The extent to which Trump’s démarche toward Moscow succeeds will be the extent to which the U.S. can transcend a long, regrettable history and finally embrace the 21st century.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump on Aug. 15 in Anchorage, Alaska, after their summit. (Kremlin.ru/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 4.0)
By Patrick Lawrence
Special to Consortium News
There is no saying yet whether Donald Trump will succeed in negotiating the end of the Ukraine war, or a new era of détente between Washington and Moscow, or new security relations between Russia and the West, or cooperation in the Arctic, or all the goodies to come of reopened trade and investment ties.
All this remains to be seen. Trump’s mid–August summit with Vladimir Putin in Anchorage may or may not turn out to be “historic,” a descriptive all presidents in the business of great-power diplomacy long for.
There are all sorts of reasons to harbor doubts at this early moment. Can Trump promise the Russian president peace given the policy cliques, the Deep State, the military-industrial complex, and other such constituencies that have so long and vigorously made certain no such thing breaks out?
Those who craft the Deep State’s subterfuge ops viciously destroyed Trump’s better policy initiatives during his first term — his initial attempt to reconstruct relations with Russia, those imaginative talks — too promising for their own good — with North Korea’s leader. The record suggests we had better brace for the same should Trump and his people do well in negotiations as the weeks — and it will be weeks at the very least — go by.
And so to the question of Trump and his people. Marco Rubio at State, Pete Hegseth at Defense, Steve Witkoff taking time away from his real estate ventures in New York, all subject to the president’s orders, none with any experience in statecraft: Is the Trump regime competent to navigate through a diplomatic process this complex and of this potential consequence?
Let us not count these people out, but it is hard to see it.
And finally to the Russophobia that Trump brought forth as soon as he came to political prominence during the 2016 campaign season. I consider this the most formidable challenge Trump now takes on as he attempts to end a proxy war and bring relations with Russia into a new time.
I say this because Russophobia is about more, much more, than near-term geopolitical strategies and policy choices. This is a question that goes to the ideology that makes America America, to the collective psyche, to Otherness and identity (which are intimately related in the American mind).
It was interesting to hear Trump make reference to the Russiagate rubbish during his post-summit remarks in Anchorage. Here, according to the Kremlin’s transcript, is part of what he had to say as to the disruptive effects of the Russiagate years:
“We had to put up with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. He knew it was a hoax, and I knew it was a hoax, but what was done was very criminal, but it made it harder for us to deal as a country in terms of the business and all of the things that we would like to have dealt with. But we will have a good chance when this is over.”
This is fine, true enough so far as it goes. But behind Russiagate there is a century of history — two if you go back to the beginning. Trump may not understand this as he pursues his démarche toward Moscow — almost certainly he doesn’t, actually — but this is the magnitude of his project when viewed in the large. This is the history, in the thought he might accomplish something “historic.”
Can Trump put a long, regrettable past thoroughly into the past, or at least set America on a path such that it may finally embrace the 21st century instead of continuing to fall behind in it?
Of all the questions I pose here, this is by a long way the weightiest.
History’s Ebb & Flow
Putin getting red-carpet welcome by Trump at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage earlier this month. (DoD photo by Benjamin Applebaum)
This may seem a frivolous line of inquiry given the unrelenting prevalence of anti–Russian fervor abroad among America’s power elites. There is no faction in Washington on either side of the aisle — if, indeed, any such aisle any longer matters — that does not nurse one or another measure of Russophobic paranoia.
But the history of America’s Russophobia is to be read two ways. Animosity toward Russia, from the Czarist Empire to the Soviet Union and now to the Russian Federation, is a sort of basso ostinato in the history of U.S.–Russian relations. But we also find a top-to-bottom ebb and flow among Americans, in policy and popular sentiment alike.
Speaking straight into the poisonous state of U.S.–Russian relations, Putin went to considerable lengths in Anchorage to note the many occasions in the past when Russians and and Americans took harmonious and constructive relations more or less for granted.
