Trump's Big CON: The Puppet Will Meet His Master

UPDATE II:  "Foreign ministries around the world are filled with anticipation over what will happen when Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump meet for the first time at the G20 summit. But veteran U.S. spies who’ve studied manipulation tactics, particularly from their Russian counterparts, are confident they know what’s going to unfold.

Putin, a former KGB operations officer, will not just be practicing interpersonal diplomacy, they say. He’ll be putting his tradecraft as a spy to work. His main asset: Trump’s massive, delicate ego.

It won’t just be the expected flattery, from the spies’ perspective, though flattery is key to dealing with the “sociopathic narcissist” tendencies one ex-CIA interrogator sees in Trump. Putin is likely to stoke Trump’s ire, encourage him against his perceived enemies and validate his inclinations – particularly the ones that move U.S. policy in the directions Putin wants."

Read the Daily Beast, How Ex-Spies Think Putin Will Sucker ‘Sociopathic Narcissist’ Trump. 

UPDATE:  Read the Washington Post, Phone taps, power plays and sarcasm: What it’s like to negotiate with Vladimir Putin, which notes: "As President Trump prepares for his first face-to-face meeting this week with Putin, in Hamburg, those who have negotiated with the Russian leader caution that Trump must be ready for a shrewd, well-prepared and implacable adversary."

Read also the Washington Post, With friends like Putin, who needs enemies?, which correctly notes:

"American presidents have a long history of trying to play personal politics with Russian leaders. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was convinced that he could charm Joseph Stalin. Ronald Reagan trusted his rapport with Mikhail Gorbachev to such an extent that he imagined the two of them joining to eliminate all nuclear weapons. Bill Clinton spent long chunks of quality time with Boris Yeltsin. And George W. Bush, of course, believed that he was 'able to get a sense of [Putin’s] soul.'

This faith in the power of schmoozing has deep roots in American politics, where a lot depends on negotiation, dialogue and dealmaking. But Moscow doesn’t work that way. Russia’s long authoritarian traditions condition it to views its relations with other countries in terms of pure power.

Russia does not have friends. It has competitors and it has vassals. Vassals are countries that pay rhetorical tribute to Moscow and follow its lead on everything that matters — usually because they are deeply dependent on Russia for security, economic support or energy supplies. It’s no coincidence that its current vassal states — such as Belarus, Armenia and Kazakhstan — are themselves corrupt autocracies, which makes it easier for the Kremlin to work with them.

Competitors, by contrast, are to be combated or tolerated. Toleration is possible but it always comes at a price. Most importantly, such a competitor must effectively eschew any criticism of Russia’s domestic affairs and pledge to respect Russia’s freedom of action within its sphere of influence abroad. Once this principle is established, the two rivals can cooperate on other issues where they share common interests. This is the sort of relationship Russia cultivates with its frenemy China, and it is, presumably, how the Kremlin envisages its ideal policy toward the United States under Trump.

Putin wants Washington to accept its role as a meddler in Russia’s self-declared sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. . .

Putin also wants the United States to lift the sanctions imposed in retaliation for Russia’s annexation of Crimea, thus restoring Russia’s freedom to act within the post-Soviet space as it sees fit. . .

Meanwhile, Moscow continues to evade responsibility for its interference in the U.S. presidential election. . .

So yes, we could certainly have a closer relationship with Russia if we wanted one — what Trump might even call a 'friendship,' though Putin wouldn’t look at it that way. But such a deal would come at a huge cost. It would jolt our already shaky ties with our allies, allow Russia license to continue undermining Western democratic institutions and call into question our commitment to our own democratic values — not to mention it would reward Assad for the deaths of about half a million of his own citizens.

Russia doesn’t want us to be its friend; it wants us to be its enabler. Trump may be incapable of understanding this (and if he is, the result could be a disaster). But the rest of us should never forget it."

UPDATE:  "Putin, a former KGB officer who specialized in what the Russians call “political technology,” is the arch manipulator—“deft at psyching people out” as a former U.S. official put it—and his meetings with foreign leaders are frequently notable occasions. Putin brought his Labrador, Konni, to his first meeting with Angela Merkel, who has a lifelong fear of dogs. In his first meeting with Nicholas Sarkozy, he personally threatened to 'smash' the French leader 'to pieces,' leaving him dazed and confused in the press conference that followed. Famously, Putin bonded with George W. Bush over their shared Christianity by telling him a story about how his crucifix was blessed by his mother in Jerusalem and was subsequently the only item to survive a fire in the family Dacha. This tale infamously prompted Bush to say he saw into Putin’s soul. . .

Trump is no ordinary president. He is unique in every way. He is unique ideologically in that he is the only U.S. president to object to the postwar liberal international order, especially on trade, alliances and values. He is unique temperamentally, becoming a sycophant when praised and an enemy when slighted. His foreign counterparts will remember how he was manipulated by Saudi Arabia into siding with Riyadh against Qatar over the objections of his secretary of state. And he is unique in how he processes information. He has a short attention span, a limited interest in detailed briefings and a fondness for cable news. The pattern is fairly clear by now. Most of the time, his mainstream advisers can box him in, but it is hardest when he is center stage, either in a crisis or on a foreign trip. Poland and Hamburg provide the next test. "

Read Politico, Trump Wants a Do-Over in Europe.

The Donald will soon meet Putin.

But "Mr. Trump’s advisers have yet to devise a set of talking points for the closely watched meeting, a process made all the more difficult given the cloud of suspicion hanging over the president and his own propensity to go off-script.

It is rare and potentially risky for an American president to go into such a consequential meeting with another world leader — particularly one like Mr. Putin, a forceful and persuasive figure — with so little preparation on what policy objectives he wants to pursue, said Michael A. McFaul, who served as the United States ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama.

'Mr. Trump may not be preparing in terms of deliverables or outcomes that he seeks, but you can bet that Mr. Putin is,' said Mr. McFaul, who as the chief Russia specialist at the National Security Council in 2009 prepared Mr. Obama for his first meeting with then-President Dmitry A. Medvedev of Russia.

'The big danger with Trump and his instincts is that he often defines a ‘good meeting’ or a friendly encounter as a positive outcome of a meeting with a head of state, and with Putin — where we have a big agenda, and a lot of it’s adversarial — he’s got that backward,' Mr. McFaul said."

Read The New York Times, Trump to Meet With Putin at G-20 Gathering Next Week.

Read also the Daily Beast, Spies Fear Trump’s First Meeting With Putin, which states:

"Moscow believes its leader, ex-spy master Vladimir Putin, can extract major concessions from President Donald Trump when the two meet for the first time next week, European officials tell The Daily Beast.

The officials say their intelligence indicates Putin thinks he can outmaneuver Trump at the G-20 summit, playing on promises of cooperation on areas like counterterrorism to win concessions like a reduction in the raft of sanctions against Russia."

In other words, Our Child President is about to get spanked.

Read also Trump's Big CON: He is Putin's Puppet.