What I'm Watching

I am a movie junkie who is always searching for a movie fix.  In the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I searched for World War II movies [what a shock!] that had a “different” perspective.  In other words, a perspective that isn’t American or British.  I found some good ones, to include the following:

The King’s Choice [2016] – In April 1940 the Nazis invaded Norway and Denmark.  This well-executed Norwegian movie is centered on Norway’s King Haakon VII and his efforts to evade Nazi capture.  The choice in question is whether to accept Vidkun Quisling as his prime minister.  In an extraordinary act of rare political intervention by a constitutional monarch whose role was mostly ceremonial, he told his government that if they decided to accept Quisling, he and his entire house would abdicate. This would leave the government bearing sole responsibility for what happened to Norway.  The government acceded to the King’s wishes, after which Norway resisted Nazi occupation for five years.  The King, the Crown Prince, and the government escaped to the UK and continued as a government-in-exile until the war’s end.

April 9th [2015] – This Danish movie takes place during the same time as The King’s Choice.  Like their Norwegian counterparts, Denmark did not want to take any action the Germans would see as a “provocation” and risk a German invasion.  This story is focused on an army company of bicycle infantrymen.  Yes, the Danish went to war with troops on bicycles and motorcycles against German mechanized infantry.  Against overwhelming odds, these intrepid Danes held out two hours longer than their own government.

Army of Shadows [1969] – This French film about the French Resistance during World War II was so controversial it didn’t see a US release until 2006.  The source of the controversy was the student protests in Paris in May 1968.  When this movie was originally released it was seen by many as a glorification of Charles De Gaulle. This movie follows a small group of Resistance fighters as they deal with Vichy collaborators, kill informants, work with Allied militaries, protect sources and fellow resisters, and try to avoid capture and/or execution.  This is a bleak, realistic, unromantic look at what the Resistance was really like.  The movie has an ending which She Who Must Obeyed would like – everybody dies at the end.  This film is the gold standard against which movies of similar subject matter are measured.  Yeah, it’s that good.

Lidice [2001] – This Czech movie is streaming on Amazon Prime under the title Fall of the Innocent.  The timeframe of this movie is 1939-42, during which time Czechoslovakia was under Nazi occupation.  The main character is a guy named František Šíma, who is imprisoned for four years of labor for manslaughter.  He accidentally killed his own son, who drunkenly attacked him at a wedding.  Šíma’s younger son is friends with another teenager, Václav Fiala, who tries to impress a girl he’s seeing with lies about his involvement with Czech resistance fighters.  When Deputy Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich is assassinated by British-trained Czech resistance fighters, a letter Fiala wrote to the girl he’s trying to impress lies about his involvement in the Heydrich assassination surfaced.  What resulted was the destruction of the village of Lidice and the mass deportation and/or massacre of its citizens, including Šíma’s son.  All of this happens while Šíma is incarcerated, and the news of Lidice’s fate is kept from him until after his release.  Lidice was wiped off the map, so the scenes depicting Lidice were filmed in Štětí, which is approximately 30 miles north of Prague.

Flame & Citron [2008] – In keeping with the Norse Resistance thing, this Danish movie is about two Danish resistance fighters, the noms de guerre of whom were Flame and Citron.  Unlike the French resisters depicted in Army of Shadows, Flame and Citron confined their activities to assassinations.  Their primary targets were Danish collaborators.  For the most part, the killing of Germans was off limits in order to avoid any German retaliation.  That changed when things got personal between Flame and the head of the Gestapo in Denmark.  The movie has the dreaded “based on true events” tag, so the historical accuracy is somewhat suspect.  Given that, this movie is still a riveting look at Danish resistance that is every bit as cold-blooded as Army of Shadows.  And like the heroes of that French film, the two Danish assassins met with a premature end.  Citron had a William Holden moment like in The Wild Bunch and went out in a blaze of glory.  Flame was cornered by the Gestapo in the basement of the house where he lived, and rather than get taken alive or get shot to pieces like Citron, Flame took cyanide.  Both were buried in the same unmarked grave.  After the war ended, they were given a state funeral.  They were also awarded the US Medal of Freedom.

This Day in History - Germany Attacks [May 10,1940 - Part 2]

The Maginot Line was France’s first line of defense against a German attack.  It was manned by half a million French soldiers.  It was the most elaborate, the most expensive set of fortifications ever built at the time.  These fortifications would halt the Germans, providing the Germans attacked in that direction.  The Maginot Line extended from the along the French border from Switzerland to Belgium.  It stopped 250 miles short of the English Channel.  The French strategists argued it best to fight the Germans in Belgium if not Germany itself.  It was too expensive to extend the Maginot Line all the way to the Channel, and the French didn’t want the Belgians to think that France would abandon them to the Germans when the attack came.  But King Leopold opted for neutrality in 1936. He closed the Belgian border to French military observers.  The French were very defensive-minded in their military thinking.  Most of their tactics were derived from the First World War.  They, like the British, didn’t want a repeat of the carnage of World War I.   The French had done much to introduce the tank and the airplane to warfare, but had done little to develop them.  They had made advancements in mechanized transport, but reverted to using horses and railways.

