Putin will not outsmart Trump as he did with four previous presidents because the ‘Teflon Don’ will flip the “former” KGB operative’s playbook against him, making him his intel target.
Now that Donald Trump has secured a historic victory, returning to the White House for another term in January, assorted pundits are pontificating that the president-elect will give away the store to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, especially when it comes to resolving the almost three-year Russia-Ukraine conflict.
I’m here to tell you that President-elect Trump is a gift to Ukraine and a nightmare for Putin.
Trump is the first U.S. president who has been able to outsmart the Russian dictator after the latter had fooled four U.S. presidents. Yes, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and, of course, President Biden. All fell for the “former” KGB operative’s chicanery, having gullibly trusted Putin that Russia could be America’s friend.
George W. Bush famously proclaimed that he “looked the man [Putin] in the eye.” Bush described Putin, the “former” KGB operative, as “consistent, transparent, honest, and an easy man to discuss our opportunities and problems with”, according to the White House archives.
Friendship? Common values? Seriously? The FBI had just arrested its own agent, Robert Hanssen, a 20-year spy for the KGB, in February 2001. The most damaging spy in modern history, Hanssen sold some of the most sensitive U.S. secrets to the Russians, including our nuclear secrets, the existence of a secret American-built tunnel under the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., and the identities of Soviets who spied for America.
Evidently, Bush and his advisers weren’t deterred by the fact that Putin’s first Foreign Policy Concept pronounced America’s “economic and power dominance” as a threat to Russia’s national interests and his first military doctrine alluded to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) being a top threat to Russia’s security. Both were approved by Putin in 2000.
Even the terrifying revelation made by the House Armed Services Committee in October 1999 about Russia’s “sabotage plans” against the United States failed to prevent the spell that Putin projected on Bush. Transcripts of congressional testimonies reveal that the committee had in its possession “dramatic evidence” of the KGB’s positioning on NATO territory and possibly United States territory caches of high explosives and arms intended for sabotage operations in the event of war.
Bush wasn’t the first U.S. president played by Putin. Vlad began his charm offensive targeting U.S. presidents for manipulation with Bill Clinton. Clinton called Putin on Mar 27, 2000, the day after the Russian elections, to congratulate him on his victory. Declassified White House records reveal a very chummy phone call in which the leaders of former Cold War archenemies called each other by their first names, Vladimir and Bill.
Clinton expressed eagerness to build relations with his Russian counterpart and “the relationship between the U.S. and Russia.”
“We can accomplish a lot together”, he told Putin. And Vladimir responded in kind, assuring Bill that his trust wasn’t misplaced.
“It is clear to the whole world that I am a person you can work with”, Putin said, and he thanked Clinton for his comments about the Russian dictator’s “modest personality.”
“The statement that you made about my modest personality was not unacknowledged here … this statement by the U.S. president was not unnoticed by people in Russia and throughout the world.
