Liberal Forum

It is worth remembering that the deep state had already successfully fomented a war between Georgia and Russia back in 2008, so this move to destabilize Russia was not born in 2013. Indeed, the west's obsession with breaking up Russia is older than the United States. Russia beat Georgia in five days, but the war revealed humiliating weaknesses in the Russian military - weaknesses which the west mistook for static. In truth, the war with Georgia led to a top-down restructuring of the Russian military. The 32 nations warring against Russia in Ukraine were taken very much by surprise by Russia's rapid improvements. They had expected to fight the 2008 Russian military.

The 2014 US-engineered coup led to Russia immediately seizing its deep water port in Crimea. The people of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to join Russia and leave Ukraine, for some pretty obvious reasons:
1. The majority (65%+)were ethnic Russians
2. The minority were Tatars and Ukrainians.The Tatar minority were - like the Russians - seeing their language outlawed by the coup government. Their vote was a gimme.

Hasty googlers will point out that this election was not internationally monitored. Because that is what Microsoft's google gleefully tells them, exploiting their ignorant tourist level of awareness. What it will NOT tell them, unless they ask the right questions, is that major global bodies condemned the vote and explicitly refused to send monitors. The vote's outcome was a foregone conclusion, and the UN had already set the precedent in Serbia, with NATO's murderous air campaign backing that precedent up. So they were stuck with a fait accomplis and hoisted on their own Serbian petard. And their only defense against their own precedent was to refuse to monitor the election and then condemn it for being unmonitored. That's a nice can of sleaze, right there, and hasty googlers look sleazy when they hide behind it - even though in truth they are simply ignorant and easily gulled by google.

In 2019, the Rand Corporation published another paper on extending Russia, titled, "Extending Russia: Competing From Advantageous Ground." Every move the US has made - be it Biden, or Biden Redux (Trump), has followed this paper's advice. Here is the preface:

This report documents research and analysis conducted as part of the RAND Corporation research project Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground, sponsored by the Army Quadrennial Defense Review Office, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff G-8,Headquarters, Department of the Army. The purpose of the project was to examine a range of possible means to extend Russia. By this, we mean nonviolent measures that could stress Russia’s military or economy or the regime’s political standing at home and abroad. The steps we posit would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose, although they might contribute to both. Rather, these steps are conceived of as measures that would lead Russia to compete in domains or regions where the United States has a competitive advantage, causing Russia to overextend itself militarily or economically or causing the regime to lose domestic and/or international prestige and influence. This report deliberately covers a wide range of military, economic, and political policy options. Its recommendations are directly relevant to everything from military modernization and force posture to economic sanctions and diplomacy; consequently, it speaks to all the military services, other parts of U.S. government that have a hand in foreign policy, and the broader foreign and defense policy audience.

Here is the link to the paper: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/p ... RR3063.pdf

One need only read the Table of Contents to get the flavor of the thing.

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