Why Is Trump So Afraid Of Putin?

Asked about the poisoning of Alexi Navalny President Trump avoided the subject and suggested instead that attention should be on China. Of course this is not the first time that an opponant of Putin has been poisoned both in Russia and abroad while many others have died under suspicious circumstances so perhaps he has a point. We've come to expect such behaviour from the Russians so what's the point of drawing attention to it? Yet Trump has served Putin's higher-level objectives - dividing the United States internally, eroding solidarity with European allies and reducing the projection of American power abroad which has the effect of enhancing that of an otherwise much diminished Russia. At the same time Trump has ignored his own intelligence agencies with regard to the 2016 Presidential election and has done his best to undermine the American system of government itself. So what did Trump and Putin talk about in the sixteen private conversations they've had over the last four years? in July 2015 Robert Mueller, former director of the FBI, testified that Putin had "blackmail leverage over Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign". What, then, could Trump be possibly blackmailed with? The possibilities are endless but the two main theories centre on his visit to Russia in 2013 and the election campaign of 2016. The first suggests that Trump engaged the services of two prostitutes while in Moscow which was filmed by the Russian intelligence service. This is quite likely since the Russians have never been known to miss the opportunity to get compromising information on visiting western businessmen while Trump's sexual proclivities are well known. The second involves Trump and his family's dealings with Russia during the election. Primarily there were ongoing secret commercial negotiations between Trump and a Russian oligarch for the building of a huge hotel in Moscow which required the personal support of Putin. This in itself would be illegal for a Presidential candidate but, as Mueller suggested, the worst crime was that in order to facilitate the deal and further Putin's foreign policy objectives Trump conspired with Putin for Russia to interefere in the 2016 election. The election of Trump would, under such circumstances, be a grubby deal that amounts to treason. Little wonder that Trump would be so shy of criticising Putin and little wonder that US foreign policy would seem so subservient to Russian interests. Of course there is an alternative explanation - that Trump is simply a buffoon. Either way he is the worst candidate at the worst possible time in world history.

Eastern Ukraine Set To Vote Itself Out Of Existence.

Eastern Ukrainians are going to the polls today determined to vote their own country out of existence. To say that the poll is haphazard, with few polling booths and no electoral register all organised by shadowy figures in army fatigues and balaclavas, is putting it mildly. Meanwhile Vladimir Putin, acutely aware that this ad hoc referendum is unlikely to be taken seriously by the rest of us, is urging postponement until it can be organised properly and have at least a shred of credibility. It would seem that the process put in train by the Kremlin is in danger of running out of control and Putin may soon be faced with another embarrassing referendum demanding that he annex the whole of Eastern Ukraine as part of his newly re-created Soviet Union. The problem for Putin is that his scheme to put the clock back twenty years or so is fast becoming obvious to everyone else and that he has, perhaps, been a bit too clever for his own good. Put simply the cat is now well and truly out of the bag and Putin is having no luck whatsoever in trying to stuff it back in again. Following the well-known path trod by Hitler in the 1930's when he "reintegrated" the Rhineland, Austria and the Sudetenland into the Third Reich, Putin would have been better served by heeding Theodore Roosevelt's advice to "Walk softly and carry a big stick." It looks inevitable now that the Ukraine will be divided even as a new Iron Curtain descends across the continent. As that great philosopher of the western world, Woody Allen, once observed; "It's deja vu all over again."

What Putin Wants Putin Gets.

You have to give Vladimir Putin his due - he certainly knows how to play the game. It is clear that he wanted the Crimea and, as far as he is concerned, for good reasons. A great deal of Russia's military assets are stationed there and he was never likely to simply give them up because Ukrainian democracy had raised its ugly head. His strategy is now entering the end game as was signalled when he called President Obama and assured him that he had no intention of invading eastern Ukraine as long as ethnic Russians were not threatened with retribution. The massive Russian military build up along the border with no signs that an invasion is imminent seems to add weight to his words. The truth is that he has out-witted and out-manoeuvred the Ukrainians, the EU and the United States, offering to negotiate a settlement that gives him exactly what he wants in return for not mounting an invasion he had no intention of mounting in the first place and in return for a promise to protect ethnic Russians that were never under any credible threat. Putin has adhered to the most basic principle of crisis management - he has given his opponents the opportunity to negotiate an exit without losing face. There are some commentators in the west who believe it is Putin who is trying to save face while backing away from a perilous military adventure. This is utter nonsense since Putin is still holding all the cards including the most important card of all - the Crimea - while any cards the west thinks it has are only those given to them by Putin himself. Get ready for western leaders telling us that they have faced Putin down, but have had to let him keep the Crimea in a diplomatic "compromise" that will sweeten the bitter pill of his humiliation. Get ready too for the end of the sanctions against Russia as relations return to "normal" and the west rewards Putin for being such a reasonable chap after all.

What Does Putin Want?

So, what does Vladimir Putin actually want? In 1938 Adolf Hitler threatened Czechoslovakia because he wanted war. He claimed that he was only interested in protecting ethnic Germans living in the Sudetenland but his real aim was to manoeuvre the German army closer to the Soviet Union so he could eventually attack them. At Munich Hitler settled for taking the Sudetenland because that stripped Czechoslovakia of its defences, allowing him to seize the rest of the country in March 1939 while, at the same time, avoiding an unwanted war with Britain and France. Putin is now claiming that his only interest is to protect ethnic Russians in the Ukraine but this is probably nothing more than a threadbare excuse to further some other, more important, policy. So what is that? There are three possibilities. He wishes to seize the whole of the Ukraine to serve as a buffer between Russia and the West. He wishes to seize the eastern half of the Ukraine for the same reason without risking a direct military confrontation with NATO. He wishes merely to seize the Crimea to protect Russia's considerable military assets there. Whichever way you look at it though what Putin wants is a throwback to an earlier age when the "Great Game" was played out across the world and Europe was divided between competing power blocks. The idea that the Ukraine can be any form of buffer has some strategic mileage. If a war was to break out between Russia and the West then NATO forces would have to first traverse the Ukraine before their tanks could roll into Moscow. But how realistic is that? NATO is defensive in nature and clearly has no Hitler-like ambition for lebensraum in Russia. Seizing the Crimea makes more sense since that protects Russia's military assets there - especially the Black Sea Fleet. Yet even this makes little sense in the modern world. The idea that the Black Sea Fleet would then be free to break out into the Mediterranean in a winter naval campaign while the rest of its naval forces lie immobilised in its other iced up ports is ridiculous. Putin then seems to be playing a game that belongs more properly to the 19th or earlier 20th centuries and has little relevance in the 21st century. But to him that might make sense. Many world leaders look back to the 19th and 20th centuries with a sort of envious nostalgia and long to the return of a world where enemies were more obvious and a spot of gunboat diplomacy could solve most problems. It seems quite clear that Putin is such an avatar, eager to re-establish the greater Russian empire of yesteryear and keen to flex his military muscles to make him feel better about things. Of course this is all complete nonsense, but it is dangerous nonsense. It seems a pity that Russia has never fully put these things behind it and joined the rest of us in the 21st century.