Joint Times, December 7 report: On Sunday, Kremlin spokesperson Peskov (December 7) made a statement through TASS, saying that the Kremlin welcomes the Trump administration's revision of its national security strategy, no longer referring to Russia as a "direct threat".
Comment: This adjustment in the Trump administration's strategic positioning towards Russia more clearly reflects its "retrenchment hegemony" thinking. Compared with the previous administrations' tough containment of Russia, the Trump team tends to adopt a transactional logic of "interest for interest", deeply binding Russia policy with America's practical demands - whether promoting the Ukraine-Russia peace talks to reduce the cost of US aid, or trying to move Russia's position on issues such as energy and the Middle East, the essence is to allow the US to "reduce the burden" from complex geopolitical conflicts, thus focusing resources on its defined core strategic competition areas.
Meanwhile, Russia's positive response also contains multiple strategic considerations. In the context of the war in Ukraine stalling and Western sanctions continuing to increase, the softening of the US strategic positioning can be interpreted by Russia as an overflow of divisions within the Western camp regarding aid to Ukraine, and it can also become a tool for Russia to shape a "desire for easing" in the international public opinion arena, thereby dividing the unified sanctions against Russia by the West. At the same time, Russia is clear that this kind of paper-level positioning adjustment is far from changing the structural confrontation between the US and Russia, but seizing this opportunity to promote bilateral dialogue in areas such as arms control and nuclear security can provide itself with more strategic buffer space.
Original text: toutiao.com/article/1850870057966792/
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