openpolitics.com

Russian Hacking Report Complicates Donald Trump’s View of World Order

Intelligence findings make it harder to warm to Moscow as a way to challenge Beijing

 .. while it’s hard to read the enigmatic Mr. Trump, it also appears his vision of how to prosper in that world is to develop friendly ties with Russia on the one hand, thereby improving the American strategic position to challenge China on the other.

.. the report also said this about the intentions of Russian President Vladimir Putin: “We assess Russian intelligence services will continue to develop capabilities to provide Putin with options to use against the United States, judging from past practice and current efforts. Immediately after Election Day, we assess Russian intelligence began a spearphishing campaign targeting U.S. Government employees” and others, referring to a type of cyberattack. “This campaign could provide material for future influence efforts as well as foreign intelligence collection on the incoming administration’s goals and plans.”

In other words, the intelligence community has just warned the incoming president that his team is the next target.

.. Playing the Russians off against the Chinese was long a standard move in the American strategic handbook. The two Communist giants despised each other and worried about the balance of power tilting the wrong way if the other moved too close to the U.S. In that environment, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said that the American goal was to maintain closer ties with both Moscow and Beijing than the two did with each other.

.. Mr. Trump will take office clearly intending to challenge China more directly on trade and military activity in the South China Sea, but with less freedom to pursue an offsetting warming of relations with the Russians than seemed likely just a few weeks ago.

.. The best way to deal with that strategic reality, Mr. Sestanovich argues, is to use strong ties with America’s networks of allies, in Europe and Asia, to temper any Russian or Chinese efforts to misbehave.

.. The Chinese seek to challenge the U.S., on both economic and security fronts. At the same time, Mr. Carter said, there is in Beijing “a recognition that, in order for them to have the prosperity that they need for their people and for political stability, they can’t be picking fights and they can’t be ruining the system that is working for them.”