Besemeres article on USA, Russia, and Ukraine
The “adults in the room” of the Trump Administration have done a wonderful job, despite intermittent sackings, to keep US policy on the rails. On Russia, the Trump Administration has done better and is still doing better than its predecessor’s administration. Obama made fine speeches, expressed haughty though counter-productive disdain for Putin, and provided substantial non-lethal support to Kyiv. But as President Poroshenko once famously commented when thanking Obama for such a gift “one cannot win the war with blankets”.
It remains questionable how much of Trump’s recent vigour in opposing Russia is determined more by his fear of Special Counsel Robert Mueller than his genuine commitment to resisting Moscow. His first move after the mid-term elections was to remove his Attorney-General Jeff Sessions, whom he held responsible for not having closed down the Mueller investigation. In a legally dubious move, Trump then replaced Sessions not by his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, whom Trump would also like to get rid of, but by a ring-in from elsewhere, Matthew Whitaker, who had gone on record repeatedly as an opponent of Mueller and his enquiry.
What will we learn, if anything, of what Putin and Trump discuss in Buenos Aires, should the talks go ahead? Will Trump update his counterpart on the future of the special counsel? Would he discuss what possible sackings and new and improved appointments might be made in areas of particular interest, and importance to the Kremlin in a Mueller-free environment? And in what terms at their next opportunity might Putin and China’s Xi Jinping discuss their observations of the West’s response to Putin’s progressive militarisation and privatisation of his Black Sea lake?
thanx for posting that Lowy Institute article.
Lowy Institute: John Besemeres taught politics at Monash University, was head of Polish and later Slavonic Studies at Macquarie University, spent 5 years working as a translator in Belgrade and Warsaw, served for some 30 years in several Australian government portfolios including PM&C, Immigration and Ethnic Affairs and Foreign Affairs and Trade, and has published extensively on Russian and Eastern European affairs.
some interesting tweets in recent hours from Webb:
Twitter: George Webb
https://twitter.com/GeorgWebb