Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump

[Nadiru]

And that's wrong too. You do_not_ have a counter argument here in the slightest. This gets back to the larger point: American politicians need to stop pretending that their domestic campaigns and domestic politics don't have international consequences and international interests. Once upon a time American politicians generally knew that. Now they flagrantly don't care, so long as it benefits them. That must not be the case. All foreign intervention and assistance must be reacted to with nothing but condemnation and scorn.

The key difference here though, is that Saudi Arabia is an American ally that operated on a small scale, while Russia is an American enemy operating on a large scale with this a component in their grand strategy to role back America's global role. Now as a matter of principle, a country interfering is a country interfering, but the two don't cross each other out. Rather if we ignore Russia's actions now for the sake of protecting your guy Trump, what happens over the next 4 years is more pro-Russian, anti-American events.

Just remember: Vladmir Putin is the man who described the Fall of the Soviet Union as the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century (as in, he lamented it's dissolution). The man does not have America or yours interests at heart.

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There has been no paradigm shift, period. (1) Trump narrowly won the electoral vote while decisively losing the popular vote. (2)Obama's people said and thought the same thing in 2008. And look how that turned out.


If you actually think that Trump's victory heralds some new era in this country and the world that declares that will see Trumpism ascendant, I invite you to go talk to Barack Obama 2008's most enthusiastic supporters and ask them how our counter-establishment, post-racial liberal society is working out. After all wasn't "Demographics supposed to be destiny"?

But you won't because Trumpkins winning is all about the feels and not on iota about what to do constructively now that he won. I mean you guys can't even get your narrative right. "Drain the Swamp"? Nice three Goldman Sachs guys Trump has picked. And it seems perhaps the CEO of Exxon Mobile as Secretary of State.

The paradigm shift isn't Trump, you wingus. The paradigm shift is Citizens United and the impact it will have on American elections going forward. Trump vs. Clinton is just the overture; wait until a medium-sized power like Germany or Britain decides it might gain from that sort of Inside Guy status. Or Japan, or worse, China.

[Elim Garak]

Just remember: Vladmir Putin is the man who described the Fall of the Soviet Union as the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century (as in, he lamented it's dissolution).

Stop spreading mistranslated information not to mention inferences from it. Putin was quite clear what he meant and it has nothing to do with USSR itself nor lamenting its dissolution.

[Nadiru]

Wait, are you seriously trying to claim that these hacked emails weren't everywhere in the news? And that that didn't damage Clinton?

It got considerably less play than the Trump Is Evil narrative.

[Elim Garak]

I love this BS. My evidence is multiple intelligence agencies with access to the relevant data saying it was Russia. What evidence do you have that that is bullshit?

What evidence do they have? I love this BS too.

[Stacyrect]

Are we supposed to take the washington post serious now? They were just caught posting fake news.

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/...y-shady-group/

Now we are supposed to believe that 'secret' cia 'no name sources' and grapevined 3rd party accounts of meetings which no transcripts for verification exist that this is legit?

The kool aid is real

[Elim Garak]

They have evidence that is classified so as to keep those weaknesses in Russian hacking in tact for future detection. Basic shit.

Basic shit indeed. BS for short.

[Kaleredar]

A) If you say so
B) I'm criticizing people for claiming saying they didn't see anything in emails they obviously haven't read since the most public emails show rather shady things. I don't expect everyone to read everything, nor did I say I did.

What, precisely, in those emails was cause for concern?

The fact that the democratic party supported the registered democrat is not a grand conspiracy in my mind.

[Elim Garak]

Must smell amazing up there. I am sure you would say rose like.

You are the expert here.

[Hiricine]

Russia hacking the DNC to expose all of the silly stuff they were doing to support the establishment's favorite candidate was one of the greatest favors anyone has done to the American people. We could only hope that they'd hack the RNC too so we can see how much they tried to screw Trump as well.

[Skroe]

The good news is this is likely to blow up in Vladmir Putin's face.

