Chat Between Crooke and Lukyanov in Moscow

"Society needs destruction to provide space for creation"

Alastair Crooke’s Substack

"Society needs destruction to provide space for creation" is the title provided by Russia in Global Affairs for the chat/interview between Alastair Crook and Fyodor Lukyanov while Crooke was in Sochi for the Valdai Club Conference on West Asia last week. The interview does have a video but it’s in Russian here. Some of what Crooke explains was discussed in his appearance on the New Rules show also Broadcast from Russia. Let’s jump right in:

Trump can be called a great destroyer in a good sense, because sometimes society needs destruction in order to provide itself with space for creation. We need to decide to demolish the ossified and old in order to allow something new to emerge Ukrainian crisis, Fyodor Lukyanov was told by Alistair Crooke, a British diplomat, founder and director of the public organization Conflicts Forum, in an interview for the International Review program.

Fyodor Lukyanov: What is happening in the United States? The president openly talks about his desire to annex the territories of other countries, and the world, in general, does not react. What is this? A joke, a negotiation tactic or a real intention to annex, say, Canada?

Alistair Crook: The first thing that we need to understand about the current situation (by the way, I'm not a Trump supporter and I'm not speaking from the standpoint of any American political party) is that what has been happening in the United States in recent years has not had any philosophical or ideological underpinnings. It was all about the mechanical "structure" that was first noticed by Barack Obama, a native of Chicago, with the help of David Axelrod. Axelrod was a political consultant who was successful in campaigning, and initially he didn't want to work with Obama because he didn't like Obama.

Eventually, Axelrod was persuaded, and it was he who introduced the powerful psychological concept of "permission structures." This is a way of leading a person to admit that they can, "have permission," do something they wouldn't normally do. For example, vote for a black candidate. There is, for example, the meme belief that people who are not vaccinated are harming their environment. So, it is here–-the "permission structure" has become a rapidly spreading meme.

It all started with a group of young people armed with mobile phones and laptops who created a meme about the "permission structure" invented by Axelrod and Obama. This meme immediately went viral, creating a wave of seeming consensus on social media. Everyone suddenly started talking about the "permission structure" because it was being trumpeted from everywhere, and this mass of references gave people a sense of complete unanimity. Then Obama extended the "structure" to the Department of Justice and the FBI. Thus, they became part of the mechanism that spreads memes. Then memes began to be planted in universities – each university was allocated money to create an internal unit that deals with, in fact, disinformation, denying and debunking any other narratives. A whole system appeared. Then they decided to create a number of agencies and regulatory bodies, which actually took over a number of powers of the Federal Government. These agencies acted in alliance with the deep state, with Silicon Valley and, above all, with Obama at the head of the entire "structure".

Fyodor Lukyanov: Okay, but what does Trump have to do with it?

Alistair Crook: The most important task facing Trump (as he and his team see it) is to dismantle Obama's machine of universities, the FBI, the Department of Justice. As you could see at the inauguration, Trump has already managed to win over the tycoons from Silicon Valley. A lot of them used to be staunch Democrats, but now their eyes are on the Republicans. So, the main thing that we're seeing at the moment is the destruction of a "structure" that, as I said, is not a philosophical or ideological construct. It's a machine that uses elaborate memes to give them momentum that changes political sentiment so that the Democrats always win.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Do I understand correctly that Trump, by proclaiming things that seemed unrealistic yesterday, is destroying the previous information field in order to get a completely new space?

Alistair Crook: You're right. It was Elon Musk who put an end to the old information system in the first place with the purchase of Twitter. A great process has begun – exposing the "structure" and freeing up space for the free expression of thought, of what people really feel. If you like, we can call it the creation of a "reverse permission structure". Trump says that you can express your opinion, it's okay – once you express your point of view, you don't lose your job. So the "permission structure" has been turned upside down, and now it's being used against the deep state.

This main concern of Trump is related to another–-the large-scale negotiations that are being conducted between Trump and those who have never been his supporters, who occupy leading positions in the state system of the United States, especially in the Senate. The catch is that Trump's main interests lie in the domestic plane–-to put an end to out-of-control budget spending and the power of the Deep State, to destroy the mechanism of persuasion that I have described, and to change the economic situation.

The latter is a very delicate step, because the morale of the United States depends more on fluctuations in the stock market than on the values of fundamentals that signal the state of the economy. Americans like to see how their stock portfolio grows, no matter how acute the problem of national debt is. This year alone, America will have to refinance $9.1 trillion in debt. The question is: who is going to buy this debt? There is a real need to reduce the financial burden.

Trump, in negotiating with the Deep State, wants to have his own people in key positions–-Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Cash Patel–-but for that to happen, the Deep State will demand a fee from Trump. He has already paid part of the price, just to start a discussion with the Deep State. Many in the US were shocked when the "Israel First" proponents, these Israel-firsters, got promoted. They're not very sophisticated, Trump chose those who aren't very smart, but I think it was done with the expectation that he could control their actions.

Negotiations with the deep state are important to Trump. When he says something-–jokingly or seriously–-his words are not necessarily meant for those for whom it seems to be intended. When Trump says that "the Russians lost a million people killed in Ukraine," which we know is not true, and Trump himself knows that this is not true, he is sending a signal to the deep state. Trump is not addressing the message to Russia, not to Putin, but to certain people, representatives of the deep state, as part of the negotiation process. The main thing is to achieve what Trump wants, otherwise he will simply lose his candidacies. And another important thing is that Trump puts people who think completely differently in the second line. For example, Michael Dimino, who is moving to the Pentagon, says very different things about Iran and the Middle East in general, and these differences and inconsistencies are throwing everyone off balance, everyone is in uncertainty and will remain as long as Trump's negotiations with the deep state go on and until Trump understands what his room for maneuver is, including with regard to Russia. The deep state has some influence on foreign policy towards Israel, Russia and China, so Trump is trying not to focus on these areas for now.

Trump is trying to solve difficult problems, and from the outside he looks a little crazy when he says that he is going to annex Greenland and Canada. It may sound silly, but in fact it makes a lot of sense. America, as you know, is based on the idea that it should always grow, always have to claim more, should win. It's like a pyramid scheme–-if the pyramid scheme stops growing, then most likely it will collapse. Trump declares that "we Americans live in the Western Hemisphere, so we will get bigger and stronger, we will grow at the expense of Canada, at the expense of Panama, at the expense of Greenland, and everywhere there will be America."

At the same time, Trump makes it clear that the remote provinces of the empire are less and less important. Marco Rubio, in an interview with Meghan Kelly, says that the unipolar moment has passed, and an era begins when several great powers coexist in the world. A new era is on the doorstep, and, according to Rubio, America will still show itself from a completely different side, appear in a different capacity, turn to the world a different face from the one to which the world is accustomed. That is, the United States can abandon some things that are not so important to them, for example, withdraw troops from Syria, replace some people, complete certain activities. I call this "internal policy from the outside." Rubio focuses on the near abroad–-America itself, Canada, Greenland. And at the very end of the interview, Rubio gives a signal that it is not so important whether it will be possible to agree with Putin on Ukraine. This will probably not be done, but it does not matter at all. In any case, Putin is the loser, the Russians have made a mess in Ukraine, and Biden, of course, has aggravated the situation even more, and so on. What does the United States care about now? Do we really care whether Russian will be spoken in Odessa or not? In relation to America's interests, all this may not be so important.

There are multidirectional signals, and you need to be a rocket scientist to understand what is being said at all, because either many theses contradict each other, or information is given in passing. At one of the press conferences, it was said that Putin, in principle, may not want any deals. In any case, Russia is a big machine, it is not clear what the result of negotiations with it may be.

