In answer to a question from Sputnik on what difference the US election choice would make on US-Russia relations.

Before one speculates on the difference the choice might make to the foreign behaviour of a country whose foreign behaviour never seems to change, I think there is a more important question to think about.

I expect Trump to be re-elected but will he be elected by a lawyer-proof margin? If he does not win by an enormous and undeniable margin, there will follow an avalanche of lawfare, hanging chads, “lost” ballots discovered, judicial rulings and counter-rulings, foreign interference stories, security organ accusations, fake news, Electoral College struggles, ballot counts and re-counts stretching on for months and months. But more to the point, protests, riots, burnings, attacks, assaults. There’s even talk of secession. Are we looking at the possibility of as third American civil war developing? Many fear so – here, here, here, here, here. At least one group is preparing to shut down DC.

If the US is tied up in a mess of riots and legal battles in the full complexity of its curious election system, let alone a full scale civil war, what possible foreign policy would it have? Especially against the background of its enormous debt, forever wars and COVID failures.

Overseas issues will be the least of its concerns.