Russian President Vladimir Putin has endorsed a new foreign-policy doctrine accusing the United States and its allies of undermining "global stability" by trying to "contain" Russia.
Putin said that Moscow had the right to "react harshly to unfriendly" moves by Washington.
The doctrine, published by the Russian government on December 1, continues a steady ratcheting up of rhetoric toward the West in official policy documents amid a sharp deterioration in Moscow’s relations with the United States and the European Union in recent years.
Much of the language in the document mirrors that of Putin’s previous foreign-policy doctrine, endorsed in 2013, and of his national security strategy published in December 2015.
Russia's WikiLeaks campaign was strategic warfare to undermine the appeal of American democracy, at the very least:
My view is that Russia is meddling in our election to weaken whoever wins and more importantly to weaken the appeal of American-supported democracy around the world--and especially the appeal in Russia itself.
Remember, Russia's rulers consider the series of "color" revolutions for democracy as little more than American plots to deny Russia client states and to destabilize Russia itself with the "alien" invasion of democracy.
And I believe it was also designed to weaken a future Clinton administration by exposing some of the lesser misdeeds of Clinton's people while indicating that Russia had far worse that it could use against Clinton in office if she didn't renew the "flexibility" Russia was promised by President Obama back n 2012.
Really, the election of Trump was a defeat for Putin.
Trump voters came out to vote for their candidate who won against the combined establishment political system (the Democrats and even plenty of Republicans understandably horrified that a recent Democrat like Trump won the Republican Party nomination) and allied liberal media complex, which included paid street theater and violence by Democratic Party operatives.
That is not the kind of message that an autocrat like Putin who relies on a compliant media, street thugs, and the weight of Russia's government apparatus to keep the people supportive of Putin's continued rule. Is anybody safe when the usual rules don't seem to work?
