The next president will need to work on having productive dialogue with Russia to improve upon a relationship that Gen. Philip Breedlove said Thursday is “not heading in a positive direction.”
Breedlove, the former supreme allied commander of NATO Europe, said the next president must focus on stopping backwards progress in the relationship with Russia and create a “better path forward,” but warned that any improvements won’t come quickly.
“No matter who is elected or what happens across the next week or two, that none of this change that I believe we need to see is going to happen fast. We are in for, as my father would say, a spell of bad weather. We need to get through that storm to a better place,” Breedlove said at an Atlantic Council event.
Breedlove said he has several worries about issues the next administration will face. One is so-called hybrid warfare, or conflict below the threshold, which, in today’s climate, often means cyberattacks. Another is the fact that borders are being threatened or changed, like in the annexation of Crimea.
“The most surprising thing to me in this new style of exterior competition is that force is back on the table to change internationally recognized borders in Europe … How do we deal with that?” he asked.
The last concern is Russia saying it will expand where it could use nuclear weapons, including against U.S. Marines now stationed in Norway. Breedlove said this will impact how military commanders approach an issue or conflict, knowing that Russia has said it has the option of using tactical nuclear weapons.
The U.S. should consider all of its tools to respond to these threats or conflicts, not just the military element, Breedlove said. The biggest fix will be opening up a productive dialogue, which is “not being in the same vicinity of each other, talking at each other and delivering national decisions.”
The U.S. and Russia already have some dialogue between them in Syria, where there is already a communication channel open to allow deconfliction since both countries have planes flying in the same airspace. Pentagon officials mostly recently had a video call with their Russian Ministry of Defense counterparts on Thursday to talk about the memorandum of understanding to prevent issues in Syrian skies, according to a statement from Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook.
The relationship with Russia has been a key part of the race for the White House, with Democrats alleging that Donald Trump has a too-cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump praised as a “leader far more than our president.”
