Russia and the United States: Imitation Might Be Sincerest Flattery, But Is It Smart?

 Hanna Notte's This Is Not the World Russia Wants (Foreign Affairs) raised everal questions that I am going to throw out into the ether.

First the thesis:

The 2022 invasion of Ukraine marked only the peak of Russia’s long turn toward revisionism. Since the Cold War ended, Russia has sought to shape Europe’s security architecture and impose its will on smaller neighbors. The Kremlin has also clashed with the United States and Europe at the United Nations and in other multilateral bodies. Its leaders condemned the concept of a rules-based international order as a Western invention meant to cement U.S. hegemony. Styling itself as a vanguard promoting a more multipolar order, Russia sought to increase its own global clout, unencumbered by restraints and rules.

But now it finds itself in the curious position of watching the United States behave more like Russia. On the surface, this may seem a boon for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Instead of contending with a Washington that resists his land grabs and tussles with him in multilateral forums, he has a simpatico U.S. president who appears to ascribe to his might-makes-right worldview. Donald Trump has bashed international institutions in language reminiscent of Russian broadsides, withdrawing the United States from dozens of UN agencies and stripping them of funding while launching a rival conflict-settlement body, the Board of Peace. And he has asserted a right to coerce, even attack, smaller countries in the style of Russia’s bullying.

My questions:

1. Is this a benefical unintended consequence of Trump's foreign misadventures abroad?
2. Can we now see Putin is a fool and Trump is even more foolish calling him a smart one? 
3. What happens to us when China also rejects the rules and begins bullying its neighbors?

 ....And although it has lent Tehran some support in the form of targeting data and operational guidance, Moscow has refrained from intervening directly to defend Iran in the current war. Russia’s refusal to risk entanglement on behalf of its partners has been a matter of political calculation, not just a function of resource constraints. Still, as Moscow sees it, Trump is shaping a world in which “the weak get beaten,” as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put it in a March interview. To ensure that the United States cannot beat Russia, Russian experts and officials have hinted, it must leave no doubt as to the formidability of its nuclear weapons.

And this wants me to substitute Russia for us:

 Instead, by dismantling the post–Cold War international system, Trump is taking over Russia’s mission. And Moscow will have to contend with something messier, a world with no stable frameworks or reliable rules of the game.

sch 5/8