Key topics:
- Trump’s admiration for dictators shapes his foreign policy approach.
- The U.S. electorate rejects global overreach and progressive policies.
- A new world order emerges with Trump, Putin, and Xi at the helm.
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By Irina Filatova ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
While the stunned world watches in amazement the new romance between Donald Trump’s administration and Russia, developing at a dizzying speed, one question hangs in the air: why? Why is it that the American values and principles of its foreign policy have gone out of the window in the course of a fortnight? Why are Americans seemingly ready to sacrifice their world-wide security networks and their traditional alliances based on the decades-long work of their ancestors? Why do they come to the rescue of Putin’s regime just at a time when, despite all its survival skills, it is leading his country into economic and political quagmire? Why are they throwing under the bus Ukraine, an aspiring democracy and potentially an important European ally which has for three years valiantly defended its independence and the right to choose its friends?
Commentators come up with several explanations, mostly based on Trump’s personality and his views. Trump clearly prefers dictators to democrats. Already during his first term he proclaimed his love for Kim Jong Un, his admiration for Putin and his deep respect for Xi Jinping. Trump had not expressed similar feelings for any leader of a democratic country. Trump admires masculinity, and Putin’s propaganda always portrayed him as a strong man, riding a horse, showing off his naked muscular torso, flying a helicopter, or, in his 70s, entering icy water in winter. Trump likes flattery and Putin, as a former KGB officer, is seen a master of reading people’s character and using it to his advantage. And, of course, there is a lingering suspicion that Putin has some “kompromat” on Trump from the time of his first visits to Moscow in 1987 and 1986, or even that he is Putin’s “asset” on a payroll from KGB/FSB.
Whichever of these suppositions may or may not be true, does not really matter. What matters is the fact that, knowing perfectly well what Trump is and what he stands for, the Americans still elected him for a second term. What it tells us about the feelings of the American electorate is that it is desperately tired of DEI (diversity, equity, inclusivity) policies, wokeness, over-liberalised gender transition policies, male (particularly white male) bashing, unlimited immigration, over-blown state bureaucracy and overregulation of business, all of which, they think, were imposed on them by the Democrats. What matters most for the rest of us, living elsewhere in the world, is that Americans are also dead tired of their country’s international over-reach. Indeed, does an average South African of whatever complexion care about the oppression of the Uyghurs in China, or the state of democracy in Myanmar, or even for Sudan’s starving population? Does he or she care about the security of Estonia or Poland? S/he does not. And nor does an average American citizen.
For many decades the Americans paid for the promotion, defence and spread throughout the world of their mode of governance, institutionalised liberal democracy, which they considered the best not only for themselves, but for other nations too, and for global peace, security and prosperity. The Pax Americana, created after the Second World War – its international institutions, system of alliances, security guarantees, humanitarian outfits, charities, grants, etc., – these things all worked. But after the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, the United States became the world’s only superpower, and this turned out to be an unenviable position. America’s allies felt that they did not need that much security and protection any longer, since the world was now one global market with everybody being “partners”, not enemies. And the rest of the world decided that American rules and institutions did not suit it, particularly as it was now easier to see that the United States itself did not always practice what it preached. The demands to dismantle the Pax Americana in favour of a “multi-polar world” turned into a loud choir, and denouncing America’s hegemony became a global fashion, spreading even to some circles of American society itself. So, why would the Americans want to pay other countries for this abuse? They decided to vote for Trump to stop it.
But judging by Trump’s pronouncements and his actions in his first month in power, it is now clearer what exactly they voted for. Trump’s world is intolerant of immigrants and does not care much about human rights, particularly of those of non–Americans. Judging by the idea of evicting Gazans in order to build a “riviera” on their territory, it does not much care about human life generally. Elon Musk’s “revolutionary” capture of the federal administration shows that Trump’s administration does not particularly care about the rule of law, even the law and constitution of its own country. Already during his first term Trump tried to hollow out American institutions, and he is continuing this job now more energetically and efficiently. He prefers to rule by decree, and once he has already called himself the “tzar”. A few days ago, the Washington Post reported Trump’s having publicly mooted the idea of standing for a third term. This was met with a storm of applause. Anybody familiar with Putin’s Russia would certainly see similarities between Trump’s aspirations and the already implemented policies of his Russian counterpart.
More surprising are similarities between Trump’s and Putin’s visions of the world and the role of their countries in it. Putin’s dream is to create the “Russian world from Vladivostok to Dublin”, not necessarily by occupying all the space in between, but by creating a chain of weak, pliant, and dependent states. Trump seems to be ready to give him an opportunity to realise this dream. He claims his own, American, world, from Canada to Panama, including friendly Argentina and even Greenland. His disdain for his European allies and NATO shows that he is not interested in Europe, apart from the juiciest parts of it, like Greenland or Ukrainian rare earths. His pronouncements on Taiwan suggest that he might be willing to withdraw America’s support for it, thus ceding it to China. In the whole of the Indo–Pacific, Trump expressed an interest only in the Diego Garcia naval base.
