President-elect Donald J. Trump is set to officially take over the position of most powerful politician in the world in a few days and Congress is at the moment engaged in hearings for his Cabinet level appointments, some of which have already drawn a wide range of criticism from the left and even from inside the Republican Party.
Normally the process of selecting and appointing people to the federal administration when a new president is elected is interesting to those outside the United States only when it comes to foreign policy focused positions like Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense, with some auxiliary interest in the intelligence focused positions.
But given the way Donald J. Trump tends to abruptly and clearly present his positions, mostly via Twitter and television appearances, on a wide range of issues, his appointments have taken on a new level of importance because these are the people who will be able to transform his rhetoric into reality outright or to take his words and create more palatable policies around them.
Given the solid majorities that the Republicans have in both Congress and Senate it’s unlikely that any of the Cabinet level appointments will fail to be approved in time for the inauguration but the Democrats, as already seen in the Jeff Sessions interactions, will make their opposition clear and will seek to undermine the legitimacy of the entire administration even at this early stage.
There are two extreme scenarios for the coming few months (most probably the real world will deliver a mix):
– the more extreme elements of the new administration gain the upper hand and, using the political capital that Donald J. Trump has accumulated, move swiftly to repeal Obamacare, even without a replacement, limit immigration and deport as many illegals as possible, slash taxes and impose limits on Social Security while also moving to the right when it comes to social issues;
– the more moderate side of the governing debate wins out, with Republicans in Congress and the Senate unwilling to back major moves that can cost them when elections roll around in 2018, and the administration, despite the statements that will continue to come from the president, is more cautious and focuses on tax reform, which has some bipartisan backing, and on bringing back some industry to the United States, without touching Obamacare, social issues or immigration directly.
Regardless of the short term result of these internal administration debates it’s highly unlikely that we will see a clear position develop when it comes to relationship between the United States and Russia.
James Mattis, the general poised to lead Defense, Michael Flynn, set to become National Security Advisor, Mike Pompeo, the new head of the CIA, Dan Coates, who will coordinate overall intelligence efforts, and Rex Tillerson, the nominee for Secretary of State, will be the figures leading the debate on how to interact with the Vladimir Putin led state, which has been accused by the intelligence community of interfering with the 2016 presidential election process.
There’s plenty of space for Russia and the United States to work together, on issues ranging from anti-terrorism to climate change or long-term nuclear disarmament, with clear benefits for both sides, but they also have conflicting interests when it comes to Syria (with ramifications for the rest of the Middle East), the global economy, the future of the European Union and, in the long term, engagement with China.
It’s unlikely that the first few months will create a clear image of how the two major nuclear powers will interact in the medium to long-term, unless some major and unexpected event forces both of them to take clear sides.
Once the new administration settles in and starts implementing a governing agenda it’s possible to re-evaluate both its internal and external stances and see how they interact with one another and how Russia fits in the bigger picture.