Well I am not pro-Putin, but I do respect him as a leader - in comparison with, for example, Obama. Furthermore, it's a truth that there is a rich elite that are profited by globalism - that is no mystery. I am anti-globalism, I think that's a very dangerous ideology - in many regards it's the birthplace of moral relativisim, the sexual revolution, and everything that is degrading in modern Western culture - all fueled by greed. Moral relativism makes more money, and promotes consumerism much better than temperance and virtue ever would.

And while I am not for Putin - I can't be for globalism, sexual immorality, and cultural degradation either. I want a Europe (and I am European myself) which is strong, powerful and can stand up to Russia. Not a Europe ruled by Merkel - not a Europe which permits Ukraine to be handed over to the Russians. Not a Europe which is filled with vices - lust, greed, moral relativism, and so forth. Those are not European values - they never have been.

Now the reason why I can't be for Putin is that he wants to subjugate Europe. I want Europe to become a regional superpower. Europe must live up to its great heritage, Europe is much greater than Russia. But we have to break free from the globalist agenda and their lack of moral values. We have to return to those values that made Europe great in the first place: courage, dignity, integrity, perseverance, loyalty, and so forth. So yes Putin is a threat - he's a threat we should take very seriously, which means that we should stop electing weak Merkel as the leader of Europe - she can barely lead herself. And no - we shouldn't elect those right-wing lunatics that you show on the map - UKIP, Front Nationale, NPD, Viktor Orban's crooked party, and so forth. Those are just going to degrade Europe. We need new alternatives which are built around worker-friendly anti-globalist values - including morality, which is what's currently lacking. We need a leader like Putin, who can discipline member states of Europe and get them to comply with a single European policy so that we can build a united Europe, which doesn't have to be a slave to either Russia or the US. And definitely we have to free our politics from the money interests.

Now the reason why I can't be for Putin is that he wants to subjugate Europe. — Agustino

What evidence do you have that Putin wants to subjugate Europe?

I want Europe to become a regional superpower. Europe must live up to its great heritage, — Agustino

As Putin said, "A nation that cannot protect its own children has no future."

What evidence do you have that Putin wants to subjugate Europe? — tom

The simple reason that that's what anyone would do if they were in his place. Russia would be the boss, and Europe would be the second-class partner. And we would be second class partner because we have WEAK leadership. We need our own Putin.

As Putin said, "A nation that cannot protect its own children has no future." — tom

I agree.

Rubbish. The US military is equal to the next six or seven largest in the world combined and the US dollar underscores practically every economy in the world. Eastern Europe couldn't fight its way out of a wet paper bag and the only thing the Russians care about is themselves and using Eastern Europe as a buffer zone between them and the next Adolf Hitler or Genghis Khan. So far Russia has managed to ward off invaders throughout the eons thanks to their horrible winters, but technology is rapidly catching up with robots that couldn't care less about the cold.

That's been the problem with Russia all along is that they have tremendous resources, but no real boarders to protect all that wealth and, often, no way to exploit the wealth. Siberia is just no place to be and automation is rapidly making even places like Afghanistan more accessible which has a trillion dollars worth of mineral wealth just waiting to be exploited. No need to control all the idiots running around with AK 47s when robots can fly right up to them and blow up in their faces or Predators can just bomb them from high altitude. The locals can fight among themselves all they want, while the robots can do the mining and police foreign interests.

Trump showing interest in Russian affairs is simply a sign that the technology is catching up and its almost time to exploit more Russian wealth. It also happens to coincide with US politics, but I think he's jumping the gun a bit early myself. The Pentagon has plans to put 30-40 thousands drones in the ocean, the biomechanics for robots have largely been worked out, but it will still be another twenty years before the technology starts to mature. The AI is now the newest big push in the industry and once the damned things have serious brains it means there's no place on earth anyone can hide.

So? How is it of any help that you have such a large military when you have to cross the god-damn ocean? Nobody would bother to attack the US. That's not the question here. Russia would obviously not attack the US on US territories - that would be crazy. And the same holds true the other way around - the US wouldn't dare attack Russia on Russian territory - because they would cripple themselves.

