President trump had phone conversations today with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French president Francois Hollande, and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
In their 45-minute phone conversation, Trump and Putin Discuss Fighting Terrorism.
President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone Saturday, setting the agenda for future bilateral relations and agreeing to find time and place for an in-person meeting, the Kremlin said in a statement Saturday.
President Trump also spoke by telephone with German President Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, among other world leaders, in conversations where they stressed the importance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Messrs. Trump and Putin discussed a range of issues, including the conflict in Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East and tensions on the Korean peninsula, the Kremlin said.
Russia and the U.S. have long been at odds over the war in Syria. The Kremlin has backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while former U.S. President Barack Obama backed the ouster of the Syrian leader. Saturday’s Kremlin statement indicated that Mr. Trump might more closely align with Russia in its campaign against Islamic State, or ISIS, and other militant groups in Syria.
The Kremlin’s statement said the two leaders agreed to “establish real coordination of Russian and American actions to defeat ISIS and other terrorist groups in Syria.” Mr. Putin “now view[s] the U.S. as the most important partner in fighting international terrorism,” the statement added.
President Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held extensive talks about security issues Saturday, with both leaders working to establish a relationship following loaded barbs Mr. Trump leveled at Ms. Merkel during his presidential campaign.
The leaders said in a joint statement that they agreed that NATO was an alliance with “fundamental importance to the broader transatlantic relationship.” Mr. Trump has in the past criticized NATO and suggested the U.S. might pull back its support from the alliance if more countries did not contribute more to defense spending.
“NATO must be capable of confronting 21st century threats and…our common defense requires appropriate investment in military capabilities to ensure all Allies are contributing their fair share to our collective security,” their joint statement said, appearing to address the suggestion of a U.S. pullback.
Fair Share Contributions
Coming from Trump, the statement “Our common defense requires appropriate investment in military capabilities to ensure all Allies are contributing their fair share to our collective security” reads more like a demand that allies pony up than anything else.
I would expect Russian sanctions to be removed within a few months if not much sooner.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
I hope that includes removing US troops from Europe as well.
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Yes, PLEASE leave Germany NOW
Jurisdiction Total Army Navy USMC USAF USCG
Germany 34,562 20,606 879 1,063 12,004 10
EUROPE Total
95,205 27,006 39,641 3,195 25,131 232
If US want to use German facilities like RAMSTEIN forget it
The Air Base is used to coordinate and execute most of the United States global drone program.
LANDSTUHL go somewhere else with your hurt and wounded from your crazy wars
Landstuhl medical center: since 2004, nearly 13,000 wounded U.S. service personnel have been evacuated there.
And get out of WIESBADEN !!!
66th Military Intelligence Brigade (“Six-Six-M-I”) is a United States Army brigade, subordinate to United States Army Intelligence and Security Command and based at Wiesbaden Army Airfield. Unit’s mission is to provide intelligence support to U.S. Army Europe and U.S. Army Africa. Part of the 66th Military Intelligence Brigade supports near real-time missions for deployed soldiers such as operations in Afghanistan and also Iraq. Members of the brigade provide mission support by utilizing databases running on computer clusters and communicate on encrypted networks, such as the NSA-certified TACLANE encrypted network.
Anymore questions?
OK there are some (several) US nuclear bunkers in Germany – let the Germans take it over 🙂
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Let Germany take over Germany?
You are saying Germany hasn’t a society and government able to make these decisions.
That only justifies the US presence.
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I wish Germany and Japan would kick us out
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They have the right to.
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And pay for their own defense?
Germany has less than 300 main battle tanks
Leas than on German WWII Division.
Less than the PA National Guard.
No, Germany and Japan would rather do their defense on the cheap…
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Germany has 60,303 soldiers in the Army, so the US has about 1/3rd of the number of soldiers in Germany that the Germans have (20,606 from the post above).
It’s not even clear that 60,000 guys with <300 tanks could effectively suppress the million or so recent Islamic refugees in Germany if serious civil unrest occurs.
Do the Germans really want to go it alone?
