Monday, February 3, 2025

Putin's favorite candidate and “American Apocalypse" project

By Irina Severin

Putin's favorite candidate and “American Apocalypse" project

Russia’s stake in U.S. 2012 election
RON PAUL and his "V FOR VLADIMIR" presidential campaign

Last days before the Russian presidential elections, Vladimir Putin, the only viable Russian candidate for the presidency,  has increasingly often blamed the US for meddling in Russian internal affairs and warned against the dangers of foreign influence.  Putin accuses the protesters’ leaders of being ‘paid agents of the United States working to weaken Russia’. What is the explanation for Putin’s obsession with foreign influence? Is this a paranoia inherited from the Stalin times, or is it just a projection of Putin’s constant meddling in the elections in other countries? Russian neighbors have a vast experience of such interference, which usually leads to political chaos and overall confusion.  Russia is too weak to get its neighbors under control and too unattractive, which makes them, despite the enormous Moscow pressure, continue to lean to the West.


Russians blame the US for the collapse of the USSR, which Putin named ‘the biggest catastrophe of the 20th century.  America’s ‘triumphalism’ of the Cold War winner' irritates Putin as he still sees Russia as an equal to the US pole in the bipolar world of the Soviet era.  However, despite his imperial daydreamings, Russia remains a country with an underperforming economy dependent on oil prices and a corrupt state. Instead of rebuilding the economy and modernizing the political system, Russia, suffering from losing control over its former East-European communist vassals, which are either integrated or tend to integrate with the West, prefers to obsess with taking revenge on America. The rationale here is that the less attractive America will be, the more chances are that Russia will become more attractive to its neighbors.


For Russia, the only hope to win someday competition with the US and to regain its influence in the world is to make the US weaker and less attractive.  Despite the crisis, Russian neighbors see the US as a role model and protection from Russia’s growing covert expansionism.


Putin’s internal “managed democracy” does not take much time to manage. High oil prices assure economic growth. Thus, warfare with the West and in particular, with the US is the priority and occupation for Putin. For him, the Soviet Union is nothing but one of the incarnations of the Russian Empire. The communist ideology was just a useful tool consolidating not only the masses inside of the USSR but mobilizing the “useful idiots” around the world, including the West. Now Russia is looking for a new ideology that can do the same. In 2009 Putin’s party “Edinaya Rossia” (“United Russia”) declared that its official ideology is conservatism, which means rebuilding the former Russian Empire as the key conservative value and recruiting supporters abroad among the conservatives additionally to the old leftist ties. 


For the US, Russia is far from being a priority. America would like to engage Russia in cooperation, but Putin’s vindictiveness, combined with Russia’s growing assertiveness abroad, makes the US attempts to reset relations with Russia doomed from the start.


Ron Paul's ‘Right at home – left abroad’ ideology


Driven by revenge Putin does not want to accept the place the West is offering to Russia - to integrate with the West on Western terms: as a regular state with the precondition of democracy and a free market economy. Putin prefers to incorporate the West on his own conditions changing the Western mindset and the political landscape in Russia’s favor.


Russia started to consolidate its influence in the West as it was in 60-s when American Peace organizations were, in fact, Soviet fronts financed by the USSR. However, this time Russian counterparts are not American left, but the libertarian Ron Paul, whose views entirely coincide with Putin’s plans for America. He works hard to co-opt the Republican Party, some Democrats and Independents to win the Presidential election. Ron Paul president would be an ideal all-in-one solution for Putin’s troubles.  Ron Paul’s  tailor-made for Russia ‘Right at home – left abroad’ ideology ideally suits Russia.


Libertarianism as an ideology was created in 60-s based on the utopian philosophy of Russian emigree and dystopian writer Ayn Rand.  In her view, the selfishness in the primary virtue and the capitalists are the heroes and a minority unfairly harassed with the taxations and regulations by the main enemy - the government. Dollar plays the sacral role as an organizing factor. The government and the social welfare should be abolished and the anarcho-capitalist rule established. Social Darwinism at home preached by Ayn Rand combined with the leftist isolationism abroad would ideally serve Russian interests as this would: Social Darwinism would destroy America from inside and Isolationism would wipe America off from the political map.


