Here is a historic quote no less true today during attempts to put Kash Patel over the FBI, Tulsi Gabbard over the ODNI, and Pete Hegseth over the Defense Department:
“If Russia seizes the West’s secret services, it controls Western policies. If it taps into Western intelligence services, it makes them serve the Kremlin. That’s the prime Soviet objective.”
–Igor Gouzenko, Defected Russian Intelligence Officer
Divide with Dysfunction, Compromise with Controversy
Even if one puts on blinders to Mr. Trump’s open, willing acquiescence to Mr. Putin and enablement of Kim Jong Un in his first term, it should be clear that by appointing inexperienced, embittered, character-challenged, and conspiracy-theory touting appointees to head ODNI (Gabbard), Defense (Hegseth), and FBI (Patel), President-elect Trump hands the de-facto KGB government over Russia (and China’s communist party) the prize of a degraded, malleable U.S. intelligence agency and defense leadership team.
To one like Kash Patel who lied to then Secretary of Defense Mark Esper that Nigeria’s permission had been secured to use its airspace for U.S. Navy SEALS to rescue a hostage, how much more would Patel cavalierly compromise the safety of FBI, CIA, and military intelligence professionals in joint operations for political points with his boss should he be appointed FBI director? This is likely why in Trump’s first term former CIA Director Gina Haspel threatened to resign if Patel were given a role at CIA, and then-AG Bill Barr strenuously protested his installment over a law enforcement agency.
Conquering the Vacuums Left by America First
President Putin can no more be trusted to enter into binding agreements than Josef Stalin as revealed by historic defector Igor Gouzenko to Western intelligence that the Soviets had betrayed the United States and allies despite U.S. lend lease and covert infiltration aid behind nazi lines, thus causing an end to cooperation in 1945. How much more while the U.S. opposes Putin who now aggresses as Hitler did against independent Ukraine?
Yet consistent with America First errors of the 1940s, the incoming Trump Administration has telegraphed that it intends to compromise with Russia on Ukrainian sovereignty and ‘make a deal’ giving Ukrainian territories seized by Putin’s aggression to Russia, echoing the failed America First approach to Hitler and Hirohito of the 1940’s.
The current Biden Administration, U.K, E.U., and other dedicated freedom nation governments have helped check Russian power from its aggressive imperialistic invasion program in Ukraine, refusing to engage in self-defeating appeasement that encourages tomorrow’s larger aggressions, however, most believe too reticently, as if running a slow code response to a patient in distress.
Now Russian power faces a possible loss of its Syrian regime puppet due to Putin government miscalculations in supporting the aggressors and sponsors of the terrorist assault on Israel of October 7, 2023 and following, causing former Syrian populations victimized by the Syrian and Russian governments to flee Lebanon back to Syria.
The IDF had uncovered massive Russian arms caches in Hezbollah controlled Lebanon evidencing Putin’s miscalculation, even as it was no secret that Russia had supported Iran’s arms flow to Iranian proxies in Syria, Yemen, and Gaza that piled-onto Israel post-October 7. Russia and China have also supported Iran and Hamas at the United Nations over time, undermining the defense of Israel.
Now Syrian government forces find themselves pushed back by Syrian insurgents that have seized Aleppo, are threatening to cut-off Homs from the coast, and are closing in on Damascus.
The incoming Trump Administration seems to have ignored these trends and remains bent on compromising with Putin, which will embolden Xi Jinping to risk aggressing against Taiwan if it happens.
If under these circumstances the new Administration promotes usefully compromised, character-challenged, and inexperienced intelligence community heads it will hew to the advantage of global dictatorial expansion, isolation of the United States from allies, alienation of international trade partners, inefficient use of domestic resources, and loss of strengthening, life-saving alliances keeping freedom alive in the world.
Upshot
While compromising a superpower may be psychologically complex over time, the way a superpower refuses to be compromised is by all serving public and private sector professionals and trades refusing to follow illegal orders, unconstitutional orders, and divisive conspiracy theory narratives.
