Repeated warnings from our intelligence community and allies that Russian autocrat and former KGB colonel Vladimir "Vlad the Invader" Putin was cultivating useful idiot and narcissist Donald "Rump" Trump as an "asset" were brushed off by our sage Beltway media savants, the FBI, and spineless and cynical Rethuglican politicians. Numerous times, Rump himself had praised Putin and questioned the usefulness of NATO, and had dismissed hard evidence that Putin's government -- in league with the nihilistic Wikileaks -- was involved in trying to influence the election in Rump's favor through hacked documents.
Russia's been emboldened by Rump's improbable election (but not by a popular vote win), so it was not a total surprise that Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested to their useful idiot Rump that a "confidence-building" move would be for him to slow or stop NATO expansion and to withdraw NATO forces from the proximity of Russia's borders. Peskov is referring to NATO troops protecting the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (all former Soviet republics) and Poland, and a potential acceptance of Ukraine into the NATO fold. Calling NATO "an instrument of confrontation," Peskov susggested that weakening NATO would lead to a "detente" in Europe, no doubt to Russia's advantage as it seeks to bring former client states and Soviet republics back into its orbit.
Rump would be well to consider the statement that Putin made a few years ago. He called the collapse of the Soviet Union the 20th century's "greatest political catastrophe." This former Soviet intelligence officer would like nothing better that to leave as his legacy the reconstitution of that entity, albeit as a kleptocracy. He may have an ally in Rump in his mission.
(photo: A mural in Lithuania. Petras Malukas, AFP/Getty Images)
4 comments:
Putins not going onto the Crimea, okay? He's just not.
That stupidity alone should have ended Trumps candidacy but, the white power WWC wanted his unvarnished racism so literally nothing would dissaude them. lots of people are going to suffer.
Exactly Gene. If an emboldened Russia decides to take the Baltic States back (either directly or via a 5th column), Trump (depending on how strong Putin's hold on him is) may have to commit troops to NATO's eastern European members. It will be the WWC families that will have their sons, fathers, etc. placed n harm's way by their cult leader, and a bitter lesson for them if they chose to learn it.
Hackwackers, is Putin moves Russian troops into the Baltics, we are bound by treaty to defend them. I doubt Trump understands this. He may just start a global unwinding.
Jeff -- We're bound by the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 to treat an attack on them as an attack on us / all signatories to the treaty (Article 5). Whether Trump honors the treaty is another thing, but our allies would never trust the U.S. again, and would cut their own deals with our potential adversaries. Agree that Trump likely has no appreciation of this.
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