Ive done a lot of analysis on the Trump as Putin agent topic. I found he nearly as often acts agents Russia as with. What's more likely is he treats Putin as an inspiration, wrt to converting the country to an oligarchy and offshoring national funds for himself.
Yeah. The idea that he's a Russian asset, although tempting, has always seemed to me like a coping mechanism of sorts – externalizing the evil, like blaming the devil for one's bad deeds.
And, of course, Hanlon's razor is very much relevant here, although certainly it doesn't apply to everybody in Trump's inner circle. Some of them are very much competent and malevolent.
I found Vlad Vexler’s take interesting. Trump has a narcissistic personality disorder. Not a narcissistic trait that many elites have, but an actual disorder. He looks up to Putin and wants to bask in Putin’s glory to elevate himself.
is the acting against Russia and against American interest, in a way that helps Russian interests, of equivocal effect?
For example if I shoot Batman in the back when he's fighting The Joker (because Batman is a vigilante so that's illegal, gotta take him down), and later make a statement to the press after Joker has been sent to Arkham "You know I think Arkham is a good place for that guy, he got what he deserved", I have acted for and against The Joker's interest, which is a good cover for me as an agent of The Joker.
I have often seen Trump doing stuff that is counter Russia's interests, but stuff that seems extremely weak sauce in contrast to weakening Nato, as just one example. It is spycraft 101 that you give your assets some simple stuff they can do against you, to make them seem trustworthy.
He is an equal opportunity a-hole, though my personal feeling is that he looks up to Putin, and wants to be like him
Some things he has done that Putin is probably not fond of:
Javelins in his first term, I believe that was the time the us supplied military weapons to Ukraine. These weapons made a big impact during the invasion
Tried to get Europe off of Russia gas, making very public warnings about depending on Russia. This was first term
Tried to get Europe to invest heavily in thru military, first and second term
Syria, Iran and Venezuela, all allies of Russia, especially Iran for military technology and Venezuela as part of its shadow fleet.
Strongly disagree. If you look into the details, you'll find he never actually intentionally hurt Russia.
>Javelins in his first term, I believe that was the time the us supplied military weapons to Ukraine.
Trump was always reluctant about it and actually got himself into yet another impeachment inquiry for withholding part of this congressional aid package, because Zelenskyy did not want to investigate Hunter Biden. He wasn't able to overcome congress, but he did manage to limit Javelin use for western Ukraine only, were Russia was not active back then.
>Tried to get Europe off of Russia gas
That goes into the aforementioned category of things he said but never acted on. Russia caused Europe to actually move away from Russian gas in the end.
>Tried to get Europe to invest heavily in thru military
Same category and same answer. Could also be seen as his start of dismantling NATO from the inside, which seems to have been his (and ofc. Putin's) ultimate goal from the very beginning - which in turn dates back all the way to the 1980s, when Trump bought anti-NATO advertising in the New York Times after visiting Russia. So it's not even that far fetched to accuse him (or his handlers) of long term schemes.
>Syria
The US had troops there for a veeeery long time, but rarely threw hands with the regime under any US admin. After all, this was mostly about curbing IS. Putin apparently never really cared about Syria in the end either. They were just an alternate location for a warm water Navy port to them, which became obsolete once they took over Crimea. Assad got to feel that pretty hard.
>Iran
They were allied, but Iran actually started going against Russia in 2023 because Putin supported the UAE claim on the Strait of Hormuz. It's all been downhill since then and the eventual US military strike was definitely pro-Israel, not anti-Russia.
>and Venezuela
They literally halted the immediate seizure after one of those "shadow fleet" ships suddenly displayed a Russian Flag. This was always more about hurting Venezuela and they explicitly tried to handle Russia with appeasement.
>Sanctions
Not sure what you mean here. Safe for one pointless act on oil companies that were already heavily sanctioned, all relevant sanctions came under the Biden admin. He famously did not put tariffs on Russia, despite putting them on basically every other country in the world (allied or not).
