Maybe it’s not a crazy idea.
Note: As of the day this article went online there are reports that Russian and Ukrainian forces began exchanging small arms fire as of yesterday.
I can’t say this is entirely thought through, but the global power balance is in flux and we need to consider strategies to regain strength and balance. What if Ukraine and Taiwan became US Territories? You might ask why? First, let’s assess our situation:
- Trump dropped the ball big time by ignoring the Pac Trade Deal. In other words he turned it into a political football and fumbled the ball at the same time (and I’m not saying everything in the deal was a good idea, but that’s a different subject).
- This forced Australia to get into and Asian trade deal, which China immediately used to put pressure on America’s strategic partner, Australia.
- Trump also let authoritarians off the hook by sending them the message that as long as they kissed his ring, he would let them do whatever they could get away with.
- In the case of Russia and China. Russia advanced in Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey and many other areas (around the world).
- Now, China is flying into Taiwans airspace on a more regular basis, and Russia has amassed an estimated force of (up to) 175,000 troops on the Ukrainian border.
And it’s not as if this wasn’t predictable
as I’ve pointed out in previous reports:
Oct 19, 2016 – Is defecting to Russia Trumps best option?
Mar 9 – 2019 – Russian Collusion: How Trump helps Vladimir Putin
Sep 28, 2019 – Trump admits to trusting Putin over US Intel
Oct 10, 2019 – Enemies: Foreign and Domestic
Oct 10, 2019 – Ukraine: Trump continues to weaken America
Oct 19, 2020 – Is defecting to Russia Trumps best option?
There are several direct benefits to entertain an invitation to Taiwan and Ukraine. Expanded economic opportunity. Expanded GDP. Expanded reach in securing American interests and that of the western alliance. It would also benefit NATO coordination. This is not to say that it does not have risks as well, so the pros and cons need to be considered.
Okay, it may still sound like a crazy idea, but let’s consider some details in the global power balance; and the survival of Republican Democracy in the western world. And, mind you, I don’t have access to any hidden intel. This assessment is most problematic because it is only based on OSINT. That is Open Source Intelligence, which is observable. On that basis, and based on the limits of that view, what can we see:
Russia and China Coordinating
Strategically and tactically. Militarily and politically.
TOKYO — Oct 22, 2021
Nobuo Kishi, in a veiled reference to China’s recent aggressive moves on Taiwan, compared the annexation of Crimea by Russia to the Chinese governments influence campaign.
Everything from cyber attacks and disinformation to military saber rattling as well as political influence and interference efforts are being used to undermine democratic governments and weaken republics.
“Powerful nations are continuing to strengthen their military power to gain dominance in space and cyberspace,” Kishi said. “North Korea has not only existing missiles but also advanced technology. Democracy is in danger everywhere in the world.”
CHINA — Oct 19, 2021
‘Global Times China’ states clearly the goals of Russian/Chinese coordination: (the) “China-Russia joint naval drill that kicked off on Thursday in the Sea of Japan can counter AUKUS, the newly formed trilateral security partnership between the US, the UK and Australia.”
RUSSIA
Dec 8, 2021
Col. Doug MacGregor, Trumps nominee for German Ambassador and who Trump put in the position of Senior Advisor to the Acting Secretary of Defense, gave an interview to RIA Novosti, a State Owned Russian media outlet in Moscow.
Col. MacGregor (possibly violating the Logan Act) clearly supported Putin’s agenda and political efforts when he stated, according to Russian media: “Biden presented his shambolic views, shaped by the modern left’s sense of moral superiority. At the same time, he ignored Russia’s interests to Putin’s surprise and dismay,”.
The RIA interview points out that he said: “But Biden and his friends have deliberately ignored this interest because it would involve compromise. As a morally righteous leftist he is incapable of compromise,”
This type of kompromat indicates that Col. MacGregor may simply be a ‘useful idiot’ of the Russians. He is clearly helping put America down in the eyes of Russian citizens and aiding Putin’s government. All this while Russia continues to say it is the West that is being aggressive at the Ukrainian border. Of course RIA does not point out that up to 175,000 Russian troops, hundreds of T-72 tanks and enough artillery and support for an invasion is parked on the Ukrainian border. On the other hand, Col. MacGregor is in fact ‘acting’ like a Russian agent.
Meanwhile, according to a report from the Daily Beast, Olga Skabeeva, on another State Media outlet, Vesti, on a show modeled after ’60 Minutes’. “WWIII is canceled—for now.” Further statements regarding Russia gaining back ground it lost post the Soviet fall included “All I would like to say about that—the sooner, the better,” she said. “Russia won the first round,” Vladimir Shamanov, who heads Moscow’s parliamentary defense committee, added.
BREXIT
Russia and China both benefit when western democracies fight with each other over manufactured and exaggerated issues that are much less important than maintaining global power balance to advance the influence and status of Republican Democracies. Brexit was a perfect Russian op.
An EU white paper on security and spy ops that I read around the time when Trump took over the White House clearly outlined Russias new strategy. To sum up: ‘Pit the west against itself. Then promote the garbage they manufacture in the fight to further Russian State interests.’
Boris Johnson in cahoots with the same group that fueled Theresa May and the populist move on British government, which was fueled by somewhat obvious, somewhat veiled connections to Russian oligarchs, Plus, Cambridge Analytica, with a ‘useful idiot’, which in spy terms means ‘a naive or credulous person who can be manipulated or exploited to advance a cause or political agenda’. In this case we’re talking about Mark Zuckerberg. Mark is an easy target for the Russians because he is generally a libertarian. So the Russians used Zuckerbergs’ reliance on libertarian views with regard to power and money to facilitate their agenda.
Let’s not fool ourselves. Brexit was a Russian fueled Kompromat operation, and Russia won, big time.
TRUMP
Donald Trump, in cahoots with himself mostly, quite apparently driven by his own megalomania, was the next and even bigger ‘useful idiot’ in line to haphazardly help out Vladimir Putin. But let’s not forget Steve Bannon, who happens to be an attendee and advocate of the only Catholic sect/church in Rome that has its alter facing away from the congregation, was also a ‘useful idiot’. I once saw the head of that particular church, while in Rome, that Bannon is affiliated with. I happened to be with a person, who said he attended seminary with the priest at the head of that church. He also told me he was a Nazi (not sure if he meant that figuratively or literally).
Trump facilitated Putin by supporting him politically and by expressing he wanted to be friends with the authoritarian on multiple occasions. Trump also asserted directly and in dog whistles that America would back away from, and not get involved in, foreign wars while Trump himself was in charge.
This also helped China make advances in global power. Trumps focus on himself, his own wealth, and not that of American strength helped authoritarians all around the world. Including Indonesia, South America, Africa, Asia and of course Eastern Europe, where Putin had aim to regain control and power.
Just these two points…
…demonstrate that the global power balance for freedom and Republican governments are now in greater danger. And quite frankly, it was in fact the idiotic GOP politicians supporting authoritarianism through power grabs and lies (the majority of the GOP at this point) who are dropping the ball. Trump is only the latest quarterback to take over the team and run them down the field to jump off the cliff and destroy Republican rule in favor of authoritarianism.
Note that Presidents Xi and Putin began working more closely together ever since Trump won the US Presidency in 2015 and have been working more closely together since. This level of collusion is very much a cold war move. America is now split between two major pending/potential invasions in Taiwan and Ukraine. That makes it more difficult for America to respond. Add to that a more Russian friendly GOP behind the scenes and during the Trump presidency in front of the camera on a global stage. Any way you slice it, it’s problematic and if a worst case scenario plays out America will likely be taking a bigger power balance hit that would be otherwise preferable.
I mentioned in a previous piece how much America’s force prestige was at risk if Trump took office. Trump took office. Our force prestige took a big hit. And as I said then, it will be hard to recover from.
Think about it this way. If America and Great Britain are taking a weaker position in the defense of freedom and the containment of authoritarianism from China and Russia, then the only countries left that have any degree of strength are Australia and Germany plus other European allies. Of which only Germany can be considered strong in this context as they are less influenced by Russia and are the strongest economy in the EU.
Russia’s Australian Kompromat
But Russia has also been active in influencing Australian politics and made headway with populism to disrupt the internal power systems of the Australian government. So we can consider Australia as partly or even somewhat strongly infiltrated with populism (aka Russian influenced propaganda).
Trump Didn’t Know
Also, when Trump, who never even read the Pacific Trade deal, said it was all terrible, not only did he not know what he was talking about, but he lied to and misled everyone (remember, Trump doesn’t read, and parts of the deal were still secret during his first presidential campaign, so he could not have known what was in the deal anyway). By breaking that deal process, he put Australia into a position of having to get more involved in Asian trade deals without America.
This reduced the power of the Five Eyes partnership. Interestingly, after AU made a deal with CN to compensate, I immediately, that same day, predicted that China was trying to break Five Eyes. Within two weeks, the Chinese Foreign Minister made a statement to the effect of the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman saying “Whether they have five or ten eyes, they should be careful about having their eyes poked out if they dare to jeopardize the country’s sovereignty, safety and development interests. Flagrant violations of international law and basic norms of international relations, and for making irresponsible remarks on Hong Kong’s affairs that are China’s internal affairs” (referring to comments regarding China clamping down on democratic freedom in Hong Kong.).