This story begins in the first decades of the 19th century, when the United States was but a half-century old and the West began to take note of the modernizations Peter the Great set in motion a hundred years earlier. Here is the ever-perceptive de Tocqueville in the first volume of Democracy in America:
“There are at the present time two great nations in the world, which started from different points, but seem to tend towards the same end. I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and whilst the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly placed themselves in the front rank among the nations, and the world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time …. Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.”
Apposition from the first, then — if not opposition. Indeed, the idea of “the West” as a political construct arose during de Tocqueville’s time precisely in response to the rise of Czarist Russia. It was, thus, a defensive reaction from the first.
Seven decades later America swooned into the first Red Scare in response to the Bolshevik Revolution. And two more decades after that, what? With the World War II alliance against the Axis Powers, F.D.R., clever man, had Americans referring to Stalin as “Uncle Joe.”
Alas, the extraordinary powers of media and propaganda. No sooner was World War II over (and Roosevelt in his grave) than America plunged into the second Red Scare, a.k.a. the McCarthyist 1950s. And after that the détente of the late 1960s and 1970s, and after that Reagan’s “evil empire” nonsense.
Sen. Joseph McCarthy, center, confers with Roy Cohn, chief counsel for House Un-American Activities Committee, Aug. 23, 1953. At right is G. David Schine. (Los Angeles Times/UCLA Library/Wikimedia Commons)
After the Soviet Union’s collapse we had the Russia-as-junior-partner years, when the inebriated Boris Yeltsin stood aside while Western capital raped the formidable remains of the Soviet economy. And then to the Putin years. What we live through now would amount to a third Red Scare apart from the fact Russia is no longer Red.
Looked at another way, U.S.–Russian relations are back where they more or less started. “Putin’s Russia,” as the phrase goes, is again America’s great Other, and by easy extension the West’s, just as it was two centuries back. Then as now, the project is to “make Russia great again,” as we might put it; then as now the West drifts into irrational reaction in response to the emergence of a nation of another civilizational tradition.
There is no missing the fungibility inherent in the U.S. stance toward Russia over the years, decades, and centuries — the extent, I mean, to which it is changeable according to changing geopolitical circumstances. It is not merely possible that the reigning Russophobia of our time will at some point pass. History’s lesson is that this is probable — maybe even inevitable.
But one man’s horse-trading and dealmaking will not make this happen, and I would say this is so especially if the man is Donald Trump. History itself will do this work. Its wheel will turn such that America’s alienation from Russia, and by extension the non–West, will prove too costly. This is already the case, providing one is willing to look instead of pretending otherwise.
At a certain point, to put this another way, refusing to accommodate the emergence of the new world order that stares the West in the face as we speak will come at a higher price than accommodating it.
In so many words, Donald Trump proposes an accommodation of just this kind. The extent to which his démarche toward the Russian Federation succeeds will be the extent to which America proves able again to transcend the Russophobia into which it has once more fallen.
Trump may not, once again, understand this, but I don’t see that this matters overmuch. He has taken a step on a path. For now it remains to see how far down America is prepared to go.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, lecturer and author, most recently of Journalists and Their Shadows, available from Clarity Press or via Amazon. Other books include Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century. His Twitter account, @thefloutist, has been restored after years of being permanently censored.
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The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
“NOT FOR NOTHING; BUT,” @ 100 days, Patrick Lawrence summed up “the future” w/Trump-Vance, Inc., “It is time, plain and simple, to give up the thought that anything good is to come out of Trump’s next three and a half years.” PATRICK LAWRENCE @ “The White House as Mad House” @ hxxps://consortiumnews.com/2025/05/28/patrick-lawrence-the-white-house-as-playpen/
NO DOUBT, Trump-Vance, Inc., is MAD! They rock mutually agreed deception, destruction, death. Hence, understanding “Trump’s démarche toward Moscow” is crucial. So f/obvious is #47’s ignorance. “What’s required is a full, sustained comprehension that Trump may be incapable of.” JOE LAURIA (Rooting Out the Root Causes in Ukraine).”
