Is Trump Putin’s Puppet or Not?
COMMON SENSE: Predictably, when the Oval Office meeting between President Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy went south, Capitol Hill Democrats immediately resurrected the narrative that Trump is Vladimir Putin’s puppet. The Democrats have retreated to this charge so often since 2015 that it has seems to be their default position.
The problem is, this charge is false, even nonsensical. Let me explain why.
When the Soviet Union collapsed on December 31, 1991, the entire world order changed. Shortly before disbanding, the population of the Soviet Union was slightly larger than the that of the USA, and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between the two was close to equal.
Since that time, many things have changed, except for our fear that Russia is as mighty as the Soviet Union once was. It isn’t. It isn’t even close to as powerful. Except for nuclear weapons, where the USA and Russia remain equals, America dwarfs the capability of the Russians in international politics.
Their GDP is less than $6 trillion. Ours is almost $25 trillion, which is more than four times greater than theirs. That’s a huge disparity. It makes us much more powerful. Their population is 145 million, while ours is close to 350 million. This also makes us more formidable, but that’s not all.
Our primary alliance, NATO, now has three former-Republics of the Soviet Union as member nations—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Additionally, many nations from the Warsaw Pact, which was the primary alliance of the Soviet Union, are now members of NATO. This includes Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. But, what does this mean? It means we have Russia surrounded.
What else does this tell you? It tells you that the USA is the dominant power in Europe, not Russia. Except for nukes, Russia is a regional power at best. Russia will never be what the Soviet Union was, despite Putin’s desire for the Kremlin to return to its former glory.
There’s a lesson to be learned here—one the Democrats seem to have missed. International politics is about power. Power prevails, not just some of the time, all of the time.
In every important category, Trump dominates Putin, not the other way around, despite what the Democrats would have you believe. Because of our power, it’s nonsensical to think that Putin has the ability to “pull Trump’s strings.” Putin doesn’t. The notion that he does is without merit. Despite this, the Democrats continue to harp on this worn-out narrative, deceiving the naïve with geopolitical tomfoolery, but you don’t have to buy into it. It’s simply not true.