Plans Come Together
“I love it when a plan comes together” – Hannibal Smith, The A Team
The Russian Intelligence agencies weren’t much different after the fall of the Soviet Union. Yes, the KGB was split in two to become the FSB (Foreign Security Service – counter- intelligence and internal security, sort of like an evil FBI) and the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service – more like the CIA) but while the administration changed, the mission remained the same. And military intelligence, the GRU continued on serving the state. The intelligence network laid low through the Yeltsin era, but with the ascendancy of Vladimir Putin, one of the KGB’s own, they were back in full action again.
In Putin’s new era of Russian expansion, each agency searched for a way to maintain relevance, and to further his goal of rebuilding the Soviet empire. The GRU, recognizing that the armed might of Russia was far less, searched for alternative means of influencing the burgeoning democracies of the newly independent former Soviet states. Attacking computer networks, including voting computers, became one of their specialties, as well as using false accounts and “trolls” on social media to influence neighboring populations. Their actions started in Estonia, but expanded to Ukraine, and ultimately to France, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
The SVR continued much of the KGB era operations. This included the sleeper agents place throughout the world even before the fall of the Soviet Union, and assassination actions towards enemies both at home and abroad. It also included a longtime Soviet program of finding ways to influence foreign leaders. The old KGB tactic of gathering “kompromat” or compromising information for blackmail, accelerated as Russia became a center for cheap money as a result of the sale of “Soviet” assets. Billions of dollars were to be made, and any and all fetishes could be fulfilled, accompanied by a hidden camera.
But it wasn’t just the old-fashioned blackmail material that made Russian intelligence influential. There was an even more powerful influence: money. The billionaires around Putin maintained their role and their bankrolls by following his orders. They “freely” invested their monies throughout the world. Whether it was loans to Deutsche Bank in Germany or the Bank of Cyprus, or real estate in Miami, New York, London, or Singapore; the tentacles of the Russian “oligarchs” spread throughout the world. And if an influential person in a target country, say, the United States, needed funds, then the oligarchs were directed to finance them. It was always for a profit, and always had Russian strings attached.
None of these actions were initially targeted at the United States Presidency. Each of the prongs: the GRU’s internet attacks, the SVR and FSB grooming of influential individuals, and the Oligarch’s financial influence; were originally designed the push the former Soviet States back into the Russian empire.
There was no original “plot” to make Donald Trump President of the United States. He was a broke, high profile real estate marketer, fresh from the failures of his casinos in Atlantic City and multiple bankruptcies. He needed money to get back on his feet, and US Banks weren’t lending to a clear real estate failure. But he was a TV character, the image of success in “The Apprentice,” and the oligarchs extended the Trump Organization financing. Soft loans from Deutsche Bank, high market purchase of Trump condos, and wildly over-valued purchases of Florida property all opened a money and influence flow.
Why would they pick Trump? He already was outspoken on a variety of issues, and he had a national audience. If his statements were slowly biased towards Russian interests, then perhaps it would influence US policy towards Russia. But more importantly, Trump was a “loud mouth,” historically divisive and disruptive, Russian money and influence could amplify his national voice.
Trump was not an “only” target. Russian money was infiltrated into US interest groups, from the National Rifle Association to the Green Party. Mainstream candidates for office would accept “dark money” support, not necessarily even knowing its Russian origin. The tentacles of Russian money spread into American political life.
Vladimir Putin’s goal was not to elect Donald Trump. His goal was to disrupt America’s democracy. Who won wasn’t the primary goal, it was an attack on the legitimacy of the democratic process itself. Russia no longer could compete as an economic or even a military power; his only alternative was to try increase his influence by reducing American influence.
So a multi-prong plan emerged from the intelligence agencies. A brilliant mind in the Kremlin saw all of the pieces and pulled them together into a coherent strategy: support Donald Trump as a disruptive candidate for President, and make sure he gets support from the US interest groups already under Russian influence. The goal was not “to win” but to sow disorder.
Backing the plan was the GRU with their new-found power in social media. With the cooperation (unknowing?) of Facebook and Twitter and Google, and perhaps the targeting information provided by their contact at the “psycho-profiling” firm Cambridge Analytica, they were able to exacerbate the divisions already present in American political life. The subconscious resentment of some Americans of an African-American President, the racial divisions seen in Ferguson and in the multiple shootings of unarmed black men, the drumbeat of hate for Muslims (radical Islamic Terrorists) and the inherent fear of changes from gay marriage to transsexual restrooms all could be inflamed online.
When Donald Trump decided to run for President, it may have been with subtle Russian encouragement, but when he began to have success in the primaries, the Russian intelligence network was brought into full support. And when he won Republican nomination, to run against Putin’s hated rival Hillary Clinton, Russia was “all-in.”
It was a confluence of different Russian intelligence programs. Years of work on different levels came together to produce a single Russian Intelligence goal – the candidacy of Donald Trump. They saw it as the single most disruptive action they could take towards the US. Win or lose, he “main-streamed” the fringe ideas that Russia had been pushing to divide America.
Abraham Lincoln famously said:
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
It was the Russian goal to fool as many as possible, as least for some of the time.
It took Americans to get Donald Trump elected to the United States. From the millions of dollars worth of free television time that MSNBC’s Morning Joe gave him early in the campaign, to the 54.4 million followers Donald Trump has on Twitter, Americans bought into his candidacy. The Russian manipulations helped, and the Russian attacks on Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party helped even more, but it was Americans who made the Russian plan a success beyond their wildest dreams.
Whether it’s through money or “kompromat,” or choice, the Russians have an asset in the White House. As Hannibal Smith, the renegade Colonel who led the A Team of 1980’s television fame would say as he lit up his victory cigar; “I love it when a plan comes together.”
I bet Putin smokes Cubans.
