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Garry Kasparov Profile picture
@Kasparov63
Feb 20, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
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After warning so many White House admins blundering with Putin, I don't care if they listen to me as long as they are listening to reason. If you make the same mistake twice you are either a fool or it's not a mistake at all, it's collusion & corruption.
I blasted W Bush for treating Putin like an ally after 9/11, but they were both new on the job in a crisis. By 2008, Putin wasn't a mystery, but Obama gifted him the Reset. Trump was Putin's fan and beneficiary. Biden talked tough, but is repeating the reactive pattern.
As I just said on CNN, I *hear* Scholz, Macron and Biden talking, but I don't see anything new. Putin was "a pariah" in 2008 when he invaded Georgia, invaded Ukraine & shot down MH-17 in 2014, etc. And? He hosted the World Cup in 2018 and Nord Stream 2 went ahead. Pariah? Image
I'm not in the mood to be charitable when thousands more innocent people may about to be murdered by a man I was told repeatedly I was overreacting to call a dictator and threat.
Once again, dictators don't ask why, they only ask why not. If you don't act to stop them, they assume you are fine with what they are doing, but must say that you aren't for show. It's up to the leaders of the free world to prove Putin wrong. I'm not sure he is.
Just one example of the thinking that got us here, the dismissive tone of a so-called Russia expert in a review of my 2015 book Winter Is Coming. He had already invaded Ukraine & annexed Crimea, but I was overreacting! washingtonpost.com/opinions/chess…
Many lives are at stake, but so is the global order based on the rule of law. Putin's invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea shook its foundation. Now he wants to shatter it. If the free world is worth defending, it must be defended now. video.snapstream.net/Play/79yBSXy8o… Image
Words matter. It's a Putin crisis, not a Ukraine crisis. There are no separatists; they are Russian occupation forces. There is no Russian president; there is a dictator with nukes who wants the world to dance to his tune. Words matter, but they have never stopped a dictator.
For predicting Putin's moves, just see what he sees. He looks around and doesn't see forces coming to defend Ukraine. He hears leaders of mighty nations only talking instead of acting to stop him. He sees promises, not action, and he knows promises are made to be broken.

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More from @Kasparov63

Garry Kasparov Profile picture
Feb 2
Trump isn’t being fooled by Putin. He doesn’t trust him or believe him. It’s worse. He agrees with him. Trump wants what Putin wants, envies what Putin has, and is imitating Putin’s transformation of Russia into a dictatorship.
Any help the Trump admin provides Ukraine will be happen only if it is overwhelmingly in Trump's personal interest, like everything else he does. Congress locking down his agenda until he restarts US aid to Ukraine and applies strong sanctions on Russia, for example.
Support for Ukraine is popular with Americans, even Republicans, but Trump doesn’t budge on this issue, loyal to Putin since 2016 despite Putin spitting in his face repeatedly. Unfortunately, the GOP won’t challenge Trump on this or anything else.
Read 5 tweets
Garry Kasparov Profile picture
Jan 24
Yes, as I wrote in my "Putinization of America" articles in the Atlantic. ICE is Trump's Rosgvardia, given impunity (or "total immunity" in Vance's words) for loyalty to Trump personally. Encouraged to violate the law, then told they'll be punished only if MAGA loses power, etc.
"This is why the resistance must center the principles at stake. Does America have rule of law or not? The first line in defense of an incipient police state is: “You don’t have anything to fear if you’ve done nothing wrong.” This fallacy is soon replaced by: “It could happen to anybody,” as the regime sees the value of using arbitrary persecution to spread fear. Again, fear is the autocrat’s goal, as is simply doing many things every day. Even if you don’t like him or his policies, the longer he is there, doing things, the more the autocrat starts to feel inevitable, like the sun rising each morning.

