The John Batchelor Show

Saturday 21 September 2013

Air Date: 
September 21, 2013

Photo, above:  The Nomonhan Incident and the Politics of Friendship on the Russia-Mongolia-China Border The summer of 2009 in Ulaanbaatar was unusually bustling for an otherwise sleepy city at a time when almost half of its one million strong population were out in summer camps drinking koumiss (Mo. airag) in the vast countryside. The whole nation was determined to enjoy the precious tranquillity after a peaceful presidential election, avoiding a repeat of last year’s violence in the wake of parliamentary elections. Amongst the few momentous events was the high-profile state-visit on August 25–26 by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. His main agenda was to promote cooperation in Mongolia’s strategic mining sector, a sector for which all the major powers in the world jostled to befriend Mongolia in anticipation of the long awaited passage of mineral extraction laws by Mongolia’s parliament. During this visit, Russia and Mongolia signed a Declaration on Developing a Strategic Partnership between Mongolia and the Russian Federation, raising the relationship from good neighbors to strategic partners. Medvedev also participated in a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Khalkhyn Gol. It was not a happenstance, but a specific request initiated by the Russian side. At the end of his visit, the Russian president and the newly elected Mongolian president Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj shot arrows during a naadam festival, demonstrating what Medvedev called the “military brotherhood” between the two nations.

          The Battle of Khalkhyn Gol, better known in the west through its Japanese-derived name the Nomonhan Incident, was a large scale military confrontation in the summer of 1939 between the Soviet–Mongolian forces and the Japanese Kwantung army, fighting on the border separating the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR) and Inner Mongolia which was then under the control of the Japanese puppet state of Manchu-kuo. It is usually celebrated in Russia as a key moment in the illustrious career of General Georgy Zhukov, who went on to lead the defeat of Hitler’s invading army. In Mongolia, touted as the signal Mongolian contribution to the war against fascism, it is recalled as a battle of national survival in the face of the most violent aggression that Mongolia has sustained from any foreign force since proclaiming itself a nation-state in 1924, nearly costing its sovereignty. However, over the last twenty years, the significance of the Battle has faded due to strained relations between the Russian Federation and Mongolia as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and to the transformation of Japan from Mongolia’s most existential threat to one of Mongolia’s closest neighbors, one toward whom the Mongols feel the greatest affinity in Asia today. Before the arrival of the Russian president, the Zaisan Memorial, a gigantic monument at the foot of the Bogd Khan Mountains, blocking Ulaanbaatar in the south, was dusted and polished. Chronicling the socialist fraternal friendship between the Soviet Union and the MPR, the two oldest socialist states, the monument has survived the radical years of the 1990s.  [more]

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 1, Block A: A Plain Sailorman in China: The Life of and Times of Cdr. I.V. Gillis, USN, 1875-1948 by Bruce Swanson, Don H McDowell,  Nancy Tomasko, and Vance H Morrison (1 of 4) 

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 1, Block B: A Plain Sailorman in China: The Life of and Times of Cdr. I.V. Gillis, USN, 1875-1948 by Bruce Swanson, Don H McDowell,  Nancy Tomasko, and Vance H Morrison (1 of 4)

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 1, Block C: A Plain Sailorman in China: The Life of and Times of Cdr. I.V. Gillis, USN, 1875-1948 by Bruce Swanson, Don H McDowell,  Nancy Tomasko, and Vance H Morrison (1 of 4)

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 1, Block D: A Plain Sailorman in China: The Life of and Times of Cdr. I.V. Gillis, USN, 1875-1948 by Bruce Swanson, Don H McDowell,  Nancy Tomasko, and Vance H Morrison (1 of 4) 

Hour Two

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 2, Block A: Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze by Peter Harmsen (1 of 4)

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 2, Block B: Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze by Peter Harmsen (2 of 4) 

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 2, Block C: Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze by Peter Harmsen (3 of 4)

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 2, Block D: Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze by Peter Harmsen (4 of 4)

Hour Three

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 3, Block A: The War Below: The Story of Three Submarines That Battled Japan by James Scott (1 of 4)

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 3, Block B: The War Below: The Story of Three Submarines That Battled Japan by James Scott (2 of 4)

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 3, Block C: The War Below: The Story of Three Submarines That Battled Japan by James Scott (3 of 4)

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 3, Block D: The War Below: The Story of Three Submarines That Battled Japan by James Scott (4 of 4)

Hour Four

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 4, Block A: Red Blood, Black Sand: Fighting Alongside John Basilone from Boot Camp to Iwo Jima by Chuck Tatum (1 of 2) 

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 4, Block B: Red Blood, Black Sand: Fighting Alongside John Basilone from Boot Camp to Iwo Jima by Chuck Tatum (2 of 2)

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 4, Block C: Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army's Victory That Shaped World War II by Stuart D. Goldman (1 of 2) 

Saturday 21 September 2013 / Hour 4, Block D: Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army's Victory That Shaped World War II by Stuart D. Goldman (2 of 2)

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