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Trump in Russia media

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Watu3

I.T.S. Senior
Nov 17, 2017
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Vladimir's Christmas stocking is over flowing. Trump is accomplishing all that Putin can't do himself. Undermine NATO, sow divisiveness and discord in America, undermine trust in elections, hang South Korea and Japan out to dry, hand over the Turkey and Syria to Russian sphere of influence, etc.

All this plays well in Russian media.
 
Trump is so wonderful on foreign policy. Of course he gets away with it seeing as how foreign policy is unimportant to the masses if the economy is good.
 
lawpoke87 said:
We're linking the Daily Beast now for impartial news sources I see.
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It is on sale now for the holiday's. Hmm, I have been thinking about getting a bird, it would be good for lining the cage.
 
TUMe said:
It is on sale now for the holiday's. Hmm, I have been thinking about getting a bird, it would be good for lining the cage.
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Throw in the Huffington post, and give your bird something to read for amusement.
 
Ironic that the old WATU would throw a hissy fit if anyone link a news article from a conservative source.
 
lawpoke87 said:
Ironic that the old WATU would throw a hissy fit if anyone link a news article from a conservative source.
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Interesting that Watu 1,2,3,4 never comments honestly(or dishonestly for that matter) about whether he is the same poster, I put in 4 for the next Watu. When will the tyke begin posting? When he hits puberty?
 
Watu3 said:
Is the reporting inaccurate? Has Trump done the items listed? Does shooting the messenger make it ok for Trump supporters? The answers evidently are no, yes, and yes.

BTW widely reported elsewhere. For example: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-agent-White-House-meeting-Sergey-Lavrov.html

NBC says Trump as agent on RTV is a "joke". Yep, on us.
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It's an opinion piece not a news story from a left wing source. How can you bitch about posters linking articles from conservative sources and then post links from places like the Daily Beast? Have you no shame?
 
NBC is not liberal enough for the Chinese ambassador to Crossfire.
 
Watu3 said:
Vladimir's Christmas stocking is over flowing. Trump is accomplishing all that Putin can't do himself. Undermine NATO, sow divisiveness and discord in America, undermine trust in elections, hang South Korea and Japan out to dry, hand over the Turkey and Syria to Russian sphere of influence, etc.

All this plays well in Russian media.
Click to expand...

How, exactly, do you think Trump is undermining NATO? Because I've been involved in NATO operations and everything he's accused the alliance of is fairly accurate.
 
TU Pilot said:
How, exactly, do you think Trump is undermining NATO? Because I've been involved in NATO operations and everything he's accused the alliance of is fairly accurate.
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What are these Trump accusations that you have encountered in your work?
 
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Sorry the first time I saw the response out just had my quote with no response.

Uh, the fact that NATO is a bureaucratic mess that can't actually do anything because each country develops it's own ROEs; ones that basically prevent them from doing anything in combat. So they deploy to "help" and then won't actually leave the base or fire their weapons, even when US/Afghan troops are under fire and need air support/QRF.

Then there's the fact that damn near non of them meet the 2% GDP spending they agreed to when they entered the alliance. NATO has become the US protects Europe from Russian aggression so the Europeans don't have to actually invest in their own defense. They are essentially protectorates since even the countries with somewhat capable militaries refuse to use them. Which is fine. But that's not an alliance. We spend our blood and treasure and get nothing in return. They either need to meet their obligations or we need to stop protecting them.
 
Can’t argue with your experience, but Trump has publicly focused on the 2% issue and not the other issues you mention in a fashion that appears designed to reduce not build trust in NATO.

NATO was originally created as a bulwark against the USSR. With the demise of the USSR, nations reduced defense spending but are increasing it now. Give Trump some credit for that, although the advent of Putin and decreasing trust in the US likely influences that.

Stretching NATO to cover threats beyond Russia introduces differences in views and policies which I suspect lead to differences in support and ROE in the Africa or Middle East. Reciprocally Trump didn’t bother to check with NATO, or anyone else, before turning Syria and the Kurds over to Turkey and Russia.

Trump has gone of his way to antagonize the heads of state of other NATO nations and to demonstrate his unreliability as a partner in multinational agreements which weakens trust in NATO. As for NATO’s primary mission of countering Russia, Europeans have read the tea leaves and tweets. Polls show Europeans do not trust Trump and are beginning prefer to hedge their bets by increasing their dependence on Russia. The Russian gas line is an example. All of this expands Putin’s power and influence and improves his economics at US expense.
 
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Watu3 said:
Can’t argue with your experience, but Trump has publicly focused on the 2% issue and not the other issues you mention in a fashion that appears designed to reduce not build trust in NATO.

NATO was originally created as a bulwark against the USSR. With the demise of the USSR, nations reduced defense spending but are increasing it now. Give Trump some credit for that, although the advent of Putin and decreasing trust in the US likely influences that.

Stretching NATO to cover threats beyond Russia introduces differences in views and policies which I suspect lead to differences in support and ROE in the Africa or Middle East. Reciprocally Trump didn’t bother to check with NATO, or anyone else, before turning Syria and the Kurds over to Turkey and Russia.

