Smithers Goes to Moscow
June 6, 2025
On June 1, Ukraine launched Operation Spiderweb, a surprise drone attack which hit about 40 planes and degraded Russia’s strategic capacity. After talking with Putin on the phone, Trump posted on June 4 that “President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields.” On June 6 he posted that the Ukrainians had given Putin “a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them last night.”
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Daniel sits in front of three enormous screens on the 22nd floor beneath the Pentagon. There is, of course, no 22nd floor beneath the Pentagon. The whole idea is a Deep State myth, a piece of fake news that you can dismiss without giving a second thought.
On the three screens are #1. a map, #2. the posts of the Prime Idiot, and #3. strategies for consideration and execution.
The various strategies adopted by the strategists on the 22nd floor revolve around the concept of the useful idiot.
It’s common knowledge that the Russian President sees the American President as the Prime Idiot. On the 22nd floor they know quite a bit about this. For instance, they know that in his private conversations with his evil counsellor, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian President goes so far as to call the American President Homer Simpleton.
Unbeknownst to Sergey, in his conversations with his other self (who he talks to in his mirror, glowing red horns and all), Putin calls Lavrov Smithers. He also calls Lavrov and his absurd little friend Peskov The Smothers Brothers. The Russian President’s English is better than he lets on, and he chuckles to himself when he thinks about the words smithereens and smothers.
He rubs his hands with glee, thinking how much power he has managed to accumulate in the last 20 years. He has more power than a czar! How many megatonnes of nuclear blast did Peter or Catherine command? The new Russian czar, on the other hand, could make the whole world glow with just one light press of a red button.
Image from http://www.quizmastertrivia.com/2015/06/todays-article-mr-burns.html
The new czar believes that Homer (that is, the American President) is useful to him because he’s an idiot. Homer believes the czar when he tells him that Russia is defending itself against the Ukrainian Nazis. The czar knows this is patently absurd — as if the Ukrainian President wasn’t a Jew! Homer also believes him when he says that Russia has a legitimate claim over Ukraine. This too is obviously nonsense, given that the 1994 Budapest Memorandum guaranteed Ukrainian sovereignty in exchange for giving up their nuclear arms. But together, on their late night calls, together Homer and the czar agree that it’s all just fake news, as woke as can be.
In brief, people generally assume that the term useful idiot is to be understood from the Russian point of view. They also assume that the Russians have such a fine sense of strategy that they can make the leader of the free world dance like a puppet to the tune of their balalaika.
Yet no one on the 22nd floor beneath the Pentagon makes such an assumption. To the cold and calculating strategists who work on that floor, the Prime Useful Idiot is useful to the United States.
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Since 2005 it’s been clear to the strategists that the enemy is still Russia. And yet the strategists are happy (indeed, they’re earning their wages) when they hear that China’s to blame. China’s taking over islands and atolls. China’s threatening Taiwan. China’s undercutting prices. China’s modernizing too fast. China’s showing off, even more than the West. China’s cheating.
Everyone says that the U.S. Army must pivot to Asia. The whole second floor of the Pentagon buzzes with TikTok videos of mass transit triumphs, Red Army algorithms hidden inside WeChat messages, and Temu deals that deliver more than they advertise. Above ground, the eyes of the Pentagon are on Xi, Taiwan, and the atolls in the watery north of the Philippines.
Below ground, the strategists of the 22nd floor keep their sights fixed on the Kremlin. Yet Daniel keeps his cool. All they need to do for the moment is monitor the entrances along the sturdy red walls and the darker rooms within the maze of corridors. The universe is unfolding as it should.
Weapons and communications are still flowing into Ukraine. The Prime Idiot is still threatening to cut Zelensky off. He may even walk away from the situation. It isn’t his war, it’s Biden’s war. He adds that Zelensky’s a dictator, he never says thank you, and he ought to wear a suit in the Oval Office. He threatens: “If Zelensky doesn’t get dressed up for my office ambush parties, he’ll get dressed down!”
The Prime Idiot convinces Putin that we have nothing to do with the uncanny resistance of Ukraine. Or, if we do have something to do with it, we do it reluctantly.
The Prime Idiot is useful because he actually believes what he says.
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Putin is a former KGB agent. He knows lies, is intimate with them in every way. He could sense, perhaps even smell, a lie behind a wall in the next room. He’s convinced that Homer isn’t lying. He’s sure that Homer actually believes what he says. And the Idiot does believe what he says.
In this, Daniel notes, he is exceptionally useful.
