by John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
Between wishful thinking and delusional thinking in normal life, there can be the psychiatrist’s couch and prescription of Prozac capsules swallowed once a day.
In politics – Russian politics are no exception – there can be media debate so that in between plan, action, and outcome it is possible to calculate the costs of wished-for success and the risks of defeat and disaster. Often, however, there is nothing in between at all — wishful turns into delusional.
In wartime, media debate is severely curtailed when the combatant states legislate to restrict information likely to aid the enemy. In the Anglo-American media, for example, the current defeat of the US and NATO forces on the Ukrainian battlefield continues to be reported as success – if not now, then soon; or in twenty years when President Vladimir Putin will have retired, and when the Ukraine will have been rearmed and ready to reopen the NATO war against Russia without end.
In the wartime media in Moscow, Vzglyad stands out as a sounding board for debate over Russian national security, military strategy, and foreign policy. This online medium, and the think tank which is its proprietor, the Expert Institute for Social Research, have been reported in the West as financed and supervised by Kremlin figures like Chief of Staff Anton Vaino and First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergei Kirienko.
Notwithstanding, on the published line and between the lines Vzglyad reports, represents, analyzes, and also opposes the main lines of current policy decision-making. Just as in the US, it is convenient for government officials to express themselves through individuals of professor’s rank employed to teach at universities or research at think tanks. Just so, the way to read professors in Vzglyad is as weathervanes. They point in the direction the wind is blowing.
Sometimes this is wishful thinking, registering 1 to 4 on the Beaufort Wind Force Scale (lead image). Sometimes it is delusional, mistaking a storm at Force 10, 11 or 12 for a breeze at Force 6.
Here then is the first major analysis Vzglyad has published of official thinking about the coming lines of President Donald Trump’s new administration. “First, the United States will refuse to export liberal democracy,” writes Gevorg Mirzayan, a Vzlgyad editorial regular, professor and research fellow at state universities and think tanks in Moscow. “This approach has actually been overdue for a long time – after all, moralizing no longer works…Under Trump, moralizing is generally impossible. After all, it implies demonstrative loyalty in exchange for the material benefits provided by America – in particular, access to the American market.”
“[Second], following moralizing, another important principle of Western globalist diplomacy will be thrown into the trash — ‘whoever is not with us is against us.’”
Mirzayan’s argument follows in full. It has been translated verbatim without subtractions or additions, except for photographs. Mirzayan himself does not acknowledge nor dispute the accuracy of the English version.
November 11, 2024
Trump will abandon two key principles of US foreign policy
By Gevorg Mirzayan
The return of Donald Trump to the White House portends significant changes in American foreign policy. Experts name at least two US foreign policy features that Trump will be forced to abandon. Why from them and who personally in the immediate circle of the US president will embody this new approach?
A two–month period of political fortune–telling begins in the United States before Trump takes office. American experts and journalists are trying to figure out who will join the new administration of the President-elect. And in particular, who will lead his foreign policy – who, that is, will take the posts of Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, and head of the Pentagon.
Various candidates have been named, including former Defense Secretary Mike Pompeo and U.S. representative to the United Nations Nikki Haley. However, Trump has made it clear: he will not rely massively on his ex-officials, even those who served under him during his first term. And this has its own logic – after all, the classic Washington establishment is unlikely to fit into Donald Trump’s new foreign policy strategy. A strategy that will not comply with a number of principles of classical American diplomacy.
First, the United States will refuse to export liberal democracy. “We have built our foreign policy on intimidation, moralizing and lecturing countries that seek to avoid cooperation with us. In contrast, China’s foreign policy is focused on building roads and bridges, as well as providing food for the poor. And I think we should follow a foreign policy based on respect… and the national interests of the United States,” U.S. Vice President–elect J.D. Vance said a year and a half ago when he criticized the appointment of the “moralizing Stephanie Sullivan” as the American ambassador to the African Union.
And Trump fully shares this approach. “The new Trump administration will try to implement a realistic foreign policy course and abandon the liberal hegemonic traditions that were characteristic of American foreign policy throughout the period after the end of the Cold War. They will try to make American policy more pragmatic and more successfully counter American rivals,” Dmitry Suslov, the Deputy Director of the Higher School of Economics Center for Integrated European and International Studies, explains to Vzglyad. That is, to China, Russia and their global projects (like the BRICS).
Left, Gevorg Mirzayan; right, Dmitry Suslov. About Suslov, click to read more.
This approach has actually been overdue for a long time – after all, moralizing no longer works. Not only because the United States has ceased to be a moral beacon, but also because many countries (including a number of American allies) have begun to pay increasing attention to their own sovereignty; and, accordingly, to resist the imposition of any values destructive to their societies from the outside.
Under Trump, moralizing is generally impossible. After all, it implies demonstrative loyalty in exchange for the material benefits provided by America – in particular, access to the American market. And Trump is not going to hand out economic carrots. “The new administration will pursue a more protectionist and self-seeking foreign policy line. [It will] strive to ensure that investments go to the United States, and not from the United States to third world countries,” Dmitry Suslov explains.
Following moralizing, another important principle of Western globalist diplomacy will be thrown into the trash: “whoever is not with us is against us.”