Concluding, “Trump & the Russophobes,” “[IS] not just a matter of having a conversation with the choir. It’s about taking the discussion to a higher level to try to describe for people what’s actually happening, what can happen.” DENNIS KUCINICH, 12.16.22, @ hxxps://therealnews.com/dennis-kucinich-how-the-war-machine-took-over-the-democratic-party
IMO, “Trump & the Russophobes” defines the Presidents’ “Match Play,” on the Summit, in GOLF, “To Strike or Cuff?”
….. “One can only win or lose the hole by one” in the President’s Cup. Hence, the American Eagle, disheveled, deplanes in Anchorage “Loaded for Bear.” The American Eagle tees-off the tarmac & “Birdie’s” the hole! i.e., 1. Rolls out a Red Carpet welcome for President Putin, 2) a Fly-Over, “a ceremonial flight of aircraft;” &, 3) a Ride in “The Beast” to the Summit.
President Putin, “fit as a fiddle,” tees off the summit & hits the Fairway! Saying, “I am the Bear. Put your guns down, Donald.” Followed by the Russian Bear handing the American Eagle, w/bad “genes,” his aRRRRRs, Reflect. Repent. Reconcile the Root Causes. Settle Scores. Call for “A day of Reckoning” when Ukraine’s defacto President Volodymyr “El Chapo” Zelensky & “Little” Marco Rubio, Trump’s “Caddie,” must face the consequences of their actions, decisions, mistakes.” It was eight (8) minutes of President Putin calling the shots, i.e., “HOW” Russia & the USG can “Come Together” & Stop War!
Obviously, President Trump’s rattled!!! Trump’s last round & he blows it, BIGLY!!! Scoring an Eight! A “Snowman!” A “round” killer, Octo-Bogey Man!” Holy $h*t! An “8”on Trump’s scorecard as it closely resembles a “Snowman.” Basically, it’s Game Over!!! No lunch. No break-out sessions. No Love for Russia. DJ “the Big $hot” trumped by the “Deep Rough” – difficult to play – nearly impossible to hit out from.” Trump needs a “Rescue Club,” part iron, part wood. This club is very forgiving & much easier to hit than long irons.” Basically, Putin sums it up for Trump, “Find the Fairways, as often as possible!”
Concluding, the highly anticipated “Summit” in Alaska yielded: 1) NO AGREEMENT to resolve or pause the USG/NATO vs. Russia war in Ukraine; &, 2) “A fried egg lie in the bunker,” i.e., defacto President Volodymyr “El Chapo” Zelensky & NATO’s hors d’war, “buried in their own pitch mark in the sand,” whine & dine w/Trump-Vance, Inc. Thereafter, “one by one, each f/clueless, sommersaulted outta the burnt-orange WH of Voodoo!!! There is a Namibian proverb that fits, “A parasite cannot live alone.”
Onward & upwards. IMO, Fugg ‘Em, Trump-Vance, Inc. “FORE!” Head for cover & protect yourself. TY, Patrick Lawrence, CN. “Keep It Lit!”
The first words out of Steve Witkoff’s mouth, when approached for the assignment of RU-UKR special envoy, should have been: “Thank you, but I have no training for such an important mission, I have zero diplomatic experience, I don’t know much about this conflict, I don’t speak Russian, and the fact that I am a billionaire real New York estate investor and a friend of Mr. Trump’s should not be ANYWHERE in a list of necessary qualifications for this crucially important role.” It strains the imagination that something this basic needs to be pointed out, but Witkoff is far from the first example of how Trump’s “best people appointments” immediately find themselves way in over their head (Hegseth, RFK Jr., Sean Duffy, etc.). Now, let’s look at one of his counterparts: Yuri Ushakov, the man who is always in the room with Putin and Lavrov for important foreign policy negotiations, has literally been preparing for situations such as the current one his entire adult life. Fluent in English, former ambassador to the US, credentialed from the most prestigious institute in foreign relations and diplomacy, and – 40 years and THOUSANDS of meetings worth of experience. Mr. “You’re Fired” has gotten rid of most of the mid-level specialists in Russia in his DOGE/Deep State purges, and he feels more comfortable with people whose CV’s basically read: “Unqualified but impressively wealthy pal”. One can only wonder what was gong through Putin and Lavrov’s heads when Witkoff, during a recent Moscow meeting, couldn’t successively name the four regions of UKR being claimed by RU. It’s a 9 hour flight from the US East Coast to Moscow – surely Witkoff could have carved out 10 minutes to study a map.
