As our former governor Jon Huntsman heads to Russia to navigate a situation beset with complexities, a president who often undermines his own chosen people and who is also currently mired in an investigation of this very country, I echo the prescient warning of our very own Mitt Romney of 2012.
Russia is still our greatest geopolitical foe.
With our current president acting in sync with the Obama of 2012, who called for “more flexibility” toward Russia, in a world that seems preoccupied with the rise of China, I argue that Russia is still continuing the Cold War. According to the World Bank, Russian military spending has increased from about 3.5 percent of GDP in 2010 to 5.5 percent at present. Compare this to the trend of the U.S. and the rest of the world in the same period, when the United States went from 4.6 to 3.2.
Russia’s aggression is only growing, from Ukraine to Syria to the U.S. election to aiding North Korea. China has everything to gain from the stability of U.S. hegemony while Russia continues to push at U.S. hegemony with a consistency that is only accelerating with the decline of U.S. world dominance.
Shelly Daines, Bountiful