Putin's "Democratisation of America" Project


In summer 2007 Putin declared that he intends to spend as much money on ‘democratization’ of the West as the West invests for the same purpose in Russia and post-Soviet space. For Russia, this amounts to about 60 million dollars per year. The program was announced just before the first Ron Paul’s the 5th November 2007 "Money Bomb" (Putin's contribution disguised as a people's multi-stream donation) and officially launched in January 2008. The moment could be marked as a start of Putin’s massive investment into American election and creation of the Tea Party as an influence tool.


However, in comparison with the US programs, there is no public information on who gets Russian grants and for what as well as how money get to the beneficiaries.  Everything is done in a conspiratorial way using different schemes - the same way Russia used to finance its meddling in politics of the neighboring countries. So far the process is in a stage of crystallization of the American Revolution vanguard ideology, intended to “attack the system” and consolidate Paul’s electorate base.


During all real and virtual Putin’s confrontations with the US – be this Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004 or brief war with Georgia in 2008 Putin always had a firm ally - Ron Paul.   His position always coincided with Putin's. He eagerly blamed Ukraine and Georgia following the Russian suit, and, at times, seemed to be even more hostile toward the American East-European allies than Putin himself.


In the light of latest mass protests in Russia, support for Ron Paul is not only a matter of gratitude for Putin but an issue of political survival.  Putin does not hide that he is afraid of democratic revolution in Russia. And Ron Paul is the only candidate in the presidential race, who can not only guaranty Putin’s political future but considerably strengthen his position both in Russia and in the world.



‘Russia Today’ and other Russia's propaganda  tools


Russian state-sponsored TV channel Russia Today (RT), launched in 2005 after his failure in Orange Revolution, actively promotes one candidate in the presidential race. Ron Paul gets the lion share of the air time and is presented in a cult style inherent for the Russian media. Hardly the openly mocking features on Santorum and Romney or Obama can be considered an unbiased election coverage. But Russia Today even does not pretend to be objective. RT’s goal is to make fringe ideas and fringe candidate an American political mainstream, and RT does succeed in this so far.


Another big theme for the RT are the anonymous and ‘leaderless’ movements – the Tea Party, the Occupy WS movement, WikiLeaks) and the Internet hackers’ movement Anonymous, all of which act in amazing sync with Ron Paul.  All work on destroying Ron Paul’s opponents and creating a right grade of chaos to make Ron Paul look like an acceptable candidate. Despite the opposite views of ultra-right Tea Party and ultra-left Occupy movement both work as the primary Ron Paul’s resources.  As Ron Paul’s had said in a bizarre statement, he can ‘bridge’ them. The explanation is simple – behind both movements is Putin. Both movements are fringe and anti-establishment with a purpose to radicalize the existing political division.

Ron Paul Presidency as America’s Self-demise

Russian experts see Ron Paul as a candidate not only able to reverse the US progress but to critically diminish America’s clout in the world. In fact, Ron Paul’s Libertarian ideology perfectly matches Russia’s  goal first voiced by Stalin and later picked up by Hruschov in 60-s:"to catch up America and overcome it."  As Russia is unable to overcome America in an open competition, it can obstruct its development by supporting a zealous Libertarian, Ron Paul.  Besides the obsession with the Libertarian utopia Ron Paul also does not believe in evolution. Being a creationist means that any progress for him is a deterioration from the ideal primal prototype. Paul’s covert religious fanaticism disguised as Libertarianism makes him even more precious for Putin as it guarantees him from usual for the politicians flip-flopping after the election. According to Russian propaganda, everybody is fake, and only Ron Paul is real.


