Victoria Nuland exits the stage after three decades of Trotskyite Jihad

Niccolo Soldo

Mar 10, 2024

I admit that this will open me up to accusations of ‘midwittery’, but my second favourite film of all-time is Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 classic “The Seventh Seal”.1

So ubiquitous has this movie become (and so archetypal are its characters) that lauding it is like praising a glass of water for being so refreshing on a very hot summer’s day. Yet I keep coming back to it time and time again because of the many, many things that make it so repeatedly watchable and constantly enjoyable. From the stark black and white cinematography, to its gallows humour and witty dialogue, but also because of its overarching themes of good and evil, light and dark, faith and reason, cynicism and redemption. It is simply a perfect movie.

No character in The Seventh Seal is more archetypal than that of the character known as “Death”. Adorned in a full-length black cloak, with a face powder-white, Death was the constant companion for Antonius Block the Knight, Jöns the Squire, the acting troupe and their baby, Plog the Blacksmith, and the rest, as they sought respite from the Black Death that stalked the land.

Antonius Block, freshly returned from the catastrophic Crusades in the Holy Land, holds both a running dialogue and a chess match with Death, the purpose being to buy himself some more time among the living. Unfortunately for Block, “Death waits for no one”. Death did not wait for Block, he was merely enjoying the chess match while it lasted.

So many scenes from this movie have become part of our modern culture through parody, spoof, or even homage. One such scene is the very last one, the one known as “The Dance of Death”. In this scene, we see Death leading the group to its mortal end, as he carries a scythe in hand. Death and The Scythe are fused together in our collective minds.

The mere image of Bergman’s Death is frightening enough, but it’s in the scenes where he is equipped with his scythe that the immediacy of his threat, which doubles as his raison d’etre, is plain for all to see. Bergman’s Death is fatalistic in its inevitability, although he himself often veered towards Existentialism, a philosophy that rejects the concept of fate altogether.

Bergman’s Death is above all, brutally honest. Death promises you nothing but death. There is no sugar coating what he intends to do to you. There is no trickery, no false promises, nothing but The End. Death will arrive and swing his scythe, sparing no one. To be fair, such blunt honesty is admirable….at least I think it is.

Victoria “Death” Nuland

The United States Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and until this past week the Acting Deputy Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland promised “freedom and democracy” in place of death, and brought cookies instead of a scythe. Despite these differences, the end result from her efforts was always the same: death.

Almost three weeks ago, I wrote a satirical essay on the death of Russian politician and western asset Alexei Navalny. The piece was intended to be funny because Navalny was a very silly man, and he deserved no better. You can read it here if you haven’t done so already:

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A Tribute to Saint Alexei, Patron Saint of Liberal Democracy

Niccolo Soldo

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Feb 20

Vladimir Putler has gone and done it now! Most of you haven’t heard the news yet, but Russia’s most popular political figure, Alexei Navalny, was murdered this past weekend by the brutal dictator temporarily residing in the Kremlin. Well-placed sources say that this hit was ordered by the weak (and little) man known as “Vladimir Putin” because Navalny’s…

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Victoria Nuland is the total opposite of Saint Alexei, Patron Saint of Russia and Liberal Democracy, in that she is a very, very serious woman. She deserves to be treated with the utmost seriousness, as the amount of damage and carnage that have resulted from her life’s efforts have been enormous. One can satirize Vicki, but that would be too nice to her. Her butcher’s bill is far too large for a cheeky retrospective to do it justice.

If asked to summarize Vicki in one sentence, I would reply with: “Vicki Nuland spent her professional career in the service of US Empire, with a specific focus on a Trotskyite jihad against Russia.” I will explain this shortly, but let me just say that what Rome represents for the Islamic jihadi, Moscow does for our Vicki. Before we delve into the my arguments, let’s take a look at her career up until now.

“It’s Called Being a Diplomat”

Victoria Nuland got her start in the Clinton Administration working as Chief of Staff for Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott (who was President Clinton’s roommate in college). She was quickly moved into the role of Deputy Director for Former Soviet Union Affairs.

She gained prominence during the Dubya Administration when served as Deputy National Security Advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney during the Iraq War. Serving in this role from 2003 until 2005, her presence was one of the indicators of just how influential neo-conservatives had become in influencing and driving US foreign policy. During Dubya’s second term, she served as US Ambassador to NATO, and was primarily tasked with drumming up European support and participation for the occupation of Afghanistan.

She easily segued into the Obama Administration, becoming the Spokesman for the US State Department, and then Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. In this latter role, she oversaw US diplomacy to several dozens of states. It was in this position that she took a central role in the events in Ukraine known as the “Revolution of Dignity” to Ukrainians, and “Maidan” to many others.

