Loftis in BU Today on Trump’s Russia Strategy

 

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Amb. Robert Loftis, Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was recently interviewed on how relationships between members of United States President Donald Trump’s administration and Russia are viewed by U.S. allies across the globe.Loftis3

Loftis,  served in the State Department and Foreign Service from 1980 to 2012 including as the U.S. Ambassador to Lesotho from 2001-2004, shared his views on the Trump administration’s relationship with Russia in a February 23, 2017 article in BU Today entitled “US-Russian Relations Under the Microscope.

From the text of the article:

Robert G. Loftis knows diplomacy after three decades in public service around the globe, and he looks at the Trump administration’s efforts toward Russia with dismay.

“They are confused to say the least,” says Loftis, a Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and College of Arts & Sciences professor of the practice of international relations.

President Donald Trump has been mocked for his long-distance bromance with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but the state of relations between the United States and Russia is no laughing matter, from campaign hacking to the recent resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn for lying about his contacts with Russian officials and from rising tensions in the Baltics to a Russian spy ship cruising off the Connecticut coast. European leaders don’t laugh when they hear Trump say that NATO may be obsolete or hint that he may roll back sanctions imposed against Russia for its actions in Ukraine.

“You’ve got the president saying one thing, and then you’ve got Secretary of Defense Mattis and Secretary of State Tillerson trying to reiterate what has been long-standing policy,” says Loftis, who is also director of graduate studies at the Pardee School. “It is extraordinarily unusual for the president and his two chief foreign-policy and security advisers to be on such different wavelengths. I’ve never seen that.”

Read the entire article here.

Robert G. Loftis served in the State Department and Foreign Service from 1980 to 2012, where he held a wide variety of assignments, including Acting Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (2010-2012), Special Representative for Avian and Pandemic Influenza (2009), Senior Adviser for Security Negotiations and Agreements (2004-2007), Ambassador to Lesotho (2001-2004) and Deputy Chief of Mission in Mozambique (1999-2001).  You can read more about him here.