Don’t Laugh, But Trump May Be Right on Russia
Foreign Policy Elites Are Still Invested in a Cold War With Moscow That No Longer Makes Sense
Donald Trump’s views on US-Russia relations bring to mind something that Shakespeare points out in King Lear—that sometimes the court fool is the only person telling the truth.
Washington’s foreign policy establishment is an imperial court of a particularly Byzantine kind, and when it comes to Russia and certain other areas of policy, the court’s insular, conformist, and bipartisan consensus has so crushed free discussion, essential critiques have been banished to the fringes. No Washington analyst or commentator who values his or her career, and wants to be recognized as residing within the narrow confines of mainstream American “nationalism,” is likely to have the guts to challenge settled wisdom when it comes to US-Russia relations.
Enter Trump. The candidate may be a professional TV clown, with buffoonish and dangerous opinions on a wide array …