With an outraged look on his face, the Prime Useful Idiot says to his friend the czar, “Oh my God! Ukraine just hit 41 strategic bombers, and then struck a pylon of the Kerch Bridge! How terrible! I’ll give Zelensky a stern talking to. Strongly. I understand if you need to hit back. It’s only human.” Several days later he posts that the Ukrainians had given the Russian Army “a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them last night.”
Daniel thinks to himself, I don’t see a red button here. No imminent mushroom clouds over Kiev or North Dakota. There’s too much plausible deniability. The Prime Useful Idiot is the genuine article. Daniel sits back in his chair and has another diet soda.
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As the months go by, and the years go by, Ukrainians shed blood and Russian depots go up in flames. The Russian Army advances, but grindingly.
Daniel knows that the enemy is slowly being worn down, losing men and losing hardware. To replace the hardware, the czar boosts military production, taking money and workers from the economy and bankrupting the nation. Daniel remembers the Berlin Wall falling, the crowds cheering, the gold German beer splashing on golden tresses.
Every day America gives away its old weapons and makes new ones. Trump scolds NATO members, who then buy more military hardware from Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing. Every day NATO has more power. Every day Russia has less. This is the only calculation that counts on the 22nd floor.
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Occasionally Daniel feels sorry for the Ukrainians. Bombed hospitals, stolen children, heartbreak everywhere. Yet he soon forgets this, for he’s been deeply schooled in the political philosophy of the guiding light of the 22nd floor: Henry Kissinger. Realpolitik. Everything else will make us weak.
Occasionally the Prime Idiot goes too far. He holds up arm shipments, cuts off communications, or threatens to get out of the global power biz altogether. When this happens, Daniel judges the degree of severity, and is slow to act. He reminds himself, The more real this seems, the better. Putin must believe that the President — and America — is really on his side.
The czar’s nose is twitching, like a rat in in a sealed box sitting on the counter of a cheese factory. He knows there’s pizza dough out there somewhere but he can’t make out where.
The czar’s nose is working overtime, but he still can’t sniff out the plot against him. It’s not in the next room, and not in the American Embassy. It’s not in the washrooms of Washington or in the phones of defence secretaries who have been visited by the finest Russian ladies of the night. The plot’s nowhere to be seen. Not even a whiff of it as you enter the tunnel of a Manhattan subway.
And yet, 22 stories beneath ground it’s all there. At the bottom of screen #2 the Pentagon strategists write what they want the Prime Idiot to post on his social media platform in the next day or two. It’s deadly serious, but it’s also a game to them: Who can come closest to what the Idiot tweets?
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On screen #3 Daniel enters instructions on what will happen now that the Prime Idiot has gone too far. Did he go too far by giving tacit approval for Russia to hit back hard after Ukraine’s stunning surprise attack on the air bases? Daniel reasons, It doesn’t really matter. The fact that we can’t say for sure means we’re in the right zone, the sweet spot. This is real strategic ambiguity.
But still, the Idiot must be reined in, So Daniel writes the following instructions on the screen above: 1. Memo to sixth floor: prepare for visit. 2. Escort Prime Useful Idiot and his Defence Secretary (a.k.a. the Signal chat pal) to the fifth floor.
On the fifth floor the Prime Idiot and his Signal chat pal are warned about the TOP SECRET nature of what they’re about to see. An invisible white door opens, and they’re escorted down one floor. Another invisible white door opens and they find themselves in a gigantic room with a huge screen covering the entire surface of one wall.
To the Prime Idiot, the enormous screen reminds him of the Mirage in Las Vegas. He’s mesmerized by the blinking lights, and wonders if the Pacers are going to lose and how much he’s going to make. He wonders if he should sell some shares now, given the surprise tariffs he has planned for tomorrow. He calculates in his head how much he — when he’s interrupted by a Pentagon chief, who points with his laser pen to the moving image on the top left of the screen.
The Prime Idiot sees a grainy image of Lavrov and his friend the czar in a room with yellow curtains and a large black and white map on the wall. The shape on the map is unmistakable: the United States. Six locations are marked with an X and glow in bright crimson:
The Prime Idiot and his Signal chat pal see Lavrov cracking a joke. It’s a horrible sight. The czar breaks into a sinister laugh. The czar reminds the Prime Idiot of Mr. Burns, the boss of the nuclear plant with the radiated donuts. Beneath the two laughing figures, Homer sees a translation of what the czar says to Lavrov: “Smithers, release the hounds!”
Smithers asks the Prince of Darkness, “Would you like the honours this time, or do you want me to pull the wool over the eyes of our useful idiot?”
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Next: 🦋 The Tao of Putin