...
It seems he's not kidding, and, according to FM Lavrov last week, there's a hint certain of my compatriots will want to ponder:
Many reasonable analysts understand that there is a widening gap between the global ambitions of the US Administration and the country’s real potential. The world is changing and, as has always happened in history, at some point somebody’s influence and power reach their peak and then somebody begins to develop still faster and more effectively. One should study history and proceed from realities. The seven developing economies headed by BRICS already have a bigger GDP than the Western G7. One should proceed from the facts of life, and not from a misconceived sense of one’s own grandeur.I have yet to read it entire, my contacts being out and needing to format the thing radically narrower so my glasses can make up for the deficit... but there seems to be a shift. Putin seems to be willing to let those engaging in economic warfare against him suffer the consequences of their own decisions, no longer waiting for them to finish shilly-shallying.
It has become fashionable to argue that Russia is waging a kind of “hybrid war” in Crimea and in Ukraine. It is an interesting term, but I would apply it above all to the United States and its war strategy – it is truly a hybrid war aimed not so much at defeating the enemy militarily as at changing the regimes in the states that pursue a policy Washington does not like. It is using financial and economic pressure, information attacks, using others on the perimeter of a corresponding state as proxies and of course information and ideological pressure through externally financed non-governmental organisations. Is it not a hybrid process and not what we call war? It would be interesting to discuss the concept of the hybrid war to see who is waging it and is it only about “little green men.”
Apparently the toolkit of our US partners, who have become adept at using it, is much larger.
[link and emphasis mine]
always and any time....
