Less than a month into his presidency, Donald Trump's enemies are already scenting blood. They hope they have got him on the run over the resignation of Michael Flynn as his National Security Adviser.
Flynn was forced to stand down for secretly discussing sanctions against Russia with the country's ambassador to America in the weeks before Trump took office – and then trying to cover up his foolish and possibly illegal behaviour.
It is being suggested that Flynn's goose was cooked by the FBI and CIA, who had tapped these phone-calls, and gleefully leaked transcripts of them. Was this pay-back time for Trump's recent dismissive criticisms of the U.S. intelligence services?
And are the CIA and the FBI also conspiring against their commander-in-chief because they disapprove of his stated intention to try to mend fences with Russia?
Whatever the truth, Flynn was clearly out of order in discussing sanctions with the Russian ambassador, and then pretending he had not done so. He obviously had to go.
Flynn was forced to stand down for secretly discussing sanctions against Russia with the country's ambassador to America in the weeks before Trump took office – and then trying to cover up his foolish and possibly illegal behaviour.
It is being suggested that Flynn's goose was cooked by the FBI and CIA, who had tapped these phone-calls, and gleefully leaked transcripts of them. Was this pay-back time for Trump's recent dismissive criticisms of the U.S. intelligence services?
And are the CIA and the FBI also conspiring against their commander-in-chief because they disapprove of his stated intention to try to mend fences with Russia?
Whatever the truth, Flynn was clearly out of order in discussing sanctions with the Russian ambassador, and then pretending he had not done so. He obviously had to go.
But it does not follow that the more constructive policy towards Russia championed by Trump and Flynn should also be jettisoned, as the CIA and America's military Establishment – not to mention much of the country's media – would apparently like.
I am certainly no cheerleader for Donald Trump, but surely his desire to explore whether some sort of accommodation can be reached with Vladimir Putin's Russia should be welcomed.
I am certainly no cheerleader for Donald Trump, but surely his desire to explore whether some sort of accommodation can be reached with Vladimir Putin's Russia should be welcomed.
Of course, I completely accept, as Trump may not, that Russia behaved inhumanely in Syria when its jets dropped bombs on civilians in Aleppo, though it must also be said that Putin has brought a degree of order to Syria, which the West signally failed to do.
Seized
Russia behaved illegally when it seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. (However, the peninsular had been long part of Russia until given to Ukraine in 1954.) And Moscow is succouring some very unappetising separatists in eastern Ukraine who are trying to break away from the government in Kiev.
Putin is evidently not a nice man. He has cracked down on a free Press, and locked up, and occasionally killed, his enemies. But our Government is on relatively good terms with regimes that have acted even more abominably.
The question is whether we want a war with Putin, as certainly seems to be possible, with Nato troops (including 800 British soldiers) being sent in sizeable numbers to Eastern Europe. Or, do we, in the words of Winston Churchill, want first to try 'jaw-jaw'?
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Putin is evidently not a nice man. He has cracked down on a free Press, and locked up, and occasionally killed, his enemies. But our Government is on relatively good terms with regimes that have acted even more abominably
Seized
Russia behaved illegally when it seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. (However, the peninsular had been long part of Russia until given to Ukraine in 1954.) And Moscow is succouring some very unappetising separatists in eastern Ukraine who are trying to break away from the government in Kiev.
Putin is evidently not a nice man. He has cracked down on a free Press, and locked up, and occasionally killed, his enemies. But our Government is on relatively good terms with regimes that have acted even more abominably.
The question is whether we want a war with Putin, as certainly seems to be possible, with Nato troops (including 800 British soldiers) being sent in sizeable numbers to Eastern Europe. Or, do we, in the words of Winston Churchill, want first to try 'jaw-jaw'?
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Putin is evidently not a nice man. He has cracked down on a free Press, and locked up, and occasionally killed, his enemies. But our Government is on relatively good terms with regimes that have acted even more abominably
That is Trump's laudable approach, though many of those who are celebrating the dismissal of Michael Flynn seemingly wish to scupper it. They shouldn't allow their hatred of the President to prejudice them against his legitimate aim to reduce tension with Russia.
