Thread by @AndrewPRLevi

There are only a few credible scenarios for this remarkable ⁦@guardian⁩ report, by ⁦@lukeharding1968⁩ & colleagues, of leaked Kremlin papers showing a Putin plot to install Trump & destroy the US. All of them highly important to us all.

A🧵/1. theguardian.com/world/2021/jul…

Let’s start with the most likely:

(a) it’s all true & the leak’s genuinely just that;

(b) it’s true & the ‘leak’ was done by the US (having obtained the documents by covert means), as part of a major counter-subversion effort; /2.

(c) it’s true & the ‘leak’ was done by the Kremlin, calculating it would heighten division in the US & make Putin & Putinism more feared;

(d) it’s fake & originates from US authorities, as part of counter-subversion;

(e) it’s fake & originates from the Kremlin (see (c)). /3.

It looks very unlikely it’s fake.

If it is, the apparently authentic detail renders it nigh on impossible that it originates from anyone other than the US or Russian governments. (Perhaps China. Happy to receive comments on that).

So what’s so important? /4.

Whichever way you look at it (absent the China scenario) there’s either

- a concerted, potentially existentially threatening operation by Russia against US internal order, or

- the US thinks there is & is now strongly reacting, or

- both. /5.

That, & the outcome, is of profound significance to the security, prosperity & well-being of all countries in the US-led global alliance. (Principally the Euro-Atlantic structures, the two main pillars of which are NATO & the EU. And US alliances in the Asia-Pacific region). /6.

What Soviet & earlier Chinese leaders understood, but Putin & Xi seem not to, is that their countries, too, are dependent on the power, success & stability of the US. /7.

Even while they seek - very expensive - freedom of action for China & Russia within boundaries set by the US’s requirements & its unparalleled ability to enforce them if it so chooses. /8.

Every previous post-war UK Prime Minister & Cabinet, with the possible & temporary exception of Anthony Eden, also understood that overwhelming logic & its corollary. /9.

Which is: the UK has to be fully engaged in all aspects of Euro-Atlantic cooperation & decision-making on security, & political & economic cooperation.

Or become a problem to be managed - with painful consequences, primarily for the UK - by the US, & EU & NATO partners. /10.

The present UK Prime Minister & Cabinet show little or no sign of that basic recognition. /11.

In fact, in line with the objectives of the reported Kremlin leak, there’s good reason to believe that the Brexit & wider strategy of Her Majesty’s Government relies on the return of Trump, or a similar development, preferably before the next US presidential election. /12.

That might seem absurd on many levels.

It is.

It’s also true.

As is the fact that the US President & his team are on the case.

Are you with them, or against them? /13. End