Hopefully not. Obama -- an educated man, an intelligent man, historically aware, a statesman -- was making a valid point here: its implication being that, if Russian leaders willed the change, they could work with an exemplary actor like the United States to turn themselves into a free state, a functional democracy, and a genuine world power.
When someone like Obama -- somebody who's read James Billington's The Icon and the Axe, probably speaks and reads some Russian, knows the history in politics and law, understands the post-WWII, Cold War, and now post-Soviet landscape, and who isn't afraid (or incompetent) to access to enormous array of experts at his disposal to carefully, soberly create policies and incentives to lure Russia out of its weird, bellicose isolation and encourage it to be a good world citizen, it's a credible, humane, and admirable goal.
When someone like Trump says something that sounds vaguely similar, you need to understand that Trump is doing so in the fashion of a stopped clock being right, twice a day. Trump is more venal, less wealthy, and just as vicious as the average Russian oligarch. He's a brute. He's a moron. And whatever's motivating him to make nice to Russia, it has -- you can bet your life on this -- absolutely nothing to do with humane goals at all, and if it benefits the US in the slightest, it's only by accident on the way towards whatever corrupt, venal goal of self-enrichment or self-defense Trump really has in mind.
When someone like Obama -- somebody who's read James Billington's The Icon and the Axe, probably speaks and reads some Russian, knows the history in politics and law, understands the post-WWII, Cold War, and now post-Soviet landscape, and who isn't afraid (or incompetent) to access to enormous array of experts at his disposal to carefully, soberly create policies and incentives to lure Russia out of its weird, bellicose isolation and encourage it to be a good world citizen, it's a credible, humane, and admirable goal.
When someone like Trump says something that sounds vaguely similar, you need to understand that Trump is doing so in the fashion of a stopped clock being right, twice a day. Trump is more venal, less wealthy, and just as vicious as the average Russian oligarch. He's a brute. He's a moron. And whatever's motivating him to make nice to Russia, it has -- you can bet your life on this -- absolutely nothing to do with humane goals at all, and if it benefits the US in the slightest, it's only by accident on the way towards whatever corrupt, venal goal of self-enrichment or self-defense Trump really has in mind.
Considering war with Russia was a discussed issue during the campaign ... I'll take peace.
If Trump is making peace for the wrong reasons ... I'll take it.