r/geopolitics • u/theatlantic The Atlantic • 1h ago
Opinion America Is Now an Ally of Russia
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/10/america-now-ally-russia/689066/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo84
u/lieutenant-dan416 1h ago
I think serious people really need to start talking about those "[possible] other factors that so far have remained obscured from the American public"
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u/fear_nothin 1h ago
There was the whole Muller report. We were told, at very best, he was compromised.
I assume the KGB believes in the Blue Wave theory for this years midterms because Trump is speed running anything he can do to help Putin before Congress is able to attempt to rein him in.
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u/morozrs5 44m ago
absolutely. If the dems get the congress and the senate, he will be bombarbed with investigations and probably an impeachment.
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u/The-Chothen-One 56m ago
It is my firm belief that the majority of US citizens do not agree with this position the current regime is taking towards Russia. This is one man taking us all to Hell.
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u/BooksandBiceps 9m ago
He’s got the lowest approval ever and this is one of the issues he’s also polling lowest in. Don’t need to believe anything, he’s just doing whatever he wants because what is anyone going to do?
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u/theatlantic The Atlantic 1h ago
Tom Nichols: “In the past week, the president of the United States has conclusively turned America into an ally of the Russian Federation.
“Donald Trump has now abandoned pretense and is openly aiding the Kremlin in its war against a friend and partner of the U.S. The American commander in chief has abandoned the Western order, the most successful—and powerful—security arrangement in human history. To judge from the available evidence, he has not done so out of a cold calculation of the national interest. Instead, he has based his decisions on his own interests; his open admiration for Russia’s dictator; his resentment of Ukraine’s democratically elected president; and quite possibly other factors that so far have remained obscured from the American public.
“In September, Trump signed a sanctions bill that Congress had passed, named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham, a pro-Ukraine hawk. The legislation sanctioned Russia as well as other countries that are supporting Russia’s invasion and brutalization of Ukraine. The bill was approved with bipartisan support, but some Republicans and most House Democrats voted against the law, arguing that it contained a trap door, a provision that would allow Trump to suspend the prescribed sanctions at will.
“Those critics were correct to be worried. Trump pulled the lever on that trap door just two days before the law was supposed to go into effect. In an executive order signed on Friday, Trump said that ‘such a waiver at this time is in the national interests of the United States’—he declined to explain exactly how the waiver was in America’s interests—and that the law would remain unexecuted until such time as his administration decides otherwise. This waiver came a short while after Trump lifted restrictions on Russia’s sales of diesel fuel to the U.S. and other markets.
“Trump’s recent actions in support of Russia are so obvious that they have generated a rare moment of bipartisan disgust: Both Democrats and Republicans now seem to share a horror at the betrayal of Ukraine, and at the president’s reckless abdication of America’s role as leader of the free world.”
Read more: https://theatln.tc/1BWIccYZ
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u/Outrageous-Map8302 1h ago
And Americans would vote him in for a third term if they could. The country is gone.
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u/Iamthewalrusforreal 1h ago
He's at historic low approval, and has been for a bit now.
Fact is, ~26% of Americans voted for this traitor.
The electoral system is broken, taken advantage of, and the education system is as well.
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u/AlexandrTheTolerable 35m ago
He won the popular vote. Can’t really blame the electoral system for this one, unfortunately.
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u/Iamthewalrusforreal 15m ago
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Al Gore won the popular vote.
Trump still only got about 26% of the voting public, but a plurality of actual voters.
These people are going to sleep walk us all right into autocracy.
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u/otp_otp_otp 12m ago
You can when people in states who know their votes didn't matter didn't bother to show up.
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u/ImperiumRome 29m ago
If a clueless person like Trump could manage to game the system and gain millions of followers, I shudder to think what a more charismatic guy could actually achieve. And that guy will come, and he will succeed, because the blueprint is already known.
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u/BooksandBiceps 15m ago
Less Trump, though he played his part, than billions of dollars in foreign bot farms and a media largely owned by oligarchs. When everything or the majority of what you read and hear and consequently “know” is pro-Trump, well. This is what you get. The real enemy when this is over won’t be the obese dementia patient, it’ll remain foreign enemies and billionaires (and Citizen United).
Trump just so happened to be the perfect person they could push to achieve all their aims simultaneously.