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There’ll be huge blowback from their neighbors.
We are in Germany and Japan not because they “need us.” Both of those countries have the engineering and organizational prowess to fairly quickly build a very capable military. But none of their neighbors feel particularly good about them actually going out and doing that. And, at least according to conspiracy theorists, neither does US, French and British defense contractors and aerospace firms.
Of course, nowadays, Japan would need to staff it’s army with 60 year olds to have any hope of finding enough soldiers. And Germany’s would be staffed by recent immigrants from Syria….
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IOW, “we” are in Germany and Japan not to protect them from others, but rather to protect others from them.
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Maybe all those USA nuclear-capable anti-Iran “defensive” missiles in Poland, Romania and ringing Russia might be moved back to deescalate tensions. Not to mention the USA troops in the Baltics, as well as those deployed to northern Australia (as if they are a deterrent to China). USA could easily cut its foreign military spending a significant percent, with many benefits. In other words, spending less to achieve more.
I doubt lifting Russia sanctions will be done, as 84% of USA public is anti-Russia and Democrats are using Russia as an issue against Trump. Not to mention Neo-cons like McCain. Lifting Russia sanctions would be symbolic, and cause Trump problems. Russia is not about to start buying critical goods from Germany, the USA or anywhere else again because it would not be in the interests of Russian national security. Sanctions by USA and EU permanently ended any strategic leverage against Russia, which has a national interest in more reliable suppliers and self-sufficiency.
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Sanctions will end, because they are a stupid attempt to blame Russia for the US State Dept.’s overthrow of the Ukrainian government. They have done far more harm to Europe than Russia, which exports only natural resources and advanced weapons.
The US and Russia are natural allies,and have never been at war.
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pyrrhus, you are mistaken. The US and Russia were at war in 1919-20. There were many US troops killed in combat against the Reds and a number made POWs. Shameful part is that the POWs were never released and this paid a part in the US not recognizing the Reds as the government (until the lefty FDR became president and recognized Stalins government and wrote the missing troops off, Stalin then pulled the same stunt with thousands of US troops from WW2 and Korea who vanished into Siberia).
Modern (post USSR) Russia and the US should be allies. Much more sense to work with Putin than against him in dealing with common problems like ISIS.
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I think ISIS may want to go on a long vacation, their days are numbered
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Today Islamic terrorism extends from Libya to the Philippines. It does not matter if its called ISIS or IS, or Daesh . It will continue to exist and morph into some new alphabet group. The US and the UK opened Pandora’s box and they can not close it. Droning people does not work. The blowback will be with us for years to come. Get out of the ME tomorrow, secure our borders and do not accept any more immigrants from those countries.
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Your ignorance is showing. There are many millions of non muslims in the ME. Copts, Maronites, Assyrians, Yazidis, Jews, Catholics etc and you want to deny them the chance to migrate. Pandoras box in the ME was open long before the US or UK got involved with the Ottomans, the pan arabists, the muslim brotherhood and others stirring the pot. Closing the border does nothing about the 6 million muzzies already inside the gate.
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Trump has a great meeting with PM Theresa May and solidified our relationship with the Brits and now he’s working on repairing all the damage Obama did to our relationship with Putin and Russia.
Working in cooperation with other superpowers gets much better results than fighting with them.
Most of the negative news on Putin was greatly exaggerated by the neo-cons and the warmonger democrats. They want another cold war. Trump wants peace and cooperation to solve some of the world’s major problems, like eliminating ISIS.
But anything Trump does will be attacked by the Hillary supporters who will greatly exaggerate the negatives and ignore the positives.
The essence of propaganda.
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Trumps presidency hinges on how he manages to develop communication channels with his voter base by bypassing the mainstream media. Until his popular support is intact, the neocons, the politicians-for-hire will not dare to go against him. So the race is on: Trump trying to communicate loudly with his voters, and the deep state trying to loosen his support.
Every news have to be evaluated in this context.
I am thinking of an analogy from the 1 century BC, but hopefully nobody will be forced to cross the Rubicon.
