Russia and Ukraine have been in the news a lot in recent weeks. President Putin has been massing Russian troops along the Ukraine border and is threatening to invade that country to prevent it from joining NATO and allowing NATO missiles to be based so close to Moscow. NATO Ministers claim that Ukraine is not being proposed as a member. Putin says that to prevent war, NATO must stop it's eastward expansion altogether including troops and missiles. This has indications of being similar to both the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1961 (in reverse) and the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939.

However the United States and it's NATO allies are holding better hands of cards than did Krushchev or Chamberlain decades ago but, the Russians have a reputation as excellent games players. I hope Biden and other NATO leaders can match his game play.

What cards do we hold? Well... first off Putin wants to be thought as the head of a great power and feared by all. Other than fielding a huge army, Russia is no longer a great power. They have lots of nuclear missiles and they have lots of troops and the would probably prevail in an invasion of Ukraine. But at what cost to themselves. Russia is clawing it's way back to economic prosperity through energy exports and Internet based crimes. Putin does not want to give up the prestige of creating economic prosperity and he doesn't want to kill of 25 million Russians as some of his predecessors were willing to do. He needs peace with the West, not war.

Putin is very much like Trump (although probably smarter). Everything is about him. Not much is about Mother Russia. He neither wants nor can afford a major war with NATO forces and he knows that he can't use his nuclear arsenal without seeing Russia destroyed. His army is not the Red Army of 1947 or even 1977. The CIA knows this. His army can engage in clandestine cyber warfare with the West. He can blackmail western companies to pay ransom for cyber crimes. Western Europe buys a lot of natural gas and oil from Russia. Those are his strengths.

Two areas where the United States hold commanding leads over Russia are economic issues and technology. We need to respond to Putin's threats with counter-threats and actions that do not involve troops on the gound or missiles in the air. We have the ability.

The Russian economy depends heavily on the use of the Dollar and the Euro for commerce, both domestic and international. Russians are believed to possess more $100 United States currency bills that do Americans. Russian wealth is measured in Dollars, and to a lesser degree Euros, not Rubles. To counter Russian aggression the US needs to destroy this Russian wealth. Freeze all Russian bank accounts. Print new $100 bills that Amercans and allies can take in exchage for what will be come worthless Ben Franklin dollars. Prevent the Franklins in Russia from being exchanged.

The Russian economy depends heavly on the Internet and cyber-criminals. Russia claims to be creating it's own Internet. Let them. Furthermore Russian websites and hackers can be removed from the existing Internet simply by reprogramming the routers (US technology) to block all traffic from Russian ip addresses.

We need to prevent the completion of the natural gas pipeline that will run from Russia to Germany.

We need to completely isolate the Russian economy. We can threaten this, we can accomplish this.

In the area of military cyber-technology we are light years ahead. All of the current hacking being done by the Russians is using software developed by the CIA. We are the creators of hacking software. We need to use it for our benefit. During the first Iraq war the CIA allegedly installed the Stuxnet virus in some IBM printers that were being exported from Germany to Iraq. When these printers were plugged in the virus took down the entire Iraqi air defense radar system. Don't think we don't have similar capabilities today. Russia is dependent upon US and Western technolgy. Make them pay.