America and Russia are on a collision course because our fundamental interests are in direct opposition. Putin is right that for Russia to win, America must lose, and vice versa. However if he thinks he is going to get a sympathetic friend in rolling back America's global role in Trump, he has another thing coming.

First of all, Trump's chosen generals and security picks are all part of the American orthodoxy when it comes to America's global role, and Flynn excluded, all of them are deeply part of the American orthodoxy that is confrontationalist with Russia.

Secondly America's security and foreign policy instutitons, which the President has control over only in name (8 years of Obama, and he still regards them as a hostile force), are profoundly anti-Russia (among other things). When in the other Russian thread, I linked that the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs regards Russia as America's number one threat, a Trumpkin scoffed that that would change now that Trump is in charge.

The Trumpkin does not get it.

The president can have his policy. But the institutions he is at the head of has their own. Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama, three two term Presidents, have all failed to change them. Trump will be no different (in fact, the opposite, a hardening, is likley to happen). This is the foreign policy / security institution that three months ago, when John Kerry and Barrack Obama announced their partnership with Russia over Syria, smothered that baby in the crib by "accidentally" bombing 60 Syrian troops in response to a minor provocation by the Russians, thus deep sixing Obama's agenda and two months of work by Kerry in about five minutes.

To put it another way, while they take an oath and follow the President's orders, they interpret their mandate very broadly. Trump will find their institutional resistence to a change of Russia policy too strong to beat.

Thirdly, Congress is profoundly anti-Russian and that will not be changing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.8a9737e31b5b

Leading Senate Republicans are preparing to launch a coordinated and wide-ranging probe into Russia’s alleged meddling in the U.S. elections and its potential cyberthreats to the military, digging deep into what they view as corrosive interference in the nation’s institutions.

Such an aggressive approach puts them on a direct collision course with President-elect Donald Trump, who downplays the possibility Russia had any role in the November elections — arguing that a hack of the Democratic National Committee emails may have been perpetrated by “some guy in his home in New Jersey.” The fracture could become more prominent after Trump is inaugurated and begins setting foreign policy. He has already indicated that the country should “get along” with Russia since the two nations have many common strategic goals.

But some of Trump’s would-be Republican allies on Capitol Hill disagree. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (Ariz.) is readying a probe of possible Russian cyber-incursions into U.S. weapons systems, and he said he has been discussing the issue with Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (N.C.), with whom he will be “working closely” to investigate Russia’s suspected interference in the U.S. elections and cyberthreats to the military and other institutions. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been apprised of the discussions. Burr did not respond to requests for comment.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) also said he intends to hold hearings next year into alleged Russian hacking. Corker is on Trump’s shortlist for secretary of state, according to the Trump transition team.

“They’ll keep doing more here until they pay a price,” Graham said of Russia. He plans to spearhead legislation and hold a series of investigative hearings next year into “Russia’s misadventures throughout the world,” including Russian meddling in the U.S. elections.

[Republican lawmakers move to restrain Trump on Russia]

“I’m going after Russia in every way you can go after Russia. I think they’re one of the most destabilizing influences on the world stage. I think they did interfere with our elections, and I want Putin personally to pay the price,” Graham said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday.

McCain said his Armed Services Committee will launch a probe in the 115th Congress into Russia’s cyber-capabilities against the U.S. military and weapons systems, “because the real threat is cyber,” he explained.

And then this happened today:

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/...ato-commitment

WASHINGTON — Top US congressional leaders met with representatives from Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia on Wednesday in order to reassure the Baltic nations that the US will honor its NATO commitment, despite comments made by President-elect Donald Trump on the campaign trail.

The attempt to reassure the allies was apparently important enough to draw top members of Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz.; Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn; his Democratic counterpart, Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland; and others, including Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.

In a statement, McCain said the US officials used the meeting to convey “our abiding bipartisan commitment to the NATO alliance, to our obligations under the North Atlantic Treaty, and to the defense of our Baltic allies against Russian aggression.” He also said he would be visiting the Baltic states later this month.

