Trump threatens to out-crazy Putin

Donald Trump made big news last week, but it wasn’t his conviction on 34 charges in Manhattan on Thursday.

This is what Trump said a few days ago, according to the Kyiv Independent. Retelling May 28th Story According to The Washington Post, the former president and future president “suggested at a fundraiser that he would have bombed Moscow in retaliation for Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine,” and said he would “attack Beijing if China invaded Taiwan during his term.”

Surprisingly, Trump’s comments did not seem to raise any alarm bells in the US media, perhaps because we are used to him making outrageous statements that may or may not mean anything, but his bellicose words about China may mean that he really does intend to bomb Moscow if it again engages in some outrageous form of aggression, whether in Ukraine or elsewhere.

In effect, Trump’s comments make him the American equivalent of Russia’s crazed former president and prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, who regularly threatens to incinerate the West with nuclear weapons. jewelry“Irresponsible Western elites calling for military deployment in a country that doesn’t exist [i.e., Ukraine] It is expanding. … Then none of them will be able to hide in the Houses of Parliament, the Elysee Palace or Downing Street. 10. It will be a global catastrophe.”

Medvedev’s statements are certainly scrutinized by the Kremlin, and it is clear that he and Putin are playing the good and bad roles in an attempt to confuse and frighten policymakers and publics in Europe, the United States and Ukraine. This strategy has been successful, and the West continues to fear that Medvedev means what he says and that nuclear apocalypse is an end goal that the Kremlin may seriously consider.

The use of nuclear weapons would invite massive retaliation from the United States, condemnation from most countries, including China, and would truly put the human race at risk of extinction. All this because Russia believes that it cannot exist as long as the “non-existent country” continues to exist, which may be perceived by some as extreme irrationality and by others as a fact of life for the mystical Russian soul.

Trump speaks his mind, but his outrageous manner resembles Medvedev’s flippant comments — a comparison that is both worrying and welcome, ironically.

It can easily be argued that the last thing an increasingly unstable world needs are warmongers rambling on about war and the possibility of the end of the world. It is hard to imagine that such language can calm people or promote rational debate. The natural instinct is to scream, “Stop it! You’re both acting like madmen!”

But why should Russians have a monopoly on crazy talk? Why should they be the only ones to instill fear of catastrophe? Isn’t it time they got what they deserve? After all, Russians have a history of loving to make big claims, act crazy and negotiate hard.

This strategy has often been successful because, understandably, most people fear a mad dog foaming at the mouth. So why not turn the tables on the Russians? The worst that can happen is that Medvedev doubles down on his insane rhetoric. The best thing might be that the Russians, or at least some of them, come to their senses.

Uncertainty is a double-edged sword: it can either increase anxiety and encourage aggression, or it can increase anxiety and encourage reconciliation. In short, increasing uncertainty is a dangerous strategy, one that most rational people would avoid, but one that risk-loving Trump would welcome.

Ultimately, these verbal attacks and counterattacks are not about Medvedev: he is too weak and despised by the Russian elite. They are about Putin: many make a convincing argument that he is not a risk taker and never has been. After all, his decision to invade Ukraine in 2022 was a huge blunder, but it was based on his belief that the war would be over in three days. So Trump’s bombast may scare the great Russian leader. Let’s not forget that Putin spent the better part of two years in a bunker, so afraid of catching Covid-19.

Given Trump’s unpredictable behavior, we don’t know whether to take his threats to bomb Moscow and Beijing seriously, just as we don’t know whether to take Medvedev’s threats seriously. Perhaps neither of them know for sure.

And that may be the scariest thing of all: If we could have confidence in the rationality of Trump and Putin, we might take solace in the fact that their threatening behavior is deliberate and aimed solely at intimidating. But alas, as even many of their supporters acknowledge, complete confidence is misplaced.

That leaves us with the potentially worst possible world: one in which two runaways shoot indiscriminately at each other and everyone else.

Alexander J. Motyl Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, Newark. Specialist in Ukraine, Russia, the Soviet Union, nationalism, revolution, empire, and theory. Author of ten non-fiction books.The end of the empire: The Decline, Collapse, and Rise of Empire” and “Why empires are re-emerging: The fall of empire and the rise of empire in comparative perspective.