The purpose of CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow this week was to warn Russia not to attack NATO member states, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, amid U.S. intelligence assessments that Russia could try to test NATO.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    USA has very close to zero influence on either Ukraine, Russia or Europe.
    Why the fuck does he think it matters what someone from the Trump administration says? Especially since they change their minds constantly.
    Seems to me that Putin has a way bigger influence on Trump, and the job was to take a message back to trump that needed to be 100% sure not to be intercepted.
    It is very clear that USA would not aid Europe or NATO if Putin attacked, the same way USA isn’t aiding Ukraine, despite they promised to do so for Ukraine giving up their nukes.
    Maybe Putin needed to remind Trump that he still has the P-tapes, P as in pedo.

    • tabarnaski@sh.itjust.works
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      5 hours ago

      This has nothing to do with influence. The US doesn’t want to intervene in Europe, but they are bound by NATO. Trump could decide he doesn’t care, but the consequences of not helping a NATO country would be far more damaging to the US, a country the whole world hates right now (apart from Israel maybe).

      Ratcliffe knows this and my guess is he’s trying to convince Moscow that Trump doesn’t call all the shots.

    • palordrolap@fedia.io
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      12 hours ago

      Why the fuck does he think it matters what someone from the Trump administration says?

      The US has main character syndrome. It’s hereditary from Britain, who have managed to tone it down a bit in recent years.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        That is true, but to be fair, UK kind of was the main character until WW2, Then USA became the main character.
        But USA has made themselves irrelevant, their military power is now shown to be somewhat a paper tiger, and their global political influence is only a fraction of what it was a few years ago.
        But what makes USA more irrelevant than anything, is their absolute inability to stand by any agreement they’ve made. Trump is even tearing up agreements he made himself. Like the trade deal with Canada. And the agreement they made with Iran before the attack. An agreement that gave USA basically everything they asked for!

        So USA is kind of still the main character in some way, but they are not worth negotiating with. USA is probably the most untrustworthy country in the world right now. And also the absolute lack of standing by any ally, makes them irrelevant even to allies.
        Only Russia and Israel have real influence on Trump, and both Russia and Israel had strong ties to Epstein.

        Which is why I suspect that what the CIA director said is pretty irrelevant, what matters is what Putin said. And we will probably never know what Putin said.

        If we see USA as the main character, the way to see it is that the main character is writing himself out of the script with an extremely poor performance nobody likes.