The investigative report by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, into collusion between Donald Trump and Russia has concluded there was insufficient evidence to show that the Trump campaign aided Russian efforts to interfere with the presidential elections of 2016.
A cloud may have been lifted from the American President.
But the Mueller inquiry – though its political repercussions still rumble on – has nonetheless performed a valuable service. It exposed a pattern of social media trolling, the backing of political organisations and lobbying by Russia throughout the US elections. Russia’s priority appears to have been the lifting of sanctions and international recognition of the illegal annexation of Crimea.
The inquiry also demonstrated unequivocally Russia’s readiness to interfere in critical votes in democratic societies. Across the western world that is a matter of urgent concern.
President Trump should recognise that the Mueller report is not the end of a process, but rather that it marks the beginning of a new vigilance. American democracy may have seemed like a soft target to Russian intelligence services, but the robustness of the US response – as demonstrated by Mueller’s determination to resist political interference, and the reaction of Congress – has shown otherwise.
Trump has an unswerving belief in his own powers of negotiation. He is convinced he can achieve diplomatic results simply by holding direct talks with foreign leaders. But Trump’s summit last year with Putin showed clearly the limits of his approach. It was widely seen by western allies as an undignified supplication – even to the extent of leading him to denigrate America’s intelligence agencies – to a power that had intervened in the US presidential election and had altered the boundaries of Europe by force in Georgia and illegally annexed Crimea.
Personal relations between leaders are no substitute for understanding the character of the regime an American president is dealing with. Direct talks can be judged only by results. So far Trump’s efforts have been trifling. It is undoubtedly better that he seeks discussion rather than confrontation. But the problem is that the talks he engages in have so far made little tangible difference in taming the bellicose instincts of autocratic regimes, including Russia.
When Trump entered the White House he appeared to be intent on resetting relations with President Putin, if only to use Moscow as a counterweight to the rising challenge of China. But while Trump’s life after “Russia-gate” appears to have become a little easier, it would be rash for him to get too close to Putin.
Russia continues to interfere in elections abroad and attempts to promote its own candidates. It destabilises eastern Ukraine and, as we have seen over Crimea, spreads disinformation across the globe. This is no time to forgive and forget.
But in diplomacy it is never too late to reset relations. There are worrying similarities between both men that might help the process. For different reasons neither is fond of the liberal, rules-based global order. Both can lie without blushing. It is easy to imagine Trump sharing Putin’s approach to diplomacy, too.
Trump mayalso be overestimating Russia’s strength. He mistakes the strut of a bully for the swagger of a superpower
Like the Russian, he seems sure to prefer bilateral deals to messy supranational bodies and is likely to define the US’s national interest in narrowly military and commercial terms. Both men seem willing to link disparate issues and regions in a general barter. Neither is much exercised by human rights. Both regard the humiliation of adversaries as a salutary exercise of power.
Yet as a means of furthering Trump’s avowed goals in the Middle East and Asia, by “buttering up the butcher”, this idea has deep flaws.
The first is the damage it does to the US’s existing alliances and international reputation, which is already bearing the scars from the last two years of his presidency.
The second lies in the realities of great power relations, underpinned by history and geography, that no deal-making can wholly eradicate. The third is that Trump is in danger of making the same classic mistake in dealing with the Kremlin as his two predecessors, George Bush and Barack Obama: wishful thinking.
Beyond Putin’s awkward mix of brutality, cynicism and pragmatism, there is a problem on a bigger scale. The same factors of geography, security and commerce would hinder any bid by Trump to engage Russia as a bulwark against China. American diplomats have rightly worried about Sino-Russian cosiness for decades.
A bid by Trump to realign the powers of China, Russia and the US may be unrealistic. China and Russia are not close allies. Among other reasons for mistrust, the old Russian anxiety over Chinese expansion in Siberia, a fear stoked by the lopsided imbalance in populations on either side of the border, has never gone away.
Putin began a move for closer relations with Asia in the mid-2000s as a response to what he saw as western hostility. When western sanctions over Russia’s incursions into Ukraine in 2014 began to bite, China became a valuable source of financial credit. It has invested in Russian oil and gas firms and, in return, Russia sells it high-tech weapons. Trump may also be overestimating Russia’s strength. He mistakes the strut of a bully for the swagger of a superpower.
The “strength” he admires relies on strategic assets handed down from the Soviet Union’s past – its seat in the Security Council and nuclear weapons – and its huge hydro-carbon reserves, bolstered by Putin’s knack for asymmetric bullying. Unrestrained by allies, he is a master of disinformation and discrediting critics whom he does not dispose of in other ways, such as the use of novitchok.
Putin’s Russia is more of a prickly, meddling power than a global one. Diplomatic isolation and an economy stifled by corruption frustrate any grander ambitions. Russia can seize an opportunity if Trump presents it with one – whatever role Putin played in his winning the American presidency in 2016.
Relief on sanctions is the most obvious item on the Kremlin’s agenda, one that would have the double effect of rescuing Russia’s weakened economy and dividing US allies. Stopping any further expansion of Nato eastwards is another one.
Given that Trump has evinced little interest – apart from the odd hotel deal – in the parts of the world (Eastern Europe, the Balkans) that Putin would like to suborn, there are dangers to the Western Alliance that must be guarded against.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece