DALE: Russian decline

Putin understands the democraphic threat and that is why he is making his move to neutralize NATO now. If he can intimidate Europe out of NATO and into a Russo-European security pack, through energy or military intimidation, he gains the European population. After all, Marxism and Socialism, even Democratic Socialism are not that far apart. He has set all the storms in motion. He has backdoored technology to Iran, he has sold huge weapons system to Venezuela and the Arab States and he is intimidating Israel in hopes of provoking an attack. The ultimate would be for the Straits of Hormuz to be blocked, Chavez to cut off oil to the U.S. and the Democrats in Congress to continue blockading additional energy independence supplies (drilling). With this amount of leverage, the European nations could no longer support NATO because of a lack of U.S. support.