It was recently reported that Trump supporters, no longer able to logically deny that Russia launched a cyber attack against America, have switched their argument to this: Yeah, okay, Russia did it, but what’s the big deal? Russia’s okay, Putin’s okay, we just don’t see it as anything to get worked up about.
Well, anyone who thinks Russia’s meddling with our election -- and, by inference, our entire cyber infrastructure -- is not a big deal, simply doesn’t understand Russia – what its place in the world is and has been. So, a few facts of life regarding no-big-deal Russia: and its dictator Vladimir Putin:
The KGB
The KGB, in which Putin was a high-level player, was a Soviet secret police organization whose specialty was the suppression of internal dissent, in the service of which it imprisoned and/or exiled and/or murdered thousands and thousands of people within Russia itself and in the many “satellite” countries Russia had taken over by force after World War II. Internal dissent was defined by, among many other things, the practice of religion, which was forbidden in the Soviet Union and brutally suppressed, and by any criticism of communism or the government. The organization was the embodiment of Orwell’s “Big Brother,” with operatives and informants everywhere, in a closed-off, paranoid society in which the only “news” was government propaganda and in which it was necessary to be extremely careful about whom you were talking to and who might overhear, lest you be grabbed up in the night, held incommunicado, and sent to the Gulag for the rest of your life. The KGB was a merciless and brutal force, not unlike the reviled Gestapo and SS of Nazi Germany. No big deal if this former secret police operative directs a computer hack of U.S. elections?
The Cold War
After World War II, Russia joined the United States as a nuclear power, and the two countries developed and deployed enough nuclear firepower, targeted at each other, to destroy the world many times over. Over time, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the threat of a nuclear apocalypse under which people of my generation were brought up died back and much of the back-and-forth saber rattling ended. But Russia still has hundreds of missiles pointed at U.S. population centers, and the implicit threat of Armageddon remains. Russia may not be the enemy of the U.S. it once was, but it is no friend. The term “hostile power” pretty much captures it. No big deal if this nuclear-armed adversary attacks our cyber infrastructure?
No big deal to Europe?
U.S. allies in Europe, countries we have solemnly promised to defend and who have promised to defend us as members of NATO, are deathly afraid of Russia. And Russia gave a vivid and bloody demonstration of just how justified that fear is by its ruthless theft of Crimea from Ukraine, one of the former Soviet satellites ruled over by the Kremlin with an iron fist.
“…few stand to lose more than the pro-American leaders of countries in Central and Eastern Europe,” wrote Josh Rogin recently in the Washington Post. “Those leaders, fighting on the front line of the battle against Putin’s drive to upend the democratic world order, are asking Trump to think twice before choosing the wrong side.”
A letter, quoted by Rogin, from 17 current and former officials of these countries, , said this: “Putin does not seek American greatness. As your allies, we do.” They went on to caution against any weakening of sanctions against Russia for its Ukraine adventure. “The rules-based international order on which Western security has depended for decades would be weakened. The alliances that are the true source of American greatness would erode: countries that have expended blood, treasure and political capital in support of transatlantic security will wonder if America is now no longer a dependable friend.” In short, millions of people in the vicinity of Russia are terrified that Russia will (again) take over their countries by force and subjugate them to the rule of the Kremlin. No big deal if our leadership defends Russia and its leadership and questions the viability of NATO?
Well, anyone who thinks Russia’s meddling with our election -- and, by inference, our entire cyber infrastructure -- is not a big deal, simply doesn’t understand Russia – what its place in the world is and has been. So, a few facts of life regarding no-big-deal Russia: and its dictator Vladimir Putin:
The KGB
The KGB, in which Putin was a high-level player, was a Soviet secret police organization whose specialty was the suppression of internal dissent, in the service of which it imprisoned and/or exiled and/or murdered thousands and thousands of people within Russia itself and in the many “satellite” countries Russia had taken over by force after World War II. Internal dissent was defined by, among many other things, the practice of religion, which was forbidden in the Soviet Union and brutally suppressed, and by any criticism of communism or the government. The organization was the embodiment of Orwell’s “Big Brother,” with operatives and informants everywhere, in a closed-off, paranoid society in which the only “news” was government propaganda and in which it was necessary to be extremely careful about whom you were talking to and who might overhear, lest you be grabbed up in the night, held incommunicado, and sent to the Gulag for the rest of your life. The KGB was a merciless and brutal force, not unlike the reviled Gestapo and SS of Nazi Germany. No big deal if this former secret police operative directs a computer hack of U.S. elections?
