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Ruth Deyermond

@ruthdeyermond.bsky.social

13K followers 870 following 1.2K posts

Senior Lecturer, Department of War Studies, King's College London. Russian foreign & security policy, US foreign policy, US-Russia relations, European security. Views are my own.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · Aug 13

Trump likes Putin and Russia. Trump wants to "get along" with Putin and with Russia. When under intense pressure, he makes vague threats about punishing Russia which he then ignores, or converts into diplomatic favours for Russia. None of this is likely to change.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 12d

I'm shocked to discover that a senior member of a party run by Nigel Farage had a dodgy relationship with Russia.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 12d

"If [Trump] were serious about punishing Russia for failing to move towards peace, he would have done it long ago." Always good to talk to @kyivindependent.com

Jenny Mathers @jgmaber.bsky.social · 12d

Thanks to Oleg Sukhov for quoting me, among others (including @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social) in this @kyivindependent.com article, as we try to make sense of Trump's latest comments about #Russia and #Ukraine
kyivindependent.com/trumps-pro-u...

Ukrainian, European leaders push Trump to change tone on Russia. Will actions follow?

U.S. President Donald Trump's statements and public posts following his latest meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky have been… different. Kyiv can "fight and win all of Ukraine back in its original form,"...

kyivindependent.com

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 12d

I agree with you.

Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 13d

If all resistance to aggression is war, then it's extremely obvious that agression needs to be stopped at the earliest stage, before the aggressor has the advantage. Easier and cheaper to stop airspace incursions now than to do nothing and have to try to stop an invasion later.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 13d

It's said of totalitarian societies that anything that isn't compulsory is forbidden. Using the same logic, Putin is saying that anything that isn't capitulation is war. That's actually helpful because it shows European policymakers there's no area of compromise with Russia.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 13d

Exactly. The logic of this position is that resisting any Russian incursion into NATO territory would be an act of war. Shooting down a plane? War. Stopping a tank crossing into Estonia? War. Resisting Russian troops invading Finland? War. 🙄

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 13d

A US president with no interest in the US national interest or in issues of global order creates uncertainty and contributes to instability. A US president with no grasp of foreign policy beyond self interest creates endless opportunities for malign actors to exploit.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 13d

Many presidents before Trump - Obama and Clinton, for example - have focused on domestic more than foreign policy but no others have approached foreign affairs as a matter solely of self-interest, leaving everything else to be determined by other people.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 13d

Trump's disinterest in and lack of understanding of international affairs, the practice of foreign policy and diplomacy, or of US interests has created a vacuum that others in the administration are filling (incompetently).

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 13d

Earlier this year I wrote about the incoherence of Trump administration foreign policy as a product of simultaneously held but incompatible worldviews. But those worldviews and the specific policy that comes from them do not, I think, originate with Trump. www.bylinesupplement.com/p/a-multipol...

A Multipolar Superpower: How Trump's Foreign Policy is a Confused, Outdated Mess

Trump's America is guided by two conflicting – but equally flawed – views of the world and its place within it, argues Dr Ruth Deyermond

www.bylinesupplement.com

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 13d

But of course that's Trump the individual. If you listen to the bits of the speech that seemed to bore Trump so much when he read them out, or read other administration documents, it's clear that there is a worldview and a set of wider priorities informing policy, however ineptly

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 13d

Trump's approach to foreign policy appears to be driven solely by the quest for personal benefits: status (praise, flattery, deference) and enrichment. He seems to have no understanding of, or interest in, anything larger than himself, including the interests of the US.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 13d

Other presidents all had sets of ideas, however poorly thought through, about foreign policy: about the world and the US's place in it, what desirable goals and bearable outcomes are for the US, what will make the world more stable. Trump doesn't seem to care about any of that.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 13d

One last thing on Trump's embarrassing UN speech: watching it - in particular, listening to him read it - makes it clear that Trump has absolutely no interest in foreign policy. The only time he seemed remotely engaged was when he was complaining or bragging. That matters.🧵

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 14d

That surprises me. Many people in the generations above certainly did - common to hear them talk about "the continent", for example, as if the UK not part of Europe - but don't remember that from my student contemporaries.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 14d

What's really striking about Trump's Truth Social post of yesterday is not some empty words about Ukraine's chances of victory (empty because he will do nothing to help), but that he writes as if the US is outside NATO, not part of it.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 14d

He barely reads them even while he's giving them!

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 14d

Exactly that. It's so bizarre.

Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 14d

See my 2nd post.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 14d

Trump saying Ukraine could win =/= Trump saying the US will help Ukraine win, or that he wants Ukraine to win. Trump saying he might impose sanctions on Russia doesn't mean he will ever impose sanctions on Russia.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 14d

The only really surprising thing about Trump's comments yesterday is how many people are still treating anything he says about Russia and Ukraine as indicative of a possible shift in the administration's policy of doing absolutely nothing.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 14d

One fascinating thing about watching a Trump speech is that you can so clearly see when he's reading a script written by someone else and when he's ad-libbing. It's obvious from transcripts, but to see him not even try to cover up the gap between others' words and his own is odd.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 14d

The only time Trump looked remotely interested in his speech to the UN was when he was ad-libbing to complain about the escalator; complaining about not getting a contract to redevelop the UN building; and talking about the great (imaginary) job he did ending lots of wars.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 14d

Currently watching Trump's speech to the UN (was ill yesterday). Gore Vidal famously said of Eisenhower that he read his speeches with a "sense of discovery"; Trump read this one as if not only has he never seen it before, but he isn't even interested in it.

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 27d

I can think of a number of ways I'd characterise the invasion of Iraq - criminal, self-defeating, delusional, poorly-planned, stupid - but pathetic isn't one of them.