2023-08-27 05:23:35
Formerly considered the number one geopolitical enemy, Russia is now viewed with a much better eye by American Republicans. Invited Thursday in Tout un monde, Alexis Rapin, researcher in strategic and diplomatic studies, analyzes the evolution of the discourse and the change of attitude of the American right towards the Kremlin.
Two distinct camps can be observed among the Republicans. There is, on the one hand, the traditional old guard defiant with regard to Russia and, on the other, the new Trumpist fringe more favorable to Moscow. If the first camp tends to be more and more discreet, the second has taken the lead in recent years, explains Alexis Rapin, Thursday in the program Tout un monde.
“The grassroots movement tends to be less critical of Russia. Several candidates for the Republican nomination like Ron de Santis have, for example, the strategy of looking like Trump, or even being more Trump than Trump in certain aspects. But , the attitude towards Russia seems to be part of this reflex of imitation”, explains the researcher at the Raoul Dandurand Chair in Strategic and Diplomatic Studies at the University of Quebec in Montreal.
There are also few successors likely to maintain a current opposed to Russia within the Republican Party. For Alexis Rapin, today we are facing a generational replacement accompanied by a paradigm shift. “According to the polls, criticizing Russia no longer pays off electorally when you belong to the American right,” he adds.
Common conservative values
But how to explain such a change of discourse? “It is the result of a fairly discreet process,” replies the specialist. The first signals appeared in 2015, when the Islamic State (IS) group was at the height of its power in Syria and Iraq.
During this period, Russia intervened militarily in Syria to support Bashar Al-Assad’s regime. “We then see appearing within the American radical right the idea that Russia is a partner of circumstance in the fight against jihadism. Little by little, other right-wing figures will insist on the fact that the real enemy is radical Islam. Russia is then perceived by the Republicans as a standard-bearer of the Christian West with whom we should forge an alliance.”
Moreover, because of their common conservative values, their “virile” image and their anti-woke discourse, the American right easily manages to identify with Russia.
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China as a new enemy?
Little by little, another superpower is designated as the great ideological adversary of the United States: China. “We are reviving Cold War rhetoric. We are insisting that China is a communist country with an opaque regime and whose values are fundamentally opposed to the American way of life.”
America hasn’t really changed its policy towards Russia. On the contrary, it has not always been a walk in the park under the Trump era.
Alexis Rapin, researcher in strategic and diplomatic studies at the University of Quebec
But if we observe a softening of the discourse vis-à-vis Russia, this does not necessarily translate into concrete measures, nuance Alexis Rapin. “America hasn’t really changed its policy. On the contrary, it hasn’t always been a walk in the park under the Trump era. He was, for example, the first American president to send weapons to the ‘Ukraine, long before the war. The Obama administration had stuck to delivering non-lethal equipment.
Aid to Ukraine disputed
Donald Trump has also forced the introduction of significant sanctions against the Nord Stream gas pipeline. “So if we consider that actions are more important than words, we see that Trump’s policy was not always favorable to Russia”, highlights Alexis Rapin.
There is also a growing discourse in the United States that America should look after itself more and devote fewer resources to foreign countries. Candidates for the 2024 Republican primary or parliamentarians like Kevin McCarthy have, for example, recently challenged United States military support for Ukraine. For Alexis Rapin, this speech is set to last and could prove to be promising from an electoral point of view.
>> Read also: The support of Western opinions for Ukraine is crumbling in places
Interview by Eric Guevara-Frey
Web texts: Hélène Krähenbühl
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