This isn't that complicated. Imagine what would have happened in Iraq or Afghanistan if the president was an intelligence asset they had cultivated for decades. Not to mention tons of senators, represntatives, and influential NGOs like the NRA. Also all those social media psyops that are disappointingly effective at sowing division in the US.
Russia has an incredible amount of influence in the US and is still getting wolloped, although not nearly as much or as quickly as they should/could be.
When I cleared out my grandma's attic there were her ww2 correspondence letters with soldiers on the front.
I was not prepared for the amount of american soldiers writing about how wonderful Hitler was and we shouldn't be at war in Europe because the real enemy were the Reds.
"Heil Hitler and Fuck the Reds!" is a line from one.
It really put the inevitability of the Cold War into perspective.
That’s significantly different from putting boots on the ground in Europe which was going awful for America until Stalingrad and the point I was trying to make about Pearl Harbor was that the Japanese command knew it couldn’t beat America outright and was trying to establish the territories that would constitute the Japanese empire after the war ended.
The pacific theater was Japan trying to get America to say “you know what? Fine! Have some little shitty islands!”
