Public figures which have openly supported Russia since the invasion in February 2022 have had different motivations. Perhaps some on the right think that Putin’s Russia is their only hope of turning the course against liberal democracies in the West. That would be a more ideological stance, while others would be motivated through coercive ways. Russian agents in the West may be more ideologically bound to Russia, but Russian assets may be more like Lenin’s “useful fools”. How do we know what motivates the likes of Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylot-Greene, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Michael Flynn and many others?
During the Cold War, intelligence agencies on both sides of the conflict sought to gather as much information as possible about their opponents’ activities. One approach that was commonly used was the recruitment of double agents. These were individuals who pretended to work for one side while secretly spying for the other. The MICE concept was a framework used by intelligence agencies to identify potential double agents by analyzing their motivations. MICE stands for Money, Ideology, Coercion, and Ego. The theory was that individuals could be recruited as double agents if they were motivated by one or more of these factors. For example, a person might be susceptible to recruitment if they were in debt (money), had ideological differences with their employer (ideology), were being blackmailed (coercion), or were seeking personal glory (ego). Intelligence agencies would use the MICE framework to identify potential double agents and then try to recruit them to work for their own side. The MICE concept remains relevant today and is still used by intelligence agencies to assess the vulnerabilities of individuals who might be susceptible to recruitment as double agents.
Under which category of MICE would prominent Putin ‘apologists’ fall under today? The majority would most likely fall under Ideology and Coercion. It is clear that the Russian government tries to use all four components of MICE. Perhaps, the Money component is no longer as effective, as money and finances are easier to track, on top of the fact that indebted officials would be a smoking gun in any scenario. Nevertheless, countless examples of financial baiting by the Russians have been documented in recent history. One of the most prominent examples is Marine Le Pen’s National Front Party, which borrowed 12 million EUR from a Russian firm back in 2010.
Ego, is perhaps another factor that is somewhat commonly used – take the example of Edward Snowden, who blew the whistle on the NSA to seek shelter in the most tyrannical regime in the world.
Coercion, although not proven in most allegations of espionage in the West due to the sensitivity of the cases, is also estimated to be a major factor in explaining the motivation for working for Russia. From many claims that Moscow has compromising material on ex-president Donald Trump to even Jordan Peterson, who spent over a month in a Russian hospital, it is impossible to say if there is any truth to it. It may be impossible to prove that Russia has kept Peterson’s private and sensitive medical information from his time in the hospital. It would be, however, a chance that Moscow wouldn’t have missed, if one recalls the Kremlin’s strategy of extortion, assassinations, and election-meddling. There would be no surprise if the Kremlin took its time to collect compromising material on influential Western Figures. Moscow-friendly personalities in the West will always raise such suspicions.
Another suggested coercive example was that of Olaf Sholz, today’s German chancellor. As a Marxist, ,anti-western youth activist, and a member of SPD in the 1980’s, he kept in close touch with communist youth organizations of Eastern Germany. The implication here is profound. The Stasi, East Germany’s secret police, used a variety of coercion and extortion techniques to maintain control over the population. These techniques included physical violence, blackmail, and psychological manipulation. They would often use informants to gather information on citizens and then use that information to threaten or blackmail them. In some cases, they would even go as far as fabricating evidence to use against their targets. Hence, blackmail from the past may still be a factor in Olaf Sholz’s political decision-making.
Finally, Ideology is perhaps the most important of the four components, when considering Russia’s network of influence in the West.
