Trump loves Putin
US President Donald Trump has congratulated Vladimir Putin for his victory in the Russian elections, in which he was re-elected for a fourth term, according to Kremlin sources. The call between Trump and his Russian counterpart included the disputes of Ukraine, Syria and North Korea, in addition to the arms race, where Putin found himself in the Shakespearean dilemma of increasing military spending that requires a sterile arms race or greater economic investment.
After his overwhelming triumph with almost 77% of the vote, Putin sent a magnanimous and subliminal message to his counterpart Trump by insisting that he was not interested in an "arms race" and was willing to "cut military spending" , 18 days after deploying its "invincible nuclear weapons".
Faced with the Shakespearean dilemma of greater military spending that forces a sterile arms race or increase economic investment, Putin opts to improve the standard of living of citizens in Russia, which has suffered asphyxiating sanctions and which - despite this - has been able to grow due to its geoeconomic and military complementarity with China. With his new panoply of "invincible" nuclear weapons, the 65-year-old Russian president, who took another six years in power, can afford to cease the arms race with the US - which arrived in the 1980s to bleed Russia- to focus on "fixing differences with the West through diplomatic channels".
In fact, the impressive announcement of Russia's new "invincible" nuclear weapons was the response in a two-month period to both the US National Strategic Security of December 2017 and the Pentagon Nuclear Posture Review in February. It is likely that President Trump did not want to be isolated in the face of the strengthening of relations between China and Russia, and has decided to congratulate President Putin on his re-election.
In reference to his call, Trump said they addressed the disputes of Ukraine, Syria and North Korea, in addition to the arms race, so it is likely that the two leaders meet in "the not too distant future," in his own words. The most important thing is that Trump commented the magnanimous call to the re-elected Putin after having received the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who said that "an arms race is not a big thing" since the US "spends US $ 700,000 million this year on the military sector."
Pentagon officials want the US to stay ahead of Russia and China, while Trump boasts that his country "will remain the strongest country in the world by far." The president acknowledges that "the arms race is getting out of control" and declared that Russia and the US shared "efforts to maintain strategic stability" - read: that neither of them surpasses the other in geostrategic matters - besides "combating the international terrorism. "
