The Plot to Hack America

Trump was having none of it. As far as he was concerned, if the policy affected Russia, and was implemented by President Obama—or any President since 1947 for that matter—then he wanted to be rid of it. Trump gave the New York Times a wide-ranging interview in which he remarked that he saw a major change for the seventy-year old NATO alliance. He said that if Russia attacked any NATO nation, he would first consult and determine if they had “fulfilled their obligations to us” before coming to their aid.¹³ Trump set forth a policy of extortion never before heard or seen in American politics:

If we cannot be properly reimbursed for the tremendous cost of our military protecting other countries, and in many cases the countries I’m talking about are extremely rich. Then if we cannot make a deal, which I believe we will be able to, and which I would prefer being able to, but if we cannot make a deal, I would like you to say, I would prefer being able to, some people, the one thing they took out of your last story, you know, some people, the fools and the haters, they said, “Oh, Trump doesn’t want to protect you.” I would prefer that we be able to continue, but if we are not going to be reasonably reimbursed for the tremendous cost of protecting these massive nations with tremendous wealth…Then yes, I would be absolutely prepared to tell those countries, “Congratulations, you will be defending yourself.”¹⁴

The statements rang alarms all across Europe and instantly damaged credibility of the US nominee worldwide… except in Russia.

Objective: Advocate for and/or Repatriate Ethnic Russian Regions

Like Hitler, Putin uses a form of Post-Soviet appeal to a virulent Russian ethno-nationalism in former Soviet states. With his stoking of the nationalist fever he and his intelligence agencies fund and direct ethnic Russian populations to agitate to the point where Russian military forces can seize territory that was lost. To effect this, it is necessary for the SVR and GRU to covertly fund and mobilize popular political support in the affected areas and build a public outcry to “defend” ethnic Russian populations. It is particularly acute in nations that were former Soviet satellite states, but are now closely aligned with NATO.

Hitler carried out a similar strategy in 1938 when he exhorted Germans to validate his annexation of the Sudetenland, the ethnic German-speaking region of what was then Czechoslovakia. Hitler saw the immense power of rallying the German people to repatriate those he characterized as poor ethnic Germans to the greater Reich. Putin has adopted this strategy of ethnic “rescue” to justify political operations in Eastern Europe. Usually this was a slow process of creating Russian political parties, infusing them with cash and illicit weapons. Waiting for them to form a popular uprising with the help of the SVR and then diplomatically protesting greatly that ethnic Russians were in danger. Hillary Clinton noted this when she said Putin was a man “who believes his mission is to restore Russia’s greatness… When he looks at Ukraine, he sees a place that he believes is by its very nature part of Mother Russia.”¹⁵

Trump himself was aware of Putin’s designs, but unlike most Americans, he applauded. In his 2011 book Time to Get Tough he wrote, “Putin has big plans for Russia. He wants to edge out its neighbors so that Russia can dominate oil supplies to all of Europe,” Elaborating, Trump wrote “I respect Putin and Russians but cannot believe our leader (Obama) allows them to get away with so much… Hats off to the Russians.”¹⁶

Objective: Keep America Out of the Ukraine in Particular