Not just the US, but pretty much all NATO countries I would assume see Putin as more of a threat than they did even a few years ago. The election hackings and attempts to push authoritarian & protofascist politicians in the US & EU, shooting down a jet leaving from Amsterdam in 2014, etc. Maybe they always knew what a threat he was and the rest of us just didn’t know, but seeing how the GDP of NATO countries is likely around $40 trillion, and there is a lot of human capital in the NATO countries, is it possible Putin has really pushed other nations into taking him far more seriously, and pushing them into doing far more to bring down his government?
Will Europe and the US just go on with business as usual while Russia hacks elections, shoots down passenger filled airplanes leaving from Europe and supports anti-democracy movements in the west? Or has Putin pushed NATO countries too far and now they will start working together more seriously to bring his government down? Not necessarily in an upfront military effort, more in an effort involving a lot of intelligence agencies, supporting dissidents, etc.
If they do, it’s unlikely, IMO, that the conflict will look like any in the past. As many have noted, wars will now mostly be fought in a different manner than in the past: less bombing, less shooting, more subterfuge and computer-based infiltration.
Putin needs an enemy abroad to garner public support at home. And unlike democratically run administrations in Europe and North America, he doesn’t really have to worry about interference in Russian elections, since Putin has been controlling elections since 2008. Putin has everything to win and not much to lose (at least in the immediate term) in creating an enemy of NATO sort of engendering the kind of military response that Western Europe is really not prepared for.
I agree, and the US has interfered in the elections of many nations.
However since the NATO nations are strong enough to do something about it, will they start taking Russia more seriously and doing something to bring down Putin?
It is one thing for governments to spy on each other (even allies spy, that is why US and Germany spying on each other wasn’t taken too seriously). It is another for a nation like Russia to kill a lot of citizens of Amsterdam by shooting down a passenger jet, hacking elections, or trying to bring protofascists to power in the west. Spying on someone’s phone calls is one thing, hacking their voter databases, killing their citizens, trying to undermine their liberal democracies, etc. is another.
This. It costs Putin very little in real terms to push NATO, while garnering him a lot of political capital at home. And he needs it, as the Russian economy is not exactly going gang busters (ironically, more than a little of that is because of his own actions, but I doubt he sees that). It’s highly unlikely that a distrustful group of Europeans and an attentive US (and, really…are we?) is any sort of real threat to him, since it’s highly unlikely we will go to war. He’s probably figuring on the long game…eventually, folks will grow tired of sanctions and it will go back to business as usual, especially if he can wind down the war in Syria and perhaps bring the Ukrainian mess to a head and conclusion. I doubt things will work out the way he thinks they will, but his opinion is the only one he’s likely to listen to, so I guess we shall see.
It’s funny old Trumpo, and others, are concerned European governments aren’t spending enough on armaments — at a time when it is minutely likely those countries, nor the USA face invasion — when the previous wars were blamed on those bad European countries spending too much on armaments…
I’m not talking about a full scale military invasion. NATO countries have $40 trillion and a huge amount of human capital that can be used for cyberhacking, freezing assets, supporting dissident groups, sowing dissent, espionage, targeted assassinations, psychological warfare, etc. in Russia.
You’re in the wrong decade, if not the wrong century.
Putin isn’t a threat to Europe, he’s an important trade partner.
If you’re in the USA you need to get your head away from the corporate, military expanding media. Sort your national politics out because you’re an international laughing stock.
I don’t think the Europeans are as upset about Putin’s actions as you think they are. Perhaps they understand NATO expansion and the coup in Ukraine were provocations. Also you neglect to remember that the US had NGOs in Russia trying to bring down his government before it was fashionable to hate Russia again. Maybe it was the US government who awoke a bear.
Indeed. The problem here isn’t Putin, it’s a former NATO ally, a former reliable intelligence partner, a former reliable force on the international stage becoming an utter basket case.
Putin is doing what he always does, expect now he’s been able to add occupying vacuums vacated by absent US policy in the Middle East, the consequences of uncertainly and conflicting policy, as well as basically trolling the shortcomings and instability of the US political system.
Angela Merkel nailed it; you can’t rely on the USA.
Increase to do what - so we can lose wars for the next 70 fucking years, not invest in social policies, feed a bogus, parasitic military-industrial complex feeding off.
Have a look at the ruins of a country around you, FFS.
How is America financially supporting subversive parties in Russia any more legitimate than Russia supporting subversive parties in Western Europe? If you pay money to prop up PARNAS and allied civil society groups in Russia, why do you complain when Russia supports political parties in Europe and Latin America with whom it feels kindred interests and values?
America has been doing that for just about as long as Russia has, for what it’s worth. Including in Europe (e.g. Doing out best to keep the communists out of power in Italy).
In any case, America already supports dissidents in Russia. The strategy doesn’t get anywhere because we choose to support liberal dissidents, and liberalism is very unpopular in Russia. (Navalny is less unpopular than most, because he’s anti-immigration as well as being a liberal). If we really wanted to undermine Putin we would financially support the communists and the ethnic nationalists, both of whom have much more popular support than the liberals.