OK, now look: Western democracies (EU,
NATO, US) are stupidly easy to manipulate. The Iranian Mullahs have
US foreign policy dancing upon the tips of their fingers. Communist
China regularly has profits of $billions, not to mention a foreign
currency reserve that other nations can only fantasize about, and she
can even finance a new blue-water navy.
Russia can easily be a regional hegemon
and world power that Stalin could only dream of. I shall now reveal
the secret, so listen up.
First, you have to get rid of Vlad The
Impaler. He reminds me of an impetuous adolescent that chucks his
microwave burrito across the room, upends the table, stomps around
the kitchen, and screams at the top of his lungs, all because he is
not getting his way.
Second, be a friend to the West. Give
back the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. Do a mea culpa: publish a full
and honest report of exactly what you have done to Ukraine with your
military (a tear or two, real or not, would be a help). Say that you
are sorry. Join the EU. Export Osetra caviar and vodka to the West
(the good stuff, not that sewer swill that can found in any American
supermarket). Sell obsolete SU27s/MiG25s and T62/72 tanks that you
would have tossed onto the scrap heap anyway to former Warsaw Pact
countries at firesale prices. I promise you: dump trucks will back
up in your driveway and deposit enormous piles of gold that you could
only have dreamt of before.
There, that wasn't so hard, was it?
(crickets). Hello? (crickets).