150 Russians were expelled from the West earlier this week. Russia announced 150 Western diplomats will be expelled Thursday. When UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres expresses concern about a new Cold War, he’s not being overly dramatic.
Gutteres sees obvious parallels to the previous Cold War, and is urging the sides to put the same sort of robust mechanism of communication in place, aiming to avoid a misunderstanding escalating into an outright confrontation.
Unfortunately that’s not the way a lot of this Cold War is going, with the US in particular eager to cut lines of communication specifically to reflect growing anger at Russia. This is done despite tensions making such communication all the more vital.
In the meantime, the Trump Administration isn’t being particularly public about what they’re doing. Last week’s Trump-Putin phone call, for instance, was passed off as cordial, even though Trump is now said to have told Putin “if you want to have an arms race we can do that, but I’ll win,” while bragging about his record Pentagon funding.
Informing the public about US measures is a struggle right now, because officials say that President Trump has told his aides not to talk publicly about Russia-related policy moves. This means conversations on what the US is doing are few and far between, and Russian links remain unspoken.
It is interesting how neocons are eager to spin. It was clear after last conversation that Trump was concerned about arms race getting out of control. To now turn it into a bragging conversation is a work of aides. No wonder he wantts them to shut up.
Did you miss his bragging about being the “most militaristic candidate” during the campaign? Or how about his talk of upgrading our nukes before we found out about Putin’s new toys? I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that Trump would brag about winning an arms race without being coerced by anyone.
Exactly. In fact, it’s been relatively easy to see that the WH staff/cabinet have been operating in “reaction mode” to what the wackjob says from the very beginning.
I hear you. Keep in mind that Trump always talks to many audiences at once. And understands that breaking out in front of media news cycle is critical in avoiding media narrative control. Let’s talk militaristic. All the candidates in the running were for wars, all wars, and wanted some more. He was the only one who talked about lies and nkn existent weapons of mass destruction. And regions consumed by wars, ISIS spreading to many countries. He was talking primarily to military, veterans snd their families and communities. They are fed up with wars, and he gets them. At the same time, everything is run down, no spare parts, canibalizing old to maintain what still works. And the saga of new fighter planes, the entire procurement process, ships with problems. Too much milesge on everything. I do not think all if this is just contractors lament. Our nuke arsenal data is kept on floppy discs, and while bring worked in problems remain. Hey may be bigger then admitted. He in that context was the most militaristic and I do not think it iis a trivial issue. Under the hood, lots oof problems.
It’s always a matter of interpretation. It seems like any time Trump says something that doesn’t sit well with his backers, they’ll twist things around until they can find a way for his words to mean something other than what seemed obvious. I’m curious what he meant when he talked about using enhanced interrogations(torture)much worse than waterboarding or going after “terrorists” family members.
You’re right, Bianca, Pres. Trump had to tell his aides to keep quiet, as a good number of them had misinterpreted their boss’s conversation with Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin over the arms race heading out of control. What Trump needs to do is boot every single Trotskyist aka Neocon out of the White House altogether, since it was they who had spinned the conversation from Trump’s concern with the arms race getting out of control into a bragging conversation. This is the only solution to draining the swamp.
Every time Trotskyites think he is slipping out of control, they have another bombshell of news — be that his escorts, or another someone who knew Trump and a Russian, any Russian, who is connected to another Russian who may be somehow important. Last time it was a Russian lawyer who tried to get Trump attention to the powerfull media cartel keeping her client’s movie about Bill Browder away from US audiences. But the same fellow who became known for one of the biggest tax frauds in Russian history, and whose lawyer Magnitsky died in jail — is being invited by the Congress to testify about Russia! This is how Trotskyites operate. They can rehabilitate anyone, declare them victims, and in the end — valued consultant. Weberre not told that the same Browder was US citizen, who committed tax fraud here, and to avoid scrutiny — took UK citizenship. He must have greased a lots of palms to avoid problems with US tax authorities.
It is very important to understsnd the social maipulation methodology involving globalized brain washing, continuous “revolution”, that is, social infighting, permanent conflict using ideologigy. It does not matter if it is in the name of communism, democratic “values”, fatherland uber alles, or diversity, globalism, anti-fashism, women’s rights, butchers of countries a, b or c. The inly thing that matters is the consent of one group of prople to use violence against the other, where this other has no right to be heard, being defined as untouchable and not worthy of any rights.
It will be exceedigly important to identify adherents of this global
methofology, as they are neither liberal nor conservative, have no party, but only alkegiance to their own principle. These are very powerfull today, that it does mot matter if you read US, German, French, Italian or Swedish, and many others — the Trotdkyites are on message. However, acquisition of Asian media, such as formerly very popular Asian Times, has not met with success Trotskyites hoped for. Some old writers are kept to keep readership, but saturation of media by disciplined Trotdkyites has not been succesdful. Readers are NOT impressed. If we do not identify their clear goals and agenda, we will be forever chasing political landscape, like elusive windmils.
