Remember President Obama’s open mic moment in Seoul, South Korea back in 2012, when he was overheard by reporters, promising Russian President Dmitry Medvedev more “flexibility” to Russians in Eastern Europe after his re-election?
The NATO generals in Europe are now finding out the hard way what happens when you offer ‘harmless’ concessions to tyrants and imperialists. President Obama offered a bit of leg space to Comrade Putin in a fit of mindlessness and now you have Russian jackboots dangling all over Eastern Europe. Putin and his ex-KGB clique in control of Kremlin, have not forgotten humiliating Soviet retreat from the countries of Eastern Europe and are back from the cold to correct the ‘historic injustice’.
Today, Putin’s Russia is running a well-coordinated and highly effective campaign of propaganda and subversion in Eastern Europe that even communist-tyrant Stalin would be proud of. This “hybrid warfare” involves covert cyber operations, misinformation campaigns and psychological warfare to disrupt political and military decision making in Europe. Recently a leading NATO commander acknowledged the damage Russians are inflicting on U.S. allies in Eastern Europe:
Speaking at the Atlantic Council on Tuesday, US Admiral Mark Ferguson, who is in charge of the Allied Joint Force Command in Naples, Italy, said that Russia is developing military capabilities and hybrid method of war are designed to “cripple” the functional abilities of the NATO alliance, according to a transcript from US Naval Institute news.Russia’s focus on hybrid and asymmetrical warfare, including its development of cyber and information warfare capabilities, is “designed to cripple the decision-making cycle of the alliance,” Ferguson. “Their capabilities have focused on the creation of ambiguity.”Admiral Mark Ferguson explained the objectives of Russian tactics against the NATO member states, saying, “Russia exploits ethnic and religious divisions, makes use of an aggressive information campaign, and extensively uses misinformation and deception to delegitimize the forces under attack while confusing the attribution of their actions.”
Last week, NATO’s top commander, General Philip Breedlove also confirmed Russian technological edge over U.S. and NATO forces in Mediterranean, as Russia practically blocked their operations in the region at the onset of its Syria campaign.
From the day President Reagan took office, he pursued the policy of standing firm with the oppressed people behind the Iron Curtain that eventually led to the destruction of the Soviet Empire. He called the evil by its name, and relentlessly exposed the moral bankruptcy of the oppressive Soviet system, while continuing to build America’s military and economic strength.
President Obama, on the other hand, lacks the basic ability to distinguish a friend from a foe. He first refused to see Russia as a geostrategic rival and then dismissed the rising threat it posed by calling it a “regional power” bullying its neighbours “out of weakness.” In President Obama’s ideological wonderland, power and strength are evil notions, especially if they are wielded by United States.
The President who went on an apology tour of the world just after taking office, now can’t find it in himself to rally the allies in the Free World to face up to the challenge of rising expansionist aspirations of Russia, China or Iran.
President Reagan’s legacy was the cutting of Soviet-Russian Empire to its size and consigning Soviet Communism to the ash heap of history. President Obama’s legacy would be the rise of Imperial Russia from the ashes of Soviet Union.
Video; Everything that’s wrong with President Obama’s foreign policy, in his own words, during 2012 Presidential Debate with Mitt Romney:
(Cover image courtesy Associated Press, YouTube screenshot)
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