By Scott Ritter, Substack, 1/20/26

I had the same exact reaction when I read Hersh’s piece that came out yesterday. I wanted to write something about it but didn’t have time and Ritter covered it all better than I could have. – Natylie

Seymour Hersh, or Sy to those who know him, is a legendary Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist who happens to have a very influential Substack page that has attracted some 233,000 subscribers since he published his first article, “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline”, back in February 2023.

I’m a big fan of Sy, and for the past 26 years I have been privileged to call him friend.

And it is as Sy’s friend that I am compelled to address his most recent Substack article, “Putin’s Long War.”

Allow me to set the stage.

I’ve had the honor and privilege of interviewing retired Lieutenant General Andrei Ilnitsky, a former senior advisor to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Andrei is a very calm, rational man possessing razor sharp intelligence and deep insights into the reality of the modern world. Andrei is the proponent of a form of informational warfare he calls “Mental War”, which he first publicly detailed in an interview to the Russian military journal Arsenal of the Fatherland in March 2023.

Mental War, Andrei postulates, has its own strategic goals and objectives. “If in classical wars the goal is to destroy the enemy’s manpower [and] in modern cyber wars [it is] to destroy the enemy’s infrastructure,” Andrei says, “then the goal of the new war is to destroy self-consciousness, to change the civilizational basis of the enemy’s society. I would call this type of war ‘mental.’”

Importantly, Andrei notes, “while manpower and infrastructure can be restored, the evolution of consciousness cannot be reversed, especially since the consequences of this ‘mental’ war do not appear immediately but only after at least a generation, when it will be impossible to fix something.”

It is important to point out that the United States has been waging “mental war” against Russia in a concerted fashion since 2009, when President Obama and Michael McFaul colluded on the fiction of a “Russian reset”, which was little more than a policy of regime change disguised as diplomacy.

The “Russian reset” gambit failed because of the crude manner in which it was implemented, will little effort being made to disguise the true objectives of the policy—no one believed that the Russian political opposition was little more than the proxy of the United States, trying to take down the government of Vladimir Putin from within by promulgating a falsified narrative of systemic corruption that even the most cynical Russians failed to embrace. And by dispatching Joe Biden to Moscow in March 2011, the Obama administration ended up exposing its sordid plans for all of Russia to see.

On March 10, 2011, Biden addressed an audience at Moscow State University, where he touched on this very reset, framing it as a necessary and natural course correction needed by both countries. “President Obama and I proposed forging a fresh new start by, as I said in the initial speech on our foreign policy, by pressing a restart button, reset button. We wanted to literally reset this relationship, reset it in a way that reflected our mutual interests, so that our countries could move forward together.”

Keeping in mind that the goal of “mental war” is to destroy self-consciousness and change the civilizational basis of the targeted society, then Biden’s speech begins to take on a whole new character. “Consider the following statistics, or polling,” Biden told the assembled students. “In December of 2008, one month before we were sworn in as President and Vice President, polling showed that only 17 percent of all Russians had a positive opinion of the United States—17 percent! This year, that number has jumped to over 60 percent. Our goal is to have it continue to climb.”

In short, Biden was manufacturing Russian consent for the goals and objectives of the Obama administration, planting the notion that a majority of Russians were in favor of the changes he was promoting.

Biden echoed the past focus on market economics that drove US policy in the decade of the 1990’s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. “American venture capitalists and other foreign investment is flowing into the Russia’s economy to allow it to diversify beyond your abundant natural resources—metals, oil and gas—and help Russian start-ups get their ideas to market,” Biden said. “Those of you who are studying business know that it’s one thing to have an idea, it’s another thing to get to market. It takes people willing to make a gamble, make an investment, make a bet.”

Biden was clearly insinuating that America was ready to take a gamble of Russia.

But there was a catch. “This is one of the reasons the President and I so strongly support Russians accession to the World Trade Organization,” Biden declared. “Accession will enable Russia to deepen its trade relations not only with the United States, but the rest of the world. And it will give American companies a greater and more predictable—important word, predictable—access to Russia’s growing markets, expanding both US exports and employment.”

Then the other shoe dropped.

“I think that’s why so many Russians now call on their country to strengthen their democratic institutions,” Biden said, before listing a series of conditions.

“Courts must be empowered to uphold the rule of law and protect those playing by the rules.”

“Non-governmental watchdogs should be applauded as patriots, not traitors.”

“And viable opposition—and public parties that are able to compete is also essential to good governance,” Biden added. “Political competition means better candidates, better politics and most importantly, governments that better represent the will of their people.”

There was more. “Polls shows that most Russians want to choose their national and local leaders in competitive elections.” Once again Biden referred to polls, as if these ideas he was espousing came from the Russians themselves, and not CIA overlords who manipulated the polls Biden was quoting to create just this perception. “They want to be able to assemble freely, and they want a media to be independent of the state. And they want to live in a country that fights corruption.”

Mental War.

“That’s democracy,” Biden declared. “They’re the ingredients of democracy. So I urge all of you students here: Don’t compromise on the basic elements of democracy. You need not make that Faustian bargain.”

And again, the audience was told that these were Russian ideas. “And it’s also the message I heard recently when President Medvedev said last week—and I quote him—“freedom cannot be postponed.” Joe Biden didn’t say that. The President of Russia said that.”

And again. “And when Deputy Premier and Finance Minister Kudrin said that ‘only fair elections can give the authorities the mandate of trust we need to help implement economic reforms.’ That’s a Russian leader, not an American leader.”

“Russia and America both have a lot to gain if these sentiments are turned into actions,” Biden concluded, “which I am hopeful they will be.”

The curious thing about Biden’s speech is that it was almost immediately able to be compared and contrasted with remarks he made later the same day to Russian opposition leaders in a private meeting at the US Ambassador’s Spaso House residence.

Forget the Russian people forging their own way forward on their path to democracy—the Obama White House openly opposed a third presidential term for Vladimir Putin, with Biden telling the assembled political opposition that it would be better for Russia if Putin did not run for re-election in elections scheduled for March 2012.

According to Boris Nemtsov, one of the main political oppositionists whom Biden was seeking to empower through his visit , “Biden said that in Putin’s place he would not stand for president in 2012 because this would be bad for the country and for himself.” A report in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, a Moscow daily newspaper openly sympathetic with Russia’s political opposition, published a week before Biden’s visit, stated that the American Vice President’s main goal for visiting Moscow was to press Russian President Medvedev into seeking re-election, thereby squeezing out Vladimir Putin, whom the report said would be offered as consolation the presidency of the International Olympic Committee.

This was the essence of Biden’s mission—regime change disguised as American diplomacy.

Biden’s mission ultimately failed—Vladimir Putin was elected to a third term in elections held in March 2012 where he received 64% of the vote with 65% turnout (by way of comparison, Barack Obama won the 2008 US Presidential race with 53% of the vote, and just under 62% turnout.)

But it has been the goal of the United States since that time to bring down Vladimir Putin, to collapse Russian society, and to return Russia to the status it held in the 1990’s as a defeated nation completely subordinated to the will and direction of the United States.

