At first, I wondered what all the fuss was about President's regarding Donald Trump's obsequious behavior toward President Putin because I thought he only said things he had been saying for some time.
I guess the reason was that people were expecting someone who pretends to be an alpha-male around women - like Theresa May and Angela Merkel (who lived in East Germany during the Soviet occupation) - to put up a strong front with Putin at Helsinki on an international stage.
Those who admire Trump will say, I suppose, that he is only trying to make friends with Putin and point to some strong stances he has taken against Russia like arms for Ukraine and expelling a lot of Russian employees from the U.S. They also give him credit for a number of sanctions; however, these were passed by Congress, and he was slow to apply the round since he became president. At any rate, Trump cannot repeal Congressionally passed sanctions by himself.
I don't know what is the proper thing to do in Ukraine. Obama didn't want to arm them because he thought that Russia could escalate the war to match them. So this war has dragged on. I don't know if arming the Ukrainians changes things much. I guess the idea is that if the Ukrainians are armed more, Russia will not want to pay the price. We will see. The politics of Ukraine is so corrupt, that I doubt they deserve to remain a nation.*
At any rate, I have nothing against President Trump trying to have friendly relations with Putin. After all, others have tried (such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Obama administration) to do so. I don't know how you can go about this after so many failures (Most of the 1970s were called a detente with the Soviet Union. They even awarded me a science prize.). My own impression is that the Russians and particularly Putin admire strength. A trick might be for our president to show strength in a friendly way. It doesn't seem like our President Trump can find the way.
* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/03/ukraine-failed-state.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/03/ukraine-politics.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-breadbasket-of-europe-is-now-basket.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment