Donald Trump Foreign Policy & Russia: No Collusion, Strong Opposition

The three-year-long effort to abort the Trump presidency — now culminating with a manipulated impeachment effort — has warped U.S. foreign policy toward Russia.

From 2009 to 2014, the Obama administration’s official policy (“reset”) was appeasement of Vladimir Putin’s autocratic Russia. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fashioned a “reset button” outreach to Russia, framed as an antidote to the allegedly unnecessarily punitive policy toward Russia initiated by George W. Bush after the 2008 Russian war with Georgia over the fate of Ossetia. In those ancient days, progressives thought Putin had been treated poorly by the warmongering Bush, and were determined to blame Bush, not Putin, for deteriorating relations.

About the Author

Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; the author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won; and a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.

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The three-year-long effort to abort the Trump presidency — now culminating with a manipulated impeachment effort — has warped U.S. foreign policy toward Russia.

From 2009 to 2014, the Obama administration’s official policy (“reset”) was appeasement of Vladimir Putin’s autocratic Russia. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fashioned a “reset button” outreach to Russia, framed as an antidote to the allegedly unnecessarily punitive policy toward Russia initiated by George W. Bush after the 2008 Russian war with Georgia over the fate of Ossetia. In those ancient days, progressives thought Putin had been treated poorly by the warmongering Bush, and were determined to blame Bush, not Putin, for deteriorating relations.

About the Author

Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; the author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won; and a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.