US communicating its interests openly and directly - Sarts

RIGA - The US and its President Donald Trump communicate openly and directly about their global interests and activities, including the war started by Russia in Ukraine, Janis Sarts, Director of the NATO Center of Excellence for Strategic Communication, said in an interview with Latvian Radio.

He has observed that people today expect authentic and direct communication, not the kind that often characterizes Europe - complex and convoluted, in which one usually cannot understand the beginning or the end. "This is what doesn't really work anymore, so more and more we hear and see people at the forefront talking very, very directly, very unusually for us," said the Director of the NATO Center of Excellence for Strategic Communication.

He acknowledged that most of the time this communication is more honest, but there are also situations where people deliberately communicate in this way but mean something else.

Commenting on the new US security strategy, which has been widely discussed in recent days, Sarts said that the United States had been quite honest and direct in this document, stating openly what its interests and courses of action are, not only in the world, but also vis-à-vis Europe. He stressed that the US has still recognized the importance of Europe for it, but at the same time has pointed to certain ideological trends in Europe which it considered to be completely wrong.

When asked how Trump's positioning and the peace talks would affect the course of the war in Ukraine, the Director of the NATO Center of Excellence for Strategic Communication was rather skeptical. He believes that the ongoing talks are just "talks just for talking sake". It is a process that we are all following, but for the time being there is no objective reason to expect that it will result in peace, because the parties are making mutually unacceptable demands, said Sarts.