Vicki skipped serving in the Trump Administration, criticizing both the President and his first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, for “gutting” the State Department. Like many, Vicki was part of a grand exodus of State Department officials who refused to serve under President Trump. Many roles were left unfilled (leading to such criticisms as Nuland’s) even though it was them who made a mad dash to the exit sign. She returned to work at the beginning of the Biden Administration, serving the dual roles of both Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and Acting Deputy Secretary of State.

Without knowing the fine details of her performance over the past three decades, her resume comes across as a very, very impressive one. In fact, she holds the rank of Career Ambassador, the highest diplomatic rank in US foreign service. Victoria Nuland is part of the foreign policy elite, or foreign policy “blob”, if you prefer. Announcing her coming retirement, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken described “Toria” (her nickname) in the following manner:

“What makes Toria truly exceptional is the fierce passion she brings to fighting for what she believes in most: freedom, democracy, human rights, and America’s enduring capacity to inspire and promote those values around the world.”

Vicki Nuland believes in freedom, democracy, human rights, and American’s enduring capacity to inspire and promote those values around the world.

Upon Closer Inspection

It doesn’t require employment at the US State Department to be part of the so-called “foreign policy blob”. There are those within in who have made a career of sitting in think tanks, or in academia. Vicki has managed to do all three. Board member of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) aka “regime change central”, she also served as a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institute, CEO of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), and as the “Brady-Johnson distinguished practitioner in grand strategy at Yale University”. Vicki has been all over the blob these past three decades.

For almost everyone reading this, neither Brookings nor NED requires an introduction. While NED is an arm of the US state, Brookings is an “independent” think tank. Despite this difference, they are both in the business of pushing aggressive, “hawkish” foreign policy and regime change abroad. For those interested in NED’s recent history, click on this link that will take you to the first entry in my series on colour revolutions and regime change.

It is absolutely uncontroversial to call Vicki Nuland a “hawk”. Her entire career has been one in which she has pursued an aggressive foreign policy in the name of promoting freedom and democracy abroad, even through violent means. Not only is her professional career dominated by this approach, her personal life is no different.

Victoria Nuland is part of the Kagan clan, a group of neo-conservatives who have been very influential in US foreign policy for the past three decades or so. This group is defined by both an aggressive foreign policy approach to world affairs in the name of “freedom, democracy, and human rights”, and a fanatical devotion to the State of Israel. The original neo-conservatives were Trotskyites who became disaffected with LBJ’s Great Society and the perceived dovish foreign policy pursued by Presidents such as Jimmy Carter, particularly towards the Soviet Union. In place of global revolution to smash capitalism, they moved towards global revolution in the name of liberal democracy, with the USA as its vehicle. The neo-conservatives reached their apogee under President George W. Bush during the Iraq War.

The neo-conservatives are the opposite of realists, as they are idealists promoting global ideological campaigns backed by US military and economic power. Neo-conservatives have supported every single US military adventure of the past three decades, vociferously so. Those that opposed US interventionism have been branded ‘unpatriotic’ by neo-conservatives such as David Frum.

The failure of the US occupation regime in Iraq to turn that country into a liberal democracy saw a decline in the stock value of neo-conservatism. Many of the best-known neo-cons withdrew to their think tanks or media outlets to lick their wounds and wait for another opportunity to influence US foreign policy. Victoria Nuland was an exception, as she, like Rambo Amadeus’ lyric quoted above, managed to flow between US administrations like shit through sewage. The fact that she served as the key advisor to Dick Cheney during the Iraq War should have disqualified her from holding any important roles in the future. However, accountability in US governance (and media) has long been a thing of the past, with many people “failing upwards”.

Vicki and Russia

Until recently eclipsed by China, Russia was seen as the USA’s main competitor on the global stage during the first two decades of the Post-Cold War era. In the eyes of the US foreign policy set, Putin’s Russia was a revisionist power hell-bent on upsetting the apple cart of US hegemony, aka “the rules-based order”. Therefore, policy towards Russia has been consistently aggressive, whether through the expansion of NATO, support for destabilizing Russia’s near abroad in places like Chechnya, or the pilfering of its economic assets during the Yeltsin era. Russia had to be contained, to be put in its place.

From the beginning of her career in the US foreign service, Russia has been the main focus for Vicki Nuland. She got her start out working under Strobe Talbott, known as “The Russia Hand” during the Clinton Administration. Talbott served as the Ambassador-at-Large and Special Advisor to Secretary of State Warren Christopher on New Independent States aka the countries of the ex-USSR. In effect, Strobe was in charge of US policy for the ex-USSR, with Vicki Nuland serving as his Chief of Staff. It was on Strobe’s watch that the USA flooded these new countries with consultants, NGOs, bankers, advisors, and spies. It was they who helped Yeltsin win the 1996 Russian Presidential Election, and it was they who sent the Harvard Boys to help privatize Russia’s economy, with disastrous consequences for Russia and Russians. With Russia severely weakened by the end of the Clinton Administration, Vicki could move on to other fronts, like Iraq under Dubya and Cheney. In the meantime, Vladimir Putin began to reform Russia.

