MEL GOODMAN: You know, when you think of the 100 years of history of Soviet-American and now Russian-American relations, this has to be the most bizarre, surreal single day of that relationship: the fact that Donald Trump, before he even arrived in Helsinki, referred to our European allies as foes of the United States. And his personal attacks, interestingly enough, on the two female heads of state, at the European meetings, (Angela) Merkel and (Theresa) May – he is a bully. He does love to pick on women, even those women who happen to be heads of state. Setting up a meeting with Vladimir Putin – when he had a chance to decide on advice that was given to him by his intelligence czar, Dan Coats, and he basically distanced himself from the intelligence czar and said he agrees with Vladimir Putin on the Russian hacking and the Russian penetration in the American presidential election.
And I guess what I find so disconcerting – and so much of this is disconcerting – is that I believe that there is need to re-establish the Russian-American dialogue. You know, a great opportunity was lost in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. I think the United States made mistakes in the wake of that collapse, particularly the expansion of NATO, which is responsible for a lot of the turmoil today; the abrogation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; the deployment of missile defense in Poland and Romania; the way we handled the Libyans’ situation; the attacks on Serbia in 1999. I mean, there is an agenda that Putin is concerned with. I don’t think he should be demonized to the extent that he’s responsible for the terrible situation we’re in now. But it does need to be corrected with an institutionalized dialogue. But you don’t institutionalize dialogue by starting at the top of the leadership chain, meeting between heads of state.
And this meeting was totally bizarre. Others have used words like disgraceful and embarrassing, and I happen to share that view because basically Trump not only pursued a policy of America First, he really isolated the United States, coming down so hard on the side of Vladimir Putin and ignoring all the bilateral issues, the security issues, the regional issues that could have been part of a discussion. But there was no sign whatsoever that the Trump administration prepared for any of this discussion. There were no National Security Council meetings. There were no secondary meetings by assistant secretaries of state, assistant secretaries of defense to prepare for this meeting at the top – and it was resolved. It begs the question about what is going to follow this bizarre meeting that has all of Washington enraged, even some Republicans. And, it’s about time for that. But I think he has taken up a problem and now probably has created a political crisis for himself.
BETWEEN THE LINES: U.S.-Russia relations are very rocky in the last several years, as noted by both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. There are critical issues afoot between the U.S. and Russia, including the conflict in Syria, Crimea and Ukraine, but probably most importantly, the arms control issues, the nuclear weapons that are operated by the United States and Russia. There’s the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the very important issue of negotiations necessary to extend the new (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) START treaty, which will expire in about two-and-a-half years. What’s the danger of domestic U.S. politics and the stoking up of a new Cold War with Russia endangering these critical arms control issues in particular?
MEL GOODMAN: Well, I think there’s a real risk there and that would be the unfortunate thing that if we would lose any possibility of re-engaging on these issues because as you say, the INF treaty, which is one of the most important arms control agreements – most important disarmament agreements – that the United States has ever signed. I mean, this was a treaty that banned that entire range of missile systems. The short-range, intermediate range missile systems from 500 to several thousand kilometers, that was reduced to zero on both sides. And each side now has charges of conflict of attempts to skirt around the dictates of that agreement. We have concerns about some sophisticated, cruise missiles that have been tested and certainly they have concerns about our regional missile defense that were put into Poland and Romania that I think violates the spirit of the treaty.
So we need to get back to the table on that just as we need to get back to the table and the new START treaty, which is the longer-range systems. And that agreement is also in trouble because Obama – in order to get that treaty ratified – had to agree to a huge increase in spending on nuclear weapons modernization, which is the last thing this country needs. And if we lose the momentum of the relationship because of the way Trump has handled himself, which I think will fire up the Congress and I expect there will be bipartisan agreement on increasing sanctions – if nothing else – in order to tell Donald Trump that he really crossed a line in Helsinki. So the baby will be thrown out with the bathwater in this case, because I think the INF Treaty will become more controversial and we won’t see that follow on to the new START treaty from 2010.
