Trump and Russia - a very tangled web

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https://ig.ft.com/sites/trumps-russian-connections/

On more than one occasion, Trump has made very contradictory statements about his interests in Russia and previous encounters with Putin (whom he said (1) he did meet and subsequently (2) had never met).

There are links. But what is the nature of them, and how far do they go, and why has Trump made the denials he has done?

I do find the connection troubling.

Putin is ex-KGB (under the Soviets)--and he seems to want to return to a more blatantly authoritarian regime than that which exists at present.

It's akin to Nixon buddying up with Brezhnev.

Repairing our relationship with Russia would be the greatest foreign policy move we could ever make, this old guard of MIC Cold Warriors need to sent out to pasture for good. Trump's promise to extend the olive branch to Russia is one of the primary things that sold me on his candidacy. The Putin boogeyman doesn't work on me or anybody else with more than half a brain.

By that you mean I have only half a brain, I assume. Ad hominem there?

Automatic discounting from you counts far less with me than reasoned analysis from rather more careful assessors:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... _like.html

I would like to start a proper thread on the Russia "problem" beginning with a defense of Putin, but forum throughput is just so huge at the moment with election season it would just get buried.

Perhaps a left wing comedian's summation would suffice for now.

Ideally it's a rational response every country has for another... Cameron, before disappearing, had a fawning attitude towards China e.g. which then made a U-turn as soon as his friend usurped the office after postponing a contract... both are drastic approaches, but being rational from the beginning would have presumably been better for both countries... but I don't suppose being similarly fawning towards exclusively dictatorial countries is rational from most people's perspectives... not unless the country is also a dictatorship, of course.

The end bit is especially funny!!

In regard to Trump: I think, possibly, that it has to do with typical narcissism. You know how narcs like to have important / popular / powerful / famous / whatever people, around them. Also, I'm thinking it has something to do with Trump having a national stage, now, where he can butter Putin up, and then, maybe, Putin will allow Trump to build a resort there, like Trump wanted to.

In regard to Putin: I'm thinking it's quite possible that Putin thinks Trump is an idiot----the better to manipulate, and make him his b!tch----and, because Trump wants something out of Putin (even if he doesn't get his resort, he'll be able to say "I know Putin", and that would mean alot to Trump, cuz it's all about "Look at ME----aren't I COOL", with narcs), he'll be "willing prey", maybe. Putin probably had Trump's "number", from day-one.

I wouldn't trust EITHER of them, as far as I could throw them!

I completely agree - Putin is playing Trump as a puppet and Trump's vast ego makes him blind to it. He only sees his own distorted self-reflection. And Putin is playing a long game also - nothing would please him more right now than to see Nato undermined. Trump seems to me to be either a colluder with this, knowingly, or a vain fool who believes flattery. Putin's goal is expanded territory, expanded power. He is no friend of the West, not the USA, not any of the five eyes for sure. Bet on it.

Narcissistic? Hell yes, you could write the textbook on Trump and his behaviour. Bizarrely, Hitler's NPD characteristics are relatively few in comparison to Trump's. That should warn people who believe in him, though it will not. Some of them are like the "flying monkeys" who dutifully carry out the narcissist's bidding, in my opinion.

PS Google Narcissism Flying Monkeys if that sentence is obscure...

The idea of Trump as puppet is laughable, there can be no such relationship between America and Russia as things stand. America is still, for now, vastly more powerful than Russia, both militarily and economically. The Russian state is nearly bankrupt, mainly thanks to sanctions, its military, while competent (more so than most people suspected) cannot win against American forces, let alone the combined forces of NATO allies. Russia does not want a war. That, I suspect, is why they have tolerated so much nonsense from the American pseudo-empire (the Empire of Chaos as Putin called it) until now. But they have their limits, and overthrowing the government of Ukraine right on their back door was that limit, see my post here: viewtopic.php?t=325543&p=7245711#p7234597

Limits reached, they are prepared to die on their feet, still Russia would prefer not to go to war. Even if both countries fired every nuke they had, both populations all but erased, Russia would still lose the war. I hold nothing against them for openly or covertly supporting Trump to avoid this scenario. Putin does not seek a puppet, nor even a friend or ally in Trump, only someone willing to question America's actions around the world, in Iraq, Libya, Syria and indeed Ukraine.

If, on the other hand you believe, when told, that Putin is the aggressor here and that whoever fires the first shot starts the war, then vote Hillary, you deserve her.

Unfortunately I don't have dual citizenship

I think this is an excellent analysis, right up to the "prepared to die on their feet" part.

They are engaged in theater at the moment. There are, I believe, three audiences for their "potempkin village" carrier strike group ops, long range bomber patrols, troop movements and so on.

The first and most important audience is internal.

Putin has been working tirelessly since the fall of the Soviet Union to resurrect it in some new guise. He recognizes that the old Communist rhetoric won't fly in the post-perestroika world, but he is committed to restoring the top-down totalitarian structure of the old regime he loved. The restoration of the old soviet anthem with new Russian words makes a nice metaphor for the whole process.

He has successfully liquidated opposing oligarchs and brought all the major industries into a group of associates that defer to his authority and understand the price for disobedience is death and/or total loss of property and position followed by long and likely terminal imprisonment.

He has eliminated all opposition media and enough journalists have been murdered to ensure that anyone in that profession understands that crossing him or questioning his administration may have fatal consequences.

He has cultivated ultra nationalist gangs and deployed them to subject centers of opposition to violence.