Trump has gone of his way to antagonize the heads of state of other NATO nations and to demonstrate his unreliability as a partner in multinational agreements which weakens trust in NATO. As for NATO’s primary mission of countering Russia, Europeans have read the tea leaves and tweets. Polls show Europeans do not trust Trump and are beginning prefer to hedge their bets by increasing their dependence on Russia. The Russian gas line is an example. All of this expands Putin’s power and influence and improves his economics at US expense.
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There's what Trump says on Twitter and there's what the Trump adminstration does. Very very different things. I'm not saying what Trump is doing with NATO is perfect, but it's a step in the right direction, and frankly, it's just the beginning of US policy for every president after him for the next 50 years. The NATO alliance was mutually beneficial in countering the USSR... It's not anymore. It costs the US and benefits the Europeans. We don't need them but they need us. I'd the Europeans want to fall under Russian sphere of influence, let them. It's not our job to provide their security.
 
TU Pilot said:
There's what Trump says on Twitter and there's what the Trump adminstration does. Very very different things. I'm not saying what Trump is doing with NATO is perfect, but it's a step in the right direction, and frankly, it's just the beginning of US policy for every president after him for the next 50 years. The NATO alliance was mutually beneficial in countering the USSR... It's not anymore. It costs the US and benefits the Europeans. We don't need them but they need us. I'd the Europeans want to fall under Russian sphere of influence, let them. It's not our job to provide their security.
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Let's see how that turns out when more of them actually do fall under the influence of Russia. It's a dangerous game to play.
 
astonmartin708 said:
Let's see how that turns out when more of them actually do fall under the influence of Russia. It's a dangerous game to play.
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That's the same argument I heard both times I was burning holes in the sky in Syria... "Well if we're not here the Russians would gain influence in the region!" 1) They already have influence there since it's way closer to their territory and 2) who cares?

I'm not saying the Russians are good. I'm not saying we shouldn't oppose them. But US foreign policy is supposed to be the DIME model... It's been just the "M" since the end of the cold war. We just put the military whenever we want to exert influence as a deterrent (or worse, active combatants). But we rarely utilize those other methods (which I would argue are way more effective considering we're one of the least integrated economies on the planet as % of GDP). Its easy to do that when less than a percentage of the population are the ones getting sent overseas constantly to protect other countries that don't try to protect themselves.
 
TU Pilot said:
That's the same argument I heard both times I was burning holes in the sky in Syria... "Well if we're not here the Russians would gain influence in the region!" 1) They already have influence there since it's way closer to their territory and 2) who cares?

I'm not saying the Russians are good. I'm not saying we shouldn't oppose them. But US foreign policy is supposed to be the DIME model... It's been just the "M" since the end of the cold war. We just put the military whenever we want to exert influence as a deterrent (or worse, active combatants). But we rarely utilize those other methods (which I would argue are way more effective considering we're one of the least integrated economies on the planet as % of GDP). Its easy to do that when less than a percentage of the population are the ones getting sent overseas constantly to protect other countries that don't try to protect themselves.
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I see both sides, but I think Trump is buddying up to Russia far too much. They're puppeting him hardcore. The rest of NATO obviously needs to do more, but I would be more comfortable pushing them to do that when our president wasn't literally taking everything Putin was telling him as the truth.

The combination of our relationship with Russia, Russia's expansionism in Ukraine and Syria, our complex relationship with Ukraine (made more complex by Trump's corruption), Our deteriorating relationship with Europe, and the fact that Europe is already up in the air economically due to Brexit makes me very skeptical that this is the appropriate time to push this issue. Maybe after we know how Brexit fully shakes out and after the Ukraine scandal has been completely resolved.
 
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TU Pilot said:
I'm not saying what Trump is doing with NATO is perfect, but it's a step in the right direction, and frankly, it's just the beginning of US policy for every president after him for the next 50 years. The NATO alliance was mutually beneficial in countering the USSR... It's not anymore. It costs the US and benefits the Europeans. We don't need them but they need us. I'd the Europeans want to fall under Russian sphere of influence, let them. It's not our job to provide their security.
Click to expand...

OK alliances usually do have a limited life, so perhaps NATO is declining in importance. I still recall ANZUS and SEATO. Because of ANZUS we ate a lot of tough NZ lamb in VN in 68-70. While we may complain about the costs of NATO, it has given the US unrivaled influence in Europe that has paid off handsomely both economically and in support for US policies that not all of Europe backed. Hard to agree that we don't need Europe especially when we have been working so hard to undermine our relationship in our own hemisphere and Asia. The world is getting smaller and more interconnected, not less.
 
Watu3 said:
OK alliances usually do have a limited life, so perhaps NATO is declining in importance. I still recall ANZUS and SEATO. Because of ANZUS we ate a lot of tough NZ lamb in VN in 68-70. While we may complain about the costs of NATO, it has given the US unrivaled influence in Europe that has paid off handsomely both economically and in support for US policies that not all of Europe backed. Hard to agree that we don't need Europe especially when we have been working so hard to undermine our relationship in our own hemisphere and Asia. The world is getting smaller and more interconnected, not less.
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My point is, we got something out of NATO when the Soviet Union was a thing and our allies were still committed to defending themselves. NATO has become a self licking icecream cone (it's a bureacratic mess that exists to justify it's own existence). We get nothing out of it anymore, other than spending blood and treasure depending countries that aren't interested in defending themselves. If they actually commit to their own defense and actually need help, then by all means help them.
 
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