The real danger is American non-intervention due to a compromise with Russia. As I said before, the US doesn't give a fuck about the rest of the world. You're on a different continent! You don't really care what happens - you never did to be honest. Nobody can threaten you over there. You're as safe as you can get. Why would you really care if Russia moves in with her tanks and annexes the whole of Ukraine? To be honest, you wouldn't give a damn. America's losses out of that are ZERO. You'd be upset just because they need to know you are there, and they shouldn't take actions without your permission. That's all. You want them to bow down and be under your control.

I remember my father giving me propaganda booklets made by the KGB when coming back from a trip from the Soviet Union. — ssu

That's cool. I didn't realize how much of my life I spent just continually psychologically pushing back against US Cold War propaganda until I read a history of Russia. The chapters covering events of the 20th Century just about gave me a nervous breakdown. The author (Hosking) explained that the average westerner has no frame of reference for understanding how bad it was, but it wasn't until halfway through it that it dawned on me that US propaganda about how insane the Soviet Union was didn't begin to convey the truth.

What was wrong about US propaganda was its depiction of the Soviet Union as a hive-like society that would eventually far outstrip the US in productivity and wealth. Turns out Russia is in some ways what it's been since Peter the Great.. partly western, partly medieval.

They do have a lot of coal, though.

Yet with supporting clandestinely Trump, giving loans to the French National Front and having connections to far-right and anti-immigration / anti-EU parties, Russia now has hit a populist streak that likely it didn't think would be possible. — ssu

Isn't this just a baseless smear from the DNC playbook. The lie about Putin funding UKIP is in the hands of lawyers in US.

So? How is it of any help that you have such a large military when you have to cross the god-damn ocean? Nobody would bother to attack the US. That's not the question here. Russia would obviously not attack the US on US territories - that would be crazy. And the same holds true the other way around - the US wouldn't dare attack Russia on Russian territory - because they would cripple themselves. — Agustino

LOL, that's what Saddam Hussein thought when he invaded Kuwait which was a country that didn't even exist until the US set it up specifically to pump oil out from under his ass and sell it at cut rate prices. Get it straight, we control the entire world economy and tell everyone what they can and can't sell to whom at what price. The Soviet Union's economy failed in the first place because they wouldn't play ball and, if necessary, we will invade and nobody in the world will shed a single tear. In the meantime, Russia is rapidly dwindling in influence and power and has barely started to rebuild their economy again, while we've been supporting the Chinese building up their's for half a century. Guess who would help the US invade Russia?

Either Russia learns how to play nice and accepts their role in the empire or they will get nowhere and, if necessary, we will invade because the money has taken on a life of its own. Within twenty years commercial fishing will no longer be possible because there won't be enough wild fish in the oceans, within fifty every wild land animal larger than a dog will either be extinct or only exist in zoos. If you think sanity has anything to do with international politics and money think again. Russia is large enough it may survive what is coming, but the idea of them being able to do more than give the US a hard time in places like Syria is ludicrous.

What was wrong about US propaganda was its depiction of the Soviet Union as a hive-like society that would eventually far outstrip the US in productivity and wealth. — Mongrel

Naturally the US uses scare tactics too. The red scare is quite comparable to the scare of "Radical Muslim extremists" we have now... even if the danger is now nothing comparable to WW3 of the Cold War era. McCarthyism went too far, but that doesn't actually mean it was a totally fabricated scare with absolutely no reason at all. Americans just have a habit to take any threat and blow it out of all proportions to get the people to support a cause.

Yet what I think is one of the typical errors we make is that when we are critical of the US and the West's actions, and may I point we should be critical about these actions, we then simply overlook and tend to forget that the Soviet system was truly totalitarian and totally on far a different scale. At worst we see Russia as a victim. Well, Russia surely isn't a victim, it was a Victor of WW2, just like the US. The fact is that the US has acted just like any "Great Power" in history, just like France, the UK or the Roman Empire, hence there is much to critisize. And yes, indeed the US has it's darker moments, for example with Herbert Hoovers FBI or the War on Terror, yet that in the end is small compared what people under the Soviets and the Russians themselves have had to suffer. And while modern Russia isn't surely the Soviet Union, it isn't a democratic justice state either. It not a thing to forget.

