Background:
When I first submitted my op-ed, “Moscow on the Potomac,” on December 20, 2016 to The Washington Post, I had no idea that
the Trump-Russian connection was about to explode into the headlines with the
CNN/BuzzFeed exposé? Three weeks ago, I
believed I had put together a rather cogent analysis on the possible
repercussions of what seemed to be a rather strange, yet cozy, Trump-Putin
relationship. In fact, I went on to
submit my op-ed to several other publications without much success. Now, given some of the shocking political developments
this week, I would first like to present my original take on what I thought was
a disconcerting situation even back then before Christmas. Following my op-ed, I have listed in a postscript
all of the startling events that unfolded this week and have been reported in
various national media.
Moscow on the
Potomac:
In December 2016, we marked the 25th anniversary
of the Western world’s victory over the Soviet Union in a metaphorical “Cold
War” that spanned much of the second-half of the 20th century. But this seminal victory might turn out to be
pyrrhic, if President-elect Trump refuses to recognize that Russia, which
emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union, is no longer akin to a friendly
western ally that its then President Boris Yeltsin wanted it to become?
U.S. intelligence agencies, including the FBI and the CIA,
have concluded based upon a preponderance of evidence that the Russians clearly
interfered in this year’s U.S. presidential elections, which are a
quintessential part of our democracy. In
fact, the DNI’s “intel” consensus was that Russian President Putin directly
approved of cyber efforts to help “Comrade Trump” win the White House. With Trump in the White House, Putin believes
that his dream of returning Russia to the heyday of the Soviet Union will be
given a new impetus.
In fact, and more ominously, with Trump’s appointment of
“Comrade Tillerson” as U.S. Secretary of State, Putin must sense that the
resurrection, of what then President Reagan so derisively called the “evil
empire,” will gain momentum. In all
likelihood, Putin will be allowed to keep Crimea and Secretary Tillerson might
even choose to turn a blind eye to Eastern Ukraine. Putin would then be free to re-deploy his
2008 Georgian annexation (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) “you don’t ask, we don’t tell” model in Eastern Ukraine without any
further badgering by the West? Thus, the
resurrection of a new “evil empire” will have begun – with Putin’s “near
abroad” strategy firmly taking hold in the first year of the Trump
presidency.
It won’t be too long before Putin’s tentacles start
spreading to the Baltics and Eastern Europe, especially if Trump restructures
NATO to deemphasize its post-Cold War members.
Mother Russia with her enormous natural gas and oil reserves remains
Putin’s “trump” card. With rising energy
prices, Putin could then resume playing this trump card to pressurize Western
Europe into lifting sanctions against Russia.
If “Comrade Tillerson” sides with Putin on this critical issue, which
can be quickly determined by the Trump administration’s policy on Crimea and
Eastern Ukraine, the sanctions regime would immediately collapse. Putin’s “near abroad” strategy will then
enter a more penetrative “further abroad” phase.
In choosing to bring Russia closer to the United States,
Trump is simultaneously seeking to distance us from China. It appears to be a foreign policy strategy
based on economic power, in which Trump views China’s economic strength as a
threat, but does not see Russia’s military strength in the same vein. More distressingly, Trump seems completely
unfazed by the cyber threat Russia poses against the West. Many American pundits believe that Trump will
change his tune after taking office and when the linkage between his
presidential victory and the role played by Russian cyber espionage begins to
fade in the American public’s memory.
But the political opposition, anti-communist patriots, and
the news media are not likely to let go and there will be ongoing questions
about whether we have a “Moscow on the
Potomac” situation at home? However,
unlike in the 1984 movie, “Moscow on the
Hudson” – in which a Russian Robin Williams is trying to defect in a New
York Bloomingdale’s department store – this won’t be a laughing matter! In our current real life situation, Democrats
and Reagan conservatives alike will wonder whether we have an American
president in the Oval Office kowtowing to the Kremlin? Trump might not want his presidential victory
to be tainted by claims of Russian interference, but he simply cannot place the
integrity of our intelligence agencies below that of Putin’s cyber thugs. After all, these selfsame agencies will be
critical to the success of his presidency – they might have flubbed on weapons
of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, but they also helped President Obama nail
Osama bin Laden!
Sadly, to use a Trumpian term, ignoring Russia’s cyber
threat in this highly and hyper connected world could cause the West to lose the
Cyber War – a more sophisticated 21st century version than its metaphorical
20th century cousin, the Cold War, which took us almost five decades to win. The Cyber War’s devastating impact could
cripple western economies, which are so dependent on the Internet, without any physical
WMD being actually deployed? So it is
imperative for President Trump to understand that the Cyber War is a war that
no president can afford to lose. He must
begin by acknowledging the problem – Putin has his cyber sights set on the West
and the interference into our 2016 elections was only a sampler battle; the
bigger war is yet to come!
***
Post Script:
1. CNN
online report, datelined January 10, 2017, with the headline, “Intel
chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him”:
“A
salacious 35-page document, a summary of which was presented to
President Barack Obama and President-elect Trump last week, included
allegations that Russian operatives claim to possess “compromising personal and
financial information” on Trump, CNN first reported, citing multiple U.S. officials.”
2.
Senator Marco Rubio asked Rex Tillerson, Trump’s
Secretary of State nominee, at his January 11, 2017 confirmation hearing: “Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal?”
Mr. Tillerson replied: “I would not use that term.”
3.
David Ignatius revealed the following in his
January 12, 2017 Washington Post
op-ed online, “Why
did Obama dawdle on Russia’s hacking?”:
“According
to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey
Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other
measures in retaliation for the hacking.”
4.
Matthew Miller in his January 13, 2017 Time magazine report online, “James Comey Cannot Be Trusted With a
Trump-Russia Investigation”:
“It
was always going to be difficult for FBI Director Jim Comey to oversee an investigation into ties between President-elect Donald
Trump’s campaign and the Russian government. Thursday’s announcement that the
Department of Justice’s Inspector General will investigate Comey’s conduct
during last year’s presidential election makes it impossible.”
5.
On late Friday evening January 13, 2017, NBC News reported:
“The Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence said it will conduct a bipartisan inquiry into
possible Russian intelligence agencies' involvement in the U.S. election, and
the probe's scope includes interviewing officials in the Obama and Trump
administrations.”
Moscow might have tried to soft land on the Potomac, but unfortunately it has been caught making a big splash – the consequences of which are yet to be fully determined!
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