Would it really be strange if Vladimir Putin started playing off America against China in geopolitics? If he had greater vision, he would have been doing this in all those years when he fulminated against the US as the global Satan. I wrote about this in 2019 in my book Kremlin Winter as evidence of his long-term ineptitude. But Russian policymakers long ago ceased to offer Putin ideas for a more flexible foreign and security outlook, and his aggressive paranoia dragged Russia into a needless and barbaric war in 2022.
Donald Trump was the one American leader whom he always exempted from his tirades. They continue to get on famously. Now Trump, a worshipper of strong-arm rulers, has delivered him the largesse of a Russo-American rapprochement.
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