President George W. Bush looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and thought he saw his soul. He was wrong.
President Barack Obama attempted to “reset” relations with Russia, but by the end of his term in office Russia had annexed Crimea, stirred up conflict elsewhere in Ukraine and filled the power vacuum that Obama had left in Syria.
President Donald Trump appears to want to go much further and forge an entirely new strategic alignment with Russia. Can he succeed, or will he be the third American president in a row to be outfoxed by President Vladimir Putin of Russia?
The details of Trump’s realignment are still vague and changeable. That is partly because of disagreements in his inner circle. Even as his ambassador to the United Nations offered “clear and strong condemnation” of “Russia’s aggressive actions” in Ukraine, the president’s bromance with Putin was still smoldering. When an interviewer on Fox News put it to Trump this week that Putin is “a killer,” the president retorted: “There are a lot of killers. What, you think our country’s so innocent?”
For an American president to suggest that his own country is as murderous as Russia is unprecedented, wrong and a gift to Moscow’s propagandists. For Trump to think that Putin has much to offer America is a miscalculation not only of Russian power and interests, but also of the value of what America might have to give up in return.
Going by the chatter around Trump, the script for Russia looks something like this: America would team up with Putin to destroy “radical Islamic terror”—and, in particular, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. At the same time Russia might agree to abandon its collaboration with Iran, an old enemy of America in the Middle East and a threat to its allies, including Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. In Europe Russia would stop fomenting conflict in Ukraine, agree not to harass Nato members on its doorstep and, possibly, enter nuclear-arms-control talks.
In the longer term, closer ties with Russia also could help curb Chinese expansion. Stephen Bannon, Trump’s most alarming adviser, said last year that he had “no doubt” that “we’re going to war in the South China Sea in five to 10 years.” If so, America will need allies, and Russia is a nuclear power with a 2,600-mile border with China. What’s not to like?
Pretty much everything. Russian hacking may have helped Trump at the polls, but that does not mean he can trust Putin. The Kremlin’s interests and America’s are worlds apart.
In Syria, for example, Putin makes a big noise about fighting ISIS terrorists, but he has made no real effort to do so. His price for working with America could be to secure a permanent Russian military presence in the Middle East by propping up President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime was revealed this week to have hanged thousands of Syrians after two-or-three-minute trials. None of this is good for Syria, for regional stability or for America.
Even if Putin and Trump shared a common goal, which they don’t, and even if Americans did not mind becoming complicit in Russian atrocities, which they should, American and Russian forces cannot easily fight side by side. Their systems do not work together. To make them do so would require sharing military secrets that the Pentagon spends a fortune protecting. Besides, Russian aircraft do not add much to the coalition air power already attacking ISIS. Ground troops would, but Putin is highly unlikely to deploy them.
Likewise, Russia is not about to confront Iran. The country’s troops are a complement to Russian air power. Iran is a promising market for Russian exports. Most of all, the two countries are neighbors who show every sign of working together to manage the Middle East, not of wanting to fight over it.
The notion that Russia would be a good ally against China is even less realistic. Russia is far weaker than China, with a declining economy, a shrinking population and a smaller army. Putin has neither the power nor the inclination to pick a quarrel with Beijing. On the contrary, he values trade with China, fears its military might and has much in common with its leaders, at least in his tendency to bully his neighbors and reject Western lecturing about democracy and human rights. Even if it were wise for America to escalate confrontation with China—which it is not—Putin would be no help at all.
The gravest risk of Trump miscalculating, however, is in Europe. Here Putin’s wish list falls into three classes: things he should not get until he behaves better, such as the lifting of Western sanctions, things he should not get under any circumstances, such as the recognition of his seizure of Ukrainian territory, and things that would undermine the rules-based global order, such as American connivance in weakening Nato.
Putin would love it if Trump gave him a freer hand in Russia’s “near abroad,” for example by scrapping America’s anti-missile defenses in Europe and halting Nato enlargement with the membership of Montenegro, which is due this year.
Trump appears not to realize what gigantic concessions these would be. He gives mixed signals about the value of Nato, calling it “obsolete” last month but vowing to support it this week. Some of his advisers seem not to care if the European Union falls apart—like Putin, they embrace leaders such as France’s Marine Le Pen who would like nothing more. Bannon, while admitting that Russia is a kleptocracy, sees Putin as part of a global revolt by nationalists and traditionalists against the liberal elite—and therefore a natural ally for Trump.
The quest for a grand bargain with Putin is delusional. No matter how great a negotiator Trump is, no good deal is to be had. Indeed, an overlooked risk is that Trump, double-crossed and thin-skinned, will end up presiding over a dangerous and destabilizing falling-out with Putin.
Better than either a bargain or a falling-out would be to work at the small things to improve America’s relations with Russia. This might include arms control and stopping Russian and American forces accidentally coming to blows. Congressional Republicans and his more sensible advisers, such as his secretaries of state and defense, should strive to convince Trump of this.
The alternative would be very bad indeed.
© 2017 Economist Newspaper Ltd., London (February 11). All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
Image credits: Mandel Ng an/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images, Al Drago/The New York Times, Kevin Hagen/The New York Times