One observer warns of the power of the United States’ permanent security bureaucracy, which he claims will dictate the country’s stance toward Russia regardless of who is elected in November.

Former US President Donald Trump has startled European leaders in recent weeks with plans to interfere in the functioning of NATO and reorient US foreign policy if reelected this November. The brash real estate magnate frequently threatens Western allies with cuts to US funding for the decades-old alliance and has recently touted a proposal he claims would rapidly bring the war in the Donbass to an end.

Both ideas have proven distinctly unappetizing to Europe’s political elite, who reject any concession of territory to Russia regardless of the wishes of the region’s inhabitants.

The threat of Trump’s restoration to power has prompted moves to provide Ukraine with a multi-year fund for President Volodymyr Zelensky to continue hostilities whether his country is supported by the United States or not. But the ultimate decision over whether American aid will continue to flow to the embattled leader may not lie with the US president at all.

That’s according to international relations and security analyst Mark Sleboda, who made the provocative comment on Sputnik’s Fault Lines program Monday.

“They’re playing a completely different information warfare game than the Kiev regime,” noted the expert, responding to Russia’s successes on the battlefield in recent days. “The Kiev regime in its eight-month hyped runup to their badly failed NATO proxy offensive in the south – where they were mauled and defeated by Russian forces – They were running… movie-quality trailers, hyping up their offensive.”

“And it was on the front page of every major publication and news hour in the West.”

Russia, meanwhile, appears to subscribe to the strategic patience embodied by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s mantra: “hide your strength, bide your time.”

“Russia is playing a game of operational silence,” Sleboda claimed. “While the Avdeyevka siege was going on, the Russian Ministry of Defense never even said the name Avdeyevka. It was completely left out of reports. So obviously one of the reasons [for Russia’s success] is operational security. They’re not giving any information extra to the West or the Kiev regime forces.”

“Another thing is there continue to be rumors and there’s no question that there’s large numbers of Russian troops that have signed up as volunteers, like more than 400,000 now,” he added.

A surge of patriotic fervor has spurred thousands of Russian citizens towards military recruitment centers – especially after last month’s terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall concert venue, for which Russians widely assign blame to Ukraine. Kiev, meanwhile, has relied on forcible conscriptions to fill the ranks of its depleted military as draft dodging remains a major problem for the country.

Ukraine’s chronic struggles may lead some observers to conclude the country should seek negotiations with Moscow, something Russian President Vladimir Putin has consistently urged. But Sleboda claims forces behind the scenes will insist on continuing to use the country as a battering ram against Russia.

“The Russian government doesn’t believe that a Trump foreign policy will be, or can be any different, in essence, than a Biden foreign policy because the US president doesn’t actually really make those decisions,” he claimed. “The blob – the deep state, the permanent security bureaucracy – does, whatever you want to call them.”

Observers have long warned of a “permanent war state” within the US government that continuously seeks global conflict. Former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously alerted Americans to a growing “military-industrial complex” during his farewell address, while members of former President Barack Obama’s administration often referred to the country’s hawkish foreign policy establishment as “the blob.”

“Deep state” became a popular term for these interests during the Trump years, but critics of US foreign policy have consistently denounced the power and influence of this increasingly unaccountable state within a state.

“He [former US President Donald Trump] changed his rhetoric completely and subjected himself to the terms of the deep American state, or the deep American regime,” concluded Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after Trump launched a massive missile attack on the country.

Regime change in Syria has been a consistent priority of Western intelligence after the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) inaugurated its secretive billion-dollar Timber Sycamore operation in 2012. Observers such as Canadian journalist Aaron Mate reacted with suspicion after an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria seemed tailor-made to pull the United States into armed conflict there – Obama previously claimed such an attack would constitute a “red line.”

Leaks from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) eventually proved Mate’s skepticism to be correct after it was revealed doubts about Assad’s culpability were airbrushed from the agency’s reports. For many, the revelation the attack was possibly staged cemented the impression of an out of control bureaucracy’s ruthlessness in achieving its goals.

“I think that they [Russia] definitely want to remove the regime in Kiev,” speculated Sleboda. “And they’re definitely considering absorbing all of Ukraine – possibly excluding West Ukraine – but definitely all the rest so that the West can’t weaponize it against Russia any longer because they’ve promised to.”

“They say as soon as the conflict ends we’ll pump it full of weapons and join it into NATO and the EU, and Russia’s like, ‘well, then the conflict doesn’t end.’”

Recent reporting featuring CIA operatives openly boasting about the agency’s expansive influence in Ukraine has led even Western observers to conclude the country is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of US intelligence.

“It turns out the ‘Deep State’ is actually kind of awesome,” declared The New York Times recently amidst evidence of the US security bureaucracy’s extensive string-pulling in foreign affairs. The editorial was roundly mocked on social media.

Reporter Glenn Greenwald called the piece a “perfect illustration of the subservient relationship between corporate media and the US government.” Both institutions, if recent polling is to be believed, are held in contempt by the public. Most Americans are seemingly opposed to the idea of Washington bureaucrats making decisions for them in a purported democracy.

Whether that sentiment will count for anything is, apparently, another question. But Russia’s leadership has learned to prepare for any contingency.