German thinking was just the opposite.  They too didn’t want a repeat of the First World War, especially since they’re the ones who lost it.  During the interwar years, Heinz Guderian wrote his thoughts on armored warfare in a book Achtung Panzer!  

Achtung Panzer! is not just a work of theory that was intended to help Germany prepare for the warfare of the future.  It is also a historical work.  More than half the book is dedicated to analysis of how tanks were used on the Western Front in World War I.  It emphasizes on how tanks came into existence, the technical development of tanks, the organizational development of the tanks corps, and the actual experience of tank operations.  Guderian was lucky to have a patron who agreed with him [General Oswald Lutz].  Lutz was the Inspector of the Transport Troops, which was charged with motorizing the German army.  Guderian was soon to become Lutz’s chief of staff.  It was in this job that Lutz encouraged Guderian to develop his armored warfare theories, even going as far as to order him to write a book about it [Achtung Panzer!]. 

The things Guderian wrote about in 1936-37 are commonplace today, but in his era, it was a revolution in tactical thinking.  Guderian was multilingual.  He spoke French fluently, and was almost as good at English.  He studied the works of British maneuver warfare theorists [Swinton, J.F.C. Fuller, B.H. Liddell Hart, and Giffard Martel], as well as one French tank advocate named Charles de Gaulle.  He read everything he could get ahold of from these sources, and met face-to-face with German tank veterans from World War I.  So sharp was Guderian that he became a recognized tank expert before he ever set foot in a tank.  Guderian’s thinking was close to that of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the author of the Deep Battle doctrine [Guderian had seen Russian armor for himself], though Tukhachevsky is not mentioned by name.  Guderian had an audience [Adolf Hitler] that was more receptive to what he had to say than his British, French and Russian/Soviet counterparts.

Prior to World War I, Guderian was attached to a telegraph unit.  During World War, I he became a radio specialist and it was here he developed his appreciation for the use of “signals” as a means of enhancing command and control of armored units.  In 1930, he took command of a motor transport battalion.   This unit was equipped with some armored cars, motorcycles, anti-tank guns and dummy tanks [The Versailles Treaty forbid the Germans from having tanks].  Because the Versailles Treaty limited the size of the Reichswehr to only 100,000 men, the ten-pound brains in the German army [they weren’t allowed to have a General Staff either] had to find a way to create an effective, highly mobile force to meet contingencies.  Guderian’s unit was charged with demonstrating how different mechanized combat arms could work together.  The lessons he learned from World War I include: 1) Tanks should be used in large groups; 2) Tanks should not be wasted on unsuitable ground like swamps; 3) Tanks are best used when you have the element of surprise.  His instructions were clear – strike hard, and quickly, and don’t disperse your forces.  Hit the enemy with a fist – don’t poke them with fingers.  His thoughts about other combat arms included:

Infantry – called “the Queen of battle” by many, but not so Guderian.  He saw infantry as a supporting combat arm rather than a supported combat arm.  He thought infantry needed to be combined in fully motorized formations with other traditional supporting arms – engineers and artillery – all in support of tanks. 

Engineers – go out and find mines, provide pathways over waterways [build bridges], provide means to traverse swamps or other soft ground, reinforce bridges that are too weak to support tanks

Artillery – must be fast-moving, must be sufficiently well-protected to keep up with tanks. Suppress targets and geographical features that tanks can’t take on by themselves.  Long bombardments chew up ground, makes it difficult for tanks to maneuver, betrays the location of impending attack, permits defenders to enhance the readiness of reinforcements.  Joint training of artillery and tanks is a must. 

Aircraft – Guderian stressed the impact of airpower on operations of the Western Front.  Aircraft created disorder in German rear areas, hindered the movement of reserves, and brought German batteries under actual attack.  Because of their “great speed, range and effect on target,” aircraft became an offensive weapon of the first order. 

The French did have a plan.  If the Germans attacked through Belgium like they did in World War I, 40 French divisions, along with 10 divisions of British troops [the British Expeditionary Force (BEF)], would move into neutral Belgium to meet them.  The plan was to re-fight the First World War.  The French commander, General Gamelin, looked at the map and decided to guard the Ardennes Forest with 10 of his weakest, worst equipped divisions.  To the French, the Ardennes were impenetrable.  The Germans knew what opposed them in this sector.  They also knew the French had more tanks, better and heavier tanks, but had dispersed them throughout the army.  The Germans had a different idea. 