Basically Putin's objective has been the recovery of economic, political, and geostrategic assets lost by the Soviet state in 1991. When he took power on the last day of 1999, the Russian Federation had indeed been collapsing and nearly in a freefall during the Yeltsin years. Now that economic collapse did stop and with rising Oil prices and Putin's Russia did make a comeback, basically getting to the same Per Capita levels when Soviet Union collapsed, which still is quite rapid economic turnaround. Yet his other policies to concentrate power and how to recover those geostrategic assets has been basically quite frightening. Putin rose to power and to popularity by starting a war against Chechen secessionists with blowing up apartment buildings. Perhaps the Russo-Georgian war was initiated by Georgia (that it did on it's own territory), the intervention into Georgia still was planned two years before, which then ended up in the annexation of South Ossetia. And the annexation of Crimea and ongoing war in Ukraine shows how comfortable Putin is with war. With Putin, offense is the best defense. And indeed many Russians like it, not perhaps the intelligencia, but part of the people (who in the US would be voting Trump).

Eastern Europe couldn't fight its way out of a wet paper bag and the only thing the Russians care about is themselves and using Eastern Europe as a buffer zone between them and the next Adolf Hitler or Genghis Khan. — wuliheron

And that "buffer zone" is the problem as it makes Russia quite aggressive in reality. It does seek dominance over these countries, just like the Soviet Union. Just ask yourself, why is then it acceptable for Russians to seek a "buffer zone" against a new Napoleon/Hitler coming from the West, that basically isn't coming? In reality it's Putin himself needs an enemy, the evil American elite lead globalists, to give a reason for his police state. He needs it, because otherwise the Russian would be against his cleptocratic rule.

And just to give an example of the aggressiveness of Russia against NATO countries:

After the annexation of Crimea, Obama visited Estonia and promised that the US would stand by it's Baltic NATO allies. Russia responded to this asymmetrically by later kidnapping an Estonian intelligence officer Eston Kohver in Estonia itself during a NATO summit in September 2015, smuggled him into Russia and charged him with spying and gave him a sentence of 15 years in prison. This provocation didn't go unnoticed with either the Baltic States or the Nordic States and even "neutral" Sweden and Finland condemned the action in a harsh tone. The Intelligence officer was later exchanged for a Russian spy, just like during the Cold War.

Eston Kohver in custody with presumably Russian FSB agents, notice they are masked.

I actually think it's more to do with the years of subversion Russia has been mounting against the U.S and its allies finally showing results. I don't know if you've seen this; but, it's summarized neatly by a former KGB agent. Add the recent advent of the internet (and that I consider Russia as a dominant supplier of subversion tactics via it) and their propaganda reaches more people than ever before.

And that "buffer zone" is the problem as it makes Russia quite aggressive in reality. It does seek dominance over these countries, just like the Soviet Union. Just ask yourself, why is then it acceptable for Russians to seek a "buffer zone" against a new Napoleon/Hitler coming from the West, that basically isn't coming? In reality it's Putin himself needs an enemy, the evil American elite lead globalists, to give a reason for his police state. He needs it, because otherwise the Russian would be against his cleptocratic rule. — ssu

Russians support strong men dictators like Putin precisely because that is what their situation requires, but its simply not in the US interest to allow them to take those territories without paying the price. Either they learn how to play ball with the US or we'll prevent them from protecting themselves. They know it, we know it, and Putin can threaten nuclear war all he wants and we'll just invade Russia. We've been cussed out by more vicious dictators before and the US has already installed the first Star Wars defense system in response. What we cannot tolerate is someone thinking they can get anything for free.

Isn't this just a baseless smear from the DNC playbook. The lie about Putin funding UKIP is in the hands of lawyers in US. — tom

UKIP hasn't made it books public where it has gotten money, just like well, Trump hasn't given his tax records. Yet here it should be noticed that parties like UKIP or the National Front aren't parties invented by Moscow and directly lead by Moscow as the historical Komintern. Still, obviously there is a link. When a politician praises a dictator like Putin, there usually is a reason... like money.

