QOTD -- Then And Now

"'At the bottom of the Kremlin's neurotic view of world affairs,' he [Kennan] wrote, is the 'traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity." The Soviet Union, he concluded, was 'a political force committed fanatically' to engage in competition with the United States to the point that its aim was to ensure that 'the internal harmony of our state be disrupted, our traditional way of life be destroyed [and] the international authority of our state broken.'"--  Peter Frankopen, The Silk Roads, p. 393, referring to a communication sent from George Kennan, Chargé in the Soviet Union, to the Secretary of State, February 22, 1946.  Former Soviet KGB official Vladimir Putin clearly has the same aims 73 years later, and has a compromised asset in the Oval Office helping him along.  (our emphasis)