Modern Russia—a revanchist and autocratic mafia state—is pursuing the same geopolitical ends as the Soviet Union, but it is free at last of communism’s ideological constraints. It is more reckless and dangerous to the West than the Soviet Union was.
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This threat is only dimly understood by much of the American public. It is actively denied by a fantasist wing that imagines us “teaming up” with Russia to “knock the hell” out of ISIS, or "swapping" Crimea for Syria.
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The American military is the only thing of its scale that has ever been built with the intention that it never be used. It does not exist because Americans want to go to war. It exists because Americans—sane ones, anyway—want to live in peace.
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It confounds me, then, that Trump’s destruction of our deterrent elicited cheers from Americans. They are the ones who pay trillions in taxes for a military strong enough to deter an adversary, one absent the signal of will is just a dangerous and ludicrously expensive bauble.
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Trump took a match to their tax dollars and set them alight. But of course, it is not just their fortune he has carelessly (or deliberately) torched. It is their lives, and their children’s lives, that he has put at risk. None of this seems to have dawned on us.
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A large number of Americans are sincerely thrilled: They believe Trump stuck it good and hard to our freeloading allies, and put them in their place.
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They are insane
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There has always been a historic rivalry between Europe and the US. It is, fundamentally, a rivalry that reflects what Freud called the narcissism of small differences. American and European cultures and societies are essentially dialects of the same language.
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Indeed, we literally dp speak dialects of the same language. There is nothing like a natural alliance, similitude of culture, or shared values between the United States and Saudi Arabia, or the United States and China.
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But as Freud also pointed out, the narcissism of small differences is profoundly dangerous. It gives rise to the most vehement species of aggression. It is easily exploited. It is being exploited.
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No, Freud pointed out that the narcissism of small differences effectively *canalized* the most vehement species of aggression: universal love
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