For example, Sweden Democrats (if I am correct) are a party that indeed does have it's Neo-nazi roots and has it admirers of Putin, yet it isn't linked to Russia as some other far right wing parties are. And actually it voted in favour of the new treaty between Sweden and NATO, which Russia was totally against.

we'll just invade Russia — wuliheron

Does anybody actually believe this crap? USA can't even quell a tiny enclave of religious fanatics in the Middle East. Russia occupies 1/8 of the world's total land mass!

already installed the first Star Wars defense — wuliheron

And it doesn't work!

Either Russia learns how to play nice and accepts their role in the empire or they will get nowhere and, if necessary, we will invade because the money has taken on a life of its own. Within twenty years commercial fishing will no longer be possible because there won't be enough wild fish in the oceans, within fifty every wild land animal larger than a dog will either be extinct or only exist in zoos. If you think sanity has anything to do with international politics and money think again. Russia is large enough it may survive what is coming, but the idea of them being able to do more than give the US a hard time in places like Syria is ludicrous. — wuliheron

Hahahaha! That's why Obama talks like a kitten to all world leaders and went on an apology tour. That's why Obama has been allowing the Russians to take Ukraine and install their support for the Assad regime. Remember the line in the sand? >:O

Russians support strong men dictators like Putin precisely because that is what their situation requires — wuliheron

Actually Russians are far more like Americans. They absolutely distrust their government. Yet as there hasn't been a democracy and above all, no justice state, people have a quite "realpolitik" attitude about politics. And the fear of the state is still there in the closet. And of course there's the "uninformed rabble" that is totally pro-Putin and goes along with the state propaganda: they will carry his picture after Putin has died just as they carry around Stalin's picture.

Later from now it likely will be Putin's picture...


I find it quite condescending to say that some nation that has given so much in culture (and science too) needs a strong man, a dictator. The argument that "some countries need strong men" is in the end quite condescending towards the people.

but its simply not in the US interest to allow them to take those territories without paying the price. Either they learn how to play ball with the US or we'll prevent them from protecting themselves. They know it, we know it, and Putin can threaten nuclear war all he wants and we'll just invade Russia. We've been cussed out more vicious dictators before. — wuliheron

Actually it's not about territories, it's about influence. It's about getting East European NATO members to be subjected to Finlandization, to fall under the influence of Russia in agree with policy issues that Russia upholds, and hence make NATO not to work. And perhaps that NATO goes to the dustbin of SEATO and CENTO before it.

Not that Putin conquers the whole of Europe.

I find it quite condescending to say that some nation that has given so much in culture (and science too) needs a strong man, a dictator. The argument that "some countries need strong men" is in the end quite condescending towards the people. — ssu

Why? This is only condescending if you presuppose that not having a strong man is better than having one. I think that's false. I think great nations have always been ruled by strong men, and will always be ruled thusly. Though it is true that there have also been many despicable strong men.

Why? This is only condescending if you presuppose that not having a strong man is better than having one. I think that's false. I think great nations have always been ruled by strong men, and will always be ruled thusly. — Agustino

"Strong men" in my view means rulers that don't care about the rule of law, human rights or basic norms. Strong men kill their opponents and use fear as a way to rule. Now the countries don't have to be total police states, but there is the feeling that laws basically don't matter, men do.

The idea that a country cannot exist in any other way than have a "Strong man" to rule it indeed says a lot what foreigners think what the people of the country can do.

I actually think it's more to do with the constant subversion Russia has been mounting against the U.S and its allies. I don't know if you've seen this; but, it's summarized neatly by a former KGB agent. Add the recent advent of the internet (and that I consider Russia as a dominant supplier of subversion tactics via it) and their task reaches more people than ever before. — Question

A very interesting video. Though I presume it was done in the 1980's and hence is a bit too alarmist, it very well shows the World view of a KGB insider. And let's remember that the KGB people do rule Russia.

Does anybody actually believe this crap? USA can't even quell a tiny enclave of religious fanatics in the Middle East. Russia occupies 1/8 of the world's total land mass! — Barry Etheridge

Russia is not the whole continent. If Putin wants to live in Siberia I'm sure we can make arrangements. Russia proper is just another country surrounded by border states where familiarity doth breed contempt. If Putin doesn't play nice we'll just keep taking them away from him. "Liberating" them. That's why he hates NATO because he knows Russia has almost no neighbors or anyone else willing to back them up.

