In a well publicized interview with the London Times and the German newspaper Bild, the new American President Donald trump expressed the view that NATO is obsolete, that the European Union is irrelevant for the United States, and that he will start equal trust Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Unsurprisingly, trump the statement of such views caused concern on both sides of the Atlantic.
However, speaking in the typical haphazard style, trump also noted that he respects Merkel, he appreciates NATO, and his confidence as Putin and Merkel could quickly evaporate. Thus, trump has raised concerns of its own.
He really is enslaved to Putin, a war criminal? Maybe trump has some sinister reasons for raskalyvanii Putin as a strong leader, and he thus avoids the tendency of Putin to shoot or poison prepared by his intelligence agencies tinctures prying journalists, dissidents and spies, defectors?
Or praise a trump Putin reflects the sensitivity of the neophyte to the views of such influential courtiers as a strategic Advisor Steve Bannon (Steve Bannon) who is a supporter of alternative right-wing nationalism, or the national security Advisor Mike Flynn (Mike Flynn), who took money from the propaganda mouthpiece of Putin’s Russia Today channel, and who was sitting next to Putin at the Banquet on the occasion of the success of this international enterprise?
We can formulate this question more crudely: should we take trump as Putin’s puppet or simply as a hapless crook from Queens, which is horrifically does not meet the requirements of the great stage of history?
Concern about suspicious relations between trump and Putin’s regime could not simply dismiss as paranoia — even if there is incriminating video somersaults trump hotel Moscow with sexual workers, hired by Putin’s secret services. The FBI and intelligence agencies, the United States began to study the transactions carried out by the partners of trump and Putin’s people, long before the receipt of the dossier on the relationship of the tramp with the Kremlin, made by the employee in the resignation of the British foreign intelligence service MI6.
But there are things even more worrisome. Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman (Ronen Bergman), known for its exclusive, sources in Israeli intelligence services, told the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth that during the last meeting between American and Israeli intelligence officers, the Americans asked their Israeli counterparts not to reveal sensitive sources and methods of work of the White house staff and the Council of (national) security. The Israelites were told: there is a danger that people trump may transfer such information to the Russian secret services, and Russian, hoping to make Iran the same dependent on Moscow, which today has become Syria will give Iran’s most closely guarded secret of Israel.
In any case, ignorance trump presents even more serious danger than any secret obligations to the Kremlin.
Ultimately, there are rational grounds for believing that the geopolitical arrogance of bill Clinton and George W. Bush, they have shown in the moment when they, ignoring Russia’s concerns about its vulnerable periphery, and the initial verbal assurances of George Bush and his Secretary of state James Baker, was allowed to carry out the expansion of NATO in the Eastern direction — from Germany to the Western borders of Russia. At the end of the cold war, Russia should be included into the structure of the Eurasian partnerships with NATO allies.
So for the new us President makes sense to find a solution to the question of threat of tension between the nuclear weapon by Russia. However, there is no excuse for neglect to trump NATO and the U.S. allies.
Someone, perhaps Secretary of defense James Mattis (James Mattis), needs to explain to Trump that made the Article 5 of the NATO Treaty — the commitment that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all, is a key element in preserving peace in Europe. Stalin and his successors understood that Article 5 is an absolute obligation; they knew — as soon as the troops of the Warsaw Pact will start moving in the Western direction, there will be no parliamentary debate in Western capitals, there will be no oscillations of the presidents or Prime Ministers; and will be an immediate military retaliation.
It was a secret Western solidarity, as well as the main reason for the fact that Mattis during a hearing on the question of its approval as the Minister was able to say: NATO is probably the most successful military Alliance in history. The success consisted in the fact that the NATO forces had never been applied in Europe.
When trump mindlessly hints that he may abandon the protection of NATO allies do not fulfill the promise of spending 2% of its budget on defense, it undermines the effect of Article 5. If he was sitting on the lap of Putin and automatically repeated the words of the Kremlin godfather, his behavior could be understood. But if we are talking about his own impulses, then this indicates a distorted perception of the world, which is a threat to America, its allies, and for world peace.
