Good morning,
"We're not concerned about an escalation with Russia with regards to Venezuela ... they have their hands full in Ukraine. And if he's watching: 'Sergei, Merry Christmas'."
So said US secretary of state Marco Rubio to camera at a press briefing in Washington on 4 January, addressing an absent Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.
What did it all mean, I intrigued?
Was Rubio being sarcastic because the US had outplayed Russia?
It had seized the Western Hemisphere, decapitated Russia's ally in Latin America, and humiliated Russia's military aid to Caracas.
Or was Rubio speaking literally because the US and Russia had outplayed Europe together — and Venezuela was the first step in a secret protocol?
The US seized the Western Hemisphere (including Greenland), Russia conquered Europe, and China annexed Asia in this new world order.
Jamie Shea, a former Nato official, entertained the sarcasm option.
"It certainly suggests that despite hanging out in the [US president Donald] Trump administration Rubio remains a Russia hawk, which is moderately good news for Ukraine. Rubio's involvement in the Ukraine negotiations has certainly contributed to a plan that is not totally lopsided in favour of Russia," Shea said.
Keir Giles, a British writer on Russia, offered a third option.
"Could also be written off to Rubio just being an arse, which is mandatory on all occasions for senior members of this administration," he said.
"I really don't think there's anything meaningful we can read into that ['Merry Christmas'], whether or not it's meant ironically," he added.
"Just like with Russia, at the moment we should be guided by what the US does rather than what it says," Giles said.
There's a fourth option: that Rubio was wishing Lavrov a merry Russian Orthodox Christmas ahead of 7 January.
And that would show the breathless nature of speculation in volatile times.
But listening to the UN Security Council on Venezuela on 6 January, I was also fascinated by the Russian ambassador's words.
"Here is your rules-based international order in all its glory, which is horrifying even to the staunchest Atlanticist," he said.
Giles suggested a riposte: "And here [unilateral US power] is the multipolarity you [Russia] have been demanding for so many years in all its glory, and if that horrifies Moscow, you have only yourselves to blame".
To me, it conjured an image of Trump as Frankenstein's monster.
Russian president Vladimir Putin broke the multilateral world by attacking Europe in 2022, was waging pro-MAGA culture wars, and had awakened a US that now posed a greater threat to us, but also to himself.
Trump looks like body parts stuffed in a suit.
And that would fit the "arse" theory of US foreign policy, whether it concerns Rubio on Russia, Greenland, or Iran — Trump's grotesque America is rampaging blindly around the globe without any grand strategy.
"Sadly, I am not quite convinced that they [the Russians] are experiencing buyer's remorse," if Trump was indeed their creature, given the amount of disruption he has caused in the West so far, said Giles.
But whoever made Trump, in the Frankenstein novel of 1818, at least, there is poetic justice when the monster attacks its father.
There is also more horror though, as the undead creature escapes in the Arctic Circle, like the MAGA, Novorossiya, or Eretz Yisrael ideologies set to stalk geopolitics after today's leaders are gone.
– Andrew Rettman, foreign affairs editor
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