‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 18 June: What the Kremlin Thinks of Trump

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‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 18 June: What the Kremlin Thinks of Trump

Today’s chat opened with the title question, what the Kremlin thinks of Trump.

I am always a bit embarrassed by questions of this nature because, of course, I am not a member of Putin’s inner circle, nor do I have direct access to such people. My reading of the Kremlin views on any given subject comes from my watching the leading talk shows like Vladimir Solovyov’s in which the panelists include chairmen of Duma committees like Defense, as well as experts in Middle Eastern affairs and professors of political science at Moscow State University or MGIMO, the university which trains the diplomatic corps.

Does the Kremlin believe that Trump is rational?  I believe so, and this stands in stark contrast to their reading of Joe Biden and his ‘puppet masters,’ nominal assistants Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken, whom Putin and Kremlin insiders considered to be insane and therefore very dangerous.

Does the Kremlin trust Trump?  I think not. But not because he is a liar or a card cheat.  No, because so much is beyond his control given the very strong opposition his policies face from leading figures in Congress and in the European Union, who are united against him.

Our conversation then moved in many different directions, often building on points I have made in recent essays published here.

One point that I was especially happy to elaborate on was my view that Trump is opportunistic. I qualified this by noting that I, for one, have respect for opportunism, which is a common trait in entrepreneurs, because my own start up the career ladder in the business world in 1975 was made possible precisely by opportunistic entrepreneurial employers. Of course, his opportunism can get Trump into trouble, as for example his latest jumping on the Vanquish Iran bandwagon in the belief, yet to be validated, that the Israelis truly have dealt Teheran severe blows from which their war effort cannot recover.  The fact is that we don’t really know at present who will win this war.

Another point we discussed was how flawed American foreign policy is right now under Trump.  The problem with this is that it all sounds like what I heard years ago from dissidents in Russia about the Putin ‘regime’ and life in their country:  all their complaints may have had some validity but they were unwilling to hear that the corruption and other ills they named were no greater and often less than what goes on in other countries around the world.   My colleagues in the Opposition to American foreign policy do not want to consider the world as it is and whom Trump has to deal with – namely elites whom I call jackals and depraved individuals. This goes for all of the leaders in Europe with a couple of exceptions, Hungary and Slovakia. Not to mention the war mongers who dominate Congress in both parties.  It is a mean world and that has to be taken into account when passing any judgment on Trump.

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Published by gilbertdoctorow

Gilbert Doctorow's latest book, "War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023" is a unique contribution to literature on the war thanks to the author's reports on the Russian home front written during his periodic visits to St Petersburg at a time when Russia no longer issued visas and nearly all Western journalists had left the country. Doctorow's two-volume "Memoirs of a Russianist" published in 2020 also constitutes a category of its own, consisting largely of diary entries rather than reminiscences written decades later.. Volume 2 focuses on the community of 50,000 expatriate managers working and living in Moscow during the 1990s, about which none of his peers has yet to write. Gilbert Doctorow is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1967), a past Fulbright scholar, and holder of a Ph.D. with honors in history from Columbia University (1975). After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For twenty-five years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility. From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a Visiting scholar of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. Mr. Doctorow is a long-time resident of Brussels.

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