Liberal commentators are highly critical of President Donald Trump for what they see as a cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In their fury they're missing the bigger picture: Trump's stance on Russia may augur a return to a consensus between the U.S. and Russia on how to run the world.
At the Yalta and Potsdam conferences in 1945, the leaders of the allied coalition-the U.S., U.K, and Soviet Union-that defeated the Axis powers proclaimed a peacetime grand alliance, intending to use their collective power to guarantee peace and security for all countries.
Alas, this idealistic great power compact collapsed when the grand alliance itself disintegrated shortly after the war, not least because of lack of clarity about the spheres of influence arrangement.
When Trump spoke about American-Russian cooperation during World War II at his press conference with Putin in Helsinki, the American president alluded, perhaps, to the possibility of a grand alliance alternative to the conflicts and tensions of the post-Cold War era.
Under Barack Obama, the so-called reset in U.S.-Russian relations promised a return to collaboration, but such hopes were dashed by Western military intervention in Libya in 2011 and by Russia's unilateral response to the Ukrainian civil war in 2014.
Reagan abandoned his hardline anti-Soviet policies and embraced Gorbachev's glasnost revolution in the U.S.S.R. Trump did not betray America in Helsinki; he opened a dialogue with Putin that could and should lead to fruitful and potentially far-reaching collaboration between the U.S. and Russia.
http://fortune.com/2018/07/19/trump-didnt-betray-america-he-wants-to-restore-the-old-u-s-russia-alliance/
In their fury they're missing the bigger picture: Trump's stance on Russia may augur a return to a consensus between the U.S. and Russia on how to run the world.
At the Yalta and Potsdam conferences in 1945, the leaders of the allied coalition-the U.S., U.K, and Soviet Union-that defeated the Axis powers proclaimed a peacetime grand alliance, intending to use their collective power to guarantee peace and security for all countries.
Alas, this idealistic great power compact collapsed when the grand alliance itself disintegrated shortly after the war, not least because of lack of clarity about the spheres of influence arrangement.
When Trump spoke about American-Russian cooperation during World War II at his press conference with Putin in Helsinki, the American president alluded, perhaps, to the possibility of a grand alliance alternative to the conflicts and tensions of the post-Cold War era.
Under Barack Obama, the so-called reset in U.S.-Russian relations promised a return to collaboration, but such hopes were dashed by Western military intervention in Libya in 2011 and by Russia's unilateral response to the Ukrainian civil war in 2014.
Reagan abandoned his hardline anti-Soviet policies and embraced Gorbachev's glasnost revolution in the U.S.S.R. Trump did not betray America in Helsinki; he opened a dialogue with Putin that could and should lead to fruitful and potentially far-reaching collaboration between the U.S. and Russia.
http://fortune.com/2018/07/19/trump-didnt-betray-america-he-wants-to-restore-the-old-u-s-russia-alliance/
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