特朗普总统打破常规的外交风格从一开始就是他政府外交政策的标志。现在，这些做法是众议院民主党弹劾他的核心。唐纳德·特朗普总统7月份与乌克兰总统的电话只是该地区一系列不同寻常的外交政策中的最新一次，当然包括与俄罗斯勾结的指控以及与俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京过于亲密的关系。
前美国驻俄罗斯大使迈克尔·麦克法尔对此有一些想法。
麦克福尔是一名讲师、作家和外交官，从20世纪90年代初开始在莫斯科工作，他在奥巴马白宫工作了五年，包括2014年至2016年担任驻俄罗斯大使。麦克法尔是亲民主俄罗斯人的坚定盟友，他是第二位被俄罗斯政府宣布为不受欢迎的美国大使(第一位是冷战时期的外交官乔治·凯南)。普京甚至向特朗普暗示，他希望麦克福尔被派往俄罗斯，接受关于干涉俄罗斯事务的质询。特朗普的前新闻秘书萨拉·哈克比·桑德斯拒绝排除这种可能性。
麦克法尔和尼娜·伯利谈过新闻周刊联邦政府逮捕了两名苏联出生的商人，他们在试图离开这个国家时与特朗普的连任政治行动委员会有联系，并指控他们违反竞选财务规定，同时有报道称，当局也在调查前纽约市长鲁迪·朱利安尼在乌克兰为特朗普的私人工作。不用说，他不支持现政府。
编辑摘录:
新闻周刊:乌克兰有什么吸引了来自四面八方的美国特工？名单中包括被监禁的重罪犯迈克尔·科恩和保罗·马纳福特，他们被指控但无罪释放了前奥巴马白宫律师格雷格·克雷格和现在的鲁迪·朱利安尼，据报道他们正在接受与调查拜登夫妇有关的调查。
麦克法尔:老实说，我不确定我能回答这个问题。我想大部分都是从马纳福特开始的，他曾经在乌克兰工作了很长很长时间。他有一个非常重要的客户，后来被选为总统，[·维克托]亚努科维奇。然后他和他的政党一起工作，多年来他是亚努科维奇及其政党的顾问。我认为，如果马纳福特没有在2016年成为唐纳德·特朗普的竞选经理，大多数人都不会听说乌克兰和腐败，所以我认为一切都是从这开始的。当腐败被揭露时，就像马纳福特和他的乌克兰同事之间的腐败一样，其他人开始越来越多地试图揭露或发现这是一个帮助希拉里·克林顿的阴谋。随后，他们更进一步——总统本人也参与了这一阴谋——试图向乌克兰政府施压，以帮助揭露所犯下的所谓罪行。我想强调的是，没有证据表明副总统和他的儿子涉嫌腐败。所以我认为这一切都始于几年前马纳福特在乌克兰的工作。
温:所以，这并不是说它在世界的那个地方特别腐败？对许多美国运营商来说，这不是一个特别吸引人的地方，他们可以带着一袋袋的钱来来回回？
麦克法尔:我不认为乌克兰的腐败有什么特别之处。我是说，这是一个问题，很多年来，如果不是几十年的话。西方世界，包括向乌克兰放贷的机构，将是国际货币基金组织(IMF)——它们是乌克兰的主要捐助者——一直试图向政府施压，要求其清理行为。事实上，副总统[·乔]拜登2009年在乌克兰发表的第一次演讲，我知道，因为我在那里，我帮助撰写了这篇演讲，他还提到了腐败。
2019年3月28日，美国前驻俄罗斯大使迈克尔·麦克福尔(右)抵达DC华盛顿雷伯恩大厦，参加众议院情报特别委员会关于2016年俄罗斯干涉美国选举策略的听证会。麦克法尔对《新闻周刊》谈到特朗普的弹劾剧和2020年的选举干预。
NW:接下来是俄罗斯。据报道，特朗普已经竭尽全力隐藏他与普京的会谈。你认为他和他谈了些什么？
麦克法尔:嗯，我不知道确切的答案。我猜，我确实想强调:大多数政府，也许是政府中的每个人，都认为需要对普京及其好战行为进行反击，因此他们支持对俄罗斯人的制裁。他们支持向北约提供更多的军事援助，支持向乌克兰提供更多的经济和军事援助。有一个人不同意这个政策，那就是总统。因此，这可能是他不想让政府中的其他人知道他在对普京说什么的原因。
你能描述一下你认为特朗普在过去三年里为俄罗斯人做了什么吗？
麦克法尔:自奥巴马政府以来，[美国政策的总体轮廓没有改变。我认为这不是很好理解的事情。但我有抱负地看到特朗普想要改变政策。他明确表示，乌克兰似乎并不太在乎。他想解除制裁。他不情愿地把它们放好。他希望与普京和俄罗斯建立“更好的关系”。所以从修辞角度来说，这些东西就在那里。这项政策没有改变太多。我认为特朗普总统给予普京的更大的东西只是削弱了美国作为整个世界领袖，尤其是自由世界领袖的作用。因此，通过退出TPP([跨太平洋伙伴关系)、伊朗核协议和巴黎气候协议，以及最近一次从叙利亚的悲剧性退出，这造成了对弗拉基米尔普京有利的权力真空。在我看来，我刚才提到的每一个举措都强化了普京，削弱了美国。
核武器:说到战略，每个人都忽略了军备控制问题。你能谈谈俄罗斯的核武器吗？这些条约已经过期了，我们应该担心军备控制问题发生了什么，而没有人关注这个问题吗？
