The America Russia Needs

I would like to draw attention to several nuances associated with disputes over Trump.

Those who yesterday tried to convince us that Clinton would win have shifted their focus, understanding that Soros’ attempt to change the vote by manipulating the electoral college is failing.

They are now saying two things: Trump isn’t who you think he is, and we have to take advantage of the situation as soon as possible to negotiate with the United States.

It grieves me to watch these experts. These people aren’t savvy at all and will never be satisfactory analysts, no matter how many degrees hang over their desks.

Not only now but for its entire history, the world has been prone to changes, at times far-reaching changes, yet it seems to them that nothing is happening and nothing ever will happen.

The point is not whether Trump will fulfill his campaign promises, or whether he’s going to negotiate with us.

It’s the Clinton camp—and our domestic Ulyukayevs* sitting in the gutter on their robust behind, for whom the U.S. will always serve as the main reference point in life and who see themselves as Americans far more than the Americans themselves—that’s trying as accommodatingly as possible to join up with Trump and the “new” America. They sell themselves as the collective mediator that is going to force Putin to make maximum concessions.

They say: Trump is yours, let’s go negotiate to find a compromise, and so on. After all, broadly speaking, in four years there will be elections and Trump might flap his gums and leave, whereas you have to live here.

Thanks for the advice!

None of them considers or wants to consider the fact that an active search is now underway in the world for a fundamentally new model of the global system.

It is a system in which the U.S. isn’t the dominating center, Russia isn’t the main deterrent against the U.S., and China isn’t smothering America in the embrace of gigantic debt and the relocation of the means of production to its own soil.

But it is a system in which the powers listed above are key players. Trump has proposed a different model, about which we’ve also spoken—in particular, in Putin’s Munich speech. The world is so complex that no state can impose its own model of development on others. It’s just dangerous.

Trump fully shares this idea, calling for the U.S. not to impose the American model on anyone, and rather concern itself first and foremost with its own recovery, its own repair, and getting back to basics. In the language of economics, it’s called “bringing back American jobs.”

We should not look to Trump as “one of us” or as a “double-dealer” put forward by the American elite. We should simply support his anti-globalist aspirations.

The real America—not the erratic America or the America that’s paranoid in its globalist search for a happiness that doesn’t exist—is our natural ally. An America that’s just grown a bit tired but wants to gather its strength and return to the role of global policeman isn’t our ally.

If it’s an ally, then it’s an equal to whose tune we won’t dance. If it’s an ally, then it will have owned up not only to its mistakes but to its crimes (Guantanamo Bay, Yugoslavia, Iraq). That would be a great America.

Let’s take, for example, the sanctions. If Trump overrides the global rules of the game by nullifying forms of external pressure on other countries, the sanctions are canceled not because we became better in the eyes of those who imposed the sanctions, but because sanctions as a tool are no longer needed. In that situation, America doesn’t need sanctions against anyone, but rather protectionist measures in the interests of its economy.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership project has been annulled for that very reason. The U.S. is unwilling to deal with global ephemeral castles in the air. The process of auditing domestic resources has begun.

And our Clinton admirers, who lost, behave otherwise. They say, let’s nevertheless make a number of concessions with Trump. Let’s help him find reasons to lift the sanctions. That is, let’s behave in the new situation like we did before. Let’s change our posture as an active player on the world stage (see Syria) and return to the posture of those who plead. There won’t be a second chance, they say. Trump is for a limited time! Let’s promptly concede something in exchange for the removal of our punishment.

Indeed he is not eternal. But that’s precisely why Trump’s time in office is precious. This isn’t Obama’s second term. We can’t squander this moment looking for a new way to snuggle up to all-powerful America as our obliging partner. On the contrary, we must stay on our course of conduct, playing even more actively and in the same spirit. We must continue to tear down this global project in the interest of a new multi-polar world.

It seems to me that that is how power behaves today. But these adviser-defeatists are impelling Putin to something else entirely. They have something to lose in this decentralized world of the future—the junk they feed themselves, for example. I’ll feel sorry when Little Debbie snacks are off the shelves. You can’t have your cake and eat it too …

*Editor’s note: Reference to Aleksei Ulyukayev, Russia’s minister of economic development who was recently arrested by Russian authorities for soliciting a $2 million bribe.