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Donald Trump probably isn’t a Russian agent, but he wouldn’t be behaving much differently right now if he were.
Among the main goals of the Kremlin’s foreign policy are to sow chaos and distrust within Western democracies and to disrupt the alliances that join those countries together, especially the links between the United States and Europe. The idea is that a weaker West makes for a stronger Russia—a connection all the more important as the measures of Russia’s strength on its own (economic, political, and military) are diminishing.
Many have noted Trump’s open antipathy toward alliances and his aversion to any foreign commitments that don’t yield immediate transactional gains.
His actions since he won the election—especially his nominees for high-level positions—reveal his affinity for chaos, his keen desire to sow distrust within the American political system. His aim here is not to strengthen Russia (and other authoritarian countries), though that may be among its consequences. The aim—as he and some of his more ideological cronies have proclaimed for a long time now—is to destroy the “deep state,” to concentrate power in the White House, and to weaken or punish (perhaps even incarcerate) those who try to obstruct his ambitions.
Trump is not stupid. He must know that many of his nominees to be Cabinet secretaries, agency directors, and ambassadors have no apparent qualifications to run vast bureaucracies, parse complex problems, or engage in delicate diplomacy. That’s not the point. He wants them to empty out the bureaucracies or run them into the ground. He wants them to twist the agencies into empty shells or blunt instruments of his vendettas. He wants to insult the diplomatic corps and to show foreign leaders how slight he regards their status.
Some of his nominees are meant to carry out his most perniciously personal and political campaigns. He named Pete Hegseth, a man who has never run an organization of any impressive size, to helm the Defense Department—with its $840 billion budget, 3 million employees, and wide-ranging global responsibilities—because Hegseth’s commentaries on Fox News (where he anchored a weekend show) indicate he’d happily carry out Trump’s intention to fire senior officers who don’t express utter loyalty to Trump.
He named Kash Patel to head the FBI because Patel is not just willing but sweating-ready to go after Trump’s personal and political enemies, including within the FBI itself. Patel has drawn up an enemies list already. (Trump tried to make Matt Gaetz attorney general for the same reason, but Gaetz proved too blatant a henchman for even Trump’s loyalists in the Senate to swallow—as, by the way, some of his other nominees may prove to be too.)
He named Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence because he wants to blow up the intelligence agencies, many of which he sees as teeming with enemies to himself and the country (which he views as a mere extension of himself, as in l’état, c’est moi).
He named Dr. Mehmet Oz, an orthopedist turned TV doctor with financial interests galore to run Medicare and Medicaid, because he wants to gut Medicare and Medicaid. He named Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, to run the Department of Homeland Security—a hodgepodge of 22 once independent departments and agencies with a combined budget of $108 billion (more than 16 times that of South Dakota’s state budget)—because he wants to gut homeland security.
The list could go on.
Trump has said—and may genuinely believe—that he can run the country, the economy, the military, social services, and all the rest, just fine all by himself. (Axios once assembled a list of topics that Trump has said he knows “more about than anybody.” It included money, infrastructure, the economy, trade, ISIS, energy, taxes—just about every topic involving government.)
Many of Trump’s voters think it’s great that he plans to blow up the system. That’s a big reason why many of them voted for him. No doubt, much of the system could use reforms or outright overhaul. But the people Trump wants to put in charge have no idea how to improve the system, nor are they expected to. Many citizens may come to feel buyer’s remorse when they realize just how closely their own lives and interests are intertwined with the functioning of government—something that is often taken for granted, until it doesn’t function. By that time, it may be too late.
And while the direct connection may not be clear, people might also come to take note of new dangers to national security. Foreign governments may no longer share highly sensitive information with an intelligence director who parrots Kremlin propaganda; allies who no longer regard the U.S. as a reliable protector may go their own way or make deals with adversaries; and adversaries may take America’s passivity as a green light to go bold. The Western-led “rules-based order,” which is already in grim shape, will turn to tatters.
It may not be Trump’s intention, but as the Trump Cabinet takes shape, Putin is no doubt smiling, Putin’s propagandists are laughing (the hosts of the main Kremlin-run TV news show gleefully welcomed Trump’s nominees as “totally wonderful“), and much of the rest of the world—those who rely on the United States—sigh and tremble.
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