The dialog between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump is following an unexpected scenario. It’s unexpected for Moscow. The Kremlin seems to have lost their key “trump” card in the talks with Washington.
According to some military experts, even the most unbiased Russian media ignored a sensational statement published by Reuters. To be more specific, Reuters claimed that during the recent phone call to Washington, Putin told Trump that he was ready to discuss the possibility of extending the agreement to cut nuclear arms. The agreement was signed in 2010 in Prague and will expire in 2020.
Reuters claims that at first President Trump didn’t figure out what Putting was taking about. After a long pause and consultations with his advisors, Donald Trump responded that the USA was not interested in extending the agreement. If that was really the case, then, the experts say, Trump acted as a brilliant negotiator by depriving Putin of his key trump card.
The thing is Russia used to blackmail the USA with this agreement for years, threatening to quit the agreement. And that strategy seems to have been efficient for Moscow so far. The thing is that Obama’s administration saw this agreement as one of their major achievements and priorities. However, Donald trump doesn’t share this standpoint.
In 2013, the USA tried to urge Russia to discuss another round of cutting nuclear arms, but Russia decline the proposal. Even a few weeks before leaving the White House, Obama made another try, which happened to be useless. The experts say that the Kremlin was planning to discuss the issue with a new president and get a real bargain from Trump. Now it seems that trump doesn’t care about nuclear arms as much as Obama did. Or maybe Trump is a very sophisticated and tricky player sitting there with a poker face and making it difficult for the opponent to read what’s really on his mind.
The thing, that the amount of nuclear weapons is so big that cutting them a little won’t make the world a safer place whatsoever. The biggest thing here is that each of the sides can deter the other. Inspections are held. Russia and the USA exchange data on missile launches etc. From this perspective, this agreement can be seen as something guaranteeing stability amid strategical uncertainty.
Russia has always been looking at the agreement as a way to manipulate the USA. Now, Trump seems to have put an end to this. If so, this is a major defeat for the Russian diplomacy. That’s why they are trying to act like nothing special really happened. It’s likely that Trump is planning to start a new arms race. If that’s the case, Russia will make as many planes and missiles as possible.
In the meantime, over the first 4 weeks of presidency, Donald Trump managed to spoilt relations with the entire world. To be more specific, he spoilt relations with his Western allies, not to mention Asian counties and even neighbors like Mexico. Strange as it may seem, Russia is the only power that Trump hasn’t seriously spoilt relations with, given the fact that the US-Russia relations were spoiled before Trump and the new president still hasn’t make them much worse. On top of that, Trump keeps on hinting that on certain terms and conditions Moscow and Washington may improve their relations.