The messaging that is attached to these goals is consistent with those articulated by Joe Biden in March 2011—that the key to Russian prosperity is its absorption into a market economy controlled by the United States, and that the necessary precondition to gaining access to the venture capital and market expertise offered by the United States is the removal of Vladimir Putin from power.

Which brings us to the issue at hand—Sy Hersh’s latest piece, “Putin’s Long War.”

Sy has long been critical of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

This, of course, is his prerogative.

And Sy is no Russophobe—I have known him for more than quarter century, and I have always found him to be balanced in his approach to covering matters pertaining to Russia, including those that address Russia’s leader, Vladmir Putin.

But Sy is a reporter, which means he is in many ways a prisoner of his sources. His journalistic instincts have proven him right many more times than they have failed him. In the Netflix documentary Coverup, which came out last year, Sy is asked about his reporting style, which relies heavily on unnamed sources. “People, for a lot of reasons,” Sy said, “they talk. They talk to me.” The key, Hersh noted, “was get out of the way of the story.”

But there were times when a reporter needs to jump in front of a story, or else it will get away from him like a runaway train. This was the case of a sensational book Sy wrote about John F. Kennedy titled The Dark Side of Camelot. Sy had incorporated material into the initial draft of the book which was derived exclusively from documents he received from Lawrence X. Cusack Jr. These documents turned out to be forgeries, forcing Sy to remove a complete chapter from his manuscript, as well as making additional changes to the rest of the manuscript. Cusack was later convicted of fraud, and sentenced to nine years in prison.

It should be noted that Cusack’s fraud was detected because of the due diligence Sy Hersh conducted in an effort to confirm the information contained in the documents—outstanding journalistic practice of the sort one would expect from a winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

In his most recent article, “Putin’s Long War,” Sy could have benefited by getting in the way of the story, and conducting some rudimentary due diligence.

This is because, in my opinion, Sy’s sources—”US intelligence officials” who have “been involved in Russian issues for decades”—are spoon feeding Sy information about Russia that is as fraudulent as anything contained in Cusack’s documents.

First and foremost, if your source is an intelligence official focused on Russia for “decades”, then their entire career has been centered on the issue of discrediting and undermining Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been in power now more than a quarter century.

It also means that they were more than likely involved in the “Russian reset” regime change operation orchestrated by the Obama administration, and spearheaded by Joe Biden.

This alone mandates that a heavy bit of skepticism be maintained when dealing with any information such a source may provide about Russia.

But then there is the “smell test.” There was a time when Sy would call me up and bounce ideas off me, some of which tested information that was provided by his sources. I remember one time, early in the Afghanistan War, when Sy called about some Special Operations missions being conducted in Afghanistan. He described the actions of Delta Force, an elite Army commando unit, but used the terms “Company”, “Platoon” and “Squad” when describing them.

“Are these direct quotes?” I asked.

Yes, Sy said.

“And your source claims he is with that community?”

Again, Sy responded in the affirmative.

“He’s not Delta”, I said of the source.

Delta operators, I explained, operate as part of a Squadron, Troop, and Team, and any discussion of their operations would make use of such terminology.

Sy pressed the source, and discovered the truth—he was not who he claimed he was.

I just wish Sy had called me about his Russia story.

Not only is the provenance of the claims set forth in article questionable—the US intelligence community is composed almost entirely of Russophobes dedicated to spreading misinformation about Russia and its leader—but the actual data defies belief.

At one point in the article Sy, quoting this “official”, quotes Russian General Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the Russian General Staff, as lamenting “I no longer have an army. My tanks and armored vehicles are junk, my artillery barrels worn out. My supplies intermittent. My sergeants and mid-grade officers dead, and my rank and file ex-convicts.”

It is highly unlikely—indeed, nigh on impossible—that Gerasimov ever said such a thing. This is the highest ranking officer in the Russian military, and a close and personal confidant of the Russian President. Such a statement from a man in his position, even if true, would be tantamount to treason.

The main problem, however, is that the points ostensibly being made by Gerasimov are not only contradicted by reality, but—which is something Sy should have picked up on—match trope for trope the propaganda points being put out by the Ukrainian government and its supporters in the West—including the US intelligence community, which helps write most of them on behalf of the Ukrainians.

The Russian army is widely recognized as the most lethal combat force on the planet today.

Russian tanks and armored vehicles have been shown to be far more survivable than their western counterparts.

While Russia once had a minor supply issue regarding artillery barrels, this is no longer the case—Russia has sufficient production capacity and, moreover, the nature of the war today, where drones have not only taken over a significant part of the front-line fire support duties and responsibilities, but also locate and provide direct observation of Ukrainian targets which are destroyed using precision fires, obviate the need for the kind of massed fires that wore out Russian artillery barrels in the early phases of the conflict.

The Russian army is one of the best supplied combat forces in the world, and the practice of rotating troops out of the front lines, resting them, refurbishing them, and training them on the latest techniques ensures Russia maintains a qualitative edge over their Ukrainian counterparts.

Russian casualties are but a fraction of those inflicted on the Ukrainian military, and the Russian NCO’s and mid-grade officers are thriving, not dying.

Yes, the Russian army makes use of convicts, but they are a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of volunteers who fill the ranks of the Russian army every month.

I don’t know how many times Sy’s source has been to Russia, or whether or not the source has been to Russia since the Special Military Operation began.

I’ve been five times, including travel to Crimea, Kherson, Zaporozhia, Donetsk, and Lugansk.

I’ve interviewed Russian Generals, Colonels, Lieutenant Colonels, Majors, Captains, Lieutenants, and Sergeants.

Men who have served, and are currently serving, on the front lines.

I’ve travelled Russia extensively.

I’ve spoken with people intimately involved in the Russian economy.

Literally nothing Sy’s source says rings true.

The idea of their being a viable political opposition to Vladimir Putin that seeks to promote his downfall is as absurd as the day is long.

And the fact that Sy drew upon the reporting of two vehemently anti-Putin activists who are in self-imposed exile from Russia only underscores the fundamental weakness of his reporting in this regard.

Alexandra Prokopenko was a minor official in the Russian banking industry who fled Russia after the Special Military Operation began, taking refuge in the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. The Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center is headed by Alexander Gabuev, who leads a team of analysts who were formerly part of the Carnegie Moscow Center, which was forced to close by the Kremlin in early 2022, after nearly three decades of operation, because of its status as an “undesirable” activity funded by foreign sources of money derived from entities hostile to Russia.

Prokopenko and the others continue their openly anti-Russian activities in Berlin today.

Alexander Kolyandr is a Senior Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis, an openly Russophobic public policy institution headquartered in Washington, DC that promotes a trans-Atlantic (i.e., NATO) agenda.

Both Prokopenko and Kolyandr are Ukrainian.

They co-author a weekly report, Inside the Russian Economy, where they consistently promote a narrative that is negative on Russian economic health. Their most recent column, published on January 17 and to which Sy apparently references, is titled “Russia’s hidden economic weak points: What to watch in 2026.”

Inside the Russian Economy is a feature in the online Russian independent economic news outlet, The Bell, founded by a trio of anti-establishment Russian journalists, Irina Malkova, Petr Mironenko, and Elizaveta Osetinskaya, who today operate in exile from the San Francisco Bay area.

