Top U.S. diplomat Fiona Hill suggested this week that former President Donald Trump’s unpredictability dissuaded Russia from invading Ukraine until now.
SO WHAT
Even Trump’s critics have to admit he was crazy like a fox.
WHAT SHE SAID
Speaking at a Chicago Council on Global Affairs event Tuesday, Hill portrayed Trump as markedly less sophisticated on foreign policy issues than his successor, President Biden, saying Putin eventually got tired of having to “explain everything to [Trump] all the time.”https://streamable.com/e/f6losa
“[Putin] thought that somebody like Biden — who’s a transatlanticist, who knows all about NATO, who actually knows where Ukraine is, and actually knows something about the history, and is very steeped in international affairs — would be the right person to engage with,” said Hill, a Russia and European affairs policy expert who served at the National Security Council under Trump.
- According to Hill, Putin’s frustration with Trump’s shaky grasp of geopolitics influenced the timing of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- “You could see that he got frustrated many times with President Trump because he had to keep explaining things, and Putin doesn’t like to do that,” she said.
- “Even though he loves to be able to spin his own version of events, he wants to have predictability in the person that he’s engaging with,” added Hill, who testified against Trump during his 2019 impeachment trial and has repeatedly bashed him in the media.
SO CRAZY IT JUST MIGHT WORK
Putin’s alleged befuddlement at dealing with Trump lines up with supporters’ interpretations of the former president’s unorthodox political gifts and the “madman theory” of international relations.
- Coined by Richard Nixon, the madman theory stipulates that projecting an image of unpredictability affords countries a strategic advantage in dealings with other nations.
- Some of Trump’s own remarks have been taken as signs that he’s a subscriber to the theory.
- “‘Fire and fury.’ ‘Total annihilation.’ ‘My button is bigger than yours’ and ‘My button works.’ Remember that? You don’t remember that,” Trump said in 2019, describing his initial hardline approach to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“And people said, ‘Trump is crazy.’ And you know what it ended up being? A very good relationship. I like him a lot and he likes me a lot.”