THE FOLLOWING REPORT BY THE RAND NEO-CONIC WARMONGERING RAND CORPORATION HAS SOME INTERESTING TRUTH AND A LOT OF DOUBLE-DECEPTIVE CONCEPTS DESIGNED TO FOOL RUSSIA AS WELL AS SOME CHEST PUMPING FOR THE AMERICAN LEADERSHIP…

APPARENTLY PUBLISHED IN FEBRUARY THIS YEAR, IT APPEARS THAT PUTIN DID NOT FALL IN THE POT-HOLES (ESPECIALLY IN SYRIA) AND DONALD TRUMP IS NOT FOLLOWING THE SCRIPT AT THE MOMENT. 

THAT SUCH A DOCUMENT BE MADE “PUBLIC” MEANS THAT THE INTENT IS NEFARIOUS (DESIGNED TO BE BOTHERSOME FOR RUSSIA), BUT FLAGGING THE GOALS ARE STILL ESPOUSING THE AMERICAN DESIRE TO DESTROY RUSSIA SINCE 1917…

WE SHALL SEE WHAT WILL COME OUT OF THE TRUMP-ZELENSKY-EUROPE MEETING TODAY… [GUS's COMMENTS IN CAPS]...

Extending Russia

Competing from Advantageous Ground

The maxim that “Russia is never so strong nor so weak as it appears” remains as true in the current century as it was in the 19th and 20th.1 In some respects, contemporary Russia is a country in stagnation. [STAGNATING? NOW THE FOUTH BIGGEST ECONOMY IN THE WORLD AFTER CHINA, THE USA, INDIA...] Its economy is dependent on natural resource exports, so falling oil and gas prices have caused a significant drop in the living standards of many Russian citizens. Economic sanctions have further contributed to this decline. Russian politics is increasingly authoritarian, with no viable political alternative to the highly personalized rule of President Vladimir Putin. Militarily and politically, the Russian Federation wields much less global influence than the Soviet Union did during the Cold War, a condition Putin is trying to change. [BRICS IS THE MAIN TOOL OF COOPERATION RATHER THAN CONFRONTATIONAL COMPETITION. MILITARILY, RUSSIA IS FAR MORE EFFICIENT THAN THE USA] In addition to these real vulnerabilities, Russia also suffers from deep-seated anxieties about the possibility of Western-inspired regime change, loss of great-power status, and even military attack. 

Yet these problems belie the fact that Russia is an extraordinarily powerful country that, despite its systemic weaknesses, manages to be a peer competitor of the United States in some key domains. While not the superpower that the Soviet Union was, Russia has gained economic strength and international weight under Putin and now boasts much greater military capabilities than any country with similar defense spending—to such a degree that it can exert its influence over immediate neighbors [IT DOES NOT EXCEPT IN UKRAINE WHERE THE USA HAS WISHED TO IMPLANT NATO — A NIET FOR RUSSIA]. Moreover, while still conventionally inferior to the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies when they are judged as a whole, Russia can and does threaten the United States and its allies through other means—short of conventional conflict. 

Recognizing that some level of competition with Russia is inevitable, this report seeks to define areas where the United States can do so to its advantage [ALWAYS THINKING OF DIDDLING THE OTHER GUY]. We examine a range of nonviolent measures that could exploit Russia’s actual vulnerabilities and anxieties as a way of stressing Russia’s military and economy and the regime’s political standing at home and abroad. The steps we examine would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose, although they might contribute to both. Rather, these steps are conceived of as elements in a campaign designed to unbalance the adversary, leading Russia to compete in domains or regions where the United States has a competitive advantage, and causing Russia to overextend itself militarily [COUGH-COUGH, FORCED INTO A MILITARY ECONOMY, RUSSIA IS DOING WONDERS] or economically or causing the regime to lose domestic and/or international prestige and influence [RUSSIA IS GAINING PRESTIGE AND INFLUENCE WHILE THE US IS SLOWLY TANKING...]. 

