Reams have been written over the last two weeks about discussion topics and possible agreements between presidents Trump and Putin during their – now we're learning, two – meetings on the margins of the G20 gathering in Hamburg, Germany.
- But if one wants to understand how successful the meeting was for the U.S., one should ignore all statements by the leaders or their spokesmen, especially Russian FM Lavrov: he distorts and lies so routinely and instinctively he’d make Stalin’s secret police chief, Lavrenti Beria, blush. The “spin” by the two sides makes everyone dizzy.
The real test of the meeting outcome for President Trump is Vladimir Putin’s behavior over the coming months.
- History's lessons are telling: the most famous is probably the disastrous post-meeting consequence of President John F. Kennedy’s Vienna summit with Khrushchev in 1961; the Cuban missile crisis followed the next year. Or Carter’s May 1979 meeting with Brezhnev, followed six months later by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Rather than dissecting press statements, therefore, look for the following developments, to see if President Trump made any progress with his Russian counterpart:
- Does the “cease fire” announced for southwestern Syria hold?
- Do the Russians back off harassment of U.S. and NATO aircraft and ships in the Baltics and the Black Sea?
- Is separatist activity in eastern Ukraine modulated?
- Do the Russians provide the U.S. any help on North Korea’s nuclear program – in the UN or through back-channels with Pyongyang?
- Will Russian cyber disruptions in the U.S. and Western Europe be reduced?
Quick answer to all the above? Likely, no. The cease-fire does appear to be holding in southwest Syria; but in every other area, Russian activity continues unabated. Indeed, in Ukraine in particular, the intensity of Russian disruption is increasing, with targeted assassinations now the order of the day in Kiev as well as in the eastern Donbas region.
As the Wall Street Journal mentioned in the hours immediately following the summit meeting, “We’ll learn what Putin thinks of Trump by what he tries to get away with!” Expect Vlad to keep trying to get away with a lot, despite the pleasantries from Lavrov. The upshot is heightened geo-political risk for Europe as it approaches key elections in the fall in Germany and in the spring of 2018 in Italy.