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Your analysis is spot on, Max. If Trump allows the media to speak on his behalf they’ll sink him. And he knows it. That’s why he’s making routine use of twitter. At least half the nation supports his immigration restriction on the 7 nations because that’s what he promoted during his campaign. It is so great to watch a real hard-charger in the White House get things done and exhibit zero fear of the press and his detractors. Trump is a very smart guy and won’t sway from his original plan. He’s a man on a mission.
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Yes. Move forward with Russia and many problems will resolve. God awful mess in the middle-east and Ukraine left behind, plus EU is under or has a lot of bad influence of its own. Just my intuition but always have the feeling that EU is manipulative, irresponsible, and trouble – at least with Trump the definitions are going to be more clear cut. That might mean less need to ‘save Europe’ , population could turn on its leaders and ask what they think they have been up to as the change of foot will expose them. Good.
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“The Kremlin has backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while former U.S. President Barack Obama backed the ouster of the Syrian leader.”
The Russian position has been that the Syrian people choose their own leader and twice they have elected Assad, most recently in the multi-candidate election of 2014.
Assad has said he would leave if he lost the vote and there is no reason to believe he wouldn’t as both he and is wife are highly educated and both speak multiple foreign languages. Asma, Syria’s British-born & raised 1st Lady, has degrees in computer science and French literature and has worked as an investment banker. As Assad himself is an ophthalmologist, it is clear that they could live comfortably anywhere but have committed themselves to Syria. The Syrian people know they are fortunate to have leaders with class, especially in that part of the world.
The USG’s position has been, up until now at least, that “Assad must go” even if the Syrian people want him. The Russina position is the morally correct one. “Assad must go” must go.
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The role reversals are so bizarre.
I remember the day when America protected the weak from the strong-arm of Russia.
Now Russia protects the weak from the strong-arm of America.
It’s getting hard to tell the difference between the good guys from the bad guys anymore.
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Bizarre it is. Something turned somewhere, between West Sunni Alhawi Baath Shia , Russia/Iran/Syria and US/EU/Saudi etc.
Syria did not have the fairest election system ( Sunni lost rep.) , has some harsh regime, but nothing too different from the rest of the region. For whatever reason west was pressuring Assad for change, then turned on him.
What surprised me was the unanimous western condemnation of Assad – not a peep in his favour anywhere as the election became contested and protests started. Tells me of the level of control at work over westerners.
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The Russian position is based on a rational evaluation that the post Assad Syria would not look much different than the post Gaddafi Libya, only much closer to Russia. A good portion of jihadists are from the post soviet space and speak fluent Russian. They do have the luxury of drawing up no-fly lists.
The Nobel prize winner’s policy was entirely the neocon policy even though he was a perfect front man.
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As the US stops providing weapons to ISIS (stolen from Libya / Qadafi’s former arsenal), the whole ridiculous “terrorist” cell will collapse.
Obama and Hilary created ISIS. That is what they were hiding at Benghazi. Just because the US media helped Obama lie doesn’t mean the rest of the world was fooled.
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Germany has the ability to pay “Its fair share” of NATO expenses since it has one of the lowest debt to GDP ratios of Europe.
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Trump wants to make nice with Russia for three reasons (leaving conspiracy theories aside – I know Mish readers only like conspiracy theories when they target Hillary).
1. He wants to start trouble with China, which is bad enough, and he doesn’t want to have two massive enemies. Even though Russia is only massive in terms of its military, that is real enough. This is a rare bit of logical thinking from our president.
2. He wants to pulverize Islamic extremists (not just ISIS), but does not want to be constrained by international norms or American values. If the terrorists are hiding in civilian areas, Putin can wipe the whole place off the map. Allepo’s all over the Islamic world. In exchange not only will sanctions drop, but Trump will “give” Putin the former Soviet Republics, with the possible exceptions of the ones in NATO. Some of Mish’s readers will actually cheer these developments.
3. When Trump is no longer President, he is already looking forward to being a massive real estate tycoon in Russia. He is probably kidding himself about this.
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