Right now there is quite a bit of noise and protestations surrounding Trump's win in the elections. Bill Clinton blamed the Director of FBI and "angry white men" as he put it (yes, that's what he said!), as the two main causes for Hillary's loss in the election. Others are blaming Russians, saying that no doubt the Russians hacked into our computer systems (mainly those of the Democratic Party Headquarters) and caused the elections to be swayed in favor of Trump. There has been a "cyber war" going on for over a decade between countries. We hack into many countries' computer systems and they in turn do the same to us. The biggest offenders in this regard are Chinese, also our biggest trading partners. So this whole business of hacking is no big news! All of those folks who swore to leave for Canada if Trump won the election are still around and haven't shown any indication of moving anywhere, much less to Canada, perhaps they are awaiting for the final results of the electoral count! Whatever the case may be, the plain simple fact is that, good or bad, the elections are over so let's get over it!
Along with protestations about Trump's election, some are also voicing alarm over what they perceive to be Trump's favoring of Russia. His choice for Secretary of State is someone who has had a long, friendly relationship with Russia and Putin in particular. Trump himself has periodically expressed desire to develop better relations with Russia, so perhaps this is the beginning of a new US-Russia relationship? I've already blogged earlier and mentioned that Trump appears to want to establish a different relationship with China and re-establish ties with Taiwan. As I said in that blog, in doing so, he no doubt wants to change the geopolitics in Asia, particularly in the Northeast Asia, what used to be called the Far East.
Our relations with Russia have never been good, not even during World War Two when we were supposedly allies and were fighting common enemies. However, even during that period, when we were "friendly" and sent tons of Spam (no, we weren't hacking their computers, I meant the kind that you eat and is a great favorite in Hawaii!) as well as lend-lease aircrafts and other goodies, the relations between the two countries was not that great. Stalin and many of his politburo members mistrusted the U.S., they remembered that only some 25 years earlier we had sent troops to both Siberia (Vladivostok) and European Russia (Archangel) to fight Bolshevik troops! In Archangel we were allied with British Expeditionary Force, in Vladivostok with the Japanese! However, our attempt to affect the outcome of Russian Civil War failed.
Twenty five years later we were allied with Russia because we were fighting Nazi Germany and, let's face it, we needed them! Of course, they needed us too, but Spam and lend-lease equipment notwithstanding, Russia basically fought Nazi Germany all alone in Europe for a number of years, for a three year period! Stalin kept pressuring Roosevelt and Churchill to open a second front, to relieve the pressure on the Russian army. Churchill wanted to delay opening a second front as long as possible. He wanted to sap the strength of the Russians and in fact, thought of continuing advancing eastward after Germany was defeated! Roosevelt was against it. He thought not only that it was a bad plan, but he did not want to double cross our ally, the Russians. Stalin was well aware of all that was going on. That is one reason why he was so demanding during the division of real estate after the war!
To find the period when we indeed had "good" relations with Russia you would have to go back to the 19th Century and the Tsarist time! But even during that period, our relationship tended to go hot and cold and Teddy Roosevelt didn't endear himself to Russia when he, as the arbiter during the San Francisco Peace Treaty, so generously awarded Japan with all of the territory in the Far East, including Manchuria and Korea, at the end of Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Teddy and the U.S. did this because we did not want Russia to expand its territory in the Far East. Japan, of course, promptly colonized Manchuria and Korea. Of course, we had our colony in Philippines and other interests, like trading concessions in China.
The end of World War Two saw the start of the "Cold War" which lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union. During the 80 odd year period of the existence of the Soviet Union, we were never able to become "friends" with Russia. The closest we came was toward the tail end of the Soviet Union when Gorbachev instituted glastnost and perestroika, trying to normalize relations with other countries. When Soviet Union collapsed we had an opportunity to improve our relationship with Russia, but the country was in such chaos that we kept our hands off, so to speak. During Boris Yeltsin's eight year tenure as the President of the Russian Federation, we could have made some gains, but except for very small advances, nothing much was achieved. Bill Clinton, it appeared, was not very interested in improving relations with Russia, or he simply did not know how to approach Yeltsin. When GW Bush took over, Putin had stepped into the presidency for his first go around. At first Bush and Putin seemed to get along, but like all presidents, Bush was very strongly influenced by his cabinet advisors who for the most part disliked and at that point, had little respect for Russia. This was reflected in Bush's dealings with Russia. At one point Putin extended a friendly hand offering petroleum and other resources when we first went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unfortunately, Bush turned a cold shoulder at the advice of his cabinet. This started the downturn of our relations with Russia and Putin.
Russia in general and Putin in particular, both have a complex when it comes to the U.S. Russians feel that the U.S. thinks of Russia as being inferior to U.S. in all respects. It may very well be that we are superior to Russia in military power, economic wealth, and high technology. But nobody likes to be thought of as second class, and most certainly does not want to be reminded. It seems that some of our leaders are prone to make statements and act in such a way that it does send that signal to Russia. A recent statement by one of our prominent leaders that, "Russia is not our friend," is enough not just to ruin any possibility of friendly dialogue but more than likely made some anti U.S. Russians! We have to keep in mind that some countries or cultures are highly sensitive to language or behavior that they perceive to be offensive or downgrading their status. Our politicians, as a rule, just don't seem to give a damn. Russians are not the only ones that we seem to be constantly offending.
Obama administration has not been very successful at improving relations with Russia. If anything, it has gotten much worse. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that perhaps only Netanyahu of Israel has had worst experience dealing with Obama administration than Putin. So, if by some chance there will be the much needed mending of relations between U.S. and Russia with Trump's approach, it can't be any worst than it is now! We have become the biggest trading partners of our enemy of the 1950s and 60s....PRC. The sky hasn't fallen and we seem to get along despite the fact that they are a communist nation! We have made peace with Vietnam where we fought a bloody war and have left some very bad memories. Recently we made peace with Cuba, another communist country that was our sworn enemy. Surely it wouldn't hurt to try to better our relations with Russia, the only country with a nuclear arsenal that is bigger than ours!
I have no doubt that concessions will be made in the political arena if we are to improve our relations with Russia, "normalize" them! Trump will no doubt be accused of committing treason, or at the very least an egregious act, when trade-offs take place with Russia to improve relations. But unfortunately that is the nature of politics. We dumped Taiwan to improve our relations with PRC and we betrayed our own Cuban-American community in Little Havana when we made up with Castro. There is no free lunch, unfortunately. I just hope whatever deals we strike are not going to be the ones that take us to the cleaners, as it seems to have taken place in the recent past. Whatever the case may be, unless we want to start another "cold war," we need to do something about improving our relations with Russia.
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