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On Sunday, commenting on the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, President-elect Donald Trump hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin, a staunch supporter of Assad whom Putin has granted political asylum in Russia.
“There was no reason for Russia to exist in the first place,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Trump pointed out that “600,000 Russian soldiers lie wounded or dead, in a war that should not have started, and could go on forever.” Trump said Russia is “in a weak position right now,” because of “Ukraine and the bad economy.”
This swipe at Putin may be a precursor to Trump’s Russia policy in his second term. If you thought Trump and Putin were friends, don’t be fooled. There will likely be no tension between Moscow and Washington on Trump’s watch. Here is the reason.
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Then-President Trump, right, shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 on June 28, 2019. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Whether President-elect Trump succeeds in resolving the nearly three-year-old destructive conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as he promised, his negotiating talents, however, the incoming commander-in-chief is unlikely to erase the irreconcilable fundamental differences between Moscow and Washington. . Ukraine, where Russia and the United States are currently engaged in a proxy war, is just one example of Russian national interests directly at odds with long-standing US bi-partisan policy.
Moscow and Washington each want Ukraine under their influence. Russia considers Ukraine to be part of its strategic security border and, therefore, outside the limits of US territorial control. To enforce Russia’s version of the Monroe Doctrine, Putin is waging a brutal war in Ukraine. His goal is to keep Ukraine out of NATO, a controversial military alliance, in Moscow’s view. Similarly, Russia considers other former Soviet Union states, such as Georgia and Moldova, as part of its core interests.
Former President Donald Trump, right, meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Trump Tower Friday, Sept. 27, 2024 in New York City. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
US policy in Eurasia is almost a century old and is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. This policy is guided by the so-called “defend forward” logic, conceived by the Dutch American geostrategist John Spykman in the 1930s. A true expert on the balance of power, Spykman convinced the US national security establishment that in order to improve its chances of survival, America must engage in Eurasian affairs. This strategy requires the creation of US strategic alliances and military bases in Eurasia, in order to deter emerging rival powers that could threaten America.
Spykman’s teaching was based on Halford Mackinder’s British geographer’s theory, published in 1904, that whoever controls Eurasia—which he calls the World Island—rules the world. Mackinder believed that Eurasia was predestined to play a major role in world politics because of its abundance of natural resources and its central location in the world.
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Russian soldiers take a group photo next to a US M2 Bradley fighting vehicle taken from Ukraine by Russian soldiers, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Nov. 3, 2024. (Photo by Artem Priakhin/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Former President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski summarized this policy in his 1997 book, “The Grand Chess Board: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.” Paraphrasing Mackinder and Spykman, Brzezinski wrote that the US must “ensure that no country…gains the power to expel the United States from Eurasia or significantly reduce its mediating role.”
The Russians took Brzezinski’s strategic direction – “who controls Eurasia controls the world” – seriously. They concluded that what Washington pursued was Russia’s containment and isolation. A major Russian think tank summarizes its view on US-Russia policy as follows. “The United States will strive to weaken and disintegrate the whole world, and for the first time the great Eurasia. This strategy is followed by the White House regardless of whether it is managed by conservative or liberal administrations and whether or not there is consensus among the elites.”
The deep distrust between Russia and the US dates back to Soviet times. Trump is very unlikely to win. At the heart of this distrust is the expansion of NATO.
Moscow and Washington have completely different interpretations of what was promised to Russia when US Secretary of State James Baker met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, as part of talks on the peaceful reunification of Germany. The Russians took Baker’s famous “not one inch to the east” pledge as a promise not to allow former Soviet states into the Alliance, a claim that US and NATO leaders deny, calling it “a myth.”
An officer of the 24th Mechanized Brigade, named after the chief Danylo of the Ukrainian army, fired a 2s5 “Hyacinth-s” howitzer at the Russian front during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, near the city of Chasiv Yar e. Donetsk region of Ukraine on Nov. 18, 2024. (Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via REUTERS)
After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, NATO admitted the Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania — which used to be part of the USSR and added several former Soviet bloc countries, such as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, to the alliance . In total, 13 Eastern European states have been members of NATO since 1997. This led to the reduction of Russia’s defense zone from 1,000 kilometers in Soviet times to 100 miles. Feeling betrayed, Moscow accused the US and NATO of breaking their promises. Putin made it his lifelong mission to restore the lost deterrent against NATO.
The 30 documents leaked to the US, Soviet, German, British and French, which include written memcons and telcons at the highest levels, reveal that Gorbachev actually received what he saw as NATO promises not to undermine Russia’s security. For example, the American Embassy in Bonn informed Washington that the German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher made it clear “that the changes in Eastern Europe and the process of reunification of Germany” will not lead to “disruption of Soviet security interests.”
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The same cable included language indicating that NATO should rule out “an expansion of its territory to the East, i.e. bringing it closer to the Soviet borders.” However, the phrase “leads to faith” seems to be the main phrase used in all these documents, which contributes to the differences in interpretation. The phrase reflects the informal nature of guarantees rather than formal guarantees.
That is why Putin will not even accept, as part of the peace agreement that Trump wants to trade between Russia and Ukraine, anything less than formal guarantees from NATO, which prevents Ukraine’s membership.
Putin does not trust Trump, despite the seemingly good rapport between the two. And Trump doesn’t trust Putin. During his first term, Trump took several steps aimed at undermining Russia’s military and economic strategy. Trump approved the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, established the US Space Force, ordered the development of a low-yield, nuclear-armed, sea-launched ballistic missile and authorized an operation that killed 300 soldiers of Russia’s Wagner Group in Syria. In 2017, Putin summed up his real political relationship with Trump. “She is not my daughter-in-law. And I am not her daughter-in-law, or her son-in-law. We run our governments,” Putin told reporters at an economic conference.
President-elect Donald Trump accepts the ‘Patriot of the Year’ award at Fox Nation’s Patriot Awards. (Fox Nation)
President Biden’s latest major policy change, Ukraine’s green light to attack Russia effectively with US-supplied long-range missiles, was Putin’s assurance that Washington can’t be trusted. That’s why, in response to Trump’s latest request to Putin, reportedly made during a phone conversation, not to escalate in Ukraine, Putin did the opposite. The Russian made two very high steps. Putin approved changes in Russia’s nuclear doctrine, lowering the limit on the use of nuclear weapons, and authorized a strike on Ukraine with a new class of hypersonic test missile, the Oreshnik. Oreshnik has enough scope to target all of Europe and the US West Coast. Neither the US nor NATO have a defense against it.
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A product of Russia’s strategic culture, Putin has a very negative attitude. The assumption of an inevitable conflict, ingrained in Russian thinking will always drive Moscow’s foreign policies. A talented businessman, Trump can transform the US-Russia relationship from hostility to trade. But Trump or not, Russia and America will never be friends.
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