The effort was enough to reassure the visiting dignitaries, according to Mārtiņš Bondars, a member of Latvia’s parliament and a chairman on the Latvian Regional Alliance parliamentary group. Bondars said he was “very happy and thankful” after the discussion.

Bondars, a former basketball star and banker who ran for president of Latvia in 2015, admitted Thursday that many in his country were concerned by Trump’s comments made over the summer that implied he may not respond to aid NATO countries if they were not spending at least 2 percent GDP on defense. However, he walked away from the meeting trusting that the Trump administration — and its Senate allies — will meet their treaty obligation.

The meetings came as a bipartisan group of 27 US senators, led by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio — the co-chairs of the Senate Ukraine Caucus — called on Trump to continue America’s tradition of support for Ukraine and the NATO alliance.

"In light of Russia’s continued aggression and repeated refusal to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereign right to choose its own destiny, we also renew our call for the United States to increase political, economic, and military support for Ukraine," the letter read. "This includes defensive lethal assistance as part of a broader effort to help Ukrainians better defend themselves, deter future aggression, and implement key structural reforms. Similarly, we believe that Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea should never be accepted, nor should we lift sanctions imposed on Russia for its behavior in eastern Ukraine until key provisions of the Minsk Agreement are met."

The US Congress on Thursday sent US President Barack Obama an annual defense policy bill for 2017 that boosted the authorization for $350 million in US security assistance to Ukraine — $50 million more than last year.

The security assistance and intelligence support fund has been expanded to cover equipment and technical assistance to the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine for the purpose of developing a comprehensive border surveillance network for Ukraine, as well as training for staff officers and senior leadership of the military.

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Russia hacking the DNC to expose all of the silly stuff they were doing to support the establishment's favorite candidate was one of the greatest favors anyone has done to the American people. We could only hope that they'd hack the RNC too so we can see how much they tried to screw Trump as well.

The Times is reporting they did, and they're sitting on the information.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us...tion-hack.html

[Blobfish]

Sounds like some bullcrap put together by (TAO) Tailored Access Operations of the NSA.

Oh they do miss warmongering Hillary.

[Skroe]

The paradigm shift isn't Trump, you wingus. The paradigm shift is Citizens United and the impact it will have on American elections going forward. Trump vs. Clinton is just the overture; wait until a medium-sized power like Germany or Britain decides it might gain from that sort of Inside Guy status. Or Japan, or worse, China.

Do you even have a point? Like you're blowing chaffe here throwing out other country's names. Yes, as a matter of principle, we need to lock down our electoral process to insulate ourselves from foreign interference, period. No argument there.

But the concern here is that the country named by our defense community as the number one threat to American security just played a role in selecting our national leader. Are you so blinkered by Trump you don't comprehend the horror of that?

[Nadiru]

The good news is this is likely to blow up in Vladmir Putin's face.

America and Russia are on a collision course because our fundamental interests are in direct opposition. Putin is right that for Russia to win, America must lose, and vice versa. However if he thinks he is going to get a sympathetic friend in rolling back America's global role in Trump, he has another thing coming.

First of all, Trump's chosen generals and security picks are all part of the American orthodoxy when it comes to America's global role, and Flynn excluded, all of them are deeply part of the American orthodoxy that is confrontationalist with Russia.

Secondly America's security and foreign policy instutitons, which the President has control over only in name (8 years of Obama, and he still regards them as a hostile force), are profoundly anti-Russia (among other things). When in the other Russian thread, I linked that the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs regards Russia as America's number one threat, a Trumpkin scoffed that that would change now that Trump is in charge.

The Trumpkin does not get it.

