In the weeks and months leading up to the election, Donald Trump expressed an admiration for Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. He declared numerous times that Russia would be a valuable partner in the war against ISIS.
At the same time, as reams of damning information continued to roll in about Hillary Clinton, White House staff, and the DNC- Clinton blamed Russia for crimes committed in the acquisition of that information. She also accused Julian Assange of criminality despite the fact that he’s never been formally charged with a crime.
WikiLeaks offered the most publicly available evidence of Clinton’s willingness to intensify hostilities with Russia despite the very real danger of a nuclear exchange.
This comes on top of decades of bitterness between the US and Russia which has culminated in the UN buildup of a missile barrier along Russia’s western border. Worse, in the days before the election, it seemed that we were on the brink of a nuclear war with Russia.
All of that fear and tension vanished on Wednesday morning after the election when Putin declared his congratulations to Donald Trump. He said, “I have listened to Mr. Trump’s slogans about Russia during his campaign. I am happy that he will be your nation’s next president, and I am looking forward to working with him to build friendly relations with the United States.”
Putin wasn’t the only Russian who was glad that they could now back down from their aggressive posture. Thousands of Russian citizens were seen celebrating in the streets over Trump’s win. In his address, Putin said he looks forward to a new age of respect between the two nations.
As many commentators have noted such language is unprecedented between the two powerful nations. President Obama’s relationship with Putin was one of public respect and private concessions in executive sessions, whereas Hillary Clinton treated the Russian president with disdain both publicly and privately.
On these grounds, it’s easy to see why Vladamir Putin would be grateful for the chance to work with a US president with whom he might share mutual respect.
Trump and Putin spoke via telephone for the first time recently as reported by Trump’s office and the Kremlin. Mr. Trump’s staff released the following quote: “President-elect Trump said to President Putin that he is looking forward very much to having positive, strong and enduring relations with Russia and its people.”
Both the Russian president and Trump have admitted that the path to renewed positive relations between the two nations will be difficult and long. The US and Russia have long held interests which are prone to be in conflict with one another.
However, as the author of the book The Art of the Deal, many experts believe that Donald Trump will have an excellent chance at brokering arrangements that will benefit both nations. What’s more, the common respect that both presidents, by all appearances, have for each other- the road to good relations may not be so long and hard as the experience of history would suggest.
Trump’s office went on to say, “During the call, the two presidents discussed a wide range of issues such as the threats and challenges facing both nations, strategical economic issues and historical US-Russia tensions that date back more than 200 years.”
The two leaders spoke of a plan to work together actively to normalize relations.
While Donald Trump has long claimed to have plans to defeat ISIS and other terrorist organizations, he has refused to discuss the details of those plans. He has been praised by many US military officials on this stance. He, and they say that the current and former administrations have a bad habit of giving away military plans before executing them.
It had also become quite obvious that Hillary Clinton would continue this tradition of revealing military plans to the enemy before executing them, giving enemy forces time to withdraw or to prepare a defense. Trump’s administration will give away no such advantages.
This policy has garnered the respect of the Kremlin which has been fighting ISIS in earnest for over a year now. There is little doubt that a coalition between Russia and the US, earnestly committed to destroying ISIS, would succeed. And as a way of ringing in the new age of positive US-Russian relations, a joint military offensive against that heinous enemy would be a welcome one.
As for the rest of us, we may enjoy the peace of mind that comes with the knowledge that WW3 is not looming over our heads.
~Conservative Zone
