Go here: Club Orlov and scroll down to read the speech, then back up to read Dmitri Orlov’s analysis. This is a very important speech. It defines the threat posed by the USA to the rest of the world as clearly as Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech drew out the perils of the USSR. Russia today is not the USSR of old: and, the Cold War over, the USA’s empire building has become progressively more apparent and violent.

I do not admire Mr. Putin, but I respect what he has to say, which itself can be interpreted on many levels. He’s a hardliner, no question about it: there is not a shred of idealism in what he has to say. On the other hand, his honesty is refreshing. His strategy is such that it can play out successfully even if his opponents are aware of it.

This, then, points out the danger to the USA, particularly a danger from within. The USA is acting as if it were the sole superpower in a world that is no longer unipolar. China and Russia have no intention of running their nations to the benefit of Wall Street bankers, and they are enabling other nations to break free of entanglements with American financial and power structures. When the USA “steps on the same rake” over and over again by using extremists to topple democratically-elected governments that won’t dance to the tune playing from Washington DC, it further antagonizes the rest of the world, which is by now tired of seeing US-sponsored “freedom fighters” turn out to actually be al-Qaeda affiliates, neo-Nazis, and Islamic State soldiers. Remember all those Baathists that the USA ejected from power in Iraq in 2003? They’re turning up in IS forces.

Putin’s speech is very important, and it points to how the USA must now behave as it did in the Cold War: taking measures carefully, so as not to make mistakes that would destroy nations.