The Saker, Book Review: “Disintegration” by Andrei Martyanov

Indicators of the Coming American Collapse

 

This is the third book by Andrei Martyanov that I am reviewing, the first one was “Book Review – Losing Military Supremacy: the Myopia of American Strategic Planning by Andrei Martyanov”, while the second one was “Book Review: Andrei Martyanov’s The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs”. I also interviewed Andrei about this second volume here. The book I am reviewing today, “Disintegration: Indicators of the Coming American Collapse” can be pre-ordered from Clarity Press here and from Amazon here.

 

If the first two volumes mostly focused on issues of force planning and military power, this third volume addresses the wider context and shows example after example that the United States is not only failing at its attempts to remain a world hegemon, but the US is, in fact, in a process we could call “full-spectrum collapse” or, like Martyanov, simply “disintegration”. Specifically, the book looks into the manifestation of disintegration in the following spheres:

 

  1. Consumption
  2. Affluenza
  3. Geoeconomics
  4. Energy
  5. Making Things
  6. Western Elites
  7. Losing the Arms Race
  8. Empire Über Alles – Including Americans
  9. To Be or Not To Be
  10. Conclusion: Not Exceptional, Not Free, Not Prosperous – Not America?

 

These are tantalizing subject headings which I will not further describe because I really want to really encourage as many people as possible to read this book. Why?

 

Mainly because while Martyanov’s first two books were dealing primarily with military and geostrategic issues, this one goes much wider and looks at the wider socio-cultural reasons which create the context for such a dramatic lack of real military capabilities.

 

A month ago I wrote an article I called “Zone B Exists, Thus There Is Hope, I Promise You!” in which I tried to show that the pseudo “reality” in which most people in the West are artificially kept in by the most effective (and insidious) propaganda machine in history is not the “real reality” at all! Not only that, but that most of the planet has been living in “Zone B” for quite a while. In fact, this “Zone B” has already moved on, even if the legacy ziomedia never reports about this.

 

Well, you can think of Martyanov’s books like the perfect example of a “Zone B book”: not only does Martyanov debunk most of the myths of the US propaganda machine, he contrasts these delusions with examples from the real world.

 

You could buy only one or two of Martyanov’s books, and each of them stands on its own, but I really think of them as a trilogy which should be read and discussed by as many people in the West as possible. In fact, you could think of them as each a kind of “crash course on debunking delusions and returning to reality”. The overarching message of all three volumes is this: “People of the United States, your ruling elites are lying to you just like the chamber orchestra on the Titanic that was playing music while the supposedly “unsinkable” Titanic was sinking!”.

 

Interestingly, Martyanov adds that, of all nations, Russians understand these processes better than anybody else because they they too suffered the same fate during the “democratic nightmare of the 1990s” (I would add that descendents of White Russians like myself also remember the “democratic nightmare” under Kerenskii in 1917). Martyanov writes:

 

“The collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic catastrophe which followed taught Russians a lot, and also left an aftertaste of the humiliation of losing power – a process the United States is going through right now”

 

Truth be told, Martyanov is hardly the first person to have mentioned the uncanny similarities between the Soviet Union of the late 80s, or the Russia of the 90s, with the US of the last two decades (or more). For example, Martyanov mentions Dmitry Orlov whose many books have looked into what he calls the “stages of collapse” (financial, economic, political, social, cultural and, later, he added ecological) and have became a precious analytical tool for many researchers. Many decades earlier, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whom Martyanov intensely dislikes, also often mentioned that the West of the 80s reminded him of the Russia of the early 20th century. This is just to illustrate Martyanov’s point that,

 

“Speaking in layman’s terms, the Russians get it. They, unlike any other people in the world, can relate to what the United States is going through right now. Russians can read the signs extremely well, while the U.S. elite not only has no experience with it, but is completely insulated from understanding it. This is America’s tragedy unfolding before our very eyes. Not only is America’s crisis systemic, but its elites are uncultured, badly educated and mesmerized by decades of their own propaganda, which in the end, they accept as a reality”

 

I couldn’t agree more. I would also add that those Russians who write books and articles desperately trying to warn the people of the US of real catastrophe taking place do that not because they are hostile to the United States, but precisely because they are sympathetic to the people of the US. The flag-waving pseudo-patriots who accuse these Russians of being “anti-American” simply don’t understand the “evil Russians” they hate so much (mostly because modern Russia under Putin has been fantastically successful, in spite of sanctions, threats, subversion, etc., while the US is in agony – that is why these folks are willing to believe anything bad, no matter how self-evidently stupid, about Russia and/or Putin).

