Without an agreement with Trump, Putin may be persuaded to agree if Trump promises to reduce US pressure on some – but not all – of these countries, Russia may lose all 15 allies (and maybe more) in the long run.
It was tested shortly after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro held that the “Trump Doctrine” was formed by Elbridge Colby’s ‘Strategy of Denial’, which says that the US is now making it a priority to deny China the resources it needs to sustain economic growth. The aim is to destroy China’s superpower trajectory and thereby make it more likely for Xi to accept a trade deal with the US to modernize China. The Third Gulf War furthers this goal as described here and here.
As applied to Russia, however, the Trump Doctrine is very similar to the Reagan Doctrine. The Strategy of Denial is less important for Russia than for China because of Russia’s natural wealth that allows it to develop automatically (but at the cost of falling behind in the technological race). That said, Maduro’s impeachment and the Third Gulf War affected China and Russia, albeit differently; China was denied resources, while its Russian partner was deposed and the other weakened.
This observation of those two outcomes is consistent with the essence of the Trump Doctrine’s Reagan-esque application toward Russia. It’s all about “rolling back” Russia’s influence around the world with the goal of pressuring Putin to accept a counter-deal in Ukraine that will put Russia in a new position. Trump asked to start a conflict last spring, Putin refused because that situation does not solve the security problems, which is why it continues today without an agreement.
Russia and the US each hold on to the promise of a mutually beneficial strategic partnership focused on resources, which has been touched on here and there, as a reward for compromising their positions that the other deems unacceptable. This concerns Russia’s refusal to end the conflict without addressing the core security issues and the US’s refusal to address them and its refusal to force Ukraine and NATO to do the same. No one agreed to compromise without this reward.
The resulting crisis led to the modification of the Trump Doctrine. Putin has put Trump in a zugzwang position where he can either maintain a state of conflict at the risk of another “perpetual war” or “escalate to de-escalation” at the risk of World War III. Trump cleverly extricated himself from this trap by repeating Reagan’s “rollback” policy to modern conditions. By the time he was “rolling back” Russia’s influence in Venezuela and Iran, he had already made major moves in Armenia-Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and even Belarus.
The former made peace in DC and agreed to a US-controlled trade corridor that would serve as a dual military route to inject Western, including NATO, influence into all of Russia’s southern periphery. This emboldened the latter to agree to an important mining agreement and to announce its planned production of NATO-class shells. As for the third, its negotiations with the US are aimed at promoting its defiance of Russia, which will make it more difficult for the continuation of the special operation.
These six countries – Venezuela, Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Belarus – are not the only ones where the US “rolls back” Russian influence, as Serbia, Cuba, Syria, Libya, and the Sahelian Alliance (Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger) are also targeted. Myanmar and Nicaragua may be next. In the absence of an agreement with Trump, Putin may be persuaded to agree if Trump promises to reduce US pressure on some – but not all – of these countries, Russia may lose all of these allies in the long run.
