It’s framed as a troublesome “bromance” between Vladimir Putin and Trump. Critics don’t like Trump’s comfort with a “dictator” who, as Kagan’s wife Victoria Nuland recently told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, engages in “aggression.” She’s currently the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs. She basically managed the 2014 coup in Ukraine. And she’s outraged by Russian aggression in Ukraine. But she’s nonplussed by her husband’s role in pushing for the most blatant and wanton act of aggression thus far this century – the unwarranted destruction of Iraq.
Go figure.
On the other hand, Putin has the unmitigated gall to move military forces around inside the borders of his own country. He’s blamed for hacking the Democratic Party – despite a lack of actual evidence and the NSA’s own hacking hijinks. And he’s accused of “meddling” in U.S. elections – a pretty rich accusation given America’s long history of surreptitious electioneering around the world.
There is no doubt that “Bad Vlad” likes Donald. And Donald likes Vlad. But the real problem isn’t their bromance. This is about the Neoconservative desire to make sure the United States is the lone guarantor of the geopolitical order. This is about Pax Americana. This is about resurrecting the faded dream of a new American century.
And what stands in the way of the type of the Neocon dream of global “full-spectrum dominance?” Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
Russia is the only nation with an arsenal big enough to withstand the subtle nuclear blackmail of America’s trillion-dollar nuclear “upgrade.” That’s why Russia is concerned about the missile defense systems arrayed on their border. Those systems can knock down retaliatory strikes, thus making a first strike with new nuclear cruise missiles at least theoretically possible.
The United States is also using NATO expansion to increasingly encircle a nation that once was America’s geopolitical equal. That’s why Trump’s criticism of America’s outsized support for NATO must’ve been the tipping point from disdain to panic among Neocon and Neoliberal interventionists alike.
The oddity is that there does seem to be more than a passing affinity between Trump and Putin. Trump’s statements on Ukraine would be easily dismissed if his campaign manager Paul Manafort hadn’t worked as a political consultant to the pre-Nuland leadership of Ukraine. And Trump’s statements on Crimea might be written off if he’d release his taxes and end speculation of financial ties to Putin’s regime.
But the visceral reaction against his repeated calls for cooperation – “By the way, wouldn’t it be great if we got along with Russia?” – exposes the extent to which the entire foreign policy and political establishments are squarely on the same page.
They are angling for Cold War 2.0, and Trump is the only major figure willing to challenge that orthodoxy.
Unlike Hillary Clinton, of course, which brings the whole thing back to the miasma of confusion hanging over this strange election. Hillary is on the Neocon team – if not in name, certainly in deed. She will “stand up” to Bad Vlad. She’s targeted by Russian hackers because Putin prefers his “unwitting agent” Donald Trump. And Donald is, according to an emerging narrative, a latter-day Neville Chamberlain just inviting the Ruskies to take over the Baltic States, Ukraine, and God knows what else.
The greatest irony of all is that Trump catapulted over the Neocons’ preferred presidential options by slamming their pet project – the War on Iraq. Trump’s criticism of that war and the chaos it unleashed resonated with the very voters the Neocons took for granted as pliable, fear-responsive bumpkins. That left them out in the cold just as they were angling to trump the disorderly, hard-to-prosecute mess they call “The Global War on Terror.”
What they really want, and have always wanted, is to revive the greatest war of all – the Cold War. That’s the grand chessboard they yearn to play on once again. The War on Terror was really just a stopgap, like methadone for imperialists. But now they’ve scored because it looks like the supposed party of imperial intransigence is, under the guidance of Hillary Clinton, poised to take the reins from a Trump-addled GOP.
And if a recent article in Der Spiegel is right, Kagan’s wife Victoria has emerged as a candidate for the prized position of secretary of state should Hillary win. If that comes to pass, the Neocons may not have succeeded in their initial plan for a new American century, but they will have hastily completed their last-minute project for a new Democratic Party. And that means this election isn’t that Neo-confusing after all.
http://original.antiwar.com/JP-Sottile/2016/08/08/whats-a-neocon-to-do/
more @ link
Go figure.
On the other hand, Putin has the unmitigated gall to move military forces around inside the borders of his own country. He’s blamed for hacking the Democratic Party – despite a lack of actual evidence and the NSA’s own hacking hijinks. And he’s accused of “meddling” in U.S. elections – a pretty rich accusation given America’s long history of surreptitious electioneering around the world.
There is no doubt that “Bad Vlad” likes Donald. And Donald likes Vlad. But the real problem isn’t their bromance. This is about the Neoconservative desire to make sure the United States is the lone guarantor of the geopolitical order. This is about Pax Americana. This is about resurrecting the faded dream of a new American century.
And what stands in the way of the type of the Neocon dream of global “full-spectrum dominance?” Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
Russia is the only nation with an arsenal big enough to withstand the subtle nuclear blackmail of America’s trillion-dollar nuclear “upgrade.” That’s why Russia is concerned about the missile defense systems arrayed on their border. Those systems can knock down retaliatory strikes, thus making a first strike with new nuclear cruise missiles at least theoretically possible.
The United States is also using NATO expansion to increasingly encircle a nation that once was America’s geopolitical equal. That’s why Trump’s criticism of America’s outsized support for NATO must’ve been the tipping point from disdain to panic among Neocon and Neoliberal interventionists alike.
The oddity is that there does seem to be more than a passing affinity between Trump and Putin. Trump’s statements on Ukraine would be easily dismissed if his campaign manager Paul Manafort hadn’t worked as a political consultant to the pre-Nuland leadership of Ukraine. And Trump’s statements on Crimea might be written off if he’d release his taxes and end speculation of financial ties to Putin’s regime.
But the visceral reaction against his repeated calls for cooperation – “By the way, wouldn’t it be great if we got along with Russia?” – exposes the extent to which the entire foreign policy and political establishments are squarely on the same page.
They are angling for Cold War 2.0, and Trump is the only major figure willing to challenge that orthodoxy.
Unlike Hillary Clinton, of course, which brings the whole thing back to the miasma of confusion hanging over this strange election. Hillary is on the Neocon team – if not in name, certainly in deed. She will “stand up” to Bad Vlad. She’s targeted by Russian hackers because Putin prefers his “unwitting agent” Donald Trump. And Donald is, according to an emerging narrative, a latter-day Neville Chamberlain just inviting the Ruskies to take over the Baltic States, Ukraine, and God knows what else.
The greatest irony of all is that Trump catapulted over the Neocons’ preferred presidential options by slamming their pet project – the War on Iraq. Trump’s criticism of that war and the chaos it unleashed resonated with the very voters the Neocons took for granted as pliable, fear-responsive bumpkins. That left them out in the cold just as they were angling to trump the disorderly, hard-to-prosecute mess they call “The Global War on Terror.”
What they really want, and have always wanted, is to revive the greatest war of all – the Cold War. That’s the grand chessboard they yearn to play on once again. The War on Terror was really just a stopgap, like methadone for imperialists. But now they’ve scored because it looks like the supposed party of imperial intransigence is, under the guidance of Hillary Clinton, poised to take the reins from a Trump-addled GOP.
And if a recent article in Der Spiegel is right, Kagan’s wife Victoria has emerged as a candidate for the prized position of secretary of state should Hillary win. If that comes to pass, the Neocons may not have succeeded in their initial plan for a new American century, but they will have hastily completed their last-minute project for a new Democratic Party. And that means this election isn’t that Neo-confusing after all.
http://original.antiwar.com/JP-Sottile/2016/08/08/whats-a-neocon-to-do/
more @ link