Meh
Those same ‘experts’ you hold in such high esteem created this mess over the course of decades, and stood idly by in 2022 when it escalated from a cold war to shooting war. They are cut from the same cloth as the ‘experts’ who Trump bypassed to create the Abraham accords in his first term. I propose that ‘experts’ who preside over decades of failure in foreign policy are not experts at all. They are incompetents who value their own career advancement and jealously guard their comfortable State department sinecures and institutional power rather than they strive to accomplish the foreign policy goals of the head of state the American voters put in office.
Your lips to god’s ears, PL. I was a swinging pendulum–enemy in the 1970’s in the Army Security Agency, then using my Russian as a Fulbright business professor to Moscow in 1992 when they eagerly wanted them to be our friends. As I wanted–and I personally had my first gorgeous wife, a Muscovite model, and nurtured (MIT’s Sloan School), a mentee who became one of the multimillionaire arbitrage kings, and adopted nephew.
Then we betrayed them, breaking every promise, because we value enemies more than allies.
Major forces in the US government are dead set on the subjugation of Russia, Iran, and China. That is not going to go away no matter who is President.
Before working for Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn was involved in the prosecution of the Rosenbergs and worked to secure their execution. I think that J. Edgar Hoover opposed the execution of Ethel Rosenberg because it would damage the image of the United States domestically and in the wider world.
Cohn later worked for Donald Trump.
Can we please stop talking about the Soviet collapse, as if a giant earthquake or an internal political upheaval brought it down. The USSR was brought down (in the same vein as Gazans are not starving, they are being starved). It’s all about the subjects and verb tenses. By now, many people know, and others are catching on, that the USSR was brought down by the capitalists who run the world, at least the USA and its western “allies.” Imagine a world where the communists and socialists run the world, where governments and their economies are controlled by people, where profit is controlled by the government, if at all. The capitalists not only imagined it, they took it seriously and made sure it didn’t happen. I think the only way the USA and its “allies” stop is when they fall and fall.
Always good to read your balanced and sensible thoughts – especially re Russia and the US. When I was 13, 14 I wrote to the USSR Embassy in Canberra for some information for a school history project. Back came a package stuffed with Five-Year reports and calculations of various electrical goods per household. I was pleased – of course. Then 13 years later my wife and I travelled from Hong Kong and Japan onto a Russian cruise vessel from Yokohama to Nakhodka – the trains – to Khabarovsk, Irkusts and Moscow – finally on to Helsinki. The summer of 1976. Impressive – Pushkin Theatre Co on tour – and circuses (did you ever see Circus Karandash in Moscow – the signature clown the drollest in my circus-going life) – the Kirov Ballet Co at the Bolshoi – taking the entire circuit of the Metropolitaine Underground – G.U.M. – The Kremlin – what a visit. But these things – such visits – influence one’s mindset – if one is prepared to be open and not as a means for confirming prejudices. And your writing, listening to the speeches of President Putin – reading Australian former diplomat (with periods in Moscow) Tony Kevin and his books and “reading” history, too – Napoleon, Hitler – having friends who spent time in Moscow in the 1960s, 1970s – teaching classes of elderly Russian immigrants permitted to leave upon retirement – reading great Russian literature – everything adds to the understanding of that place. And of course the McCarthyist nonsense, the US paranoid anti-Russian mood latterly fostered further by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party – no matter what one might think on all kinds of levels about Trump… – So as I said at the beginning – Thank-you, PL.
