U.S. Detente With Russia?
Secretary of State Designate Rex Tillerson, then ExxonMobil CEO, with President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation on April 16, 2012
Wikimedia Commons / premier.gov.ru
The Democratic Party has found a new enemy in Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation. The Russian hacking of Hillary Clinton’s email server along with that of the Democratic Party, which supplied Wikileaks with damaging information about Hillary Clinton and her campaign, provided Democrats with a convenient narrative for why Clinton lost the election. More than that, when coupled with Donald Trump’s many ill-considered approving remarks about Putin, this narrative gives Democrats such as Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) an excuse to declare Trump’s presidency to be illegitimate.
New Democratic Party Hostility Toward Russia
This “twofer”, giving a simultaneous exculpatory explanation for their losses along with a reason to oppose Trump no matter what he does, is entirely too useful for Democrats to give up. I would expect to read and hear about this meme for a very long time to come. Democrats will need this narrative to reduce Trump’s influence among the American people. In its most paranoid rendition, the narrative paints Trump as a willing agent of the Russian government, or at least as Russia’s useful idiot.
This is not to minimize the seriousness of the Russian hacking, which did take place. If the hacking focuses Democrats on the reality of multiple Russian threats, this kerfuffle might bring some real side benefits. For example, they might now be motivated to find better ways to resist cyber attacks from Russia, China, or any other foreign adversary. They might even relearn the necessity for a strong military to deter Russian attacks against NATO nations such as the Baltic Sea states, or against Eastern Europe. However, since this narrative will be pushed to limit if not altogether stop Trump’s influence, it will also add to Washington’s dysfunction. This would appear to be the Democrats’ major motivation.
Already President Obama has imposed sanctions on Russia by executive order, expelling 35 Russian diplomats thought to be Russian intelligence officers. He also imposed economic penalties on “nine entities and individuals,” accused of “tampering with, altering, or causing a misappropriation of information with the purpose or effect of interfering with or undermining election processes or institutions.” These sanctions could pose a political problem for Trump in what he has in mind for Russia.
What Is Trump’s Policy On Russia?
At first sight, Trump’s attitudes about Russia and Vladimir Putin seem contradictory. First, all of the favorable comments Trump made about Putin seem designed to draw Putin into a partnership, especially to fight ISIS. Yet, when those Trump views are compared to the views of his nominees for his national security team, cognitive dissonance takes hold. In his opening testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Designate Rex Tillerson took particular note of the adversarial behavior of Russia and China, as well as the threat posed by ISIS. Confronted by such increased threats, Tillerson stated the U.S. should assert moral, economic, and military leadership to oppose them. Retired Marine Corps General James Mattis testified before the Senate Committee on Armed Services in support of his nomination to be Secretary of Defense, during which he stated that Russia is a principal threat to the United States. Further, he testified
I’m all for engagement, but we also have to recognize reality and what Russia is up to. There are a decreasing number of areas where we can engage cooperatively and an increasing number of areas in which we will have to confront Russia.
Then there was Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KA), Trump’s pick for the Central Intelligence Agency Director. Pompeo also was much more hawkish in his views about Russia than Trump. He listed both Russia and China as “sophisticated adversaries” in cyber warfare. He also noted that Russia has “reasserted itself aggressively, invading and occupying Ukraine, threatening Europe, and doing nothing to aid in the destruction and defeat of ISIS.”
If you are confused about the contradictions between Trump and his security position nominees, you are permitted. What appears to be happening is that Trump is opening a way for Putin without loosing dignity to join the U.S. in an alliance to destroy ISIS. As is often true of Trump looking for a deal, he might view his favorable statements about Putin as an opening gambit in a negotiation with Russia to combine forces for the destruction of ISIS. The Washington Times, reporting on Gen. Mattis’ nomination hearing, noted that
Russia scholar Jacob W. Kipp said that to understand how the Trump administration will ultimately treat Mr. Putin, one has to include a third player — incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The retired three-star Army general cultivated ties with Russia while heading the Defense Intelligence Agency because he sees the major threat as radical Islam, not Russia.
“That he shares with Donald Trump,” Mr. Kipp said. “Both men are looking for a final victory in the war on terrorism but are not ready to push the nation into mobilization for total war that such a ‘victory’ would require. Neither man seems suited for continuing a war of attrition fought on the margins with drones and Special Forces. Both are tempted to see Putin as a natural ally in that war since Russia has been fighting radical Islam in the Caucasus.”
It is in the interests of both countries’ security to form such an alliance. If Russia accepts such a deal and stops pressing so hard against NATO, then this deal-with-the-devil would be much like the alliance between the Soviet Union and the U.S. and Great Britain during World War II. If Russia decides the defanging of NATO is more important to it, nothing has been lost and we can all continue the confrontation between Russia and the West.
How Likely Is An Alliance With Russia?
So how probable is an alliance with Russia against ISIS? Perhaps a lot better than you might think. Russia and Putin would dearly love to neuter NATO in order to recover the lost properties of the Soviet Union: the Baltic Sea States (Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania) and Eastern Europe. However, Putin may be discovering that his ambitions are a lot bigger than the assets he has to accomplish them.
Under the twin scourges of a crony-capitalist, fascist economy and the collapse of the price of oil and other commodities in the international markets, Russia is showing considerable economic distress. In the post Russia’s Weaknesses, I displayed the plot below of Russian per capita GDP and its growth rate.
The year 2000 marked with the label “Putin” is the year that Putin first became President. The purpose of the plot was to show how the Russian economy had stagnated since around 2012, with a negative growth rate beginning with 2014. The data ends with the year 2015, as the data from 2016 is not yet available from the World Bank. Once available it will probably show a worsening situation. To show GDP values comparable with the U.S. dollar, costs in Russia are converted to international dollars using a purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rate. The PPP exchange rate is the number of the country’s currency units units (in this case the Russian ruble) needed to buy the same amounts of goods and services that a single, current U.S. dollar would. Convert the Russian GDP in rubles to current U.S. dollars using the PPP exchange rate, and you get the blue curve above. In the last recorded year of 2015, the PPP GDP was falling at a rate of -4 percent per year.
However, in terms of goods and services Russia can obtain through foreign trade with the outside world, it makes more sense to directly convert the GDP value into current dollars using prevailing market exchange rates. According to data from the World Bank, that exercise produces the plot below.
With these values, the Russian GDP fell from $2.053 trillion in 2014 to $1.331 trillion in 2015 in a single year. That made Russia’s 2015 GDP approximately 7.4 percent of the $18.4 trillion U.S. GDP for 2015. With a falling economy and a GDP that is less than a tenth the size of the U.S. GDP, postponing his invasion of the Baltic Sea states and of Eastern Europe might well be Putin’s most obvious rational choice. Add that consideration together with the transfer of power from a weak U.S. president to one more robust in his answers to attacks, and the impulse to form an alliance of convenience might well become irresistible. The elimination of ISIS would be a much more rewarding outcome than risking possible nuclear war with the U.S.
It is ironic that the greatest threat to such an alliance comes from a Democratic Party newly hostile to Russia.
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