麦克法尔:是的。我认为特朗普政府在总体上退出军备控制协议方面犯了一个巨大的错误，尤其是今天与俄罗斯的协议。所以他们最近退出了《中程核力量[条约》。我认为这是一个错误，但更大的错误是威胁说，他们现在正在谈论从2010年起退出《新裁武条约》，该条约由奥巴马总统和[·德米特里]梅德韦杰夫总统签署，随后在2010年底获得美国参议院批准。
我致力于该条约，该条约削减了30%的核武器，两国的武库。它建立了一个非常全面的检查制度。我认为，退出该条约，我们就失去了尽可能了解俄罗斯正在进行核力量现代化的能力。我认为这是非常不稳定的。
罗纳德·里根在与苏联谈判时说过一句非常著名的话:“信任，但要核实。”当我在政府工作时，我总是说，“不要相信，只有核实。”如果你没有那个条约，你就没有能力核实。所以我只是认为这是一个巨大的错误，我希望，你知道，如果特朗普声称他想和普京合作，那么，对我来说，这是一个非常明显的悬而未决的结果。将新的裁武条约再延长五年。
温:你是俄罗斯的专家，你从90年代开始就在那里，你目睹了所有这一切发生在外逃资本、资金、黑手党、所有这些公共财富的私有化方面，然后这些财富转移到了海外。你认为调查记者关于特朗普组织洗钱的指控可信吗？
麦克法尔:我不会去推测法律问题。是的，我知道很多，是的，我知道很多这样的演员，但是要声称非法活动，需要法律专家，我不是法律专家。我不是检察官。在过去的三十年里，有很多资本外逃吗？没错。其中一部分是非法的吗？我毫不怀疑。但具体来说，一个人在特朗普组织做了什么，我希望米勒先生能把这些联系起来。我绝对没有资格。
温:你能谈谈特朗普亲自和通过电话会见世界领导人的方式吗？
麦克法尔:我知道当我和[·巴拉克总统一起工作时，我们是怎么做到的。给普京或梅德韦杰夫总统这样的人打一个典型的电话，首先会涉及一个机构间政策会议，通常我会主持这个会议，我们会在电话或会议中讨论我们寻求推进的政策议程项目。标准协议是，国家安全委员会[国家安全委员会]团队将准备一个电话套餐，也就是所谓的套餐，其中包含电话议程项目的背景信息。然后我们会写下谈话要点。下一步就是所谓的预简报。你会走进椭圆形办公室，向总统汇报电话中最重要的事情。然后他会打电话给梅德韦杰夫或普京，我们，或者我当然会坐在房间里听另一条线，做笔记，并在适当的时候就梅德韦杰夫或普京可能说的话实时向总统提出建议。
据我所知，他们没有为[现任总统准备电话套餐，如果他们准备了，不清楚他是否在阅读任何谈话要点。当然，对[·沃洛迪米尔总统的那次呼吁看起来并不像是他在训练自己专注于推进美国的国家安全利益。然后，只是一些小事。他从住处打电话，这意味着人少了。我是说，直到今天我们还不知道他打电话的时候谁和他在一起。我在白宫工作了三年。我从来没有在家里打过电话。
最后一件显而易见的事情是:打完电话后，我们会根据需要向高级官员、政府和白宫其他人发送一份构建好的成绩单的分发名单。我们当然从未将这些抄本存储在情报局的服务器上。那是保存最高机密信息的地方。我们也没有那样做。
温:你有没有给特朗普的俄罗斯大使洪博培任何建议，或者他有没有联系过你？
麦克法尔:不
NW:如果你认为特朗普改变了美国外交，你会用什么词来形容他？
麦克法尔:嗯，我认为他破坏了外交。他们没有制定政策。这只是临时的。我通过给泽兰斯基的电话看到了这一点。我看到，他打电话给埃尔多安，在那里他只是做了一个重大的外交政策决定，这似乎只是一时兴起，没有与他的将军们交谈，也没有与国防部长甚至他的国家安全顾问交谈。我不清楚是否有人参与其中。因此，政策的制定已经崩溃，变得非常特别，秩序混乱。
其次，就实施而言，当你不知道一项政策是什么时，它就很难实施，所以没有人真正知道当今世界上许多国家的政策是什么，因为这个过程已经被打破了。此外，还有两件非常不寻常的事情，我认为对美国国家利益的损害，一是外交的私有化。因此，朱利安尼先生不回答任何人的问题，也从未得到美国参议院的确认，他突然卷入了美国和乌克兰关系中一些最敏感的问题。另一部分是外交政策的个性化。特朗普总统似乎只想成为自己的国务院。
你预计普京在2020年会做什么？
麦克法尔:我真的不知道。我确实认为普京的剧本可能会被其他演员复制，乌克兰人，中国人，帕洛阿尔托高中的孩子，他们现在已经明白了你如何做到这一点并扮演这个角色。所以我担心社交媒体方面的问题。
我想这些演员中我最担心的不一定是普京在2016年所做的极其复杂、全面的干预。我认为这很难再次实现，但我确实担心选举日会发生一些事情，可能会对投票的有效性提出质疑。它甚至可能只是一小部分选票，但是如果这种情况发生了，有人会说，“这一票是不自由和不公平的”，这可能会使我们的选举进程失去合法性。我想最让我担心的是，普京或者其他好战的演员。
FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR MICHAEL MCFAUL ON TRUMP DIPLOMACY, UKRAINE AND PALO ALTO KIDS
