Trump Slams Allies in favor of Putin (again)...

[GMDino]

(07-10-2018, 11:24 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: No, it makes him limited.  Obama had major weaknesses in the other direction.  Putin knew Obama was severely risk averse.  This enabled him to annex territory for the first time sine WW2.  Obama did absolutely **** all about this and Putin knew he would.  Obama was good with the "free world" and weak as hell with the autocrats.  Time will tell on Trump.


Understandable.  I lived in Europe from 84-86, so I know the level of fear and apprehension caused by Russia.  I can understand a difference of opinion, but Russia has much more cause for conflict with China than the west.  If we can make them see that then we will all benefit.  All of us but China that is.


I wish I could remember the source, but a US foreign policy expert stated that Putin had played a weak hand masterfully.  He will use any means to tweek his perceived opponents.  So, make him realize we are not his natural opponents.  He'd hardly be the most odious regime the west has had to deal with.  He's certainly less of a long term threat than China.  

You can accuse Obama of being "weak" but he did do ****.  A lot of people (mostly on the right) thought he should have done more...but a lot of them wanted a nice new cold war to bump up defense spending too I assume.

https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/02/trump-obama-russia-crimea/516777/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/26/obama-no-cold-war-crimea
https://www.npr.org/2014/03/24/293754227/has-obama-done-enough-in-response-to-russias-takeover-of-crimea

In fact Obama did put sanctions on Russia without the reservations of the current POTUS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEYNAEuLgXM


All that revisionist history aside if Obama was "weak" what the heck is Trump with his "limited" (your word) style?  He's going to be easily outsmarted by anyone let alone Putin and Trump lives off flattery.  A couple nice words and he'll come back and say that Russia had nothing to do with election interference, we should remove all sanctions and let them back in the G8 and that "the annexed land is really doing wonderful, really great....many people say."  

To defend Trump's follies by implying the smarter guy who did do something (although an argument about whether it was enough has happened) was "weak" is silly.  

Personally I call being "risk averse" being thoughtful and trying to find the best way to handle things without just jumping in (probably via twitter) without any consultation.

That is part of why some are concerned that Trump is meeting Putin with no note takers before their other meeting.  The story yesterday is that they fear he will make promises ("the best deals") like he did with Kim before he can consult with anyone.  He thinks he owns the company instead or knowing he's just running it for us.