Regular readers of this blog will know that consistently, since 2009 when I first went into print on such things, I have been highly critical of what I regard as the mis-handling of Russia post Cold War. I also dismiss in its entirety the argument that Russia is somehow aggressive and seeking to de-stabilize the Ukraine, and the Middle East and Eastern Europe. It meddles no more than any other major power.
It was the EU and the US that encouraged the overthrow of the legitimately elected government in Kiev and allowed the replacement gang of neo-fascists to intimidate the Russian majority in Eastern Ukraine and the Crimea. It was the West that embarked on disastrous military adventures which failed in their objectives, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. It was the West which encouraged the uprising in Syria which led to civil war. And it was NATO that, following the winding up of the Warsaw pact, expanded ever eastwards to the Russian border.
So when this blog discovered during his election campaign that Trump wanted to set relations with Russia on a better path, this blog backed him. I have watched in disbelief as the political establishment in Washington has done itself incalculable harm by insulting both American voters and the world at large, by making out that a bunch of Russian hackers with password phishing and fake twitter accounts, could undermine American democracy. Hackers there may be, the US and UK and among the biggest when it suits them, but Americans are not fools and it would have no effect upon how they voted, if they even noticed. The Democrats lost because nobody trusted Hilary and her programme did not inspire the traditional blue collar Democrat base. It was all about the glitterati and the celebs and not about the American heartland.
So now that Trump has at last met Putin and the two have bonded to the point of making a new beginning at least a possibility, it is this blog’s hope that an emboldened Trump will return to Washington, read the riot act and fire every top official in every agency who does not accept that the best way forward is to see Russia as a rival, yes, but an essential partner with whom most world problems can be resolved, but without whom none can come to a welcome outcome. The firing list should include intelligence chiefs, special prosecutors and yes, even Republican officials who constantly throw spanners into the works of the ongoing project of the orderly governance of the United States of America.