Putin Trump Make America Grovel Again

The Helsinki meridian is over, and we are all left struggling to find the words to capture the nightmare that in the infinite of less than 24 hours destroyed years of American diplomacy, sacrifice and leadership.

So peradventure nosotros should just acknowledge what our own eyes cannot deny: We have now witnessed the very worst humiliation of a president of the United States ever, and one of the lowest points in the history of the American presidency.

The top was completely in Russian President Vladimir Putin's command, and it showed. That was to be expected from an incompetent leader believing he could waltz unprepared into a news media outcome with a professional person intelligence officer. A summit without an agenda is a bad thought from the outset, but President Donald Trump conspicuously wanted to replicate the artificial media high of his trip to Singapore to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — some other disgraceful episode in itself — and garner high ratings and hollow adulation from his usual fans and military camp-followers.

But Kim is a immature and relatively inexperienced creature, whose personal stature and weird mien do not play all that well on television receiver. And all Kim needed to do was share a stage with an American president to attain his mission. Kim is crude and unsafe, but he is an apprentice.­­­

Putin was careful and icily competent

Putin, however, is no amateur. He performed brilliantly, turning every issue dorsum to the Americans, and Trump took it all. Ukraine? The Americans should talk to their Ukrainian friends, not us. Espionage? Pish-posh. Nosotros're not that kind of land, merely if you'd like u.s. to await into information technology, manus over Putin opponent Bill Browder. Syria? Of course, we'd honey to remain involved there under the guise of humanitarian aid, thanks for the invitation. Putin did what ane would wait him to do, and his behavior was icily competent and carefully executed.

Trump, who understands none of these problems, stood there waiting for his few openings to plead his usual litany of insecurity and victimhood. Things have never been worse, Trump said, although Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, who weathered the Berlin Blockade, the Cuban missile crunch, and the 1983 war scare, would probably disagree. It's doubtful Trump knows well-nigh any of those things, every bit they happened long ago and did not directly involve him personally, and therefore are not important.

Had the elevation ended before the 2 leaders took any questions, information technology would have been a U.S. defeat, largely because it gave Putin a run a risk to abnegate all charges against his regime and to stand — similar Kim — on a stage with the putative leader of the Free Globe after directing multiple attacks on the U.S. and its allies.

One time the questions began, Trump'southward beliefs was non only shameful, only bizarre and seriously worrisome. The president of the United states of america non only sided with the Russian president, but he did so against the American intelligence community, the American law enforcement community, and the American system of justice.

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Why is Trump so enthralled by Putin? What does the Russian president have on him?

Given an opportunity to hold Russia accountable for anything — anything at all — the president instantly equivocated, blaming both countries. He babbled, literally, about servers. He attacked Democrats. He rambled about the Electoral College. He revealed, over again, his obsession with Hillary Clinton, and noted that in Russia, no one would have lost her emails.

Putin, meanwhile, was serene, too he should have been. He chuckled warmly as he instructed us all in the nature of intelligence tradecraft. "Do yous think that we effort to collect compromising fabric (on all high-ranking American businessmen)?" Of course the Russians do this. The only person in the world who doesn't seem to understand this is Trump. Instead, responding to whether Putin had "compromising fabric" on him, he ran to Putin's defense force — and his own: If they had it, "it would have been out long ago." That'south non only a stupid dare, just a statement that could come back to haunt Trump.

By the end of this circus, Trump was practically mewling, begging for Putin's approving, saying that Putin's denials were "extremely strong and powerful," almost in a kind of strangely erotic tone of admiration.

The very last thing the president of the United states did at a summit with the Russian president was to attack an FBI agent. His last words, just before "thank y'all," were "witch chase." Putin could not take scripted it amend.

Trump stability, US safety in question

Every single person involved in this fiasco — national security adviser John Bolton chief among them — should be given no balance from questions about why this happened, what they intend to do now, and whether they think they can still serve the president now that he has unveiled a new policy of no-limits appeasement.

Meanwhile, Trump'south performance will raise concerns not only most the president'south personal stability, but about the hereafter and rubber of the U.s.a. and its allies that will concluding long beyond this moment. Trump thinks he solved everything in 4 hours, simply we are all now in more danger than we were a twenty-four hours ago.

The Russians, at this moment, continue to attack us and they will attempt to interfere in the 2018 elections. Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, has told the states point-blank that all of the warning lights of an impending attack of some kind are flashing red, which is not linguistic communication that the DNI — and a Trump ally — would utilise lightly. If Putin at present thinks he can human action against the U.S. and NATO with impunity, equally he surely must, and then we are headed for one of the virtually dangerous periods since the finish of the Common cold War.

But the president, the commander in chief of our war machine, the homo whose adjuration requires him to defend united states of america, has taken sides. He has taken Putin'southward side. We are in meaning peril, and information technology will non abate shortly.

Tom Nichols, a professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College and an instructor at the Harvard Extension School, is the writer of "The Death of Expertise." The views expressed here are solely his own. Follow him on Twitter: @RadioFreeTom.

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Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/07/16/donald-trump-sides-vladimir-putin-most-danger-since-cold-war-column/786850002/

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