Soviet (and now Russian) military doctrine since World War II has relied heavily on deception, or “maskirovka”. Wikipedia defines maskirovka as “a military doctrine developed from the start of the twentieth century (that) covers a broad range of measures for military deception, from camouflage to denial and deception.” From the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 to the takeover of Crimea in 2014, the Russian military has used maskirovka to great effect. The buildup to the invasion of Ukraine was a further attempt at maskirovka: The forces massing in Russia and Belarus around Ukraine were just “military readiness exercises”, and Putin was denying that an invasion was being planned right up to the point that it actually started. For the most part, the deception worked: With the exception of the US intelligence agencies, who broadcast Russian intentions to anybody who would listen, Europe and the rest of the world (even Ukrainians) seemed shocked by the invasion.
Furthermore, maskirovka has been used against us, here in the United States. The entire Trump phenomenon is clearly a masterpiece of the strategy. Let’s be clear: Putin either had something on Trump, or used the power of Russian mob money propping up Trump properties, or some combination of the two, to get a puppet president who, had he been given a second term, would have removed the U.S. from NATO and possibly destroyed U.S. democracy. We escaped this by the skin of our teeth, and we are still not out of the woods. Russia identified a weakness in the GOP, their own maskirovka that has been ongoing since the time of Nixon: The dog-whistle appeal to White fears that has been used by many in the GOP to get elected and stay in office. With Trump, Putin found a useful idiot who didn’t mind saying out loud what many GOP voters wanted to hear. With the help of Russian hackers and social media bots, a U.S. President was installed who was in thrall to an unfriendly foreign government. When Trump claimed that Putin was a “genius”, that was the voice of somebody with first-hand experience.
After the Uvalde school shooting last May, I tried to summon the rage that I felt after the Sandy Hook and Marjorie Stoneman Douglas massacres. Instead all I felt was hopeless. I thought about writing another screed about shameless, gutless GOP politicians, but really, it had all been said before, and there was little point in belaboring it. That ultimate power couple, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, spoke at the National Rifle Association convention in Houston not long after the shooting, shrieking about the dangers of gun control. Apparently, irony was dead, and blasphemy had taken its place.
Then I remembered that as part of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the FBI looked into whether the NRA had been used to dump Russian money into the election campaigns of prominent GOP candidates. The deputy governor of the Russian central bank and accused money launderer Alexander Torshin, was (is?) an active NRA member, and the NRA spent $30 million on Trump’s campaign alone. (Note: I haven’t been able to find if Torshin is among the sanctioned Russian oligarchs; if anybody knows, please post). All told, the NRA donated $70 million in the 2016 election cycle, and among Democrats, only Bernie Sanders was a significant recipient of NRA money. The rest all went to either supporting GOP candidates or financing anti-Democratic ads in state races. By the way, that money flowed through an arm of the NRA that does not have to disclose donors. I had to go back to news reports from 2019 to get this information, but it is all out there if you care to look. 2020 was more subdued, but the NRA still managed to spend about $30M, in spite of their attempts to declare bankruptcy.
More overt was the infiltration of the NRA by convicted Russian agent Marina Butina. Mother Jones did an in-depth analysis of that relationship in March, not long after the invasion of Ukraine. Here is the link if you are interested.
I have always assumed that the GOP politicians who vote against gun control measures were simply scared of the NRA’s political clout. But the links between Russia and the NRA, and the dark money that can flow through that mechanism, now suggests that the GOP has become, by and large, a foreign entity. Their actions (or rather, inaction) in recent years do not reflect the will of a majority of U.S. citizens in almost any respect.
But what is in the NRA infiltration for Russia, or more specifically, Putin? Why arm Americans with automatic weapons, suitable for war? How does this fit into the maskirovka? A major reason that the January 6th insurrection did not result in more deaths was the strict gun control measures that are in place in Washington, D.C. As James Dolan’s testimony yesterday at the Oath Keepers trial confirmed, the ringleaders, otherwise prepared for a military action, left guns and ammo outside the city. If that had not been the case, the siege of the Capitol could have been a bloodbath. Instead of a guarded (but peaceful) inauguration of the next President, invoking of the Insurrection Act and martial law would have been the least of the responses, with rioting and chaos erupting as sides were chosen in a prelude to civil war, a war in which only one side would be heavily armed. With the United States fractured and distracted, Putin would have had free rein to do what he would in eastern Europe and the Middle East. Instead of a re-invigorated NATO and a Western-supported Ukraine resistance, Soviet Union 2.0. Not bad for a $70M investment.
I am not sure how to end this without sounding like a conspiracy theorist. But the links between Russia, the NRA and GOP are overt and well documented for anybody who cares to look. I can only hope that others are paying attention. In the meantime, I will grieve with everybody else on the lives lost to evil, and look to the future with fear and misgivings.
Author’s note: An earlier version of this article can be found on my blog: porkchopsandpravda.net