The Cold War
After World War II, Russia joined the United States as a nuclear power, and the two countries developed and deployed enough nuclear firepower, targeted at each other, to destroy the world many times over. Over time, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the threat of a nuclear apocalypse under which people of my generation were brought up died back and much of the back-and-forth saber rattling ended. But Russia still has hundreds of missiles pointed at U.S. population centers, and the implicit threat of Armageddon remains. Russia may not be the enemy of the U.S. it once was, but it is no friend. The term “hostile power” pretty much captures it. No big deal if this nuclear-armed adversary attacks our cyber infrastructure?
No big deal to Europe?
U.S. allies in Europe, countries we have solemnly promised to defend and who have promised to defend us as members of NATO, are deathly afraid of Russia. And Russia gave a vivid and bloody demonstration of just how justified that fear is by its ruthless theft of Crimea from Ukraine, one of the former Soviet satellites ruled over by the Kremlin with an iron fist.
“…few stand to lose more than the pro-American leaders of countries in Central and Eastern Europe,” wrote Josh Rogin recently in the Washington Post. “Those leaders, fighting on the front line of the battle against Putin’s drive to upend the democratic world order, are asking Trump to think twice before choosing the wrong side.”
A letter, quoted by Rogin, from 17 current and former officials of these countries, , said this: “Putin does not seek American greatness. As your allies, we do.” They went on to caution against any weakening of sanctions against Russia for its Ukraine adventure. “The rules-based international order on which Western security has depended for decades would be weakened. The alliances that are the true source of American greatness would erode: countries that have expended blood, treasure and political capital in support of transatlantic security will wonder if America is now no longer a dependable friend.” In short, millions of people in the vicinity of Russia are terrified that Russia will (again) take over their countries by force and subjugate them to the rule of the Kremlin. No big deal if our leadership defends Russia and its leadership and questions the viability of NATO?
Putin’s Leadership
Under Putin, so admired in certain quarters in the U.S., the Russian economy as measured by GDP is about 1/12th the size of America’s. America’s is the largest in the world; Russia’s is 13th. It has a robust and predatory mafia, endemic and rampant corruption at every level of government, and an oligarchy/kleptocracy that puts vast wealth in the hands of a miniscule minority, the connected, and precious little in the hands of everybody else. It produces little else but oil, military hardware, government bureaucrats, and spies. Putin’s leadership consists of persuading his countrymen that life would be good if they could only return to their chest-thumping ways of old when they strutted on the world stage and enslaved most of Eastern Europe. No big deal that this second-rate operation is so admired by some Americans?
Are we clear?
America can live in the same world as Russia – interact with it, trade with it, have economic ties to it, and, hopefully, avoid ever going to war with it But that doesn’t mean that Russia is just some big, friendly bear on the other side of the world – a country whose leader is worthy of our admiration because of his decisiveness and whose intentions are nothing but benign. Russia is large and dangerous and not a friend of America, This is the country your leader apparently wishes to make nice with, and who either denies or sees nothing untoward in its vigorous attempts to attack the core of our democracy, the electoral process. He is wrong. Russia and its cyber attacks are a very big deal. Those who kiss them off as a minor distraction are flirting with the end of democracy in the United States.
Or worse. If Russia, or anyone else, should hack its way into our power grid and/or our financial system? Well, good night and good luck. And let’s be clear: This is not theoretical. It happened. Russia hacked its way into the computer network of the Democratic National Committee. So it has the intention and it has the means.
It’s a very big deal. Trump, as president, needs to stand up like a man, and like a commander-in-chief, and defend his country against the depredations of this aggressor, instead of defending the aggressor.
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