Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an appearance on "Axios on HBO" previewed what he expects to come out of the Putin-Biden summit set for June 16 in Geneva. The short answer is:
not much except for vague warnings and threats, it appears. Blinken said during the interview that the US president intends
to warn Putin "directly and clearly what he can expect from the United States if aggressive, reckless actions toward us continue."While explaining that Washington would prefer a "more stable" relationship with Russia, Blinken also sought to distance the White House from growing criticism that Biden is getting 'weak' on promises to "stand up" to Putin, particularly after recently dropping sanctions on the German company overseeing completion of the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Blinken tried to assure Axios' Mike Allen that Biden is meeting with Putin face to face to deliver a
tough message:
Biden is meeting with Vladimir Putin nine days from now "not in spite of" the cyberattacks that disrupted U.S. meat and gas supplies: "It's because of them."
He further repeated the prior common assessment of US officials which don't see any "breakthrough" coming from the meeting.
"I can't tell you whether I'm optimistic or not about the results," Blinken said. "I don't think we're going to know after one meeting, but we'll have some indications... We're prepared either way."
His comments on US leadership in the world and China seeking opportunity to take over where Washington influence is absent or waning were also interesting...
"We've certainly seen China ... try to fill voids where we've been relatively disengaged." And he added the caveat - "and maybe not in a way that advances our interests or values."
"Our partners see the same thing that we do," he explained. "If you're looking at all of the really big problems that we're trying to solve — ... like the pandemic, like climate change, like emerging technologies ... — no one country can do it alone."
Comment: So not only are the cyber attacks increasing in frequency and intensity and somehow coinciding with the
Cyber Polygon - World Economic Forum - Great Reset anticipation of the grand mother of all cyber attacks (not to mention the agenda of restructuring the world's economies and societies) - but the US political class and media is also managing to further demonize Russia and prime the public for 'the big one'.
How's
that for mind job?!
Its not only Secretary of State Antony Blinken who'd been tasked with
broadcasting the psy-op:
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Sunday called for more public-private cooperation on cyber defenses and said U.S. adversaries already are capable of using cyber intrusions to shut down the U.S. power grid.
"I think that there are very malign actors who are trying," she said. She added: "Even as we speak, there are thousands of attacks on all aspects of the energy sector and the private sector generally."
[...]
Asked whether American adversaries have the capability now of shutting down the U.S. power grid, she said: "Yes, they do."
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States and other countries should talk to countries such as Russia, which is believed to be the origin on some ransomware attacks, about law enforcement and intelligence cooperation "to shut it down."
Rice said this would "test the reality of how much the Russian government is or is not involved" in these attacks.
Granholm was on CNN's "State of the Union" and NBC's "Meet the Press," and Rice appeared on "Face the Nation" on CBS.
And this from the
Senate Sergeant of Arms:
Senate Sergeant at Arms Karen Gibson said Saturday she is more concerned about a cyberattack on the government than another insurrection like the one that rocked Capitol Hill on Jan. 6.
"Our networks ... have attempted intrusions every single day. And so, cybersecurity for me is a much greater concern than the prospect of thousands of people storming the West Terrace," Gibson said in an interview that aired on CNN Saturday.
"Members have sensitive information that they would not necessarily want to have disclosed that may be in documents. Much of what we do is public. And meant to be so," Gibson said. "But I would worry about ... nation-state actors or others who might try to just really cripple the government's ability to function by locking down cybercommunications networks."
And the FBI is priming the public to
think of these attacks in terms of 911:
The FBI is investigating about 100 different types of ransomware, Director Christopher Wray revealed in a new interview, in which he compared the security challenges posed by cyberthreats to the terror threat of 9/11.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Thursday, the FBI director made the comments in the wake of two recent ransomware attacks that sent meat and gas prices skyrocketing as suppliers were left unable to move their products.
"There are a lot of parallels, there's a lot of importance, and a lot of focus by us on disruption and prevention," Wray explained, referring to this month's hack against JBS Foods, the world's largest meat supplier, and the similar attack on Colonial Pipeline in May.
Comment: So not only are the cyber attacks increasing in frequency and intensity and somehow coinciding with the Cyber Polygon - World Economic Forum - Great Reset anticipation of the grand mother of all cyber attacks (not to mention the agenda of restructuring the world's economies and societies) - but the US political class and media is also managing to further demonize Russia and prime the public for 'the big one'.
How's that for mind job?!
Its not only Secretary of State Antony Blinken who'd been tasked with broadcasting the psy-op: And this from the Senate Sergeant of Arms: And the FBI is priming the public to think of these attacks in terms of 911: