“The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy so that he cannot fathom our real intent.” Sun Tzu

By Glen Reaux

Repost from May, 2019

Since the 2016 presidential election, the American media has reported a tremendous amount of news on the relationship between so-called president Donald Trump and fake Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Rightfully so, considering that Putin interfered in our elections to place Trump in office.  This justifies the use of the title, so-called-president when referring to Donald Trump.  The Trump campaign began to cry foul before the election.  Trump refused to commit to accepting the results of the election if he lost.  His administration has established the same posture by denying Russian interference in the election while he cries witch hunt.  Media outlets around the world refer to Putin as the Russian President giving the illusion that he was duly elected to the office through a fair and open democratic process.   The fact remains that presidents are elected in democracies and not oligarchies which is actually the current form of government in Russia.  However, in Putin’s new world order such frauds would be perpetrated against all governments of the free world.  Putin’s new world order is fraud-based and designed to wreak havoc by promoting right-wing extremists as fake-political-messiahs of change all of whom are being covertly backed by Putin’s Russian oligarchs.  With his help, the wishes of the people in free democratic societies around the world will be subverted just as it was in the United States and in several European countries including Great Britain.  Utilizing the economic power of his oligarchs, military and the mafia styled, Russian KGB backed government as he did in Britain’s Brexit debacle and our 2016 national election, the evidence shows that “Putin’s New World Order is America’s Downfall” and his American model is doing the same to other countries throughout Europe.  After all, why fight a costly dehumanizing war when you can control a government from the inside for a fraction of the economic and human cost.  This is truly an easier approach.   But, remember Putin is not against using military force when he feels that it suits his purposes as evidenced by his invasions of Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine and his attacks on American military forces in Syria.  The latter has gone unpunished by so-called-president Trump who many refer to as Putin’s female lap dog in heat.

The 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union resulted in the former world power becoming 15 separate and independent countries.  Russia lost its status as a military and geopolitical superpower.  Russia’s glory-days as a strong political and military adversary of the United States had come to an end.  With the fall of the communist government and its pseudo-socialist economy, a young KGB officer and wealthy oligarchs began their rise to power.  In 1996, Putin moved to Moscow and joined the administration of then-President Boris Yeltsin. In December of 1999, after the resignation of Yeltsin, Putin assumed the Office of Acting President.  He served as acting president until he was elected President in May of 2000 and remained in office until 2008 at which time due to constitutional restraints he was not allowed to run again.  While in office he began plans to return Russia to its former status as a geopolitical and military superpower.  From 2008 -2012 Dimitri Medvedev served as President with Putin maintaining his power as Prime Minister.  Basically, as President, Medvedev was a place holder until Putin was re-elected in 2012. Putin then nominated Medvedev to be his Prime Minister.  In March of 2018, Putin was elected to another 6-year term which will end in 2024.  Literally, Putin has ruled Russia for 28 years and will continue to rule for the foreseeable future.

History has recorded that one of the principal causes for the Soviet dissolution was the cold war’s arms race.  The never-ending, expanding, costs in an attempt to have the most powerful military in the world placed an insurmountable economic burden on the Soviet economy.  This arms race caused food shortages and bread lines throughout the Soviet Union and hit Russia exceptionally hard.  Poverty was growing and leading to civil unrest.  This was not a set of circumstances that the Soviet Union would survive and learning from these lessons, Putin, a former KGB officer has decided upon a different strategy to return Mother Russia to glory.  Realizing that he cannot successfully engage NATO militarily, Putin has launched a non-military campaign against NATO to accomplish his task.  This non-military campaign is both political and economic and utilizes many of the strategies of The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

Politicians and soldiers are two very different types of animals. Often-times perceptions of these two are misconstrued.  In the eyes of the public, politicians are seen as crafty, smart, and not prone to violent solutions.  On the other hand, soldiers are seen as blunt objects and the brute force needed to solve problems which in many cases involve violence or war.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, military leaders are just as smart and crafty as politicians. But unlike politicians, they have a different kind of wisdom from being in the military and having studied in war colleges. The “Art of War” by Sun Tzu is taught in every war college around the world and every great military leader considers it to be their bible.  This wisdom is what is lacking in most politicians.  It is this wisdom with the consolidation of political power that makes a political leader such as Vladimir Putin so dangerous.  “Now the general is the bulwark of the State; if the bulwark is complete at all points; the State will be strong; if the bulwark is defective, the State will be weak”– Sun Tzu.  It is Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” principles that Putin is using against us today.  That is the reason why he has given us so-called-president Donald J. Trump, our “bulwark” Commander In Chief.  He is defective!  This is what Putin has been successful at in the United States and Great Britain, NATO’s two most powerful nations and its backbone.  Putin’s cyber attacks against our elections and the Brexit vote in Great Britain are his unannounced declarations of war in his attempt to establish his new world order.  This is Putin’s precursor to the real war.

NATO has been and is still the world’s best deterrent against a world war and smaller military incursions by Russia.  But, NATO should not be thought of as only a military power.  NATO also consists of the member nations of the European Union and it is the European Union that Putin has chosen to attack.  By doing so, Putin is executing a classic pincer movement by attacking NATO on two fronts.  With attacks from Trump on NATO as a military power coupled with attacks on the political structure of its member nations that are also members of the European Union, Putin is utilizing another Sun Tzu strategy: “To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting”- Sun Tzu.

Starting in the late 90s Putin began to launch an all-out assault against NATO by attacking the political structures of European Union Nations.  These attacks came in the form of election tampering and funding right-wing political adversaries of established governments.  Much like Trump, these right-wing extremist profess to be messiahs that will overturn the status quo and return the power to the people.

In a January 2018 report prepared for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations titled “PUTIN’S ASYMMETRIC ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY IN RUSSIA AND EUROPE: IMPLICATIONS FOR US NATIONAL SECURITY” Putin’s efforts are described ^{1}:

“For years, Vladimir Putin’s government has engaged in a relentless assault to undermine democracy and the rule of law in Europe and the United States. Mr. Putin’s Kremlin employs an asymmetric arsenal that includes military invasions, cyberattacks, disinformation, support for fringe political groups, and the weaponization of energy resources, organized crime, and corruption. The Kremlin has refined the use of these tools over time and these attacks have intensified in scale and complexity across Europe. If the United States fails to work with urgency to address this complex and growing threat, the regime in Moscow will become further emboldened. It will continue to develop and refine its arsenal to use on democracies around the world, including against U.S. elections in 2018 and 2020.”

The report continues by addressing so-called-president Trump:

“Following attacks like Pearl Harbor and 9/11, U.S. presidents have rallied the country and the world to address the challenges facing the nation. Yet the current President of the United States has barely acknowledged the threat posed by Mr. Putin’s repeated attacks on democratic governments and institutions, let alone exercised the kind of leadership history has shown is necessary to effectively counter this kind of aggression. Never before in American history has so clear a threat to national security been so clearly ignored by a U.S. president.”

When Trump’s Russian interference denials, his failure to protect our elections systems and his attacks on our security institutions are placed in context to this report, one is forced to conclude that Trump is as big a threat to our national security as Putin.  This failure by an American president is more indicative of an alliance by Trump with Putin than an act to protect America from foreign attack.

The Report details Putin’s rise to power and his use of government-sanctioned organized crime and oligarchs for money laundering and the destabilization of democratic governments.  The Reports Executive Summary states:

“He has used the security services, the media, public and private companies, organized criminal groups, and social and religious organizations to spread malicious disinformation, interfere in elections, fuel corruption, threaten energy security, and more. At their most extreme, the Russian government’s security services have been used to harass and even assassinate political enemies at home and abroad; cheat at the Olympic Games, and protect and exploit cybercriminals in Russia who attack American businesses and steal the financial information of American consumers.”

“Mr. Putin oversaw an opportunistic expansion of malign influence operations abroad, targeting vulnerable states on Russia’s periphery, as well as countries in Western institutions like the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Kremlin has substantially increased its investments in propaganda outlets beyond Russia’s borders, funded and supported non-governmental organizations and political parties that advanced Mr. Putin’s anti- EU and anti-NATO agenda, nationalized mafia groups to help launder money and commit other crimes for the state abroad, and used its near-monopoly over energy supplies in some countries to exert influence and spread corruption.”

Currently, Putin is having a lot of success in Europe.  Far-right extremists in Europe see Putin as the model of a strong, conservative leader who defends traditional values and opposes the decadent values of the West.  Most far-right parties are against European integration and harbor anti-American sentiment.  Many of these far-right organizations have Nazi ties or identify strongly with Nazi ideology, practice white nationalism, xenophobia or other forms or racist or cultural bias.  Putin sees these groups as easily exploitable tools in the accomplishment of his goals.  Putin has invited these groups and their leaders to pay regular visits to Russia, have meetings with Russian officials and often appear on state-owned media outlets.  This trend really took off when the Great Depression of 2008 caused a global economic collapse which provided the far-right extremists an anti-American and anti-Euro platform which blamed the economic woes on decadent western values and recklessness.  These organizations have become strong pro-Russian advocates.

Accompanying this sentiment, these far-right organizations which in America are called alt-right because of their anti-liberalism, social conservatism, xenophobia and ultra-nationalism are quintessential European Trump minions.  These far-right extremists parties have been successful in national and local elections.  Across Europe, in some cases, they have been able to gain second and third-place finishes in national elections.  They have even won seats in European Parliament (EP) elections. Some of these parties are the Front National (FN) in France; the UK Independence Party (UKIP); Jobbik, the Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom, ‘Jobbik’); in Greece the neo-fascist Popular Association-Golden Dawn (Golden Dawn) and the Freedom Party in Austria.  “An Unholy Alliance, The European Far Right and Putin’s Russia” is a report written by Antonis Klapsis a Greek Professor and published by Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies ^{2}. It is a detailed study of the European far-right and the manner in which Putin has used these organizations to further his goal to destroy NATO by disrupting the political systems of the European Union. To Putin, the two are synonymous.

Putin’s most successful European victory to date is the Brexit debacle which has led to the resignation of British Prime Minister Theresa May, effective June 7^th of this year.  On June 23, 2016, less than 5 months before the U.S. presidential election, the people of the United Kingdom (UK) voted on a referendum which decided whether or not the UK would remain a member of the European Union (EU).  If the UK were to leave the EU, a devastating economic blow would be struck to the member nations that support NATO.

A key player in the Brexit vote is Cambridge Analytica, a big data company that worked for the Trump campaign.  It is owned by Robert Mercer, one of Trump’s largest backers, Robert Mercer.  Cambridge Analytica provided voter data illegally acquired from Facebook to the pro-Brexit movement organized and run by Aaron Banks who received tremendous funding from Russia.  The voter data was also provided to Russia.  Russia used this data in a way that was very similar if not identical to the manner in which it attacked our presidential elections.  The same Russian military, cyber unit that successfully interfered in our elections, launched social media campaigns and BOTS promoting Brexit was used against the people of the UK. This disinformation campaign muddied the issues and caused people to vote for Brexit which was against their own interest.  A major point of disinformation was the depiction of immigrants as job thieves and abusers of the social systems.  The campaign used fear tactics to promote xenophobia against immigrants associated with EU economic policies. In the end, the vote was 17.4 million in favor of leaving versus 15.1 million that voted to remain.  The economic effects of Brexit are presumed to be immediate which will bring a drop in GDP, export sales and an immediate slow down in the UK economy.  The end result has caused political chaos forcing British Prime Minister Theresa May to submit a plan to the EU detailing their exit from the EU.  This plan has to be voted on by the Parliament and accepted by the EU.  Due to an inability to reach an agreement, Theresa May who has served a little more than two years announced her resignation on May 24^th.  This is the type of divisiveness and confusion that Putin is attempting throughout Europe in the expectation that it will cause economic and political chaos and weaken NATO.

Steve Bannon, one of Trump’s principal campaign advisors worked with Aaron Banks in developing strategies that appealed to far-right voters.  It is believed that Bannon’s help was instrumental in polarizing voters against the UK government which ultimately led to the Brexit.  Since the Brexit vote, Bannon has setup shop in Europe and is consulting with a large number of right-wing candidates with strong ties to Putin.  The European Union is a political and economic alliance of 28 member countries located primarily in Europe.  They share one common currency and have a legislative body, the European Parliament which is the only EU legislative body elected by EU citizens 18 years of age or older.  In the 2019 EU Parliament elections, far-right-wing candidates made a great deal of progress which Bannon has hailed as decisive.  Bannon is calling for an end to further EU integration which is music to Putin’s ears.  In the elections, populists and right-wing parties made gains overall winning more than 150 seats to the EU Parliament and finishing top in France, Italy, and Britain.  Among Bannon’s, Putin supported candidates are Marie Le Pen of France and Nigel Farage of Britain, Theresa May’s nemesis and founder of the six-weeks-old Brexit Party.

The 2019 EU Parliament elections are proof that Putin’s plan is taking hold in Europe.  Couple that with an American president that openly denies Russian interference while behind closed doors has had on-going, covert communications with Putin and you have a strong formula for America’s downfall.  While Putin publicly denies interfering in any elections either in Europe or the U.S., Trump very publicly promotes Putin and his policies.  Since taking office, Trump has insulted our traditional allies many of whom we have had relationships and treaties with for over one hundred years.  He has called for the dissolution of NATO, embraced dictators and nullified treaties that affect our national security.  Trump has given confidential security information to Russia that was given to us by our allies.  The other 4 members of the 5 Eyes, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK no longer trust us and are withholding information necessary to our national security for fear that Trump will pass this information on to the Russians.  In the western world, the United States is becoming an island that our allies are deserting for the sake of their own survival.  All of these circumstances are consequences of Putin’s plans for a new world order to be ruled by autocrats and oligarchs and led by “Mother Russia.”  As evidenced by this “Art of War” quote, it is obvious that Putin has learned a lesson from Russia’s loss of the cold war: “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. “ – Sun Tzu

Putin has won the first rounds in the U.S. and the UK.  He is starting to win by establishing political power in NATO member nations.  He has gained a foothold in the EU.  Just like in America, with the help of Steve Bannon, he is creating alt-right parties and hate groups throughout Europe to sow divisiveness, xenophobia, political discord, and crooked politicians that are bought and paid for through his oligarchs.  Putin’s New World Order is growing and without a united front led by a strong UK Prime Minister and an equally strong American President, it will lead to the downfall of America and her allies.

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Linked Sources and Documentation

1. PUTIN’S ASYMMETRIC ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY IN RUSSIA AND EUROPE: IMPLICATIONS FOR US NATIONAL SECURITY:  https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/FinalRR.pdf
2. An Unholy Alliance, The European Far Right and Putin’s Russia: https://www.martenscentre.eu/sites/default/files/publication-files/far-right-political-parties-in-europe-and-putins-russia.pdf

Copyright © 2019, Glen Reaux, all rights reserved