Ukraine’s Maidan uprising began almost immediately after Nuland was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. She became a central character in this revolution for three reasons. The first was when she publicly stated that the USA had spent $5 billion USD in Ukraine on ‘democracy promotion’, which was taken by Moscow as an admission that they were funding another colour revolution in that country.

The second was when she was caught on tape discussing potential candidates that the USA could back for Prime Minister of Ukraine with then-US Ambassador to Kiev Geoffrey Pyatt. In this secretly-recorded conversation that was later broadcast by Russian television, Nuland is heard saying “Fuck the EU” when asked if they should have any role in determining Ukraine’s near future.

The third and most infamous incident was when Victoria Nuland descended onto Maidan Square to hand out cookies to the demonstrators who had assembled there.

By this point in time, Vicki had become the key US official directing policy towards Russia. After the failure of the Orange Revolution, the USA had finally secured Ukraine, wrenching it out of Moscow’s orbit once and for all. Russia’s nightmare had finally arrived, as Ukraine, in the words of President Obama, was for them an “existential matter”. Nuland worked to quickly guarantee money for the new regime in Kiev, particularly in defense matters via weapons deliveries. In testimony in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in June of 2016, she concluded that Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea:

“….shattered any remaining illusions about this Kremlin’s willingness to abide by international law or live by the rules of the institutions that Russia joined at the end of the Cold War.”

She declared Russia to be nothing but a rogue state, one fit for forcible regime change.

Vicki had been on my radar for some time, but with her transparent efforts during Maidan, I had to pause to think about why she was so laser-focused on Russia. Was it out of ideological reasons as she would repeatedly state? Or was there some inherited ethnic animosity in that her paternal grandfather was a Jew from Bessarabia, the location of the infamous Kishinev Pogrom? It’s only natural to inherit such feelings from family members. But I have to wonder if this, at least in part, drives her fierce antagonism towards Russia?

War in Ukraine and Failure

Much has been written here and elsewhere about the War in Ukraine and the Americans who have been driving US policy during this conflict. Vicki Nuland, riding high on snatching Kiev from Russia’s orbit and building a pro-western state and military, must have been in heaven when Russian forces invaded on February 25, 2022. Boxed in by repeated American efforts to contain it, Russia finally made one of the two choices that successful US foreign policy had offered to it: 1) don’t invade and watch Ukraine eventually join NATO and serve as a springboard for US regime change in Moscow, or 2) invade, and see Russia torn apart from Europe economically and politically, and see its economy devastated by sanctions.

So happy was Vicki upon the news of the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, that she made the following remark: “I am, and I think the administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now . . . a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.” Russia and Europe were now separated, one of the key goals of her policy.

Nuland represented what I term the “maximalist” wing of US foreign policy towards Russia. There are many hawks in both the CIA and the DoD, but Nuland and her gang of neo-conservatives and their liberal interventionist allies have insisted on maximizing potential gains during this conflict. As I’ve explained before, the USA already won this war on the very first day. For Nuland and team, this was no reason not to press ahead for more, with destabilizing Russia via battlefield defeats the best path towards effecting regime change in Moscow.

Last summer, the maximalists around Vicki were riding high. Russia was bogged down in fighting with Ukrainian forces who had managed to force them out of Kharkov region and parts of Kherson as well. A long-awaited and much-vaunted counteroffensive was in the works to split the land bridge between the Donbass and Crimea, opening up the way for the liberation of the latter, and the humiliation and defeat of Putin and Russia. As we are well aware, this did not come to pass. The initial thrust of the Summer Counteroffensive served as the high-water mark of the maximalists. Its catastrophic failure opened the door for more realistic assessments from American policy planners regarding the war as a whole. Russia could not be defeated on the ground, and the conflict needs to be wound down via negotiations.

It was with the failed Summer Counteroffensive that the maximalists shot their shot. They missed. Nuland’s departure from her role sends a clear signal to the Russians that the Americans are ready to “talk turkey”. In a highly symbolic move, Vicki’s replacement will be career diplomat John Bass, a “former ambassador to Afghanistan who oversaw the US withdrawal from the country”.

Vicki Nuland promised freedom and democracy to Russians in the 1990s. All that they got was a collapsed economy and a destroyed society. She promised the same to the people of Iraq in 2003. They too experienced collapse and misery, with the added bonus of death. Vicki arrived on Maidan Square with cookies for Ukrainians hoping for a better future. Instead, she gave them mass death, the loss of much of their country, and no future.

Bergman’s Death was an honest character. He told you what you were getting and that there was no escaping it. Vicki Nuland promised so much, but delivered nothing different than Death in The Seventh Seal.

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