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CIA Director John Ratcliffe, during secretive trip, warned Russia not to attack NATO
(www.cbsnews.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2026
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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.
The US has main character syndrome. It's hereditary from Britain, who have managed to tone it down a bit in recent years.
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.
The US rules because of the $, that's it.
Well for sure it's most of it. But the dollar is not what it used to be.
As a reserve currency it is declining, And USA had problems bailing out the Japanese Yen, which they wanted to do to prevent Japan from selling US treasury bonds. They did it anyway selling off Euro. Only to have the US treasury bonds decline in value 2 days later anyway, prompting USA to buy up their own bonds, while at the same time issuing new bonds.
It's a complete madhouse, and the US dollar is becoming less dominant in the world, as the US economy is declining, and the federal debt is becoming unsustainable.
The thing that used to make that enormous debt sustainable was that USD was the global reserve currency, but having to much debt, undermines the reserve status, and that in return undermines US finances.
But yes you are right, since WW2, the USD has been a huge part of the American global leadership.
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.
I honestly don't think he gives a shit. He will just claim that this wouldn't have happened if NATO allies and Europe had increased defense budgets earlier like he demanded. And that Russia attacking NATO is the fault of the NATO allies, and btw NATO isn't helping USA in Iran.
This would be nice if true, but I don't believe Trump would ever allow that. Trump is managing the administration as if it was an autocracy.
NATO isn't helping against Iran because USA is the aggressor.
Yes but even though we aren't obligated by article 5, almost all NATO countries traditionally help USA in their stupid wars because we ~~are~~ were allies.
But this time, all allies were very quick to declare the war illegal, which makes it illegal for most countries to help USA because they have laws that forbid participation in illegal wars.