President Trump's norm-busting diplomatic style has been a hallmark of his administration's foreign policy from day one. Now, those practices are at the heart of House Democrats' move to impeach him. President Donald Trump's July phone call with the President of Ukraine was only the latest in a series of unusual approaches to foreign policy in the region, including, of course, allegations of collusion with Russia and a too-cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul has some thoughts on all that.
A lecturer, author and diplomat who worked in Moscow starting in the early 1990s, McFaul served five years in the Obama White House including as the ambassador to Russia from 2014 to 2016. A staunch ally of pro-democracy Russians, McFaul is only the second U.S. ambassador to be declared persona non grata by the Russian government (the first was Cold War era diplomat George Kennan). Putin even suggested to Trump he would like to have McFaul sent to Russia for questioning about interference in Russian affairs. Trump's former press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, declined to rule it out.
McFaul talked to Nina Burleigh of Newsweek as the federal government arrested two Soviet-born businessmen with ties to a Trump re-election PAC as they were trying to leave the country, and charged them with campaign finance violations, and as reports surfaced that authorities are also investigating former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani related to his private work for Trump in the Ukraine. Needless to say, he is not a fan of the current administration.
Edited excerpts:
Newsweek: What is it about Ukraine that has attracted American operatives from all sides? The short list includes incarcerated felons Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort, accused but acquitted former Obama White House lawyer Greg Craig and now Rudy Giuliani, reportedly under investigation related to investigating the Bidens.
