Putin and Trump: Partners in Partisan
Politics
The United States and the Soviet
Union both thought of themselves as progressive nations with an overriding
philosophy that rendered individual classes and clans meaningless. The United States
had a democratic, melting pot ethos, while the Russians professed egalitarian
communism.
Both Trump and Putin have jettisoned
their nation's putative philosophies and normalized an America/Russia first
stance. Putin and Trump are both anti-democratic, racist nationalists, putting
their nations first.
The Only Issue is the Survival of the White Race
Trump
and Putin have something else in common. They are both misogynist white men.
When James Callaghan became Prime
Minister of Great Britain in 1976, he was told by his combined Chiefs of Staff
that the country's defense was so tightly bound to NATO that it had only three
days' ammunition on hand in case of war.
Worried,
Callaghan went to Moscow. During his meeting with Leonid Brezhnev, General
Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the latter allegedly
reassured Callaghan of his peaceful
intentions by saying, "The only issue is the survival of the white
race."
Putin Invaded Ukraine to Punish It for Not Helping Trump
Win Re-election
Trump's first impeachment for
soliciting Ukraine's help finding dirt on Biden from the Ukraine was a
combination of hypocrisy and naivete. Heads of state help their allied
counterparts to win elections all the time. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher
did whatever was necessary to help with each other's domestic political
problems. They were like two kids in high school swooning over each other.
During the Iran-Contra scandal, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher came
to the United States and appeared on Face
the Nation and extolled the great strengths of the United States. Her
bravura performance helped dig Reagan out of his hole.
Reagan, Thatcher, and German
Chancellor Helmut Kohl each communicated regularly and took into account the
domestic political difficulties faced by their counterparts when making
statements or taking action. In the 1960s and 1970s, Israel's Prime Ministers
routinely came to the United States during election season to make sure
candidates of both parties were biased toward Israel.
Trump's
error was to solicit help from Ukraine himself. Usually, someone like the
Ambassador, or a trusted member of President Zelenskiy's entourage, would be called to the White House or met in
a restaurant where a trusted member of the President's staff would explain the
political landscape and suggest that an investigation of Hunter Biden's affairs
in Ukraine would be viewed with favor by the president. This is the normal way
of discussing difficult diplomatic issues, with several degrees of separation
between the principals, so they can always say they didn't know and fire the
messenger. But Trump's undisciplined tongue put the request on the record.
After all, during a press conference in
Florida before the 2016 election, Trump said: "Russia,
if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are
missing." Trump wasn't making any attempt to hide his solicitation of
foreign help for his campaign. People voted for him with open eyes.
It's
pretty easy to guess what Putin and Trump agreed in private. Trump took a free
hand in abandoning the Iran nuclear deal, leaving the Paris Climate Accord and
giving Israel everything it wanted in the Middle East. Trump had already
questioned the continued usefulness of NATO, so Putin naturally assumed that,
in his second term, Trump would put America First and do nothing about Russia's
re-annexation of parts of Ukraine. Putin certainly wouldn't have had to worry
about Ukraine joining NATO if Trump was busy undermining the alliance from
within.
But when the American voters elected
Biden, both Trump and Putin went off the rails. That was why Trump was so
desperate to hold on to power, even hoping to overturn his election loss by
threats and violence. Trump had made a deal with Putin that he now couldn't keep.
If Putin acquiesced in Isreal's annexation of the Golan Heights (which belongs
to Syria, one of Russia's client states), the West Bank, and Jerusalem, Trump
promised to let Russia re-annex Ukraine. Such a deal is normal political log
rolling in domestic partisan politics ‒ I'll give you what you want if
you give me what I want ‒ but unworkable in international relations where
nations have mutual and overlapping agreements.
Putin Is Hoist on His Own Petard
Putin's strategy and tactics in Ukraine
make no sense in light of his stated purposes. Special Operation is not a term
from the lexicon of the Russian military; it is a term of art from the KGB, the
Soviet Secret Services, from which Putin emerged.
Putin said that Ukraine is not a
real country, yet the Soviets insisted that Ukraine and Belarus have their own
seats at the United Nations. On July 17, 2014, four months after Russia annexed
the Crimean peninsula, the militia of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic,
the part of Ukraine recognized by Russia as an independent nation, shot down
Malaysia Airlines flight 17 with a Russian-supplied BUK anti-aircraft system.,
killing 298 people.
And here's where Putin made his
crucial mistake that has rallied the developed world against his invasion.
Russia mounted a massive disinformation campaign in an attempt to shift the
blame for the downed airliner onto Ukraine. When the Soviets shot down Korean
Air Lines Flight 007 in 1983, it denied any knowledge of the crash and refused for
a decade to give the recovered black boxes to investigators. In contrast,
during the Iran-Iraq War, when the United States USS Vincennes mistakenly shot
down Iran Air Flight 655, President Reagan immediately sent a note of regret to
the Iranian government. Eventually, the United States paid $61.8 million to the
families of the 290 people who were killed. Although technically not accepting
blame for the incident, claiming self-defense, Reagan said his note of regret
was an apology.
In 2021, Ryanair Flight 4978 from Athens,
Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania was forced to land in Minsk, due to a false bomb
threat relayed by Belarus Air Traffic Control. The diversion was so Belarus
could arrest Roman Protasevich, a blogger and writer who opposed Belarus
President Alexander Lukasevich's rigged re-election. When Vladimir Putin gave
his complete support to this act of international air piracy, every sentient
air passenger would and should have felt personally threatened.
Judges in criminal trials put great
store in the convicted admitting their guilt. Russia's refusal to accept blame
for downing Malaysia Flight 17 or condemning Belarus's endangering
international air travel for domestic political purposes is a direct threat to
the public and international order. Hence, sympathy for his paranoid fears from
NATO seem minor compared to the actual threat Russia and Belarus pose to
orderly international commerce.
Putin was stunned by the uniformly
hostile reaction to his invasion of Ukraine by the democracies in Europe.
Having endured two horrific wars on their soil in the twentieth century, they
united to prevent another. Furthermore, Putin, like many Americans, never
imagined that beneath that stuttering sleepy exterior, Joe Biden had a will of
steel. He brilliantly exposed Russia's plans to invade Ukraine, thereby
depriving Putin of the element of surprise. He also exposed Putin for the liar
and thug that the professional diplomats and cognoscenti have known for so
long.
Beginning
with the Barbary Pirate Wars of 1801-1805 and 1815-1816, the one inviolate
stance of American foreign policy is freedom of the seas and navigation. Air
travel, governed by the same maritime legal concepts, is the successor area of
concern. Putin alleges that NATO expansion into Ukraine is a threat, but it
garners little sympathy among air travelers. Russia's invasion of parts of
Armenia, Georgia, and Ukraine along with its blatant disregard for
international air norms have left it isolated and condemned.
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