Vladimir the Fool

Pity Vladimir Putin, sympathy for the devil as it were.

His meddling in the 2016 American presidential election didn't work out too well for him. First, it didn't swing the election to Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton lost the damn thing all by herself. Next time, she should campaign in Wisconsin, really. And yet, Putin gets the credit for Trump's victory in many circles, notably among the American Left.

No, Putin didn't win the election for Trump, but he got him anyway, which turns out to be pretty bad for old Vlad. Worse, this was entirely predictable. You don't need to be a KGB trained agent to assess that Donald J. Trump would be an America First kind of president, ever eager to press every advantage America has in her arsenal.

Start with energy. No, not the kind that Hillary and Nancy and Chuck would push. Trump has doubled down on carbon energy; anathema to the Left, it fuels the Russian economy. Putin's power depends on oil and gas exports, a power he wielded as a cudgel over Europe and others — until recently. America's shale revolution (aka, fracking) has cut the legs right out from under him, a development that Trump is eagerly empowering and that Hillary would have hobbled.

One example: The day America dropped out of the Paris Climate Accords had to be a dark one in Moscow, darker even than in Hollywood, San Francisco, Brooklyn or Boston. In those leftie American enclaves, it was an ideological affront. In Moscow, it was an economic disaster, the consequences of which will redound for the next decade, at least. Why? America's shale bounty - oceans of oil and a century of gas - has upended the old world order of energy, upon whose heights Russia perched, with Putin a kingpin. He's a kingpin no more, just another peddler of a suddenly much less valuable commodity.

Then there's the matter of Russian incursions into Ukraine. Fortunately for Putin, President Obama refused to ship even small arms to the resistance. Not so the Trump administration, which is providing a range of arms to the Ukrainian military. That's gotta hurt, doesn't it Vlad?

Over at the United Nations, Ambassador Nikki Haley has become a Churchillian figure during her first year representing America and American values. Russia continues to lie down with dogs in both the Security Council and the General Assembly, but their mangy affronts hardly disturb Haley's calm and muscular articulation of American purpose and resolve.

Let's not forget Crazy Kim in North Korea, who both Russia and China kinda like just for the disturbance he causes the United States. But Trump ain't having it. He didn't create the Kim crisis in NoKo. It's been festering for 60 years, heading for the inevitable conclusion of the Kim regime being able to threaten the world with nuclear weapons, or not. But Trump and his very able SecDef (Jim Mattis) are not intimidated, which must be a shock to the system of the bully boy in Pyongyang, and to his tacit fans in Moscow and Bejing.

Lastly, consider President Trump's recently announced National Security Strategy, which truthfully states that both Russia and China are “attempting to erode American security and prosperity” while also seeking "to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.”

Further, it seeks to address "revisionist powers, such as China and Russia, that use technology, propaganda, and coercion to shape a world antithetical to our interests and values". Feeling lucky punk, er, Putin?

How could Vladimir not have seen this coming? It appears that Trump's jedi mind tricks worked on the old KGB bastard, just as they worked on Trump's presidential primary opponents, on the Clinton campaign, on Crazy Kim, on the NFL, and on pretty much all of polite society. Yet, Trump's domestic opponents don't have as much to lose as Putin, who is in danger of losing the world, his world anyway. Now that's an epic miscalculation if ever there was one.

Let's give Russia its due. When it comes to larger than life leaders, they don't go small. The country that gave the world Peter the Great has now bequeathed us Vladimir the Fool.

That's worth a toast! Vodka all around.