Paul Roderick Gregory: Seven warnings to Donald Trump about Vladimir Putin
Russia's President Vladimir Putin makes his New Year's address to the nation in Moscow's Kremlin, Dec. 31, 2015.
Vladimir Putin’s praise of Donald Trump as “a very outstanding man, unquestionably talented” has been reciprocated by Trump’s calling Putin “a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond” that they “would get along very well.” Trump has shrugged off warnings of Putin’s perfidy by citing lack of proof that Putin “kills journalists, political opponents and …invades countries.” Only the naïve would know there will be no such proof when the Kremlin controls prosecution, justice and the secret police. Putin’s hybrid warfare and its plausible deniability complicates proof of crimes against the international order, despite obvious Russian military engagement in Georgia and Ukraine.