Sy reports that Prokopenko and Kolyandr’s January 17 article was “circulating in some government offices in Washington.”

This is a meaningless observation, which seeks to give credibility to a source that has zero credibility when it comes to the reality of Russia and its economic performance. Long-range sniping done by people physically disconnected from Russia, and intellectually programed to find anything negative about Russian economic performance, is not the standard that one is normally looking for when seeking fact-based analysis about complex issues. This past November I spend 19 days in Russia meeting and interviewing experts on the Russian economy. Sy would have benefited from the insights these experts had on what is really going on economically in Russia, instead of breathing life into Russophobic tropes designed to promote a larger picture of a Russia in trouble, where “disillusionment and resentment are increasing” and Vladimir Putin is facing “increased domestic unrest.”

Sy has been writing on Russia and the Ukraine conflict for some time now, and I have had similarly negative reactions to those articles and their over reliance upon unnamed sources who claim to have special access to Russian policy questions, but exhibit absolute ignorance about Russian reality. So why have I chosen to bring attention to this article at this time?

To be honest, this is not something I wanted to do. Sy is a very good and close friend, and this will always be the case. But the fact is Sy is being played by forces within the US government who are waging “Mental War” against Russia. Normally, such an argument would be mooted by the fact that Russia is not normally responsive to western propaganda published in western outlets, if for no other reason that pushing Russophobic nonsense on an inherently Russophobic audience serves the same function as a self-licking ice cream cone, “analysis” that exists primarily to justify its own existence.

But since the Alaska Summit of August 2025, there is a new dynamic that alters how this western propaganda is viewed by Russians inside Russia. The so-called “Spirit of Alaska” has taken on a life of its own, with the prospect of economic prosperity linked to the negotiated end of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict increasingly resonating within certain circles of Russian economic and political elites. A critical aspect of this “Spirit of Alaska” is the ongoing dialogue between Kirill Dmitriev, President Putin’s designated interlocutor with Trump’s point man on Russia, Steve Witkoff. This dialogue, extensively promoted by Dmitriev, focuses on the economic benefits that will accrue for Russia once the war with Ukraine ends and economic relations with the US begin.

Perhaps unwittingly, Dmitriev has helped create the very psychological impressions on the Russian people that Joe Biden attempted back in March 2011, when he extolled the benefits of American venture capitalists investing in the diversification of the Russian economy from being focused simply on how to extract its natural resources, to bringing these resources to market.

But the “Spirit of Alaska” economic boom is predicated on the same thing Biden’s promise of a better Russian future hinged on—the removal of Vladimir Putin from office.

The “Spirit of Alaska” is simply the Biden regime change policy reimagined under Donald Trump.

The goal isn’t to convince those who already hate Russia to hate Russia more, but rather to impress upon a critical segment of Russian society that all is not well, and that the solution lies in deep and meaningful political change at the top.

This is where Sy Hersh comes in.

He is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist held in high regard by the Russians, especially after his reporting on the destruction of the Nord Stream Pipeline.

Sy has credibility within Russia, and as such, his reporting is read by many in Russia inclined to view his writing in a positive fashion. If a journalist like Sy Hersh commits to a given narrative, the American practitioners of “Mental War” believe, then that narrative has a chance of taking hold inside Russia, creating societal tensions that could potentially be exploited by foreign intelligence services hostile to Russia, including the CIA.

Sy’s reporting is being hijacked by sources whose real purpose is to seed ideas and information into the public discussion, creating an echo chamber in the West that reaches back into Russia, where it is used to fuel resentment, dissent, and opposition.

Sy has become a tool of regime change in Russia, a role I believe he neither sought out, or believes he is playing.

But as an old Russian hand myself, who has been watching the games played by the US intelligence services inside Russia for some time now, this is precisely the role Sy is playing, something his sources and their handlers intended when the decision was made to put the sources and Sy together for this reporting.

I have been approached by several old Russian hands about Sy’s most recent article. At least one has reached out to Sy directly about this article, to no avail.

I believe Sy’s new article is harmful to Russia, because what it reports simply is not true.

It is bad for peace because it gives life to the false hope that Russia is teetering on the bring of economic and political collapse, thereby encouraging the Ukrainians and their western supporters to keep dragging the war on, despite the horrific losses (economic and human) being sustained by Ukraine.

It is bad for journalism if for no other reason than it is bad journalism—the sourcing is suspect, and the underlying analytical framework weak.

But most importantly for me personally, it is bad for my good friend, Sy Hersh. The man who broke the story of My Lai and Abu Ghraib, the intrepid investigative journalist who graced the pages of the New York Times and The New Yorker back when both outlets were deemed to be credible journalistic institutions, should not allow his name to be attached to what is clearly a propaganda exercise designed to destroy Russian self-consciousness and change the civilizational basis of Russian society—in short, to wage “Mental War.”

Sy Hersh, long the gold standard for truth in journalism, should not allow his reputation to be tarnished by becoming a weapon in the “Mental War” being waged by intelligence operatives in Washington, DC against Russia.

And yet, by publishing his article, “Putin’s Long War”, this is exactly what has happened.

The Sy Hersh that I know and love, the man I call friend, would never allow himself to be used as a cheap propogandist.

I just want to bring this to the attention of my good friend, and hope that he acts accordingly.

By Kautilya The Contemplator, Substack, 1/7/26

I vividly remember a moment from a graduate seminar in international relations theory that I took at Columbia University in the early 2000s. It was taught by the late Professor Kenneth Waltz, one of the most consequential minds of twentieth-century international politics and the architect of the school of structural realism. I recall the setting. It was late afternoon in March, the light already beginning to fade outside. Eight of us students sat in close proximity around the eminent professor, listening as he spoke without notes, without flourish. There was an unhurried seriousness to the discussion. We moved deliberately through his ideas – structure over intent, power over rhetoric, limits over ambition – and wrestled with the larger questions of an emerging post-September 11 international order and the crises of the time.

It was early 2003. American forces were in Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq was imminent, and although few yet recognized it, the limits of American power were about to be tested. The United States stood at what many believed was the apex of history – triumphant after the Cold War, unchallenged by any peer rival and convinced it was experiencing what Charles Krauthammer famously called the “unipolar moment”.

Yet, Waltz was unimpressed. With characteristic calm, he warned that empires do not collapse because they are weak, but because they become too powerful. An empire, he argued, is an entity that accumulates such vast power that it must continually seek external venues to project it. Power, once amassed beyond what is necessary for defense, demands use. Over time, this compulsion to project power outward becomes unsustainable. Costs accumulate, resistance hardens, domestic foundations erode and decline begins – not suddenly, but structurally.

Waltz walked us through history – the Mongols, the Romans, the Ottomans, the British Empire, the Soviet Union. Each believed itself exceptional. Each believed its dominance reflected permanence rather than circumstance. Each ultimately faded into history. The United States, he cautioned even then, was not exempt. More than two decades later, that warning reads less like theory and more like diagnosis.

Empire, Overstretch and the Structural Logic of Decline

Empires do not fall overnight. Their decline is a gradual unraveling of the foundational pillars of economic vitality, political coherence, military credibility and moral legitimacy. What realism teaches is that decline is not primarily a moral failure, it is structural.