Economic Policies 

Of all the measures we examined, expanding U.S. energy production and imposing trade and financial sanctions on Russia seem most likely to further stress the Russian economy, government budget, and defense spending. Russia needs oil export revenues to maintain its government operations, including military activities abroad and the provision of social services and pensions at home. Limits to oil revenues will lead Russia to make difficult choices beyond those it has had to make already. Global oil prices and production are beyond the full control of a single country, but the United States can adopt policies that expand world supply and thus depress global prices, thereby limiting Russian revenue. [SO FAR, SANCTIONS ONLY STRENGHTENED THE RUSSIAN DOMESTIC PRODUCTIVITY, SOMETHING THAT TRUMP HAS BEEN ABLE TO JUDGE FOR HIMSELF]

Imposing tougher sanctions is also likely to degrade the Russian economy, and could do so to a greater extent and more quickly than maintaining low oil prices, provided the sanctions are comprehensive and multilateral. Effectiveness of this approach will depend on the willingness of other countries to join in such a process. Furthermore, sanctions come with substantial costs and considerable risks and will only have impact if widely adopted. In contrast, maximizing U.S. oil production entails little cost or risk, might produce second-order benefits for the U.S. economy, and does not need multilateral endorsement. [NO REGARD FOR GLOBAL WARMING HERE...]

Increasing Europe’s ability to import gas from suppliers other than Russia presents a third, longer-term, and more expensive effort that could economically extend Russia and buffer Europe against Russian energy coercion [THIS POLICY IS BANKRUPTING EUROPE AND WAS DESIGNED TO DO SO TO KEEP EUROPE UNDER FOOT]. Europe is slowly moving in this direction by building regasification plants for liquefied natural gas. To truly be effective, this measure would need global natural gas markets to become more flexible [RUSSIA IS SELLING LNG TO EUROPE AS WELL]. 

In a similarly far-reaching scenario, encouraging the emigration from Russia of skilled labor and well-educated youth could help the United States and hurt Russia, but any effects, both positive for the United States and negative for Russia, would be difficult to notice except over a very long period. 

Russia’s poor economic policies have hampered growth and are likely to continue doing so [GO BACK ABOVE, RUSSIA IS FOURTH]. Although some areas have improved, such as the cleanup of the banking sector [AMERICA HAD A HAND AT CORRUPTING THE RUSSIAN BANKING SECTOR FROM 1991 TO 1999], Russian economic policy throughout the late 2000s and into the 2010s was often counterproductive. Doing nothing, although not an active measure on the part of the United States, would also let the Russian government continue its poor regulatory regime, its state control, and its wasteful investments, all of which would continue to limit the country’s economic weight and military potential [ALL BULLSHIT STATEMENT]. 

Ideological and Informational Measures 

Russia’s long-standing concern about the vulnerability of its people to information threats—particularly fear of what the Russians view as Western propaganda—and the Russian government’s demonstrated propensity to intervene in public discourse when it feels threatened have strengthened the country’s resistance to foreign influence operations. Traditional media in Russia are, with rare exceptions, under secure pro-regime control [UNLIKE THE AMERICAN/WESTERN MEDIA THAT IS UNDER THE THUMB OF THE CIA, THE NSA AND THE PENTAGON], leaving the internet as the primary means of reaching the population directly. Moreover, Russian regime narratives predispose much of the population to be skeptical of anti-regime messages coming from abroad [FOR GOOD REASONS — THAT IS WHY TRUMP SCUTTLED A FEW USAID VOICES OF AMERICA]. 

Despite these difficulties, limited effects on Russian domestic stability and international image could be achieved by a Western information campaign that helped to undermine key aspects of the regime’s claim to legitimacy and worked in tandem with preexisting regime vulnerabilities on such issues as corruption [CORRUPTION IN AMERICA AND IN UKRAINE IS FAR GREATER THAN IN RUSSIA]. However, such a strategy would be risky. Western involvement in Russian politics in this manner could give the regime both cover and an incentive to institute a violent crackdown on domestic anti-regime groups and activists [NAVALNY WAS AN MI6 ASSET]. It might also lead Moscow to expand its already considerable efforts to destabilize Western democratic systems [RUSSIA ISN'T PLAYING REGIME CHANGE UNLIKE WHAT THE USA IS CONSTANTLY DOING]. This approach might initiate a second ideological Cold War between Russia and the West, from which de-escalation could be difficult. 

