With every passing day, it appears that many of the anticipated foreign policy changes under the new administration may end up being nothing but smoke and mirrors. First, it was the middle east, where despite campaign promises of pulling back US troops, Trump is instead considering adding to US deployments to reinforce what he plans to be Syrian "safe zones."
On the same day that it emerged Russia has secretly deployed controversial new cruise missiles and buzzed a US Navy destroyer, a Russian spy ship was reportedly spotted off the East Coast of the United States. On Tuesday morning the Vishnya-class intelligence ship, the SSV-175 Viktor Leonov, was spotted patrolling off the coast of Delaware. It comes at a time when the Trump administration is trying to find a replacement for national security adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned Monday.
As reported overnight, in the aftermath of Mike Flynn's resignation, the Trump administration - facing mounting domestic and international security concerns - has rushed to find a replacement for the top National Security Advisor job. The scramble to replace Flynn began on Monday evening and continued with phone calls and meetings into the early hours of Tuesday in an effort to enable Trump to make a decision and put the matter behind him as soon as possible, Reuters reported.
As a result, three names have emerged.
Seems that Hillary Clinton is putting all of her extra free time, courtesy of her unexpected early retirement, to good use trolling Trump cabinet officials on Twitter. Late last night, the two-time failed presidential candidate posted a link to a tweet from long-time confidante Phillipe Reines directed at Mike Flynn and his son saying "what goes around 'COMETS' around," a reference to the PizzaGate scandal. Per Hillary:
"Philippe's got his own way of saying things, but he has a point about the real consequences of fake news..."
First a spy ship off the US East Coast, now a banned missile.
According to the NYT, Russia has (not so) "secretly" deployed a new ground-launched intermediate-range cruise missile in violation of a 1987 treaty with the US which helped end the Cold War, despite complaints from American officials.