Republished with permission from Gary Gindler:
It seems that Russia, in its search for a suitable method of collective suicide, has decided to compensate for America’s supposed superiority in anti-missile defense systems with an enormously expensive one-sided arms race.
Russia decided to create missiles capable of almost 100% penetration of not just the existing, but also any future missile defense of the United States. Of course, the Pentagon only shrugged – they know perfectly well about Russia’s tiny military budget. Well, if Russia wants to go bankrupt unilaterally, so be it. Trump’s administration will not interfere. It will even help.
The fact is that the nuclear missiles currently in service in Russia can overcome any U.S. missile defense. Not all of them, of course, but even a small percentage of missiles that penetrate are capable of wiping America off the face of the Earth many times over. Conversely, U.S. missiles can overcome Russia’s missile defense. It’s called parity, also known as “guaranteed mutual destruction.” It is a confirmation of the old military adage: in a confrontation between the armor and the projectile, the projectile always wins.
The self-destruction of Russia in the form of a one-sided arms race is happening in broad daylight. Russia never concealed its intentions. In the West, all this was understood a long time ago. Western politicians are also not hiding the results of their analysis. The autocrat Putin is no longer invited to important international forums, and no one among prominent heads of states visits him. Why should they? The country under his leadership has become an outcast, and everything Russian has become politically toxic – but, strangely enough, at the same time, a convenient scapegoat.
Democrats are blaming Russia for the loss in the 2016 election. The special prosecutor Robert Mueller investigates activities of Paul Manafort at the time when Manafort worked for Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. But Mueller himself also worked with Yanukovych during the same time. Democrats accuse Russian hackers of hacking DNC emails, but for some reason, they refuse to provide the FBI with their servers for investigation.
Now, a year and a half after the election, it is safe to say that Russia played the same role in the American election of 2016 as it has been playing since the mid-1930s – none. That is, efforts to destabilize America as the main adversary, of course, are underway. They were conducted, starting from the time of Stalin, and with the same indispensable result: zero.
Of course, Tsar Putin does not want the destruction of America. After all, the West is where he and his courtiers keep their billions. He merely wants to destabilize America and thereby weaken the main oil and gas rival of Russia.
Republicans have other scores with Russia. Under the leadership of Donald Trump, America has charted the course for complete energy independence. The war against American mining and oil industries, initiated by Obama, had been canceled. The United States has been the world’s number-one producer of natural gas for several years (Russia is second). And six months ago, America reached a production level of 10 million barrels of oil per day. That places it second in the world. Russia is in first place with 12 million barrels of oil per day.
If things progress as they are, it will take ten years for America to catch up with Russia’s oil production. And if Trump steps up the pace, as he has apparently decided to do, it will take only three years, no more – just in time for Trump’s re-election. For Republicans, Russia is just business as usual, nothing personal. However, the Democrats, who are openly anti-Russian, meet the anti-Russian démarches of Trump with enthusiasm.
Trump sees Russia not as a political adversary, but as an oil and gas competitor who has determined its own method of self-destruction. Even so, who needs an adversary’s help when on a course of self-destruction?
Did Russia hack the email of the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign? Maybe. But nobody is looking for an answer to this question, because no politicians need it. They also do not need an answer to the question of who used chemical weapons in Syria. Why look for one if nobody needs it? Perhaps it was Russian chemical weapons, and perhaps not. Did the Russian intelligence services poison their former spy, Sergei Skripal, in the United Kingdom? Perhaps they poisoned him, or perhaps not. No one is interested in the correct answer from the political standpoint.
After the aggression against Georgia and Ukraine, after disconnecting Europe from its natural gas supply during winter, after the downed Malaysian Boeing, after the formation of the caliphate and the annexation of Crimea, Russia practically gave carte blanche to all other countries to write off all their failures and all their problems. As a result, the majority of international scandals in the world are now associated with Russia regardless as to whether Russia is in fact involved or not. Even the U.N. has stopped accusing Israel on a daily basis (now the U.N. does this every other day). The hostility the Axis countries – Russia-Iran-Syria-North Korea – to the West exists, if not de jure, then de facto, and is a convenient target.
For many years, Russia has acted thoughtlessly and become vulnerable to various false flag operations. Without question, it is a self-inflicted wound. It sounds irrational, but Russia methodically works toward self-destruction on all fronts – internationally, economically, and militarily.
Concurrently, Russia is trying to appeal to the common sense of the world community and to use international judicial procedures. But the situation into which Russia has driven itself is not legal, but political. Therefore, rhetorical questions from the Kremlin such as “Where is the evidence?” will not be useful. After all, this is not a jury trial or a military tribunal; rather, it is international politics, which is apparently poorly taught at the KGB school.
Russia’s behavior over the next several years will be viewed by the West only as the caprices of a prisoner going to the gallows, who has already enjoyed his last supper provided to him by law.
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