Trump foreign policy adviser bashes the United States for disregarding Russia's interests

[DonViejo]

Source: Reuters

13 OCT 2016 AT 10:12 ET

A foreign policy adviser to U.S. Republican candidate Donald Trump has accused Washington of contributing to an atmosphere of mutual contempt with Moscow by disregarding Russia’s interests.

Carter Page, a former investment banker whose views on Russia have caused controversy in the past, made the comments in an opinion piece for Russia’s state-controlled Sputnik news agency that was published on Thursday. “From Syria to Ukraine to world energy policy, Russia remains an essential piece in the puzzle for solving many of Washington’s most pressing geostrategic challenges,” Page wrote in the article.

The U.S. government had shown a “complete disregard for Russia’s interests”, Page said, saying this had fueled a sharp deterioration in bilateral relations. Trump, the Republican nominee for next month’s U.S. election, named Page as being among five foreign policy advisers in March. Both Trump and Page are known for their more conciliatory stance toward Russia, in contrast to the views of many prominent Republicans.

In a speech in Moscow in July, Page criticized Western countries for what he said was their “hypocritical focus on democratization” in the post-Soviet world.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/trump-foreign-policy-adviser-bashes-the-united-states-for-disregarding-russias-interests/

[a la izquierda]

1. He's a former banker, which of course means he's a foreign policy expert.

[TomCADem]

3. Truly Weird How GOP went pro-Russia...

...it is not like Hilllary is the one saying we need a new nuclear arsenal.

[Igel]

4. Not entirely.

Trump =/= GOP.

A minority (plurality only) voted for him. Voter turnout was low. The party itself supported him only because he was their nominee.

This is akin to a fundamental attribution error. They're stuck with him even if a majority, given the chance to vote for him, decided not to. But don't assume that "minority = 100%," because then it's just a fallacy.


However, this is one of those things that Obama, if not for partisanship and concerns about his legacy and the "arc of history" (which always turns into the "ark of history&quot , would agree with. You can only find a modus vivendi with other countries if you consider their interests and, when they're not diametrically opposed to each other, find a way to at least acknowledge if not abide by those interests.

So Ukraine could have been finessed in a way that acknowledged Russians' concerns (notice I've shifted the terms of the dialog from Russia to Russians), meaning that the concerns of the minority of Ukraine's had to be taken into account. This is strange sounding in the US, because political rhetoric says that we rule (when we're in the minority) and we rule (when we're in the majority). We used to think differently, but that's before the last 10 years and the universal microfractured echo-chamber we've decided to spend our lives in.

Syria is a problem not because of ISIS but because we foiled Assad's squashing of the problems in Syria's east by giving hope and moral support to protesters, and then giving him hell when he started to put down protests in a way that is culturally unacceptable to the West. We did this even *after* seeing the mess in Libya and in Egypt, because as the news put it those protesting were educated and middle class.

[sofa king]

5. Two more observations:

First, NATO now borders on Russia. With the addition of the Lithuania and Poland to NATO, NATO became direct neighbors with the Kaliningrad Oblast, the former Prussian district of Konigsberg which is now a non-contiguous part of Russia.

Second, the most important Russian port in the Mediterranean is in Syria, in the city of Tartus, a lease guaranteed by the Assad regime for fifty-some years. It's as important to the Russians as Gibraltar or the Falklands are to the British, or Panama was to the United States. They ARE NOT going to let a bunch of rednecks take over and dislodge the Russians from their major supply base for the Russian Navy outside of the Black Sea.

So we shouldn't be surprised to see the Russians seeking to influence American policy once again, because we are once again right up their damned stove-pipe and they've never been comfortable with that. They've targeted the Republicans because Republicans are ignorant, small-minded, and easy to manipulate. There are no President Obamas or Secretary Clintons in the GOP today, nobody with the finesse to anticipate and get ahead of Russian geopolitical maneuvers. So they are effectively at war with us, the Democratic Party, because we're the people who aren't going to let them get away with their bullshit.