Why Putin does not sweat mid-way

Washington and the World

The strong man of the Kremlin has invested in Trump because it disrupts the world order. or losing on Tuesday, it will continue.

With a brief and high-profile meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump that could take place this weekend in Paris and a more comprehensive session later in the month in Buenos Aires, many in Russia are wondering why they are meeting.After all, each of their previous meetings – in Hamburg in 2017, then in Helsinki last July – seemed to leave the Russian-American relations In a state even worse than before. We advise the Kremlin to stay away from Trump's White House and not get caught up in the restless and ruthless domestic politics of the United States. The theory behind this lawyer seems to be this: let the US civil war break out before resuming the fight with the 2010 winner.

Yet, Putin is determined to continue his face-to-face contacts. -face with Trump. Why such apparently illogical behavior? It may be that the Russian president has already designated the winner – and that is Trump. In his recent public statements to the Valdai Club in Sochi, Putin suggested that when Trump wins his second term in 2020, he would be more free to stabilize and normalize his relations with Russia. Putin certainly hopes that the investment he makes in Trump will be profitable and he is willing to be patient.

The Story Continues (19659010) This obviously does not mean that Putin will reelect Trump – to repeat the blow that many in the United States think he's already committed in 2016. On the contrary, Putin's insistence on Trump's treatment indicates that he sees in the US president an opportunity that others in Moscow do not see.

For many members of the Russian foreign policy community, it is clear that Congress has already condemned Trump on issues such as sanctions, that the Kremlin's great hope of getting a new reset is already annihilated and that Trump's penchant for being unpredictable creates more than his fair share of risks. The new Congress promises more of the same thing: more sanctions, more investigations, more accusations regarding the Trump-Russia bond. So, they say, engaging with Trump is futile – and especially if the Republican party loses a lot of ground in mid-term on Tuesday.

The problem with this badysis is that it totally misses what Putin sees in Trump. The Russian leader's investment in the US president has little to do with Congress, nor with US policy in Russia, nor with the fact that the GOP gets screwed up at the halfway point. For Putin, Trump represents a new beginning in US foreign policy. What Putin considers positive for Russia is the disruption Trump creates for the global system that the United States has signed up to since the end of the cold war. Trump replaces liberal universalism with a version of the politics of the great powers that does not focus on promoting the values ​​favored by the United States. While it is a policy of force, it is clearly preferable to the politics of values ​​because it is based on a transactional approach to international affairs and allows a compromise.

In this, Trump, with all his peculiarities and inconsistencies, is the American leader that Putin is the most avowed of the friends of Russia. This is not due to a particular affection of the 45th President for Russia. In simple terms, Russia, for Trump, is not the main problem of America. Trump wants a "great America", the most powerful power in the world that focuses primarily on what she sees as her own national interests. Putin does not care: in fact, such an America would be ideal for Russia. The most important thing for Moscow is that Washington is concerned about its business and is not trying to impose itself.

Even Trump's attention to rivalry between major powers, including Russia, is welcome. First, because it is consistent with his own realistic view of international relations. Secondly, it recognizes the status of great power of Russia. The academic transition to a more nationalist stance has actually begun with President Barack Obama's spending cuts. It has accelerated considerably under Trump, whose actions are transforming the world in the direction of multipolarity. The European allies of the United States, which have long since given up their strategic sovereignty over Washington, are worried. Putin feels defended by Trump's efforts to reduce US commitments to his allies. Putin also knows that this is the end of the great empires: invincible from the outside, those at the center lose interest in carrying the burden of hegemony or leadership. And so, where are they going?

Thus, Putin, an accomplished politician here and now, can not only afford the luxury of ruling out Trump 's presidency and wait: he has no reason to flee Trump. . When Putin came to power, almost 19 years ago, it may have seemed that if much of the world had come out of the 20th century for the 21st century, Moscow had chosen the other door. Now, much of the world is following Russia's choice, including the Trump administration. This means that despite all the disparities of power and divergences of interests, the Kremlin and the White House now speak the same language. And they speak.