This part of the coverage of the 2016 Presidential Election will focus on past dealings of our government and U.S. corporations with the old Soviet Union, the former Communist government of what is now known as The Russian Federation. This series will document how the United States, and nations in Western Europe, were primarily responsible for the construction of the Soviet (Russian) modern military-industrial complex which helped drive the Cold War, and the hot Korean and Vietnam wars. The presence of the formidable Soviet Military-Industrial Complex also provided the impetus for the ever-expanding U.S. Military-Industrial and Spy Complex with which we have to deal today in our daily living. If people are going to get outraged about Presidential campaigns meeting with Russian lawyers about topics like the Magnitsky Sanctions against Russia, and hiring outfits like Fusion GPS to obtain dirt on a campaign's opponent from Russian sources, while ignoring the fact that the United States Government (USG) enabled American corporations to build modern military production factories in the Soviet Union while the weapons built in those same factories caused the deaths of our own troops in Korea and Vietnam, there is something wrong with the moral compass of this nation. So far, no one seems to know, or care to know, how we built one enemy (The Soviet Union, now Russia) and paid the price for it in lives and treasure. When informed of this, most either refuse to believe it, despite all the evidence, or simply ignore it.
Most of the time, the use of the term "Soviet," or "Soviet Union" will be followed by "Russian" as many Americans don't think "Soviet" and "Russian" are synonyms. This might be annoying to the minority who know better, but those who know better probably know this information already. The word "Conspiracy" will frequently follow the word "Collusion" for the same reason. "Collusion" is a synonym of "Conspiracy," but those accusing others of "colluding" with Russians don't want to be accused of "Conspiracy Theories," hence the use of the word "Collusion." For some incomprehensible reason, the people are fooled by this.
I don't know if it is possible to get the American people outraged over something truly outrageous, but this part will attempt to determine what the American people think is really important. Machiavelli advised tyrants to avoid doing the little things that could outrage a population. Little things, Machiavelli stressed, are more likely to anger people than big things. Machiavelli advised tyrants to do big things to the people as blatantly as possible, as the "shock and awe" factor will silence the majority of the people. The little things will outrage them every time. Examples of this are everywhere. Tell lies to get us involved in wars in Vietnam and Middle East, and there is barely a detectable ripple. Let a TV network black out an NFL playoff game in a participating team's viewing area, and Congress hears about it immediately and a law gets passed banning NFL playoff blackouts. Let's see what the people find most outrageous about our relations with Russia, either providing the Russians with the technology to manufacture the chemical propellant powders for ammunition cartridges used to shoot bullets at our men in Vietnam, or a meeting in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer, employed by Fusion GPS, a company in the employ of the Hillary Clinton campaign to get dirt on Donald Trump from Russian Intelligence agents, to lobby for an end to the Magnitsky Act sanctions against Russia. The Magnitsky Sanctions are still in force, and recent Executive Orders by President Trump added teeth to those sanctions.
I guess we will find out.
Sometimes I think the American people think Russians grow tanks by planting seeds in the ground. In reality, the Russians produce their tanks in two types of manufacturing facilities, automobile plants and tractor plants. We will see in this part that the vast majority of Russian military vehicles are constructed in factories consisting almost entirely of American technology provided by American corporations. Along with the capital goods and construction materials used to build and maintain these factories in Russia, the United States provided the engineers to help train the Russians in the operation of these military production facilities.
We will look at the construction of the largest truck plant in the world at that time, the Kama River Foundry in Russia, which greatly increased the production of the standard Soviet (Russian) army trucks, the ZIL series of trucks. The ZIL trucks were used by the North Vietnamese to haul men, weapons, and supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to kill our own men in Vietnam. The Russian PT-76 tank was used against our troops in Vietnam, and was constructed in a factory built with American technology and expertise provided to the Russians.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s the United States found a way to produce Mulitple Independently Targeted Re-Entry Vehicles (MIRV missile warheads) for US Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). The Russians acquired different German scientists than the United States at the end of World War II and were able to produce missiles that could launch heavier warheads than ours. A 20 megaton warhead was not unusual on Soviet (Russian) missiles. The heavier throw weight of Russian missiles meant that Russia could replace a single 20 megaton warhead with many more smaller warheads once they were able to "MIRV" their warheads. To produce MIRV warheads, the Russians needed to obtain the technology to mass produce miniature ball bearings. American manufacturers were willing to do just that. Well, as long as no one meets with some Russian lawyer to attempt to get "Opposition Research" about a rival Presidential candidate no one gets upset. That is much more dangerous to national security than helping a hostile nation build MIRV nuclear warheads for their missile arsenal, I guess.