RUSSIAN HACKERY FOR HACKS [WITH COMMENT BY JOHN]
In case you missed it last Friday in the run-up to Christmas, Brian Kennedy of the American Strategy Group offered up an extremely lucid analysis of the complete absurdity of the thesis that Putin’s Russia hacked into our election process with the deliberate intent to help Donald Trump win. To be sure, Trump’s equivocal statements about Putin lend some superficial plausibility to this idea—if you’re six years old. Or a Democrat and a media hack.
Do read the whole thing, but here are two of the more persuasive paragraphs about the illogic of the Putin-Loves-Trump theme:
We are being asked now to believe that the Russians wished to influence a U.S. presidential election. This master stroke of statecraft by Putin was designed, however, to bring to power a man, Donald J. Trump, who has pledged to rebuild the United States militarily and economically. Trump has detailed his intent to build a national missile defense, modernize our strategic arsenal to match that of Russia and China, ensure our ability to dominate the high seas with an expanded and more technologically advanced navy, guarantee our ability to project power with an improved air force, and have an intelligence and cyber capability second to none. How any of this is in the Russian strategic interest is yet to be explained.By contrast, Hillary Clinton, following the policies of Barack Obama, stated she would, by not building missile defenses—no small strategic matter—continue the policy of vulnerability to Russian, Chinese, and Iranian ballistic missiles; delay the upkeep and modernization of our nuclear weaponry; and, pursue a reduction of our conventional military forces. On traditional strategic grounds, it defies logic that Putin would have preferred Trump to Clinton.
JOHN adds: We noted here that the Russians enthusiastically hailed the election of Barack Obama. Why? Because he was a Democrat and an internationalist, while “[a]ll Republican presidents have always defended national interests….” Is there any reason to think the Russians have changed that view in the last eight years? No.
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