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So one of the older members of the Tories, Graham Stuart, has publically declared "We have to consider the possibility that President Trump is a Russian asset.". While these accusations have certainly been made more before, I don't think I've seen it so straightforward from parties that are traditionally allies for the Republicans. Graham isn't the only Tory seeming to turn either, Robert Jenrick (who once said if he was American he would vote for Trump and went to his inauguration) and Nigel Farage are two other examples of traditional conservative allies in the UK who have been increasingly critical of Trump's stance on Russia, although not as far as Graham Stuart has gone.
Which got me thinking, let's set aside all these accusations themselves and look at what I think is a better question.
If I was a secretly Russia aligned president who had been elected while hiding those views, who knew that I could not just take blatantly pro-Russia stances but I could perhaps slowly nudge public opinion of my supporters to be more friendly towards them and less friendly to Ukraine while taking pro Russian action under cover, what kind of things would I be doing and saying?
Main thing, I'd slowly start to split and incite America's international allies. A stable West is one of the main things that Russia is scared of the most. Destabilize NATO, NORAD, ANZUS, etc.
I'd have some underlings talk about how Russia shares conservative values eventually taking this discussion to the big stage and mentioning one or two things we can get along with. Play up the similarities we have with Russian culture while attacking the culture of other western democracies.
I'd continually frame it as a waste of money, claim Ukraine has been committing fraud and focus on total values instead of the main thing that has been given of outdated weapons and technology. Argue that it's just so much money that it's in the US's best interest to stop funding because they're using it on other things anyway.
I'd hide it all under a veil of trying to end the war. I'd direct blame towards the Ukrainians saying they aren't willing to compromise and that they don't want to end the assault on them, say that they aren't trying hard enough to stop being from conquered and killed. Instead of asking who is killing the Ukrainians going off to fight (Russian forces), I'd instead center it on Ukrainian leaders being responsible for the deaths.
I'd slowly ramp up the discourse more and more, trying to make each step seem natural and more of a reaction from the previous. Picking an early fight gives me cover for picking the next one which gives me cover for the next and so on.
I'd start a trade war with allies using classic protectionist rhetoric (an easy cover to deploy) while ramping down sanctions and trade restrictions on the Russian markets. Slowly putting American business connections back into Russia and away from western allies.
None of these on their own is necessarily a sign of pro Russian beliefs or actions, the point after all is to make for plausible deniability. Anything I do will be under reasons (protectionist rhetoric, "preventing fraud with the aid", etc) that ostensibly aren't pro Russia, as I slowly ramped up public opinion to turn on the west and view them as enemies.
The ambiguity and slow ramping is the point, make the callouts start from the radicals to give the appearance that accusations are always baseless and train people to ignore them from historic allies and partners. Make anyone who says this seem crazy by acting unpredictability and everyonce in a while lurching back to Ukraine when the heat turns up, but never going back fully. Slowly cranking more and more to Russia.
So for discussion what sorts of things would you do if you were a secret Russian operative in the White House trying to stay disguised? How would you try to manipulate American opinions over time while not being too blatantly obvious about it that you don't have built in deniability?
And then the point of the exercise, how does that differ with what we're seeing now? Do these actions line up like Stuart says and we should be considering the possibility, or do they not match and it's just alarmism from the Tories?
I feel like so much of the Ukraine discussion avoids the object-level, do the “pro-Ukraine” people think that if we continue the status quo (US/NATO funding the war but not willing to put boots on the ground), that Ukraine can actually win? As someone who doesn’t think so, I feel like trying to get a ceasefire done ASAP is the right move both practically and morally. I understand the value of deterring wars of aggression and that Russia is morally in the wrong etc. etc. but I feel like trying to freeze the conflict in place gives more credibility to US/NATO deterrence and saves thousands of young men’s lives, compared to funding the war until Ukraine collapses spectacularly just to impose the maximum costs on Russia. I see people online argue that Russia would collapse before Ukraine does if we just maintain or somewhat increase current support, but Trump doesn’t seem to think so and the European politicians just speak in moralism and world war 2 analogies. If Trump sees things the way I do, that financial/material support is just delaying an inevitable Ukraine loss and this isn’t worth risking world war 3 by putting boots on the ground, then it doesn’t take any evil motives to think that trying to end or freeze the conflict as soon as possible is the best course of action.
I think Ukraine can win the same way Finland "won" the Winter War i.e. inflict disproportionate casualties against a numerically superior opponent for years on end, and after being beaten into exhaustion sign a peace treaty in which they give up 10% of their territory and accept forced neutrality. On paper this is a loss, but it kept them out of the communist bloc and they ended up a western-aligned NATO member without suffering economically or politically the way Poland or Czechoslovakia did in the interim.
At the end of the day, it's the Ukrainians at the front making the decision to fight or not, and as long as they're shooting at our geopolitical rivals I have no problem with arming them. So far, their revealed preference is to hold the line, and the moment that changes it will be clearly evident in the form of mass protests, mutinies, or defections, and their government will have no choice but to sue for peace. It's not my place to tell them how many of their lives are or aren't worth sacrificing for their cause, whatever they think that cause is.
I think the glaringly obvious problem with this parallel is that Finland was already a neutral nation before the war started so the "forced neutrality" part wasn't that much of a thorn in their side; the government didn't display any inclination to join any military alliance and was not in any way hostile to the USSR, and was not helped during the war by any foreign country in any way. And it's not like any Ukrainian government is prone to accept Finnish-style neutrality either.
Well, not quite true...
There's a longstanding historical debate on whether the possibility of Anglo-French intervention in Winter War was the decisive factor in Soviets deciding to acquiesce to peace, but that debate is beyond my pay grade, insofar as giving a definite answer goes.
That's rather unexpected information, thanks.
Just no nitpick: was all that military aid delivered within the span of the Winter War, or during the Continuation War as well?
Winter War, I don't think it continued to the Continuation War.
I had a vague notion that Norway was traditionally on rather cordial relations with the Soviets back then, so I assumed the same was the case in Sweden as well. It seems that it wasn't.
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