In terms of the evidence of Russian hacking, through Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, you know, I'm not sure what would constitute Russian fingerprints more than what has been offered. Yeah, sure, perhaps we could see more of the trail of evidence, but what I've seen, so far, convinces me that it was a Russian operation. Again, if you have evidence that there is somebody else out there, better proof that has been offered, I'm willing to hear it. And I'm willing to change my mind as well, but what I've seen so far points in one direction and one direction only.
AARON MATÃ?: And I'm certainly willing to change my mind as well, of course, everyone is. My point is that the absence of evidence of another party doesn't, for me, lead to the conclusion that it was Russia, and the absence of what we've been discussing here is I think a lack of evidence. Let me also say, my concern here is not defending Putin or his policies, it's just not holding Putin to a higher standard than we hold anyone else, and doing so in a way that deflects from our own internal problems here at home.
So for example, if we're linking Putin to white supremacy in the U.S., then I think we're risking overlooking the very real ties between many people in our government and leading pundits and white supremacists, including our president Donald Trump. Especially in the absence of actual, I mean, you talk about white supremacists visiting Moscow, well sure. White supremacists also visit Washington D.C. because they live in the U.S. So that to me does not seem proof of a tangible connection in which the Russian government is actively supporting white supremacists.
And in terms of holding Putin to a different standard, the concern about that, on top of ignoring the issues here in the U.S., is what if that is used in the service of a Cold War agenda? Which I know you oppose, but there are elements of the national security state for which this Russia hysteria is very advantageous. It justifies military expenditures and it fuels far-right militaristic policies like Trump is doing right now in Syria, against Russia's wishes, and also even on Russia's borders with NATO, expanding the NATO military presence there. But all of which is being overlooked because we're so focused on trying to prove a Trump-Russia connection.
JOHN FEFFER: Well, I mean, I can only talk about me, I can't talk about what other analysts do or don't do, and I spend more of my time looking at precisely the things you're talking about. Expansion of NATO to Russian borders, I talk about the connections between Donald Trump and white supremacists, I talk about all things wrong with American elections that have nothing to do with Russia. So, I spend far more of my time talking about those things than I do about Russiagate. I happened to publish two articles recently because I'm concerned about the fact that progressives are overlooking this threat, not because I think progressives should focus on Russiagate to the exclusion of all other things, but I do think that progressives should take a hard and realistic look at what is taking place in Moscow and what Putin's larger geopolitical ambitions are.
In terms of a growing cold war, I'm absolutely opposed to any effort to recreate a cold war, I've consistently supported all sorts of agreements between the United States and Russia from arms control, to resolving the Syria conflict, to bolstering the cooperation that we did see around the Iran nuclear agreement. That goes without saying. But, I am also concerned about Russian actions and not just Russian actions with respect to election meddling in Europe and the United States, I'm concerned with what Russia does in the Ukraine, I'm concerned about Russian actions in Syria, I'm concerned about Russian involvement in its near or abroad beyond Ukraine.
All of those are very, very troubling things, because let's face it, Russia has in the past had an imperial perspective and I believe that imperial perspective is deeply ingrained in Vladimir Putin's world view. How does it compare to U.S. imperial strategies? Well, of course it's a much smaller kind of component to world geopolitics, because Russian power is much smaller than U.S. power. But it doesn't mean we should overlook it or ignore it.
AARON MATÃ?: Okay. So John, finally as we wrap, can we agree on this, which is that the evidence so far, in terms of Trump's actual policies when it comes to Russia, some of which we've talked about, expanding NATO on Russia's border, he just released his nuclear strategy which is primarily focused on Russia and calls for increasing the nuclear arsenal to develop these so-called low yield weapons aimed at Russia, maintaining the U.S. troop presence in Syria indefinitely in a bid to target Iran, can we agree that, and also, of course, most significantly, doing what Obama rejected because he didn't want to fuel the new cold war even more, which is Trump is now supplying weapons to Ukraine to fight the Russian backed separatists in the east, all these policies do not lend themselves to a narrative of trump and Russia being in cahoots. Because here, these are all cases where certainly is not pleased with what Trump is doing.
JOHN FEFFER: I can absolutely agree that Putin is not pleased with what Trump is doing. I would argue that it was largely a marriage of convenience, both Putin and Trump had their own reasons for playing nice with one another and that those reasons, if they did not completely disappear with the election, certainly became considerably attenuated. So Donald trump has pursued his own foreign policy that's very different from the foreign policy he pretended to have when we was a candidate and a subset of that foreign policy was a kind of non-interventionist, more cooperative position with Russia.
That has disappeared. Why it's disappeared, well, there are lots of reasons for that, but we shouldn't project that backwards and say that because of Trump's reversals on foreign policy that means ipso facto that there was no complicity between Russia and Trump. The relationship went sour, as many relationships do go sour, but I would agree with you currently U.S. and Russian relations are not at a very good point.
AARON MATÃ?: It just seems curious to me that Putin would work so hard to elect a candidate who then goes and takes office and then pursues a more radical, or at least more militaristic posture towards Russia then even his predecessor, Obama did.
JOHN FEFFER: So first of all, I don't think Putin could predict what Donald Trump was going to do as president, unpredictability was basically the best word to describe Donald Trump, both as a candidate and as we've determined a president as well. So I don't think anybody, much less Vladimir Putin, could have predicted the turn U.S.-Russian relations would take. But also I would call into question that the idea that the Kremlin was specifically interested in getting Donald Trump elected.
I mean, Donald trump was a long shot, very few people thought he was going to get elected. I think what the Kremlin was hoping was more of a polarization strategy, somewhat similar to the dezinformatsiya strategy of the soviet years, and that is simply to sow confusion and to kind of accentuate the disagreements within American society and within the political sphere more specifically. And with that, I think the Kremlin was successful. You could argue that the election of Donald Trump was not a success, in fact, because of Trump's unpredictability and the ultimate trajectory of U.S.-Russian relations.
AARON MATÃ?: Okay, well, as much as I'd like to respond we are out of time, so we'll leave it there for now, but hope to continue this in the future. John Feffer is our guest, editor of LobeLog and Director of Foreign Policy and Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. His new piece for LobeLog is called "Russiagate or Deep State?" John, thank you.
JOHN FEFFER: Thank you.
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