My "morning after" observations on Putin-Trump meeting.
It was an extremely important meeting for one reason. It was not a victory, nor it was a loss. That was what Russians call "razvedka boem" that is, "reconnaissance through a skirmish." You try out your opponent through some fire exchange. Try out in a particular way.
We know very well that on the scene of foreign affairs Trump is not an independent player. But how dependent is he? Say, you know how good a swimmer you are, and then you jump in the river, and you practically don't move. That means that the current is moving at your speed.
So now, Putin might have a much better sense of Trump and Tillerson speed. So if no breakthroughs occur after their meeting and conversations, if we get the same propaganda and bombing in Syria, the same pro-NATO BS from newly appointed envoy to Ukraine, Volker, the same failure to de-escalate in North Korea --we would at least know the speed of the current. If Trump gets, say, 10% of what he wanted to accomplish, we also know the speed of current. That's of paramount importance for any foreign policy decisions.
It was easier with Clinton, Obama or Bushes, because these puppets were the voices of the establishment. You knew what to expect from them. Just read the policy paper of Atlantic Council or the Council of Foreign Affairs, and that's what you'd get. With Trump it is a different matter. How strong is he a swimmer? How far can he deviated from these idiotic policy papers. How much will Tillerson help?
What has emerged, is that both him and Tillerson do actually want to think and act like statesmen. They are not clowns of liberal imagination. If they fail or if they start acting in the very opposite way from the way they acted during the meeting, Lavrov and Putin would at least know the amount of pressure that the deep state is capable of exerting.
Putin and Lavrov, of course, are a different matter. They are decision makers on the foreign scene. They more or less call the shots. As opposed to the domestic scene, by the way. There, Putin might be like Trump. Swimming against the current. I don't claim to know all the players and all the currents in Russian domestic policy, but it is clear to me that Putin can say things and they won't be carried out. As opposed to the foreign relations, which makes dealing with Russia very easy for other countries.
So I remain pretty optimistic about this meeting. The villains are afraid of exposure. At least, it will be much easier now to establish who are these nasty bastards who create the undercurrent for foreign policy, and how much power they actually have. But the very fact that Trump and Tillerson told Fiona Hill, McMaster and other nefarious neocons to wait on the sidelines is rather encouraging."
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