The Arrogance of Vladimir Putin

               On March 1^st Vladimir Putin demonstrated a video to the Kremlin showcasing a new branch of nuclear missile. Putin stated that these missiles can’t be shot down by ground to air defense systems and can reach anywhere in the world that they are invincible. The video ended with an animated missile strike on Florida. Putin seems to overestimate the United States’ missile defense system and whether he actually has the technology to create missiles this advance; President Trump still needs to respond to the video showing this cluster missile landing in Florida, so Putin doesn’t think that he can walk on the United States and get away with it. A tweet probably isn’t enough to be taken seriously. A speech or press conference where Trump condemns this video would be enough if Trump would give press conferences again. Vladimir Putin is getting too comfortable with insulting the United States and needs to be stopped. Trump needs to stop him.

               During his campaign and even before, Trump called Obama weak on Russia. On March 7^th, 2017 Trump tweeted “For eight years Russia ran over President Obama, got stronger and stronger, picked off Crimea and added missiles. Weak!” Never in Obama’s presidency did Russia animate a video with a nuclear missile landing on the United States. Now Putin is trying to flex his military strength over the United States since Trump has been so docile to Russia for a over a year now.  On February 20^th Trump tweeted again criticizing the Obama Administration’s foreign policy toward Russia stating, “thank you fox for the great timeline on all the failures the Obama Administration had against Russia… we are now starting to win again!” Despite frequent attacks toward the Obama Administration Trump himself has yet to say anything remotely criticizing to Vladimir Putin or even the Russian government in general. The Muller indictment has provided ample proof already of their interference in the 2016 election and Trump still hasn’t said anything. Regarding the Russian interference I think that Trump is probably okay with it because it resulted in him winning the election vs Hilary. Trump is unable to see the big picture and implications on the national scale. That other countries cannot be allowed to interfere in our politics. He only cares about defacing the image of opposing politicians. Trump himself has already been played by Russia in that sense they had a tremendous effect on his campaign and probably got him a measurable percentage of votes. In the Cold War, any reference by Russia towards the United States was meant with political responses from the United States. No Russian head of state would have dared to create a video of a nuclear missile landing in Florida because it would’ve resulted in war. But now in 2016 the Trump administration won’t even respond. How is this not a direct threat straight from the Kremlin to the United States?

If the U.S. released a video of one of our nukes landing somewhere in London, the British government would be furious. The Trump administration should have the same reaction to Russia. If our own government doesn’t address threats to our national safety and security, then we look weak and cowardly as a country. The Trump administration needs to send some kind of message to Russia telling them that it is not okay to demonstrate your nuclear missiles with an animated attack on Florida. By no means do I think that Russia and Vladimir Putin are going to start dropping nuclear missiles on the United States but just like so many other interactions between heads of state, it comes down to image. If Russia thinks that they can create threatening videos towards the United States, then who’s to say what else they think they can do. Before the 2016 election controversy Russia was under scrutiny for covert operations in Syria without Russian uniforms.  In the past decade Russia has been pushing their agenda with more and more force on the international scale. Covert operations in countries where Putin promised not to interfere, meddling in the United States electoral processes, and now animating videos depicting Nuclear war on the United States. To preserve the image of the United States and protect our people from any potential dangerous actions by Russia, the Trump administration needs to send a firm and direct message telling Russia that these kinds of actions are unacceptable.

Posted by Spencer White