Yesterday, the US and Russian political expert Nikolai Zlobin explained the problems and prospects of the US domestic and foreign policy at the presentation of his book titled 'The empire of freedom. The values and phobias of the US society'.
Commenting on the US presidential campaign, Zlobin said: "Two elderly men are fighting for the lead in the country, which objectively is the main dynamo of the modern economy. I thought that there should be 40-year-old candidates with fresh ideas, who know how a server works, in order to at least avoid such stupid situation, which a grandmother Hillary Clinton faced. Ask your grandmothers how a server works. They have no idea. That is why she sent e-mails from her servers, not realizing what is a secret and what is not. Nobody could explain it to her properly".
Zlobin does not like both presidential candidates. According to him, "Trump is a man of another political culture ... He stares like a stuck pig, it seems that he does not understand what he is doing. He isn't nearly as good as a US president should be, which has the most powerful political position in the world. If Hillary is elected, there is a danger that she like a broken record will follow the same track, and we will get the same things once again, if Trump is elected, the problem is that we know practically nothing about Trump as a politician."
The political scientist recalled that the US president does not generate foreign policy unilaterally, but relaying on elites. "Russia's situation in the US foreign policy elites is deplorable. A negative image of Russia has already been formed there. And it will be very difficult to overcome it, because there is no incentive to overcome it. Even the economy does not require improving relations with Russia. There are no economic ties."
According to Zlobin, "The United States simply will not be able to talk to anyone on an equal footing in foreign policy for a long time. It is like a global 'Gazprom', which also will not talk with local regional networks on equal terms. None of monopolies of the world will talk to anyone on equal terms. Today, the US is a monopoly. The US foreign policy has got away from a centuries-old standard of bilateral mutual relations with different countries. They are no longer interested in it. Americans look at the world as a complete puzzle, they deal with trends and challenges, in which they are interested. If your country falls into this trend, Americans will establish a good relations with you. If it does not, they will be indifferent to you. If it interferes with this trend, then they will treat you like dirt".
The political scientist drew attention to the composition of the US State Department. "There are not much regional geographers left, almost no diplomats. There are system integrators, which look at the world as a system, they try to catch major trends, try to create trends to benefit the US, and if these trends are foreign, they try to use them to benefit the US, curb and turn them in such a way to benefit the United states. This is a very deep and system, but not the regional studies approach. The US has moved to a new level of foreign policy, the US foreign policy interests today are put above bilateral relations with any country. Russia, Israel, Japan, the EU - everything is falling apart, by and large, because the Americans are betting on another thing".
According to Zlobin, the Americans believe that the time of good bilateral relations is over, there different realities now, and countries are held hostage by trends: "Not so many things depend on a country. Therefore, it is pointless to improve bilateral relations. For Russia it is pointless to improve bilateral relations. We should create certain positions increase our value (in the good sense) in the global arena, create our own trends and drives to benefit Russia. And then we should try to negotiate with the United States. That is, creating a demand for ourselves".
