There appears to be a calculated madness behind President Trump’s ego-driven announcement last week that he had ordered two U.S. nuclear submarines closer to Russian territory in response to social media postings by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Former British diplomat Alastair Crooke called attention to the role of Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, during an appearance on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s “Judging Freedom” YouTube show on Aug. 4. When Napolitano asked Crooke why Trump would announce moving nuclear submarines in response to a tweet, Crooke replied that he thought something more important happened earlier when Kellogg said, according to Crooke’s paraphrase: “Well, you know, Trump should send the entire Ohio class submarines—these are the ones that are nuclear-capable submarines—should send the whole lot of them, and they should go up and down the sort of coast of of Russia, and we would see whether [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is bluffing.” Crooke charged that Kellogg believes that Putin is weaker than he actually is and will give in to Kellogg’s ceasefire plan in Ukraine if Trump can be induced to put enough pressure on him.
Kellogg has actually been saying that for more than three years. “You know, we’ve generally got between five and six ballistic-missile submarines—the boomers—at sea at any one time,” Kellogg said on the Fox News show “Jesse Watters Primetime,” reported Business Insider on March 7, 2022, just about two weeks after Putin ordered the start of the special military operation. “Flush the whole fleet, put every boomer we’ve got at sea, and we can crew them and put them out there. And you say: ‘Look, we’re not going to back off from a nuclear concern that you’ve got.’ You know, go all in, bluff him—you know, he’s—let’s see if he’s really bluffing or not,” the general said.