The president can have his policy. But the institutions he is at the head of has their own. Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama, three two term Presidents, have all failed to change them. Trump will be no different (in fact, the opposite, a hardening, is likley to happen). This is the foreign policy / security institution that three months ago, when John Kerry and Barrack Obama announced their partnership with Russia over Syria, smothered that baby in the crib by "accidentally" bombing 60 Syrian troops in response to a minor provocation by the Russians, thus deep sixing Obama's agenda and two months of work by Kerry in about five minutes.

Can you explain to me why Russia is considered Public Enemy #1? Is it just a byproduct of the Cold War? The Russian Federation is on a severe downswing and have been for years; Putin temporarily salvaged the economy in 2000 by reorienting it towards energy and raw materials exports, which dovetailed neatly with an explosion of production in China and a rising economic tide in Europe, but in doing so, Putin also hollowed out a core of Russian industrial experts left over from the Soviets (they went to Europe or the US) and now the commodities boom is pretty much done, so now what? Russia already showed us that their land-based power projection capabilities extend to...well, the eastern half of Ukraine. They have Sevastopol again, but not much else going for their sea power, and in any event Russian goals are fixated on the following:

1) Recreating East European satellite states to dominate in trade and act as a defensive buffer
2) Maintaining control over the Caucasus
3) Eliminating threats to the Caucasus

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Do you even have a point? Like you're blowing chaffe here throwing out other country's names. Yes, as a matter of principle, we need to lock down our electoral process to insulate ourselves from foreign interference, period. No argument there.

But the concern here is that the country named by our defense community as the number one threat to American security just played a role in selecting our national leader. Are you so blinkered by Trump you don't comprehend the horror of that?

See, because I've seen you make light of Citizens United in the past I feel obliged to really hammer it home that it's badwrong. Badong, if you will.

[vetinari]

Do you even have a point? Like you're blowing chaffe here throwing out other country's names. Yes, as a matter of principle, we need to lock down our electoral process to insulate ourselves from foreign interference, period. No argument there.

But the concern here is that the country named by our defense community as the number one threat to American security just played a role in selecting our national leader. Are you so blinkered by Trump you don't comprehend the horror of that?

Dude, if one politician promises to help you, and the other politicians promises to screw you, you vote for the one that promised to help.

At that point, it doesn't fucking matter if he's a Kremlin puppet or not. It doesn't matter if he's going to break his promises and screw you anyway. You roll the dice and hope it doesn't come up snake eyes, because at the point all you have left is a gamble and hope.

[Berri]

I mean, did anyone actually doubt that WikiLeak's email data came from anywhere but the FSB?

Yeah, you can call this interference in the election - but it's not like anything was leaked that wasn't true. If Hillary didn't want the contents of those emails to hurt her chances, maybe she shouldn't have done / said the things that generated that content in the first place.

If the CIA finds that Russia hacked into / ballot stuffed voting machines - OK; I would consider that a big deal. As far as other countries 'influencing' elections go: Russia's hacking is clearly in a grey area (and clearly based in self interest / aimed at undermining the US), but if there is serious concern about this type of interference then there should probably also be outrage about sources of funding / a million other little things.

The fact is that US presidential elections solicit a LOT of foreign interest / intervention: as far as I am concerned, there is no point painting different venues of intervention in different grays. It's dangerous to pick and choose - if you do, you're basically saying 'it's OK to intervene as long as you do it in a specific way'.

TL;DR: I basically agree with Skroe's statement

All foreign intervention and assistance must be reacted to with nothing but condemnation and scorn.

[Deleted]

Russia backs the candidate that says they want peace with them. Is that supposed to be surprising?

Ten pages earlier, nearly verbatim what I wanted to say - is it really that surprising that a foreign nation doesn't want a candidate in power that regularly demands a war with them?

[Nadiru]

TL;DR: I basically agree with Skroe's statement

Blind agreement is foolish; I doubt for example Skroe has compelling answers to dealing with a naturalized American citizen who shills for their home country, or how first-generation immigrants (pretty sure Skroe is for open borders, but at least he'd be consistent if he weren't) are supposed to avoid that condemnation and scorn for the foreigner that his position must necessarily engender.

