Chapter Two, Section II: The Traitor General and the Byzantine Problem
- john raymond
- Jul 4
- 3 min read
How do we coordinate when one of our leaders is a saboteur controlled by a foreign power?
This is the question posed by the Byzantine Generals Problem—a foundational concept in distributed systems theory, but one with powerful implications for modern politics, especially in an age of asymmetric warfare.
Imagine a group of generals stationed around an ancient city. In order to succeed, loyal generals must either all attack or all retreat. But some of the generals may be traitors—sending false messages, contradicting their own instructions, or failing to transmit messages at all.
To survive betrayal, the generals must follow a rigorous message-passing protocol. Each general sends their proposed plan—attack or retreat—to every other general. Then, upon receiving these messages, each general forwards the received messages to all others, including the original sender’s name and decision. This recursive communication ensures that each general not only knows what others proposed, but also what everyone else heard. With this cascade of message-passing, each participant builds a matrix of claims: who said what, and who relayed what about whom. Once all messages have been relayed and verified through this network of cross-communication, the generals apply a majority rule to decide what action was most consistently supported across trusted channels. Crucially, this system only works when the number of loyal actors exceeds two-thirds of the total.
In short, how can the loyal generals reach agreement and avoid catastrophic failure? The answer is sobering: unless the system is carefully designed with robust verification and redundancy, even one single traitor can sabotage the entire plan.
Now consider Donald Trump.
In this chapter, we are not primarily concerned with Trump’s bombast, his bluster, or his base. What matters is that Trump operates like a traitor general in an American political system that was never built to withstand asymmetric betrayal from within. He spreads misinformation, contradicts himself, undermines institutions, and delegitimizes the very consensus-building mechanisms that a democracy needs to function.
What does this have to do with the Kremlin? Everything—and nothing.
The Kremlin didn’t need Trump to be ideologically pro-Russian. He didn’t need to believe in Eurasianism, or share some grand vision of multipolarity.
All Putin needed was a man whose behavior would consistently and predictably degrade the capacity of the West to coordinate. Trump’s selfishness—his obsession with grievance, his need for adulation, his transactional instincts—was the perfect weapon. He would be a willing traitor. He would reliably act against consensus if that consensus threatened his ego, his image, his wealth, or his grip on power.
And that’s what makes Trump so dangerous.
He is not a classic ideologue, nor a master strategist. He is a tactician driven by self-interest. But that very quality makes him a perfect asymmetrical asset.
In a system that relies on trust and shared reality, a general who spreads confusion, contradicts the truth, and creates factional mistrust isn’t just disruptive. He is strategically traitorous.
For those who struggle with the technical language of the Byzantine Generals Problem, here’s a simpler metaphor: Imagine ten people trying to decide where to eat. One person keeps shouting different locations, spreading rumors about poison at some places, and accusing others of bad faith. Soon, no one trusts anyone. They either give up, or follow the loudest voice out of sheer exhaustion. That’s the Trump effect. Not persuasion—pollution.
This is how systems break.
And this is how Putin wins. First by feeding the beast, and then secondly by expecting reciprocity from Trump. This is something Trump fully understands.
The U.S. political system assumed that its most powerful actors would share some minimal allegiance to democratic consensus. It was not built to handle a top general who defects in service to himself, and especially if that selfishness means service to a foreign master.
And so, when that general was handed power, the result wasn’t just chaos. It was strategic collapse.
In the next section, we’ll look closer at how Trump’s behavior isn’t uniquely treasonous by itself—but fits perfectly along a continuum of selfishness. And we’ll ask: what happens when an apex predator of this nihilistic continuum reaches the top of the chain of command?
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