Stories matter. Narratives rule the day in this era of social media and the 24-hour news cycle. Here’s a narrative that often gets lost in the daily breaking news.
It must have started in November 2013, when the future president’s love affair with Russia ignited. At the Miss Universe Pageant, which Donald Trump had recently purchased and taken to Moscow for the broadcast — surely it was there that Vladimir Putin, former KBG agent that he is, decided Trump was a valuable Russian asset.
Richard Conville
In the world of espionage, an asset is a person in Country A who pretends to be loyal to that nation, but who, in fact, will pass on otherwise secret information or act in support of Nation B. That person, in Nation A, is an asset of Nation B’s espionage apparatus.
In the case of now-President Trump, the Russian asset, President Putin is using Trump to cripple the United State of America so he, Putin, can expand the borders of Russia further west into Europe, unimpeded by the U.S. nuclear umbrella and a strong NATO. Putin’s goal is to restore Russia’s borders to the Cold War boundaries of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR.
Less than a year after the end of World War II, on March 5, 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delineated those boundaries in his now (even more) famous “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in Missouri.
“Putin’s goal is to restore Russia’s borders to the Cold War boundaries of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR.”
From Stettin (Poland) in the Baltic to Trieste (Italy) in the Adriatic an “Iron Curtain” has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.
Surely Putin noticed in November 2013, at the Miss Universe Pageant, the ease with which Trump is manipulated. It only takes a little extra attention, some well-placed compliments and agreement with his self-aggrandizing comments. Moreover, as a KGB agent, Putin surely would have studied Adorno’s theory of the authoritarian personality and would have noted that Trump, true to type, would be all bluster and threats when in the presence of one less powerful than he (for example, with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office) but would stumble all over himself to accommodate and agree with one he deemed to be his equal or more powerful than he (Putin).
So Putin realized early on that Trump would be useful to him somewhere down the road, would be an asset. Now we have come to that place down the road, on the way to Putin’s goal of dominating Europe. Trump has been immensely useful to Putin, especially in the last few months.
Let me count the ways:
- Trump and Vice President JD Vance ambushed Zelensky in the Oval Office, subjecting him to public ridicule on national television. Vintage Trump. Government by Ridicule. “You don’t have the cards,” Trump snarled at Zelensky — as if it were all just another poker game. Public Ridicule: it’s what all Trump’s acolytes fear in their eager compliance with his every move. Trump (and Putin) do not want Zelensky to stand as a symbol of democracy for the West and a rallying point for NATO to resist Putin’s aggression. Putin (and Trump) want to shrink Zelensky and cast him as a corrupt, small-time dictator of an insignificant Eastern European country.
- Trump also has cut off military aid to Ukraine.
- Trump has terminated intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
- Trump has blamed Ukraine for the war, ignoring the historical reality of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and occupation of one-fifth of its sovereign territory.
Russia is an enemy of the United States, and Trump does not or cannot see it. Putin wants to sow discord among members of the Western Alliance (he cheered when Elon Musk endorsed and Vance met with the leader of Germany’s far-right AFD party). Putin wants to weaken the American economy (he cheers Trump’s tariff war with Canada and Mexico), and he wants the sanctions on Russia lifted (he cheers when Trump alleges there are attractive business opportunities for U.S. firms in Russia).
Trump has proved to be an effective Russian asset. Is that what we want in a president?
Richard Conville is professor emeritus of communication studies at the University of Southern Mississippi and a 47-year resident of Hattiesburg, Miss., where he is a member of University Baptist Church.
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