The picture which emerges from this is that of a new Yalta, a division of the world between the three “strong” leaders: Putin, Xi Jinping, and, of course, Trump himself. The undivided bits like Africa or the Arab world will be left for whoever can grab what. Of course, if he really goes ahead with this scenario, Trump, indeed, does not need Europe or NATO, and, even less so Ukraine. And certainly, the idea of defending friendly democracies does not come into this plan either. It is early days, and none of this may yet come to fruition. But this narrative itself is extremely attractive to Putin and is close to his thinking. This is exactly what he wants to hear. And even if Trump did not say it in exactly these words, Putin can read his actions and signals perfectly well. He is a past-master in this skill. Trump calling Vladimir Zelensky an illegitimate dictator, accusing him of starting the war, and saying that he failed on every front are all just cherries on top of the cake.
The Russian media, both the official channels and “patriotic” social networks, exult at this sudden 180 degrees turn of the policy of Russia’s officially proclaimed main adversary. Putin began his invasion of Ukraine by sending ultimatums to the USA and NATO. He demanded the withdrawal of NATO troops from East European countries. These demands were rejected then. But suddenly now, when Russia is much weaker when it was on the eve of the war, the enemy is capitulating. The anchors of the main Russian TV channel opened champaigne, right in front of the cameras, chanting “Trump is ours!”
Many Russian media outlets are now digging into the 2017 political forecasts of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the late leader of Russia’s Liberal–Democratic Party, a trustworthy ally of Putin’s United Russia party. Trump had just come to power, and it was not yet clear what he was going to do. But Zhirinovsky, my former fellow student at Moscow State University’s Institute of Asian and African countries, made bold predictions. There will be, he said, Russia’s war with Ukraine. Trump would come to Moscow to sign an agreement with Putin at the expense of Europe. NATO would collapse in less than a decade, and the European Union, even sooner. Europe would be impoverished, weak and defenceless. All this seemed completely mad at the time but, despite his brash manner, Zhirinovsky was a clever and seasoned politician. He obviously watched Trump long enough to have come up with such confident and prescient projections.
Many parties, from European and NATO leaders to American-funded NGOs throughout the world are watching Trump’s moves with horror as are thousands of Russians who fled the war and managed to get to the USA in order to apply for asylum. Russian opposition leaders in exile, who support traditional American values and fight for a liberal democracy in their own country do not even try to conceal their disappointment in the country which they considered the embodiment of their dream, and which always supported their struggle.
However, the parties which should feel even more disappointed are the ANC and its splinters, the MKP and EFF, as well as many South African America haters. For many decades ANC cadres were brought up to see the United States as the major, indeed the main evil in the world. The struggle against apartheid was seen as part of the global anti-imperialist struggle, and first of all, against the US as leader of the imperialist world. This remains the core element of the NDR.
The USSR and then Russia, on the other hand, were seen as the leading force in the struggle against imperialism. Even now, when Russia has long dropped socialism, the ANC and its ideological allies see it as a progressive force on account of its struggle against American hegemony and for the benefit of all humanity in the wonderland of a multi-polar world. South Africa’s refusal to denounce Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is based much less on the gratitude for the past assistance in the anti-apartheid struggle than on its wish to be, yet again, “on the right side of history”. Where that “right side” is the ANC ascertains by looking at where Russia and China are. Whichever side the Americans support, Ukraine in this case, must certainly be the wrong side.
But suddenly the wicked Americans support Russia, and not Ukraine. ANC politicians must be scratching their heads: their main enemy, the imperialist evil, has suddenly disappeared, either defeated, or, possibly, having seen the light of the truth. So, who is the leader of the mighty imperialist world? Maybe Ukraine? It is too weak. Even Britain is too weak now. Then probably the whole of the European Union and NATO, while it still exists. But what happens if pro–Russian “progressives” (in the ANC’s books) come to power in several European countries too? The ANC will not fall in love with Trump, despite the fact that he has fallen in love with Putin, or rather because of it: he has stolen their main, cherished enemy. It is not by chance that none of the South African “progressive forces” have said a word about this U–turn in American policy. They have not yet received any signals of how to react to this new situation either from Russia, or from China.
But they should still be grateful to the new American president. Like the ANC, and like Russia, Trump wants a multi–polar world too. And he has even demonstrated already how this new world is going to work. No free money for good causes. No privileged treatment for the poor and disadvantaged. No assistance to anybody who does not show their loyalty to Trump. No security, because for Trump, “might is right”. And neither Russia, nor China will send their troops to defend South Africa, if the Americans, for example, decided to grab its resources. If you are weak, as South Africa is in this new multipolar world, it can expect to be robbed and humiliated, as American pressure on Ukraine to give away its rare earths to the USA clearly shows. The ANC may welcome this new multi-polar world which it has fought for but it should remember the adage: be careful that you don’t get what you wish for.
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