If you think about it, it was all a master stroke without having to go through a huge “star-wars” arms race he has managed to cause political crisis in both the US and the UK. If the white christian supremacists follow up on their desire to start a civil war that leads to the breakup of the US, Putin will have achieved the neutralization of the sole remaining superpower. If Brexit causes Scotland and Northern Ireland to break form the UK that would be a cherry on top.
You have to give it to the man, he set up against great odds to “Make Russia Great Again” and what he has achieved already puts him along Bismark, Talleyrand and Metternich. Xi must be envious, he has achieved much less with a lot more resources.
And tighten the Magnitsky Act, so your gangster oligarchs can’t wash their money or vacation in Palm Beach or get their mistress-conceived anchor babies citizenship.
And then we’re going to shut down the internet of your entire fucking country.
I think historians are going to look back at 2016 and realize we have moved into a completely new era when it comes to military and state power.
The US and NATO are still running military exercise which are more or less preparation for another WWII, just with newer equipment, i.e., moving battalians of tanks around and fleets of aircraft carriers, etc. I’ve seen this. The future will be who controls the information, not who has the biggest collection of military hardware. There’s far too little being spent in that direction.-- whereas billions and billions are being spent to keep the military-industrial complex just rolling along.
Putin has shown us how easily shifting the flow of information will shift the power.
It’s scary, but it’s real, folks. And there’s too much that we don’t know.
I’m a civilian and never served, but people I respect who HAVE done so insist that smart and up-to-date land and sea forces still matter. Thought experiment: would a NATO commander in Poland, Germany, Estonia, or Sweden agree that “The future will be who controls the information, not who has the biggest collection of military hardware”?
Tanks are real. Terrain is real. Aircraft carriers are real. Warm-water ports are real.
No argument there. Matter of fact, if the Republic survives this, I’d agree that 2016 was a moment of Pearl Harbor-level risk and game change.
He desperately needs Trump to win in 2020, because otherwise, it’s payback time. No doubt in my mind he’ll work double time to try to make that happen.
What he wants most, it appears, is sanctions relief. What’s the point of getting that from Trump only to see them reimplemented and even tightened further in about a year’s time?
This “Deal” was made after the Putin phone call, and BEFORE the State Dept. authorized the release of $89 Million in military aid to Ukraine.
Basically: “Hey, Nice little country you have there. Be a shame if something happened to it, like, say, a full invasion by Russia. Now, about that dirt on the Bidens…”