Paul Kennedy articulated this with devastating clarity in his seminal work The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. His core thesis of “imperial overstretch” holds that when a state’s military commitments expand beyond the capacity of its economic base to sustain them, strategic failure becomes inevitable. Military power cannot indefinitely substitute for economic health at home. Eventually, the imbalance asserts itself.

Waltz’s structural realism complements Kennedy’s materially grounded analysis of imperial power. A system dominated by one state becomes unstable not because others are aggressive, but because power itself invites resistance. As Waltz observed, unbalanced power leaves weaker states little choice but to combine against the dominant one. Hegemony, in this sense, plants the seeds of its own unfolding. From Vietnam to Iraq, from Libya to Afghanistan, the American pattern has been consistent in that overwhelming force is deployed in pursuit of political outcomes it cannot sustain.

From Influence to Possession: Venezuela as a Turning Point

If earlier American excesses could still be framed, however implausibly, as misguided attempts to preserve order, recent developments mark a qualitative shift. The US seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro represents not another intervention, but a transition from influence to possession.

This shift was openly acknowledged by President Trump himself. In the press conference that followed Maduro’s abduction, he stated bluntly that the United States would “run” Venezuela. The language is striking not merely for its aggression, but for its candor. There is no pretense of multilateralism, no invocation of international law, no claim of humanitarian necessity. This is empire speaking plainly.

Trump’s threats have not been confined to Venezuela. He has openly floated or threatened coercive action against multiple sovereign states: Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, Iran, Nigeria, Denmark (via Greenland) and Venezuela itself. This is not rhetorical excess but doctrinal candor, treating sovereignty as conditional and force as routine.

The “Donroe Doctrine” and Hemispheric Enclosure

Trump went further still by explicitly renaming the Monroe Doctrine the “Donroe Doctrine”. The original Monroe Doctrine, for all its imperial implications, was framed defensively as a warning against European recolonization of the Americas. The “Donroe Doctrine” strips away even that fig leaf. It asserts that the Western Hemisphere is not merely a sphere of influence, but an exclusive American domain in which Washington will deny extra-hemispheric competitors, explicitly framed by the administration in terms of China and Russia, the ability to base forces or control strategic assets.

Facing declining leverage globally, the United States is attempting to lock down what it still believes it can dominate absolutely – its near abroad. That is not the behavior of a confident hegemon, but one fortifying imperial red lines as its outer perimeter weakens.

Crucially, hemispheric consolidation does not imply a reduction in American ambitions toward Russia and China. Quite the opposite. Even as Europe is rhetorically de-prioritized, the United States remains committed to containing both powers simultaneously, despite the structural contradiction it entails.

Russia and China possess overwhelming military power in regions that are existential to their security – the post-Soviet space for Russia, the Western Pacific for China. Structural realism predicts that great powers will fight hardest, and most successfully, in precisely such theaters. This logic was anticipated by George F. Kennan, the architect of America’s Cold War containment strategy, who warned in 1997 that NATO expansion would be

“the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era”1,

precisely because it ignored how great powers respond when their core security interests are challenged. Russia’s imminent victory in the US-led proxy war in Ukraine is a clear illustration of this principle. Yet, US strategy continues to challenge both states in their core zones while asserting absolute dominance in the Western Hemisphere. This is not balance-of-power logic. It is imperial denial.

Military Power Without Strategic Victory

The United States still commands unparalleled military resources in the form of hundreds of overseas bases, a defense budget exceeding that of the next ten countries combined, and technological superiority across multiple domains, from precision strike and global surveillance to cyber and space. By any material measure, American military power remains immense. Yet, power measured in hardware increasingly fails to translate into strategic success.

The contradiction between US military capacity and strategic outcomes is no longer theoretical. It is empirical. The United States was defeated in Vietnam, despite overwhelming technological superiority. In Korea, Chinese intervention pushed US forces back to the 38th parallel, imposing a strategic stalemate that endures to this day. In Afghanistan, the Taliban outlasted and defeated the most powerful military coalition of the twenty-first century, emerging victorious after two decades of occupation. Most recently, the Houthis in Yemen, a lightly equipped movement, forced the US Navy into a defensive posture, disrupting global shipping and exposing the limits of American coercive power even at sea.

Iraq and Afghanistan

Nowhere is this failure more comprehensively illustrated than in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars that together consumed over $6 trillion and ended in strategic defeat. In both cases, the United States achieved overwhelming tactical dominance through rapid regime collapse, battlefield supremacy and uncontested control of the air, only to discover that none of this produced durable political outcomes. Firepower could not compensate for political incoherence, cultural ignorance or the absence of attainable strategic objectives. Victory was defined operationally, but never resolved politically. That failure was understood even by the regime the United States had just overthrown in Iraq. According to John Nixon, the CIA analyst who interrogated Saddam Hussein following his capture, the Iraqi leader remarked bluntly:

“You are going to find that it is not so easy to govern Iraq…You are going to fail in Iraq because you do not know the language, the history, and you do not understand the Arab mind.”2

It was a realist observation, not a cultural one. Overwhelming force cannot substitute for political legitimacy, local knowledge or societal coherence.

The chaotic withdrawal from Kabul in August 2021 was also not merely a logistical embarrassment or a failure of execution. It was a symbolic confirmation of imperial exhaustion. After twenty years of occupation, the world’s most powerful military exited a country it had fundamentally failed to remake, leaving behind a political order that collapsed almost instantly once American force was removed. The episode crystallized the deeper reality that coercive capacity without political legitimacy produces only temporary compliance, not lasting control.

In each case, the weaker side fought not for advantage, but for survival – a distinction decisive in history. The lesson here is not that American power is weak. It is that power alone does not determine outcomes when conflict becomes existential for the weaker party. When sovereignty, dignity and survival are at stake, materially inferior peoples have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to absorb costs that liberal, post-industrial empires are structurally unwilling, and politically unable, to bear. Time, patience and social cohesion often outweigh technology when war becomes a struggle over existence rather than advantage.

History suggests that empires in decline often double down militarily, not because war works, but because alternatives have narrowed. When diplomacy loses credibility and internal reform proves politically unattainable, force becomes the default instrument. As retired US Army Col Andrew Bacevich has argued, the United States has increasingly come to rely on military power as a substitute for strategy, confusing activity with purpose and motion with direction.3 This addiction to force does not preserve empire. It accelerates its collapse by draining resources, hardening resistance and eroding legitimacy at home and abroad.

In this sense, American military dominance today resembles that of other late-stage empires – formidable in appearance, unmatched in scale, yet increasingly ineffective at shaping outcomes that matter. Power remains vast, but its returns are diminishing and its costs are compounding.

Economic Strain and Political Fragmentation Beneath the Imperial Façade

Kennedy’s framework again proves instructive in assessing the economic foundations of American power. The United States retains an enormous and innovative economy, but the alignment between its domestic economic structure and its global military commitments are increasingly strained.

Decades of de-industrialization have reduced the country’s capacity in key sectors critical to sustained great power competition, even as defense obligations have expanded. Infrastructure investment has lagged behind peer competitors. Income and wealth inequality are returning to levels not seen since the Gilded Age. Public debt has surpassed $34 trillion alongside a defense budget approaching $1 trillion annually.

