Trump Retreats on Detente with Russia
President Trump toned down his combative rhetoric in speaking to Congress but,
more significantly, ditched his campaign promises about détente with Russia and
a reduced military presence abroad, says Gilbert Doctorow.
By Gilbert Doctorow
Donald Trump’s speech on Tuesday to a joint session of Congress was a reasonably
well-crafted and well-delivered exercise in communicating his case to the
nation. The President opened with a description of the flurry of executive
orders in his first 30 days in office, implementing promises made during the
electoral campaign.
He then went on to describe the contours of legislation that his administration
will send to Congress, starting with the budget and its scrapping of the cap on
military spending, which is to enjoy a 10 percent rise in appropriations while
domestic and other government spending is slashed. Then there was a review of
his plans to repeal and replace Obamacare and a preview of his proposals for
cutting taxes and regulations with the goal of creating more well-paying jobs.
In an emotional highpoint, Trump drew attention to the widow of a Special Forces
soldier killed in a raid inside Yemen. He also presented a more compassionate –
less combative – tone, calling on Democrats and Republicans to put aside their
differences and work together. His 60-minute address was interrupted 93 times by
applause, often standing ovations from Republicans but also some applause from
the Democratic side, too.
Trump seemed to bask in the enthusiastic show of support, although such State of
the Union speeches typically draw the same sort of surface adulation, with the
members from the party in power cheering robustly and those from the other side
offering sparser shows of support. Still, the televised images contrasted with
the portrayal from the mainstream U.S. news media of an embattled leader caught
in a Watergate-like scandal over supposedly illicit contacts with Russia, a
narrative Trump mistakenly fed with the hasty firing of National Security
Adviser Michael Flynn on Feb. 13 during a media frenzy about Flynn talking with
the Russian ambassador during the transition.
Flynn became the target of elements inside the U.S. government and the press who
opposed Trump’s plans for détente with Russia. Those anti-détente forces are now
flexing their muscles, with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley
sounding much like her hawkish predecessor Samantha Power, insisting that the
United States will not recognize Russia’s takeover of Crimea and then, this
week, co-sponsoring a resolution in the U.N. Security Council condemning the
Assad regime in Syria for allegedly using chemical weapons, a move that provoked
angry protests and a veto from Russia’s envoy.
Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and
Defense Secretary James Mattis carried messages to Europe reaffirming the U.S.
commitment to NATO allies and blaming Russia for the failure of the Minsk
Accords to resolve the crisis in Ukraine (although a major obstacle was created
by the Ukrainian government when it insisted that ethnic Russian rebels in the
Donbass region effectively surrender before other steps would be taken). The
U.S. statements could have been delivered by neoconservative and liberalinterventionist diplomats from the past several U.S. administrations.
Only the last five minutes of Trump’s address to Congress dealt with foreign
relations. And his own words were consonant with what his cabinet officers had
been saying. Trump’s campaign opinions about NATO’s obsolescence had
disappeared. Russia was not mentioned by name once in the speech, while
America’s allies in NATO and in the Pacific were reassured that “America is
ready to lead.” That statement was a rare instance when the entire congressional
audience rose to its feet in applause.
Back on His Words
Those who had feared that Trump’s populism and “America First” rhetoric spelled
isolationism were reassured that “Our foreign policy calls for a direct, robust
and meaningful engagement with the world.”
In fact, in the entire speech, there were only a few lines toward the end that
might give heart to those who hoped that Trump might pursue a dramatically new
foreign policy that drew back from America’s vast network of military bases and
the tendency to intervene in other countries’ affairs.
Though sounding not unlike boiler-plate language that Presidents George W. Bush
and Barack Obama might have used, those words did contain the possible seeds of
a less warlike strategy. Trump said: “America is willing to find new friends and
to forge new partnerships where shared interests align. We want harmony and
stability, not war and conflict. America is friends today with former enemies.
We want peace, wherever peace can be found. America is friends today with former
enemies. Some of our closest allies decades ago fought on the opposite side of
these terrible, terrible wars.”
Depending on the strength of one’s powers of self-delusion, those last words
might be construed as a hint: just wait, allow me to get my footing and
establish my popularity in Congress and in the broad public and I will come back
and deliver on my détente aspirations.
But it is an inescapable reality that the firing of Flynn and Trump’s retreat
from his foreign policy intentions were precipitated by the powerful collusion
between the intelligence services, particularly the CIA, and the mainstream
media with a clear intent to either neuter Trump by forcing a policy reversal on
Russia détente or remove him through some form of impeachment. The phoniness of
the McCarthyite charges of Russian connections used to smear Trump and his
entourage has been well explained in recent articles by Professor Stephen Cohen
in The Nation and by Gareth Porter at Consortiumnews.com.
Those with a more conspiratorial turn of mind have long spoken of the Deep
State, which ensures continuity of policy whatever the results of U.S. elections
with this subterranean power residing largely in the intelligence services,
especially the CIA and FBI, in the Pentagon, and in the State Department.
State is said to have been purged in its policy-making “seventh floor” during
the week of Secretary Tillerson’s European travels. But the text that was placed
before the inexperienced Ambassador Haley for delivery in the Security Council
shows that not all the old actors have been sent packing. Any purge of the CIA
and Pentagon has not even begun.
The ability of neocons and hardliners at the Pentagon to sabotage presidential
policy was demonstrated last September when a promising collaboration between
Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov over a
cease-fire in Syria was torn to shreds by an “accidental” attack by U.S. and
Allied fighter jets on a Syrian government outpost at Deir ez-Zor that killed
nearly 100 Syrian soldiers.
If these recalcitrant Cold Warriors in America’s “power ministries” remain
untouched, they will be in a position to create provocations at any time of
their choosing to override Trump’s planned détente policies. To do so would be
child’s play, given the close proximity of U.S. and Russian forces in Ukraine,
in Syria, in the Baltic States, on the Baltic Sea and on the Black Sea.
Given the poor state of relations and the minimal trust between Russia and the
U.S.-led West, any accident in these areas could quickly escalate. And then we
might see the side of Donald Trump’s personality that his Democratic opponents
warned us about, his short temper and alpha-male nature which could bring us
into an armed clash the outcome of which is unforeseeable but surely not good.
There is another troubling issue for those who hoped Trump would rein in
military spending to finance his promised domestic infrastructure investments.
Instead, Trump has focused on expanding military spending even more, financed by
cuts in domestic spending. There has not been a word to suggest he is
considering restructuring the $600 billion military appropriations, for example
by cutting the military bases abroad, which are configured to support precisely
the global hegemony and American imperialism that he has denounced.
What is at issue is not only the tens of billions of dollars in savings that
would come from slashing this overseas base structure but also removing an
American presence from countries where it only serves to foster anti-Americanism
and to embroil us either in defending hated regimes or intervening in regional
conflicts where we have no vital interests.
Without restructuring and reducing the gargantuan network of foreign military
bases, the U.S. will be condemned to a never-ending succession of wars abroad
and the entire plan of investment in America is doomed to failure. These are not
issues that allow for tactical retreats but rather must be addressed head-on.
But who will explain this to a headstrong President with the fawning applause of
Congress ringing in his ears?
Gilbert Doctorow is a Brussels-based political analyst. His latest book, Does
Russia Have a Future? was published in August 2015.