His dramatic deployment of two nuclear submarines near Russia serves three political purposes.
Trump announced on Friday that the US will deploy two nuclear submarines near Russia in response to former President and incumbent Deputy Chair of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev’s social media posts warning about the risk of nuclear war with the US. Trump evidently interpreted that as a threat due to Medvedev’s official position, however, and probably also had in mind their spat from mid-June when Trump slammed Medvedev for claiming that other countries might give Iran nukes.
The reality though is that Medvedev’s tough talk is just a psy-op. As was assessed a year ago following his hawkish tweet after Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination, “Medvedev’s role since the special operation has been as an ultra-nationalist pressure valve at home and among Russia’s supporters abroad, the ‘bad cop’ to Putin’s ‘good cop’. He often says the most outlandish things in order to make headlines, which might partially be intended as a psy-op against the West per the ‘Madman Theory’.”
Medvedev’s latest psy-op arguably backfired, however, by serving as the pretext for Trump to further escalate military tensions with Russia. He already announced his new three-pronged escalation in mid-July, which was due to anti-Russian hawks like Lindsey Graham manipulating him into mission creep, so it’s possible that he planned a second phase in the run-up to the expiry of his new deadline to Putin. Deploying nuclear submarines is purely symbolic, however, since the US won’t realistically use them.
Nevertheless, this dramatic stunt serves three political purposes, which will now be explained. The first is that it functions as red meat for the anti-Russian hawks who’ve been salivating for such a symbolic escalation. Secondly, European leaders can claim that their bloc’s (totally lopsided) trade deal with the US bought Trump’s support for continuing NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine, thus distracting them from the fact that the EU subordinated itself as the US’ largest-ever vassal state in exchange.
The third purpose is the most important of them all and is driven by Trump’s intent to meddle in Russian politics. To elaborate, Medvedev already succeeded Putin once so it’s possible that he’ll do so again seeing as how he’s comparatively young and still formally involved in policymaking, so Trump might want to preemptively “tame” him as part of a powerplay. Even if Medvedev doesn’t ultimately succeed Putin, Trump still wants to pressure Putin into muzzling him, also as a part of a powerplay.
Trump might not only be exploiting Medvedev’s posts as the pretext for further escalating military tensions with Russia (possibly as part of a preplanned policy), however, since he’s also known to take things personally. It therefore can’t be ruled out that he feels humiliated by Medvedev’s posts and thus wants to make an example out of him due to fear of looking weak at home and abroad if he didn’t. Accordingly, his latest dramatic escalation might be purely personal, not part of a geopolitical ploy.
In any case, Trump just made it less likely than ever that Putin will make concessions to Ukraine and the US since Putin never complies with public pressure, let alone nuclear saber-rattling (which hasn’t hitherto been employed against him). Putin also reaffirmed earlier on Friday that he still seeks to achieve his maximum objectives so Trump’s symbolic escalation might have simply been a way of lashing out and blaming the end of their nascent “New Détente” on Medvedev for political convenience as explained.
Source: author’s blog
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