At the same time, Paul’s simplistic ‘eat, drink, smoke whatever you want’ Libertarianism, appealing for naive youth combined with unbridled anarcho-capitalism, is a right-wing mirroring of the communist totalitarianism.  Any radical utopia can be implemented only by authoritarian means. Paul’s cult followers’ aggression and hate speech in reply to even minor criticism only confirm the dictatorial potential of the libertarian utopia and strongly resembles aggressiveness of Putin youth followers - lavishly funded anti-western and ultra-patriotic organization ‘Nashi,' created by the Kremlin "political technologists" to build Vladimir Putin personality cult. In both cases, bullying, intimidating and harassing the opponents are the used means.


Ron Paul’s disdain for ‘pure democracy’ as ‘a mob rule’ suits Putin much better than other American politicians' calls for democracy. For Putin, the democracy is just a hostile ideology used to weaken his power. Russian "Sovereign democracy" declaring the independence from the US legitimization, in a bizarre way echoes America’s new movement of Sovereign citizens, an extremist group proclaiming the internal sovereignty from the American state.  The group (as well as many other fringe groups) perfectly fit  Putin’s intention to disrupt American society. All of them support Ron Paul as their favorite candidate.


Russian ‘Gas Elephant’ on American Political Market


Putin loves the idea of deregulations in the US business and politics.  Russian state-run energy giant Gazprom in 2009 has opened its office in Texas. Gazprom is known as a ‘Kremlin’s purse’ and as all other Russian ‘patriotic businesses’ actively promotes Russian political agenda abroad.  Did Gazprom's coming just luckily coincided with the Citizens United decision or did Russians stimulate it as they used to influence court decisions in the neighboring countries?  Ron Paul openly supported the Citizens United decision distorting  the democratic process claiming that 


In Russia, Gazprom is known for acquiring media outlets to assure control over the independent media and dictate them agenda.  Abroad Gazprom works as a political tool by creating a monopoly on gas and manipulating gas prices. It is interesting what Gazprom is doing in the US. There is no public information about the Gazprom activities in the US since its coming in 2009. 


 Before coming, Gazprom intended to supply LNG to the US from the huge Sakhalin and the Shtokman fields, what should diminish gas price on the market. However, instead, it acquires American energy assets.  The sphere of Gazprom’s interests includes not only American gas fields and facilities but also oil, electric power and carbon utilities – the areas sensible enough to ensure political control if a critical mass ("controlling interest" of the industry) is acquired.  As media notes, rising gas prices already cloud Obama reelection hope.



Privatized Government 

Ron Paul’s ‘small government’ mantra excites Russians the most as it let the US government outsource its functions to unaccountable shadow power brokers –  commercial consulting firms making them more influential than elected politicians.  Many of them are sponsored by Russians directly, or via its fronts, they ironically name the process a "privatization of the US government." 

Promoted by Ron Paul radical approach would mean a takeover of the US government by the corporations and not necessarily only by American corporations.  As many of them are sponsored by Russia directly or via its fronts, Russians name the process a "privatization of the US government." In fact, Ron Paul, scaring Americans with ‘slipping into fascism,' on practice promotes the ideology, which inevitably leads to a corporatist state what is an epitome of fascism (controlled from outside).

Outsourcing combined with the abolishing of the Federal agencies would eventually lead the US to the breakdown similar to the collapse of the USSR. Russians do not hide that they would love this. The author of this scenario former KGB strategist and the head of the Diplomatic Academy Igor Panarin names the Tea Party and its Godfather Ron Paul “our friends-Stalinists, whom we have to help organize their revolution’.  Ron Paul enforces the Panarin’s scenario, reiterating that the ‘secessionism is a very much American.'

Putin benefits from Ron Paul’s “fight for Liberty,”  especially his efforts to abolish the CIA and FBI, the structures, which for several years secretly run surveillance of the Russian spy ring made public in 2010.  Ron Pual's "Unrestricted Liberty" would let Russian spies continue their subversive actions freely till today.  

Ron Paul’s fight against ‘the underserved excessive power and privilege of the dollar,'  ‘End the Fed’ mantras and return to the Gold Standard also calls entirely coincide with Putin’s hate toward American dollar.  It fits his intention to replace American dollar with a new world currency what should immediately diminish the US clout in the world. 