 

Yes, of course, Russians hate and despise the US ruling Nomenklatura, just as they despised their own, Soviet, Nomenklatura. But that in no way implies what many mistake for “anti-American” hostility.

 

In my almost 58 years of life I have been blessed with the chance to travel a lot and speak six or so languages, yet I have never come across what I would call “anti-Americanism”. Even in countries supposedly hostile to the US the actual focus of the anger and disgust of people are the actions of the AngloZionist Empire, the ugly parasite feeding off its US host. Take a country like, say, Brazil. Anti “yankee” feelings have always been strong there, yet Brazilian musicians are known to beautifully fuse US and Brazilian music (see this superb example). The same is true elsewhere: people hate US policies, but very rarely the people of the US. Right now, judging by the Runet and emails from friends, Russians mostly feel pity for the people of the US, not hate, and this is so because they “get it” as Martuyanov correctly states. Of course, there are stupid and/or bigoted people in all countries and I am sure that there are those who hate the United States as a country, but I am confident that this is a small minority. There is one interesting category left: those who become critical of the US society after having lived in the US; a famous example of that would be Sayyid Qutb

 

None of that is meant to whitewash all the violence and ugliness of the short but extremely violent US history. But violence and ugliness exist in the history of probably every country on the planet (there sure was plenty of violence and ugliness in the history of Russia!). True, the US was probably one of the most bloody and violent regimes in history, but that violence ought to be attributed to imperialism and capitalism and not to something unique to the US (the British Empire was possibly the most criminally violent in history). Even more important to the understanding of US history is that most of its violence had its roots not in national or racial causes, but in the many social or, better, class struggles which peppered the history of the US. Again, discussions of class issues have been comprehensively blotted out from all the school books in Zone A, depriving those who had the misfortune to be educated in the West from one of the most important tools of political and economic analysis.

 

The importance of the above cannot be overstated and this is why Martyanov comes back to the topic of the education of the western ruling classes over and over again. In the last pages of Disintegration Martyanov writes:

 

Thus, no viable ideas or solutions to the current unfolding economic, social and cultural catastrophe can originate within these elites, who see the world only through the Wall Street and New York Times lenses. Real intellect, courage and integrity are simply not there: they all have been traded for the perks and sinecures of what many correctly describe as the Washington D.C. blob, whose only purpose for existence is self-perpetuation.

 

I would only add that there is a karmic irony in the fact that it is precisely because these ruling classes have no other purpose in life than self-perpetuation (and consumption, I would add) that they are driving themselves, and the country which they exploit, into extinction.

 

Conclusion: These are “must read” books for all of Zone A! (and even Zone B!)

 

Finally, it is precisely because Martyanov’s books are like “messages from Zone B” that I urge every person living in the US or in the EU to read them. As I said, each of these books stands on its own, but together they reach a kind of intellectual critical mass which makes them truly “must read” books, especially for those who hate their ruling regime but love their country.

 

These books are all pretty short, very well written, they have decent (but not perfect) indexes and are an easy read. If you want to get a superb summation of what is really going on in the United States (as opposed to the frankly laughable AngloZionist propaganda or the inchoate and outright childish slogans of the flag-waving “Trump patriots”) – read these books. If you have brainwashed friends, give them any (or, better, all of) these books: they are like a “crash course in reality studies”. If you have family members who still believe all the nonsense about “American exceptionalism”, challenge them to read these books.

 

Folks living in Zone B would also immensely benefit from reading Martyanov’s books. Not because these books will tell them much they weren’t already at least vaguely aware of, but because these books are also a very truthful “state of the United States” kind of SITREP. In my experience, while most folks (at least the well-read ones) in Zone B do mostly understand that the Empire is dead (or very close to death) and while they also feel the US are undergoing a massive internal catastrophe, most of these folks in Zone B do not fully appreciate the magnitude and severity of these crises. For them too Martyanov’s books will be an eye opener. This is also why I hope that all three of Martyanov’s books will be quickly translated into Russian: they will become instant blockbusters and, what is even more important, they will be read in Russian academies and universities. French and Spanish are another two languages I hope that these books will be translated into.

