More on the Putin-Trump Alaska Meeting: Classic Case of “Confidence Building Measures” that precede more serious negotiations. No more, no less

Putin and Trump: Since we’re neighbors (Siberia-Alaska) ,,, let’s be friends

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As previously mentioned , what happened in Alaska between the Russian and U.S. Presidents Putin and Trump was mostly symbolic, or if you will “psychological”, but sets the grounds for further meetings and possibly more serious negotiations. We’ll see if, despite fierce opposition to U.S.-Russian reconciliation by neo-cons, Zionists, and end of the world wacko Christians (the latter also have considerable clout in Washington) whether the negotiating processes can proceed.

Fewer barriers to proceeding seem to exist in Russia, considerably more here in the USA.

By the way, for all practical purposes, those who don’t realize it, the U.S.-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine is essentially over. Russia won. It has defeated a U.S.-NATO armed, trained and financed Ukrainian military that was little more than a proxy for its masters in Washington DC and Brussels. As in Vietnam, Afghanistan the United States has reached the “face-saving” phase: how to turn the defeat in the battlefield into a media “victory”.

Can Washington recoup its failures on the battlefield with some kind of diplomatic victory at the negotiating table? Lindsay Graham and his ilk will try and this approach is proceeding apace. Might not work as well as in the past … but we’ll see.

In the end – all that Trumpty-Dumpty was doing in his meeting with Putin was a classic example of pre-negotiations’ confidence building steps using Alaska as the turf for such improvements in bilateral relations. Such gestures are important and vital preliminary steps in ANY negotiating process. In fact they are common place and traditional for any major negotiation.

Confidence building measures entail showing both respect for a negotiating opponent and a willingness to listen to his/her side of the story, ie, to at least a bit put yourself in the other side’s shoes. And it is this good will, confidence building that the Europeans, the neo-cons and some misplaced elements of the left that have swallowed mainstream narratives on Ukraine with its pervasive Russophobia have also swallowed. Put more crudely Washington cannot engage in serious negotiations with Russia that begin by attacking Putin personally nor Russia as a nation.

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For a more detailed take on what confidence building measures were taken, click here