How Should We Respond to Foreign Attempts at Sowing Discord and Violence

There's a lot we can do beyond mere words that don't involve resorting to violence.
Maybe some of those things will work, maybe they wont... all I'm saying is that unless Russia starts firing on us,
it makes sense to at least give some of those other options a shot before we go and start shooting up others ourselves.

For instance, right now we have a whole bunch of directed sanctions placed upon certain individuals and businesses within Russia, but I believe there may be a good deal more we can do in that respect, particularly if we work closely with other countries to enact them. So perhaps its time we started turning up the heat on the foreign bad actors with yet even more and even harsher sanctions.

You mentioned Assad, and coincidentally, from what I know of the situation, his regime happens to be one which has been propped up and supported by Russia even amidst all the killing. Because of that support, sanctions on a person like Assad and his violent enterprise probably wouldn't be that effective. But who would be the one to support Russia once their country starts to go bankrupt? The Russian government may like to have others believe that they're one of the most powerful nations on the planet, but in my opinion, in reality they may be a whole lot weaker than anybody thinks, which is probably why they resort so much to subversion. They're weak! They have a lot of bombs, a good few tanks, and more money and resources than a small country like Syria, but when it comes to the big players on the global stage, both financially and structurally speaking they may as well have nothing for all the influence it affords them. They're being propped up themselves by oil at the moment, but even that is running out and at the same time their customer countries are starting to turn more elsewhere for their oil needs. So they're scared. Afraid that what little power they have left is dissipating, that their own people may turn on them eventually (more-so than they already have, a likely reason for their general anti-democratic stances) and the Russian government is too inept to figure out any good ways to strengthen themselves by other means, so they turn instead to subversion and even direct violence to attempt to get what they want. i.e. they try to drag other countries down rather than build themselves up.

So since they seem to be so driven by fear of losing power and influence, let's make it unequivocally known to them that unless they cease all their bs that we as a country, along with our allies, are going to severely hamstring them financially to ensure that they lose it even more rapidly and more completely. Perhaps that will scare them into stopping. There's no guarantee of it of course, but again, if we're seriously considering firing off missiles into the Kremlin, exhausting all options sanction-wise must be something we try before things come to that.

-Meta

 

So... are you saying that people should stop speaking critically of politicians?
That politicians should not speak critically of one another or of the people?
That not even policy should be discussed unless in an election year?

Please correct me if I'm not understanding it right... also I'm a little confused on the last bit.
How is expressing grievances any different than political criticism?
Or is it less about whether or not/when those various political opinions are made known,
and perhaps more about how they're made known?...

-Meta

 

Again, what should we do if Russia or another foreign government tries to pull what Russia tried to pull in France and Montenegro? How should we respond to such actions? What kinds of preventative measures can we take and what can we do to ensure things do not explode into wide-scale violence as a result?

-Meta

 

Express themselves how exactly? Aren't people already allowed free expression today?

Again, what change are you suggesting from the way we currently do things?

So... is your suggestion then for us to bring back torture??

-Meta

 

I think it would be better to not point fingers at one another and focus instead on coming up with solutions to the issue that can be universally applied as opposed to selectively enforced based off of ones political affiliation. Nothing good will come about from blaming entire groups for the actions of a few after-all. And keep in mind, that getting us to hate our neighbors and to be at each-other's throats, is exactly what certain malicious foreign influences are hoping for...; try not to play right into their hands by painting with too wide a brush...

-Meta

 

What do you mean?

What exactly are you saying here? Please explain.
Are you suggesting that the solution to foreign actors trying to sow violence is
for people to stop voting for politicians that you personally disagree with??
Or are you saying people shouldn't use hashtags??? Please clarify...

Does it really matter which ones? Again, what I'm interested in here are solutions, not finger pointing.

-Meta

 

I actually think ideas like these could have a pretty big impact and go a long ways towards improving things.
The details on the regulations would have to be worked out though, we'd want to ensure that they weren't overdone,
and basing them off of the existing regulations we have for broadcast media is probably a good way to handle that.

Agree with the sanctions as well. Hit 'em in the pocketbook!
I'll definitely make sure to include these in the list latter.

This is another really good point, and one I don't think has been discussed at all in this thread yet.
We'd be a lot less susceptible to certain kinds of foreign influence if we had better ways of dealing with corruption in our own system.
Any ideas in particular on what we could do to clean house?

-Meta