The Freewheeling Diplomat
The Freewheeling Diplomat -- Colin Cleary -- served for over three decades in the U.S. Foreign Service. Free now to speak for himself, he offers a practitioner's perspective on key U.S. Foreign Policy challenges. Drawing on his years at U.S. Embassies in Ukraine, Russia and Poland -- as well as other postings -- he has been devoting particular attention to Russia's war on Ukraine. As the podcast moves forward, the Freewheeling Diplomat will be expanding to other topics. Colin Cleary is an Adjunct Professor of U.S. Foreign Policy at George Washington University.
The Freewheeling Diplomat
How Trump Enabled Nordstream 2
The Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline -- Putin's project to make Germany energy dependent on Russia, divide the Euro-Atlantic Community, bypass Ukraine, and make Europe subject to energy blackmail -- went from zero percent completed to 95 percent completed during the Trump Administration. This took place despite bipartisan legislation from Congress in 2017 that called for the US to sanction Russia's energy export pipelines. It happened despite urgent pleas from Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic countries, and others, for the US to implement sanctions against Nordstream 2. And it happened despite Trump's own repeated public denunciations of the pipeline. How? And how today could Trump and Pompeo blame the Biden Administration for the fait accompli Trump left behind? In fact, the Trump Administration only took concrete action to stop Nordstream 2 in December 2019 -- after Congress mandated than they do it and only after the pipeline was 95% complete. We explore all of this in today's episode of the Freewheeling Diplomat podcast.