President Trump (belatedly) congratulated Russian President Putin on his smashing reelection and said, again, that he favored getting along with Russia. Yet, how can Trump mean it when he follows up by appointing John Bolton, America’s most notorious warmonger, National Security Adviser? It makes no sense.
Bolton is the third national security adviser in 14 months. To Bolton, getting along with Russia requires Russia to be a US puppet state such as the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Japan, and all the rest. In other words, accept Washington’s hegemony or we will bomb you into the stone age.
Russia, desperate for a sign of hope, risks self-delusion by seizing on Trump’s gesture and ignoring Bolton’s appointment. No US president who wanted to get along with Russia would have appointed Bolton to be his national security adviser.
The constant drum beat of false allegations against Russia and the demonization of Putin, which has reached down into the British school system where children are being taught that “‘Toxic’ Putin is on mission to poison the West,” indicate that conflict with Russia was on the agenda prior to Bolton’s appointment.
Now that Putin has announced Russia’s new weapon systems, an array that clearly puts the US in an inferior position, hegemonic voices are rising that the US must strike Russia before the new super-weapons are all deployed.
Russia would do well to avoid being put off guard by her unrealistic hope for peace and friendly words from Trump’s mouth.
Copyright © 2018 Paul Craig Roberts
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.
The conflict within and between people is reflected in the inner conflict within states and the outer conflict between states. The layered contradictions allow for
contradictory actions to be seen as an outward expression of a complex dynamic relationship between two levels of one process. Either war or peace could be the resolution it is not determined which yet I suppose.