Nevertheless, recent Russian efforts to subvert Western democracies provide a powerful rationale for some sort of counter campaign to serve as retribution, reestablish a degree of deterrence in this domain to the extent that is possible, and create the basis for a mutual stand-down in such activities. Since relations between Russia and the West plummeted after the 2014 invasion of Crimea [CRIMEA USED TO BE RUSSIA AND IS POPULATED BY RUSSIANS. IT IS NATURAL FOR CRIMEA TO GO BACK TO RUSSIA, VIA A SUCCESSFUL BALLOT THAT REJECTED THE AMERICAN-INSTALLED NAZIS IN KIEV], Russia has undertaken a series of highly aggressive information and influence operations against Western democracies [RUSSIA HASDONE FAR LESS OF THIS THAN THE USA]. The effectiveness of these operations has varied substantially, and most steps that states can take to limit their vulnerability to Russia’s actions involve domestic policies and political choices that are outside the scope of this report. Nonetheless, Western nations have a clear incentive to try to deter Russia from repeating or even expanding such efforts in the future. Economic sanctions are one such path, along which the U.S. Congress has already embarked. Another approach is to establish deterrence, or even achieve an agreed stand-down in such activities by developing a capacity to respond in kind to Russian subversion, and, if necessary, demonstrating the willingness to employ it. 

Geopolitical Measures 

Another way to extend Russia is to make its foreign commitments costlier [THE AMERICAN DEFICT WHICH WAS BECOMING UNSERVICEABLE IS BEYOND THE PALE], but this turns out to be quite risky for the United States and its allies and partners. Unlike the Soviet Union, Russia is not overextended geographically. Other than in Syria, its foreign commitments in Ukraine and the Caucasus are relatively compact, contiguous to Russia, and in locales where at least some of the local population is friendly and geography provides Russia with military advantages. The measures examined under this heading tend to risk counter-escalation by Russia to which the United States might be hard-pressed to respond effectively. 

The Ukrainian military already is bleeding Russia in the Donbass region (and vice versa)[THE RATIO ACKNOWLEDGE BY THE DoD AT THE BEGINNING OF 2023 WAS SEVEN UKRAINIAN KILLED FOR ONE RUSSIAN DEAD... THE PRESENT RATIO IS MORE THAN 1,100 DEAD UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS VERSUS LESS THAN 10 RUSSIAN PER DAY]. Providing more U.S. military equipment and advice could lead Russia to increase its direct involvement in the conflict and the price it pays for it. Russia might respond by mounting a new offensive and seizing more Ukrainian territory. While this might increase Russia’s costs, it would also represent a setback for the United States, as well as for Ukraine [THIS IS WHY TRUMP WANTS TO MAKE A DEAL... FOR PUTIN THERE IS NO CEASEFIRE WITHOUT A PERMANENT PEACE AGREEMENT. UKRAINE IS LOSING MORE TERRITORY DAILY]. 

The United States will need to decide how to proceed in Syria once the Islamic State is expelled from its remaining territorial enclaves in Raqqa and the lower Euphrates River valley [THIS WAS TOTAL DECEIT (unless a stupid misinterpretation) AS THE USA, TURKEY AND ISRAEL USED THE ISLAMIC STATE (AL QAEDA 3.0) TO OVERTHROW ASSAD. RUSSIA DID NOT BITE AND PULLED BACK — LIMITING THE DAMAGE] [WHAT FOLLOWS IS BULLSHIT]:. One option is to establish a significant U.S. protected zone in the east of the country. Washington might also resume U.S. assistance to the remaining opposition forces in the west, which the Donald Trump administration has reportedly discontinued. It will be difficult to disentangle the moderates from the extremist al Qaeda–linked opposition elements, however, and any U.S.-supported forces in country would face attacks from the Syrian government and from Iranian-backed militia forces even if Russia kept its distance. Over the longer term, this could prove costlier to the United States than to Russia. Prolonging the Syrian civil war also imposes considerable costs for America’s regional and European allies, not to mention the Syrian people themselves. 