At the same time, the dollar remains dominant but is no longer uncontested. Efforts by other states to conduct trade outside the dollar system reflect not imminent displacement, but structural adaptation aimed at reducing vulnerability to American financial coercion. No empire in history has sustained open-ended global military primacy without eventually confronting such internal economic tensions.

External projection also requires internal cohesion which is eroding. American politics is defined by polarization, institutional paralysis, contested elections and the normalization of political violence. Congress is dysfunctional, the judiciary is politicized and executive power expands without consensus or legitimacy. An empire divided against itself cannot sustain coherent external power. Its adversaries need not defeat it militarily. They can simply wait.

The Collapse of Dignity: Prestige, Language and the Degradation of High Office

Empires do not decline only through material exhaustion or military failure. They also decay symbolically. Prestige – what earlier generations called gravitas – is not ornamental. It is a form of power. When it erodes, coercion increasingly substitutes for authority, and vulgarity replaces legitimacy.

The conduct and language of senior American political figures in recent years are symptomatic of this deeper erosion of US prestige. The casual use of expletives, threats and street vernacular by White House officials and political elites is not merely a stylistic departure from earlier norms. It reflects the loss of confidence in the moral authority of office itself.

Former President Joe Biden’s public description of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the head of a nuclear-armed great power, as a “pure thug”4 and a “crazy SOB”5 marked a striking break with language historically associated with diplomacy and statecraft. Such language may resonate domestically as cathartic or performative, but in international politics it signals something far more consequential: the abandonment of restraint as a governing principle.

Similarly revealing is the repeated use by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth of the phrase “‘f’ around and find out”6 when referring to matters of war and national security. This expression, drawn from the lexicon of street intimidation rather than strategic discourse, has not only been used verbally but was recently formalized through a White House-released image bearing the label “FAFO”, depicting a stern and confrontational President Trump. The transformation of crude intimidation into official messaging is not strength projected with confidence. It is authority asserted without legitimacy.

Senator Lindsey Graham’s remark that President Maduro’s “a** is in jail where he deserves to be”7 follows the same pattern. Whatever one’s view of Maduro, such language from a senior US senator toward a foreign head of state represents a collapse of the norms that once separated personal contempt from official conduct. The issue is not politeness for its own sake. It is the degradation of institutional voice.

Empires at their height are careful with words. Empires in decline are careless, because they increasingly rely on threat rather than persuasion, and on spectacle rather than credibility.

Prestige as Power and Its Historical Contrast

This degradation stands in sharp contrast to the conduct of earlier American statesmen, particularly during periods of genuine strategic confidence. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who commanded the greatest military coalition in history, spoke with deliberate restraint even toward adversaries. President John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, understood that dignity and measured language were not signs of weakness but instruments of authority. The ability to restrain language was inseparable from the ability to restrain escalation.

What distinguished that generation was not moral purity, but strategic self-discipline. Even during moments of acute confrontation, American leaders understood that words carried systemic consequences in that public language shaped alliances, deterrence and legitimacy. The contemporary abandonment of this restraint reflects a deeper truth that declining empires often substitute performative aggression for actual authority. When prestige fades, leaders resort to shock, insult and theatrical dominance to compensate. The language of governance begins to resemble the language of coercion.

From Authority to Intimidation

The significance of this shift should not be underestimated. International order rests not only on material power, but on shared expectations of behavior. When the leading power in the world abandons the norms of diplomatic restraint, respect for office and calibrated speech that it once promoted and largely set the tone for, it accelerates systemic breakdown.

In this sense, the vulgarization of American political language is not an aesthetic complaint. It is a strategic signal. It tells allies that American leadership is increasingly impulsive. It tells adversaries that restraint has eroded and it tells domestic audiences that institutions no longer command respect, only fear or loyalty.

The late American political scientist Chalmers Johnson warned that empires lose legitimacy before they lose capability. The collapse of dignity at the highest levels of American governance is part of that process. When leaders no longer speak as custodians of a republic but as enforcers of an empire, decline has already moved from structure into culture. The loss of prestige is not a side effect of imperial decline. It is one of its clearest early indicators.

Imperial Methods Turned Inward: Blowback, Repression and the Return of Violence

Johnson, in his work Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, also warned that empires unable to sustain dominance abroad inevitably turn coercive inward. Blowback, in his formulation, is not limited to foreign retaliation. It is the internal corrosion of political norms, civil liberties and social cohesion that follows imperial overstretch. The tools developed to control distant populations are eventually redeployed to manage dissent at home.

This pattern is now visible in the United States. Surveillance authorities introduced in the wake of September 11, 2001, have been normalized and absorbed into the permanent architecture of national security law. While some emergency provisions of the Patriot Act have expired, the broader surveillance and security apparatus it inaugurated remains entrenched. Policing has grown increasingly militarized and political dissent is more frequently interpreted through a security lens rather than a constitutional one. Gun violence has reached staggering levels with mass shootings now routine and an unmistakable sign of collapsing social trust.

On university campuses, once bastions of constitutional dissent, in 2024 and 2025, students exercising their First Amendment rights were met with riot police, mass arrests and force. Encampments were dismantled by armed officers. Students and faculty were dragged to the ground, zip-tied and detained. Campuses increasingly resembled occupied zones.

Censorship deepens the crisis. On questions of war and foreign policy, dissent is increasingly stigmatized and, in some contexts, managed through discipline, arrest and surveillance. The resulting social mistrust and polarization accelerate internal turmoil and corrode the legitimacy that sustained external power.

History’s Echoes and the Illusion of Exception

Every empire believes it is different. None are. China’s rise is not the cause of American decline but rather its consequence. Multipolarity itself is not chaos. The latter emerges when a declining hegemon refuses to accept limits.

Decline is not inevitable. Empire, however, is incompatible with renewal. Reversal would require abandoning the doctrines and institutional logic of empire. This would entail scaling back military commitments, restoring economic balance, rebuilding infrastructure, healing social fractures and recommitting to sovereignty as principle rather than obstacle. That would mean choosing republic over empire.

Waltz understood this long ago. Empires do not fall because they are attacked. They fall because they cannot stop expanding. The logic governing the American empire is not unmistakable. Unless restraint replaces compulsion, the United States will follow the same path as every empire before it, not as an exception to history, but as its confirmation.

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By Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Substack, 1/8/26

There is a tendency in alternative space, and it is tempting, to reframe losses as, in some subtle way, wins. It can help you cope with the downswings in the battle for a more equitable, just and peaceful world, and there have been plenty of those recently.

We’ve seen this play out over Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, where the optimists amongst us have assured us that, though bloodied, Hamas is still surviving triumphantly in its underground passageways; that Hezbelloh is regrouping in Lebanon; that the complete mess of Syria post-Assad (or Libya, post-Gadaffi, or Iraq post-Hussein) should somehow be comforting. And if that isn’t enough, then we can see how mighty Russia, in its resilient defiance against a quarter-century of NATO provocation in Ukraine and its amazing succession of technological breakthroughs in weaponry (dwarf nuclear reactor technology for the Burevestnik and Poseidon; non-nuclear nuclear-equivalent destructive power in the case of the Oreshnik; hypersonic missiles in the case of the Kinzhal and Zircon), or how mighty China, in its noble defense of its territorial rights to Taiwan and leadership of benevelont infrastructural investments and non-dollar trade throughout the Global South, have finally countered the increasingly brazen, reckless and, yes, stupid and desperate, latter-day US imperialists and their vassals in Europe and elsewhere.

