The Atlantic: What Putin Is Up To

President Vladimir Putin was a KGB officer for 15 years leading up to the fall of the Soviet Union, and the director of domestic intelligence in the late 1990s during his meteoric rise to power. He regularly throws a gala at the Kremlin on December 20 to extol the “sacred mission” of the state security services, recall their past heroes, and highlight their latest exploits. For the last 22 years, Chekist’s Day has been an official holiday in Russia.[...]

 Putin saw Clinton as a serial regime-changer, eager to foment yet another “color revolution” in Russia like those in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, three former Soviet republics. He made no secret of this conviction. On December 5, 2011, Clinton publicly questioned the openness of parliament elections in Russia. In response, Putin accused Clinton of “set[ting] the tone for certain actors inside [Russia]. She gave the signal,” he said at televised crisis meeting with his subordinates. “They heard this signal and, with the support of the U.S. State Department, started actively doing their work,” he said. He was referring to the tens of thousands of Russian citizens who protested peacefully against his sudden announcement in September of that year that he would return to the presidency after serving as prime minister for four years. [...]

The Russians make no secret of their intent, nor did Putin just sit back and watch these benefits to Russia accumulate. He continued to prod, provoke, and jeer. Two weeks ago, his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put Putin’s goal in stark, smug terms: The world is on the brink of a “post-West” order, he said. The unmistakable implication is that the locus of global power will move eastward, reinforcing the Kremlin’s ability to design and enforce an order that suits its national and nationalistic interests.[...]

While Congress ramps up its scrutiny, the most important dynamic may turn out to be the one between members of his high command. Secretary of Defense James Mattis, National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, need no convincing of Putin’s motivations and future intentions. With the support of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, perhaps they can convince their boss. So far, they seem to have made some headway: Trump has stopped calling the Atlantic alliance “obsolete,” and reiterated his support for NATO during his speech to a joint session of congress on Tuesday.

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