WORLD WAR III: RUSSIA & TRUMP & "LITTLE GREEN MEN"

If America suffers a nuclear strike, it will know.

If America suffers a chemical attack, it will know.

But if America suffers a biological attack, it may be days, weeks, or even months before it knows.

Such is the case with the asymmetric or hybrid world war America and Europe are engaged in with Russia. A war in which public diplomacy, laundered criminal money, and hacking can be as important - or even more important - than military might.

This asymmetric war is not new but seventeen years under Vladimir Putin, Russia has become VERY good at it.

"Putin has figured out how to turn the West’s purported greatest strength — its belief in democracy, peace, and a rules-based international system — against itself. America and the Europeans are rightly proud of their values and see themselves as models for the world. But when challenged by someone like Putin who disavows these values, Westerners — and Europeans in particular — are forced to choose between their model approach, which means intentionally eschewing the hard methods of the opponent, and the strategic approach, which may require tougher methods.

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"What’s at stake here is more than the future of Ukraine. Putin’s larger goal appears to be to change the nature of the international system, particularly with respect to Europe. If he’s successful it will have exposed the hollowness of the Western model approach to international affairs. He also will have made the model of democracy appear morally corrupt. Ultimately what frightens Putin the most is the viability of that model for his rule at home. Striking a blow against its credibility is not only about international prestige and national pride but a cynical way to maintain his power base inside Russia."

Putin’s Asymmetrical War on the West (FP)

The strategic means of implementing this strategy uses a combination of hard and soft power as well as a combination of legal and illegal actions.

Strategically, Russia’s operations are not formally declared wars, but rapid advances for limited objectives.  They blend military and non-military action, maximizing their ability to employ the national instruments of power to achieve their limited objectives.  They leverage information, conventional, unconventional, electronic, cyber, and precision-based forces as the military means to achieve their objectives.[13]  They seek to employ conventional forces only after ‘provocation’, in many cases this is tied to locations where ethnic Russians are located.  They do this to stay below the threshold of the trigger for NATO’s Article Five.[14]

Assessing Russian Hybrid Warfare: A Successful Tool for Limited War (Small Wars Journal)

This is the context of Russian involvement in the 2016 American presidential campaign as well as other political campaigns throughout Europe.

And IN THAT CONTEXT the critical issue is not executive orders on a Muslim ban by any other name or the Republican destruction of access to medical care for the poor (and especially the older, working poor) - AS IMPORTANT AS THOSE ISSUES ARE.

Because while these are extraordinarily important POLICY issues, they are NOT issues that profoundly threaten our national security and constitutional system of government.

The critical issue of this historical moment in America, with profound foreign policy AND domestic, constitutional implications IS RUSSIA'S ATTACK ON AMERICA'S DOMESTIC DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS, most especially, our elections.

And it is within the context of that CRITICAL issue that the question of whether unwitting manipulation or calculated collusion occurred between the Russian initiative and the Trump campaign must be investigated as well as whether that manipulation or collusion - IF ESTABLISHED - continued throughout the transition period and into the current Trump administration.

For all of America's vitally important issues, none is more urgent and critical than that.