The West: reborn or disappear?

Politique Internationale - What lessons do you think Vladimir Putin has learned from the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro by US forces?

Alexandre Melnik - Without mastering Putin's mental software, I'd say he learned two lessons from the fall of the Venezuelan president. First: confirmation of American power. This ability to act has long fascinated the Russians, and contrasts with the posture of the European Union, ankylosed by talk. Secondly, Putin may have seen Donald Trump's power grab as a carte blanche. A kind of "license to kill" that legitimizes the intensification of his "special operation" in Ukraine. Until now, the Russians have been killing Ukrainians with a certain amount of trepidation. However, the "Donroe" doctrine[1] , heir to the Monroe Doctrine (1923), reaffirms that America belongs to the Americans and that the rest of the world is none of their business. Transposed to Russia, this doctrine is tantamount to a blank check to intervene in a nearby Slavic area, with the assurance that the United States will not react.

P. I. - At the start of Donald Trump's mandate, we often heard about his "connivance" with Vladimir Putin. Do you think the recent boarding of a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the Caribbean could change the Russian president's view of his American counterpart?

A. M. - Probably not. Once and for all, Putin has branded Trump his useful idiot, his puppet. The head of the Kremlin sees the occupant of the White House as an egotistical man, an easily manipulated showman, driven by greed and concerned with the image he presents of himself. Trump's impulsiveness and unpredictability are, from Putin's point of view, perfectly predictable. 

P. I. - Some claim that Trump is "held" by Putin...

A. M. - I don't believe it at all. In any case, I don't have any formal proof to that effect. You know, we live in a world in which everything circulates, everything telescopes. A world out of control. Crazy, perhaps. After the Epstein affair, what more could Putin do to intimidate Trump? We have to guard against conspiracy. What's more fundamental, in my view, is the complicity, the symbiosis, the concordance between their worldviews. This synergy is decisive. It's based on the fact that Trump and Putin both feel persecuted and humiliated, albeit for different reasons. Trump feels threatened by the Deep State - the bureaucracy - as well as by the Democrats - Joe Biden in the role of the devil who stole his 2021 election. Putin, for his part, feels humiliated by the Soviet Union's defeat in the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR, which he calls "the greatest disaster of the 21stcentury" - forgetting the Shoah! This sense of humiliation is, for both of them, the breeding ground for their thirst for revenge. It's an obsession that turns them into "chaos engineers"[2] , Siamese twins working together to destroy the existing order.

P. I. - Speaking of chaos, how would Putin react if Trump somehow destabilized …