After years of rising US-Russia tensions over Ukraine, Syria, cyber attacks and nuclear arms control, Donald Trump’s election as US president may offer a narrow window to repair relations as he and Russian President Vladimir Putin size up each other.
But Trump’s ascent to the White House carries the risk of dangerous miscalculation if the US president-elect and Putin decide they have misjudged one another, according to Russia experts and others. US officials and private analysts predict that Putin, who has reasserted Moscow’s military and political muscle from eastern Europe to the Middle East, will avoid openly provoking Trump before he takes office. “Putin has the ability to advance his interests in many different ways. Sometimes tactical diplomacy can help,” said Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank.
“We’re in temporary truce phase,” said Hill, who has served as the US national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations and co-authored a book on Putin.
Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Moscow under President Barack Obama, said Putin likely will wait to see if he can reach some accommodation with Trump to allow the lifting of Ukraine-related sanctions imposed by Washington and the EU.
During the campaign, Trump was criticized by his Democratic Party rival, Hillary Clinton, for praising Putin as a strong leader. Putin last year called Trump “a really brilliant and talented person” and the Kremlin said on Thursday that the US president-elect’s foreign policy approach was “phenomenally close” to that of the Russian leader.
Putin “has a future president who has expressed a desire to cooperate, who has expressed a desire to move away from the Obama policies. Why would you screw that up with a provocation?” asked McFaul, now at Stanford University.
In Syria, a US official said, Putin appears to be extending a “humanitarian” pause in air strikes against moderate rebels holding the eastern side of Aleppo to give Trump an opportunity to affirm the willingness he expressed during the campaign to seek a more cooperative US-Russian relationship.
“I think they were holding their fire for the purpose of decreasing the international pressure on them, and now, like the rest of the world, they may be taking stock of the current situation,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. But US officials caution that Russia still may feel compelled to launch more attacks after dispatching a naval task force led by the aging aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov to the eastern Mediterranean in a show of force. Some experts and US officials say there is a high risk of miscalculation or even confrontation, given Trump’s history of taking slights and challenges personally. “That’s actually where reality is going to intrude,” Hill said. “Putin’s pretty thin-skinned, too.”
Putin has a penchant for challenging adversaries, particularly when he senses weakness, and he has long made it clear that he intends to reassert what he considers Russia’s rightful global role.
Suspending a treaty with Washington on cleaning up weapons-grade plutonium last month, Putin listed conditions for resuming Russian participation that amounted to a laundry list of grievances against the US.
Putin has accused the US government of promoting widespread street protests in Russia following its 2011 elections, as well as the “color revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine and elsewhere. On specific issues, Weiss said, there are few if any easy opportunities for rapid US-Russian agreements.
“The agenda’s really threadbare,” he said. “We’re basically at a standstill.”
• Reuters
But Trump’s ascent to the White House carries the risk of dangerous miscalculation if the US president-elect and Putin decide they have misjudged one another, according to Russia experts and others. US officials and private analysts predict that Putin, who has reasserted Moscow’s military and political muscle from eastern Europe to the Middle East, will avoid openly provoking Trump before he takes office. “Putin has the ability to advance his interests in many different ways. Sometimes tactical diplomacy can help,” said Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank.
“We’re in temporary truce phase,” said Hill, who has served as the US national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations and co-authored a book on Putin.
Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Moscow under President Barack Obama, said Putin likely will wait to see if he can reach some accommodation with Trump to allow the lifting of Ukraine-related sanctions imposed by Washington and the EU.
During the campaign, Trump was criticized by his Democratic Party rival, Hillary Clinton, for praising Putin as a strong leader. Putin last year called Trump “a really brilliant and talented person” and the Kremlin said on Thursday that the US president-elect’s foreign policy approach was “phenomenally close” to that of the Russian leader.
Putin “has a future president who has expressed a desire to cooperate, who has expressed a desire to move away from the Obama policies. Why would you screw that up with a provocation?” asked McFaul, now at Stanford University.
In Syria, a US official said, Putin appears to be extending a “humanitarian” pause in air strikes against moderate rebels holding the eastern side of Aleppo to give Trump an opportunity to affirm the willingness he expressed during the campaign to seek a more cooperative US-Russian relationship.
“I think they were holding their fire for the purpose of decreasing the international pressure on them, and now, like the rest of the world, they may be taking stock of the current situation,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. But US officials caution that Russia still may feel compelled to launch more attacks after dispatching a naval task force led by the aging aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov to the eastern Mediterranean in a show of force. Some experts and US officials say there is a high risk of miscalculation or even confrontation, given Trump’s history of taking slights and challenges personally. “That’s actually where reality is going to intrude,” Hill said. “Putin’s pretty thin-skinned, too.”
Putin has a penchant for challenging adversaries, particularly when he senses weakness, and he has long made it clear that he intends to reassert what he considers Russia’s rightful global role.
Suspending a treaty with Washington on cleaning up weapons-grade plutonium last month, Putin listed conditions for resuming Russian participation that amounted to a laundry list of grievances against the US.
Putin has accused the US government of promoting widespread street protests in Russia following its 2011 elections, as well as the “color revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine and elsewhere. On specific issues, Weiss said, there are few if any easy opportunities for rapid US-Russian agreements.
“The agenda’s really threadbare,” he said. “We’re basically at a standstill.”
• Reuters