Trump is a showman, and he's very good at his genre–-somewhere he said one thing, somewhere he said another, he denied something, the next day he agreed with the same thing. That throws everyone off balance. I think you can see that Trump's tactics are quite successful because the state of the opposition–-let's call it that–-is unstable. They don't understand what's going on, they're confused, and they don't know what to do with this new approach of Trump. They're looking at possible courses of action, and I think they might try to block the nomination of some of Trump's nominees. Hegseth had little chance of being nominated, and in the end, it took the voice of the vice president to turn the tide. Who knows what Mitch McConnell is going to do while Trump is in office. Technically, he was the head of the Republican caucus, and yet he voted against Hegseth's nomination and confirmation. We don't see the full picture, the whole context, in which Trump is trying to maneuver. We don't know where we are, and we don't know what's going to happen next.

Trump is also determined to make radical changes–-to eliminate structural contradictions in the US economy, which is rather an economy based on liquidity and financial assets. Trump wants to change this by abandoning taxes and tariffs. It is not clear how this can end, perhaps in a big mess. I would like to recall the movie "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". We will probably get a little bit of everything from Trump's transformations–-good, bad, and evil.

Fyodor Lukyanov: Based on the logic that you have just described, the refusal of USAID is taking place, because USAID is not of great importance for Trump–-it is just money thrown to the wind. His decision can actually become a revolutionary change, because in some countries, in particular in Ukraine, Georgia, Romania, almost all the money directed to the development of civil society simply disappears.

Alistair Crook: Trump's people, I guess I can call them that, see USAID as just a deep state foundation that it uses to fund NGOs and movements that foment color revolutions. It's all just uncontrolled and unaccountable, and it helps launder money–-with the help of the fund, money is given to certain people–-many of them are liberals, and then those people give the money back to the Democratic Party, which votes to increase USAID funding. So Trump sees USAID as a deeply corrupt structure, part of the big structure that he's fighting. USAID is the external part of a huge machine for creating impressions, memes, and narratives in society. Huge sums, billions, are spent to create certain messages in the outside world, for example, in Iran, where all television channels broadcasting to Iranians from abroad are sponsored from outside, or in Ukraine, where 90 percent of Ukrainian media survived by indirectly or directly receiving funding from USAID. Trump's decision, of course, stirs up a hornet's nest; some of the projects implemented by USAID were probably important.

We need to decide to demolish the ossified and old in order to allow something new to emerge. This is a very bold attempt to bring about radical change, but the main goal, of course, is to stop out-of-control spending.

This is worth doing simply because otherwise there will be a financial crisis. I have already said that $9.1 trillion needs to be refinanced.

Economic growth is needed, but it takes $5.80 to increase GDP by $1, which is completely unacceptable. The U.S. can no longer increase debt. At the same time, the cost of living is rising, and more Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Real wages in America have not risen since the 1970s. These are deep structural problems, and it's not a matter of saying, "Let's raise interest rates so we can lower them," which is certainly easy to do, as well as saying, "Let's lower interest rates and print more money." In fact, this is a big problem, and it's not so easy to deal with.

The Meme Machine—totally Orwellian. Most of Trump’s key pick are now enrolled with Pattel remaining. Some very interesting happenings are occurring at the Munich Security Conference that demand scrutinizing. Indeed, the Outlaw US Empire’s financial condition is critical and great reductions in spending must occur. The problem is most of Congress are Imperialists and are die-hard Manifest Destiny believers as well as either outright Zionists or their Chrisian counterpart, the Evangelicals. Far too many think they know exactly what Trump will do and why he’s done what he has to-date; however, this admonition from Crooke ought to be the current rule: “We don't see the full picture, the whole context, in which Trump is trying to maneuver.” But events are happening rapidly that have great meaning. As noted, this interview happened prior to The Phone Call and those events that sparked. What’s most important again is the outing of the Meme Machine and we can see how USAID was used as a conduit for its dissemination globally.

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