“But I think you’re stretching if you claim Putin wants to see America destroyed and Americans enslaved.”
Then you don’t know Putin very well. He’s still wishing for the good old days of Stalin. Religion to him is just a political tool, and the Russian Orthodox church has long been infiltrated and controlled by the KGB.
This is an example of naively accepting Russkie disinformation at face value. They’ve gotten you to think of Russia as no longer a threat.
If Putin is an enemy of this country, why has he taken the right side on several international issues? Syria is one example. If Putin wanted to weaken us, wouldn’t it have been better for him to get us embroiled in the Syrian civil war?
I just don’t think it’s as simple as it once was during the Cold War era. I could be wrong, but you’ll have to offer more proof of Putin’s ill will toward Americans than simply claiming he’s out to see us enslaved.
I don’t think many of the younger Soviet elites like Putin really believed in Marxism in the end, any more than the ChiComs believe in it today. It was (and is for the ChiComs) an excuse to keep power. IMHO Putin is a ruthless Russian nationalist. When that meant spouting Marxism, that was fine. Now it means spouting Orthodoxy, and that’s fine. If he thinks Russia’s interests coincide with ours, he’ll help us. Most of the time he doesn’t. He generally sees us as an adversary, but I doubt he’s an Marxist ideologue intent on enslaving us, or believes he could.