Opinion: The United States And Russia Aren't Allies. But Trump And Putin Are
Monday's Trump-Putin summit was not a meeting between adversaries, writes Brookings Institution senior fellow Robert Kagan. It was a meeting between allies, with convergent interests and common goals.
Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of the forthcoming book The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World.
Because it is hard to break old patterns of understanding the world, we have persistently misunderstood Donald Trump and what he is up to. Thus most observers of Monday's summit — critics and defenders alike — expected to see some version of the traditional meeting between American and Russian leaders: two adversaries coming together to address mutual concerns, raise objections, talk over possible solutions
