BRIGGS wrote:Get used to it he'll be here 6 more years. Real stupid to try to get along with a country that has higher technical military ability?
That characterization is absurd and the fear of their military is irrelevant.
1) The meaningful military impact of war between the countries is complete destruction. Direct attack and the threat thereof are bluffs, that neither party have attempted or are remotely worried about. A war in the future would be won or lost in the realm of artificial intelligence, systems disruption and nuclear defense and we likely have the advantage there for several reasons. These advantages are, however, currently irrelevant because the scope of the defenses are small relative to the nuclear arsenals.
2) The competition between the countries is largely in the influence of other geopolitical conflicts, and attempting to yield incremental financial, political and military advantages through alliances, turmoil and resource diversion.
Russia remains relatively isolated and distrusted by other countries, although there are some commonalities with other countries (China, Iran) where power structures are explicitly self-preserving. This isolation/distrust has limited their global influence to deals in exchange for their weaponry.
Therefore, legitimizing Russia is problematic because;
1) the USA is the historical protagonist, seen as the inevitable winner that others want to play with (to borrow an NBA analogy), and weakening this perception reduces global leverage pertaining to the above,
2) the perception of partnering with a country that is noted for deception, robbing their own people and a recent invasion (Crimea) reduces moral global leverage pertaining to the above
3) absence of acknowledgement of the obvious "meddling" by Russia, far be it the ability to pinpoint and avoid breaches, encourages similar trespassing by the same or other violators
4) it reinforces Putin's already high internal political leverage within Russia, potentially allowing some of that capital to be leveraged for globally dangerous behavior
5) it is a mistake to believe that the Russia-China growing alliance can be threatened by this type of posturing. Russian/Chinese political machinations are too similar and the increasing political/financial alienation between the USA and China affords a Chinese partnership at a diminishing cost to the Chinese, which can more effectively make inroads pertaining to the above. On a marginal level, recent US tariffs on China open incremental albeit small Russian export opportunities in the categories of metals and aircrafts.
6) the financial upside to a US-Russian partnership is petroleum but this is a negative long-term move, which helps Russian economic expansion relative to ours.