He has progressively modified the procedures and structures of the state to bring all power to himself.

Some of these moves have been met with resistance and this is why he needs the theater and drama. Terrorist attacks by or attributed to Chechen Islamist separatists gave him much of the excuse he needed to consolidate power in 1999-2005.

Theatrical announcements about his huge conflict with America provide excuses for continued consolidation of power today.

In this totalizing consolidation of military, political, media and industrial power, Putin has remade Russia on classic fascist lines. This is probably part of what makes him charismatic in the perception of right wing extremists around the globe.

The second audience is neighboring states who he wishes to encourage fear and respect in. Tweaking America from time to time reminds them that the US can't be relied on as their savior. He wants everyone in "the near abroad" to remember Georgia and think twice before resisting Russia.

The third and least important audience is the United States. He knows that we will for the most part continue to pursue our interests regardless of his theater, but he wants to be given more gestures of respect and is letting us know that the era of unilateral American action in the Middle East is over.

The rest is all bs.

There will be no nuclear war because nobody wants it and it serves no interests. There will be a lot of pushing and shoving around the Ukraine and threats to the Baltic members of Nato will help to communicate the foolishness of relying on an American savior to restive border states. Nato will defend the baltic states and there may be some tense days there, but in the end that border will remain the same and Russia will be stronger and that's all Putin really cares about.

Hillary and Trump would face the same behaviors from Russia because of these internal Russian dynamics. The only difference is that Hillary can be relied on to make rational calculations after thoroughly reviewing intelligence on the situation while Trump is a loose canon with deep psychological problems who could start world war three before anyone has time to brief him on what's actually happening.

Report on the 2004 consolidation of power, during the Chechen insurgency:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/world ... .html?_r=0

Report on current moves to further consolidate power:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... oup-112025

This is an area of very active study:
https://www.bbg.gov/2016/10/14/consolid ... s-kremlin/

Putin could eat Trump for breakfast and poop him out by lunch.

I think some people are giving Trump more credit than he deserves. There's one very simple reason why Trump likes Putin. It's because Putin says "nice things" about him. By Trumplogic, this makes Putin a good person, someone deserving of his respect.

I think Trump is getting played and doesn't even realize it. I could say that he has an endgame in sight, but I really don't think he's even looking ahead that far.

My understanding is that Trump thinks Putin complimented him because Putin said something that was interpreted for Trump as "Trump is very bright" when the original conveyed something more like "Trump is very flashy/gaudy/trashy."

I wonder how different things would be if Putin had been less subtle. How important are the Russian investors in Trump's properties? Why did Manafort have such influence early in the campaign. I hope we eventually get more detail on this. I suspect it will be interesting.

This is speculation on my part and I can't prove it either way. If the conflict is defused we may never know how far they were willing to go. But seizing Crimea and fighting an overt proxy war in Syria against America? With the balance of power what it is, I just can't accept Russia doing this unless they are actually ready for the worst case scenario.

The rest of your post, I more or less agree with, I don't think it hurts my analysis of the situation. I defend Putin's fairly sane foreign policy and I am then expected to do the same for his actions at home. I don't. Internally he is a thug, a dictator in all but name. You can however be those things and be a rational patriot at the same time. I think though, the support he gets from the Russian people is genuine and not entirely manufactured. Sometimes countries need thugs leading the pack to see them through tough times.



Mehh. I think that's a bit of a slur. I know the media really want the Soviet Union to return, but I just can't see it. He seeks power of a sort yes, but so do all men and all countries, power is necessary for any kind of freedom. There is no idealogical battle this time, Russia has no intentions of global dominance (unlike the US). Having emerged almost broken from the ruins of the Soviet empire and the disgraceful pillaging of their country in the years afterwards, all Russia has asked is to be left alone inside its own borders and to protect the security of those borders. Hardly unreasonable demands. Still the borders kept shifting, former territories fell under NATO and the EU, weapons systems placed on their borders, pointing at Moscow, fanciful troop training exercises all around. How is this US/NATO/EU bit of theater supposed to be taken? Russia is not the one expanding here.



The Russian response regarding Crimea should be obvious. Syria is less obvious, you spotted that it was about American antics, not Syria itself. Putin has no great love for Assad, but the way the tide was turning against Putin and Russia before these recent conflicts it was obvious Putin's regime was next on the list for an American led "DemocroFreedomising" bombing session or at the very least a semi-covert overthrow a la Ukraine. That is why he joined the war in Syria, again I can't fault him for that.



He puts Russia first and despite claims to the contrary is not seeking to build an empire. Our countries have gone all utopian and internationalist, and we are hurting for it. We may not like the means, but the ends? I rather like him.



Her track record is terrible, she absolutely loves intervention and drone strikes and every other projection of American military violence. I fear her rational calculation will tell her, can the Ruskies beat us? No? OK bomb their defense systems in Syria.



This is a problem, I don't think American regime as it is can back down. Its currency, the petrodollar which is a key cog in the American machine is propped up by these interventions. To concede to Russia of all countries that America can no longer run riot in the Middle East is to accept the empire's defeat. The petrodollar dies, American influence around the world dies, America as a country sees its wealth drop off the edge of a cliff, the country is thrown into chaos of a scale that can barely be imagined. How much Trump knows about this I am not sure, he sometimes seems to echo the sentiments of an early 20th century isolationist. Not a bad thing by any means, and that sort of mindset is probably the most peaceful way to wind down the American Empire. Hillary... well she'll go all the way, calling Russia's bluff... if is a bluff.