While Western leaders are right to regard the Putin regime as unpleasant and potentially dangerous, they should try much harder to understand how beleaguered many Russians feel, and how threatened by the West.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Nato embraced not only former Soviet satellites such as Poland and Hungary as new members. It also signed up the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – right on Russia's borders.
Suddenly, Russian leaders were faced with the reality of American and other Nato troops being stationed on their doorstep. You can hardly blame them for feeling paranoid.
Then the West – with the EU playing an ill-considered leading role – went one step further by wooing Ukraine, which has a large Russian-speaking population, and is regarded by many Russians as the cradle of Mother Russia.
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When we look at Russia, we tend to see the world's largest country in terms of area, still brisling with nuclear weapons
Baroness Ashton, the rather mediocre then High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs, even travelled to Kiev in December 2013 on behalf of the EU to offer the Ukrainian government an Association Agreement which is a precursor to possible EU membership.
In short, the West's diplomacy towards Ukraine has been at best clumsy, at worst provocative. This is not to excuse Putin – who disgraced himself by seizing Crimea and stirring up trouble in eastern Ukraine – but to try to understand what makes him tick.
While Western leaders are right to regard the Putin regime as unpleasant and potentially dangerous, they should try much harder to understand how beleaguered many Russians feel, and how threatened by the West.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Nato embraced not only former Soviet satellites such as Poland and Hungary as new members. It also signed up the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – right on Russia's borders.
Suddenly, Russian leaders were faced with the reality of American and other Nato troops being stationed on their doorstep. You can hardly blame them for feeling paranoid.
Then the West – with the EU playing an ill-considered leading role – went one step further by wooing Ukraine, which has a large Russian-speaking population, and is regarded by many Russians as the cradle of Mother Russia.
- SHARE PICTURE
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When we look at Russia, we tend to see the world's largest country in terms of area, still brisling with nuclear weapons
Baroness Ashton, the rather mediocre then High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs, even travelled to Kiev in December 2013 on behalf of the EU to offer the Ukrainian government an Association Agreement which is a precursor to possible EU membership.
In short, the West's diplomacy towards Ukraine has been at best clumsy, at worst provocative. This is not to excuse Putin – who disgraced himself by seizing Crimea and stirring up trouble in eastern Ukraine – but to try to understand what makes him tick.
Annoyance
When we look at Russia, we tend to see the world's largest country in terms of area, still brisling with nuclear weapons. To the justifiable annoyance of the U.S. military, it has just deployed a new cruise missile in apparent violation of an arms control treaty.
Yet when Russia looks at the West, it sees a bloc which collectively spends ten times as much money on defence, and has a combined economy about 20 times as big.
The point was well made by Sir Tony Brenton, a former British ambassador to Moscow, on Radio Four yesterday. He rightly conceded that Russia presents a 'real problem and a challenge' but compared it to a defensive, frightened 'animal in the corner with its claws out'. The West's task is to get those claws retracted.
Significantly, Russia's economy is about the size of Italy's, which makes it significantly smaller than Britain's. Though she spends more on defence as a proportion of her gross domestic product than any single Nato country, she has limited economic resources.
Remember the recent photographs of Russia's sole 30-year-old aircraft carrier - a rust bucket - limping down the English Channel as it belched embarrassing amounts of black smoke. The U.S. has ten modern aircraft-carriers. Even Britain will soon have two.
This is far from being the picture of a superpower. Russia is a former great power with a middling economy and, by the way, a declining population. She is striving to cut a figure in the world far above her station.
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For all his weaknesses and absurdities, Trump has the gift of challenging orthodoxies, and seeing old problems through new eyes
It's true declining powers can be dangerous. The declaration of war on Serbia in 1914 by the Austro-Hungarian Empire (which was in terminal decline) precipitated World War I. My argument is not that Russia would be harmless if provoked. It is that she is massively out-gunned by the West – and Putin in his heart knows it.
Is this much diminished, and largely Christian, country really our natural enemy? Looking ahead ten, 20 or 30 years, I'd say the greatest threat to our stability is more likely to come from the Middle-East – or China, whose resources will far outstrip Russia's, as will her global ambitions and capabilities.
