U.S. Secretary of State Blinken Had No Answer When Asked On Why Putin Didn’t Escalate During The Trump Administration

WNU Editor: President Trump constantly communicated with Russian President Putin during his Presidency to build and develop a personal relationship with the Russian leader to avoid situations like the one that is happening today.

This is also how President Trump defused the crisis on the Korean peninsula. He worked hard at developing a personal relationship with the North Korean leader at a time when many thought a war was going to happen.

International diplomacy is all about personal relations. Doubly so at a Presidential level. That is why we have Global summits and meetings .... it is all about developing these bonds so that if a crisis does occur, the leaders are not coming at each other blind.

When I was a diplomat this is what I always worked on. Developing personal relationships with my counterparts. And when a dispute occurred .... and they always did .... it was easy to find common ground and solve it.

This is what the President of the United States must also do, albeit at a higher level. He must develop these relationships with world leaders so that when a crisis does occur, he can use this personal bond to defuse it quickly.

This is also how Russian President Putin operates. I still remember when Putin met Trump for the first time at a G20 summit. He ignored all the other leaders at the summit, but he made a beeline to President Trump to shake his hand. And President Trump responded, because he had already told the Russian foreign minister and Russian Ambassador in their first Oval Office meeting months prior that he wanted better relations with Russia .... an Oval Office meeting that Trump's critics condemned at the time over allegations that he shared Israeli intelligence with them.

This is why I am worried about the current crisis. There is no Putin - Biden personal relationship. How else can you explain a situation where after each time they talked, the Ukraine crisis only got worse.

Another worry that I have is that there are no backroom channels between the two leaders. If there was there would have been no need for French President Macron to jump into the crisis and try to arrange a summit between the two leaders yesterday. A summit that I fear will not happen because there is ... to put it bluntly .... no common ground between the two sides.

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