Are the US intelligence "demanding to be blindly trusted" ?
Or - hypothetically - if the US intelligence is only 80% reliable - isn't it still worth signalling to their Russian counterparts that "we see you, don't try it" ? That might be the real intended audience.
> Are the US intelligence "demanding to be blindly trusted" ?
They totally are. They were downright shocked that AP's Matt Lee didn't just go along with it.
The question is not whether Russia would ever do such a thing. The question is if the USG actually has evidence that they plan to do such a thing.
One particularly ugly thing Russia did in Syria, was send out warnings that "the rebels are planning a false flag attack" to give Syria cover for actual attacks they were making.
That illustrates that Russia is untrustworthy, sure, but we already knew that. However, it also illustrates how worthless unsubstantiated claims of forthcoming false flag attacks are.
> Or - hypothetically - if the US intelligence is only 80% reliable - isn't it still worth signalling to their Russian counterparts that "we see you, don't try it" ? That might be the real intended audience.
They've got phones and meetings for that. it's 2023, everyone is fully aware what, where and how things are happening. What they do is bargain on who gets what, all things considered.
Yeah, I take your point. The idea behind putting the possibility of Russian fake news into the public view is more likely ... well, putting it into the _public_ view. Because such fake news is an attempt to change public opinion.
Or - hypothetically - if the US intelligence is only 80% reliable - isn't it still worth signalling to their Russian counterparts that "we see you, don't try it" ? That might be the real intended audience.
Isn't this also a fairly plausible accusation about Russia, given previous operations, e.g. "little green men" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_(Russo-Ukrain... and apartment bombings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings