Score Another for Putin

‘Why’ has continually been the unstated question.

The news coverage on the Russian intervention into the 2016 US Presidential election and its possible connections to the Trump campaign has blanketed the Nation for months and the end is nowhere in sight. However, acceptable reasons for the Russian intervention have been absent.

Rather than speculate on a purpose for the political “attack” by Russia, the reason for Russia’s foreign policy has been discounted as business as usual.  1960s logic such as Russia is our enemy, Putin is evil, or why wouldn’t they (?) answer nothing.

Also to suggest that Putin merely wanted to undermine Clinton’s expected Presidency understates the motives of an authoritarian government in power for seventeen years. A handicapped Clinton might have been solace, but no prize. Now Trump…he was a prize!

Putin (et al) did not decide to cyber attack the US election, nor infiltrate Trump and his inner circle to gain “assets” as part of some grand scheme to ultimately befriend the US. The sensibility of such an assumption within the context of 200 years of western history defies logic.

Even a chipmunk brain like Trump’s would eventually be forced to understand that, other than cooperation regarding nuclear weapons, the US has nothing to gain from building a relationship with a country that is top-down corrupt. Russia is tiny relative to the US (see Pennyfound: http://pennyfound.blogspot.com/2017/01/manchurian-candidate.html ).

Conversely, Russia has little to gain from the US. So what is Putin’s long-term objective?

Russia today is the product of unregulated capitalism injected into a totalitarian government. The net result has been the systematic extraction of limited wealth held by the people and government into the hands of a few (popularly known as the Russian Oligarchs). Since Putin’s election in 2000, they have succumbed to Putin’s KGB-style of governance.  By using raw fear (of violence, disenfranchisement, or both), Putin has forced the Russian Oligarchy to give up political power (and a few $billion for himself) in exchange for safety.

When Jared Kushner or the Trump boys interact with Russian billionaires (i.e. Russian Oligarchs without political power) they are effectively dealing with V. Putin. Trump (et.al.), dealing for years in the smoke filled backroom world of real estate finance and thinking he was running with the big Russian wolfhounds, has probably been, as stated by former CIA Director John Brennan, on a path to treason without even knowing it.  

Russia’s interests don’t lie with the US, they lie with Europe. Putin knows that further secure advancement of his Country and his own power (and wealth) is in Russia having control over Eastern Europe. The great anathema for him is an expanded European Union and NATO. His foreign policy to date makes no bones about his desires. Georgia and Ukraine (including the Crimea) are obvious first steps.

The United States has been a critical adhesive in European unity for more than 60 years. Without it the Soviet grip on Eastern Europe might not have been broken when it did.

Putin is smart enough to know (and Trump dumb enough not to know) that by weakening that relationship, he hopes to find that taking aggressive actions in Eastern Europe might be met by only token resistance.  Even just the threat of expansion could equate to economic leverage for Russia over European natural resource markets or in relieving sanctions.

Trump has presented himself as no fan of the Western European nations and now European leaders are openly distancing themselves from Trump’s America.  Putin is scoring points and Trump doesn’t even know he’s out on the court.

Even with a Trump Presidency (and before the conclusion of Russian investigations) these two actions could help turn things around:

• The US Congress should pass a joint resolution supporting the European Union on both economic and territorial grounds.
• The damned stupid Brits (like the damned stupid American electorate?) should have a second Brexit referendum (the first was non-binding) to confirm the first, even if they required a 60% majority to change course.

In the interim, Americans need to flip Congress in 2018. It is so important!