US General Calls President Putin World's Most Respected and Feared Leader

Russian President Vladimir Putin is probably the most feared and the most respected leader in the world today, and is also very popular in his own country, retired General Jack Keane told Fox News.

He claims Europe and the US "have neither the will nor the intention to stop him.  They may impose some more sanctions on him, he is going to ignore them.”

The military analyst lamented that the US is not doing “things that would matter” and named what those would be.

“That is providing aid to the Ukrainians, lethal force to make a difference on the battlefield, moving significant forces to the Baltics so that Putin does not try this as step two.”

The general believes President Putin’s ultimate goal is “to challenge the very existence of NATO. He knows that the transatlantic alliance is weak and he is going to take advantage of it.”

The general does see no decisiveness from Europe and US to roll back Russia's influence forcibly.

“All you can get out of them is rhetoric. There may be some increase in sanctions but even the Europeans are pushing back on that. And if it is, it will have no effect on Putin.”

The general also commented on China, noting that it posed an emerging threat to the US.

“Many people looked at China for years and believed that for a long time they had a defensive military strategy. Just recently they have changed their strategy. They clearly want to dominate in the Western Pacific. And they are going to be much more aggressive and much more assertive in doing this. You can see that being played out now as they are building islands in the South China Sea.”

“China clearly sees the Western Pacific as[presenting] a role that they believe they should dominate in that region much the way the United States and our allies have done for years. They think that that is over. They are going to take advantage of it. And the fact is that we are not even pushing back on this incredible cyberattack they’ve launched in the US last week, at least it became public knowledge last week. There is no response from the US.”

The military analyst was also very critical of US foreign policy and the US retreat.

“Radical Islam has moved into a global jihad the revisionist powers are on in Russia and China. They all are seeking regional domination. And nobody is pushing back on these objectives they are trying to achieve. And then advanced countries like China and Russia will have a cyber capability, launching consistent and persistent offensive cyberattacks on the US with success and no pushback.”

“When you look at all that being played out clearly, the security in the US is much more in jeopardy than what it had been five or six years ago,” he stated.