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Donald Trump won't fix Russia-U.S. relations, scholar says

By Nikolai Shevchenko, Russia Beyond the Headlines
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will fail to substantially alter the U.S. policy toward Russia, one U.S. scholar says. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will fail to substantially alter the U.S. policy toward Russia, one U.S. scholar says. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Donald Trump will fail to substantially alter the U.S. policy toward Russia even if he wins the presidency, said John Mearsheimer, a professor at the Chicago University and a scholar of political science who established a neorealist school of thought in international studies.

"Trump [if he wins] would end up looking not much different than Hillary [Clinton] will end up looking when she replaces Barack Obama," said Mearsheimer, speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow on Oct. 18. "There is not much maneuver room in the American context."

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Though an ardent opponent of Trump, the scholar agreed there were parallels between his own views and those of the Republican nominee.

"Donald Trump instinctively is opposed to global domination. He is more interested in restraint," said Mearsheimer, who has previously laid the blame for the deterioration of Russia-U.S. relations at the door of U.S. foreign policy.

"The problem is that Trump gives our views a bad name, because so many people in the foreign policy establishment are axiomatically opposed to anything he says and therefore they are opposed, by definition, to our ideas of the importance of restraint" toward Russia, said Mearsheimer.

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Despite mounting tensions between the Kremlin and the White House, Mearsheimer denied the possibility of an open conflict between Russia and the United States.

"Despite all of the bad blood between Russia and the United States today, I do not think that the most likely conflict is between these two countries," said Mearsheimer, who has frequently warned the U.S. foreign policy establishment about the threats associated with the rise of China.

"The Russians and the Americans have no good reason to be competing with each other in a serious way," said Mearsheimer, who argues that the importance of the European continent is diminishing in the eyes of the U.S. leadership, which must seek to reorient its foreign policy toward Asia.

This article originally appeared at Russia Beyond the Headlines.

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