Ron Paul’s Social Darwinism combining abolishing social programs and state schools, legalization of drugs and prostitution in Putin's view should lead to the population degradation and increased inter-racial conflicts. Deregulations of the economy would stimulate even bigger concentration of the wealth in the hands of the 1%, what would mean the ineffective use of resources and the further massive exodus of money and jobs abroad. 

Economic and social degradation coupled with permanent civil confrontation artificially fueled by ultra-right the Tea Party and ultra-left Occupy Movement (both movements created by Putin’s operatives) should lead to a permanent class war, police state and dysfunctional political system. For Russia, this will be a huge win both in the propagandistic competition with the US and on the ground as the attractiveness of the US for the Russian neighbors will fade.

“American Apocalypse” as Putin’s End Game

Russian ‘political technologists’ name Libertarian scenario ‘American Apocalypse’ and brag that it will let them ‘to downfall America very carefully.'  Russian politicians’ main argument in negotiations with other countries is the affirmation that the US is not a big power anymore and its full collapse is just a matter of time.  In sync with Moscow,  Ron Paul intensely restates during all his public appearances “We are broke!’ 

The message America will collapse is spread not only by Putin's propaganda tool RT (Russia Today) but by the hired army of lobbyists and PR-professionals inside of America and by the army of the  English speaking bloggers. Their task is to cause the sense of inferiority among Americans in the US and abroad and in such way to launch the self-fulfilling prophecy mechanism. 

Ron Paul’s Libertarianism makes much more sense watching it from Moscow than from the US. In other words, if Putin would intend to write a script for his dream American candidate you would get a Ron Paul. With such devoted to Putin American politicians ready to destroy America Russia does not need the physical weapons. 

Putin foretastes the America's collapse. He didn’t reply to the question prepared for him in advance by his staff ‘would he help to America if it collapses?  But he couldn’t hide his satisfaction with already obtained success on the ground. 

Paradigm Shift from Physical Warfare to Psychological 

Putin understands very well that Russia lags at least 30 years in its military industry from the West and rejected the idea of the ‘physical warfare’ as an irrelevant in the information era, for the psychological war (not to mention cyber warfare). However, he continues bluffing on Russian military potential mostly to divert the attention from his covert victories in the psychological war against the West.

Putin probably has not enough resources yet to get Ron Paul elected ( he and his ideas are too appalling). But he does not give, gradually transforming Ron Paul's fringe ideas into a mainstream thinking. So far Putin does not face any obstacle on his way as the psychological warfare is covert, and the US does not fight back.  Moreover, the US tries to create a win-win approach in relations with Russia while any sign of American benevolence is percept as a weakness and only encourages Russia's political meddling. 

Putin's American Army


So far Putin’s boots on the American ground are unaware Tea Partiers, with their mantra “we surround them” (Glenn Beck’s 912 Project was designed by Russian social engineers as the political  911) and Occupiers, with its vanguard burning the American flags. Both ultra-right Tea Partiers and ultra-left Occupiers support Ron Paul.  In fact, the Tea Party has radicalized the GOP and prepared fertile soil for the Occupy WS movement. Now both work against the bipartisanship what is the main strength of American political system.  As the debt ceiling crisis showed last summer, the attacked by the Russians bipartisanship is in deep crisis. The deepening division is a real threat to the American future as it can lead to the dysfunctional Congress and its blockage – what Putin’s operatives call a ‘political 911’.  This is the same ‘divide and rule’ strategy, which Russia uses in its neighboring countries. 

In the psychological war, the primary resource is the political will. Putin understands this very well,  proclaiming on his meeting with supporters: “We will never allow anyone to interfere in our internal affairs."  “We will not allow someone to impose their will on us because we have our own will! It has helped us to win! We are a "victorious people"! It is in our genes, in our genetic code!” 

Putin can count his covert victories against the US and the EU as long as these sneak attacks are not made public. When propaganda is identified and stopped it loses its power. But it needs full awareness, smart approaches, and political will. The world does need a strong and democratic America. 

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