Venezuela is instructive in this instance. On the face of it, what is it about really? The US produces over 13 million barrels per day of oil, so why does it want more of the stuff (Venezuela produces only around one million a day), especially if greater volumes push down prices and lower profit margins for US producers? And wont it take years (ten, some analysts advise) to rebuild the Venezuelan oil industry? What has happened, really, if the “invasion” has simply removed a leader of whom Washington disapproves but leaves the governing machinery intact? And wont the US become ever so much more hated in places like Colombia, Cuba and Mexico, and even by the people of the US itself? Are we looking at an endless succession of Vietnam quagmires? And doesn’t reckless confrontation with Russia and China inevitably escalate tension to the point of a very real possibility of a nuclear World War Three and the effective end of the human species?

Well, it may look crazy, reckless, even satanic, but I regret to say that doesn’t mean it is not going to work for “them” (the Western corporate plutocrats and oligarchs in general, the Trump family and its hangers-on more specifically) and against “us.”

Let’s at least explore at the possible gains for the Trump administration here. First of all, the US has directly commandeered the oil industry of Venezuela. Trump is claiming an immediate benefit of large amounts of oil to be directly shipped to Gulf refineries. Team Trump say they are asserting “complete control” of Venezuelan oil supplies. They say that are going to oversee the sale of Venezuelan oil worldwide, and that they are going to approve sales of oil only if they serve US interest (!). Even more astonishingly, Venezuela is going to have to buy US products with the profits that it earns from these sales. I am not an expert on British imperialism (only its victim, being Irish), but I wonder if this even manages to exceed the extortionate, rapacious seizure of global wealth by the British (fat lot of good that it did, ultimately, for most of the British people, looking at the sad and stale state of the British polity and economy today).

Now, of course, we dont yet know exactly how President Rodriguez is going to react. She started defiant, then she later moderated along the lines of “we’ll cooperate so long as it is within international law,” – which is almost amusing given that absolutely nothing of what is going on accords with international law. But she has an extraordinarily difficult if not impossible balancing act to maintain. For the moment, as I argued yesterday, we are seeing, in place of the usual neocon regime-change shenanigans, something ever weirder, which is regime capture.

And this, so far, is welcome news to the Trump administration, which has not hesitated to exploit this singular moment of gross abuse of a sovereign state to threaten some very vulnerable neighbors. These include Cuba, which was dependent on heavily discounted Venezuelan oil in return for medical, military and other services, and whose capital, Havana, has lately had to tolerate power cuts of ten or more hours a day. Before Cuba can hope for any meaningful respite from Russia and China, if this comes at all, it is clinging desperately to supplies of oil from Mexico, which is another country whose leadership Trump is trying to sabotage on fake pretexts of drug cartels (some of which, like Cartel of the Suns, were established by the CIA when it was using a drug supply line to the US to support its illegal flow of arms to the Contras in Nicaragua and which more recently have been amplified by US complicity in the flow of guns to Mexico).

Misery in Cuba, and the possible fall of the Cuban government, will be a personal victory for Marc Rubio, a child of Cuban immigrants to Florida, long-time host to fanatical anti-Cuban, pro-imperial US policies. Colombia is another case. Its President Petro is due to stand down anyway in a few months’ time, since he is allowed only one term in office but, up until now, it has been expected that the next presidential candidate (Cepeda) to succeed him will be from Petro’s party (Historic Pact).

Trumpian control of Venezuela gives the US a further perch from which to try to push the coming elections in Colombia in a US-friendly direction (the greater likelihood of a return to guerrilla warfare throughout the north of South America, notwithstanding).

Of particular significance, and it is something that not many, if any, commentators have so far chosen to remark on, is the situation in Guyana and its vast Essequibo oil region, accounting for two-thirds of Guyana itself. Since the 1960s (1962 to be precise), Venezuela has reignited claims to the Essequibo region which rest on the disputed arbitration in 1899 under British imperial control of the borders between Venezuela and Guyana. This arbitration Venezuela deems null and void. Especially since major offshore oil discoveries from 2023 by ExxonMobil, the Maduro government has pressed its case vigorously, and the case is still being adjudicated by the ICJ (to which it was referred in 2018). In 2023, the Venezuelan government held a non-binding referendum to annex Essequibo, and Maduro signed a resolution to incororate the territory.

The US has supported the Guyanese regime against Venezuela, and now, with its capture of the Venezuelan government, has put paid to Venezuelan ambitions on Essequibo. Note that the quality of the oil in Guyana is better overall than that of Venezuela: it is much lighter, easier to access and therefore much cheaper to extract. At the moment, even if its reserves are much less than those of Venezuela, Guyana is producing as many millions of barrels of oil a day as does Venezuela and will likely exceed Venezuela in 2026. Venezuelan oil is much thicker, polluted and much more expensive, perhaps ten or more times expensive to extract. This is why US oil companies are less than ecstatic about Trump’s exhortations to them to invest billions in renovating the Venezuelan oil industry. So these poor, put-upon oil giants are demanding financial and other guarantees for whatever investments they make. In the short-term however, it is also relevant that many oil refineries along the US Gulf coast are equipped for handling thick oil (for which there is specific demand in some industries) such as that from Venezuela and in recent years this supply has weakened so that the refineries stand to benefit economically from an upthrust in the availability of supplies of heavy Venezuelan crude.

The US has also asserted control over tanker trade in oil from Venezuela in the case of tankers that have been sanctioned by the US, leading to at least four tanker seizures in recent days. Since some of the tankers in question constitute part of the so-called “shadow fleet” used by Russia to sidestep sanctions on its own oil trade and to get oil to its clients in Asia (notably India and China), the US is now blockading a significant part of Russian oil trade machinery.

The fact that in the case of Bella 1, Russia had reportedly sent a submarine to protect the tanker but that then the tanker was successfully boarded and hijacked by the US is a major humilitation for Russia, further proof, if proof was needed, of Russia’s extreme caution in going to its own and others’ defense anywhere that is not eastern Ukraine. China too is humiliated. Dependent for 75% of its oil needs on foreign supplies, China particularly values its oil imports from Iran and Venezuela and both are now extremely vulnerable. More to the point, its oil purchases with these countries are non-dollar, so that now China is being compelled to do more business in dollars, which forces it to prop up the US empire and help the US solve its debt crisis. Yes, of course, China will first of all look to Russia to replenish what it is no longer being able to count on from Iran and from Venezuela, but there are doubts as to whether Russia can actually handle a significant additional demand of this scale.

