Friday Round Up! 6/23/2023

Putin's chef is on the move...and Putin is on the menu.

It was great to be in Italy for the week, where all of the crazy and depressing news seemed delightfully far away. Donald Trump confessed (again) to violating the Espionage Act on national television. The Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office revealed that Hunter Biden will be pleading guilty to two counts of willful failure to pay income tax and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm. Five people who voluntarily put themselves into a metal tube to go to the bottom of the ocean (why? WHY?) never made it back. But really the big news — still going in real time — is the showcase showdown currently underway between Vladimir Putin and Yevgeniy Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group, a private mercenary outfit, in what is looking to be an attempted coup. Finally a new plot twist that none of us saw coming — bravo, Season 6 writers!

These current events dovetail very nicely with what we’ll be covering in the next few lectures regarding Russian election interference in the U.S. That’s because Prigozhin is also the head of the Internet Research Agency, the St. Petersburg-based troll farm which was instrumental in Russia’s disinformation operation during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted both Prigozhin and Internet Research Agency, along with twelve other Russian nationals and two other companies owned by Prigozhin (one of which is a catering company which has earned Prigozhin the nickname “Putin’s chef”), though the case was later dropped by former Attorney General Bill Barr (we’ll be discussing the possible reasons why). Prigozhin’s information operations and mercenary group are a part of Russia’s larger strategy of asymmetrical warfare, which we have covered in previous lectures.

For those who are just joining the course or want to revisit, I covered this in Class 7 (the strengths and weaknesses of Soviet active measures vs. Putin’s Russia), Class 10 (asymmetries between Russia and the U.S. which Putin seeks to exploit), and Class 12 (a breakdown of hybrid warfare and the Gerasimov Doctrine, named after Putin’s Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, who is now apparently Prigozhin’s sworn enemy). All of the lectures are fairly short and include an audio option at the bottom!

Meanwhile, Renato held down the fort in this week’s podcast with Brian Greer, former associate general counsel at the CIA, filling in for me, discussing Trump’s public confession and the Hunter Biden charges. (I made a cameo at the end from Rome though my wifi made it hard to have a fluid conversation.)

Articles worth reading:

• This investigative piece in The Washington Post by Carol Leaning and Aaron Davis about the year-long delay at the Justice Department in deciding to investigate Trump for his role in January 6 (my piece for Just Security from last November offers a complementary analysis on some of the troubling public indicators of resistance in the FBI)

• If you want a download on the whole Hunter Biden saga including where criminal information filed against him fits into the “laptop” allegations, I wrote an explainer a while back which you might find useful (SPOILER: The charges and laptop claims have nothing to do with each other)

Upcoming Events:

• Wine & Fries members event, Sunday, June 25, 6-8 p.m. EDT: Introduction to the Enneagram. I’m super excited to do this workshop! You can take a test to determine your type here, and we’ll go through the types and how to use the Enneagram to gain greater insight into yourself and others. (NOTE: You are not required to take a test, it’s just a suggestion: You can also read the descriptions and self-type!) Zoom link will be sent to founding members at 3 p.m. The session will be recorded and accessible to Wine & Fries members who are unable to make the live session

• Guest speakerDavid Pepper, Wednesday, June 28 at 4 p.m. EDT. Zoom link will be sent to paid subscribers at 1 p.m. and a recording will be posted on Thursday

Hope to see many of you tomorrow or later next week!