Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin have made mutually complementary comments, and it would seem that both are eager to have a productive relationship. While it would be irresponsible for the US to give Putin the keys to Washington and drop our guard, there is not a lot to be gained by deliberately provoking the man either.
So it is with interest that we see two recent US troop deployments that not only call into question what the Obama administration is doing, but also have the potential to create problems for Mr. Trump as he pursues diplomatic relations with Putin.
First, there is Poland:
American soldiers rolled into Poland on Thursday, fulfilling a dream some Poles have had since the fall of communism in 1989 to have US troops on their soil as a deterrent against Russia.
Some people waved and held up American flags as US troops in tanks and other vehicles crossed into southwestern Poland from Germany and headed toward the town of Zagan, where they will be based.
Poland’s prime minister and defense minister will welcome them in an official ceremony Saturday.
‘This is the fulfillment of a dream,’ said Michal Baranowski, director of the German Marshall Fund think tank in Warsaw.
How many US troops and how significant is this?
US and other Western nations have carried out exercises on NATO’s eastern flank in past years, but the new deployment — which includes some 3,500 US troops — marks the first-ever continuous deployment to the region by a NATO ally.
But Russia says it’s the one who is threatened.
‘These actions threaten our interests, our security,’ President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.
‘Especially as it concerns a third party building up its military presence near our borders. It’s not even a European state.’
That’s Poland. What about Norway?
Just one week after thousands of US troops arrived in Poland to “support NATO’s Anti-Russian buildup” across Eastern Europe, 300 U.S. Marines from Camp Lejeune landed in Norway on Monday for a six-month deployment, marking the first time since World War II that foreign troops have been allowed to be stationed there, in a deployment breaking with decades of tradition by Norway not to host foreign forces, and angering Norway’s Arctic neighbor Russia, according to Reuters.
What is significant is the movement of troops to Norway, the first time since WW II. Yet 300 combat troops stationed 1,000 miles from Russia is hardly a threat Russian security. Nevertheless, Russia is not happy.
A spokesman for the Norwegian Home Guards, who will host the Marines at the Vaernes military base, about 1,500 km (900 miles) from the Russian border, said the U.S. troops will learn about winter warfare. “For the first four weeks they will have basic winter training, learn how to cope with skis and to survive in the Arctic environment,” said Rune Haarstad, a Home Guard spokesman.
…
“Taking into account multiple statements of Norwegian officials about the absence of threat from Russia to Norway we would like to understand for what purposes is Norway so … willing to increase its military potential, in particular through stationing of American forces in Vaernes?” it [Russian Embassy in Oslo] told Reuters at the time.
This “for sure won’t make better (the) security situation in Northern Europe,” a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Oslo, Maxim Gurov, told AFP in an October email.
All of this comes at a time of transition from Mr. Obama to Mr. Trump. The two could hardly have more different views on most every area of policy. Recall that Mr. Obama angered Mr. Putin by expelling Russian diplomats over rumors of Russian interference in the US presidential election, a rumor that remain unproven.
It will be interesting to see how all of this affects the relationship Trump wishes to establish with Putin as well as the negotiations and relationship between the two countries.
Source: ZeroHedge
Source: Daily Mail
Wiat, id I miss it that Poland and Norway attacked the U.S.?