When it comes to ideology, a significant number of conservative thinkers in the Republican party in the US and elsewhere in the West see Putin and Russia as an ally of what they see as conservative values. Similarly, the far-left sees Putin as an end to the West’s ‘dominance’ and ‘neo-colonialism’ (thereby inventing the neo-colonialism they seek and ignoring that of Russia’s). When looking at Russia’s ‘traditional family values’ and ‘conservatism’, one can only see that it is rather an ideology for export. Because Russia also nurtures left-wing radicalism as much as right, the conclusion to be made here is that Russian ‘conservatism’ simply doesn’t exist. It is bait for potential ‘ideological allies’ in the West, who would then help Russia by destabilizing the political order in the West. Logically, using both left and right-wing radicals would achieve this goal most efficiently. The only sincere ideology pushed by the Kremlin is a combination of neo-colonialism, imperialism and chauvinism. For left and right-wing populists in the West, the export product of a “conservative” Russia or “anti-colonialist” Russia is used to create allies and bind them ideologically.
For the new conservative right like the MAGA movement in the US, the false perception of Russia as an ethnically homogeneous country is one of the reasons that solidifies this alliance. Family values, marriage and the various related issues here are also in play when binding this alliance. It is no coincidence that once in a while, Putin makes a statement of appalment regarding the state of ‘traditional family values’ in Europe and North America. It is a means of reassuring his allies in the West that he supports them. His allies, typically marginalized and small political fractions in the West, are happy to be noticed by someone who they see as a big ally and is in power in his own country, someone who can help them overcome their long history of electoral defeats. It is no coincidence that such political parties have also been linked with Russian money countless times, as discussed previously (Le Pen).
One of the most prominent examples of such an ideological alliance is that of Tucker Carlson’s. A popular TV-host on Fox News and conspiracy theorists, always finds a few good words to put in for Russia, an ‘Orthodox country’ – as he explains it, being the reason as to its hatred by his enemies, the US government.
“You will not hear a word on television tonight about the fact that Zelenskyy has banned an entire ancient Christian denomination in Ukraine and then seized churches and then thrown priests into jail.” – Tucker Carlson.
From blatantly and deliberately lying about Zelensky’s ban of an “ancient Orthodox denomination” in Ukraine (which in reality was Russia’s religious spy network camouflaged as the Russian Orthodox Patriarchy of Ukraine) it becomes ever so clear that he is not misinformed or ill-informed, but believes that he must sway public opinion on the US in favor of Putin at all cost. Perhaps, he sees that internal destabilization through alliance with Russia can help his camp regain a foothold to ‘bring back’ the America that he envisions. The constant fear-mongering of ‘an all-out race-war’ in the US, the future American white minority, to many other issues central to MAGA populism is another way of destabilizing and dividing the country, in the hopes that in the aftermath of all the chaos that will follow, his camp can win.
“You may not watch that channel, but some people do. What does this look like in a year or five years or ten years? What kind of country do you live in? Well, a country at war with itself, a race war.” – Tucker Carlson
Carlson’s insecurity of a changing country (demographically and politically) has forced him into more desperate and dirty tactics. Perhaps, if US foreign policy is defeated by the likes of Putin, who he also sees as an ideological role model, the subsequent events could trigger internal chaos in the US that would give a chance for the American far-right to regain a foothold in American politics. If things continue as they are, it will become harder for any Republican president, let alone a non-centrist candidate like Trump to win any election in the future. After all, every new batch of young voters previously aged 14-18 will vote overwhelmingly democrat, while newcomers from Latin America will also tilt blue. MAGA’s only chance of winning in the future would be to capitalize from chaos, and disunity of Americans – which is exactly what Tucker Carlson is promoting. Their hope is for a “big bang” in American politics, where the fundamentals of the country would be erased and a complete rebuild would give them the edge.
The “big bang” or “big rebuild” has already been proposed by Marjorie Taylor-Greene who recently proposed a secession of Red states from the Blue. She knows exactly about the demographic time-bomb that is likely to negatively impact the Republican party and the MAGA cause, hence the out-of-the-box thinking and radical ideas as to how to bypass US democracy. The only way such a “big bang” may occur is if the country is divided enough and people live in two different realities (one being Carlon’s alternative reality). Hence, if alliance with Putin, who seeks to destroy the United States in its current form, especially in foreign policy, it is no surprise that Tucker Carlson has chosen Putin as an ally.
