Maverick's World

Gaming this out with reasonable assumptions

At the topmost level, we see two outcomes

1) DJT survives a challenge to his political power - DJT weathers the adverse political climate and survives exposure of his RU ties. The opposition cannot mount a credible legal challenge to his continuation either because they are unable to find enough evidence or because he is able to counteract their initiatives through political action.

2) DJT does not survive a challenge to his political power -  DJT admin's political side crumbles and he is unable to prevent an impeachment proceeding. The motion to impeach carries and he ends up out of power, possibly facing a criminal prosecution. It is likely that after he is prosecuted and sentenced, he will be pardoned by President Pence/McConnell/Ryan depending on how many others this takes down with it.

If we work forwards from either outcome we see economic instability and serious social chaos as peer competitor factions battle for control over various economic crumbs. We see at least two contested elections and a "Lost Decade".

Going backwards, in both outcomes we see major legislative deadlock as pro-Trump and anti-Trump factions duke it out over the impeachment process. We see an Iran-Contra type black hole which spirals pulling more and more government organs into its orbit. With major government organs entering failure more, we will see sudden market shifts and irrational behavior.

The two outcomes described above seem degenerate and the only point of split of between them is the success of DJTs counteractive measures.

The biggest counteraction measure is  "Truth Dominance" - a measure which allows DJT at least for a short period of time to become the sole arbiter of "Truth".  If this is measure is successfully deployed then DJT will control the information cycle - essentially enabling him to convince his targets that "everything isn't as bad as it is made to seem" or "I am the victim here" etc... Obviously the loyalists will always converge to those positions (that BTW is a good way to find loyalists) but the others will not do so without "Truth Dominance". (A fact that will be visible in subtle trends in open source polling data.)

To this end, RIS backed leaks and agitprop campaigns will go a long way in discrediting traditional information sources such as the major news media, USIC, judiciary etc... If Cambridge Analytica style digital opinion modification techniques are used - then one could supplement the effectiveness of RIS information dominance operations.

It is unlikely that this counteraction measure will survive contact with the reality of evidence emerging against him. As his position weakens, he is basically dropping deep into the RIS' debt and there is a limit to how far the RIS can extend itself to protect him. If overt RIS interference is visible, then that will be fatal to his political survival.

From the RIS perspective, this is now a major recovery operation. Unless they do whatever it takes to keep him in place at least until their own tracks are covered, they will be doubly hit - they'll take a hit from the collapse in the US market (where a lot of RU conflict capital is invested) and they will take a hit from the public exposure of their support ops. It will be a repeat of the carnage they saw after the fall of the USSR and this time around there will be nowhere to move the monies to.

As support operations are launched via usual channels, the likelihood of something stupid happening - a wrinkle in the tradecraft, a slip-up in OPSEC, or a tiny little crack in the mirror will increase. Mistakes after all are made when people are in a hurry.

The failed attempt to deploy the "Tapping" balloon is an example of what happens when an OP is launched without sufficient prior preparation and conditioning. The appearance of a very convenient Vault 7 release from Wikileaks is also illuminating. Wonder what errors lie in that deployment? - perhaps accidentally compromise the source of the vault itself? perhaps the agency was clever enough to imprinted with unique text patterns and typos in specific copies of the documents? old school but it works.

Who know what exactly lies ahead but it isn't going to be pretty.

posted by maverick @ 11:50 AM