So I’ve been thinking the American post-Cold War relationship with Russia is we knocked them back 3 steps, and we understand that’s not going to last forever just we want to make steps back long and expensive enough they can’t rush through them on momentum without other forces recalibrating to counterbalance.

Even the thing now is – what does Russia want? The land and people between Kharkiv and Lviv committed to acting as a loyal defense of post-Soviet Russia, with secure basing for the Black Sea fleet in the Donbas? They had that in 2013, that’s not even moving up to the -2 step position, that would be merely getting back to -3 from -4.

Anyway people all silly about “Russian propaganda” but more than English-facing stuff I’m wondering how the spin war is going in the uh, fourth party rising powers to which “you’ll never have a shot until the American order is broken” might resonate