News that a meeting has been arranged between Presidents Trump and Putin on
16 July was greeted with displeasure in many sectors of the western world, and
especially by the military-industrial complex, the cabal of war-profiteering US
and European oligarchs whose interests lie solely in maintaining their
lucrative arms manufacturing empires. Trade is most important to them — but
peace and friendship come way down their page of priorities, because it is
enmity and distrust that lead to lucrative sales of weapons.
UK newspapers reacted predictably to the news, with the right wing Daily
Mail stating “Fears are
mounting that Donald Trump wants a ‘peace deal’ with Vladimir Putin that could
fatally undermine NATO. Ministers are becoming increasingly alarmed that the US
president could offer the Russian president deep concessions such as
withdrawing forces from Europe.”
The Times of London recorded that “One
[UK government] minister told the Times: ‘What we're nervous of is some kind of
Putin-Trump 'peace deal' suddenly being announced. We could see Trump and Putin
saying, Why do we have all this military hardware in Europe? and agreeing to
jointly remove that. 'It's hard to be against peace, but would it be real
peace?’”
Yes, it would be real peace, because what Russia wants is amicable
relations and trade. Trade with the US and the EU and China and every country
that wants to trade — including, most importantly, the Baltic States that have
been encouraged by the Pentagon-Brussels NATO High Command to imagine that
Russia is poised to invade them.
The US defence secretary, General James Mattis, told Estonia’s
minister of defence that “Russia is trying to change international borders by
force” and at meetings in May with Lithuania’s president and Baltic defence
ministers “reassured US allies in
the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia of American solidarity with
them and of US determination to defend Baltic and other NATO territory against
any aggression.”
Of all the absurd concoctions swinging round the Western propaganda world
at the moment, the notion that Russia wants to invade Estonia, Latvia or
Lithuania is probably the least believable and most laughable. The Russian
government fully realises that such action would inevitably result in wider
conflict; and that there could be escalation to a shattering nuclear war. Even
if it didn’t result in global catastrophe, the occupation of any one of these
countries by Russian forces would be cripplingly costly in every way and simply
doesn’t make sense.
In the context of the impending US-Russia presidential talks, not a single
Western media outlet mentioned that, as detailed in the 2018 World Report of
the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), “In 2017 the USA
spent more on its military [$610 billion] than the next seven highest-spending
countries combined... at $66.3 billion, Russia’s military spending in 2017 was
20 per cent lower than in 2016.”
It would be awkward and indeed embarrassing for the Western media to give
prominence to SIPRI’s indisputable statement that
in 2016 “NATO’s collective military expenditure rose to $881 billion” while
“European NATO members spent $254 billion in 2016 — over 3 times more than
Russia.”
Russia is reducing its expenditure on defence while the US-NATO military
alliance, as noted by Radio Free Europe,
agreed on 7 June to “reinforce NATO’s presence in a potential European crisis
with the deployment of 30 troop battalions, 30 squadrons of aircraft, and 30
warships within 30 days — the so-called ‘Four 30s’ plan.” This, said the
Secretary General of the US-NATO military alliance, Jens Stoltenberg,
presumably with a straight face, is not “about setting up or deploying new
forces — it is about boosting the readiness of existing forces across each and
every ally.”
Then the BBC reported that Stoltenberg had put the
best face he could on the unwelcome news of reduced tension and possible
friendship. He said that “dialogue is a sign of strength... We don’t want a new
Cold War, we don’t want to isolate Russia, we want to strive for a better
relationship with Russia.” This is the man who declared in March 2018 that the US-NATO
military grouping is increasing its numbers of confrontational deployments. He
is proud of the fact that at the end of 2017 there were more than 23,000 troops
involved in NATO operations, an increase of over 5,000 since 2014. This is a
most peculiar way of striving for a “better relationship” with Russia, whose
borders and shores are constantly menaced by NATO’s attack and electronic
warfare aircraft, missile-equipped ships and tank-heavy troop manoeuvres.
In June, immediately before the start of the World Cup football tournament
in Russia the US-NATO alliance (plus Israel) conducted a two-week military
exercise in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. 18,000 troops
took part in the manoeuvres which, according to the Pentagon’s HQ in
Europe, were “not a provocation of Russia.” At the very time that
citizens of countless countries were preparing to travel to Russia to enjoy a
major sporting jamboree, the Pentagon-Brussels pressure group did its best to
confront the country whose defence budget is one third of Europe’s and a tenth
of America’s and whose President declared that his overwhelming
priority is reduction of poverty and “the well-being
of the people and the prosperity of Russian families.”
It is deeply ironical that while the US-NATO military fandangos were in
full swing in the Baltic States, it was reported that “Russia
on Wednesday [6 June] successfully launched its Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft carrying
three crew members to the International Space Station (ISS)...” The spacecraft
carried three astronauts : Serena Aunon-Chancellor of the US, Germany’s
Alexander Gerst and Russia’s Sergei Prokopyev,
The spacecraft zoomed away in international harmony two days before US
Senator Ben Sasse grouched that “Putin
is not our friend and he is not the president’s buddy. He is a thug using
Soviet-style aggression to wage a shadow war against America, and our leaders
should act like it.” With that sort of attitude, widespread in the Congress,
it’s going to be difficult to realise Trump’s desire to “get
along with Russia” which he observes would be “good for the world, it’s good
for us, it’s good for everybody.”
Trump is the most erratic president the US has ever known. He ricochets
from malevolent tweeting to spiteful speeches, and is now distrusted by almost
every foreign leader of stature. It is difficult to disagree with the opinion of Iran’s
foreign minister that he is “impulsive and illogical” but —
and it is a very big ‘but’ — at the moment he presents the best chance for
rapprochement and amity with Russia. The fact that Washington’s warmongers so
violently oppose his forthcoming talks with President Putin is evidence enough
that he is on the right track. Let’s hope that President Putin can keep him on
the rails that lead to peace, trade and friendship.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/07/02/trump-putin-peace-trade-and-friendship-talks.html
