new organization and he emphasized the “continuing surveillance by the United Nations over aggressor nations until such time as the latter demonstrated their willingness and ability to live at peace with other nations.” Hull said
“All will agree that nationalism and its spirit are essential to the healthy and normal political and economic life of a people, but when policies of nationalism – political, economic, social, and moral – are carried to such extremes as to exclude and prevent necessary policies of international cooperation, they become dangerous and deadly. Nationalism, run riot between the last war and this war, defeated all attempts to carry out indispensable measures of international economic and political action, encouraged and facilitated the rise of dictators, and drove the world straight toward the present war.”49
The “Excessive trade barriers had to be reduced in the postwar world, I said, and practices that imposed injuries on others and diverted trade from its natural economic course had to be avoided. National currencies had to be freely exchangeable for each other at stable rates of exchange. A system of financial relations had to be devised so that materials could be produced and ways found of moving them where there were markets created by human need.
“I stressed the necessity for an informed public opinion. `This is a talk of intensive study, hard thinking, broad vision, and leadership – not for governments alone, but for parents, and teachers, and clergymen, and all those, within each nation, who provide spiritual, moral, and intellectual guidance. Never did so great and so compelling a duty in this respect devolve upon those who are in positions of responsibility, public and private.’”50
Cordell Hull and the Americans recognized there is a natural community of nations and that war was not inevitable but that peace was the normal state of things. To reach these goals, Hull and the Americans worked for the juridical establishment of this natural community with the creation of the institutions of the rule of law, the recognition and protection of human rights, development through encouraging commerce and reducing barriers to trade, and the proper understanding of nationalism. All of this formed the basis of a beneficial and prosperous world order after 1945 in which the United Nations along with many other institutions and conventions played a pivotal role for improving the lives of the peoples of the world. Americans built for everyone.
Vladimir Putin and the Russians As Destroyers
Putin and the Russians started World War V to advance the power of Russia at the expense of the peoples of the world, and the community of nations. To accomplish these goals, Putin has to emphasize an exaggerated nationalism amongst Russians while sowing disunity and destruction abroad. As previously mentioned, Putin’s key weapon is disinformation coupled with ideological warfare. Culture, politics, racial and ethnic identity, and differences of opinion of all sorts are battlefields for Putin and the Russians. The situation in Ukraine, which involved Russian meddling since at least 2004, was “a warning that Russia could seek to expand its activities into disrupting and dividing the West.” Indeed, Ukraine’s pro-Western Prime Minister, Arseny Yatsenyuk, said in early 2015 that “Russia is trying to create turbulence in the EU through supporting far-right political movements.”51
With the Orange Revolution, Putin created a
“network of Russian non-governmental organisations and state proxy groups that first sought a toehold in Ukraine, and then expanded into the West. Their mission was to counter US funded non-government organisations such as the A National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and George Soros’s Open Society, which was despised most of all by Putin and his cronies.”
The support of “human rights, civil liberties and supporting democracy was no more than a cynical pretext” to get control of former Soviet states and pull Russia back into the West’s zone of control.52
Putin’s helpers were at the highest echelons of Russian society, and indeed obtained wealth and influence due largely to their allegiance to Putin. Konstantin Malofeyev is one of the founders of Marshall Capital, an investment fund that grew to hold more than $ 1 billion in assets in things like telecommunications, children’s food manufacturers, hotels and real estate. He was backed by Putin’s inner circle of KGB men – an essential requirement for anyone to rise in Russia — and he became a director of the state telecommunications giants Svyazinvest and Rostelecom. The St. Vasily the Great Foundation was a key player in the political projection of Russian influence and “Malofeyev would be a front man in Russia’s battle for empire against the West.” Malofeyev, like others in Putin’s circle,
“wanted to advance an ideology, based on the shared Slavic values of Russian Orthodoxy, the preached almost the opposite of Western liberal values of tolerance. Russian Orthodoxy saw itself as the one true faith, with everything else considered a heresy. Individual rights, it preached must be subordinate to tradition and to the state, and homosexuality was a sin. Putin’s KGB men had chosen an ideological rationale for the drive to restore Russian empire that resonated with those who felt left by the wayside in the tumult of globalization, as well as with base innate prejudice. They turned to once-marginalised philosophers such as Alexander Dugin, a long-bearded political thinker straight out of the ages of a Dostoevsky novel, to propound theories of Russia’s destiny as a Eurasian empire that would take its rightful place as the world’ one true power, as the Third Rome.”53
An ideology that would be accepted by a broad range of influential, and wealthy, Russians was needed.
“They had been grasping for an ideology that would unite their allies against the liberal West, and Putin had long been discussing these ideas, and those of other exiled White Russian imperialists, with de Pahlen and the other Geneva money men.” Malofeyev said that “We were very lucky with this group. This civilisational project arose because of their background and their understanding of the past and the future of the country….” Additionally, the KGB cultivated the Russian far-right nationalist and imperialist groups since the Soviet collapse.54
Malofeyev and Vladimir Yakunin founded Andrei the First-Called, a Russian Orthodox charity that was used to pour “increasing amounts of cash” into a “web of state agencies created to promote Russian soft power abroad. These included Rossotrudnichestvo and Russky Mir, or Russian World” which were founded in 2008 and 2007 respectively. Both were employed to promote the Kremlin’s version of events while helping cultural and language programs.55
As this is being written, the Tsargrad Institute is hosting a conference June 9 and 10 in Moscow entitled Forum of the Future 2050. Topics of the conference, according to various social media posts (I am very cautious about going on Russian websites), include Russian colonization of Mars, patriotic education, replacing robots with immigrants and more. Called to attend are a number of leading figures who have promoted pro-Russian and anti-Western narratives, or who have promoted demoralizing material or Russian disinformation. These include Errol Musk (the father of Elon Musk), Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Alex Jones formerly of InfoWars, former member of the UK Parliament George Galloway, and “journalist” Max Blumenthal. Prominently displayed in the program is Malofeyev.
A “network of think tanks” put down roots in the West. One was the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation which set up an office in Paris and was dedicated to ending “`the Western monopoly’ on defining human rights and Russia’s observance of them.” Lead by Natalia Narochnitskaya whose KGB credentials went back decades, the institute “did its bit for propagating the world view of Putin’s KGB men” and “also had a sideline in targeting and recruiting future agents of influence.”56
Working close with Narochnitskaya was Vladimir Yakunin of the previously mentioned Russian Orthodox Foundation of Andrei the First-Called as well as the think tank The Dialogue of Civilisations.57 The idea was to further accelerate the decline of US soft power by characterizing American intervention in countries as immoral despite the fact these interventions were authorized by the world’s juridical entity, the United Nations, and hence moral. This effort by Russia was also an attack on the entire juridical structure of the world community and the unity of the human race all for the purpose of advancing Russian power.
Another attack on the world community comes from those who want a return to the “Westphalian Order” which is a phrase thrown about by Steve Bannon. Norwegian professor Glenn Diesen, is an associate editor of Russia in Global Affairs journal. He authored The Ukraine War and the Eurasian World Order in which he argues that the world should break apart into various power blocks. He claims that state sovereignty was threatened by “Liberal theory” that involved human rights “promoted in a manner that undermines the sovereignty of the state” thereby enhancing “justice at the expense of order.” He criticized the human rights pillar of the United Nations claiming that it was a Western Liberal construct that varied with the Soviet view, and that resulted in the “concept of human security” and “enhancing justice at the expense of order.”58
The great issue to Diesen is the fight for hegemony whether that be between China and the United States or something else. Defending Russia’ point of view that “NATO’s expansion to Ukraine is believed to be an existential threat,” he claims that “new centres of power have emerged across the world that share Russia’s ambitions to construct a multipolar Westphalian world order.”59 With this transition, Diesen writes that the “fear of nuclear war appears to be gone, and wars between the great powers are no longer unimaginable. As the world is transitioning between unipolarity and multipolarity, common rules are largely absent.”60
With multipolarity and calls to return to the “Westphalian world order,” Diesen is advancing Russian geopolitical goals. He is essentially striking down the Christian order with its goal of global unity, wiping away centuries of the Law of Nations and years of understanding of the Natural Law, and opening the way – as he admits – for more violence and war. In Diesen, we see the rejection of the rule of law as well as the modification to the point of nullification of human rights, and we also witness the repudiation of the concept of peace between nations as a natural condition.
