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You guys quite determined recently to prove that anyone who thinks differently from Americans is mass-murdering bastard, aren't you? "Serbs use chem weapons", "Saddam use chem weapons", "Cubans use chem weapons". P.S. Taking into account that there wasn't a thing during Cold War which either...

I just like to remind everyone that Slavs didn't control all territory we think of as "European Russia" during Kievan times. Far from it. Novgorod was far north, but it was more of isolated territory, almost (there was thin band of territory along modern Latvian border) disconnected from Slavic...

What R U smoking? It was Moskito of late 1930s. Yes, it became obsolete by 1941, but what plane design of 1933 didn't? If you want some Soviet designs mentioned here, Su-2 and Yak BB were pretty lousy for different reasons, and TB-3 outlived it's intended lifespan by at least 5 years.

Disagree. History of SE Europe is chock-full of nomads who kept nomadic lifestyle and didn't adopt Christianity (Pechenegs, Kumans, Torks, Karakalpaks, main body of Khazars), keeping paganism. However, once nomads showed inclination toward farming lifestyle, baptism followed shortly (Bulgars...

Scandinavians have distinction of being repeatedly beaten by Russia and then left alone. It created an impression that they can stand up against Russia ad infinitum (although closer look reveals that Russia stopped wars as soon as it reached her objectives, as Scandinavia generally wasn't worth...

Chechens got their independence in 1996, with "confederation" as meaningless and useless as CIS. For example, Russian police used same channels to communicate with their Chechen counterparts as with French or German. Were they able to stop banditry outside of Chechen borders (no one in Russian...

Believe it or not, decaying USSR would likely guarantee better living standards for 'Stans population than what they had IOTL in 1991-1999. And whatever Sunni radical movements were there, they were dealt with by locals, without Russian participation (well, except Tadjikistan, which was more...

I kinda flipped through it on Google books and about the only thing I was impressed about is shamelessness of some of his arguments. I mean, when Western author mix Slavic and Norse customs and items, I generally explain it away by author's ignorance. Great many Western "experts on Russia"...

You forgot one small detail: it were Russians who won the war and were re-drawing European map and they really weren't that excited about hostile border 30 miles from their capital. Isn't it a bit naive to expect them to cede their just-conquered province to a country which attacked them twice...

You have to read Abdul Hadi Pasha's thread here about Ottomans winning 1878 war. Tsarist "lubok" about brave cossack Kuzma Kryuchkov is a pinnacle of cold analysis compared to that :)

USSR was "the little Satan" and USA "the Great Satan" for ayatollahs. Besides, USSR was a much harder target, especially in tense world of cold war. An attempt to hijack a Soviet airplane with boxcutters would likely result in bloody combat between highjackers and plane crew and passengers...

Germano-Finnish war. Even in late 1944, when writings were shining on the wall, Finns had to fight Germans to get them out of Finland.

You missed end of my message. Only those who fought in Waffen SS were "keelhauled" and I don't see Kolchak serving Hitler.

France bought Russian alliance with credits. Up until late 1800s Germany had been Russia's main creditor. However, Germans denied large-scale credits Russia needed for industrialization (they chose to spend monies on something they considered more profitable and the rest is history). Russia...

Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 (most ASBish event of last century) Left SR Uprising of 1918 (or rather "no uprising"). Some of Great Purge victims surviving (I have no great love for Tuhachevsky, but Uborevich looks like a great guy). Less clumsy Crimea landing of Red Army in 1942. Orde Wingate...

There would be no Internet as we know it (a lot of OTL development had been powered by brains which would be snapped by military contractors and would be toiling on weapons development ITTL) and arms of today would be as advanced comparing to arms of 1990 as those were comparing to the stuff USA...

Why would Serbs want to use WMD in Bosnia? Until NATO barged in to directly support their proteges (Izetbegovic and Croats), Serbs were slowly but surely winning and, once NATO made it clear that Serbs would be stopped no matter what, there was no point to use WMD against hapless Muslims and...