The United States must join Europe to resist Russias meddling - WaPo [View all]

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For many Americans, President Obama’s announcement of sanctions against Russia last week brought home a shocking realization that Russia is using hybrid warfare in an aggressive attempt to disrupt and undermine our democracy.

But for many Europeans, this is old news. As Obama was educating the American people about the threat, three senior senators were getting a lesson from leaders of three NATO countries that have been barraged with Russian meddling. Having fought alone for years, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are begging the United States to join the battle.

The critical foreign policy question facing the Trump administration and Congress in 2017 is whether the United States will partner with these and other Western democracies against what has emerged as a global campaign of low-intensity aggression by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Acknowledging the true scale and the scope of the problem is the first step.

“If there’s any silver lining on this attack on our democracy, it will be that’s it finally clear what Russia has been doing across the world stage,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) told me in an interview from Tallinn, the Estonian capital, where she had traveled with Republican Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.).
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Adding to concern in Washington, Trump and his top advisers have been meeting with representatives of the pro-Russia far-right parties in Europe while snubbing the governments of major European countries.

Trump’s potential strategy amounts to appeasement of an aggressive dictator and abandonment of U.S. leadership on issues such as human rights, democracy promotion, the rule of law and media freedom. For a self-described dealmaker, it sounds like a terrible bargain. - WaPo

America is under siege by what appear to be agents of hostile foreign governments, elected by hoodwinked Joe and Jane red-state voters.