Hahahaha! That's why Obama talks like a kitten to all world leaders and went on an apology tour. That's why Obama has been allowing the Russians to take Ukraine and install their support for the Assad regime. Remember the line in the sand? — Agustino

Timing is everything and in international politics my enemy's enemy is my best friend, but Russia is nobody's friend and everyone's enemy. Obama can sweet talk Putin all he wants, and Putin knows the reality of the situation that there are no friends in politics and he has no allies. So long as the oil in the mideast keeps flowing dirt cheap to support Assad's war effort the US is looking great with $2.28 gas.

I find it quite condescending to say that some nation that has given so much in culture (and science too) needs a strong man, a dictator. The argument that "some countries need strong men" is in the end quite condescending towards the people. — ssu

They aren't a single culture or even a single nation, but a bunch of warring states that been fighting among themselves forever and repeatedly invaded by outsiders. Europeans understand Americans better, just one of our fifty states is the size of an average country, almost everyone speaks the same language and we even tend to all dress the same, yet, we are also the third most populous country in the world and you can drive anywhere in the country without crossing a border. You might as well compare Malaysia to the US as compare Russia because its another marriage of convenience made at the point of a shotgun. Hell, even with all our shared commonalities the US had a civil war, and even China has a lot more unity going for it than Russia.

Timing is everything and in international politics my enemy's enemy is my best friend, but Russia is nobody's friend and everyone's enemy. — wuliheron

China and Russia come along far better than the US and China. Even if there is Siberia and the Chinese moving there, still...

And don't forget those Slavic friends that basically are quite friendly to Russia, Serbia and Bulgaria. And Serbia, it should be noted, is a country where the US could help a revolution to happen that toppled Slobodan Milosevic, something that NATO's bombs couldn't do. Yet now even after that, Serbia is close friends with Russia.

Russian defense minister with his Serbian counterpart:


And here we get to the topic of this thread: just how many friends will Putin have in Europe in a few years? Not perhaps only Syria, Cuba and Venezuela. This can change...

You might as well compare Malaysia to the US as compare Russia because its another marriage of convenience made at the point of a shotgun. Hell, even with all our shared commonalities the US had a civil war, and even China has a lot more unity going for it than Russia. — wuliheron

???

Now I don't understand. Are you saying that Russia isn't a nation state or what? Russia isn't as artificial as Iraq. What do you think it's made of? Muscovites and the Novgorodians?

UKIP hasn't made it books public where it has gotten money, just like well, Trump hasn't given his tax records. Yet here it should be noticed that parties like UKIP or the National Front aren't parties invented by Moscow and directly lead by Moscow as the historical Komintern. Still, obviously there is a link. When a politician praises a dictator like Putin, there usually is a reason... like money.

For example, Sweden Democrats (if I am correct) are a party that indeed does have it's Neo-nazi roots and has it admirers of Putin, yet it isn't linked to Russia as some other far right wing parties are. And actually it voted in favour of the new treaty between Sweden and NATO, which Russia was totally against. — ssu

You are a fantasist, conspiracy theorist with no evidence.

You are a fantasist, conspiracy theorist with no evidence. — tom

Ok, here's the reference:

On UKIP, just one article:

The UK Independence Party faces criticism after attempting to block scrutiny of party donations, as part of a drive to halt Russian influence in Europe.

Nigel Farage and his MEPs voted today against measures calling for greater transparency of donations from outside the EU to political parties. It came in a series of anti-Putin proposals proposed in Strasbourg including measures to counter Russian propaganda and stripping the country of its "strategic partner" status.

Ukip were joined by the European radical right in opposing the measures, including the Front National, which has received funding from Russia. Ukip insisted that they opposed the measures because they think questions of party donations and foreign policy should be set by Britain, not the European Commission.

See (The Telegraph article): Ukip under fire after blocking scrutiny of party donations

Sweden democrats, and there stance on NATO and Russian dissapproval:

Despite earlier pledges by party leader Jimmie Åkesson to join efforts with the Left to stop the agreement he claimed posed "a threat to Sweden's neutrality," the Sweden Democrats had second thoughts in the eleventh hour and voted unanimously in favor of the controversial deal with NATO.