In politics, as in physics, force is mass times acceleration. The administration is mounting a barrage of attacks, with great urgency, to break through the resistance of American legal structures, sometimes by using legal and relatively popular policies (deporting convicted criminals, for example) as cover for likely illegal and relatively unpopular policies (deporting immigrants without due process). The fabricated urgency is a tell: No war, no terrible crisis, compels the president to violate the Constitution. But the administration is breaking down norms and setting precedents faster than judges can stop it. Of course, ignoring judges is also part of the plan."

theatlantic.com/international/…
Also, in my Next Move substack in July, more specifically: "In 2016, Vladimir Putin created Rosgvardiya—a new, militarized domestic law enforcement apparatus. Russia had no shortage of police agencies; it inherited several from the Soviet Union, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). So what made Rosgvardiya different? It operated directly under Putin’s authority.

Unlike Putin and Rosgvardiya, Trump did not create ICE. However, the 50% boost in ICE’s ranks that Trump is pursuing under OBBBA would change the face of any agency. Now that Gavin Newsom has taken Trump to court over the latter’s deployment of the California National Guard, the president is likely looking for more hassle-free and pliant institutions to do his bidding, and ICE could be the perfect outlet for those ambitions. If nothing else, ICE’s behavior in the past half year ought to make a dramatic expansion of the agency the object of intense public scrutiny."
thenextmove.org/p/dont-miss-th…
Read 4 tweets
Garry Kasparov Profile picture
Jan 24
Trying to predict the outrages of autocrats is hopeless because their superpower is to generate constant shocks to dominate the environment. But what’s happening in Minnesota is method, not madness. Trump wants violence, to radicalize & divide, to create pretext for crackdowns.
First, to claim only he can solve the crisis (that he is creating), a typical formula. Chaos & violence push people toward a "law and order" strongman. Also, as the midterms approach, the grounds must be prepared for interfering with the democratic process for "security" reasons.
Having lived through a similar, nationwide version of this in Trump's model, Putin's Russia, it’s not easy to fight against. And Trump and many of his gang have passed the point at which they feel they can afford to lose power, even in Congress. It’s a perilous moment.
Read 6 tweets
Garry Kasparov Profile picture
Jan 15
When you think of despots and media, it's often of Big Brother on every screen or Pravda publishing the party line. That may be how it ends, but that's not how it starts. Chilling effects, appeasement, producers and publishers toeing the line unquestioningly. My latest:
It's natural to question the source when something is published by an outlet known to be in the tank, or in the pocket, of a partisan owner. But when a previously respected outlet like CBS suddenly starts acting like a White House press shop, few are prepared.
As documented about the fall of Russia's free press, it doesn't all become Pravda overnight. Having nominally critical outlets support the regime in one specific way, or via a few specific people or shows, is more effective early on than blanket censorship or control.
Read 4 tweets
Garry Kasparov Profile picture
Jan 3
Maduro is a dictator who stayed in power by force after losing an election. No one who believes in democracy should mourn his fall. Trump's pretexts and potential geopolitical deals especially w Russia deserve scrutiny, but the Venezuelan people deserve a chance at freedom.
As with everything Trump does, his motivations will be about personal power and enrichment. This does not contradict that Maduro was an illegitimate thug allied with others like him. However his removal was arranged (deal?) it shakes the global forces of dictatorship.
Condemning a nation's people to authoritarianism and repression because of potential bad outcomes after the fall of their dictator is a free world observer's luxury. Democracy and prosperity can never be guaranteed, but the opportunities for them should be promoted.
Read 4 tweets
Garry Kasparov Profile picture
Jan 2
🎯 Mamdani's "warmth of collectivism" line, naive or ominous or both, is becoming a teachable moment. It would be nice if people would learn about the bitter realities of socialism this way instead of the hard way of living through it.
As I explained back when it was Bernie Sanders saying similar things & was defended in similar ways, it's not a matter of rhetoric or intentions. Obv they aren't Mao, it's not the USSR, etc. It's what people in power with a collectivist mindset do when things don't go well.
If the economy does poorly, do they admit error and ease off, try other methods, etc? Or do they invent scapegoats and insist that the system will work if they have more (and more) authority to enforce compliance? We know the answer from history.
Read 5 tweets

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