Trump has infuristed them by his foreign policy strategy paper of April 2016. They tried to ridicule it — then to ignore. Then they had to punish a voluminous strategy to bury his dsngerous ine — only few psges long.
But to those who read it carefully is clear what all the fuss is all about. And why Trump went on the road to announce the withdrawal from Syria. Now, their bluster to show Russia who is the boss — is no longer unshakeable. As CNN expressed their utter astonishment that his staff new nothing about it — assuming they are his keepers — exposes their confusion between bureacracy and leadership. As the old time fuddy duddy networks of bureaucrats plotted confusing rationale for staying jn Syria, he grasped that the knly way to end it is to cut this Gordian knot.
Will there be priblems, new investigations and dossiers? For sure. But public is getting tired of the noise, and Trump can now start assesing what went wrong under sucessive intelligence leaders that missed not just the boat but the ocean, Heads will roll, and the former Clappers, Brennans, Petraeuses — may just have to lay low to avoid being drawn into the maelstrom that surely is coming. This is why Trump said prescious little about Russia’s announcement.
“And why Trump went on the road to announce the withdrawal from Syria”
He went on the road to promote his infrastructure plan. It remains to be seen whether his Syria line was just a one-liner to be forgotten or whether he’ll follow through.
I agree. He went to promote infrastructure initiative. If he can push the inert Cingress to find money to fix rail traffic Wadhington/New York, where in a single day one train was cancelled, and the one five hours later was 45 minutes late — I will be happy.
This is a one liner that means a lot to his base, especially military, veterans, their families and communities. And a welcome ray of hope to progressives of all stripes.
Remains to be seen. His mission to defeat ISIS has been expanded by the military-bureaucratic process to mean everything, from defeating ISIS, to saving the world from Iran, from regime change in Damascus to nation building for 5% Kurds on 1/3 of Syrian land, against bitter oposition of 95%. And it included threatening Russia, by promising to “act unilaterally”, upon which Russia promissed to destroy the platforms from which the attacks originated, etc. etc.
General Votel rhapsodized of the wonderfull cooperstion snd confidence building among natives in the lands under US control.
Slight Mission Creep? At some point Trump may have told his generals to get out of the weeds. Victory meant defeating ISIS. Others can mop up. France may step in — fools do rush in indeed. Turkey will not accept nation building. But not American problem.
I have a feeling that Trump has just been dealt a winning card. All the former and current CIA bosses and mighty privatized intelligence have been asleep at the switch, blisfully unaware of scienticic and technological advancements in Russia and I expect China ss well. If they had, the sheer joined volubility of Western talk down to Russia would have been arrested in its proper place.
Nonetheless, those heavily invested in keeping US troops in as many places in the Middle East will not give up that easily. But they may have no choice. Things are not looking sunny in Saudi Kingdom any more. Israel has lost a lots of influence among evangelicals, but much more among liberals.
With the marked lack of energy among Gulf royals for anti-Iran action, much has changed. Not crediting Trump for it — he just may be able to take advantage of these weaknesses to scale down forward deployment and —- expectations. Things are changing — the question is, can militarism-induced interests be if not curbed — redirected?
“If he can push the inert Cingress to find money to fix rail traffic Wadhington/New York”
It wouldn’t cost Congress a dime to fix that. In fact, it would put money in the Treasury. Auction off the rail to the private sector. If there’s a market for commuter rail transport, there will be a buyer. If there’s not, it should be shut down.
Trump cannot even understand a very clear explanation by Pres Putin on March 1 which clearly let him know that the Russians, without the wasteful spending practiced by the USA, have actually been able to produce weapons to defend their land and react if the USA is foolish enough to attack. I am sure at least some of the Pentagon staff are able to comprehend this, despite the usual offensive tossing aside of Russian statements and suggestions. Putin has warned since 2004 that the US actions are dangerous for any chance of peace. He has repeatedly said he wants negotiations and agreements, but the USA never does. The latest loss of diplomatic channels for NO REASON but UK false flag lies will make the situation worse.
I think he gets it all too well. This is something that came out of the blue, and confirmed his most pessimistic assessments of the state of the military. His job now is easier. He can smack intelligence for playing politics but missing big time the information they are supposed to get their hands on. Why do I think they were clueless? The sheer amount of bluster our Trotskyite elite engaged in from Bill Clinton’s famous description of meeting with Russian officials, through Bush and Obama was always the same. Famisly, Bill said how he enjoyed shoving s—t in their face, and watching them smile. The helplessnes, rusting military hardware, smoke billowing aircraft career— all led to the feeling of invulerability and impunity. In Syria, unilateral action was contrmplated, Russian reaction tested by deliberate killing if contractors. He gave military a narrow job to defeat ISIS, not regime change and on the top of it nation building.