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Russia May be Wounded, But it Can Still Bite

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11.04.2016 at 09:56am

Russia May be Wounded, But it Can Still Bite by David Ignatius, Washington Post

Whoever wins Tuesday’s presidential election will face an assertive, aggrieved Russia whose risk-taking behavior under President Vladimir Putin is increasingly worrisome to U.S. experts.

Today’s pushy, headstrong Russia presents a paradox: By most measures, it is a country in decline, with a sagging economy, an underdeveloped technology base and a shrinking population. Corruption pervades nearly every sector. The collapse of the Soviet Union is still an open wound, and many Russians blame the United States for taking advantage of them during their years of decline.

Yet this inwardly weak Russia displays the cockiness of a street fighter. It is waging war in Syria, Ukraine and cyberspace with a seeming disdain for U.S. power. According to Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., Russian hackers sought to “interfere with the U.S. election process,” on authority of the highest levels of the Russian government…

Future U.S. strategy should begin with a clear understanding of how Putin’s Kremlin looks at the world. And here, leading U.S. analysts offer some disturbing warnings. Moscow sees itself as the wounded party, fighting back after decades of U.S. supremacy. Putin, the ex-KGB officer, is turning the tools of covert subversion and information operations developed during the Cold War back against the United States.

“The evidence does not seem to suggest that Putin favors one candidate over the other this November. Instead, it suggests that he favors chaos. He wants the American political process to look bad,” writes national security analyst James Ludes in a blog post for War on the Rocks titled “The Russians Read our Cold War Playbook.” Moscow’s new propaganda themes include U.S. government surveillance, political corruption that benefits elites and rigged elections, he argues.

Russia’s strategy has been characterized as “hybrid warfare,” but historian Angus E. Goldberg contends in Small Wars Journal that a better term is the Russian word “bespredel,” which means “absence of limits,” or “anything goes.” The word is often used to describe the behavior of the corrupt oligarchs who have prospered in Putin’s Russia…

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