Erich von Manstein was Gerd von Rundstedt’s Chief of Staff when he served in Army Group A in 1939-40.  When he saw the original plan to attack France he saw a plan that was not a recipe for swift and decisive victory over the Allies.  He saw a plan in which the bulk of the attack would happen north of France through Belgium.  At first he thought it was a rerun of the Von Schlieffen Plan used to attack France in the First World War.  In that plan, the armies moved like a wheel through Belgium, sweeping along the English Channel coast and then heading south toward Paris.  Upon further review, he still saw that the northern forces [Army Group B] would head straight for the Channel coast, which would allow the Allies to counterattack its southern flank [see Map 3 below].  What he proposed [and Hitler eventually agreed to] was to shift the bulk of the attack from Army Group B to the more southern Army Group A.  While Army Group B would attack through Belgium like it would have in the original plan, a more beefed-up Army Group A would attack through the Ardennes, make a breakthrough, get into the enemy’s rear and make a dash for the Channel [see Map 4 below].  His proposal was like a Von Schlieffen Plan in reverse.  Once the breakthrough was made, Army Group A would swing to the northwest while Army Group B pressed directly west, thus catching the Allies in a pincer, cut off from the rest of France.  With the bulk of the French and British armies cut off from France, France would be ripe for the taking.  The French received reports of 50 German divisions on the move.  They even found out the day of the attack, but they preferred to “wait for events”.

The waiting ended on May 10^th.  At 5:30am, the Germans attacked neutral Holland from the air.  Their targets were the bridges over the Maas River [Meuse in France and Belgium].  The boldness of the German attack stunned the Dutch.  Dutch soldiers surrendered in large groups.  The Germans had stunning success in Belgium as well.  Glider troops landed on the roof of Fort Eben Emael, the largest fort in the world at the time, and was the lynchpin of Gamelin’s defensive line.  Gamelin moved his 50 divisions north into Belgium and Holland, straight into the trap the Germans set for them.  The column of troops heading through Luxembourg was a target-rich environment for Allied aircraft, but they were too busy covering the French/British advance into Belgium.  The Luftwaffe hit Allied airfields, catching many aircraft on the ground while they were lined up in neat rows. fThe Luftwaffe attacked Fifty Allied airfields on that first day. 

On the third day of the German offensive, the panzers reached Sedan. Of historical note, Sedan was the place where the Prussians captured French Emperor Napoleon III during the Franco-Prussian War.  Gamelin didn’t think the panzers could get that far so fast.  According to his calculations, the Germans were six days ahead of schedule.  The French had blown all the bridges over the Meuse except for one.  The Germans found a weir to cross 40 miles north of Sedan.  A panzer division commanded by Erwin Rommel found this weir relatively unguarded.  As Rommel got his tanks across the Meuse, the Luftwaffe went into action near Sedan.  Gamelin and his generals were target-fixated on what was going on in Belgium.  By the end of the fourth day of the attack [May 13^th], German infantry were across the Meuse in large numbers, and German engineers were building bridges across the Meuse to get more panzers across. 

The French tried to counterattack Army Group A, but their attacks were poorly organized.  On May 14^th, the Allied air forces attacked the German bridges over the Meuse, but Allied losses were heavy.  Only 50 percent of the planes that made the attack returned to base.  After May 14^th, the Luftwaffe had achieved air superiority.  Holland surrendered that same day.  After the German victory at Sedan, Gamelin thought the Germans would head straight for Paris, so he pulled troops away from the Meuse to protect the capital.  That move just gave the Germans more room for maneuver to make their dash for the Channel coast.  Brussels fell on May 17^th, and on that same day Gamelin was relieved.  He was replaced by General Weygand, who was recalled from virtual retirement in Syria.  A 73-year old general was replacing a 68-year old general.  The French were desperate.  Marshal Henri Petain also became Deputy Prime Minister, and he was 84.  At that time, Petain was the French Ambassador to Spain.  Before he left Spain, Petain told Franco that his country was beaten, a result of “30 years of Marxism”.  French troops surrendered by the thousands. 

On May 20^th, the Germans that had broken through at Sedan reached the English Channel.  The British withdrew to Dunkirk.  The French were not happy with the British.  On May 25^th Boulogne fell, and Calais fell the next day.  On May 28^th, news reached Paris that Belgium surrendered.  Dunkirk held out until June 4^th.  The British managed to evacuate over 300,000 troops back to Britain before then, but they left behind their tanks, their trucks, all their heavy equipment.  The evacuation was celebrated, but Churchill remarked that “wars aren’t won by evacuations.”  The panzers had time to reorganize, re-equip, and catch their breath and began the push south toward Paris on June 5^th.  After three days of fighting, Rommel reached the Seine.  On June 10^th, the French government fled Paris.  Two days after Paris fell, Petain [who by then was Prime Minister] asked the Germans for an armistice. 

Hitler insisted on using the same railroad car in Compiegne used to sign the armistice that ended World War I.  The Battle of France was over.  It took Hitler’s Wermacht five weeks to do what the Kaiser’s armies couldn’t do in four years.

