Is Russa Trying to Destroy the EU?

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Absolutely. From Russia’s point of view, NATO is by far their most powerful threat, with the EU both underpinning and backing that up.

Their primary goal is to break up NATO, because NATO is the biggest threat to their geo-political ambitions. This has been clear for at least a decade, since they cut off the gas to Eastern Europe in 2006–7, I believe.

The Crimea-inspired sanctions imposed by the EU against Russia have crippled Russia’s economy. They are far more punitive than US sanctions, because the EU is far closer and hence a much bigger customer. The EU has a massive economy and wields considerable heft.

Consequently the dissolution of the EU itself is clearly a goal in and of itself, and, anyway, goes hand-in-hand with getting rid of NATO.

To meet this goal, they:

• fund natonalist, anti-EU parties, and movements in all European countries
• spread fake news designed to make the EU look bad and play on the fear of Islamic terrorism
• overinflate the role of Germany and Merkel in the EU casting them as the dictators of Europe
• paint politicians in Brussels as fat bureaucrats hopelessly out of touch with the people
• Hack EU and US computers regularly

And at this point there is enough smoke coming from the barrel of the gun to make me say with confidence that Trump is going to try to work with Putin to these ends. Can the EU survive pressure on both sides? Or perhaps, rather, pressure on one side and indifference on the other?

Now, make no mistake. To some extent the EU/liberal democracy/the Democratic party(in the USA) own choices have all made it extremely easy for the Russians to manipulate things.

Some of the ‘fake news’ spread by Russian funded websites is utter nonsense but some of it is just a different spin on the truth.

Western Democracy has shown it’s flaws and weaknesses in the last decade or so and many people are very cynical about it. How can we blame them? At this point, we have to choose between a blatantly dishonest set of systems — or Russia. I still choose liberal democracy, mainly because I don’t want to live in a country where the mafia rules, bribes are an everyday matter of course, journalists end up being shot and opposition parties get shut down by poison, imprisonment or sex scandals.

There is a war on for which extremely biased version of the truth governs us and it is right under the surface in most Western countries.

Get used to it, too, because this is what a multi-polar world actually feels like.

Written February 14, 2017