Vladimir Putin and Hillary Clinton
During the 2012 presidential debates, President Obama mocked challenger Mitt Romney for identifying Russia as the “No 1. geopolitical foe” of the United States. “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” Obama quipped. Four years later — after Russian aggression in Ukraine and Crimea, along with a political crackdown within its own borders — there’s broad consensus that Russia is indeed a serious threat to the United States and its allies. But there’s still widespread misunderstanding of what Russia is about.
The idea that Russia is trying to help Trump went mainstream over the summer. “Donald Trump’s presidential bid can count on at least some backing from Moscow,” Guardian world affairs editor Julian Borger wrote in one of many such reports. This is less a myth than a conspiracy […]