And Russia, after all, is on the same page as the West when it comes to standing up to Islamic militancy. Putin's policy in Syria may have been brutal. It was also more cogent than the West's inasmuch as he saw the greatest threat was not the country's president, Bashar al-Assad, but extremist Islamists such as IS and Al Qaeda.
When we look at Russia, we tend to see the world's largest country in terms of area, still brisling with nuclear weapons. To the justifiable annoyance of the U.S. military, it has just deployed a new cruise missile in apparent violation of an arms control treaty.
Yet when Russia looks at the West, it sees a bloc which collectively spends ten times as much money on defence, and has a combined economy about 20 times as big.
The point was well made by Sir Tony Brenton, a former British ambassador to Moscow, on Radio Four yesterday. He rightly conceded that Russia presents a 'real problem and a challenge' but compared it to a defensive, frightened 'animal in the corner with its claws out'. The West's task is to get those claws retracted.
Significantly, Russia's economy is about the size of Italy's, which makes it significantly smaller than Britain's. Though she spends more on defence as a proportion of her gross domestic product than any single Nato country, she has limited economic resources.
Remember the recent photographs of Russia's sole 30-year-old aircraft carrier - a rust bucket - limping down the English Channel as it belched embarrassing amounts of black smoke. The U.S. has ten modern aircraft-carriers. Even Britain will soon have two.
This is far from being the picture of a superpower. Russia is a former great power with a middling economy and, by the way, a declining population. She is striving to cut a figure in the world far above her station.
+4
For all his weaknesses and absurdities, Trump has the gift of challenging orthodoxies, and seeing old problems through new eyes
It's true declining powers can be dangerous. The declaration of war on Serbia in 1914 by the Austro-Hungarian Empire (which was in terminal decline) precipitated World War I. My argument is not that Russia would be harmless if provoked. It is that she is massively out-gunned by the West – and Putin in his heart knows it.
Is this much diminished, and largely Christian, country really our natural enemy? Looking ahead ten, 20 or 30 years, I'd say the greatest threat to our stability is more likely to come from the Middle-East – or China, whose resources will far outstrip Russia's, as will her global ambitions and capabilities.
And Russia, after all, is on the same page as the West when it comes to standing up to Islamic militancy. Putin's policy in Syria may have been brutal. It was also more cogent than the West's inasmuch as he saw the greatest threat was not the country's president, Bashar al-Assad, but extremist Islamists such as IS and Al Qaeda.
Danger
For all his weaknesses and absurdities, Trump has the gift of challenging orthodoxies, and seeing old problems through new eyes. Wasn't he right when he tweeted last month: 'Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing'?
Conceivably such a relationship is not obtainable. But at least Trump is prepared to have a go. If Russia is respected, and her fears of the West's military and economic hegemony better understood, she might turn out to be more of a friend than a foe.
The biggest danger is that Trump will be stopped, for there are lots of people in the American military machine and intelligence services (and doubtless our own) who want to keep Russia as enemy number one, even at the risk of war.
Was Trump's National Security Adviser Michael Flynn deliberately undermined because he sought an entente with Russia? It's certainly possible. And those who are celebrating his downfall, and relishing Trump's discomfiture, should ask themselves whether they are not also hindering the cause of peace.
For all his weaknesses and absurdities, Trump has the gift of challenging orthodoxies, and seeing old problems through new eyes. Wasn't he right when he tweeted last month: 'Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing'?
Conceivably such a relationship is not obtainable. But at least Trump is prepared to have a go. If Russia is respected, and her fears of the West's military and economic hegemony better understood, she might turn out to be more of a friend than a foe.
The biggest danger is that Trump will be stopped, for there are lots of people in the American military machine and intelligence services (and doubtless our own) who want to keep Russia as enemy number one, even at the risk of war.
Was Trump's National Security Adviser Michael Flynn deliberately undermined because he sought an entente with Russia? It's certainly possible. And those who are celebrating his downfall, and relishing Trump's discomfiture, should ask themselves whether they are not also hindering the cause of peace.
