In the lead up to tomorrow’s Trump-Putin Summit the establishment media can’t (or won’t) wrap their heads around the idea that Donald Trump hates the very idea of war and its accompanying death and destruction. Wanton killing on a mass scale seems to repulse President Trump and appears to breach something at his core, grounded as he is in the American values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Ronald Reagan, similarly maligned by the establishment as a “warmonger,” also had a horror of nuclear war and the destruction and death that would accompany it, hence his offer to share technology with the Soviets that would have in time made a nuclear missile exchange impossible. Naturally, Reagan never got credit for the humanitarian motivation behind this idea, which was controversial and sparked opposition from both his closest advisors and his harshest critics.
We expect any serious peace overtures President Trump makes to President Putin that fall short of ejecting Russia from the post-Cold War borders of Ukraine will be met with similar controversy and opposition, even if the proposal ends the killing and leaves Ukraine as a relatively intact sovereign state outside the Russian sphere of influence.
But would Vladimir Putin even take such a deal if it were offered?
Many thoughtful analysts doubt Putin has any real interest in a peace deal, or in ending the killing and rejoining the Western economy, the two things that President Trump has dangled as bait to entice the Russian dictator to a deal.
Putin sees himself as a transformational figure for the Russian state and its people. The goal of his ideology – Eurasianist National Bolshevism – is the reestablishment of the historic borders of the Russian Empire, and regaining the status Russia lost in the breakup of the Soviet Union in a new world order with Russia, Red China and Iran as the Eurasian-centered hegemons, with the United States and the West reduced to political, economic and military irrelevance.
As Alexandr Dugin, Vladimir Putin’s ideological mentor put it:
Dugin was “sanctioned” by the United States a long time ago, and his works in translation are hard to find in the West, so I doubt there are two people in the White House who have studied them and are prepared to engage in the war of ideas necessary to defeat “Eurasianist National Bolshevism” and neutralize its hold on the minds of many Russians.
While Communist China and Iran may not agree with Putin’s vision of their place in this new world order, they have a great deal to gain from the weakening of the West, and the United States in particular.
Look at it this way: It’s like three Tigers in a cage who have agreed to set aside their competition in order to catch and eat the zookeeper.
Russia and Communist China share a vast border, and Red China is one of Russia’s largest trading partners, on both the legal and illicit markets for energy and weapons. The same goes for Iran, a state bordering Russia with which it shares longtime trade and strategic interests.
Peeling off Russia from Red China and Iran won’t be easy, and once again the currency President Trump is using in the deal – ending sanctions, improving the quality of life for the average Russian – has little value for Putin.
What Putin wants is not a washing machine and a car for every Russian family, but the reestablishment of Russia’s historic place in the world and the recognition and restoration of what he sees as the territory and resources stolen from Russia by the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Those are things President Trump can’t give him, even if he were inclined to do so.
President Trump said Monday that he expected to determine mere moments into his meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin whether it would be possible to work out a deal to halt the war in Ukraine.
“At the end of that meeting, probably the first two minutes, I’ll know exactly whether or not a deal can be made,” Trump said at a White House press conference.
In his usual freewheeling style, President Trump has posited an agreement involving land swaps, at the same time he has also threatened Moscow with more economic sanctions if more isn’t done to work toward a ceasefire, but suggested Monday that, should Friday’s meeting be successful, he could see a day when the U.S. and Russia normalize trade relations.
Putin is expected to be unwavering in his demands to keep all the territory his forces now occupy and to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, with the long-term aim of returning it to Moscow’s sphere of influence, thereby fulfilling one of the goals of Eurasianist National Bolshevism.
President Trump’s aversion to more foreign wars and money pits of foreign military aid is very much in line with the mood of the country, and his Nobel Prize-worthy humanitarian impulse to end the killing and destruction should be lauded by all. However, we have yet to see any indication that the White House really understands where Putin is coming from, what he needs (short of an epic military defeat) to end the war and what we can offer him that might induce him to abandon the goals of Eurasianist National Bolshevism.
*Aleksandr Dugin, The Fourth Political Theory, translated By Mark Sleboda and Michael Millerman (London, Arktos, 2012) page 193.
George Rasley is editor of Richard Viguerie's ConservativeHQ.com and is a veteran of over 300 political campaigns. A member of American MENSA, he served on the staff of Vice President Dan Quayle, as Director of Policy and Communication for Congressman Adam Putnam (FL-12) then Vice Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, and as spokesman for retired Rep. Mac Thornberry formerly a member of the House Intelligence Committee and Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
- Trump administration
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- Ronald Reagan foreign policy
- Vladimir Putin
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- Economic sanctions
- Borders of Russian empire
- Eurasianist National Bolshevism
- Communist China
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- Soviet Union breakup
- Land swaps
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