Sources:
The World at War - France Falls: May-June 1940
Heinz Guderian - Achtung Panzer!
Erich von Manstein - Lost Victories

This Day in History - Churchill Takes Over [May 10,1940 - Part 1]

Two things happened on this day in 1940: 1) Germany invaded France, Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium; 2) Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of England.  Hostilities between the United Kingdom and France on one hand and Germany on the other had been ongoing since Sept. 3^rd, 1939.  Germany invaded Poland two days prior.  When Hitler’s armies occupied what was left of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, both the UK and France made guarantees to Poland that should Germany invade, they would come to their aid.  Germany did just that on Sept 1^st, 1939.  The Allied response?  Not much.  Yes, they did declare war on Germany two days later, but other than that…  There was what was called the Saar Offensive.  On Sept. 7^th, France attacked Germany in the Saar.  There wasn’t much opposition, and the French advanced about 5 miles into Germany.  Two weeks after the attack began, the French withdrew back into France.  They were content to wait for a German attack behind their Maginot Line, and thus began the eight-month “Phoney War”.  Conservative MP Leo Amery [we’ll get back to him shortly] wanted to bomb German munitions factories.  The Air Minister, Kingsley Wood, said “no” because the German factories were private property, and that the Germans would retaliate [isn’t that what you do in wartime?].

One constructive thing the British did was to bring Winston Churchill into the War Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty [the post he held at the beginning of World War I].  Churchill had been in the political wilderness as a backbencher since 1931.  He [and pretty much he alone, save for Leo Amery] criticized his own party’s government [first under Stanley Baldwin, then Baldwin’s successor Neville Chamberlain] for what he perceived as the UK’s lack of preparedness in the face of what he saw as a credible threat to the UK, namely, Nazi Germany.  He had pushed both Baldwin and Chamberlain to spend more money on armaments with limited success.  He denounced the government’s policy of appeasement.  Churchill had a sense that once the UK and France acquiesced to Adolf Hitler’s hunger for territory, Hitler would not be satisfied and would want more.  When Chamberlain and French Premier Daladier agreed to allow Hitler to have the part of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland, Chamberlain believed Hitler when he told him he had no further territorial claims to make.  Chamberlain waved the piece of paper with his signature and Hitler’s, and proclaimed “peace in our time”.  Six months after that, Hitler proved Churchill to be right when he occupied the rest of what was left of Czechoslovakia.  The scales had finally fallen from Chamberlain’s eyes, hence the guarantee of support to Poland.

But first, there is a prologue to the invasion of France and the Low Countries – Norway.  While the French and the Germans were content to exchange artillery fire after the fall of Poland, the Soviet Union invaded Poland on Sept. 17^th [as discussed in a previous blog] and Finland in November 1939 [more on that in a separate blog].  Churchill, now in the government, saw much value to be gained by occupying then-neutral Norway.  He thought two things could be achieved by this move:  1) the British could stop Germany’s supply of iron ore from Sweden by occupying the northern port of Narvik; 2) Once secured, Narvik could be used as a base to help Finland against the Soviets.  It took a lot of persuasion, but Chamberlain agreed to the Norway operation.  This operation was in his mind a way to engage the Germans far from home, would have the appearance of “doing something”, and would avoid the repetition of the mass carnage of the Somme and Passchendaele from World War I.   

The RAF dropped propaganda leaflets instead of bombs on Germany in the hope there would be some “revolt of the generals” to overthrow Hitler, or he would be assassinated, and mass bloodshed could be avoided.  But by the time the British got around to going into Norway, Finland surrendered to the Soviets.  French Premier Daladier had staked his government’s survival on helping Finland.  When Finland surrendered, Daladier was replaced by Paul Reynaud.  Reynaud supported Churchill’s Norwegian plan.  The Allies agreed to mine Norwegian waters.  The mines were laid on April 8, 1940.  Chamberlain proclaimed that Hitler had “missed the bus”.  The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Ironside, taunted the Germans to “do their worst”.  Little did the British know, Hitler had his own plans for Norway.  Also, unknown to the British, the German invasion fleet sailed for Norway on April 6^th.

The German invasion of Norway began April 9^th.  They beat the British to the punch.  On that first day, the Luftwaffe took control of most Norwegian airfields.  The Germans quickly captured the coastal cities of Bergen and Trondheim, and they landed in Narvik just ahead of the British.  There the first clash between Allied forces and German forces occurred.  The Royal Navy bombarded Narvik and pummeled the German Kreigsmarine, but British troops didn’t follow-up their success with a direct assault on the town.  British troops also landed in Namsos and Andalsnes to capture Trondheim in a pincer attack.  But they had no skis, no proper maps of Norway, and no heavy guns.  Nor did they have any air support.  There wasn’t much they could do when they ran into the well-equipped Germans.  German control of the airfields was the key to the battle.  The British learned a hard lesson that sea power alone without airpower couldn’t win battles anymore.  The British withdrew from Norway and returned home.  When they got back, and angry Parliament wanted answers for why the British failed in Norway.

