Russia, Putin, and Trump — Untangling the Conspiracy Theories

John O’Sullivan:

Today there occurs the first telephone call between President Trump and Russian President Putin. It will be a significant moment because both men have suggested that they want a better Russo–American relationship to be a main element in their foreign policies. That’s bound to be controversial when Russia is engaged in an ongoing war in Ukraine. But it’s especially so because allegations have been circulating in recent weeks that Russia “hacked” the U.S. presidential election to elect Trump. U.S. intelligence agencies have issued statements supporting the milder versions of this theory. And private intelligence agencies with links not only to them but also to Britain’s MI6 have been peddling salacious stories that Trump was probably vulnerable to blackmail by Russian intelligence, if he was not actually a Russian agent, the Manchurian candidate in fact. Some important people have been seriously worried by these stories; some Democrats and Never Trumpers, seriously delighted by them. So will Trump open up the conversation on some such lines as “Reporting in, boss. What is it today? Blowing up Brussels? Or switching sides on Ukraine?”

Some odd things are happening. But what? I think we should be told.

Maybe I should start with a brief declaration of non-interest. This article is not prompted by pro-Trump partisanship. I was a supporter of Ted Cruz in the primaries and, late in the day, urged voting for Trump in the general election because I thought Hillary Clinton was the greater threat to American liberty. I was delighted that Trump made immigration a major election-winning issue but very dubious about his economic protectionism. I hoped that despite his flaws, he would bring new constituencies of “forgotten Americans” into the GOP tent, as he seems to have done. And I was (and am) mystified by the apparent contradictions in his personality, since he seems to be by turns calculating and impulsive, harsh and generous, shrewd and clueless, ignorant and well informed, a lonely decision-maker surrounded by loyal friends and helpful advisers. It’s sensible to be worried about how such a complex figure will perform as president but rash to make firm predictions about it.

Okay, now to the nub, the gist, or the kernel of the controversy. Did Russia hack the U.S. presidential election? And the answer is plainly “No.” The commonsense meaning of “hacking the election” is using electronic methods to turn votes for A into votes for B. That never happened. Or, to be precise, no one has produced any evidence of its happening or any other reason to think it might have happened. My distinguished colleagues, Andrew McCarthy, Victor Davis Hanson, and Michael Barone have all produced variations on this point, and they have not been effectively answered. So, the election was not hacked, not for anyone’s benefit.

Let us dial down the outrage, then, and ask: Did the Russians try to influence the election? And the answer is that of course they did. If they think they can influence a U.S. election, they will do so — and most of the time they can do so legitimately by saying or hinting that they prefer one candidate to another. Most of the time, too, they prefer the incumbent to the challenger because they have usually learned to work with him after four years. Our NATO allies think exactly the same way. It doesn’t always play to the advantage of the more Russophile or (in past times) the pro-Soviet candidate. (The Soviets preferred Nixon over McGovern.) And the technical term for this kind of thing is diplomacy, albeit low-risk diplomacy.

On the other hand, if the Russians believe they can influence the election illegitimately — which will be rarely — they have to weigh the risks of doing so against the likely benefits of getting their favorite into the White House. A Henry Wallace might tip the scales toward such intervention; few other candidates would meet this standard — and Hillary Clinton does not qualify on the other side as someone whom the Russians would take risks to keep out of the White House. As secretary of state she accepted the Russian occupation of Georgia, withdrew the missile-defense programs from Poland and the Czech Republic, ignored the public appeal of East European leaders for a stronger U.S. commitment to resist Russian threats to their region, and pressed the famous “reset button” to signify a warmer relationship with Russia after the pro-democracy excesses of the George W. Bush years. She’s their kind of gal.

And, in addition, it seems that, like almost everyone else, they thought she was going to win.

The only circumstances in which the Kremlin might want to risk terminally alienating the potential next U.S. president would be if she offered them her head on a platter — which is exactly what Mrs. Clinton did when she installed a private server in someone’s basement and started playing fast and loose with U.S. security rules on secret communications. Leaking the results through some third party like WikiLeaks went from low-risk diplomacy to no-risk diplomacy because of the embarrassing fact that the stories being leaked were true.

This is now in danger of being forgotten or repressed in the rush to condemn Trump, but it explains why a Russian intelligence service might risk annoying the next tenant of the White House. There are limits to both risks and retaliation when all you are doing is accurately quoting your opponent. Mrs. Clinton and other Democrats are very assiduously drawing a veil over the outrageous things that the Russians are supposed to have done because their victim was also their accomplice. It is now the apparent intention of the Russian tactics — cui bono? who benefits? — to which Democrats now point with varying degrees of suspicion.

On the assumption that the Russians did intervene illegitimately, what was their purpose? There seem to me to be two very different possibilities. The first is that the Russians were attempting to show that American democracy is a ridiculous sham that no one can seriously admire or wish to emulate. David Satter advanced that interpretation in an NRO article, and it strikes me as being the more plausible of the two accounts. It fits perfectly into the long-standing Russian propaganda campaign, described by David and by Peter Pomerantsev in their recent books, to spread the word not that Russian authoritarianism is an attractive ideological system but that democracy is not much better, maybe even worse because it’s also hypocritical. This line of propaganda therefore appeals to a wider-than-usual range of possible converts because it takes in cynics.

The second possible purpose is that the Russians wanted to see the election of Donald Trump. That’s not necessarily criminal, of course, since they may simply believe they can work with him toward a more cooperative Russo–American relationship. Trump himself makes exactly this argument with a consistency that critics find worrying. Doesn’t it suggest that he might be in cahoots with them, they ask, a covert agent working for Putin? Well, it just possibly might, but surely it suggests at least as strongly that Trump thinks he has an important new U.S. grand strategy based on a U.S.–Russian alliance and, knowing it to be controversial, wants to make the case for it at every opportunity. (I don’t think he has a good strategy here myself, and it possible, even likely, that he will have to modify it greatly if Putin proves obdurate in his aggressiveness. But it is obvious that a friendly Russo–American relationship is desirable other things being equal.)

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