Trump and Vance seem extremely preoccupied with ex-Soviet countries, with the former recently holding a meeting with Central Asian leaders, and Vance visiting the South Caucasus and declaring a new nuclear energy deal with Armenia. If I didn’t know better, I would think they’re trying to rebuild the Soviet Union. But why?
Jokes aside, clearly there’s a neo-conservative attempt to peel away Russia’s satellite states. Even before we dive too deep into this, there are several flaws with this logic. First off, if Russia valued these countries that much, they would still be in Russia, and not be their own countries in the first place. Secondly, the main reason these are Russian satellites is because Russia gives them money. Making Central Asia and the South Caucasus American satellites implies that the USA will give them money instead of Russia, which doesn’t seem consistent with Trump’s presidential platform he was elected on. I thought the slogan was “Make America great again,” not “Make Uzbekistan great again.”
The third problem is that the USA just doesn’t have very much to offer. Russia has the “friendship treaties” that gives exports from certain neighboring countries, particularly in agriculture, preferential treatment in the Russian market. As a result, Russia is their primary partner in agriculture, with Russia consuming roughly half of Kazakh agricultural products and more than 90% of Georgia’s. The western sanctions starting in 2022 have been particularly lucrative, with countries like Georgia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan seeing substantial increases increases in trade and thousands of new companies opened, largely to facilitate the “parallel import” regime of western brands into Russia. Presumably, the US government isn’t planning to just give these countries free money and would like them to sever ties with Russia, but what can the US realistically offer in return? American and EU markets are already saturated. Georgian, Azeri and Armenian wines can’t compete with France and Italy, and Uzbek cotton can’t compete with American in America, it’s just not realistic.
And even if the legal “DEI” framework to give ex-Soviet countries preferential treatment in western markets did by some miracle happen, Russian consumers are simply more primed to these exports than westerners ever will. Go to any major Russian city and throw a pebble in any direction, and it will land at the doorstep of a restaurant or shop selling Caucasian or Central Asian cuisine. Russians are familiar with and interested in this cultures while westerners are not and there is no way to artificially compel such interest. Imagine trying to make Georgian wines and cuisine a thing in America, for example. Americans would be confused, and think “Georgia” is that southern US state.
Now let’s consider Vance’s announcement of an agreement with Armenia to build nuclear powerplants, which western media (correctly) framed as a way to spite Russian nuclear energy. Like Vance, I have been to Armenia, particularly Yerevan, their capital. This is the cascade, Yerevan’s most famous landmark:
Pretty cool, right? Well, here’s what the cascade looks like from the top:
The cascade was started in 1971, and even after decades of Soviet and then American funding, is still not finished. I present to you the Armenian work ethic, Exhibit A. I wish Mr. Vance had asked me beforehand, I would have told him this. If he expects Armenian workers to build a nuclear plant, all I can say is “Good luck.” Considering the massive corruption scandals in Afghanistan and Iraq, the USA does not have a great track record with piercing local corruption to build things.
But let’s be honest here, the USA doesn’t even have a great record with building things in the USA. I made this meme last October:
According to Wikipedia, the current scheduled finish date is 2030. That’s not a joke, six years after the bridge collapsed, it might be rebuilt.
That’s not even the most extreme example. California’s high speed rail, 10 years and more than $13 billion later is still nowhere close to finished. Russia built the Moscow City skyscraper district in about the same timeframe it’s estimated to take California to build a simple span of rail.
Even if Armenian corruption wasn’t a thing, American corruption would be more than enough of a problem on its own.
But wait a minute, when was the last time the US built a nuclear power plant? 1984, more than 40 years ago. Of course this is a testament to Armenia’s wise leadership that they turned down Russia, which has 40+ reactor projects at any given moment, in favor of a country that hasn’t touched nuclear power since before Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. And, ironically, the enriched uranium the USA would even use on a hypothetical Armenian powerplant would likely come from Russia.
I actually feel extremely foolish, because a year ago I gloated that Trump could be the next Nixon, and engineer a Russo-Chinese split. All he had to do was give Russia their western flank, and they could have given the US unfettered access to the Arctic, and whatever other goodies American big business wanted. It was such childishly easy low-hanging fruit, I couldn’t imagine Trump being stupid enough to screw this up. Yet he did. Incredible.
Ian Kummer
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Larry Johnston, who worked for the CIA as an analyst in the 1980s, was on the Duran podcast and explained that the Caucasus was a longstanding CIA project. And as a U.S. army reserve officer, I remember that my final Intermediate Level Education exercise was about the Caucasus. I thought that was strange at the time.
Johnston noted that Trump hosted the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, and then Vance visited. He doubted Trump could find these countries on the map. He said its not so much that Trump is interested in the area, but that Trump and Vance pretty do everything the CIA asks of them, as did Biden and Obama.
I think Vance suffers from some Dunning-Kruger effect. He’s smart enough to roughly know what’s going on, but not smart enough to understand the implications of what he’s doing.
Larry Johnston, who worked for the CIA as an analyst in the 1980s, was on the Duran podcast and explained that the Caucasus was a longstanding CIA project. And as a U.S. army reserve officer, I remember that my final Intermediate Level Education exercise was about the Caucasus. I thought that was strange at the time. Johnston noted that Trump hosted the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, and then Vance visited. He doubted Trump could find these countries on the map. He said its not so much that Trump is interested in the area, but that Trump and Vance pretty do everything the CIA asks of them, as did Biden and Obama.
I think Vance suffers from some Dunning-Kruger effect. He's smart enough to roughly know what's going on, but not smart enough to understand the implications of what he's doing.