Intelligence Services In Russia & Other Countries Likely Sought To Weaken Hillary Clinton Rather Than Elect Donald Trump

Intelligence services in Russia and other countries likely sought to weaken Hillary Clinton rather than elect Donald Trump. 

Intelligence services focus upon predictability and considerable resources, human and financial, targeted towards modeling outcomes. 

A [Hillary] Clinton Administration could be modeled with a 90% outcome certainty- any intelligence service could predict, thirty levels to forty levels deep, who would become members of the cabinet; ambassadors, deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, etc.; directors of agencies, bureaus and departments; candidates for judicial appointments; and staff within The White House.  And, model and predict the influence, which would have been be substantial, of former president Bill Clinton, particularly upon personnel decisions and legislative strategy.  Equally predictable would be the policy, regulatory and legislative agendas for a first term and the second term, if one was an option.   

While a Trump Administration presented an optically carnival-live atmospheric in terms of out-of-norm analysis, intelligence services could not with reasonable predictability model who would comprise the human element, the longevity of humans within that element- which has become quite flexible during the first two years in office; and, the success or failure of policy, regulatory and legislative agendas.  One could hope, one could wish, but there existed no historical data by which to predict outcomes. 

While there was leadership within intelligence services in the Russia, China, Israel (which has meaningfully sought to influence federal, state and local elections within the United States for decades), Iran, North Korea, Syria, Turkey, Cuba, Venezuela and other countries who had a visceral disdain for Mrs. Clinton and would welcome a defeat of “Clintonism,” they also recognized the risk associated with “Trumpism.” 

Two questions answer the discussion as to whether a rationally-modeled predictive analysis of a Trump Administration would be anathema to intelligence services: Would anyone have predicted that the bilateral relationship between the United States and Russia would look as it does today?  Would anyone have predicted the quantity and depth of statutes and sanctions against Russia twenty-six months into a Trump Administration?  If an intelligence service in Russia predicted in 2016 what exists today, why would it have advocated for such an outcome?  Logic would dictate that it would not have done so; it would not have been a projection of machoism, it would have been embracing masochism.   

Did intelligence services within Russia seek to influence the outcome of the United States presidential election in 2016?  Yes, they did.  Did non-state actors within Russia have a role, in conjunction with and outside of normal administrative operative channels?  Yes, they did.  Did other countries seek to influence the outcome of the election in 2016?  Yes, they did. 

The surprise was the inability of certain segments of the voting and non-voting citizens of the United States to have become so easily manipulated by Internet-based platforms.  The use of “social media” is a nonsensical definition as what many of the platforms have become, by design and through use, is “anti-social media” in that they have weakened individuality.   

When a group of people are dining at a restaurant and each is using their wireless device to communicate with others while seated at the same table, rather than engaging in verbal conversation, discourse, are they using Internet platforms for “social” purposes or have use of the platforms themselves become barriers, walls separating people from one another except within a virtual, and often alone, space? 

So, unconvincing is the evidence that intelligence services leadership in Russia and within those countries who are generally not perceived, with at least one exception, allies of the United States, sought to elect a Trump Administration.  The evidence suggests a concerted effort to weaken Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy, and thus her presidency, by elevating the candidacy of Mr. Trump. 

The effort to disrupt was too successful and the result was not electing a predictable president and electing an unpredictable president.   

What was challenging to model accurately in 2016 was how poor a candidate Mrs. Clinton would be and how good a candidate would be Mr. Trump.