For nearly a year before the debate over the conduct of the war in general and the debacle in Norway there had been a building up of bitterness and anger by those who wanted Britain to go all out against the Germans.  Not only the Labour opposition but members from Chamberlain’s own Conservative party felt the conduct of the war couldn’t be carried out by Chamberlain.  During the debate, deputy Labor leader Herbert Morrison announced Labour would vote against Chamberlain when the debate was over.  For all intents and purposes, this debate was over confidence in Chamberlain’s government.  Ironically, Churchill put up a vigorous defense of Chamberlain.  Although the Norway campaign was Churchill’s idea, Chamberlain was getting the blame for its failure.  And then Leo Amery spoke.  Like Churchill, he too had been an opponent of appeasement.  He quoted Oliver Cromwell’s words –

“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

David Lloyd George gave an equally damning speech about Chamberlain, and advocated that since Chamberlain had asked the British public to make sacrifices to support the war effort, that Chamberlain too should make a sacrifice.  To wit:

“He has appealed for sacrifice. The nation is prepared for every sacrifice so long as it has leadership, so long as the Government show clearly what they are aiming at and so long as the nation is confident that those who are leading it are doing their best. I say solemnly that the Prime Minister should give an example of sacrifice, because there is nothing which can contribute more to victory in this war than that he should sacrifice the seals of office.”

After the debate finished on May 8th, the House of Commons divided.  The vote went Chamberlain’s way, but it was a pyrrhic victory.  The vote was 281-200 in Chamberlain’s favor.  The Conservatives had a 213-seat majority, but in this vote 41 Conservative MPs voted with Labour against Chamberlain, while 60 other Conservatives abstained.  Chamberlain knew that he needed to form a coalition government.  On May 9^th Labour told him they would serve in such a government, but not if he was the Prime Minister.  The choice was between Churchill and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax.  Halifax was a Peer.  No Peer had been Prime Minister in 40 years at that time.  Churchill was viewed with suspicion.  In the First World War, Gallipoli was his idea.  It was also a spectacular failure.  Chamberlain favored Halifax to succeed him.  In a meeting in the Cabinet Room at Downing Street on May 10^th, Chamberlain asked Churchill if he saw any reason why the next Prime Minister couldn’t be from the House of Lords.  Uncharacteristically, Churchill said nothing.  According to Churchill, Halifax said his position as a peer would make it difficult for him to be Prime Minister.  He would be responsible for everything, but couldn’t “guide the assembly” [the House of Commons] upon whose confidence his government would need.  

At dawn that same morning, the Germans invaded the Low Countries.    That same day, Chamberlain resigned.  Later that evening, the King sent for Winston Churchill.  Upon his arrival at Buckingham Palace, Churchill recalled:

I was taken immediately to the King.  His Majesty received me most graciously and bade me sit down.  He looked at me searchingly and quizzingly for some moments, and then said, ‘I suppose you don’t know why I have sent for you?’  Adopting his mood, I replied, ‘Sir, I simply couldn’t imagine why”.  He laughed and said ‘I want to ask you to form a Government’.  I said I would certainly do so.

Sources:

The World at War – Distant War:  September 1939 – May 1940

Winston Churchill – The Gathering Storm

The Kremlin's Influence

Two months ago, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released the results of a 16-month study it conducted with the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD).  The study looked at five countries [Hungary, Bulgaria, Latvia, Slovakia, and Serbia] to determine the impact of Russian economic influence during 2004-14 and the possible correlation to the “general decline in governance standards.”    CSIS and CSD determined Russia “has cultivated an opaque network of patronage across the region that it uses to influence and direct decision-making.”  They describe an “unvirtuous circle” of Russian influence, a circuitous flow that begins with Russian penetration of either a country’s economy or political system, each feeding the other that results in what they call a “state capture.”  According to CSIS, the “end game” is to re-establish the bipolar world of the Cold War and weaken globalization.  In a bipolar world, the Russians feel they can wield influence like they could during the Cold War.  They want to influence events through manipulation of media, business, society and politics.  In so doing, they hope to weaken NATO and the European Union.  

According to CSIS/CSD, Western Europe and the United States thought their work was done in Central and Eastern Europe once several nations had become members of both NATO and the European Union.  They thought that since these countries are members of NATO and the EU, good governance would automatically follow.  Since 2004 interest and attention to good governance in these regions waned.  The 2008 Great Recession happened and shook democratic and economic institutions to their core.  And from what this report outlines, Europe as a whole was shaken to its very core and has yet to recover to the status quo ante.  A group of leaders from Central and Eastern Europe wrote and open letter to Barack Obama in 2009.  The letter told him the Russians were conducting economic warfare [both covert and overt].  The measures included energy blockades, media manipulation, bribery, and investments in European companies in order to get an economic foothold in the region.  The new administration did nothing to counter the Russian threat.  Russian economic activity [legal and illegal] has increased, democratic institutions have been diminished and some governments have openly embraced illiberalism [notably Hungary and Slovakia].  