Venezuelan oil for the US further improves the bargaining position of the US with respect to whatever oil it does still continue to import even though, of course, the US is a major energy supplier to world markets (including, increasingly, to Europe which, in collusion with the US, is shooting itself in the foot by denying itself access to cheap or much cheaper Russian pipeline or LNG in favor of expensive US supplies). Together with supplies from Brazil (which produces about four million barrels a day, and Argentina which produces about 800,000, and Guyana, which produces about a million), the addition of Venezuelan oil means that the US will be collaborating with – if not dictating to – non-OPEC oil production countries, further reducing its dependence on Saudi Arabia (a BRICS member, currently resuming, we should take note, its bombing of southern Yemen) which produces about nine million barrels a day.

All this, in the graceful language of US official thuggery, helps “extend” (i.e. greatly increases the pressure on) the BRICS countries and the potential of the BRICS to bring about a more equitable world through the annihilation of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Increasingly, the real power of the BRICS is being seen to center in Beijing and in Moscow. But they are not looking so convincing as potentially competent adversaries of the US hegemon as they did. As India tries to navigate between Washington and, particularly, Russia (which continues to be a major oil supplier to India, Trump’s claims to the contrary notwithstanding), the other BRICS countries are looking rather less capable and committed than they have been for some time. Brazil, the enormous, dominating economy of South America, seems incapable of confronting Washington. Iran, with one of the most important oil reserves in the world (producing only four million barrels a day, same as Brazil) now seems highly vulnerable to a further US-Israeli strike, perhaps leading ultimately to regime collapse and it is difficult to sustain faith in Russian or Chinese determination to prevent that from happening.

Like I said, just because they’re stupid doesn’t mean they’re losing.

By Scott Ritter, Substack, 1/5/26

Forces within the US and Russia today openly advocate for the lifting of economic sanctions targeting Russia. But these sanctions are not designed to be lifted for the benefit of Russia, but to exist as a tool designed to bring about the collapse of Russia. The hope of improved economic relations brought on by the end of sanctions is used as a means of leveraging greed and corruption inside Russia in order to bring down the government of President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s best option is to stop advocating for the lifting of sanctions and instead use the existing sanctions as a shield to protect Russia from the inherently corrupting influence of western economies.

I used to hold that sanctions as policy was in fact a statement that there was no real policy in place for the given problem, and that sanctions were simply a mechanism for buying time to consider the options. But the longer I have had to observe US sanctions policy unfold over time, the more I realize that there is, in fact, a method to the madness. Whether this newly discovered intent was in existence when the wide-spread sanctioning of nation states was first employed as a major pillar of US foreign and national security policy, or evolved over time, isn’t the point. The reality is that today sanctions underpin policies of targeted regime change and serve as the primary facilitating agent of such policies.

The primary indicator for this realization is that while sanctions portend to target behavior or policies the United States wishes to see altered, the sanctions are almost invariably tied to a person or persons in power. This linkage almost inevitably means that the desired behavioral modifications sought through sanctions cannot be achieved so long as the targeted persons remain in power.

But such linkage in and of itself does not a policy make. To be effective, a policy must be implementable. And here sanctions bring with them an inherently implementable weapon—human greed. The conventional thinking was that sanctions were designed to compel change from within the targeted nation—punish the people, the people will put pressure on their leadership to effect the necessary changes. But this approach did not achieve the desired results—the case of Iraq stands out, where the regime of Saddam Hussein withstood more than a decade of stringent economic sanctions before being removed by military force.

But lately sanctions have taken on a different character—a commodity, so to speak, part of a transactional approach to policy making which has come to maturity during the second iteration of the Trump administration. Trump has been a master when it comes to employing this new commodity-based approach to sanctioning, slapping sanctions onto a targeted nation, and then holding out the possibility of these sanctions being lifted if certain behavioral benchmarks are met. “We can do business together” has become the mantra of Trump 2.0, a promise of mutually beneficial economic relationships predicated on one side—the sanctioned side—yielding to the demands of the other.

The transactional relationship, however, is never allowed to reach fruition. The promise of economic largesse is instead held hostage to behavioral alterations that cannot be attained because they are linked to the personal and/or political credibility of the targeted personalities named in the sanctions. But the transactions were not designed to enrich the targeted individuals, but rather the class of political and economic elites for whom the targeted individual(s) relied upon for their continued viability as the leader of the targeted nation.

The goal of these new regime-change sanctions is to create leverage inside these elites that can be manipulated by the promise of personal fortune if the impediment to this utopia were only removed from power. There is reason to believe that the promise of economic assistance from the Arab League combined with the lifting of stringent US sanctions created the opportunity for Syrian elites to be bought off, abandoning the former President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, to the wolves when Islamic forces attacked in November 2024.

The recent abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US forces likewise suggests that there was a significant amount of betrayal by Venezuelan political and economic elites brought on by the promise of the lifting of sanctions against Venezuela once Maduro was removed from power.

Likewise, in Iran President Pezeshkian’s stated objective of wanting better relations with the West, inclusive of economic interaction keyed to the lifting of sanctions, created a certain level of societal expectation which was weaponized by the West, linking the inability to lift sanctions until the Iranian government changed fundamental policies, such as those related to their nuclear program. These Iranian elites, having already begun to spend their new-found wealth in their imaginations, were easy pickings for foreign intelligence services looking for vectors of societal unrest linked to the removal of the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameini, from power.

But the biggest regime change target of them all is Russian President Vladimir Putin. Donald Trump has made the lifting of sanctions and the renewal of US-Russian economic projects one of his highest priorities—after the ending of the Russian-Ukraine conflict on terms acceptable to Donald Trump. Trump has allowed a dual-track of negotiations to proceed simultaneously, the first involving setting the terms of conflict resolution, and the second focused on the economic benefits that would accrue once the war with Ukraine ended.

The problem is that Trump has no intention of agreeing to terms that would be acceptable to Russia, and every intention of continuing to impose targeted sanctions designed to impact various political and economic elites surrounding Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump has made it clear that he is personally unhappy with President Putin, implying outright that any continuation of existing sanctions and/or issuing of ne sanctions is the fault of the Russian President and no one else.

The hope attached to this methodology is that by dangling the possibility of lifting sanctions in front of these elites, they can be persuaded/influenced to exert pressure on the Russian leadership to change policy goals and objectives or, failing that, to change leadership.

Given everything I have analyzed over the course of the past several days, I am convinced now more than ever that the Trump policy toward Russia is not normalization, but regime change, and that economic sanctions are not viewed as something that is transitory, but rather something that serves as a permanent fixture of policy designed to create the potential for regime change. There are zero advocates for the genuine normalization of relations on Trumps’ innermost circle of advisors. Steve Witkoff, the former New York real estate broker turned special envoy, does not make policy, but rather furthers the possibility of better economic relations once sanctions are lifted—which, of course, they never will.

Marco Rubio, the dual-hatted Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, is staunchly anti-Putin. Scott Bessant, the Secretary of Treasury, believes that Russia can be brought to its knees using sanctions. And John Radcliffe, the Director of the CIA, oversees an agency that has sought the demise of Vladimir Putin and Russia since the fall of Boris Yeltsin.

There are zero advocates for a truly mutually beneficial relationship between the US and Russia in the Trump cabinet today. A relationship built on transparency and mutual trust is impossible so long as one party is actively seeking the strategic defeat of the other.

The strategic defeat of Russia continues to be the policy of the United States.

And economic sanctions are the primary tool being used to achieve this result.

