(ANTIMEDIA) Fears that Trump was crowned president because his campaign colluded with Russian authorities — which would undoubtedly mean the president is a Russian puppet — are almost all but being extinguished.
According to Foreign Policy, Russia is beginning to fear the so-called Trump revolution taking place in the United States. Foreign Policy’s authors compare the current situation to a historical one:
“Indeed, when it comes to the ongoing Trump revolution, Russian policymakers are in much the same position as the German General Staff one century ago. In 1917, the German government concluded that the best hope for a German victory in World War I was for a revolution to erupt in Russia. It thus allowed some of the leaders of the Bolshevik party, Lenin among them, to pass through Germany and make their way back to Russia. The hope was that a revolution in Russia would pull the country out of the war — and the plan worked. But by the beginning of 1918, the German government started to fear that the virus of revolution that it had surreptitiously help spread to Russia might circle back calamitously to Germany itself.
“Our conversations with Russian policymakers and experts indicate they are starting to have similar fears and doubts today.” [emphasis added]
Although there is currently no way of knowing whether Russian interference contributed to Trump’s victory, Foreign Policy’s authors assert it’s fair to say “that the Kremlin viewed the outcome as a divine gift.” Given Hillary Clinton’s hawkish Cold War approach to Russia, it is not surprising that the Kremlin would have much preferred Trump’s warmer stance.
However, the so-called “bromance” between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin has begun to change. As Foreign Policy notes:
“Now that Trump is in power, political elites in Moscow have stopped cheering. They recognize that Russia’s position has become abruptly and agonizingly complex.”
Russia, believe it or not, believes in international law, whereas Trump’s “revolution” is ushering in a period of “turmoil and uncertainty,” including the possible likelihood of trade wars. As noted by Foreign Policy, since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia has had no appetite for global instability.
Most importantly, however, with Trump in the White House, Putin has lost his monopoly over geopolitical unpredictability. For example, according to a leaked audio of John Kerry addressing Syrian rebels in September 2016, the U.S. knew ISIS was gaining momentum in Syria and hoped this would bring Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to the negotiating table. Russia completely foiled this strategy when it overtly intervened in the Syrian conflict to bolster Assad.
Not only is Trump more unpredictable and reckless than Putin, he is also vastly more powerful.
The Putin-Trump love affair may now be close to non-existent. Trump has already declared that Russia took Crimea by force (despite the fact that over 95 percent of Crimeans voted to join Russia, and one year later, Forbes reported that locals much preferred Moscow to Kiev). Trump recently said he expects Russia to return Crimea to Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, Russia responded by saying the issue was not even up for discussion.
Any doubts Russia may have about where the Trump administration’s loyalties ultimately lie would have been quelled this past week when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, “Where we don’t see eye to eye, the US will stand up for the interest and values of America and her allies.”
Russia’s closest allies, China and Iran, have both been saber-rattled by the Trump administration. In the context of these recent developments, it comes as no surprise that Russia is hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. Reports began to surface of a Russian spy ship patrolling the U.S. coast on Tuesday, the same day it emerged that the Kremlin secretly deployed new cruise missiles and buzzed a U.S. Navy destroyer, flying a plane within 200 yards of the ship in an “unsafe and unprofessional” manner.
While Americans frantically debate whether or not Trump is compromised by Russia and whether or not he represents American interests, the public seems to be completely unaware of the fact that the whole world is preparing for war.
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