In remarks for his confirmation hearing, Mike Pompeo, President Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state, said "soft policy" toward Russia is "now over." What he means by "now" is the interesting bit.
A false narrative emerging in the U.S. holds that Trump has just recently turned tough on Russia. One look at the long chronology of his administration's hostility toward Putin's Russia should dispel that.
It includes the early appointments of Russia hawks such as United Nations representative Nikki Haley and Central Intelligence Agency director Pompeo; the first ever U.S. missile strike on Putin ally, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's military installation in April, 2017; the abrupt closure of three Russian diplomatic facilities in the U.S. in late August (which Russia accurately described as "blatantly hostile"); the decision to send lethal weapons to Ukraine in December; a deadly counterattack on a group of Russian mercenaries in Syria in February. A column Wednesday by The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald, who like me has long disagreed with the "Trump is a Russian puppet" narrative, contains a slightly different list of the Trump administration's anti-Kremlin actions.
Trump can blow hot and cold on Putin and Russia in tweets, just as he did in the course of one day on Wednesday, first threatening Russia with "nice and new and 'smart'" missiles and then saying there's "no reason" for the U.S.-Russia relationship to be so bad. But Americans should be used to the low price Trump puts on the meaning of words. He, like many habitual social network users, employs language to communicate emotions rather than precise messages.
The missile tweet says "I'm angry" and the seemingly conciliatory tweet telegraphs "I'm frustrated." What matters with Trump are actions or, rather, transactions. And on that level, he hasn't been a pro-Russian president from the start, as those who alleged without any evidence that the Kremlin had some kind of leverage over Trump seemed to think.
The more recent moves -- the biggest ever expulsion of Russian diplomats from the U.S. following the poisoning in the U.K. of a former Russian double agent, the harshest ever sanctions imposed on a Russian billionaire (aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska), fresh anti-Russian appointments (Pompeo's move to State and John Bolton's elevation to national security adviser) -- merely continue this line of actions. They constitute an escalation but not a policy shift.
Pompeo was referring to "years of soft policy" on Russia under President Obama, which ended with Trump's election. And indeed, Obama pointedly rejected all the hostile actions that Trump has taken -- except hawkish appointments, which only led to the appointees' frustration. Pompeo's "now" is the Trump presidency itself.
The anti-Kremlin tenor of Trump's presidency is often written down to the Republican establishment's influence, to the advice of "grown men" in the administration. But, as my Bloomberg View colleague Tim O'Brien, an eminent Trump expert, has written, Trump rarely seeks advice or heeds it if it's volunteered anyhow; his Russian policy hasn't been imposed from outside.
The U.S. president wants reportable wins. He doesn't, however, work quietly to obtain them. He demands to be handed them because they're due to him as the man in the ultimate position of strength. Trump appeared to have expected a more compliant Putin ever since the Russian president's remark that Trump is a "colorful" and "talented" individual was mistranslated as "brilliant." “So far, we’re off to a good start,” candidate Trump commented in 2016. “He said ‘Trump is a genius,’ OK?”
Putin, however, has provided no gifts and no wins. If he ever had an interest in Trump's victory, it was for the havoc it would wreak on the U.S. establishment. He, too, always negotiates from a position of strength, even when this stance masks actual weakness.