 

But, most of all, I hope (against any common sense or logic) that these books will be read by truly patriotic US officers, force planners, analysts, political decision-makers, etc. Right now, there is a real threat of these folks stumbling into a shooting war with Russia which the US will never survive (nor would Russia or much of the rest of the world, of course). But even if by some miracle this potential war remains non-nuclear, the US will still be destroyed, at least as a functioning country, by Russian conventional capabilities. This is the single biggest danger and possible disaster authors like Myartyanov are so desperately trying to prevent: a major war caused by a clueless ruling Nomenklatura involving a country (the US) which has never fought a defensive war in its history and which has never experienced real warfare, especially not against a competent adversary. I can only add that in case of a conventional war, Russia now has the means to defend not only her airspace, but a conceptual “Russian border proximity zone” of roughly 800km-1000km (and this range is steadily increasing). The US cannot. Neither can the EU or NATO. And for all the silly MIC+Pentagon promises of super-duper missiles, this is not something which will change in the short to medium time frame.

 

The more people in the US realize this, the better the chances avoid a terrible catastrophe. Hence the timely importance of Andrei Martyanov’s books.

 

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25 thoughts on “The Saker, Book Review: “Disintegration” by Andrei Martyanov”

  1. I am waiting for this book it is just a month away May 2021, as you said in this review that the initial parts focused on issues of force planning and military power, I read it somewhere that the future conflicts arise due to the land, military, and water, I am not saying any word on this book review I will wait and then read, Create of Wikipedia page for a book will help it gain more intention

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  2. The pattern I see here, Will, is that the quality of your “research” on the topic of ALIENS is obviously DEFECTIVE and not anywhere even close to Jim’s standards! [based on your DEFECTIVE conclusions]. If you live long enough, the reality of ALIENS, WALKING AMONG US, will become PAINFULLY OBVIOUS.

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  3. When I read the above article I said to myself that that life sure has a funny way of repeating itself.
    And four of my favorite books come to mind.
    1. The Anglo American Establishment by Carroll Quigley.
    2.How the Order Controls Education by Anthony Sutton.
    3. The Rape of the Mind by Joost Meerloo.
    4. The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by Charlotte Iserbyt.
    The above mentioned books I won’t buy because they’re just regurgitated knowledge from the book I just listed.
    I’ve had many opportunities to travel in this lifetime and two of my dearest friends are Russians of Uzbekistan heritage and their views are similar to this writer. America has long been cursed and the only saviour is it’s people with moral fiber and God.

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    1. America has long been cursed and the only saviour is it’s people with moral fiber and God.

      Salty, God is there, no doubt…I see examples in my own life on a daily basis….but where are the people…wearing masks….social distancing….taking worthless vaccines……and worthless tests….

      What do you think we are waiting for?..serious question.

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      1. To be honest Will,I don’t know. Our fellow Americans have been too conditioned or programmed to wait on a human savior – singular rather than ‘We as a collective’ .
        I left the state of Virginia and moved out west to South Dakota last year. Because that’s where my spirit moved me to do. But how many Americans would walk away from their comfortable bubble and seek out a new way of life or seek out people of like minds ?
        There is no knight or military coming to save us. Too many servicemen are brain dead to think for themselves and even with the scamdemic vaccine hesitation among them many are rolling up their sleeves. What a time we live in !

      2. What a time is right! I lived in Charlottesville and had two cafes back in the 80s and 90’s..it’s a yuppie wonderland now…unlivable if you are a conservative. I was invited to Dakota many years ago by one of the chiefs…sorry I forgot her name… I have the letter some darn where. At the time, I was still caring for my mother who since passed in 2014 at 96. That possibility is still there. Tell me about South Dakota please.

