Washington is the Hegemon, global hegemon.
Russia is tiny and nobody even Baltic States is scared of us.
I ignore most of the barbos disinformation, but this goes too far even by barbos' standards. First note that Russia has 5,580 nuclear warheads (plenty in the air, plenty on land and plenty underwater), the largest stockpile in the world. Before the Soviet fall, both superpowers were led, in effect, by rational
committees but with the superpowers now led by fascist narcissists the threat of nuclear war has never been more dire. The one "saving grace" is that Trump has been happy to play Putin's stooge and is likely to acquiesce to Putin's demands rather than provoke a holocaust.
Russia has a small economy as Great Powers go; and its military strength is so doubtful it needed help from North Korea. But Putin's willingness to act maliciously, and his threat of a nuclear first strike makes him a dominant power. With little opposition he took de facto control of Syria, and is also implicitly allied with Iran. China, whatever its long-range plans, has been happy to assist Putin's present adventures.
The recent cable severings in the Baltic Sea were probably directed by Russia, using a China-flagged ship as cover.
There is no doubt that Putin has deliberately sown political chaos in America and elsewhere; infiltrated extremist groups on both the left and the right; peddled disinformation; subverted elections; conducted assassinations; etc. Russia is a leader in computer hacking, and developing and deploying malware. With Trump appointing the Putin-friendly Gabbard as DNI Russia's stranglehold on U.S. networks will worsen.
In the past two decades, dictatorships have replaced democracies all around the world, and even the still-intact democracies are seeing fascist movements rise. Some of this was caused by Putin; all of it helps his goals.
And Putin is propagandizing his own people, terrorizing them with worries about nuclear war. Is he still staging nationwide drills in which schoolchildren don gas-masks?
But barbos is correct on one count: The Western democracies in general and the U.S. most specifically have become complacent, enthralled by sillinesses, and continue to ignore the dire threats posed by Putin and his evil regime.
