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CWA # 42, 18 July 2018
United States
Trump meets Putin; will it cost NATO?

  D. Suba Chandran

Whether Trump will make “America Great” again or not, he will certainly make “America Alone”. Perhaps, he has started the process already

The Helsinki summit between Trump and Putin has generated tremendous interest, for it comes in the background of two major developments. First, there was an indictment in the US on the role of Russia in meddling with the last American Presidential Elections, and second, the Helsinki meeting followed the NATO summit in Brussels, where Trump has annoyed many of his allies.

The road to Helsinki was not an easy one for Trump, with the rest of the US against the idea. But he ridiculed the American opposition to Russia with his tweet: “Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!”

What does Trump want to achieve with Russia? And will it come at a cost for the US in Europe? Will Helsinki widen for the trans-Atlantic partnership further?

Why are the Americans unhappy with Putin?

The predominant reason for the American anger against Putin does not come from the Cold War history, though it forms the basis for their suspicion against Russia. Instead, it emanates from the doubt that Russia manipulated the last US Presidential elections (that led to Donald Trump becoming the President) and the anger/fear that the outsiders could manipulate the American electoral process.

The Russian role in the previous Presidential election is no more a political issue across the party divide. It dominates the national sentiment that their democratic process is vulnerable to outside attack. A Senate Intelligence Committee, in its report titled, “Russian Targeting of Election Infrastructure During the 2016 Election: Summary of Initial Findings and Recommendations” observed the following: “The Committee found that in addition to the cyber activity directed at state election infrastructure, Russia undertook a wide variety of intelligence-related activities targeting the U.S. voting process. These activities began at least as early as 2014, continued through Election Day 2016, and included traditional information gathering efforts as well as operations likely aimed at preparing to discredit the integrity of the U.S. voting process and election results.”

The report also blamed the Russian government directly. It said: “While the full scope of Russian activity against the states remains unclear because of collection gaps, the Committee found ample evidence to conclude that the Russian government was developing capabilities to undermine confidence in our election infrastructure, including voter processes.”

Worse was the latest indictment from the US Justice Department. On 13 July 2018, Rod J. Rosenstein, the US Deputy Attorney General quoted to have stated on the indictment the following: “The indictment charges 12 Russian military officers by name for conspiring to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. Eleven of the defendants are charged with conspiring to hack into computers, steal documents and release those documents with the intent to interfere with the election. One of those defendants and a 12th Russian military officer are charged with conspiring to infiltrate computers of organizations involved in administering the elections, including state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and companies that supply software used to administer elections.”

The above reports, published in May and July 2018 respectively, also reemphasise one of American greatest contemporary fear – the cyber war against the US, the American vulnerability and the role of Russia. All three have converged in the current anti-Russian sentiment in the US, leading to questioning Trump’s move to shake hands with Putin.

The editorial of the Washington Post, (13 July 2018) titled “A timely reminder that Putin is no friend of ours in a scathing” reflects the above American sentiment. It has also observed: “The country — and all its leaders — must keep top of mind that the Russian government meddled in the nation’s democratic process and plans to do so again. The Russians should be punished and deterred. Ignoring or minimizing these overriding points is an abdication of responsibility.”

Putin: What are Trump’s Calculations?

If the public sentiment in the US is against Trump meeting with Putin, why did the American President going ahead?

In a press statement in the UK, immediately after the NATO meeting, responding to a question, Trump observed the following for his meeting with Putin. “We go into the meeting with Putin following the tremendous NATO meeting. It was testy at the beginning, but then everyone agreed to come together and the U.K. fully adhered to it. We left that meeting more unified and wealthier as a group than ever before. So we go in strong. We will talk about a number of things: Ukraine, Syria, the Middle East, nuclear proliferation. We are massively modernizing and fixing and buying and it’s just a devastating technology. It is a very bad policy. We have no choice. We are massively big and they are very big and I’ll be talking about nuclear proliferation. I will absolutely bring up ‘meddling.‘ Hopefully we will have a very good relationship with Russia, China and other countries.”

Trump did have a large canvass for his summit meeting with Putin. From developments across Eastern Europe (Ukraine), Middle East (Syria) and nuclear proliferation (Iran) to “meddling” (in the US democratic process), it is a broad agenda.

But the real question is: did Trump already make up his mind on Putin, even before the meeting? While for the Americans, Russian meddling in the US electoral process is a big issue, for Trump it is not. After all, he was the beneficiary of that meddling; he even considers the Congress attempts to find the truth and the extent of meddling as a “witch hunt”.

