One of the theories put forward by Streetwise Professor, which I also subscribe to, is that Russia views its relationship with the United States and the West in general as a zero-sum game.  That is, whatever is good for Russia must be bad for the US by default and vice versa.

A while ago a Russian friend of mine in Sakhalin asked what people in the West were saying about Russia.  I told him that most people really couldn’t care less about Russia or what it is doing.  The average Brit or American cares as much about Russia as they do the sale that’s on at the bread-counter of their local supermarket.  The Cold War ended some time ago and the widespread interest in Russia disappeared.  It is only those who follow geopolitics that care a jot about what Russia is doing and why, nobody else cares.

This is probably something that drives Putin nuts.  Each and every day he rails against the United States and the West, pouring forth stories about how Russia is surrounded by its enemies who are determined to see the Motherland on its knees and begging for mercy.  Whatever Russia does or does not do it is presented through the narrow lens of what this means for the USA and Europe.  Take Russia’s infamous pipeline plans, for example.  Building a pipeline from Russia to China makes sense, and does so in its own right.  But the Russians can’t help but frame it as a “swing” away from Europe to new geopolitical centres of gravity in an emerging Asia blah blah blah.  Meanwhile nobody in Europe cares, the gas keeps flowing, the LNG spot market grows, and the damned pipelines don’t get built anyway.  Last week there were news reports of Russians preparing for nuclear war.  If ordinary Russians realised how low they are placed on a list of concerns of ordinary Westerners they would probably weep with despair.

It is one of the reasons why SWP and others are so frustrated with the US fretting about Russia’s involvement in Syria.  The US has no strategic interest in Syria, and the idea that the West is about to “lose influence” in the Middle East because Russia is now bombing the shit out of anything that moves and propping up such a pathetic figure as Bashar al Assad is laughable.  Influence over what, exactly? Yet supposedly serious people are contemplating going to war over it.  Europe is another matter, and I believe the US and Europe ought to have reacted a lot more strongly to Russia’s takeover of the Crimea, the sabre rattling along the borders of the Baltic States, and the shooting down of MH-17.

But in Syria, the American’s constant fretting about what Russia is doing is merely demonstrating to Putin that he is doing the right thing.  In his zero-sum world, if the Americans are upset that Russia is bombing villages in Syria then bombing villages in Syria must therefore be good for Russia.  If the US wasn’t paying Russia so much damned attention – and Britain wasn’t embarrassing itself in episodes like this – then perhaps Putin would ask himself why he’s committing so much to Syria in the first place.  But as things stand, he’s getting exactly what he wants: a US which is hot under the collar about things they cannot control.

Which brings me to all the fretting in the media over whether Donald Trump is in the pay of the Russians.  Trump has come out and praised Putin at various times, although as is always the case with Trump he is inconsistent from one occasion to the next and you never know what he is actually praising/condemning and if he really means it.  But in any case, you don’t need to be a supporter of Putin to appreciate he does have some redeeming features: he rules by popular consent (see here for the qualifier) and leaving aside his immature macho rhetoric and photo shoots he is far less of a wet blanket than pretty much every Western male politician I can think of (which, as I have said before, is why he probably prefers Trump).

So Trump admires Putin and Putin admires Trump.  Okay, this isn’t ideal but this has now been extrapolated to mean that every new development and scandal in the buildup to the US Presidential Election is being carefully orchestrated by Putin and the Russians.  Which is, quite frankly, whaleshit.  I have no doubt Putin & Co. has a copy of every email that passed through Hillary’s private server, as does every other nation with a semi-functioning intelligence agency.  That’s generally why Secretaries of State should not be running private email servers in the first place, but this isn’t the Russians’ fault.  But other than perhaps some disinformation and low-level hacking, I find the idea that the Russians are exerting undue influence on the election to be ridiculous.  Is Wikileaks being operated by Russians?  Did they fake Hillary’s emails?  Did they plant incriminating emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop?  Did they pay FBI agents to revolt against Comey?  Did they pay people to show up to Trump’s rallies and to stay away from Hillary’s? No, they did not.

Whereas I am sure Putin finds all of this highly amusing, waking up each morning and reading that he, personally, will decide who will become US President next week, the US is guilty of doing the same at home as it is in Syria.  By attributing anything and everything to nefarious Russian plots being directed by Putin, it is merely emboldening him and will do nothing to discourage meddling for real in the future.  Russia is a concern, especially where European territorial sovereignty is concerned, but the Russian bogeyman stalking the US election is just that: a bogeyman.  Everyone would be better off if they ignored it.