Putin's Stitch-up of America
I wrote the first part of this analysis yesterday, and the second part just this morning.
Part I
Like many of us, I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about "The Dossier", and reading about the reactions it has stirred up around the world.
I started off believing that we were seeing the outlines of a classic "honey trap" blackmail setup. I no longer think that. I think the game that is afoot is far larger and more consequential than a simple political blackmail attempt - even on a President of the USA..
IMO Putin is playing a very long game whose aim is fundamentally to destabilize democracies around the world. In this game he has found the perfect chess piece in Donald Trump. I don't think Putin's game is about blackmailing Trump just to gain a few years of a willing puppet in America - after all, Trump appears quite willing to fulfill that role without being blackmailed.
Instead, I think the game has a much longer-term objective of destabilizing democracies by fostering fear, uncertainty, doubt, mistrust, suspicion and ideologically hardened antagonism - at every possible level and in every possible situation.
This program is working extremely well inside the USA - all necessary proof can be had by taking an objective look at the behavior of Congress, the relationship between Trump and the intelligence community, and the increasingly bitter personal face-off in general society between the Trumpites and everyone else.
The international picture shows dramatic evidence of this destabilization program as well - Israel and the British don't want to share intel with the US any more; Trump is on Merkel's case over refugees (or "illegals" as he calls them); the Syrian situation has all the players not knowing who they can legitimately trust or support; and then there is the impenetrable cloud of ideological FUD that has been stirred up around Ukraine.
IMO the publication of the dossier pretty much took the possibility of blackmail off the table, but it definitely stirred up the antagonism. Putin's game has all of us pointing fingers at each other, while leaving Russia pretty much alone to pursue its interests with less and less organized opposition.
As Ian Fleming wrote so presciently in his novel "Goldfinger", "Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is an enemy action." The poisoning of relationships within and between democratic nations is neither accident nor coincidence, IMHO.
Part II
My conclusion today is that, true to his KGB roots, Putin has apparently executed a brilliant and quite comprehensive "stitch-up" on America. If that is true, it will hobble American ability to project power into the world for the foreeable future.
Putin's geopolitical objective is as clear as it is simple: to destabilize the USA in order to reduce its hegemony. To that end he supported Donald Trump's candidacy. Not despite the fact that he is an incompetent buffoon, but because of it. That's why Russia is making no big issue out of the dossier. Putin even used the word "prostitutes" today, as a way of making sure we know Trump is a hopelessly compromised buffoon, that we know that Putin did it, and that he knows we know he did it.
The goal of his "worse than prostitutes" comment was to further delegitimize Trump's presidency by essentially confirming that Putin has kompromat on Trump. That new delegitimization further destabilizes American politics. Essentially Putin's work has given America a president that it can't get rid of, one that fewer and fewer people regard as legitimate. It's a perfect recipe for political paralysis.
The options for Trump's removal seem to be intractable. Impeachment is the only legal avenue to remove Trump, but the GOP can't afford to do that - their political futures and probably even their party would collapse, so they'll refuse to impeach. Trump's psychological disorder of narcissism will make it impossible for him to resign voluntarily. If he were to be assassinated the country would go into such convulsions that Putin's objective would be met anyway. This all means that a president who everyone understands to be illegitimate will probably stay in power.
Given that Trump remains in power, his actions are likely to destabilize Europe, which is another region that Putin wants to to neuter geopolitically. American relations China are already taking a hit, and will get much worse over the next four years. America will be so busy trying to cope with the walking catastrophe of an incompetent President they can't get rid of, that it will not be able to present any credible counterbalance to Russia's expanding geopolitical influence.
And when Trump inevitably fails to deliver on his political promises, America is going to turn on itself. His voters - who have had their expectations manipulated and their urges toward physical and political violence validated throughout this sorry process - will be primed to explode.
I'm realizing more clearly every day that Putin, true to his KGB roots, has executed what's called a "stitch-up" on your entire country. You may be far more fucked than you realize. Reacting by mocking Trump and Putin is not going to be helpful. Turning on Trump supporters, as viscerally satisfying as that may be, plays straight into Putin's game. Unfortunately, thanks to the air-tight nature of the stitch-up, I don't think such conflict is avoidable any more.
You're stuck with Trump and the national and international consequences of his election. It's a done deal. If you move on him, his supporters will go berserk, and the GOP will refuse to contemplate impeachment; if you don't move on him, his supporters will go berserk when he fails to deliver. American politics will be essentially paralyzed for the next four years. Your relations with Europe and China are toast, and the European experiment is probably over as a result.
Putin is the fox, America is the henhouse, and Trump was the key to the door. You've been royally rolled, but the consequences will only become clear over the next four years.
Everything is following Aleksandre Dugin's playbook: Foundations of Geopolitics
This is a real-life nightmare.
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