Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

The constant Russian interference, combined with the regular escalation from the jets patrolling, and the radar jamming, really needs to be dealt with.

We're stuck between having to do timid actions and full NATO escalation. This feels like constant creep.

I have read reams of rhetoric regarding relations with Russia rehashed as "don't poke the bear".

No one ever seems to want to discuss what to do about the bear going around poking everyone else.

The bear metaphore is indeed nonsense. Russia is not a bear, you are dealing with a bunch of state level criminals.

   The state of Russia is essentially better understood as a criminal gang masquerading as a country.

Those stealing, money laundering, killing, trafficking an warring circles of oligarchs are heavily rooted in Intelligence Services, inside and abroad. Some of those oligarchs even have private militaries.

Those people primarily care for themselves. They know they can get away with a ton of insane and inhuman shit, as they calculate the other well-behaving party will back off. They however do not want to get nuclear consequences themselves, it is pure bluff.

> problem starts if (when?) Trump and his clown posse turns the US into a similar setup

Lots of institutional checks in America that post-Soviet Russia lacked.

> Lots of institutional checks

You're right but given enough time of the "right" type of people entrenching their power (which of course may not be "one term" but that could be enough to put things on a path), and even the best of checks and defense mechanisms start to evaporate or just become a tool against what they were intended to defend.