Putin supports far-right and far-left parties in Europe.61 In the Czech Republic it is Milos Zeman and Martin Nejedly, the head of the Czech branch of Lukoil, the Russian oil company. In Hungary, Russian support was to Bela Kovacs who previously was employed in Russia, the Jobbik Party beginning in 2005, and then later Viktor Orban a staunch ally of the Kremlin.62 In France, Geneva money men of Jean Goutchkov and Serge de Pahlen, descendants of White Russians, funneled cash through proxies and front organizations to political parties on the far-right. They “found a willing advocate on the far left in Jean Luc Melenchon” who was already anti NATO and anti US. There was also the Front National of Jean-Marie le Pen and his daughter Marine. Malofeyev facilitated a 2 million euro loan to Jean-Marie le Pen, while Gennady Timchenko, a close ally of Putin, had ties with a Czech bank that facilitated other fund transfers to the Front National.63 Putin also had an ally in Gerhard Schroder in Germany who sat on the board of Nord Stream, a Russian lead gas pipeline consortium.64 In Italy, there was Silvio Berlusconi, a member “of a financial and influence network that existed back in Soviet times” and whose Fininvest publishing house received air time from the Soviet state television corporation.65 Another Italian banker sympathetic to Putin and the Russians was Antonio Fallico who “knew the Communist Party’s foreign funding operations intimately” and who through Intesa Bank was a major financial backer of “Putin’s KGB capitalism.”66
Malofeyev was actively engaged in the promotion of a “right wing populist agenda, a rebellion against the liberal establishment” and he used religion to do that. A June, 2014 conference in Vienna, another center of Russian financial operations in Europe, brought together representatives and leaders from Marine le Pen’s party, Austria’s right-wing Freedom Party and Bulgaria’s far-right Ataka party as well as Serge de Pahlen. Malofeyev claimed he was only “promoting a religious agenda…a supporter and protector of Christians, not a political one” though he maintained ties with political leaders to include Panos Kammenos with his Institute for Geopolitical Studies and the party known as Syriza in Greece. Additionally, Malofeyev worked with Dugin in fashioning the necessary propaganda and ideological message for all of these groups.67
Despite Western sanctions after the Russian invasion of Crimea, Putin increased his activities in Europe to split the West. One key place was Italy and another key person in that regard was Matteo Salvini who was the leader of the far-right Liga Nord party. Salvini, with Malofeyev, helped to create the Lombardy Russia Cultural Association. That Association promoted “Kremlin-friendly right-wing views and then aimed to `change all of Europe.’” This was to be the “fulcrum for a pro-Russian coalition across Europe.” That was because, as Salvini’s aid Savoini said, “The new Europe must be close to Russia because we want to have our sovereignty…We must not depend on the decisions made by the Illuminati in Brussels or in the US…..” Savoini listed other “far-right pro-Kremlin parties such as Austria’s Freedom Party, the Alternative fur Deutschland in Germany and Marine le Pen’s Rassemblement National in France” with whom he wanted a “great alliance with these parties that are pro-Russia.” These parties were going to “forge their own bloc within Europe, and subvert the political landscape of the entire continent.”68
Putin supported political groups on the extremes of the left and right thereby “latching on to and stoking a rising wave of discontent in Eastern Europe. Now that the former countries of the eastern bloc had been EU members for almost a decade, the luster of the West and liberalism was beginning to wear off.”69 Soviet KGB agent networks were still extant in Eastern Europe “where the spread of economic wealth was extremely uneven, and the conservative call of the Russian Orthodox Church against the liberal freedoms of the West found a ready ear.”70
Along with the peasants of the East, there was, as briefly alluded to earlier, a group of “Geneva money men” who were the descendants of White Russians intent on returning Russia to its days of empire and imagined glory. These Geneva money men forged ties with the French elite, the French aristocracy as well as political and economic leadership. Alain Bionda was with the French elites and worked with Russian oligarchs Jean Goutchkov and Gennady Timochenko as the latter sold a 12 percent stake in Novatek and a 20 percent stake in the liquefied natural-gas project to Total, France’s “most important energy major.” This was all facilitated by contacts with Francoise Hollande, the French President. Within two years of the deals, Timchenko was awarded France’s Legion d’honneur while acceding to the chairmanship of the economic council of the Franco-Russian Chamber of Commerce. This group consisted of France’s most senior industrialists and “top members of Putin’s KGB capitalism to include Andrei Akimov…KGB connected head of Gazprombank and Sergei Chemezov, Putin’s KGB comrade from Putin’s days in Dresden in the 1970s”.71
