Anybody think USA at fault for continuing the "cold war?" (bet rump does NOT know what that means)

[Eliot Rosewater]

Without coaching rump wouldn't know what the cold war really was, first of all.

And I have heard from many different circles that we cant blame ole Vlad because it really is the USA that continued the "cold war" and all Putin did was try and keep up, react.


Anybody here think there is anything to the accusation that it is OUR fault?

I dont think it is our fault, wanted to get that on the record.

[First Speaker]

1. I'm not sure it's a matter of "fault"...

...both sides bear some responsibility. It's pretty clear the US didn't live up to agreements--possibly informal--they made with Russia after the Cold War ended. It's also clear that Putin, inasmuch as this is true, simply regarded these broken agreements as pretexts to establish an authoritarian state. This would have happened no matter what the West did. I also don't think it's appropriate to use the term "Cold War" at all, regarding today's events. The Cold War was a specific ideological conflict between western liberal democracy, and Communism. Our conflict with Russia today is more of a traditional Great Power conflict, with ideology, though not absent, more of a secondary matter. We're more like the days before 1914, rather than 1945-91. Not that that's a particularly cheerful analogy...

[The Polack MSgt]

2. We didn't kick off a new cold war

We reacted to a nuclear power becoming a criminal dictatorship.

[bearsfootball516]

3. Trump probably thinks that a cold war

Is something he flies down to Mar-A-Lago for until it starts to warm up again.

[BoneyardDem]

4. Russia and most especially Vald, have always blamed the USA for the fall of USSR

there was never a time when they put that animosity aside. There was never a time when the Russians did not plot to damage and aid in the fall of Democracy and the USA. For decades the bade their time, planned and plotted this long term action that we are seeing play out. They have always worked slowly but surely, putting a thousand little plays, a thousand more messages, inserted hundreds if not thousands of persons into high ranking positions to work towards the horror we are witnessing today in the USA and throughout Europe.

Remember a couple of years ago when the USA ejected 10 Russians sleeper cell spies...integrated into high level jobs over very many years.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/29/fbi-breaks-up-alleged-russian-spy-ring-deep-cover

The FBI has arrested 10 alleged Russian spies and broken up a "long term, deep cover" network of agents that spent years adopting American identities and gathering an array of intelligence, from information about nuclear weapons to the gold market and personnel changes at the CIA.
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In an indictment that might have been taken from the plot of a cold war thriller, the FBI alleges that the Russian intelligence service, the SVR, sent spies to live in the US under false names with the intent of becoming so Americanised they could build relationships with sources and gather information without raising suspicion. Some of the agents lived as married couples and had children who have grown up as Americans unaware that their parents are Russian.

Russia was not happy about the exposure

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-27/top-spy-convicted-of-exposing-us-sleeper-cell/2773646

A Moscow military court has convicted in absentia former top foreign service agent Alexander Poteyev of betraying 10 "sleeper" spies expelled from the United States last year.

Poteyev was convicted of treason and desertion, Russian news agencies reported.

Prosecutors had demanded a 25-year jail sentence for Poteyev, who is believed to be in America after reportedly fleeing Russia just days before the spies' exposure in the US.

so they probably killed him

https://www.rbth.com/defence/2016/07/07/runaway-russian-intelligence-agent-dies-in-the-us_609709

Former Russian Intelligence Service Colonel Alexander Poteyev, who fled to the U.S. and was convicted in absentia by a Russian court to 25 years in prison for state treason, has died in America. The Interfax news agency obtained this information on July 7, 2016.

"According to certain information, Poteyev died in the U.S,” the Interfax report says. “At the moment the information is being verified."

The reason and circumstances of his death are unclear. Another source confirmed having received the information from abroad but said that, "this might be disinformation intended to have Russia forget about the traitor."