[Skroe]

Can you explain to me why Russia is considered Public Enemy #1? Is it just a byproduct of the Cold War? The Russian Federation is on a severe downswing and have been for years; Putin temporarily salvaged the economy in 2000 by reorienting it towards energy and raw materials exports, which dovetailed neatly with an explosion of production in China and a rising economic tide in Europe, but in doing so, Putin also hollowed out a core of Russian industrial experts left over from the Soviets (they went to Europe or the US) and now the commodities boom is pretty much done, so now what? Russia already showed us that their land-based power projection capabilities extend to...well, the eastern half of Ukraine. They have Sevastopol again, but not much else going for their sea power, and in any event Russian goals are fixated on the following:

1) Recreating East European satellite states to dominate in trade and act as a defensive buffer
2) Maintaining control over the Caucasus
3) Eliminating threats to the Caucasus

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It is multifaceted.

What you're describing is a country in a terrible decline, anticipated to accelerate in years ahead as it's economy and industry contract further, as its population declines, and as it's institutions and infrastrcture decays. A core concern is what happens when this country armed with 1550 nuclear weapons and a huge base of knolwedge about advanced weapons in general, falls into disarray. As the saying goes "a weak Russia is more dangerous than a strong Russia". Those 1550 nuclear weapons (with another few thousand in storage) are the only arsenal in the world capable of devastating the United States. China's arsenal is largely pre-modern and overally tiny (280 warheads total with just 70 modern ones) that while it could cause severe damage, is not an existential threat to the US.

For decades there has been a concern about the spread of Russian military technology. Technology has "roots" so to speak. Early US ballistic missiles, for example, where evolved versions of the V-2 rocket design... a design eventually migrated away from, but enough to provide a base of technology for years. Current Western CPU design is historic in nature, and different than what Soviet-sphere contemporaries came up with decades ago (and fell by the wayside). The ballistic missile programs of Iraq (previously), Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Libya (previous), Syria and to a degree India, all use the Scud missile design the Soviets sold to them in the 1970s and early 1980s (before the Missile Technology Control Regime came into force) as a foundation in the way the V-2 was our foundation. So the spread of Russian military technology in a way that challenges America has happened, and leads to the logical concern of what happens when Russia has to lay off nuclear scientists... does Russia's nuclear knowhow spread too, like it's rocket designs did?

The world has worked very hard, with many programs, since 1992, to contain JUST this possibility and been largely successful. But should Russia go over a cliff, it would be a fire sale of talent that the West could not control. Even the few ex-Soviet scientists who did go work for rogue states in the 1990s and 2000s caused tremendous damage.

Another cocern is that of state actors, Russia has been among the most aggressive in recent years. Case in point, what happens if Russia, in order to boost it's falling population, decides it needs to integrate Russian speaking minorities in neighboring countries? It invites military adventurism. We've already seen some of that in Ukraine... and it could just be the preview.

Russia has also been building it's A2/AD wall, specifically to keep the US from being able to act in Eurasia.



Russia has unilaterally violated the INF Treaty, something the Bush and Obama Administrations have been collecting information and getting angrier over since 2007. This is a big deal. The INF Treaty was the only treaty to ever eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/wo...nf-treaty.html

Russia left the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty in 2015 that placed limits on heavy weapons in Europe.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ks-with-russia

Russia has been by far the most aggressive actor when it comes to Cyberwarfare.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/12/...gainst-russia/

In fact, malware directly connected to Russian intelligence has been found littered all over our infrastructure, called BlackEnergy. BlackEnergy was used to disable parts of the Ukranian power grid in 2015.
http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/s...aq-blackenergy
http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs...ector-threats/
http://arstechnica.com/security/2016...ng-escalation/

Conventionally, Russia's ground forces are militarily superior in Europe... in the short term. The US has greatly pulled back its ground forces presence in Europe over the last 20 years, and while it is sending substantial equippment back and would win in a conflict, Russia certainly has "home field" advantage.

