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Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
I think it's more deliberate and systematic than that - the Russian regime is trying to undermine democracy in the West. This really is the Cold War Part 2.
How Putin Meddles in Western Democracies (the Economist) |
I think in a lot of ways its worse by a lot of degrees then the old cold war.
Back then there were a lot of proxy fights, but there was almost an unwritten rule against direct action by the Russians against the Americans and other NATO allies and American's against the Russians.
you sent in your spies to spy and gather intelligence, but you didn't really want to destabilize the governments of major powers because you lost the predictability of control.
That kind of changed with the Soviets when it came to Reagan because the Russians' were genuinely frightened of him, they didn't believe he was all that stable, and they honestly believed that he was the President that wanted to destroy the Soviet Union and was willing to initiate a first strike
Because of that they initiated RYAN, which was an all hands on deck Soviet attempt to uncover his intentions.
While it wasn't designed to interfere with Reagan (Nuclear crazy remember). It was designed to look at things like shelter preparation, stocking of emergency supplies and blood banks and infiltrate the US government as high as they could go.
I tend to think that Putin took a lot of inspiration from Reagan and turned it up to 10. He actively is initiating activities directly against major powers in the West, and he's become completely unpredictable.
This isn't a cold war, its certainly not a hot war, but its a black war in between.