McFaul: I'm not sure I can answer that question, to be honest. I think most of this starts with Mr. Manafort who used to work in Ukraine for a long, long time. He had a very important client that then got elected to be president, Mr. [Viktor] Yanukovych. Then he worked with his party, and for many years he was an adviser working for Mr. Yanukovych and his political party. And I think most people would have never heard of Ukraine and corruption and all these things had Mr. Manafort not become the campaign manager for Donald Trump in 2016, so I think it all starts with that. When that corruption was exposed, as it was between Mr. Manafort and his Ukrainian associates, others started to get more involved trying to allegedly uncover or discover that this was a plot to help Hillary Clinton. Then they went a step further to - with the President himself being involved in this conspiracy - to try to pressure the Ukrainian government to help expose alleged crimes that were committed. And I want to emphasize, no evidence has been shown to that effect, alleged corruption, let me put it that way, by the Vice President and his son. So I think it all starts with Manafort's work in Ukraine going back several years.
NW: So, it's not that it's just particularly corrupt in context of that part of the world? It's not a particularly attractive place for a lot of American operators to go and return with bags of money?
McFaul: I don't think there's anything particular about Ukrainian corruption. I mean, it's been a problem and for many years, if not decades. The Western world, including the lenders of money to Ukraine, at the top of the list would be the International Monetary Fund—they're the main donor to Ukraine—have been trying to pressure the government to clean up its act. In fact, the very first speech that Vice President [Joe] Biden gave in Ukraine in 2009, and I know because I was there and I helped write it, he also mentioned corruption.
Michael McFaul (R), former U.S. ambassador to Russia, arrives for a House Select Committee on Intelligence hearing concerning 2016 Russian interference tactics in the U.S. elections, in the Rayburn House Office Building, March 28, 2019 in Washington, DC. McFaul spoke to Newsweek about Trump's impeachment drama and 2020 election interference.
NW: On to Russia. Trump has reportedly gone to extreme lengths to hide his talks with Putin. What do you think he has talked to him about?
McFaul: Well, I don't know the exact answer. And I really do want to underscore, I'm guessing: Most of the administration, maybe everybody in the administration, believes that there needs to be a pushback on Putin and his belligerent behavior, so they support sanctions on the Russians. They support more military assistance to NATO, and they support more economic and military assistance to Ukraine. There's this one guy that disagrees with that policy, and that's the President. That may therefore be a reason why he doesn't want other people in his administration to know what he's saying to Putin.
NW: Can you describe what it is that you think Trump has done for the Russians in the last three years?
McFaul: The general contours of the [U.S.] policy have not changed since the Obama administration. I think that's something not well understood. But what I see aspirationally is Trump wants to change the policy. He's made it clear that it doesn't really seem to care that much about Ukraine. He wants to lift sanctions. He put those in place reluctantly. And he wants to have "better relations" with Putin and Russia. So rhetorically those things are there. The policy hasn't changed that much. I think the bigger thing that President Trump has given Putin is just weakening America's role as a leader in the world as a whole and especially a leader in the free world. So by withdrawing from the TPP [Trans Pacific Partnership] and the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Climate Accords and now the most recent tragic withdrawal from Syria, that creates power vacuums that are good for Vladimir Putin. Every single one of those moves that I just mentioned, in my view, strengthens Putin and weakens the United States.
NW: Speaking of strategy, everyone's ignoring the arms control issue. Can you say anything about Russian nukes, these treaties that have expired and should we fear what's happening with the arms control issue with nobody having their eye on the ball?
McFaul: Yes. I think the Trump administration is making a huge mistake in pulling out of arms control agreements generally, but specifically with Russia today. So they recently pulled out of the INF [Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces] Treaty. I think that was a mistake, but the bigger mistake is the threat that they're now talking about withdrawing from the New START treaty that was signed by President Obama and President [Dmitry] Medvedev from 2010, then ratified by the U.S. Senate at the end of 2010.
I worked on that treaty, that treaty reduced nuclear weapons by 30 percent, arsenals of both countries. It had in place a very comprehensive inspections regime. I think by withdrawing from that treaty we lose our ability to understand, as best we can, what Russia is doing with its modernization of its nuclear forces. That I think is highly destabilizing.
Ronald Reagan said very famously when he was negotiating with the Soviets, he said, "Trust, but verify." When I was in the government, I used to always say, "Don't trust, only verify." And if you don't have that treaty in place, you have no ability to verify. So I just think it's a huge mistake, and I hope, you know, if Trump claims that he wants to do something cooperative with Putin, well, to me this is a really obvious low hanging fruit. Just extend the new START treaty for five more years.
