When Counterfactuals Fall Down and Hurt the Good Guys
- john raymond
- Aug 26
- 3 min read
The real counterfactual in the Kotkin/Vexler exchange is not whether President Trump could coerce Moscow; it is the logically prior—and false—assumption that he would ever want to.
Under Pillar One (regime security), Trump’s personal power, legal exposure, and movement cohesion are structurally entangled with Vladimir Putin’s survival. A Traitor-General whose position depends on Kremlin endurance will not design or sustain pressure that endangers themselves. Treating Trump as a potential “Reagan” is therefore a category error.
Kotkin asserts that “nobody can do more damage to Putin than President Trump,” then imagines levers—eject Gazprombank from SWIFT, green-light seizure of ~$300 billion in Russian sovereign assets, force India off Russian oil, even cut a side-deal with Xi—that would supposedly corner the Kremlin.
But Europe’s own leaders again confirmed this week that outright seizure of the immobilized assets remains legally fraught; they will continue channeling only the profits, not the principal. That is not a switch any U.S. president can flip. Likewise, magically “forcing” India off Russian barrels is indirect, high-friction, and prone to partner blowback.
Meanwhile, the only pressure measurably squeezing Putin in 2025 has been Ukrainian: sustained, long-range strikes degrading 13–17% of Russia’s refining capacity and triggering rationing—effects born of weapons pipelines and enforcement, not of performative “talks now.”
Finally, Vexler’s sociological correction stands: intra-elite opposition in autocracies is event-triggered (preference-cascade dynamics), not a standing reservoir awaiting Western courtship—Prigozhin’s brief mutiny is the canonical illustration.
The Important Analysis (Raymond Method)
Pillar One—Regime Security
Trump’s incentives align with a Kremlin that survives, stalemates, and fragments NATO resolve. Any “peace” choreography that compels Kyiv to concede while fracturing allied will improves Putin’s survival odds and thus Trump’s.
The belief that Trump would voluntarily jeopardize his own regime-security partner is the counterfactual at the heart of Kotkin’s frame.
Pillar Two—Asymmetric Warfare
Pressure that bites Moscow is granular and enforceable: shadow-fleet interdiction, price-cap enforcement, and uninterrupted deep-strike/air-defense flows that keep Russian refineries and logistics under continuous cost.
Those are boring, verification-heavy tasks that strengthen Ukraine’s leverage; they are the opposite of “instant talks.” Where they are applied, we observe quantifiable effects in Russia’s fuel markets and macro forecasts; where they are withheld or politicized, the Kremlin regains slack.
Pillar Three—Byzantine Traitor-General
Inside a coalition, the actor who postures hostility to the adversary while quietly constraining his own side is the most valuable asset the adversary can have. When the West hallucinates “Trump holds the cards,” it invites precisely this inside-game: theatrical summits, aid pauses and “realistic” terms for Kyiv, tariffs aimed at partners rather than the revenue arteries that finance Putin’s war.
The result is leverage over Ukraine and allies, not over Moscow.
The Real Implications Are Stark
Stop granting the counterfactual. The correct premise is: as long as Trump’s political survival is tethered to Putin’s, he will not design or sustain a campaign that truly constrains the Kremlin.
Therefore: (1) treat Trump-centered coercion scenarios as analytical dead ends; (2) operationalize the enforceable levers that don’t require him—EU-led profit-skimming at scale from immobilized assets, shadow-fleet/insurance enforcement, and uninterrupted Ukrainian strike capacity; (3) model Russian intra-elite “opposition” as a function of shocks created by battlefield and economic attrition, not Western flirtations.
These ideas yield strategies that work in the world we actually inhabit, not in the counterfactual where Trump ever chooses to break his own lifeline.
Comments