Alarm! Alarm!

No really, as it turned out, Russians are not viewed by many in America as blood-thirsty interfererers  in American democracy and genetically predisposed baby-eating monsters. Moreover:  

WASHINGTON - Russian efforts to weaken the West through a relentless campaign of information warfare may be starting to pay off, cracking a key bastion of the U.S. line of defense: the military. While most Americans still see Moscow as a key U.S. adversary, new polling suggests that view is changing, most notably among the households of military members. The second annual Reagan National Defense Survey, completed in late October, found nearly half of armed services households questioned, 46%, said they viewed Russia as ally. Overall, the survey found 28% of Americans identified Russia as an ally, up from 19% the previous year.

You see how powerful Russian "propaganda" is? But I think the answer to this mystery is rather simple and the key word is "households". Yeah, yeah, you know those heterogeneous families which have to live not only with long separations but also with the danger of a family member being killed or maimed in Washington's non-stop wars of aggression. This is not your regular middle-class (if it still exists) sub-urban environment--it imposes completely different social, cultural and mental requirements for the family to survive. Now, consider the fact that Russians do not want to fight and speak about this openly and, yes, yes, did view at some point of time the United States as a natural ally--this moment is long gone. But Russians do not allow sodomy Internationale to destroy their own country and that could be (wink, wink) one of those factors too. But to any American who bothers to access Russian media, many of which are subbing in English, they may be culturally shocked by the fact that Russians do not hate, and in fact, sympathize with the average Americans and are keenly aware of the fact that Russia is facing US corrupt and aggressive "elites" who are the real enemy. 

Now a short statement. Couple of days ago Deputy FM Ryabkov, later corroborated by Putin himself, offered to "discuss" (I underscore it) inclusion of Kinzhal and Poseidon systems in negotiations on the extension of the START.  Calm down, if some of you read it as a "surrender" (I lost count how many times Russia "surrendered" in the last 10 years) it is not--discussion is not a limitation, a limitation is not a rejection and both Russian and American sides are keenly aware of the significance of especially Kinzhal. It is allegedly a non-strategic weapon which has even in conventional form a massive strategic effect by basically annulling all NATO's naval power as a start, it is capable of land-strikes too. I, personally, don't think that new START's extension will be signed, but it really does mean very little at this stage, plus I could be wrong, of course, but as they said in the Landsraad" "The forms must be obeyed."