Dick Morris: Putin's Real Goal Is Toppling US

The war in Ukraine is not even a week old, but we have clarity as to Vladimir Putin’s real goal for this war.

It is not about Ukraine ... but it is about bringing down the United States as a world power.

On Thursday during Moscow’s early morning hours, Putin made a nationally televised address.

In his speech, Putin made abundantly clear that the battle now raging in Ukraine is no more about Kyiv than Pickett's charge was about control of Gettysburg.

This invasion is just the opening shot in a new Cold War with the goal of bringing the U.S. down, hobbling NATO and undermining democracy everywhere.

Putin told his Russian audience that America was “the global con artist” and had perpetrated an "empire of lies."

The U.S., he said, had "satellites [who] not only humbly and obediently say yes to and parrot it at the slightest pretext but also imitate its behavior."

He claimed, falsely, that the U.S. was seeking to equip Ukraine with nuclear weapons to destroy Russia.

Putin added: “Overall, it appears that nearly everywhere, in many regions of the world where the United States brought its law and order, this created bloody, nonhealing wounds and the curse of international terrorism and extremism.”

He also asserted that America’s social experimentation was a grave threat to Russia, noting that the U.S. “sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within; the attitudes they have been aggressively imposing on their countries, attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature. This is not going to happen.”

No doubt, Putin is going for our jugular, as Adolph Hitler did, and we must not let latter-day isolationists pave his path.

For 70 years, the Republican Party and its conservative philosophy and support for “national security” gave America the backbone it needed to respond to the global challenge of communism and Russian expansionism.

Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, isolationism was the dominant ideology among Republicans and a strain of it has never quite disappeared.

Even after World War II, some Republican isolationists opposed NATO and disagreed with the Marshall Plan’s funding of European recovery.

But it was President Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower who argued that we had to stand firm as Joseph Stalin gobbled up Eastern Europe.

At the 1952 Republican Convention, the ultimate isolationist — Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio — faced off against Eisenhower in a battle for the soul of the Republican party.

Ike won, and the GOP has led the country in being the party that best supports our nation’s security.

Today, we again have seen the re-emergence of a strong isolationist faction, one that made clear its position before the invasion of Ukraine.

For example, Tucker Carlson in his prime time perch on Fox had parroted some of these points.

“You can't say it enough, Ukraine is not a democracy," Carlson said just this past Tuesday, a claim that is simply false.

But after Putin’s invasion rhetoric turned into real blood Carlson did an about face on his Thursday night show.

He admitted that Putin had started the war and is to “blame for what we're seeing tonight."

That statement was true and a positive development.

The “facts” now on the streets of Kyiv and in other cities freedom-loving Ukrainians are engaging Russians in hand-to-hand combat, will change many minds about Putin’s real agenda with Ukraine.

These facts have changed Europe, where there is now almost near unanimity in the view that they must stop Putin.

The EU and countries like Britain have slapped severe sanctions on Russia. They are re-supplying the Ukrainians with arms.

And Germany has awakened, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz saying his nation will begin a massive military buildup in response to Putin’s aggression.

The Europeans understand this is not just about Ukraine.

Meanwhile, President Biden took off for vacation this weekend, and like his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama, has “led from behind.”

Putin’s decision today in putting his nation on the highest nuclear alert shows just how high the stakes really are for the world.

Looking back, we know that Hitler made clear his intent and his plans in his many speeches.

Likewise, Putin is not deceiving us when he says this is a war on the West and the United States.