Will Putin’s victory in Helsinki sink his friend Trump back home? Jeremy Shapiro thinks so – interesting article in Foreign Policy (retweeted by Mark Leonard, then by Branko Milanovic who for some reason thinks “hysteria” over the Trump-Putin connection threatens war, like the nationalist hysteria in Yugoslavia in 1987-88 & in the US post 9/11 – go figure).

IMO, however, Shapiro underestimates support for the Russian oligarchy within the US power structure. This because he frames Russian state interests and objectives in a very abstract, general way. Russia today is not a superpower but a fossil fuel power which happens to have a legacy nuclear arsenal: net fuel exports are 17% of Russia’s GDP, extraordinarily high for such a large country. Stabilizing earth’s climate requires leaving fossil fuels in the ground, and that would shatter the Russian oligarchy. Putin’s interests thus align with the know-nothing, no-action position taken by the GOP, and Trump, on climate. That is the material basis for a political relationship between the Russian state and conservative US politicians, which has been developing for some time. The historic antipathy of the Republican Party to Russia is based on anti-communism, not anti-petro-fascism.