Congratulations to Vladimir Putin on his unimaginably successful campaign to use the United States to implement his global strategy.

In just a year and a half, Putin has managed to help elect Donald Trump, pit Americans against each other, use U.S. government officials to try to shut down the Mueller investigation, establish a private communications back channel with the President of the United States (including private meetings with him), isolate the United States and diminish its influence on the world stage, and to use the President to sabotage the NATO alliance and drive wedges between the U.S. and our allies.

Putin has accomplished all of this despite operating from a position of striking weakness, with a Russian economy that lags far behind that of western nations, a long period of diminishing Russian influence, and the ascendancy of China as the strongest non-western nation. And the key to Putin's against-all-odds success is not any brilliant overt actions or leadership on his part. He was just a corrupt leader of a third-rate country until his aspirations were attracted the energetic, willing assistance of the President of the United States and the Republican Party.