Furthemore conventionally while the US has invested heavily in technology meant to assist in it's campaign against terrorism, Russia has been making strides in conventional warfare while the US has lagged. For example, while the US has developed drops to loiter and target terrorists, Russia has integrated drones with their artillery units, which the US is only just starting to do. Furthermore those same artillery units on the Russian side use cluster munitions, which the West stopped using (and America under Obama) - despite the fact they're far more effective.

And now, as we've seen with it's fake news / intelligence campaign, it is directly invested in shaping public opinion in other countries.

Put together, this creates a multidimensional threat to the United States that eclipses anything terrorists, China or rogue states can do.

So whats Russia's end game? To push the United States across the Atlantic, rewrite the outcome of the Cold War and end the American lead international order. They are the only country in the world directly acting in pursuit of such grand goals, which is what makes them the top threat. Throwing up their A2/AD wall, while it would not be impenetrable by US aircraft and missiles by any means, makes it more dangerous for the US military to operate. By collapsing the alliance system in Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, they would push US power further away from their shores. By ending the American lead international order, they would throw into question the entire post-1945 and post 1992 consensus on what defines human rights and good governance... obviously something that would benefit a Russian autocratic regime and not democracy.

And that is what this comes down to: an assault on democracy itself. China may try this, actively, 20 or 30 years out. They are not trying that today on a global scale. Russia is. This is not the Cold War. This is what comes next - a country that got itself back on its feet (as you describe) and is trying to prevent it's irrelevant future by striking at the pillars of it's rival's power.

See, because I've seen you make light of Citizens United in the past I feel obliged to really hammer it home that it's badwrong. Badong, if you will.

You must be mistaking me for somebody else. I was as outraged as anybody by Citizens United. My personal preference is France's voting system, which has caps on what candidates and their affiliates can raise and spend before they are disqualified.

Spending billions on a campaign is immoral and outrageous.

[Uzkin]

The good news is this is likely to blow up in Vladmir Putin's face.

I don't think it can. The alternative was Hillary, who was explicitly hostile and outright paranoid towards Russia. Anyone else was the better choice really (for Russia) so Putin made Trump the president. Even if it turns out bad it was still worth the try; the alternative would've been worse.

[Nadiru]

So whats Russia's end game? To push the United States across the Atlantic, rewrite the outcome of the Cold War and end the American lead international order. They are the only country in the world directly acting in pursuit of such grand goals, which is what makes them the top threat. Throwing up their A2/AD wall, while it would not be impenetrable by US aircraft and missiles by any means, makes it more dangerous for the US military to operate. By collapsing the alliance system in Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, they would push US power further away from their shores. By ending the American lead international order, they would throw into question the entire post-1945 and post 1992 consensus on what defines human rights and good governance... obviously something that would benefit a Russian autocratic regime and not democracy.

And that is what this comes down to: an assault on democracy itself. China may try this, actively, 20 or 30 years out. They are not trying that today on a global scale. Russia is. This is not the Cold War. This is what comes next - a country that got itself back on its feet (as you describe) and is trying to prevent it's irrelevant future by striking at the pillars of it's rival's power.


You must be mistaking me for somebody else. I was as outraged as anybody by Citizens United. My personal preference is France's voting system, which has caps on what candidates and their affiliates can raise and spend before they are disqualified.

Spending billions on a campaign is immoral and outrageous.

Okay, but why does "the Putin connection" with Trump imply that Russia might actually succeed in its endgame? Germany still has half a country which profoundly remembers the failure of the Soviet system, to the point where it's largely former East Germany that's trying to vote the CDU out. And this is ignoring other players in the region, especially Poland, which the US ought to have been buttressing for years; yet another failure of Obama. The US does not (and probably ought not) have to be the only country that gives a shit whether Russia owns the Continent.

The most Trump is doing is delaying action against Russia, but that's irrelevant because time isn't on Russia's side, it's on the US'.