We might begin with Russia and other countries wooed for use against the British Empire They may have sold Alaska for that purpose too at their borders. But it all changes with TR urging Japan against Russia and bringing in Korea for which he sent his newly shot stuffed bear to Japan as their reward.
In any case the 21st century must pivot toward the entire planet and civilization rather than male domination for sexual prowess in measuring each others wealth for civilization to survive and thrive. The west has too much roman empire religion mixed with Viking raiding party for its own good..
You are fooling yourself if you think that global east or south has any shortage of those same tendencies. There is nothing special about the western human that you won’t find in humans everywhere else.
At the end of the day, humans are just really, really smart hairless apes, who have the same biological imperatives as the rest of the animal kingdom. One of those imperatives is to assert dominance over territory and over rival members of their own species and to compete for stuff we want. No matter how much we want to pretend our intellect is in control of our actions, deep down inside there is that atavistic part of us that drives human nature and cannot be totally suppressed. That inner monkey will always find ways to express itself, sometimes in good ways that help us to survive and thrive, and sometimes in bad ways that lead to war and destruction. Monkeys be smart and cute and mostly peaceful, but they are also greedy little buggers who can rip your testicles off and bite your face off.
To the Consortium News and Patrick Lawrence. I tried to post this article on my facebook page and got this message: 403 Forbidden. This is the first time this has happened. I would like to know if this is coming from the Consortium News or from Facebook or something else. I have had problems with other posts about Russia that are not negative – interference over and over as I try to write a short response to what I posted. I do not believe it is anyone in the Trump administration or Russia. I read Consortium News on my email account and am subscribed.
It’s most likely the Facebook algorithm. Sometimes, I’ve been able to skirt it by posting something like see in comments as a post and posting the CN link in the comments. Hope this helps.
Facebook has been doing this for the past week as far as I can tell. It’s pathetic. Do they really believe they can stop us spreading information like that? I warned them once that if they blocked my posts I would spread the articles to everyone on my email lists–a great many MORE people than simply my friends list on FB.
Yes, the same thing happened to me. I copied the entire text of the article and posted it on Facebook.
The Russophobes are merely waiting in the wings for 2028. They’ve been institutionalized among the top officials of the Democratic Party, most of the Neocons and Ziocons, the vast majority of the intel establishment, and the mainstream media. They’re all biding their time until 2028.
The only possible thing that can change this dangerous situation is for a mass awakening, and enlightenment if you will, to wash over tens of millions of Americans to question the lies, distortions and misinformation constantly coming out of Washington that are hurled against Putin and the Kremlin.
Mass awakening sounds good. I think when history’s wheel turns, humans will begin to see problems with electronics. Those problems reach past news, commentary, and 1 telescreen in every pot, to surveillance, AI directed assassination (same as surveillance?), digital currencies, RedMap-like programs, high frequency trading, border tech pork, AI taking over the ripoffs McKinsey perpetrates, and Russia’s Perimeter system [no more dangerous probably than too many hothead neocons in our MICIMATT]. It’s all become a little too magical as McLuhan pointed out.
The awakening will have to provide better alternatives. At present you can’t find a viable peace candidate (or one that claims to be) unless s/he’s convinced a fascist-like blueprint should go into effect…a blueprint that, as far as I remember, is usually helpful to wars. Many, many voters I feel do not understand that cultures/ideologies endorsed by, for instance, the world’s universities have not provided enough checks on us coming to this state of affairs. Green Party makes sense as far as I can see, although all kinds living races out there getting exploited need reparations right now.
Nader’s got his paper made out of paper (“Capitol Hill Citizen”). I lament the trees, but the water consumption and gas burning of the data centers is not what should come first. First should come sources everyone can read, and when they’re popular enough they could go online without AI on the side eating up bandwidth.