Crooke Asks: Can Trump Save America From Itself?

Plus, Medvedev on Trump's ideas.

When Alastair Crooke initiated his Conflicts Forum substack and made it only 100% viewable for paid subscribers, I wondered if his relationship with his longtime publisher Strategic Culture Foundation would cease along with unfettered access to his essays. I opined the worst but that wasn’t completely shared by those who bothered to reply and advised to wait and see. The written essay Crooke published on 3 January and discussed some of its content with Judge Napolitano on 6 January was indeed published by SCF today the 10th. Why don’t I just pay the fee? Because I want my readers to have completely free access to any sources I provide. Plus, in duplicating paid material, I’d be stealing his content. In a world where current events happen at blazing speed where one can easily override and bury another that just occurred is commonplace, it was great to have essay and associated podcast happen on the same day. Now, that context is lost. Crooke’s newest essay was published yesterday, “Trump, Iran and the Obama Strategic Blueprint,” and I wonder how it fits in with the new event of Trump’s Imperialist Trumpeting, which is what I probably ought to be writing about today. I hear a reader ask: You just translated and republished three essays that up to four weeks old, so what’s the issue? Well, none of those essays were about current events. So, what to do? I’ll provide the comment I made on the essay at Moon of Alabama that cites some of the article and provides the link.

Some barflies suggested that Alastair Crooke's embargoed substack essays would eventually appear at Strategic Culture, and they were correct at least in this initial instance. Although it's now a week old, "Can Trump save America from itself?", the essay combined with Emmanual Todd's interview assertion that Trump is being tasked with managing the Outlaw US Empire's defeat by Russia will retain a degree of viability until the Ukraine Saga is finished. Trump's recent spate of imperialist talk may be related to what Crooke suggests in these paragraphs that summarize the Big Picture Problem:

The notion that once the Trump envoys have been initially to Moscow, and gone away empty-handed, that Trump will sweep in to conclude an Ukraine deal, does not reflect what Moscow has been endlessly highlighting. What is required is a ‘Big Picture’ treaty-based deal that settles the security architecture and frontiers between Heartland and the Rimland security interests.

But will such a deal be seen by many Americans as ‘weakness’; as conceding U.S. ‘leadership’ and ‘Greatness’? Of course, it will be perceived that way – because Trump would be effectively sealing America’s defeat and repositioning the U.S. as one state amongst equals in a new Concert of Powers – i.e. in a multipolar world.

It is a big ‘ask’. Can Trump do it – swallow American pride? One viable way forward would be to return to the original Gordian Knot, and to untie it: i.e. to untie the knot of there being no post-WW2 written treaty delimiting NATO’s ever-forward movement, and by so doing, ending the pretence that NATO’s displacement to wheresoever it choses is no one’s business but its own.

The reason for the existence of the above Crooke spells out in this preceding paragraph:

"But seen from the perspective of Team Trump, the task of negotiating with Putin is anything but straight forward. The western public simply has never been psychologically conditioned to expect the possibility of a stronger Russia emerging. On the contrary, they have endured western ‘experts’ sneering at the Russian military; denigrating the Russian leadership as incompetent; and its leadership being presented on their TVs as purely evil."

Americans have been subjected to decades of brainwashing and are suddenly being confronted with the fact that the narrative was always false but aren't being told why they were duped, and that BigLie Media has done nothing but feed the public a continual false narrative about the entire Ukraine operation and Russia's abilities. To finally confront the truth ought to destroy the last bits of media and technocrat credibility. The end game is just now beginning.

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At least we have Dmitri Medvedev to provide his take on Trump’s Trial Balloon:

I don't know what Trump will be able to do during his second term, but he is not bored.

The calculation is clear: quick successes in resolving the Ukrainian conflict are very doubtful, the US economy lives its own unhurried life, and even the fight against migrants does not promise resounding victories.

Therefore, he simply decided to remake the world. That's right – to create a new, Trumpian political geography. A new bright and colorful globe, which is very different from the current boring and gray one. All ideas are purely projected and absolutely unrealistic. And yet.

1. First, a gigantic increase in America: we take this rural Canada (and what, it will be a good huge state, then the entire continent belongs to the Yankees) and at the same time Greenland from Denmark (it's not clear what it is, but the land there doesn't give a damn).

2. Renaming the Gulf of Mexico (it doesn't matter why, it's just that America is older, and the bay reminds of the Latinos for some misunderstanding).

3. The fight against the "rapist Starmer" and the "idiot Scholz" at the hands of Elon Musk in X. The goal is simple, and there are no costs - know who is the boss in the house. Plus, Britain can be included in the soup set of territorial claims of Pindostan.

Thus, before becoming the new president of the United States, Trump has won several important virtual victories. And most importantly, he has formed his own agenda on a cosmic scale and, as the unforgettable Prof. Preobrazhensky used to say, cosmic stupidity. But this is only at first glance, especially since in the historical battle of Philip Filippovich for the cleanliness of our closets, the victory still remained with Polygraph Polygraphovich. And it doesn't matter that none of the above will happen either today or tomorrow, and the name-calling for stupid European servants will be forgotten in a week. Another thing is important: the last decade of the senile's stay in the Oval Office is going according to the scenario of the orange wizard Trump.

In short, Trump, Musk and sci-fi brothers, LLC began to work actively. [My Emphasis]

For Dmitri and others, Spain named Mexico and the Gulf well before any English settler set foot on North America. Plus, Mexico is part of the Northern Continent and Hemisphere. B’s article at MoA today was a send up of Trump’s utterings written by some other fine folk, “Looting the Allies,” where I wrote the following:

IMO, Bozo's [Trump as he’s called in the article] imperialist declarations were trial balloons that have shaken up the vassal jar and the Empire's neighbors in what initially appear to be positive ways. EU/NATO that's always followed US diktat will further its dissolution if it does so now. The Anti-NATO/EU Romanian presidential candidate who won the election the EU overturned will now win by an even larger margin. Armenians will have an even better view of the folly Pashinyan is pushing regarding integrating with EU and spurning the economic growth EAEU membership has brought. How Germans will react given Musk's interference after what Team Biden did to German livelihood remains to be seen. IMO, Georgians will also see the folly of EU membership and return to the Russian fold. And more happenings are a certainty.

On the Ukraine thread, I linked the ideas within Crooke's essay with Trump's bluster as a psy op aimed at the Empire's public since the reality that the Empire was defeated by Russia is Ukraine will need to be faced. The clear reality of the Outlaw US Empire being in a state of decline has yet to be admitted by those "on high" yet has reached the point where that truth can no longer be kicked down the road. IMO, Trump's insistence on further Imperialism will only hasten the Empire's decline, and I'm not the only one having that POV.

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Readers who remain unable to access SCF should say so in the comments, and I’ll email Crooke’s essay to you.

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