In the Caucasus, the United States has fewer options to extend Russia. Russia enjoys even greater geographic advantages there, making it considerably more expensive, for instance, for the United States to defend Georgia than for Russia to threaten it. Likewise, the United States is not in a strong position to challenge Russian influence in Central Asia for similar geographic reasons. Efforts might be made to persuade Moldova to align more closely with the West and to expel the small Russian peace-keeping force located in the Russian-speaking enclave within that country. This would actually save Russia money, even as it forced a humiliating withdrawal. Belarus is Russia’s only real ally. Successfully promoting regime change and altering the country’s orientation westward would be a real blow to Moscow. But the prospects of a so-called color revolution in Minsk are poor, and should one became imminent, Russia might well intervene militarily to prevent it. Again, this would extend Russia but generally be regarded as a setback for the United States. 

Most of these measures—whether in Europe or the Middle East— risk provoking Russian reaction that could impose large military costs on U.S. allies and large political costs on the United States itself. Increasing military advice and arms supplies to Ukraine is the most feasible of these options with the largest impact, but any such initiative would have to be calibrated very carefully to avoid a widely expanded conflict. 

Air and Space Measures 

Air and space are particularly attractive domains for implementing cost-imposing strategies against Russia. However, not all approaches for doing so offer sufficient benefits or probabilities of success to justify the associated costs and risks for the United States. 

The best cost-imposing strategies are those that would incorporate a combination of approaches that are affordable for the United States, do not create excessive risks of instability, and generate enough anxiety in Moscow that Russia would be prompted to invest in costly defensive (or counteroffensive) measures. Strong contenders for a cost-imposing strategy against Russia include investments in long-range cruise missiles, long-range anti-radiation missiles, and—if they are affordable enough to be produced in high numbers—autonomous or remotely piloted aircraft. All of these moves would generate pressure on Moscow to increase the range and capabilities of the ground and air elements of Russia’s integrated air defense systems, which would be costly. Investments in more-sophisticated electronic warfare capabilities would complement these options but might not trigger Russian investments to counter them if Russian leaders did not know that U.S. electronic war- fare systems had been upgraded. Touting prospective breakthroughs in critical military technologies might also spur a Russian response 

even if the breakthrough is never achieved. Russian anxieties regarding the foregoing options could be further heightened by periodic bomber deployments to European and Asian bases, along with the deployment of additional tactical nuclear weapons to Europe and Asia. 

Options that do not seem to be good candidates for a cost-imposing strategy include posturing fighters close to Russia; reposturing or deploying more ballistic missile defense; and developing such exotic weapons as conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles (such as Prompt Global Strike), space-based weapons, or spaceplanes. These options could be very expensive for the United States, potentially destabilizing, or both. Moreover, Moscow could counter some of them relatively easily with modest investments in additional capabilities. Breaking out of the strategic nuclear arms control regime would appear to be the worst measure of all, given the costs and risks such a move would entail, including a commensurate buildup of Chinese capabilities. 

Finally, although developing small satellites and making other investments in the U.S. orbital infrastructure probably would not be an effective cost-imposing strategy against Russia, such investments might be warranted to improve the operational resilience of U.S. national security space capabilities. 

Maritime Measures 

There are several measures the United States and its allies could take to encourage Russia to divert defense resources into the maritime domain, an area where the United States already possesses key comparative advantages. 

More-aggressive U.S. and allied patrolling near Russian naval base areas could cause Russia to adopt expensive countermeasures. With limited access to the open sea, Russia would be sensitive to threats posed to these areas—particularly the Arctic, home of its nuclear ballistic missile submarine fleet, and the Baltic and Black Seas. 

Anti-submarine warfare is a particularly difficult and expensive mission. Frequently operating U.S. and allied submarines in those waters and making their presence evident periodically could lead Russia to invest more in this demanding field without the prospect of commensurate improvement in capability. 