Gone are the days of calling Russia out as the principal opponent of the United States. That action only solidified the United States as an enemy in the minds of those Russians the United States seeks to bring over to our side.

Instead, the United States, by publishing a National Security Strategy document that lists Russia as a force of strategic stability, creates the notion that the path has already been cleared for a revitalized relationship born on the principle of mutual benefit.

But the US-Siberian tunnel that Kirill Dmitriev is fond of promoting isn’t designed to bring American wealth to Russian shores, but rather to extract Russian resources on terms unilaterally beneficial to the United States. Yes, the United States desires a time when sanctions can be lifted, and US businesses can return to Russia. But only on terms acceptable to the United States, and these terms cannot exist in an environment where Russia operates as the geopolitical equal of the United States. Vladimir Putin has spent 25 years leading Russia out of the ruins of the decade of the 1990’s. It is the goal and objective of the United States to return Russia to that period, where Russian nationalism has been subordinated to Western commercialism, where Russian culture and traditions are seen as an expression of inferiority in the face of all that the West can offer.

A new Trump Tower, not the towers of Moscow Center, would be the landmark of Moscow if Donald Trump had his way, with all that entails.

But in the case of Russia sanctions are a double-edged sword. The combined impact of the US-European sanctions is the near total isolation of Russia from the western economy. If Russia continues to play the game of pretending there will be better times ahead once these sanctions are lifted, it is just a matter of time before human greed and CIA money find common cause, and Russia finds itself wracked by internal political disputes designed to weaken it and its leadership.

Sanctions, simply put, are not a path toward prosperity, but a highway to hell.

Russia can isolate itself from the negative consequences of the Trump sanction game simply by refusing to engage on any discussion that doesn’t have the immediate, unconditional lifting of economic sanctions as the core objective. There can be no quid pro quo, no phased easing out—nothing. Anything that creates conditions for the lifting of sanctions provides the US the leverage it needs to start corrupting segments of Russian society, to turn them against the Russian government.

None other than the esteemed Russian philosopher, Alexander Dugin, agrees that Russia faces such a threat today. “Look,” he recently wrote, “friendly regimes and forces are collapsing one after another. Of course, we’re reacting and trying to take advantage of the general crisis of globalism, but we’re missing a lot.

It’s perfectly clear, and this has been confirmed by events in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and now Venezuela, that over the past decades, the West has created spy networks within the highest leadership of all countries. I think even China is no exception. And at the right moment, they activate to betray the supreme power. Such a network simply cannot fail to exist in Russia. It would be logical for it to be the source of systemic sabotage and the slowdown of all those processes that must be conducted at a completely different speed to effectively defend and strengthen our sovereignty. And these agents can be found anywhere, including in circles and departments where we least expect them.”

Dugan is right—these networks exist in Russia today. The point of vulnerability which is exploited most effectively by the West is the greed that comes with the unfulfilled desires of those who have bought into the notion of the West serving as the source of Russia’s economic wellbeing.

The sanctions against Russia were specifically crafted to isolate Russia from the West and, in doing so, create the impression that Russia’s economic woes could be resolved simply by creating the conditions under which these sanctions could be lifted.

But at what cost?

The West does not seek to live side by side with a rejuvenated Russia. Europe has made it clear that a Russia that stands on its own two feet is deemed a threat, and must be brought down.

The West wants Russia to be brought to its knees, to crawl toward its master, begging for relief.

This is not the Russia I experienced in my past travels.

This is not the Russia I fell in love with.

And this is not a Russia I would want to be friends with.

And so Russia should seek to activate the “sanctions shield”, to do everything possible to encourage the economic isolation from the West, to weaken the leverage those in Russia who would sell their magnificent civilization for a handful of silver will never get the chance.

Sergei Karaganov is right—Russia’s future lies to the East, its ruination to the West.

It is to the East and the collective South that Russia must now turn for its economic future.

Make sanctions moot by making it impossible for sanctions to be lifted.

Stop the Dmitriev-Witkoff experiment in its tracks.

One day—maybe soon, probably not—the conditions will exist where Russia can once again do business with the West.

But first the European Union must be broken up.

NATO disbanded.

And the United States compelled through the reality of its own limitations to accept Russia on terms wholly acceptable to Russia, for the benefit of Russia, and not the other way around.

Never forget—Russia has never sought the strategic defeat of the United States.

The United States today is actively seeking the strategic defeat of Russia.

Sanctions are the chosen vector for this policy to reach fruition.

Therefore Russia has no choice, if it desires to avoid being caught up in the regime change policy construct of the United States, than to do everything possible to keep the sanctions imposed against it by the collective West in place in order to shield itself from the destructive forces of corruption and greed that are an inherent part of any “economic engagement” with the West—especially with the United States under the rule of the most transactionally-minded President in US history, Donald Trump.

By Ben Aris, Intellinews, 1/4/25

President Vladimir Putin continues to enjoy strong approval ratings nearly four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to polling from the Levada Centre, an independent [western backed] Russian research organisation.

Despite economic pressure, mounting casualties, and a protracted war effort, public support for the Russian president remains consistently high, highlighting the durability of the Kremlin’s control over the domestic narrative.

Putin’s approval surged in March 2022—just weeks after Russian troops crossed into Ukraine—from 71% in February to 83%, and has since remained above 80% for most of the conflict.

As of December 2025, 85% of respondents said they approved of the president’s performance, while just 13% disapproved. The data shows only minor fluctuations over 36 months, indicating stable support throughout what the Kremlin continues to call its “special military operation.”

The Russian government, while less popular than Putin himself, has also maintained majority approval ratings. Support for the federal government rose from 53% in early 2022 to a high of 76% in mid-2025, before easing slightly to 70% in December.

Disapproval of the government fell from 44% in early 2022 to just over 20% in late 2025 as the war in Ukraine has had little impact on daily lives inside Russia other than pushing prices up. The figures suggest that a significant portion of the Russian population continues to back the state’s actions and overall direction despite the sustained conflict. [Would this be the case if the number of Russian casualties were as ridiculously high as the west claims? – Natylie]

Similarly, the share of Russians who believe the country is heading “in the right direction” has also climbed since the start of the war. In January 2022, only 50% of respondents said Russia was on the right path, with 39% saying it was not. That number jumped to 69% in March 2022 in tacit approval of the Ukrainian invasion, and peaked at 75% in early 2024. As of December 2025, 67% still say the country is moving in the right direction.

Levada Centre sociologist Denis Volkov attributed the early rally-around-the-flag effect to “a consolidation of society in the face of external pressure.” He told The Moscow Times in 2023 that “Putin’s ratings reflect more than just support for the war — they reflect an emotional rejection of what is seen as Western interference.”

While polling in authoritarian states is subject to pressure and self-censorship, the Levada Centre is widely regarded as one of the few credible independent pollsters operating in Russia. “The numbers are real in terms of expressed sentiment, but the environment in which they are collected matters,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre.

Analysts also point to a lack of visible hardship in large Russian cities as a reason for sustained public support. Although sanctions have crippled key sectors, state spending has helped shield much of the population from economic pain. “The war is largely invisible to the public,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of political consultancy R.Politik. “That insulates the Kremlin from accountability.”