Russia plunders while Trump babbles

While the Trump administration bungles a humanitarian crisis at our southern border, to the north, Russian President Vladimir Putin is advancing in the Arctic. He is establishing a permanent military district in the wilderness: Russian special forces are training for a potential conflict there; new brigades of military personnel are being developed and training exercises are being expanded; and Moscow is methodically upgrading and expanding its missile systems in an area that is dangerously close to the United States.

This is also a geopolitical threat to Canada and Norway.

The United States Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic could be home to vast amounts of oil and natural gas—13 percent and 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered supply, respectively. Melting ice in the Arctic Circle has opened up new transit routes and revealed previously inaccessible oil and natural gas fields. In recent years, Russia unveiled a new Arctic command with four new brigade combat teams; 14 new operational airfields; 16 deep-water ports; and 40 icebreakers, including many nuclear-powered vessels, with an additional 11 in development. The United States has one.

Russia has worked diligently to reassert its military presence in the Arctic frontier and secure access to a strategic northern shipping corridor: the Northern Sea Route between Asia and Europe. Russia also is planning to start restricting the passage of foreign warships in the Arctic Ocean, which includes the Northern Sea Route.

So, while Trump bellows about the people who live beyond our southern border, Putin, whom Trump calls “a strong leader,” is grinning like a Cheshire cat. Russia has no intention of developing friendly relations with the United States; the vision is disruption, destruction and decomposition of Western democracy.

Turn around, Mr. President, the real threat is not the impoverished families to the south. The danger is what climate change has done to the permafrost to the north: opening up energy exploration that Russia is poised to take advantage of while you wistfully dream about your wall. How very sad for the “best brain in the world.”