The Bigger/Older Picture
There is a lot more to this story of course. The GOP has been pushing against fair and just practice since Buckley v. Valeo passed in 1976 allowing more money to corrupt America’s political sphere. Decades in the making, Trump put the whole thing on steroids and now American Republican Democracy is at greater risk. It is likely now fair to say it is teetering on the edge of falling deeply, or more deeply, into authoritarian rule that supports oligarchs (rich people that are on board with removing the power of the people to self regulate as established in the Constitution of the United States.
So, in the end, ‘if’ these two countries did become US territories. America could regain some of its force prestige and have new power bases in the Eurasian Arena. Let’s not forget that Putin has been building his power base to get back what used to be the Soviet Union. It would also increase the GDP of the US. But yeah, it’s far fetched. And it’s really just an idea. But it actually might help stabilize the Russian and Chinese expansionist movement we’ve seen of late and possibly give America a notch in her belt and additional opportunity to establish Republican Democratic norms in a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
The downside at the moment is that the EU no longer trusts America and knows that the ‘Authoritarian GOP Regime’ may gain power and influence in the next couple elections, which would likely place America into the category of being more of an Eastern block country that would be comfortable. That is a real risk. I spoke with one a high level diplomat in Europe that works at the State/Minister level directly on this subject, and that was a serious concern expressed.
To wrap this up, America is in a much weaker position now. But don’t be mistaken about where the fault is. Trump did tremendous damage to America’s force prestige. Biden has restored a spark of hope but there’s no bonfire on that. And really, ever since Buckley v. Valeo in 1976, the American system has been infiltrated more and more by money corrupting politics. There is of course more to the story, but that’s enough for now.
Oh, yeah, on that Buckley v. Valeo thing, Russia won this round too.
Source Links
- Time (Nov 15, 2015): Xi and Putin scheduled meeting after Trump elected
- Russia Business Today (May 3, 2019): Wife of Former Putin Ally Paid $175,000 for Dinner with UK PM Theresa May
- Foreign Policy (Jul 24, 2019): Boris Johnson’s Russian Oligarch Problem
- BBC (May 4, 2020): Five Eyes: Is the alliance in trouble over China?
- Business Insider (Jun 10, 2020): The wife of a former Putin ally has donated £325,000 to Boris Johnson’s Conservatives as he continues to sit on a report into Russian interference
- ECFR.EU (Jul 23, 2020): A country under the influence: Russian interference in British politics
- Business Insider (Jul 23, 2020): 14 ministers in Boris Johnson’s government received funding from donors linked to Russia
- Guardian (Jul 25, 2020): Moscow-on-Thames: Soviet-born billionaires and their ties to UK’s political elite
- BBC (Sep 21, 2020): Tory donor Lubov Chernukhin linked to $8m Putin ally funding
- China-SCMP (Nov 20, 2020): Statement by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijan, Nov. 20, 2021
- Australia (Nov 20, 2020): China threatens to ‘poke the eyes’ of Five Eyes nations
- New Zealand (Nov 22, 2020): China warns it will ‘poke the eyes’ of NZ and allies. How Jacinda Ardern responded
- Reuters (Dec 15, 2020): New Zealand says willing to be arbitrator in Australia-China spat
- CNBC (Apr 18, 2021): China, Russia deepen cooperation in what could be Biden’s defining challenge as president
- Congressional Research Service (Oct 6, 2021): U.S.-China Strategic Competition in South & East China Seas
- China Global Times (Oct 19, 2021): China-Russia coordination helps break AUKUS encirclement
- Taiwan (Oct 25, 2021): Japan defense minister warns of Crimea-style invasion of Taiwan
- Tatar/Crimean/Ukrainian News (Oct 25, 2021): China’s tactics on Taiwan resemble Russia’s invasion of Crimea: Japan defence minister warns of potential attack
- Germany (Nov 3, 2021): Australia & New Zealand ratify worlds largest trade deal.
- CNBC (Nov 3, 2021): World’s largest trade deal will come into force in January. The U.S. won’t be part of it
- Reuters (Nov 3, 2021): Australia joins New Zealand to ratify regional trade pact RCEP
- Switzerland (Nov 26, 2021): Australia says China’s ‘alarming’ actions at odds with peaceful rhetoric
- USA (Dec 8, 2021): Russian State TV drops love letter to ‘Trumpushka’
- Russia (Dec 8, 2021): Экс-советник Трампа заявил, что Байден игнорирует интересы России (Ex-Trump advisor says Biden ignores Russia’s interests)
- ABC (Dec 8, 2021): Russian and Ukrainian forces exchange small arms fire at Ukrainian border.
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