Unlike Russia, which professed the principle of “we work with those who are not against us” (allowing states to pursue a multi-vector policy), the West has rigidly forced Third World countries to make a choice between it and its opponents. For example, the West has forced Ukraine to cooperate with either the EU or Russia in 2013. And then it forced Ukraine to turn into an anti-Russian springboard within the framework of “who is with us”.
Perhaps eleven years ago, this strategy was effective – then the collective West was strong and had a reputation as a player who should not be messed with. However, the situation has changed now. And just in recent years the strategy “who is not with us is against us” has produced at least five misfires.
With Turkey, which, while remaining in NATO, has continued to cooperate with the Russian Federation. With India, which the United States unsuccessfully tried to force to stop working with Iran and Russia (in particular, to buy Russian hydrocarbons). With Saudi Arabia, which is establishing relations with China and has even transferred oil trade with it to the yuan. Washington’s attempts to train the Saudi leadership only led to a humiliating hours-long wait for US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to have an audience with the head of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. With Hungary, whose Prime Minister Viktor Orban has refused to follow the pan-European policy of isolating Russia. He is betting on national interests – and as part of this bet, he is blocking Brussels’ initiatives on new sanctions, He even flies to Moscow. And also, with Georgia where the local leadership has defiantly refused to open a second front against Russia, participate in anti–Russian sanctions, or accept Western LGBT values.
The most dangerous misfire, moreover, has been the Georgian one. Turkey, India and Saudi Arabia are great powers and are led by ambitious leaders who can still do a little more than ordinary American “allies.” Viktor Orban can afford a little more independence, because he has strong positions inside his own country, and is also a member of the EU and NATO. But the Georgian authorities do not have such influence – and yet not only have they defied Washington, but also they have won at the very moment when the Americans and Europeans could not bring the Georgian opposition to power either through elections or through a Maidan.
And other countries are seeing this now. They see that if even little Georgia managed to protect its national interests, then they can do it too.
Americans do not need such scraps on the periphery, so they are likely to narrow their own demands. “Trump will build American foreign policy more pragmatically and treat both allies and rivals of the United States more pragmatically. It will focus on American national interests in the narrow sense of the word,” says Dmitry Suslov. That is, it will not require these countries to take into account the interests of American allies.
Therefore, the hypothetical appointees Pompeo and Haley will not be in the State Department and the Pentagon. “They were the personifications of such a globalist ideologized course in the Republican Party’s array. The new Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor will be people loyal to Trump; who have had experience in the Republican administration; but who are not neoconservative hawks. Those who adhere to realistic foreign policy positions,” says Suslov.
In particular, one of the candidates for the post of head of the State Department is Senator Bill Hagerty from Tennessee, who was ambassador to Japan under Trump. Another candidate is Senator Marco Rubio. He is a foreign policy “hawk” (especially with regard to Chinese issues), but for Trump this is what is needed – confrontation with China will, apparently, become the main line of American diplomacy.
Left to right: William Hagerty, Richard Grenell, Brian Hook.
The State Department may also be headed by the former US Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell; he is the one who taught the Germans about life, publicly telling them what they should do. It is possible that this skill will come in handy for Trump, because he will have to put Europe firmly in its place.
One of the foreign policy posts may be occupied by Brian Hook, Trump’s former representative on Iranian affairs. He is already part of Trump’s transition team taking over from the current State Department – and he is rumoured to be holding a number of meetings with foreign diplomats. He is also being considered for the post of Minister of Defense.
One of those who takes over from the National Security Council (which means he can head this agency) is Joel Rayburn, who worked at the National Security Council during the first Trump administration and was responsible for the Middle East. Along with Rayburn, Michael Anton, a former deputy national security adviser (again, under the first Trump administration), is also taking over the case. John Ratcliffe, the former Director of National Intelligence, and Kash Patel, a former employee of the National Security Council and the Ministry of Defense, are also applying for this position.
Left to right: Joel Rayburn; John Radcliffe; Mike Waltz. After Mirzayan went to print in Vzglyad, Waltz was announced as Trump’s National Security Advisor. “We have to stop Putin absolutely”, Waltz told an interviewer last week. “How long and how much is that going to take, and how much is going to distract us from the enemy that can and is developing the capability to defeat the United States, and that’s the Chinese Communist Party.” On November 12, Trump appointed Radcliffe the new CIA director. In the official Twitter announcement, Trump said Radcliffe had distinguished himself by "exposing fake Russian collusion to be a Clinton campaign operation. " The record shows that Radlciffe attacked the Clinton campaign for alleging Russian "interference" in the 2016 election. But in testifying at the Senate hearing for confirmation of his post as Director of National Intelligence in May 2020, Radcliffe said: "We know that Russia and other foreign state actors continue to seek opportunities to undermine our democracy by interfering in our elections as well as our allies. They have sought to interfere before and will continue to do so. We must ensure the IC [intelligence community] is postured to support a whole of government approach to thwart such efforts in 2020 and beyond. Among other challenges, Russia continues to develop hypersonic weapons and other advanced capabilities that will test our defense posture and threaten our space assets."
Senator Tom Cotton and Congressman Mike Waltz (a former Green Beret and ardent Trumpist) are also called candidates for the post of Secretary of Defense. And also Christopher Miller, who was the last Secretary of Defense in Trump’s first term.
In any case, it won’t be long to guess. Most likely, clarity will come within a few weeks.
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