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There is much "President Trump must" and "President Trump should" and "this summit could" being volleyed about in advance of the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki, Finland this coming Monday, July 16, 2018. Yet, beyond reports of the schedule - a one-on-one meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, followed by an extended bilateral meeting and then a working lunch attended by senior U.S. and Russian officials - little about the substantive agenda has been revealed. The menu of possible items is obvious and lengthy: civil war in Syria, conflict in Ukraine, Crimea, Iran - economic sanctions, the nuclear deal and its presence and proxies in Syria, accusations of Russian interference in U.S. elections, cyber-warfare, Russian disinformation campaigns, NATO expansion, nuclear arms control and terrorism. Historically, the outcomes of U.S.-Russia (and Soviet) summits - agreements, engagements and points of contention - have had consequences as serious and far-reaching as the list of topics is long. And so the world anticipates and speculates, worries and wonders about this meeting of two men, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Awaiting the agenda, I reached out to Dr. Stephen J. Blank, a foremost American authority on Russian foreign policy and Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C. Dr. Blank is a distinguished and prolific speaker at my firm, Lisa Bernard's SecuritySpeak, LLC. The breadth of his knowledge on Russia is second-to-none and his analyses incisive and forthright. I began my exchange with Steve yesterday, just as President Trump made an off-the-cuff remark as he left for the NATO summit in Brussels. The President said that of all the meetings ahead, the one with Putin "may be the easiest of them all." And so I began my two-part interview probing the dynamics of the U.S.-Russia and Trump-Putin relationships.
BERNARD: There is quite a call in the U.S. for President Trump to take Russia to task at this summit for interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Vladimir Putin, a 16-year veteran of the Soviet KGB, is a spy by training and unlikely to ever reveal his sources, capabilities or methods. If President Trump does bring this up in Helsinki, what can he realistically and practically expect to get from Putin beyond denials?
BLANK: If Trump brings up the interference issue Putin will stonewall him and play back Trump's own denials. And if that does not suffice, he will then bring up the perennial Russian refrain, "You're no better than we are and you have no standing to bring up this question."
BERNARD: By all accounts, Russia's cyber-capacity is tremendous and includes both state resources and private operators who can be accessed by the Kremlin. In earlier interviews and in your speeches, you explain how Russian foreign policy operates on a "DIME" - diplomacy, information warfare, military maneuvers and economic exploitations. Focusing on the "information war," including Russian trolls, RT and the like, what can President Trump realistically propose to President Putin to curtail this growing dimension of Russia's non-kinetic war on the U.S.?
BLANK: I doubt Trump can (assuming he will) offer Putin anything to stop because that [information] war is the natural or default mode of Russian and KGB action and has been for over a century. Any diplomatic agreement we make will be violated in short order. What President Trump ought to do is devise and implement a U.S. - if not NATO - strategy to repay Putin in kind. Only then might Russia seriously look for a compromise.
BERNARD: In your lectures and briefings you've suggested that we understand Vladimir Putin as the head of a massive and international crime syndicate given Russia's many illegal activities and networks abroad. Might it then make sense that President Trump "kisses the hand" and "bows to the don" of Russia? Putin reacts well to "public displays of respect." It's his "price of admission" if you will.
BLANK: Whatever Trump may think or desire, unlike Russia, we are not a mafia state.
BLANK: Whatever Trump may think or desire, unlike Russia, we are not a mafia state.
BERNARD: In an earlier interview we explored the curiously close and counter-intuitive relationship between Russian President Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (https://securiitybriefs.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-curiously-close-relationship.html) Is there any chance Presidents Trump and Putin could sculpt their relationship into one that more closely resembles the functional Netanyahu-Putin partnership you've described in earlier interviews and articles?
BERNARD: Thank you, Dr. Blank. I look forward to talking with you in D.C. next week to assess the summit's outcomes.
A foremost analyst of Russian affairs and U.S. national and international security matters, Dr. Stephen J. Blank lectures widely across North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East to civilian and military audiences, at colleges and universities and briefs executives, elected officials, policymakers and other decision-makers in media, government and NGOs. He is the author of over one thousand articles and fifteen books. I am grateful for his generous nature and the time, expertise, candor and energy he brings to bear on security matters. I look forward to part-two of this interview.
Lisa Bernard is the President of SecuritySpeak, LLC, a consulting firm devoted to matters of international security. Experts like Dr. Stephen J. Blank offer briefings, talks and distinguished lectures to audiences of all types working to bring analyses and understanding of security matters to people in all walks of life. To secure a speaker for your program reach out to (203) 293-4741 or LisaBernard@SecuritySpeak.net. Learn more at www.SecuritySpeak.net and follow us www.Facebook.com/PodiumTime.
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