CSIS/CSD calculated the Russian economic footprint by looking at five things; Russian corporate presence, direct investment, trade relations, and private ownership/investments.  CSIS/CSD determined that those countries with a Russian footprint of greater than 12 percent of GDP were susceptible to Russian economic influence and/or capture.  Those countries with less than 12 percent Russian presence were more susceptible to Russian political influence. The countries below the 12 percent economic threshold were Hungary and Slovakia.  They’re at greater risk of political influence, which is connected to Russia’s efforts to deepen or maintain their economic interests.  Russia’s economic footprint in Serbia is above 12 percent of GDP, but their political influence is more prominent.  Although Russia’s economic footprint in Latvia is also above 12 percent of GDP, Latvia has shown greater resistance to Russian political pressure.  The worst case is Bulgaria.  The Russians economic presence is over 22 percent of GDP and is ripe for Russian-influenced “state capture."  

Russia conceals its economic activity by using shell companies and offshore accounts.  And in using these mechanisms they are able to acquire interests in finance, media, transportation, construction, real estate and industry.  The region is heavily reliant on Russian oil and natural gas resources, so it is the energy sector through which the Russians exercises its greatest influence.  Since Russia controls the supply they can determine the prices other countries will pay for the privilege of staying warm in wintertime.  Because they are estimated to be reliant on Russia for 75 percent of their energy needs, they overpay between 10-30 percent than their Western European neighbors.  The Russians take their profits from the energy sector and reinvest them in other sectors of the economy.  This provides these companies with much-needed foreign direct investment, but it also tightens the Russian vice on the economy.  These other economic sectors contribute tax revenues to national budgets, so withholding of tax revenue is another coercive tool the Russians can use.  The Russians can tighten or loosen their economic vice in order to influence political decision making.  The Russians can also create and maintain a large network of patronage that rewards loyalty with increased financial compensation.  Russia has exported its “oligarchic capitalism” [or “autocratic kleptocracy” – pick your favorite metaphor].  Instead of exporting Communism like during the Soviet days, they’re exporting state-sponsored corruption.  

Democratic erosion in both Hungary and Slovakia have come during a time of one-party rule [Direction-Social Democracy in Slovakia, Fidesz in Hungary].  Hungarian Prime Minister Orban and his party have revised the constitution five times since 2010, and they have passed laws that allows for more central control over the judiciary, media and the central bank.  The political left in Hungary collapsed during 2004-14 because of corruption [which became public], fiscal mismanagement, and the aforementioned 2008 Great Recession.  These events allowed Fidesz, a center-right party, to gain a stranglehold on the Hungarian parliament.  The far-right, ultranationalist Jobbik party is pro-Russian, anti-NATO and anti-Semitic and has become the second-largest party in the National Assembly.  In addition to his desire to hold onto power for power’s sake, Orban also uses Jobbik as a bogeyman to justify his embrace of an illiberal “sovereign democratic” model.  Orban is a big Euroskeptic and a big defender of national sovereignty from the bureaucrats in Brussels [Brexit, anyone?].  

In Slovakia, they too have seen a steady decline in judicial independence, free speech and other civil liberties.  There are high levels of corruption in government and in business.  As far as political leadership is concerned, Slovakia is a case of “old habits dying hard.”  Three-time Prime Minister Vladimir Mečiar ruled as an autocrat.  His successor Robert Fico, like Viktor Orban in Hungary, likes Vladimir Putin’s top-down “sovereign democratic” model.  Slovakia had made good progress on economic reforms under the leadership of Mikulas Dzurinda, but many in Slovakia didn’t enjoy the benefits resulting from the reforms.  Fico has begun to reverse the reforms of the Dzurinda era.  Fico has his own far-right, nationalist and conservative opposition in the form of the Slovak National Party [SNS], which is very pro-Russian.  Fico relies on the SNS [which CSIS/CSD believes receives funding from Russia] as a coalition partner to remain in power.  Slovakia’s political environment is unstable and fragmented, leaving it vulnerable to exploitation.  

Historically, Bulgaria has been close to Russia.  As a fellow Slavic, Orthodox nation it owes its independence from the Ottoman Empire to Russia.  During the Soviet era, Todor Zhivkov tried to make Bulgaria a republic of the Soviet Union.  As in other former Soviet client states, there is corruption in government and connections with organized crime.  Russia’s state-owned Gazprom is Bulgaria’s sole provider of natural gas.  Russia’s state-owned nuclear company Rosatom dominate Bulgaria’s nuclear sector.  Russian private oil company Lukiol controls Bulgaria’s only oil refinery and over 50 percent of the wholesale fuel market.  Russian foreign direct investments in finance. Telecommunications, media and real estate are growing. On top of the Russian grip on Bulgaria’s economy, the political environment is fractured.  Only the center-right Citizens for European Development of Russia [GERB] and its coalition partner Reformist Bloc are the only political parties that resist an overt relationship with Russia.  There are several parties that openly support Russian policies.  Prime Minister Boyko Borisov [GERB] was committed to integration with the rest of Europe, but had to walk a tightrope between pursuing that policy and alienating pro-Russian coalition partners and a large portion of the Bulgarian public.  I say “had” because Bulgaria elected a pro-Russian president last month, and Borisov resigned as a result.  

Serbia and Russia have been tight for centuries.  They’re both Slavic, Orthodox Christian, and share a linguistic heritage.  Russia has long supported pan-Slavism, with Russia assuming sponsorship and protectorship of their Slavic brethren.  Russia has sought to deepen its ties with Serbia even as it pursues EU membership.  As in the other companies, Russia has a firm grip on the energy sector.  Eight percent of Serbia’s natural gas comes from [wait for it…] Russia.  Russia’s Gazprom Neft owns a 51 percent stake in Serbia’s largest oil and gas company, Naftna Industrija Srbije.  Gazprom also owns a 12.7 percent stake in Serbia’s state-owned chemical company, HIP-Petrohemija.   Lukiol now owns Serbia’s largest gasoline distributor, Beopetrol.  The Russians are also investing in improvements to Serbia’s railway system.  Russia’s state-owned banks are acquiring large chunks of the Serbian financial sector.   

Latvia is the only one of the five countries studied that were an integral part of the Soviet Union during the Cold War period.  It is also the most successful at resisting Russian political pressure.  CSIS/CSD attributes this success to two factors.  Latvia has been most successful at deepening democratic institutions and reinforcing the rule of law.  They have the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau [KNAB], an independent investigative body that has not been shy about making cases for prosecution.  KNAB has also led efforts to advance legislation to make the finances of political parties more transparent to the public, reduce conflicts of interest, and improve disclosure standards regarding disclosure standards about politicians’ income and lobbying activities.  Latvia also has a strong and independent judiciary which ensures the prosecution of cases brought forward by KNAB.  KNAB could recommend all the prosecutions they like, but without a strong independent judiciary willing to follow through on their work, KNAB’s work would be meaningless.  Latvia’s population makeup is also a plus.  One would think the 300,000 ethnic Russians in Latvia would be a liability. Because Latvia was occupied by the Soviets for 50 years, they are acutely aware of Russia’s compatriot policy toward ethnic Russians in the “near abroad.”  Russian actions in Ukraine have made Latvians wary of Russian hybrid warfare tactics and their attempts to interfere in the lives of ethnic Russians in Latvia.  The Latvians take the lessons being taught in Ukraine very seriously.   

Recently the Atlantic Council published a paper titled The Kremlin’s Trojan Horses:  Russian Influence in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.  This is their effort to show that Western Europe is not immune to Russian efforts at destabilization.  In this report, they name names of the latest crop of “useful idiots” who express support for Russian policies.  Russia aims its efforts at the same kind of far-right, ultra-nationalist political parties they support in Central and Eastern Europe.  Russia cannot exert the kind of economic pressure on Western Europe like they do farther east to attain their political objectives.  They have other tools in their tool kit:  disinformation campaigns, cyber warfare, and cultivating networks of like-minded political allies.  The Russians view Western European values – democracy, freedom of expression, and transparency – as an existential threat.  

Like CSIS/CSD, the Atlantic Council establishes the 2008 Great Recession as the starting point where Russia began to step up its influence in France, Germany, and the UK.  They have been building political alliances with ideologically friendly groups and individuals, mostly with anti-EU, far-right political parties and leaders.  But they have also been friendly with center-right/center-left, and leftist parties as well.  

In France, there are three pro-Russian groups in the political landscape: the far-right, the far-left, and the Republicans.  The far-right National Front [Front National, FN] has been broadening its appeal by getting rid of the more extreme elements of their party – the anti-Semites [including party founder Jean Le Pen], overt racism, Holocaust denial, and radical Catholicism.  Now they tend toward defense of French secularism against Islam, identifying migrants as Islamist and terrorist, Euroskepticism, protectionism, and pro-Russian.  Le Pen and Vladimir Putin have several things both support:  authoritarianism, anti-American dominance, defense of Christian values, against gay marriage, anti-EU.  Marine Le Pen’s party is the only one to overtly accept Russian financial support.  The far-left [the Communists and the Left Party] are less Euroskeptical than the National Front, supports extensive government intervention in society, support a strong central government, and are also pro-Russian.  The Republicans’ pro-Russian support comes from the party’s connections to French businesses that have operations in Russia, specifically in the defense industry, the space sector, the energy sector, and banking.   Some Republicans were openly supportive of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.  Former Prime Minister Francois Fillon is the Republican nominee for the French presidential election to be held in April 2017.  He is almost as supportive of Vladimir Putin as Marine Le Pen.  He has consistently backed Putin’s actions in Syria since 2012.  He is also against economic sanctions against Russia that have been in place since Russia’s annexation of Crimea.  Both Fillon and Le Pen are likely to face each other in the French presidential election.  Somewhere Vladimir Putin is smiling.  

