Are Trump And Putin Rebuilding A Mighty Military Alliance?

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin © Reuters

Lawrence Solomon, National Post: You probably didn’t notice, but Trump and Putin are rebuilding a mighty military alliance


The Western press is preoccupied with demon Russia. We’re told that Russia through its tool, WikiLeaks, cost Hillary Clinton the election; that Russia hacked U.S. servers, effectively installing Donald Trump as president; that Russia is blackmailing Trump over sex scandals and secret business dealings; that Trump isn’t releasing his tax returns because they show Russian income; that Russia is intent on destabilizing the democracies in Europe as well as America, in fact, democracies everywhere; that Russia and its evil allies, Iran and Syria, are mortal foes of the West; that Putin wants to reassemble the Soviet Empire; that Putin is playing Trump for a fool; in short, that Russia is an unreconstructed enemy of the U.S. that must be kept always at arm’s length.

Some of that conjecture, perhaps, may even be true. What isn’t conjecture is that there is now a dramatic warming of ties, a mutual respect and a military alliance between Russia and America not seen in decades.

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WNU Editor: Russian planes are still buzzing U.S. navy ships in the Black Sea and in the Baltics. There are still close calls between Russian and and NATO planes in the skies over Europe. There is a Russian spy ship off the eastern coast of the U.S., and NATO is still building up its forces on the Russian border. Both countries may be coordinating their military operations in Syria .... but that is where their cooperation ends. But .... it is also true that tensions are not as high as it was in the last years of the Obama Presidency .... and we are definitely in a better place today for more U.S. - Russian cooperation than where we were last year.