Monday, March 05, 2018

When our president is a Russian agent


It would be expected that his actions would be designed to damage our friends and leave our country open to whatever hostile actions Russia would want to make. Curiously enough, that is pretty much what Cheeto Mussolini has done in his first of four years in office. The office he achieved with Russian help and from which he has consistently attacked our allies to Russia's benefit.
Just hours after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia boasted last week about producing “invincible” new nuclear arms designed to evade American missile defenses, President Trump’s nominee to command the nation’s military cyberunits was being grilled at a Senate confirmation hearing about another vexing Russian threat.

Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone, the nominee to run the National Security Agency and United States Cyber Command, acknowledged that plans were in place to strike back at Moscow for its election hacking. Those actions would require Mr. Trump’s approval.

But General Nakasone said the Russians, as well as America’s other adversaries in cyberspace, seem unimpressed.

“I would say right now they do not think much will happen to them,” he said. “They don’t fear us.”

The Russian muscle-flexing and the American hand-wringing captured a strategic vacuum that now envelops Washington as Mr. Putin pursues what he views as a complementary new-generation nuclear arsenal, as well as cyberweapons.

By comparison, the United States is still uncertain how to make use of its cyberweapons after spending billions of dollars to build an arsenal. It is concerned that the Russians — along with the Chinese, the Iranians and the North Koreans — could easily retaliate against any attack, striking American banks, utilities, stock markets and communications networks.

And in the nuclear sphere, the Trump administration has yet to offer a strategy to contain or deter Russia beyond simply matching the weapons buildup. Mr. Trump himself has largely remained silent about his vision to contain Russian power, and has not expressed hope of luring Moscow into new rounds of negotiations to prevent a recurrent arms race.

The threat that Russia poses on both fronts has helped push the United States to declare a fundamental shift on national security: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis asserted in January that “great power competition,” not terrorism, is now the primary American focus.

Washington’s response — at least in the nuclear realm — also harks back to the Cold War era: a cycle of move and countermove. This time, however, it involves not just building larger stockpiles, but also developing new types of weapons of greater sophistication, matched with more advanced missile defenses.

“Putin has become the best friend of the U.S. nuclear arms industry,” said nonproliferation expert Gary Samore. He negotiated with the Russians during the Clinton administration, when optimism ran high that the era of nuclear competition was over, and again during the Obama administration, after Mr. Putin had begun Moscow’s current nuclear modernization.
Those of us old enough to remember, can recall St. Ronny's arms race that pushed an economically weakened USSR to its eventual collapse. If you take the various tax and budget measures put out by Cheeto, it looks like he is setting up the US economically for a similar arms race with the positions reversed by his master Pooty. And his GOP comrades in Congress are gleefully riding this disaster to the end.

Comments:
Thank you for this. It helps confirm some suspicions I have had for a long time.
 

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