Similarly, deploying land-based or air-launched anti-ship cruise missiles on NATO’s Black Sea coast could compel Russia to strengthen defenses of its Crimean bases, limit its navy’s ability to operate in the Black Sea, and thus diminish the utility of its Crimean conquest. Romania would likely be the most willing candidate for such basing. 

The United States could also develop missiles that could suppress Russian air defenses (e.g., a submarine-launched, loitering anti-radiation missile) or attack-and-destroy armored vehicles (e.g., a submarine- launched version of the Army Tactical Missile System). Either weapon could change Russian planning assumptions. Russian military planners would then face the prospect of accepting additional risk in its military planning, increasing its forces involved in a given contingency, or investing in its own efforts at anti-submarine warfare to blunt this U.S. development program. 

The principal limiting factor in most of these maritime strategies is that Russia could simply choose not to compete. Blue-water navies are expensive, and Russia, primarily a land power, might not want to invest significant resources into challenging the United States and NATO for command of even nearby seas. Moreover, from the U.S. standpoint, while maritime strategies have limited risks of escalation with Russia, they could impose a significant opportunity cost, possibly causing the United States to shift limited assets away from the Pacific and China. 

Land and Multidomain Measures 

Compared with the United States or even the NATO allies in aggregate, Russia spends far less on its land forces—but geography gives it notable advantages. In general, it is much costlier for the United States to position ground forces close to Russia’s borders than it is for Russia to undertake countervailing buildups. Such measures can assure U.S. friends and allies, encouraging their self-defense investments and strengthening their resolve in the face of Russian coercion. While such 

deployments might be important for deterrence, they might not work as part of a cost-imposing strategy. Continuing to press NATO allies to improve the capabilities of their own forces could lead to a more productive use of Western resources. 

Returning significant U.S. ground forces to Europe would make them more rapidly available for European contingencies (and some non-European ones). However, the closer to the Russian border these forces are positioned, the more likely they are to raise tension and the more difficult it could be to redeploy them elsewhere. Locations in Central Europe might therefore be preferable. 

Larger, more-frequent and shorter-notice NATO exercises could enhance deterrence by demonstrating Alliance resolve and reinforcement capabilities and might prompt shifts in Russian defense allocations. They would, however, become disproportionately expensive if they involved deployment of significant U.S. ground forces based in the contiguous United States, particularly those involving heavy equipment. 

Ending the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty regime might be advantageous vis-à-vis China, which is not bound by the agreement, but would be of little added benefit against Russia, given that U.S. sea- and air-based cruise missiles, which are unconstrained, can cover the same targets while remaining less vulnerable to Russian counter-battery fire. Moving to develop U.S. ground-based intermediate-range missiles might lead Russia to resume adherence to the regime, but any effort to actually deploy such systems in Europe would be politically challenging, as it was in the 1980s, and risk worsening strategic stability on the continent. 

Incremental investments in new technologies with a view to countering Russian air defenses and increasing U.S. long-range fires could significantly improve defense and deterrence while compelling increased Russian investment in countermeasures. Investments in more-revolutionary next-generation technologies could have even greater effects, given the Russian concerns about new physical principles, or nontraditional weapons—including directed energy, electromagnetic, geophysical, genetic, and radiological weapons—but could also risk threatening Russia by undermining regime and leadership security. [IT APPEARS THAT RUSSIA DID THIS AND AMERICA HAS TO WORK HARD AT INVESTING IN COUNTERMEANSURES, WHICH DUE TO THE WAY AMERICA OPERATES, COST ABOUT 10 TIMES AS MUCH FOR HALF THE RESULTS]

Conclusions 

Russia’s greatest vulnerability in any competition with the United States is its economy, which is comparatively small and highly dependent on energy exports. The Russian leadership’s greatest anxiety stems from the stability and durability of the regime. 

Russia’s greatest strengths are in the military and information warfare realms. Russia has deployed advanced air defense, artillery, and missile systems that greatly outrange U.S. and NATO air-defense suppression and artillery counter-battery capability, potentially requiring U.S. ground forces to fight without air superiority and with inferior fire support. Russia has also matched new technology to old techniques of misinformation, subversion, and destabilization. 