NW: You are an expert on Russia, you've been there since the '90s, you watched all of this happening in terms of the flight capital, the money, the mafia, the privatization of all this public wealth, then it moving overseas. Do you find investigative journalists' allegations about money laundering in the Trump organization, credible?
McFaul: I'm not going to speculate about legal things. Yes, I know a lot and yes I know a lot of these actors, but to claim illegal activity, that demands legal experts, and I'm not a legal expert. I'm not a prosecutor. Was there a lot of capital flight out of Russia for the last three decades? Absolutely. Was a portion of it illegal? I have no doubt. But to say specifically what one person did with the Trump organization, I was hoping that Mr. Mueller would connect those dots. I most certainly am not qualified to.
NW: Can you talk a little bit about Trump's style of meeting with world leaders in person and by phone?
McFaul: I know how we did it when I worked with President [Barack] Obama. A typical phone call to somebody like Putin or President Medvedev would first involve an inter-agency policy meeting that typically I would have chaired and we would have discussed policy agenda items that we were seeking to advance in a phone call or a meeting. Standard protocol would be that the NSC [National Security Council] team would prepare a call package, that's what it's called, filled with background information on the agenda items for the call. We would then write the talking points. The next step would be then what's called the pre-brief. You would go into the Oval Office and brief the President on the most important items of the call. Then he would call Medvedev or Putin, and we, or I most certainly, would sit in the room and listen on the other line and take notes and when appropriate would advise the President in real time about things that Medvedev or Putin might be saying.
As far as I can tell, they don't prepare call packages for the [current] President, and if they do, it's not clear that he is reading any talking points. Certainly that call to President [Volodymyr] Zelensky didn't look like he was disciplining himself to focus on advancing U.S. national security interests. Then, just little things. He made the call from his residence, and that means that there are fewer people. I mean, we don't know to this day who was with him in the residence when he made that call. I worked at the White House three years. I never once was on a phone call from the residence.
Then the final obvious thing: after a call, we would then send a distribution list of the constructed transcript to senior officials and the government and other people within the White House on a need-to-know basis. We most certainly never stored those transcripts on a server in the Directorate of Intelligence. That was where the most highly classified information was held. We did not do that either.
NW: Have you ever given any advice to Trump's Russia Ambassador Jon Huntsman or has he ever reached out to you?
McFaul: No.
NW: What words would you use to describe how Trump has changed American diplomacy, if you think that he has?
McFaul: Well, I think he's undermined diplomacy. They're not developing policy. It's just ad hoc-ery. And I see that with the call to Zelensky. I see that with his call with Erdoğan where he just makes a major foreign policy decision, what appears to be just on a whim without talking to his generals, without talking to the Secretary of Defense or even his national security adviser. It's not apparent to me that anybody was part of that. So just the making of policy has broken down and it's become very ad hoc and little order.
Then two, in terms of the implementation, it's hard to implement a policy when you don't know what it is, so nobody really knows what the policy is on many countries in the world today because that process is broken down. In addition, you have two other things that are just highly unusual and I think the damaging to American national interests, one, the privatization of diplomacy. So, Mr. Giuliani, who answers to no one and was never confirmed by the U.S. Senate, is suddenly involved in some of the most sensitive issues in U.S.-Ukrainian relations. Then the other part is just the personalization of foreign policy. President Trump seems like he just wants to be his own State Department.
NW: What do you expect Putin to do in 2020?
McFaul: I don't really know. I do think the Putin playbook is likely to be replicated by other actors, Ukrainians, Chinese, Palo Alto high school kids who have now understood how you can do this and to play this role. So I worry about that on the social media front.
I guess my biggest worry from any of these actors is not necessarily the tremendously sophisticated, comprehensive intervention that Mr. Putin did in 2016. I think that'll be hard to pull off again, but I do worry about something happening on election day that might call into question the validity of the vote. And it might even be just a small handful of votes, but if that happens and somebody can say, "This vote was not free and fair," that could be very de-legitimizing for our electoral process. And I guess more than anything, that's what I worry about, from either Putin or some other belligerent actor.