The answer is: Trump did make up his mind on Putin even before meeting him. Recollect his tweet on the event of the Helsinki summit, blaming the US for the bad relationship with Russia “to many years of US foolishness and stupidity”. He has also given a clean chit to Russia on the meddling issue before he met Putin. In his tweet, Trump called it (the enquiry into Russian meddling the US electoral process) as “the Rigged Witch Hunt.”

On what basis Trump has arrived at this momentous truth that Russia did not interfere? Read his statement: "I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be…I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today." For Trump, it is his “reasoning” that Russia would not interfere and also because Putin denied that was “extremely strong and powerful” in his denial!

The public sentiment in the US has not deterred Putin from pursuing what he has already decided. So what did he achieve in Helsinki?

Perhaps for Trump, it is not about achieving anything at Helsinki vis-à-vis Putin. As an analysis in the Washington Post said in the title, “Trump is now repaying Putin for helping him win the presidency.”

Putin and Russia should be smiling. First Trump has blamed the US for the “foolish” and “stupid” policies that have made US-Russia relations troublesome. So it is not the Kremlin’s policies towards Syria and Ukraine that needs to be blamed for the bilateral relations between the two countries. Second, the Russian administration has got a clean chit from the US President, despite a judicial process indicting 12 Russian officers for meddling in the US electoral process. For Trump, it is a witchhunt!

Bravo Trump!

Trump in Brussels and London: What did he achieve, or failed to?

Before he landed in Helsinki, Trump was in Brussels and then London. There were so many expectations and fears over Trump’s participation in the NATO summit last week. Though Trump considers it as a huge success, the rest of the NATO allies were unhappy with his antics and statements.

A commentary in the Guardian summed up Trump in the NATO summit. It read: “While other Nato members treated his warnings as a bluff, they left the Brussels summit stunned at the end of two days of mayhem, almost all of it orchestrated by Trump. In the final hours he again reduced the 29-member organisation, the most powerful military coalition in the world, to chaos. He turned up late for a meeting, ignored the issues on the table, demanded fresh talks and secured an emergency discussion on spending.”

So, what did Trump achieve at the Brussels summit of NATO? He has further increased the divide within the trans-Atlantic partnership. His statements on Germany (on the Russian gas pipeline) and the UK (on a soft Brexit) were entirely undiplomatic. While Angela Merkel responded firmly to the Trump comment, the Londoners responded with the giant Trump baby balloons with the American President wearing a diaper!

Though Trump has claimed victory at the end of the NATO summit, the reality is far from it. For Trump, the NATO leaders have agreed in Brussels to increase their defence expenditure to two per cent. For him this is a great victory; from the days of Obama, a section in the US has been demanding that the European partners spend more on the defence and take a more significant responsibility. For the hardliners in the US, Europeans as “freeloading” have been an issue.

The above is based on an American presumption that the US does the fighting and spending for the European security. The response in Europe is – they are facing the immediate brunt of developments in northern Africa and the Middle East, than the US. The recent crisis over immigration is a case in point. Also, the Europeans believe that the US military expenditure may be significant, but in reality, it goes into non-European theatres, for example, the Indo-Pacific.

America First, or America Alone?

Trump hails that the recent NATO summit as an American success, for the other countries has agreed to increase their defence expenditure. What he does not want to say is that there is already a realisation and a plan within the NATO countries of Europe to raise the defence expenditure over a period.

Besides the personal insults (which has become a part of Trump’s personality) of the allies, and the false claim of US victory in NATO over defence expenditure, what did Trump achieve in Brussels and London? At the public level, there will be more Trump babies in the European streets, symbolising and strengthening the anger at the societal levels. At the State level, the leaders are likely to be wary of dealing with Trump. Theresa May, Angela Merkel and Justin Trudeau are not Kim Jong-un.

The larger question is: has Trump undone what the successive American leaders since post-Second World War have consciously built through the Cold War – in building and strengthening a trans-Atlantic partnership? Didn’t the previous American Presidents pursue a strong and united NATO as the first line of American defence?

Is there a single leader within the NATO who supports Trump’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki? Unless Trump comes up with a coup in Helsinki vis-à-vis Putin, NATO will start looking beyond the US. Whether Trump will make “America Great” again or not, he will certainly make “America Alone”. Perhaps, he has started the process already.

Prof D. Suba Chandran is Dean of the School of Conflict and Security Studies at the NIAS, IISc Campus, Bangalore. He is the Course Supervisor of Global Politics. An earlier version of the above commentary was published in the Rising Kashmir.

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