ChicagoBlue
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 10 Jan 2009
- Messages
- 21,981
Russia has always had a “front line” attitude towards the destabilization of the EU, by undermining it through individual states. However, the notion that an American President…ANY American President…would cozy up to a belligerent, expansive, aggressive and destructive Russian leader…ANY Russian Leader…would have been considered ridiculous until now!!!tbf, the ball got rolling before he was elected in 2016. Russia definitely influenced the Brexit vote although I can’t say whether it was determinative or not. Russia has been plotting this for years.
Having the de facto leader of NATO openly speaking out against Western defence, and imposing severe economic tariffs on its economic allies, all while calling for a European nation to cede territory to Russia and deplete its army to levels that make its future national defence against its greatest natural threat virtually impossible, FEELS a bit of an escalation in Russian “influence.”
Again, it’s only a feeling, but it is very, very hard not to believe that Trump is giving Putin almost everything he wants for one of three reasons, none of which bode well:
1) He is compromised, probably financially.
2) He isn’t compromised because he’s always been an agent.
3) He’s made off book deals for the post-President era and doesn’t want to turn off that spigot for the sake of anything, least of all a European liberal democracy or group of them.