While Trump Talks, The Pentagon Balks
By
Finian Cunningham
July
11, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- On the same day US President Donald
Trump gave a historic handshake to Russian
leader Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in
Germany, the Pentagon was hosting a meeting
planning for war with Moscow.
While the event at the US military
headquarters near Washington DC was
made public, it was hardly reported in the
Western media. The two main figures attending
were Defense Secretary James Mattis and his
British counterpart Michael Fallon.
The American military publication Defense One
headlined the Pentagon summit:
“As Trump
and Putin met, US and UK defense chiefs
discussed ways to deter Russia.”
The phrase “ways to deter Russia,”
is a euphemism for war planning. It expresses a
more benign, more publicly acceptable purpose to
Mattis and Fallon’s discussions. Especially
given that the titular head of the US
government, President Trump, was at the very
same time extending a hand of friendship to
Putin.
This is not to suggest that anything
seditious was being secretly hatched against the
US president. In comments to reporters, the
British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said
the concurrent meeting between Trump and Putin
that was being held 4,000 miles away in Hamburg
was “welcome.”
However, that fig-leaf of magnanimity from
Fallon and his Pentagon hosts, could not
disguise the aggressive Russophobia at the heart
of the military confab.
“We don’t think it’s business as usual
between the West and Putin… but we welcome the
dialogue [with Trump] that’s taking place,”
said the British politician following his talks
with Mattis. The first part of the quote is the
important message.
As Defense One reported:
“While one part
of Trump’s executive branch looks to improve
relations with Moscow, another prepares for the
worst.”
The publication added, with more
breathlessness, that Mattis and Fallon
“talked about ways NATO could improve its combat
power and deter Russian aggression in Eastern
Europe… that even as the White House seeks to
improve relations with Moscow, US and UK leaders
still view Russia as a severe military threat.”
What this vignette of official thinking
reveals is the depth of systematic hostility and
Russophobia underpinning the American and
British political establishments. It also serves
to illustrate the foreboding background against
Donald Trump’s friendly overture to Russian
President Vladimir Putin. It diminishes any
would-be significance.
When Trump finally met his Russian
counterpart last weekend, nearly seven months
after his inauguration in the White House, the
meeting was conducted with a welcome level of
friendship and respect. So much so that there
were initial reports of a reset in US-Russia
relations; relations which had become
eviscerated over the past seven months due to
constant and pejorative American media
speculation that Moscow had interfered in the
November presidential elections.
To be fair to Trump, he appeared to rise
above this toxic Russophobia in the US media and
greeted Putin in Hamburg as a potential partner
to work on a range of international challenges.
If anything, though, rather than restoring
bilateral relations between the two nuclear
powers, Trump’s landmark meeting with Putin has
unleashed even more Russophobia and
recriminations in the US.
The US media and Washington establishment
lost no time to jump on Trump for his apparent
overtures to Putin. Trump was accused of being
played by Putin and even betraying American
interests. Former Pentagon chief Ashton Carter
said Trump’s discussions in Hamburg were
tantamount to chatting with
“a burglar who
had robbed your house.”
The New York Times, Washington Post and CNN,
among others, have been running stories,
variously, on claims that Trump’s eldest son,
Donald Jr, has been outed for allegedly
colluding with Kremlin figures, that Russian
hackers have supposedly
targeted American nuclear power plants, and
the Kremlin has, again allegedly, been covertly
sponsoring environmental activists to
undermine US oil and gas fracking industries.
All this in the space of a week since Trump met
with Putin.
No wonder Trump has quickly backtracked on
his earlier seeming rapport with Putin. He has,
for example, disavowed
reports of being willing to work with Russia
on cyber security after coming under fire from
hawkish Congress figures and pundits.
This week, too, the US is leading the
biggest-ever war maneuvers conducted by the
29-member NATO military alliance in the Black
Sea. Two separate war games are being carried
out on Russia’s southern flank: Saber Guardian,
centered around Bulgaria, and Sea Breeze,
off Crimea, involving a total of 30,000 NATO
troops, as well as missile destroyers, fighter
jets, and amphibious Marines forces. The US Army
said it showcases
“the ability to mass
forces at any given time anywhere in Europe.”
Granted, Russia and China are also conducting
joint naval exercises this month in the Baltic
region. But there’s an important distinction.
The Baltic Sea is integral to Russian security
territory. By contrast, what the Black Sea has
got to do with American, British, Canadian,
Norwegian, French, German troops, and so on, is
only because NATO has provocatively expanded its
reach to set up on Russia’s borders. The two
events are not comparable.
Moreover, NATO war games in the Black Sea
this week are a culmination of months of
military build up by the alliance in that
region. In February, Russia’s President Putin
warned the escalation was “provoking a
conflict.” That NATO escalation continues
apace, with apparent indifference to Russia’s
grievances.
This
bigger picture of relentless Russophobia,
gratuitous anti-Russian propaganda in the US
media, and the ongoing reckless goading by NATO
forces on Russia’s borders is an appropriate
perspective with which to assess the
significance of Trump’s meeting with Putin last
weekend.
Yes,
indeed, it was good to see Trump having enough
independence of mind and personal decorum to
greet Putin with respect.
But the
fact remains: while Trump talked, the Pentagon
balked. And not just the Pentagon. Virtually,
the whole US political and media establishment.
Ominously, the American political system and its
military machine seem to operate on only one
gear: onward with Russophobia and aggression.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written
extensively on international affairs, with
articles published in several languages.
Originally from Belfast, Ireland, he is a
Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and
worked as a scientific editor for the Royal
Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before
pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For
over 20 years he worked as an editor and writer
in major news media organizations, including The
Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a
freelance journalist based in East Africa, his
columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture
Foundation and Press TV.
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
