The darker side, we’ll leave to Solzhenitsyn.
The commanding officer at the Russian Military Academy (the equivalent of a 4-star general in the U.S.) gave a lecture on “Potential Problems and Military Strategy.” At the end of the lecture he asked, “Are there any questions?”
An officer stood up and asked, “Will there be a Third World War? And will Russia take part in it?”
The general answered both questions in the affirmative.
Another officer asked, “Who will be the enemy?”
The general replied, “All indications point to China.”
Everyone in the audience was shocked. A third officer remarked, “General, we are a nation of only 150 million, compared to the 1.5 billion Chinese. Can we win at all, or even survive?”
The general answered, “Just think about this for a moment : In modern warfare, it is not the quantity of soldiers that matters but the quality of an army’s capabilities. For example, in the Middle East we have had a few wars recently where 5 million Jews fought against 150 million Arabs, and Israel was always victorious.”
After a small pause, yet another officer from the back of the auditorium asked, “Do we have enough Jews?”