JVLV: WHY DOES PUTIN GIVE TRUMPS TO TRUMP? By Dr. Jiri Valenta and Leni Friedman Valenta, 12-23-15

“He is a bright and talented person…” said President Putin at his press conference, December 17, “…the absolute leader of the presidential race.”  Putin’s early “vote” for U.S. Republican Presidential candidate Trump after the last GOP debate was stunning.  Why the endorsement and why at this time? 

 First, Kremlin “voting” in U.S. elections is nothing new.   As the late Russian ambassador to America, Anatoly Dobrynin, wrote, Russian leaders “…always watch American presidential elections closely.”  They usually “…had a preference, but rarely expressed it or took sides by offering diplomatic or other help.”

Some notable exceptions, however:  The 1968 U.S. election matched LBJ’s Vice President, Hubert Humphrey against Richard Nixon, feared and hated by the Kremlin.   Only decades later did Dobrynin reveal a top Cold War secret.   The Kremlin instructed him to offer Humphrey “financial aid.”   Humphrey wisely refused, saying, “It was more than enough for him to have Moscow’s good wishes."

Nixon was reelected and went on to conclude a SALT I agreement and economic cooperation with the Kremlin.  Thereafter, he bonded with Brezhnev so well that, in 1972, during the escalation of the Vietnam War, the Kremlin decided not to hurt his reelection by canceling  a May Moscow Summit.  This despite USAF bombing of Russian ships in Haiphong Harbor!  

Initially preferring left-leaning Democrats, the Kremlin slowly shifted to pragmatic, Republicans.   In 1975, as Nixon’s top Sovietologist, William Hyland, revealed to this writer, Brezhnev took astonished Gerald Ford aside at a Helsinki conference and expressed his “good wishes” for him in the forthcoming election.  In vain. Jimmy Carter won the close contest.

In 1980, fed up with zig-zagging, unpredictable Carter, the Kremlin “sat on the fence.”  Deeply alarmed when virulently anti-Soviet Ronald Reagan came to power, they slowly found they could live with the Gipper.  In the following years, Reagan concluded arms reduction with new leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and they ended regional conflicts.  When Reagan’s term expired, the Kremlin, seeking continuity, supported his Vice President, George H. Bush. 

Boris Yeltsin would have liked to maintain ’41 in the White House in 1992.  But soon enough, he relished his new relationship with non-ideological, triangulating Democrat, Bill Clinton.   The pragmatic Democrat became his choice in the 1996 election.  There followed Putin’s rise to power.  He soon developed a good working relationship with Bill’s successor, George W. Bush.   

After 2008, however, Putin soon concluded that, despite Hillary’s “reset” with Russia, Barack Obama was inexperienced, with socialist leanings that Putin repudiates.  At times referred to as “Comrade” in the Kremlin, Obama is widely mocked in Russia as a “schmoe” [small or loser]. 

There was also Libya The Russians came to believe they had been tricked into abstaining at the U.N. on a vote authorizing use of force in 2011 Libya.  Dimitri Medvedev, Putin’s Round Robin presidential partner, had warned, “If Libya breaks up and al Qaida takes root there, no one will benefit, including us, because the extremists will end up in the North Caucasus.”  

Prophetic words!   “We came, we saw and we killed him,” crowed Hillary, referring to Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.   But from her unsecured server, Russian Intelligence must have learned the real story. Pursuing a “humanitarian” mission, she helped to raise funds for her Clinton Foundation via deals for arming the rebels that slew him.  But as in Iraq earlier, the dictator had been a stabilizing force and now came Islamists and chaos.    

Thus, in July 2013, when Obama threatened to punish another dictator, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, for crossing his chemical weapons Red Line, Putin determined to save him.  Fearing new chaos in war torn Syria, and the loss of Russia’s investment in its Port of Tartus, he mobilized his army and deployed a naval force off the Syrian coast.  Ultimately, he brokered a political deal to rid Assad of his chemical weapons.

True Assad is a butcher.  But, important to Putin, the Alowite Syrian leader does protect Syrian Christians.  A Christian autocrat espousing the old fashioned version of family values, Putin is committed to saving Middle East Christians.

Bur more importantly,  Russia is in serious economic decline because of western sanctions for Putin’s Ukraine interventions. With oil prices going below $35 dollars a barrel, Russia faces an economic crisis.   The Russian state, a sort of large “gas station,” depends 70% on foreign earnings for exporting energy products. The ruble is also at an all-time low. This time the future White House’s occupant could be a decisive choice for the Kremlin. 

Unlike Obama, Trump has repeatedly said he feels he can get along with Putin and encourages his bombing ISIS in Syria.  Primarily occupied with illegal immigration, and Muslim terrorism, Trump is presently even less concerned than Obama with Ukraine.  True that can change.

Don’t expect Putin to be enthusiastic about Chris Christie who proposed shooting down Russian planes that stray into NATO  no- fly zones;  or Marco Rubio who has repeatedly called him “a thug,” or Hillary who has compared him to Hitler.  He must also fear that a Hillary tenure may be marred with Watergate-like investigations, when he needs a stable partner in the White House. 

Embracing the usual Kremlin mantra, “We are ready to work with any president chosen by the American people,” Putin  feels he can best do business with Trump.   “..He [Trump]… wants to go to another level of relations - closer, deeper relations with Russia. How can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome that."

President of the Institute of Post Communist Studies and Terrorism, distinguished Russologist Dr. Jiri Valenta is a much published member of the Council on Foreign Relations, N.Y.  Leni Friedman Valenta is CEO of the same institute and co-writer/editor of its’ website, also online at jvlv.net.