In the week a rather alarmist title of Voice of America, an organ close to the US state caught my attention. The headline was “Pentagon Worried About Russian Sympathies Cultivated Among US Troops.”
The thesis of the American media is more or less this: Russian efforts to weaken the West with a relentless media war are starting to produce results. They are even weakening a key factor in the US defense line: the military. And this creates alarm in the Pentagon.
Although most Americans still view Moscow as a key opponent in the United States, new polls suggest that the vision is changing, particularly among the families of military members.
Worrying sympathies, worrying amnesias
“Remember,” the Voice of America continues, “when Russia bombed Belgrade, invaded and occupied Iraq, began an eighteen-year quagmire in Afghanistan, created anarchy in Libya, financed and armed al-Qaeda in Syria, and expanded its bases to the borders of the United States? No? Not even us."
Perhaps the US soldiers are simply tired of the failures of the army and intelligence and recognize the uncomfortable fact that Russia has often been of a different opinion compared to the choices (later turned out to be wrong) made by the USA in terms of wars to replace regimes around the world .
The poll that alarms the Pentagon
The second annual national defense survey, completed in late October, found that nearly half of armed services families surveyed, 46%, said they viewed Russia as an ally.
If we extend the survey to "civilians" as well, the survey found that 28% of Americans identified the Russia as an ally, compared to 19% the previous year.
While the majority, 71% of all Americans and 53% of military families, still view Russia as an enemy, the peak of pro-Russian sentiment grows a lot and worries defense officials.
US Pentagon warning: why is sympathy for Russia growing?
Perhaps US military families are intelligent and empathetic enough to know that the “first” Cold War is long over, and that has meaning. A possible “second” Cold War can only bring bad things to one direct confrontation with Russia. Not to mention the US involvement in Ukraine, a sort of “proxy war” that has nothing to do with American national defense.
Public opinion in the USA dictates a change
The causes of the new poll results can be expected to carry political weight even in the endless investigations into the alleged “Trump-Russia” narrative. Although it is probably the republican roots to which this change of view can be ascribed.
The Cold War of the media
“There is an effort by Russia to flood the media with disinformation to sow doubt and confusion”. The Department of Defense spokesman said lieutenant colonel Carla Gleson, voicing the Pentagon's alarm.
Some Facebook posts sponsored by the Kremlin and Trump would express a desire for better relations with Putin, and suddenly the military would be “pro-Putin” too? Not very credible.
Perhaps the "doubt and confusion" derive from endless wars costing billions of dollars to change regimes and occupy territories everywhere? Perhaps they depend on the human costs, on the price of dead and maimed Americans? It seems to me that this problem does not come so much from Russia, but is endogenous to the USA.
