The likes of Nikita Kruschev and John Foster Dulles would have been aghast. In the immediate aftermath of the US election, there has been a swing of the pendulum in terms of international relations. Seventy years after the Cold War erupted and raged for the many decades that it did, the vote has effected a watershed thaw in equations on either side of the Atlantic.

True the world has been kept guessing over what precisely transpired through the ether when Vladimir Putin called Donald Trump. Suffice it to register that it was a congratulatory message, one that was advanced with astonishing promptitude, and within hours of Trump’s victory speech.

Particularly significant and not least in the context of the turmoil in the Arab world is that the Kremlin has flagged its willingness to restore ties fully with its old Cold War foe, currently at loggerheads over the Syrian conflict. It will rank as a seminal achievement for both powers if a concerted essay towards ending the ferment in Syria attains fruition. And if Bashar al-Assad has to be sacrificed, so be it. Moscow’s pussyfooting in the region must end if the signal of a thaw has to attain fruition. While it is early days to interpret the development as the mending of fences, it must be conceded that the forward movement — at Putin’s initiative — is a critical development in international discourse.

More so considering China’s caveat that the US ought now to shed its gradual isolationism. Trump may have to smooth out his relationship with Beijing after he referred to the Asian giant as a threat to American jobs during his campaign, most particularly the statement that the United States “can’t continue to allow China to rape our country”.

At another remove, Russia was at the centre of a stormy campaign. Markedly, Trump had complimented Putin as a “firm leader”… provoking US officials to accuse Moscow of meddling by leaking hacked Democratic campaign emails to undermine Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Going by Putin’s statement to Russian state television, the Russian President is acutely aware of the red herrings across the trail — “Trump spoke about resuming and restoring relations with Russia.

We understand the way to that will be difficult, taking into account the current state of degradation of relations between the US and Russia.” It may be some time before the US considers the withdrawal, or at least a relaxation, of sanctions imposed in the wake of the Russian annexation of Crimea.

That could well be the Kremlin’s as yet unstated objective. Europe may not acquiesce so readily and the European Council president, Donald Tusk, did sound a mite cynical — “The events of the last months and days should be treated as a warning sign for all who believe in liberal democracy.” Varied are the strokes of diplomacy.

— Editorial