Interference

It was reported today that hackers, allegedly operating on behalf of the Russian government, managed to influence the outcome of the American presidential election. Their findings were handed over to Wikileaks, who published the relevant material. This made a couple of things clear to me.

Hilary Clinton had too much baggage from the past, waiting to be unearthed, to be a safe candidate that would stand up to scrutiny. She failed in that regard. The Democratic Party made a definite mistake in putting her forward. Oh, don't get me wrong - I like Donald Trump even less.

The Russian government, in its dealings with rival countries (like America and the European states), has decided that direct, military confrontation, is not going to work. NATO has been flexing its muscles directly on Russia's borders, with the Baltic states, in the aftermath of the Ukrainian crisis of 2014.

So, weakening is in order, and it is beginning to look that it is in the Kremlin's interest to have a weak president, Donald Trump, in the White House. Further interference is becoming apparent in the German elections in autumn 2017, with ferreting being detected against Angela Merkel.

The Brexit phenomenon will weaken, if not cause the demise of, the European Union in the next decade or so. The Brexit poll, heavily slanted on the nationalist angle, will see its reflection in the Dutch parliamentary election in March, with anti-Islam and anti-immigrant candidate Geert Wilders, likely to end up with the largest number of seats. I'm not suggesting any Russian interference in the Netherlands, they are unwittingly doing the Kremlin's job themselves.