The most promising measures to stress Russia are those which directly address these vulnerabilities, anxieties, and strengths, exploit- ing areas of weakness while undermining Russia’s current advantages. 

Continuing to expand U.S. energy production in all forms, including renewables, and encouraging other countries to do the same would maximize pressure on Russia’s export receipts and thus on its national and defense budgets. Alone among the many measures looked at in this report, this one comes with the least cost or risk. 

Sanctions can also limit Russia’s economic potential. To be effective, however, these need to be multilateral, involving (at a minimum) the European Union, which is Russia’s largest customer and greatest source of technology and capital, larger in all these respects than the United States. 

Russia’s combination of internet-enhanced political espionage and information operations, coupled with its long experience in subversion and propaganda [AMERICA DOES THE SAME 100 TIMES OVER — RUSSIA COUNTERACTS], have created both a key supplement to covert and overt military operations and an independent capacity to discredit and destabilize democratic political systems. Yet the Russian leadership also harbors fears (probably exaggerated) of a U.S. capacity to undermine the Russian system. Credibly threatening to do so might be the most effective way of persuading Russian leaders to scale back their own efforts in this domain. Questioning the legitimacy of the Russian regime, diminishing its standing at home and abroad, and openly supporting democratic change probably will not shake the foundations of the Russian state but might be sufficient to secure a form of mutual détente in this realm of information warfare. 

European governments have shown rising concern over Russian cyber-subversion. Indeed, this issue, perhaps even more than concern over Russian behavior in Ukraine or Syria, might foster European sup- port for further sanctions on Moscow. 

It will be difficult to raise the costs to Moscow of its external military commitments because most of these are in small areas adjacent to Russia and populated with comparatively pro-Russian populations. Here, geography awards Russia escalation dominance, which means any effort to promote greater local resistance could meet a severe rebuff, costly to the United States in prestige and to its local allies in lives and land. Syria might have been a more promising ground to promote local opposition to the Russian presence in 2015, but Syrian opposition forces have since been ground down by the regime and further infiltrated by al Qaeda–affiliated extremists, making this an unattractive proposition. There are also severe costs to regional and even European stability in prolonging the Syrian civil war. Increasing U.S. arms and advice to the Ukrainian military is the most viable of the geopolitical alternatives considered, but any such effort would need to be carefully calibrated to avoid expanding the conflict. 

Russia is not seeking parity with the United States across the mili- tary spectrum, and further U.S. advances in fields of existing superior- ity might occasion little Russian response. For instance, Russia is not going to challenge U.S. dominance of the world’s oceans. Targeted measures focused on threatening what limited maritime access Russia enjoys to the Arctic, Baltic, and Black Seas, however, could lead Russia to invest in costly and largely ineffective countermeasures. Possible U.S. measures include more-frequent patrolling by nuclear submarines near the Arctic bases and the deployment of land-based and/or air-launched anti-ship cruise missiles near the Black Sea coast. 

Russia would likely feel compelled to match any increase in U.S. strategic nuclear capabilities. Entering into such an arms race would be the riskiest of the measures examined herein. Additionally, expanded U.S. ballistic missile defense would probably cost the United States a good deal more than the likely Russian response, which would be to increase its number of missiles and warheads. 

The other area where Russia has maintained parity and even achieved superiority is in air defense and long-range fires. Here, greater U.S. investment in longer-range air defense suppression, more-advanced electronic warfare, new and longer-range sea- and air-launched cruise missiles, and more-exotic systems with advanced capabilities would likely lead to an expensive Russian response. 

Basing large additional U.S. ground forces in Europe might be necessary for deterrence and would likely impel a Russian force posture response, particularly if these forces were positioned close to Russia. The costs to the United States are likely to be higher than those to Russia, however, while increasing deployments near Russian borders would increase tensions, generate controversy among NATO members, and possibly provoke Russian reactions elsewhere. 