See (Sputnik article)True Colors: Nominally Populist Sweden Democrats Help Ratify NATO Deal

* * *

Do correct me if I'm wrong, but then make the point just why I'm wrong, not just make accusations, Tom.

Again, international politics are always about my enemy's enemy being my best friend. China getting along better with Russia than the US is merely more diplomatic schmoozing. When push comes to shove all the little countries align with whoever can support their independence and Russia only supports that of the Slavic states because they have a mutual need for defense. What everyone wants is the money with the US controlling the world's wallet and the largest armory. Without the guns and the money, sooner or later, my enemy's enemy becomes my best friend.

I think it's ignorant to say that (The West has a bigger military, thus Putin hasn't achieved his goal).

The Soviet's realized that they could not keep up with the efficiency of free markets (I suspect this to be a "truth" only the elite realized on both sides, which the West exploited with Reagans policies and then the collapse of the Soviet union in trying to keep up with all the race's between the two countries). Once the Soviet Union realized this they had a shift in their strategy against the West and its allies in that they could not be defeated by brute force; but, rather by a slow process of subverting the masses of their rivals through the vulnerability that any uneducated democracy exposes itself to.

Mind you, this is a slow and tedious process that takes many years as mentioned by the ex-KGB agent mentioned in my previous post.

I would also assume that with the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the utter failure of its socio-economic policies, we don't have anything to point towards in saying something like "Hey, look at how bad those guys have it in comparison to us!"...

So, anyway the slow and tedious process of subverting a public to your way of thinking can be negated by educating the public about the past, which is desperately needed in my opinion in the West and other countries.

From today's Sydney Morning Herald:

The flood of "fake news" [in the US] election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation.

Russia's increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery - including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human "trolls," and networks of websites and social-media accounts - echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia.

Two teams of independent researchers found that the Russians exploited American-made technology platforms to attack US democracy at a particularly vulnerable moment.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-us-election-experts-say-20161125-gsxf9l.html

A lot of that crap about 'lying Hillary' was aided and abetted by this misinformation. Meanwhile, an obviously mendacious candidate won the election.

Yeah it's a loaf of pahatastoc kodswullip uf oi heffer herd won.

A lot of that crap about 'lying Hillary' was aided and abetted by this misinformation. — Wayfarer

And more interestingly, the hackings of the DNC (both Podesta and the earlier ones) do seem to have been done by Russians. What the US does about this is an open question. Likely the honeymoon Trump has with Putin won't last long, but what can Russia take out of is interesting to see.

Be it misinformation or subversion, which Russia does engage from time to time, one really should notice that in many parts it is the simple reasoning that many people agree with. Putin's policies and viewpoints is something that appeals to many. That's perhaps one of my main points. (And one interesting point is that basically the Russian Federation ought not to have a state ideology.) The Soviet Marxism Leninism didn't, even the Marxists here would be (or were) critical of the Soviet policies.

The typical Russia Today news coverage might be a little bit biased by picking just what to say, but surely not fake news. For example the coverage the RT made of the Occupy Wall Street movement was quite objective, OK journalism. Of course when there was afterwards demonstrations against Putin's third term in Russia, RT was far more subtle in the coverage. Putin actually is a good communicator and can take his audience.

Furthermore, there is in my view a good reason to critisize current trends in globalization and the idea that the EU can be made into a federal state like the US. That kind of critique partly coincides with Russia's objectives and thus there is the reason for Russia to support events or political parties that in the end wouldn't be allies (or proxies) of Russia.

To give an example, Russia was clearly in favour of the secession of Scotland, yet unlikely would share much with the pro-EU leadership of a possible Independent Scotland.

I'm really not sure which is worst about USA's understanding of the world, its staggering arrogance or its mind-numbing ignorance. If you seriously think that Russia can not call upon any allies then I despair. Belarus, China, and India all consider Russia a primary ally and in a fight there is no doubt that countries facing sanctions from USA at present, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and others would be more than willing to pitch in. Meanwhile where exactly on the border do you think you could amass this invasion force? Kazakhstan? China? Estonia?

There is not a single (sane) military strategist in the world that thinks an invasion of Russia is doable. The scary thing for Europeans who would undoubtedly bear the brunt of the fallout from any attempt at it is that there's now someone in the White House just barking enough to try it anyway!