The German Social Democratic Party [SPD] has a long history of rapprochement with Russia, dating back Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik from the 1960s.  Their “change through rapprochement” is their core policy.  The Social Democrats believe a “cooperative and integrative Russia policy” would lead to a peaceful and democratic Russia.   This policy blew up the SPD’s faces when Putin annexed Crimea and stirred up trouble in the Donbas region of Ukraine.  The older generation of Social Democrats [Gerhard Schröder, Helmut Schmidt] argued for compromise with Russia, but today’s generation of Social Democrats [especially current SPD-Chair and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel] favor a more pro-Russia policy that is 180 degrees from current German and EU policy.  According to the Atlantic Council, Gabriel offered to ensure approval of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project that would circumvent EU regulations and weaken the sanctions against Russia.  Nord Stream 2 would double Russian gas flows to Germany and maybe allow Russia to cut off gas supplies to Ukraine.  Foreign Minister Walter Steinmeier supports a gradual lifting of sanctions on Russia.  Gerhard Schröder continues to advise the SPD on Russia while he acts as chairman of the board for Nord Stream AG, the consortium for building Nord Stream 2 that is also 51 percent owned by Gazprom.  Conflict of interest, anyone?  

In addition to the Social Democrats, two opposition parties - Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and Die Linke – also develop contacts with Russia.  Die Linke’s deputy parliamentary leader Wolfgang Gehrcke says the US played the crucial role in Ukraine’s conflict with Russia [like Putin had nothing to do with it].  Alexander Gauland [head of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in parliament] wants a regular exchange with Russian officials and improved relations.  AfD also wants an end to Russian sanctions. PEDIGA, the anti-Islam movement in Germany, think of Russia as an alternative to the US and EU bureaucrats in Brussels.   

The United Kingdom has their share of Useful Idiots.  Nigel Farage [UKIP], belongs to the “most openly pro-Russian party in the UK.”  He’s been very supportive of Russian policy in both Ukraine and Syria.  UKIP’s money man, Arron Banks, wants to launch a “more professional party” than UKIP, one which has an anti-EU, nationalist agenda.  Brexit was not Russia’s doing, but the Russians are happy that the EU has been somewhat weakened.  Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is a hard-core leftist of the Tony Benn school, as is Seumas Milne.  The Russians like Labour.  Upon Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, the Russian Ambassador to the UK said he had a “democratic mandate” for “opposition to military interventions of the West, support for the UK’s nuclear disarmament, conviction that NATO has outstayed its raison d’etre with the end of the Cold War, just to name a few.”  Corbyn campaign against Brexit, but reluctantly.  But Corbyn is very unpopular through Britain.  He owes his position to those who are paid-up members of the party, not the Parliamentary party.  Most of the party’s MP and their voters aren’t interested in Corbyn’s pro-Russian stance.  The Atlantic Council opines that UKIP, rather than Labour, is more of a pro-Russian threat to the UK.  They posit that UKIP, or the post-Brexit party envisioned by Arron Banks, would attract disaffected Tories or Labourites.  The ruling Conservative party is not squeaky-clean with regards to Russia, but their influence is described by the Atlantic Council as “superficial.”  Robert Halfon, a Tory backbencher from Essex, is linked to Ukrainian oligarch Dimitri Firtash, who is a middleman for Gazprom.  John Whittingdale, Tory MP from Maldon, also has links to Firtash. 

Roll Call of Useful Idiots

France

Marine Le Pen [National Front]

Francois Fillon [former Prime Minister, Republican]

Nicolas Sarkozy [former French president, Republican]

Jean-Pierre Chevènement [Socialist]

Louis Aliot [National Front]

Pascal Terrasse [Socialist]

Germany

Gerhard Schröder [former German chancellor, Social Democrats (SPD)]

Frank-Walter Steinmeier [German Foreign Minister (SPD)]

Sigmar Gabriel [German Vice Chancellor (SPD)]

Alexander Gauland [head of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)]

Lutz Bachmann [PEGIDA]

Wolfgang Gehrcke [Die Linke]

Markus Frohnmeier [AfD]

United Kingdom

Nigel Farage [UKIP]

Arron Banks [UKIP financier]

Jeremy Corbyn [Labour]

Seumas Milne [Labour]

Nick Griffin [BNP]

George Galloway [Grassroots Out, former Labor MP]

Robert Halfon [Conservative MP]