Russia and China set to challenge the new commander-in-chief

In addition to the economy, tussles with Russia and China will dominate the agenda of the new US president.

In this photo provided by China's Xinhua News Agency, the J-20 stealth fighter jet flies at the China's International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2016. (Li Gang/Xinhua via AP)

Given we are only a few hours away from knowing who the next US president will be, lets imagine we are looking over the shoulders of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

At the moment, all the debates are about what the new US president means to markets and the economy but, before 2017 is out, the agendas of President Xi and President Putin will dominate the new US president who will be tested in a way that few other American presidents have experienced.

Both Putin and Xi were stunned when they discovered that a man who regularly praises dictators was close to becoming president — to them it was a sign that American democracy was on the decline.

Trump said Vladimir Putin was “running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country”. No American leader has described a Russian President this way before.

But when it comes to dictators Trump did not stop at Putin and so, in respect to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Trump said, “You’ve got to give him credit. He goes in, he takes over, and he’s the boss. It’s incredible.”

Even Saddam Hussein was praised: “He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn’t read them the rights.” Trump admires authoritarianism — exactly what Putin and Xi model their leadership on.

But in the US Trump went further than Xi or Putin would ever go by threatening on national TV to jail his opponent. But of course Trump was also very critical of China and its export policies.

There is no doubt that Putin and Trump have a lot in common and that Putin would prefer Trump but, assuming the markets are right, and it’s to be President Clinton, then it means a continuation of the carefully crafted plan Putin has been implementing in 2016.

Step one of the plan is to work with Saudi Arabia to bring some semblance of order to OPEC and lift the oil price. At current prices Russia is suffering.

An important part of that OPEC strategy is to achieve “victory” in the Middle East — that’s why Trump’s proposal to hit Islamic State hard appealed so much to Putin.

What annoyed Putin in the Hillary Clinton campaign was the sight of her husband Bill at her side. It was Bill Clinton that roped so much of Eastern Europe, including a number if the Latvian states, into NATO. Russia saw that as betrayal because the US took advantage of the weakness of Russia. Putin has not forgotten. When Ukraine started to move into the NATO/ European Community direction, Putin moved to retake control of Crimea, which the USSR had seconded to Ukraine when Ukraine was in Russia’s orbit.

Putin knows that the US defence shield no longer has the same power. The Joint Strike Fighter has failed and the magnificent F-22 plane has been taken out of production. With Hillary in power, Putin will be very tempted to incite some riots in Eastern Europe, (perhaps starting in the Ukraine) that “require Russian intervention”. He will then test Hillary Clinton’s resolve. If that is what he does then we will learn a lot about the new US President.

In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Chinese President Xi Jinping showed the world just how powerful China had become with an awesome display of air and land power at the Zhuhai air show.

President Xi also knows that the JSF has fallen short of its objectives. China has designed a plane that can take on the F-22. And top analysts say it looks like he has achieved his objective. Xi also realises that if China is to be a major military player in the Pacific then it must have the industrial base to produce an aircraft that ranks with the best in the world. And he has done just that.

Throughout the campaign, Donald Trump threatened to impose big tariffs on Chinese goods. Clinton will not duplicate these moves but it was a warning to President Xi that he Chinese strategy of shifting to domestic consumer demand needs to be pushed even harder.

Trump was made aware of the shortcomings of US defence and the mistakes that have been made. My guess is that Hillary Clinton has no understanding of what has happened to the US military machine, which is now being challenged by China and Russia.

Therefore Clinton may be more aggressive in relation to China and its South China Sea ambitions. President Xi recognises and admires strength. At the moment he does not see it in the US.

The sad part about all this for Australia is that our defence people will not admit to the US’s problems. We only have a short window in which to help the US deal with its deterioration. Canada understands what has happened and may do the job of convincing the Americans but it really needs Canada and Australia to work together.

The history of international relations reveals that when your opponent/enemy/rival no longer respects you and also believes that they have military superiority, the risk of war is greatly increased. I hope that this is not the result of the 2016 US election campaign.