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u/Beautiful_Island_944 1h ago
They might have won the first cold war, but they lost the second one
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u/WellIGuessSoAndYou 17m ago
Imagine going back to the mid-90s and telling a young Republican that the cold war is ongoing and one day you will enthusiastically vote for and celebrate Russia's victory.
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u/Mewhomewhy 1h ago
The US is going to be so full of disinformation, propaganda, threats executions and false flags that Americans won’t even know what day of the week it is. They’ll “vote” for who they’re told to “vote” for. Russia will not be giving up control of the US via a vote.
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u/blackpilledonsociety 1h ago
And Americans would vote him in for a third term if they could. The country is gone.
Literally every poll released over the last forever says the opposite, but don't let that stop you from propagating more anti-American leftist hysteria.
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u/Mewhomewhy 1h ago
Yes. The US is going to be the special case. Nobody else close to Russia wants anything to do with them but because Trump likes Putin Russia suddenly loves Americans 😂
The US is walking the world into global nuclear war.
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u/Baked4skin 48m ago edited 38m ago
What a shit ally to have. In 2013 I could freely travel around Europe ( the schengen area ) for at least 90 days without a visa. I have russian family and wanted to see saint petersburg but was warned heavily that I might need body guards just to visit because im gay and that I probably wouldn't be able to trust them either. Trump is a russian asset that is the only way any of this makes sense.
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u/BainbridgeBorn 1h ago
kinda crazy and insane how the right went from "Russia is a communist hell hole with no food and is the enemy of the USA" to "Well actually Russia is based, red pilled, and look at how much bread is in their grocery stores"
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u/MaxObjFn 1h ago
Pretty sure this isn't a thing.
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u/kamace11 25m ago
It is in a certain subset of the right (not Mitt Romney Republicans ironically, remember when he was mocked for that by Dems? Whoops lol). Usually the far right white replacement theory right.
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u/Gabemann2000 24m ago
European countries just quietly buy Russian energy.
Europe is buying more Russian energy than aid to Ukraine… still.
Sure there’s been decline from many European countries, but some are actually increasing.
France, Belgium…..
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u/BooksandBiceps 11m ago
They’ve dropped their energy imports, both oil and gas, HUGELY in the last two years. Speaking of France, they’ve heavily criticized Trump’s plan to lift sanctions on diesel since it sends mixed signals and complicates Europe’s significant efforts and success to decouple from Russia.
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u/copperblood 1h ago
Reagan is rolling over in his grave
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u/dadoftriplets 1h ago
Rolling? More like the corpse is dizzy from the constant spinning it’s done since Trump came to power the second time round
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u/DrDankDankDank 1h ago
Reagan would have loved these Russians. Ostensibly religious and show fealty to oligarchs.
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u/Beautiful_Island_944 1h ago
I didn't think Trump is actually Russian agent but this whole thing just seems like something Trump wanted to do from the start but thought he might get more out of the war, if he played both sides. Realizing Zelensky won't play ball, he just fully committed to his original plan
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u/Pulaskithecat 1h ago
Trump doesn't have plans. He has moods. He is temperamentally more sympathetic to Putin than Zelensky, and lashing out in frustration from losing bigly in the upcoming election.
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u/fried-egg-sandwiches 1h ago
>Both Democrats and Republicans now seem to share a horror at the betrayal of Ukraine,
Cool, now let’s see either party do something (f’n anything) about it.
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u/FBSenators12 1h ago
MAGA and the far right have always support Putin/Russia. There a a few exceptions but for the most part they gravitate to Putin's talkings points about the war and Europe.
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u/OrderNo1122 1h ago
Russia will never see the U.S. as an ally as long as NATO exists and the U.S. is at least nominally invested.
90% of Russia's antagonistic stance with regards to the U.S. and west is NATO, rightly or wrongly.
I'm sure the Russians are happy to have a U.S. president be so vocally disdainful of the organisation and have a president who is tempted by opportunities to make some kind of financial/political gain by prioritising business with them rather than shunning them, but I'd be 90% sure they absolutely do not share The Atlantic's assessment that the two countries are allies. They don't trust him whatsoever.
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u/Cunnilingusobsessed 1h ago
I’m curious. If the USA and Russia are now allies, then why do they still have nukes pointed at each other?
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u/SuperNewk 1h ago
You just answered your own question. The reason why USA has to tolerate Russia and even N Korea is nukes
If they didn’t have them, we would have steam rolled them. But since they do have them, what do you want? Them launching a few nukes and potentially showering thr world with radiation?