  4. The following article comes under the heading of “What the F”….This is more than disconcerting. When I was in the USMC (back in those pre-historic days when the world made a lot more sense than now, Elvis was REALLY still alive and Dylan had only been on the scene for 3 years and dinosaurs still roamed freely), one thing very few if any complained about was the food. It was excellent. Come Sunday on base, eggs were cooked to order and the selection was amazing…even French toast. I just cannot see this happening under normal circumstances. This sounds like some form of sabotage. Just outrageous!

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/over-a-dozen-soldiers-stationed-at-capitol-are-sick-after-provided-with-undercooked-food-report_3718883.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-03-03-1

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    1. I would have the same reaction Will but I’ve seen worse treatment of active duty service members. As I have mentioned before to you, I worked and live in DC for about 10 years and 7 of those years was spent on Capitol Hill as a disable veteran advocate. DC isn’t a swamp it a cesspool ! And later on used my brain and GI Bill and went to a Ivy league school. But that doesn’t matter these days because of Marxists cancel culture. I have no idea why the Department of the Army is feeding these troops and not the Capitol with it 500 seating cafeteria in the basement. Really ! A bloody danish and coffee. And why are they still there again ? For a fake president.

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  5. The DISINTEGRATION of Human Civilization [including America] IS the ALIEN AGENDA, already IN PROGRESS!
    “THEY LIVE” and are already “WALKING AMONG US”! Who are THEY? Hybrid Humanoid ALIENS [HHAs]. THEY number in the THOUSANDS and were genetically-engineered in the 1950s by ALIENS, holed up in D.U.M.B.s [Deep Underground Military Bases]! See/Google William Pawelec, Phil Schneider, Edward Snowden, etc., for EVIDENCE and details.

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    1. THEY [HHAs] INFEST ALL IMPORTANT PUBLIC AND PRIVATE AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS, ESPECIALLY THOSE LINKED TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, MILITARY AND DemonicRATS PARTY – AND ISRAEL/ZIONISM, aka FAKE JEWS.

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      1. GodSend….What’s the best way to distinguish these aliens?….Green skin? Horns? Cleft feet? Big heads? HOOKED NOSES?

      2. With a little research, you can find the answer yourself! Don’t be lazy. Pawelec and Schneider give 1st hand accounts of direct contact! In short, THEY are COLD, emotion-less, soul-less, compassion-less and LYING CRITTERS. You can easily spot THEM almost everywhere – especially at Gov’t-staged “MASS SHOOTING” Hoax events – like Sandy Hook, Parkland, etc. ALL HHAs were manufactured since the 1950s. Have a close look at habitual DemonicRATS and RINO LIARS – like Newsom, Cuomo and MANY other CONgress CRITTERS. MOST of the LUNATIC-LEFT MSM are HHAs! THEY typically have some physical or mental manufacturing DEFECT [Newsom and Cuomo]. I kid you not!

      3. “Don’t be lazy”? There was no need for that Godsend. Where did I say I would or would not research the topic? I did not. The truth is, you would not know if I have done any research. I delved into the alien possibility many years ago and it lead me nowhere. Right now, with our country disappearing in front of our eyes, being concerned with or blaming the problem on aliens is the last thing on which I care to spend my time.

        Please try to respect your fellow blogger.

        My reply may have been a bit flippant, but it was meant to be a serious question.
        How would we distinguish a normal human being from an alien (accepting your premise they do exist)?
        Many of our fellow humans have behavioral or physical shortcomings. I don’t believe they are all aliens …if any.

      4. Don…I think caps can be appropriate at times….YOU just used them….but it can be a bit much; although I don’t see how they would keep you from reading the words.

        As a side road, do you find it interesting that they no longer teach script in many if not most schools (likely not Waldorf schools)……now there is something to be upset about, eh? ….More and more ways that distinguish as as individual humans being disappeared.

      5. Obviously, Don is FOS! [or a DEFECTIVE HHA] 😉
        BTW…..the ALIENS are CONTROL FREAKS [Pawelec]. Do you suppose that BIG TECH is STUFFED with HHAs?! – and in CAHOOTS with the Feds!

      6. Words in CAPS have similar meaning to their un-capped equivalents – only MORESO. If you can’t read them, you have some sort of DEFECT – like HHAs.

      7. So, Godsend, I am lazy and Don has a defect because he questions YOU. Do you see a pattern here?

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