This scenario has been running since Obama was elected.  Putin... good cop.  Obama/Trump... bad cop.  Everybody, including a lot of people in the USA have been looking to Putin to save the day.  He is the world leader showing restraint... right?  He is exposing the CIA funding of ISIS... right?  He shows restraint while the US and Nato run troops right up to his border fences and destabilize places like Ukraine... right?  And meanwhile Obama/Trump draw lines in the sand and then dare Syria/N Korea/Iran (or whoever the bogeyman of the week is) to cross them.  It is debatable whether Trump dropped the MOAB on Afghanistan.  (The only non-nuclear equivalent to 10,000 tons of TriNitroTrinaline is, well, 10,000 tons of the stuff, and I do not think the Air Force has a plane to get anything like that off the ground.)  But when Trump made that lame speech about why he fired missiles into Syria, he definitely dropped the Mother of all Bombs on his presidency.  Ever since "wikileaks" released the Podesta emails, we have been hit with a dog and pony show to the third power (to mix metaphors) and it gets more insane with each passing week.
(Really, you have to be taking stupid pills to swallow that stuff about Trump's daughters tears and babies.  )

We are being hit right now with a full barrage of weapons of mass distraction. :jumping2: :cussing: :barf: :o  

Don't buy all the hype about a nuclear exchange, that ain't happening.

The thing to watch is the "economy".  The powers that be have only two options:  Continue to pretend that credit is money or print, print, print (banning "cash" simply means they don't have to use paper, which as the Weimar Republic learned, can get danged expensive.) until we are issuing trillion dollar bills (not sure Zimbabwe got that high a denomination, but I know they went past a million) and then when we can print no more, unplug the internet and the power grid, blame it on- pick one- N Korea, Russia, Iran, China, Syria, Lebanon, ISIS, Home Grown Terrorists, or maybe all of the above.

You know how the game goes from there.  Anybody who does not salute the current regime and sign up for the draft or buy war bonds will be labeled an "enemy combatant" and probably shot dead on the spot, because what is left of the economy will not be able to afford to feed him rice in labor camp.  Look no further than Venezuela for the template... first we eat our dogs, then we shoot our neighbor and eat his dogs, then we shoot the soldiers and eat their rations, and then we shoot ourselves in despair (If we are not good Catholics devoted to Our Lady of Fatima.  If we are devoted to Our Lady of Fatima, we should be praying at least 5 decades daily and of course she will give us the signal graces we need so we will be digging up the yard for dandelion roots- which had a bumper crop in our neck of the woods despite the chemtrails- and I know I'm  .)