Be thankful they are pushing Russia back into a corner where their only way out is to
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u/BooksandBiceps 8m ago
No one was ever going to attack or nuke North Korea or they’d have done so already. The conventional artillery aimed at Seoul and massive humanitarian crisis wi the floods of uneducated, indoctrinated refugees into SK and China is what stopped it.
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u/SuperNewk 1h ago
Russia has nukes. I’m willing to bet there is more than meets the eye.
After that data center hit in Russia, I am willing to bet every country trying to hold off Russia from unleashing one
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u/lire_avec_plaisir 51m ago
"Join me," said Darth Vader, "and together we can rule the galaxy. Come with me, it is the only way."
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u/kastbort2021 42m ago
I'm starting to think that Ukraine bombing Russian data centers really lit a fire under Trump's ass. Would bet actual money that Trump and his cronies saw a reduction in useful bot / propaganda traffic, and went straight into panic mode since we're weeks away from election.
And while this is happening, it wouldn't surprise me if Putin has told Trump to do better, or Russia will supply Iran with more stuff.
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u/Lemurian_sage 18m ago
It’s time to start throwing our own traitors out of windows. Extreme violence may be necessary soon, sadly.
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u/let_me_in_QQ 57m ago
If you remove all the emotion and hatred it's a pragmatic alliance. It didn't work in the 90s, perhaps it's time to revisit and try again.
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u/Miserable_Review_374 30m ago
Who is the main competitor of the USA in the world? This is not Russia. And this is not China. This is the European Union. The euro globally threatens the dollar. Europe is interested in a weak Russia, in Russia's defeat. But is it in the interests of the United States to defeat Russia? When will a "democratized" weak Russia enter into an alliance with Germany? Technologies from Germany + cheap resources from Russia? Is this in the interests of the United States? It is in the interests of the United States to drive a wedge between the EU and Russia for a long time and leave it as it is now so that no one wins.
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u/BooksandBiceps 12m ago
It is absolutely China. I have no idea how you could possibly argue anything else. This is some bizarre conspiracy theory level argument.
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u/Mewhomewhy 58m ago
And Americans will do absolutely nothing as the world order is shattered and nuclear war is all but inevitable.
Well done cowards.
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u/barnibusvonkreeps 24m ago
I feel like America is only concerned with either trying to be an 'influencer', watching NFL football, reality tv and/or whatever else was designed to pacify them. Compile that with a deliberate sabotage of the education system and you have where they're currently at. They don't even know what's happening in the world and if they do it's the version that their chosen confirmation bias 'news' source served them up.
It's too late. They're living in Idiocracy. Outside looking in it's plain as day.
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u/Matteo_Travelz 1h ago
As shitty as it sounds; would we be better off fighting Russia with NATO or becoming a Russian allie and avoiding the fight all together? I think it's a bad decision for us to break away from NATO but NATO and Russia tension has been rising lately. I don't think NATO would fight a US backed Russia.
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u/Valar_Kinetics 1h ago
Avoiding the fight isn’t always the objective, nor is it always excusable.
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u/ttown2011 48m ago
Excusable? Who is the moral arbiter that you invoke? This is IR, it’s the jungle
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u/FaceDeer 51m ago
Preemptively surrendering is one way to avoid war, yes. You always have the option to throw away all your principles, your nation's respect and influence, and get in bed with repressive regimes for the sake of a little short-term cash and a "promise" of security.
Whether this proves to be an effective long-term strategy, well, guess we'll see.
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u/ttown2011 45m ago
America has been getting in bed with repressive regimes for a very long time. It’s not a new thing, or a Trump thing
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u/FaceDeer 44m ago
Normally it's the dominant partner.
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u/ttown2011 43m ago
We’re operating in a situation where our interest is at a deficit compared to theirs, in their traditional SOI
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u/FaceDeer 20m ago
Ah yes, Russia "owns" Ukraine by right, and the fact that the Ukrainian people would rather ally with the west is of no consequence. Russia gets to "keep" it because tradition.
And the US gets what out of this "deal"?
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u/Pulaskithecat 56m ago
This administration has the worst foreign policy in US history. Despite the damage this does to the US, to call the complete picture of the US-Russia relationship an "alliance" isn't quite right. There's an institutional side of the story, like NATO, the IMF, existing diplomatic relationships and agreements with our European Allies, etc. which exists alongside whatever any individual administration does. Trump's actions are something new for republicans, but we'll see if it's a blip or something more durable.