Putin uses traditional values as a weapon.72 One of Putin’s men in that regard is Vladimir Yakunin who claimed he was fighting for “conservative values that had been abandoned in the West’s pursuit of globalization.” This “defence of `family’ values against the tolerance and liberalism of the West” was the “Putin regime’s leitmotif” to garner support “among far-right nationalists and conservatives cross Russia, Europe and the US. Yakunin and Malofyev lead the effort in this regard sponsoring the World Congress of Families (a US based “anti-gay organization”) in September, 2014 that was “forging close links with America’s powerful evangelical movement.” All of this was “in fact no more than a cover” because in “Russia, the joining of Church and state was just another element of the erosion of any remnants of democracy” as the “swerve to Orthodoxy by the ruling elite enabled them to crack down further on anyone operating outside their system.” The World Congress of Families was a vehicle that allowed Putin’s people to “make the leap into the US conservative right” which included Dana Rohrabacher and Rand Paul. The Russians had used similar tactics during the US anti-war and anti-nuclear demonstrations of the 1960s and now they were implementing all of this against the US using populist, religious movements and themes. Lyudmilla Narusova, the widow of Putin’s deceased mentor Anatoly Sobchak and mayor of St. Petersburg, incisively commented: “I call them the Orthodox Taliban….It’s a return to some kind of Middle Ages. They are using religion to undermine the constitution, and the fundamental rights of Russian citizens.”73
Allied with religion was the idea of the “battle for civilizations” which Yakunin admitted to author Catherine Belton “was in reality no more than a new ideological cover for the same old geopolitical battle for supremacy that Russia had been waging against the West since the onset of the Cold War.” Yakunin went on to say that “if before it was a battle of two ideologies – the Communist versus the capitalist…today it is the conflict of ideas of a humanist society of traditions versus absolute consumerism. I’m not going to argue with you…that this battle is used by Russia to restore its global position. Of course the battle of ideas is always a form of state policy and should follow a concrete aim….”74
In light of all of this, and by way of commentary, the entire traditional values or family values movement is tainted. Whenever civilization talk abounds, it is a sure sign of Russian, subversive involvement. Perhaps even more significantly, and to repeat what was said at the outset, Putin’s efforts are the same as those employed by the Soviets during the Cold War – “aggression by penetration” a phrase coined by John Eppstein in the 1953 publication of The Code of International Ethics. We are engaged in a world war – World War V – in which tyranny, the aggressor, is using religion, nationalism, and traditional values as weapons to restructure societies from the inside.
Steve Bannon, Agent of Destruction
Steve Bannon was the former Naval officer, investment banker, and motion picture executive who ran Donald Trump’s campaign from August, 2016 to a successful culmination the following November. He has been called the Godfather of the MAGA Movement75 because of the views he holds and imparts. Many of these views are consistent with if not identical to those put out by Putin’s people. In any event, he is sympathetic to Russia and does not see Putin as an enemy much less an adversary.
In Benjamin Teitelbaum’s book, War for Eternity, Bannon explained how he looks at Putin and Russia:
“`I think it’s a little bit more complicated. When Vladimir Putin – When you really look at some of the underpinnings of some of his beliefs today, a lot of those come from what I call Eurasianism….A lot of people that are Traditionalists are attracted to that. One of the reasons is that they believe that at least Putin is standing up for traditional institutions, and he’s trying to do it in a form of nationalism – and I think that people, particularly in certain countries, want to see the sovereignty for their country, they want to see nationalism for their country. They don’t believe in this kind of pan-European Union or they don’t believe in the centralized government in the United States. They’d rather see more of a states-based entity that the founders originally set up where freedoms were controlled at the local level… and I happen to think that the individual sovereignty of a country is a good thing and a strong thing.” 76
Putin is a kleptocrat intent on “expanding Russia’s influence globally” which Bannon does not think is good. He seems to excuse that because of the “threats facing the world” and because Putin wants to confront these threats with “important values of conservatism, spirituality, and nationalism.” Therefore, “an alliance between him and the West may be in order.” Aleksander Dugin connects Putin with Traditionalism and nationalism, things which Bannon approves. All of this made sense of Putin’s push against the “transnational elites.” 77
Bannon helped nationalist, or pro-Russian, parties all over Europe. Bannon, like Dugin, “exercised soft power, attempting to influence others through culture and intellectualism. Their common aims were the reduction of immigration and the destruction of the European Union.” Bannon sees nationalism as a way to strengthen the “sovereignty of individual nation states” to continue the “vitality” of these countries and the “Judeo-Christian West,” but Dugin sees it as a way to weaken the United States while allowing Russia to regain a cultural and political presence in at least the Slavic states.78
Dugin was likely funded by Putin’s regime as well as a Chinese university.79 Bannon was funded by a Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui80, and also on some projects by the American billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah.81 Mercer especially supported Bannon’s ventures with Breitbart which Bannon took over in 2012 and which he turned to promoting European nationalism.
“Bannon had become head of Breitbart News in 2012, and by 2014, both he and the news site were in the process of expanding. While Dugin’s efforts trafficked in lecturing and interpersonal networking, Bannon sought to promote European nationalism through sophisticated media campaigning, and he found both a method and a cause to apply it to. Part of that operation also included reaching out to Cambridge Analytica that was funded by the Mercers to the tune of $ 20 million and that apparently attracted the attention of Russian intelligence through the form of visits by Russia’s Lukoil representatives likely inquiring about data on Americans. Bannon helped to break the UK off from the European Union with the Brexit campaign and he “was eager to see all these forces work together” to advance nationalism. Bannon both sought to inject his message into existing “cultural channels” as well as creating “alternative channels of their own to compete with those of the mainstream.” As Andrew Breitbart said, “Politics is downstream from culture” and Bannon vigorously pursued that strategy.82
The populism of Bannon is a “critique of reason, the opposition to globalism, the disinclination toward movements of social progressivism, celebration of nationalism and localism, contempt for professionalization and institutionalization.” Traditionalism with its mysticism that translates to uncertainty if not also superstition, is consistent with populism as it facilitates and masks the exercise of the will to power. Traditionalism allows people like “Bannon, Dugin and Olavo to be their eccentric highbrow selves while participating in a political cause that they might otherwise find socially and intellectually alienating.” Traditionalism with the mix was able to draw people with great resources and abilities while allowing the fulfillment of an agenda through “undemocratic actions.”83
The nebulous nature of Bannon’s nationalism or populism allows for exaggeration, and for a reason to form policies ending collaboration between other countries and thereby harming the general, or common good, of the international society all for the benefit of a particular good – whatever that may be for a group of people in one country. Such also lends itself to a cult of grievance. “Trump did have long-standing impulses on certain issues that Bannon would have approved of – both believed, for instance that the United States was constantly being victimized in foreign trade deals….Trump took up Bannon’s populist nationalism, with its chesty blue-collar ethos and disdain for corrupt `globalist’ elites.” 84
Stoking grievances was Bannon’s method and to help with this, he found Milo Yianopoulos, a “gay British tech blogger and Internet troll nonpareil”, someone to connect with the younger crowd. Milo, as he was known, had a specialty which was “intentionally offensive opinion piece that invariably provoked a high-traffic response.” That style was adopted by Breitbart under Bannon and it is easy to see how it could fuel anger and fear, two things in another venue Bannon said are essential to bringing people to the polls. All of this served to make Breitbart an “incubator of alt-right political energy” in which according to Ben Shapiro, and Bannon himself, “Narrative truth was his priority rather than factual truth.” Bannon even said when pressed by a reporter, “We’re honey badgers….We don’t give a shit.”85
Bannon, like Putin and the Russians, was and is intent on destroying, not building up. He said “We look at London and Texas as two fronts in our current cultural and political war….There is a growing global anti-establishment revolt against the permanent political class at home and the global elites that influence them which impacts everyone from Lubbock to London.”86
Bannon’s “nationalism” is “confusing” and has never been “fully explicated” but it was connected with other aspects of Bannon’s life.87 Christian mysticism, Eastern metaphysics, and the occultism and mysticism of Rene Guenon all fed into Bannon’s thinking. Bannon believed like Guenon that “the West was passing through the fourth and final era….the Kali Yuga” when tradition is forgotten and needed to be restored.88
The “encroaching globalist order” was an existential threat to the “last vestiges of the traditional” and so Bannon “aligned himself with politicians and causes committed to tearing down its globalist edifice” and these included Nigel Farage and the UKIP, Marine Le Pen’s National Front, Geert Wilders and the Party for Freedom and Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. In defending tradition, Bannon wanted to “leverage US trade policy to strengthen opponents of the EU.” Nationalism therefore had a mystical component to it that required a return to tradition by controlling “borders, currency and military and national identity,” all of which is rather vague and ill-defined while striking at the root of the international community with grievance. Mysticism allied with Traditionalism is what Bannon believes unites him with Dugin both of whom sought the same goals.89
Bannon’s values, like those of other Traditionalists, is a reversal of those held in the world as constituted. These values are a negation of right order. Teitelbaum puts it best: “Yes, the Steve Bannons of our times can find victories where others see defeat. With weapons and armies sometimes manifest, sometimes invisible, they view the world through radically different sets of eyes – witnessing chaos in structure, order in ruins, and the past in the future.”90
Traditionalism is mysticism and the rejection of reason with its doctrines opaque to the average person. Therein lies its danger and the danger of all movements it touches for then people are more easily subject to manipulation to serve demagogues or dictators and disrupt the right order of the world society. Liberalism with its emphasis on reason which manifests itself in the rule of law and human rights, gives certainty, or at least a common language that unites as this common language is based on understanding or reason based on ideas that are easily accessible. This allows for the security and hence the development of the person. With all of this and its emphasis on reason, the Liberal Order is best for establishing the juridical manifestation of the global community, or the community of nations as it facilitates unity which is again based on, grounded in, reason. Liberalism, the Liberal Order, builds bridges, not walls. This is what Putin and other tyrants rail against and seek to destroy. They want walls, they want arbitrariness, they want fear, ignorance, anger all the better to destroy and then rule over the rubble.
1 A theme of the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV already is the building of bridges. For instance, see Francesco Merlo, “Pope Leo XIV: Build Bridges for Ecological and Social Justice,” May 20, 2025, Vatican News.
2 John Eppstein, Has The Catholic Church Gone Mad? (Arlington House, New Rochelle, New York, 1971), dustjacket.
3 Mark Bosco, “Kindred Spirits: Catholic Writers Inspired by Jesuit Friendships,” November 10, 2015, America Magazine, retrieved December 20, 2023; “Cyrus Charles Martindale,” Encyclopedia.com retrieved December 20, 2023.
4“Founded in 1924 under the presidency of Cardinal Bourne and composed of representatives of 19 Catholic societies of England , Scotland, and Wales. Its aim is to assist the sovereign pontiff in his efforts to establish “the Peace of Christ in the Reign of Christ.” It endeavors to give Catholics in Great Britain a greater and more sympathetic knowledge of their fellow Catholics in other countries; to create a Catholic public opinion, informed by the tradition of the Church , which shall be a real power for international justice and peace; to enable Catholics to understand, appreciate, and when necessary, criticize from the standpoint of religion, the international organizations and movements of the day. The Cattholic [sic] Council for International Relations supplies to Catholic schools and societies, lecturers on the various aspects of Catholic life abroad, the pacific function of the Holy See, the League of Nations, and such international topics. It has held conferences at Reading, Oxford, Southend, London, and Birmingham , and arranged for British representation at Catholic international congresses on many subjects, in Europe. By means of pamphlets and the quarterly publication of “A Catholic Survey,” it establishes Catholic principles of international morality and justice. It is affiliated to the “Union Catholique d’Etudes Internationales,” and is in touch with Catholic peace-societies all over the world. (E.V.W.)” Encyclopedic Dictionary of Bible and Theology, https://www.biblia.work/dictionaries/catholic-council-for-international-relations/ accessed January 1, 2024.
5 John Eppstein, The Catholic Tradition of the Law of Nations, pp. 371-372, n. 1.; Catholic Hierarchy, https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bbess.html accessed December 24, 2023; “Catholic Union of International Studies,” uia.org/s/or/en/1100010566 as accessed December 26, 2023. On April 5, 1927, the Conference of Presidents later known as the Conference of Presidents of International Catholic Organizations, met at the invitation of the CUIS. Later, the entity became known as the Conference of International Catholic Organizations (CICO) and it became a formal institution approved by the Holy See in 1951 with the adoption of the current name of CICO in 1953. The purpose of this organization or its aims are to act “Under the inspiration of Christian principles, participate in the life of the universal Church and collaborate constructively in the development of international life; for Christian values worldwide.” Conference of Catholic International Organizations, UIA Global Civil Society Database, https://uia.org/s/or/en/1100044386 accessed December 26, 2023.
