Europe must start making its own decisions on confronting Russian\u00a0aggression following the shock victory of Donald Trump in the US<\/p>\n\n\n\n
presidential elections, a European analyst has warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“As far as we know, Donald Trump has a very different view of Russia to\u00a0Barack Obama and has been calling Vladimir Putin reliable,” said Roberto\u00a0Menotti, an analyst at the Aspen Institute in Rome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is a big challenge for Europe, which does not have a coherent\u00a0Russia policy beyond its thin agreement on sanctions. With Trump in<\/p>\n\n\n\n
office it will be more necessary to quickly come up with a more\u00a0consistent, common position,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We would have expected Hilary Clinton to set the framework, but with\u00a0Trump it could take time for a framework to emerge, so we need to be\u00a0clear in a short time about what we want,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Menotti said that despite Trump’s differences with Obama, if he now\u00a0seeks to reduce US interventionism around the world, he would be<\/p>\n\n\n\n
following a policy started by the outgoing president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It is clear that Trump has less confidence in the structured alliances\u00a0than in bilateral deals, preferably with strong states like Russia, in<\/p>\n\n\n\n
order to combat enemies like IS without investing too many troops and\u00a0resources,” said Alessandro Marrone, a senior fellow at the IAI think\u00a0tank in Rome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Trump has a business-like approach, less rooted in an ideological\u00a0vision, due to his lack of experience,” he added.
Andrea Margelletti, the head of the Ce.SI think tank in Rome, played\u00a0down ideas of Trump’s foreign policy taking a radically new direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“He has talked about “America First” and I expect a typically Republican\u00a0presidency,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Many countries don’t pay for their security and the Americans are\u00a0justly tired of paying for them. The Baltic states are a weight for<\/p>\n\n\n\n
security but don’t produce. The US will want a relationship with Russia\u00a0that is less influenced by these small countries,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Having a good relationship with Russia means having good relationships\u00a0in the Middle East, where both countries are more interested in<\/p>\n\n\n\n
counterterrorism than in nation-building. One Iraq is enough,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The big question is Iran,”\u00a0Margelletti\u00a0said. “Will it be considered an\u00a0opportunity by the US, which will have an effect on relations with Saudi<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arabia and Israel, or will those two countries continue to be points of\u00a0reference?” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Tackling terror will mean tackling the mother of all problems \u2014 Israel\u00a0and the Palestinians \u2014 which no one is currently talking about. Should\u00a0the US now look at the Saudi Arabian plans for a Palestinian state?”\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Menotti said that Trump remained a mystery to European policy makers.\u00a0“Few observers here have a grasp of his deep thinking, beyond his\u00a0campaign statements. We don’t really understand Trump as a person and a\u00a0politician, probably because we didn’t take him seriously during the\u00a0campaign. There is also serious uncertainty about his foreign policy team.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Europe must start making its own decisions on confronting Russian aggression following the shock victory of Donald Trump in the US
\npresidential elections, a European analyst has warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":114928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[8,46,11],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3345],"class_list":["post-56084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-congress","category-europe","category-global"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"FEZ365PK7VGIPLCVXVEZA47PPI","arc_canonical_url":"\/congress\/2016\/11\/09\/analysts-trump-victory-forces-europe-s-hand-on-russia-policy\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n