http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/brace-yourself-new-cold-warTheir hostility toward the United States in general isn’t obvious to everyone in this country. Putin’s approval rating actually increased during the last year among Trump’s most die-hard supporters. The rest of us, though—and the rest of us still includes most Republicans—are reacting against Russian malfeasance more strongly than we have at any time since the Berlin Wall fell.
That reaction is blowing up in the Trump administration’s face, but the president can turn it around by taking an unambiguously hawkish stance against Russia. Putin, meanwhile, can’t do anything to recover his reputation in the United States.
Trump has already started to reverse himself and isn’t as rhetorically kind to Putin as he was even recently. “Even in the way he talks you can now hear notes of Obama,” said Russian Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov. “And you can hear in his address [to Congress]: the military budget will be increased by over $50 billion.”
During last year’s campaign, Trump openly considered recognizing Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula, joining just a handful of rogue states like North Korea and Venezuela. A couple of weeks ago, though, he backtracked and tweeted, “Crimea was TAKEN by Russia during the Obama Administration. Was Obama too soft on Russia?”
Many of the president’s pro-Putin aides and staff—Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Mike Flynn to a lesser extent—are out now while many of his current cabinet members—in particular United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and Defense Secretary James Mattis—are as staunchly hawkish on Russia as John McCain and Mitt Romney. Trump hasn’t stuck a sock in their mouths and probably never will. “There's a decreasing number of areas where we can engage cooperatively,” Mattis said recently, “and an increasing number of areas where we're going to have to confront Russia.”
There are other reasons Putin and his claque are unhappy. “With Trump in the White House,” Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes write in Foreign Policy magazine, “Putin has lost his monopoly over geopolitical unpredictability. The Kremlin’s ability to shock the world by taking the initiative and trashing ordinary international rules and customs has allowed Russia to play an oversized international role and to punch above its weight. Putin now has to share the capacity to keep the world off balance with a new American president vastly more powerful than himself. More world leaders are watching anxiously to discover what Trump will do next than are worrying about what Putin will do next.”
So after all this, the Kremlin has ordered Russia’s state-run media to stop writing about Trump as if he’s some kind of hero.
There’s a lot more going on, though, than a cooling of the Trump euphoria in Moscow. The Russians have plenty of reasons to fear the emergence, if not sooner then at least later, of a sustained bipartisan American hostility to Russia and Putin, with Donald Trump himself as its champion, that dwarfs anything the world has seen since Ronald Reagan engaged with détente with the Soviet Union’s last premier Mikhail Gorbachev.
Dude.
You think there is widespread anti-Russian sentiment in the United States? The libtards think America is the enemy and so already side with those who wish to destroy it. And the rest of us have to admit that any conflict between the US and Russia is a genuine conflict of interest.. Our elites/deep State have been jacking with him for Decades, and it isn't a surprise that Putin decides to take a hard line against them - after all that is where we are at as well. I never forget Putin is a Thug, but I don't see personal agenda in most of his actions. I think he genuinely loves Russia and is trying to do his best for her and her people. I think he knows that the United States Deep State is a genuine threat - and that neither he, nor Russia , will fare well in an all out War with the United States. If ( and I do mean if) he used his influence to move Trump into position, it is because he felt that Trump would be less likely to support that war, and be likely to fight his enemies in the deep state. Putin's goals for Russia certainly do not coincide with those of the United States in every area, nor do I think he has any sort of genuine concern for the American people. But , for the moment, the biggest enemy is the Deep State, not just for Putin, but for us and for any individualist freedom loving citizens. The Deep State as squandered any trust they may have had that they were "protecting us" and I am not in the least concerned that Wikileaks has "published secret CIA data" - expsoning the Deep States malfeasance and manipulation of foreign powers - and very probably our own domestic issues. DHS trying to hack election computers? DNC Email hack with a "trail of Russian Fingerprints" ?
This seems like more battle space prep- You know- you really should hate Russia so when the Deep State begins its war against them , you are on board.
No, No I am not on board.
We have to go to war to protect the Petro-dollar? What happened to no blood for oil? I am certainly not willing to trade my son's or daughter's blood for a few more years of a doomed system. We had our chance to keep and maintain a currency for the world , and we squandered it. WE proved we don't deserve it, and if its Russia or China or some coalition who want a go, then we should cut a deal with them so we aren't totally irrelevant in the coming scheme of things.
Trump becoming blatantly Anti-russian? Leading a bi-partisan coalition against Putin? What planet are you on? For that to happen Trump has to become head of the Deep State, and I ave seen enough blowback from the Deep State now that I believe Trump genuinely isn't one of them.