New Cold War Here to Stay

There really should be no more expressions of hope that a Trump administration will scrap the New Cold War. The White House has appointed Fiona Hill, a spook-friendly, deep state intellectual as the person in charge of Europe and Russia. According to this morning's Situation Report:

Trump taps critic for post. In a surprising move, “the Trump administration has offered a well-respected scholar and sober critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin the position of White House senior director for Europe and Russia, a White House official told FP’s John Hudson in an exclusive get.

“The decision to hire Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, for one of the government’s top jobs dealing with U.S.-Russia relations is likely to earn bipartisan praise in Congress where Republicans and Democrats have expressed mounting unease with the Trump administration’s apparent contacts with Russian officials during the presidential campaign.”

Look at the blurbs for her Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (2013), co-written with Clifford Gaddy:

If you want to begin to understand Russia today, read this book.
—Sir John Scarlett, former chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)

For anyone wishing to understand Russia’s evolution since the breakup of the Soviet Union and its trajectory since then, the book you hold in your hand is an essential guide.
—John McLaughlin, former deputy director of U.S. Central Intelligence

Of the many biographies of Vladimir Putin that have appeared in recent years, this one is the most useful.
—Foreign Affairs

This is not just another Putin biography. It is a psychological portrait.
—The Financial Times

Considering how busy you are, do you have time to read books? If so, which ones would you recommend? “. . . My goodness, let’s see. There’s Mr. Putin, by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy. Insightful.”
—Vice President Joseph Biden in Joe Biden: The Rolling Stone Interview

Can't get more deep state than that. My sense, now that Jeff Sessions is in the neo-McCarthyite cross hairs, is that the New Cold War and the deep state's antipathy for all things Russian is a way to protect an ailing neoliberalism from Trump's economic nationalism.

Neo-McCarthyism is being used to bring Trump to heel. Trump is now in line with the deep state's foreign policy objectives, except for trade. His administration will continue to be battered until he relents on offshoring and multilateral trade.