April 10, 2017--Trumpology

In the old days of the Soviet Union, since it was a closed system impervious to Western snooping, one way to read the currents and countercurrents of Soviet leadership--who was in, who was rising, and who was about to be disappeared--was to analyze the pictures of the fur-hatted inner circle arrayed on the top of Lenin's tomb during May Day and other revolutionary celebrations.

Kremlinologists in Washington were tasked to figure this out and they did so by comparing from year to year who was moving into closer proximity to Lenin or Stalin and who was about to slide off the picture plane and soon thereafter into the literal abyss.

Where is the notorious Lavrentiy Beria, head of the fearsome KGB, this year? What about Molotov? Is he losing or gaining power and influence? And who is this upstart Nikita Khrushchev who's star seems to be rising--last year he was nowhere in sight; this year he's only four places from Stalin?

With the inner circle of the Trump White House in turmoil, with the Steve Bannon faction trying to oust son-in-law Jared Kushner and his allies, with Reince Priebus struggling to hold on as chief of staff, and with others close to Trump denying that anything of this sort is going on, with everyone spinning and lying, to get to the truth, as with the Russians, we are left with having to analyze images of the president's unruly team in action. We need to do a content analyst of them in much the same way that we used to try to figure out what was happening in Moscow.

Look carefully of the picture below. It is of the Mar-a-Lago situation room where Trump and his team retired Thursday afternoon to discuss the missile attack on a Syrian airbase.

Mar-a-Lago Situation Room

Seated at the adult table, of course, are Trump at its head and an assortment of Cabinet secretaries. To Trump's left is Rex Tillerson, the almost mute Secretary of State who up to now, nearly three months into the Trump presidency, has not spoken many more than 200 words in public. Across from him, at the president's right are fellow billionaires Wilber Ross, Secretary of Commerce and Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury, who is not quite at the table. And then it gets interesting.

To Mnuchin's right, decidedly at the table is Jared Kushner and across from him, not at the table but leaning aggressively forward is Gary Cohn, Trump's favorite economic advisor and Kushner ally, who is being discussed as Reince Priebus' replacement. At the table, with the growing bald spot or tonsure is Priebus himself who appears to need to be careful because Cohn is eyeing him ominously and is about about to pounce on him and seize both his chair and job.

Most interesting to Trumpologists is where Steven Bannon is relegated. Earlier in the week he was unceremoniously dumped from his self-assigned seat on the "Principals Committee" of the National Security Council. Here, about as far away from the adult table at a small children's side table of his own, is the dramatically deflated Senior Strategist. And because of the nasty way in which the picture is framed it looks as if Bannon is wearing a lampshade on his head.

 Moscow, Palm Beach--a picture is worth at least a thousand words.

And, oh, my advice-don't bet against the son-in-law.

June 16, 2015--The New Cold War

This report from the New York Times isn't from 1955 but appeared yesterday--

In a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is drawing up plans to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries, official say.

What happened to détente? What happened with the Obama administration's claim that it had successfully pressed the "reset button" in our relations with Russia?

This sounds to me like all too familiar sabre-rattling.

But there's more.

A few days earlier the Pentagon announced that a Russian jet fighter buzzed a U.S. reconnaissance plane flying well outside Soviet borders over the Black Sea. It came within 10 feet of the American plane and maintained its provocative position for 10-15 minutes before breaking off. Overnight, the Russians announced they would match the U.S. buildup in Eastern Europe.

This to me sounds like back to the future and is very scary.

We know that Obama and Vladimir Putin despise each other and can't stand to be in the same room.

Nixon managed to meet and talk with Nikita Khrushchev, Roosevelt and Truman sucked it up and met and negotiated with Stalin, so why can't the current U.S. and Russian presidents do the same thing?

They would probably claim it's because they disagree about Crimea, which Russia annexed a year and a half ago. Obama sees Putin threatening more incursions in other culturally Russian parts of Ukraine; Putin sees it as an inevitable part of Russia's national destiny. We in America above all should understand his version of Manifest Destiny.

But none of this requires Cold-War-style confrontations. If Putin and Obama had a civil working relationships it all could be resolved with a few phone calls.

"Vlad, what's going on with you guys? I mean in Crimea." 

"Well, Barack, it's a traditional part of Russia, the people there are of Russian descent, speak Russian, and want to be a part of Russia. So why not let things take their course?" 

"I see your point. But what we need to do, Vlad, is sell the idea to our own people and make the case that you let the Crimeans vote about affiliating with Russia. Which they did and overwhelmingly wanted to. I'll work on Poroshenko to convince him it's no big deal. He owes me one. Everyone knows Crimea has been largely autonomous for decades so we should be able to put a fig leaf on the situation. How does that sound?" 

"I think I can make that happen. In the meantime, send my best to Michele." 

"And mine to . . . Sorry, I forgot her name. The gymnast?" 

"Alina, Alina Kabaeva. Will do. Talk to you soon. Call any time. You know I don't sleep."

So now that their relationship is ruptured, there will be no conversations of this kind and as a result we have economic and diplomatic sanctions flying in both direction, Russia has been kicked out of the G-8 (which is now again the G-7), and there are not-so-veiled threats of more to come, including additional close encounters in the sky and at sea. All we need is for one jet fighter pilot to make a mistake and launch a missile and who knows what would happen next.

This is the way adolescents behave, not the leaders of the world's two most powerful nations, both still with hundreds of intercontinental missiles at the ready and thousands of nuclear warheads.

Where are the adults?