The demise of the INF Treaty would be of limited benefit to NATO, given the great advantage the United States holds in sea-launched cruise missiles of comparable range, which are not constrained by the treaty. Russian violations of this treaty might cause the United States to withdraw, and this might be advantageous vis-à-vis China, but deploying a new generation of INF missiles in Europe would be expensive, politically challenging, and—depending on the missile type—potentially destabilizing. [THE US HAS DESTROYED ALL THE AGREEMENTS REGARDING MISSILES AND NUKES. RUSSIA HAS NEW MISSILES  THAT CAN BEAT THE USA ANY DAY]

Most of the steps covered in this report are in some sense escalatory, and most would likely prompt some Russian counter-escalation. In addition to the specific risks associated with each measure, there- fore, there is additional risk attached to a generally intensified competition with a nuclear-armed adversary to consider. Consequently, every measure needs to be deliberately planned and carefully calibrated to achieve the desired effect. Finally, although Russia would bear the cost of this increased competition less easily than the United States, both sides would have to divert national resources from other purposes. Extending Russia for its own sake is, in most cases, not a sufficient basis to consider the steps outlined here. Rather, these need to be considered in the broader context of national policy based on defense, deterrence, and—where U.S. and Russian interests align—cooperation. [COOPERATION IS WHAT THE PUTIN-TRUMP MEETING WAS ALL ABOUT. LET'S HOPE THAT RUSSIA IS ABLE TO DECODE ANY DOUBLE-TALK FROM THE USA ON THIS ONE]..............

Acknowledgments 

This study would not have been possible without the help of many individuals. First and foremost, we thank David Markowitz and Timothy Muchmore of the Army Quadrennial Defense Review Office, Headquarters, Department of the Army (G-8), which sponsored this study, for their invaluable assistance throughout the course of this effort. Olga Oliker and Jacob Heim provided thoughtful reviews of an earlier version of this report. Sally Sleeper, the director of the Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources Program, provided valuable guidance throughout the research and editing phases of this project. Arwen Bicknell provided masterful editing of the final document and Beth Seitzinger provided invaluable administrative support. 

SEE MORE: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

In this hard-hitting analysis from August 18, 2025, veteran CIA analyst Larry Johnson exposes Trump's desperate Alaska gambit with Putin as a repeat of the 2015 Debaltseve sham—where Merkel stalled Russia's advance to rearm Ukraine—warning that Trump's "verbal gymnastics" and empty threats (like India sanctions backfiring) mask a collapsing Kiev regime, as Pokrovsk falls and Donbas crumbles, handing Putin all the cards for a decisive victory.
Johnson unpacks Trump's flip-flopping deadlines (50 to 12 days), intelligence lies on Russian casualties (inflated to 2 million), and a potential "deal" where Russia yields minor areas for buffers, but hardens demands on Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and NATO expulsion—amid U.S. missteps like B61 nukes in Europe and Caucasus meddling, risking escalation into 2025 as BRICS solidifies and Trump's "peace prize" fantasies evaporate.
Dive into critical revelations on:
Trump's "backstory" desperation: Shortened deadlines amid Ukraine's "Debaltseve 2.0" rout, with Pokrovsk's fall pre-summit sealing Donbas conquest
Verbal flip-flops: From "find out what Putin thinks" to "severe consequences," echoing contradictions on Gaza hostages and submarine threats
Putin's leverage: Hardened demands for full oblast control, NATO ouster, and no "forever war," with buffer zones (e.g., withdrawing from Sumy/Kiev) as minimal concessions
U.S. intelligence failures: Fabricated 2M Russian losses misleading Trump, echoing Merkel's 2015 scam admitted later
Backfiring threats: India sanctions enraging Delhi, canceling F-35s and meetings, as Caucasus "peace talks" provoke Russia-Iran axis
BRICS resilience: Putin's "gold medal" summit play as Trump's "Olympic verbal gymnastics" risks lame-duck status and nuclear brinkmanship
No matter your view on Johnson's stark warnings or the summit's "game-changer" potential, this breakdown is essential for grasping Ukraine's terminal collapse and a fracturing global order.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjCMKhrSYFk

READ FROM TOP.

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.