Trump didn’t want NATO broken up.
He tossed out a lot of rhetoric to get the nations in line
to raise their participation with promised contributions.
It worked. It also got them to pay more attention to
their deterrent forces.
I have advocated for the United States to hold summits with
Putin over time. It would have made him look like a world
leader to the folks back home. It would have fed his ego.
He would have come away with a few trinkets here an there.
Clinton didn’t do it. Bush didn’t. Obama didn’t. Trump
wanted to, but with the “Russia Russia Russia” thing going
on, he simply couldn’t.
That’s one of the byproducts of what the Left in the
United States ushered in.
We could have developed closer ties to Russia, but no it
was important to the Democrats to destroy Trump first.
Yes, you are right. NATO was designed to counter the old
USSR. None the less, people just weren’t real comfortable
with Russia anyway. There was just this gut feeling that
things would turn south again.
Now it could be said what is going on now is a self-
fulfilling prophecy, the fact is that Russia did got south.
NATO has had to see Russia as a Strong man run nation
again.
Russia likes long term strong men leaders. They grew
used to it, and they seem to prefer it.
“It worked. It also got them to pay more attention to
their deterrent forces.”
From what I remember, they were too barely laughing at Trump and listening instead to Obama to pay attention to anything else. It only changed AFTER Russia go involved in the Ukraine Civil War.
“Yes, you are right. NATO was designed to counter the old
USSR. None the less, people just weren’t real comfortable
with Russia anyway. There was just this gut feeling that
things would turn south again.”
I admit the same feelings, particularly right after the Cold War ended, and then with Putin for a while. But as I watched Russia disavow Communism and stop threatening the West (other than make it clear that they opposed NATO expansion), my view changed. And then, as you mentioned, when the Democrats and Neocons made Russia ENEMY NUMBER ONE just because they outlawed Grooming of children, then I was through being suspicious of Russia.
Putin’s annexation of Crimea, with virtually all its 2.4 million people being supporters of Russia, made perfect sense to me, considering they were looked at by the new Ukrainian government pretty much the same way Jews were looked at when Hitler first took power in Germany. The problem for the Jews, of course, was that they didn’t have a big brother to rescue them - the people in Crimea did.