I don't think Americans realize the degree to which they are the main subject of Russian television news. Every night there's news from the United States and scandals about the United States, and every night the United States is shown to be an enemy of Russia over and over and over again. And this is, of course, useful to the Russian president, because it's, we have this big and important enemy - you need me here to fight back.

Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist, appears to imagine an alliance between Trump, Le Pen, Geert Wilders and Nigel Farage. Call it the populist international, a fraternal association of the nationalist right, binding people who want borders, across borders.

Globalization has genuinely drained power away from national politicians and people feel it. People in our fast digital age are also frustrated with the comparably slow democratic processes. Many young people - and some old people - want to know, Why does everything take so long? Why can't someone just decide and then move forward?

Americans have long felt that NATO isn't doing its job and that the Europeans aren't contributing enough. Trump has accelerated the decline in Atlantic solidarity by offering open contempt for NATO allies as well. The future of NATO now very much depends on Europeans. Can you begin to identify security threats, prepare yourselves and arm yourselves without the US?

European security may now depend on Germany, France, Britain and one or two others, and it's better to start planning now for the possibility of European-only cyber-defense, counter-terrorism, and conventional defense too.

High national emotions are permissible when a soccer team is playing precisely because they are impermissible at most other times. There aren't, simply, many other places where you can sing your national anthem until you lose your voice without causing a riot. In the context of soccer, flag-waving nationalism - even chauvinistic, anti-foreigner, flag-waving nationalism - is acceptable in Britain.

A lot of the Russian economy is built around people who are one way or another milking the state and taking money from the state and recycling it into their private bank accounts. And there are a lot of people who are taking advantage of that, so it's not just one person. It's a kind of web of people doing that, and that's how the system stays in power and how people stay in control.