6 John Eppstein, Has The Catholic Church Gone Mad? (Arlington House, New Rochelle, New York, 1971), dustjacket.
7 The International Union of Social Studies, Code of International Ethics ed. John Eppstein (Sands & Co., Glasgow, Scotland, 1952; The Newman Press, 1953), 25-26.
8 Ibid., para. 47.
9 James Brown Scott, The Catholic Conception of International Law (The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., Clark, New Jersey, 2008, 2014), xi –xxvi.
10 International Union of Social Studies, A Code of International Ethics (Catholic Social Guild, 1937).
11 Ibid., para. 233.
12 Ibid., para. 235.
13 Ibid., para. 235.
14 Ibid., para. 234.
15 Ibid., para. 236.
16 Ibid., para. 236.
17 Ibid., para. 237.
18 Ibid., para. 240.
19 Ibid., para. 240. ciitng RP Delos, OP, in Internatinoal Relations from a Catholic Standpoint, pp. 24-25.
20 Ibid., para. 240.
21 Ibid., para. 241.
22 Ibid., para. 244.
23 Ibid., para. 245.
24 Ibid., para. 245.
25 Ibid., para. 248.
26 Ibid., para. 248.
27 Ibid., para. 249.
28 Ibid., para. 249.
29 Ibid., para. 250.
30 Ibid., para. 253 referencing Leo XIII’s Immortale Dei.
31 Ibid., para. 10.
32 Ibid., paras. 11 and 28.
33 Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, (The Macmillan Company, New York, 1948), Volume I, 75.
34 Hull, Memoirs, Volume I, 84.
35 Hull, Memoirs, Volume I, 84.
36 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. I, 85.
37 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. I, 123, 125.
38 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. I, 127.
39 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. I, 128.
40 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. I, 128.
41 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. 1, 157.
42 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. I, 159.
43 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. I, 173.
44 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. I, 173-174.
45 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. I, 174.
46 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. I, 175-176.
47 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. I, 176-177.
48 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. I, 387-389.
49 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. II, 1178-1179.
50 Hull, Memoirs, Vol. II, 1178-1179.
51 Catherine Belton, Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West (Farrar Strauss and Giroux, New York, 2020), 395.
52 Ibid., 421.
53 Ibid., 420-422.
54 Ibid., 422.
55 Ibid., 422.
56 Ibid., 432-433.
57 Ibid., 433.
58 Glenn Diesen, The Ukraine War and the Eurasian World Order (Clarity Press, Atlanta, Georgia, 2024), 29-30.
59 Ibid., 266-267, 272.
60 Ibid., 274.
61 Belton, 430-437.
62 Ibid., 430-431.
63 Ibid., 433-434.
64 Ibid., 434.
65 Ibid., 434.
66 Ibid., 434.
67 Ibid., 435.
68 Ibid., 435-436.
69 Ibid., 430.
70 Ibid., 431, 433.
71 Ibid., 431-432.
72See, Rebekah Koffler, Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America, (Regnery Gateway, Washington DC, 2021), 197: “Putin’s Russia continues to target the American religious community by promulgating a narrative that Russia is a bulwark of conservative and traditional values that is mounting a decisive effort to combat decadent liberal Western values. Unfortunately, religious Americans who feel increasingly marginalized and even threatened by liberal trends in a a society that rejects the notions of traditional marriage and family, and even gender, can be ripe targets for being unwittingly duped by the Kremlin’s propaganda.”
73 Belton, 441-442.
74 Ibid., 443.
75 See, Freddie Hayward, “The Godfather of the MAGA Right: Steve Bannon on a US-Russia alliance, kinship with Blue Labour, and his war on modernity,” February 26, 2025, Politico.
76 Benjamin R. Teitelbaum, War For Eternity: Inside Bannon’s Far Right Circle of Global Power Brokers, (Dey St., William Morrow, New York, 2020), 35-38.
77 Ibid., 35-38.
78 Ibid., 56-57.
79 Ibid., 154.
80 Ibid., 94.
81 Ibid., 60; Also, see, Joshua Green, Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency (Scribe Publications, Victoria, Australia, 2017), 124-130.
82 Ibid., 62-63
83 Teitelbaum, 281.
84 Joshua Green, Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Storming of the Presidency (Scribe Publications, Victoria, Australia, 2017), 93.
85 Ibid., 146-148.
86 Ibid., 148-149.
87 Ibid., 204.
88 Ibid., 204-205.
89 Ibid., 206-207.
90 Ibid., 283.