But Trump's ascent
to the White House carries the risk of dangerous miscalculation if the U.S.
president-elect and Putin, two willful personalities and
self-styled strong leaders who have exchanged occasional complements, decide they have misjudged one another, according to Russia experts and others.
self-styled strong leaders who have exchanged occasional complements, decide they have misjudged one another, according to Russia experts and others.
U.S. 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 U.S. 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
U.S. 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 European Union that
have contributed to Russia’s growing economic woes.
During the campaign,
Trump was criticized by his Democratic Party rival, Hillary Clinton, for
praising Putin as a strong leader and saying ties with Russia should be
improved at a time when Moscow and Washington are at odds over Syria and
Ukraine.
Trump rattled
Washington's European allies with comments questioning NATO's mutual
self-defense pledge and suggesting that he might recognize Russia's 2014
annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region.
Putin last year
called Trump "a really brilliant and talented person" and the Kremlin
said on Thursday that the U.S. 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 U.S.
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 U.S.-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 U.S. 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.
CONFLICT IN
CYBERSPACE
The U.S. government
has publicly accused Moscow of hacking the Democratic National Committee and
other party organizations during the election campaign, which Russia has
denied. Trump declined to blame Russia, and the Election Day Russian cyber
attacks that some officials feared never materialized.
Trump has not laid
out a detailed Russia policy, and many in his party, including potential top
advisors and cabinet officials, have taken a hawkish view of Moscow.
Former House of
Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally rumored for a senior post,
lambasted in 2014 what he called Obama's weak response to Russia's land-grab in
Ukraine. Putin, Gingrich wrote, is "a ruthlessly determined leader
motivated by nationalism and an imperial drive."
And while there was
celebration in Moscow after Trump's victory over former secretary of state
Clinton, who has been sharply critical of Putin, some Russians cautioned
against euphoria.
"The idea that
it will be easier to strike a deal with Trump than Clinton is wrong. ...
Everything will be tested when we get down to business," analyst Vladimir
Bruter told the daily pro-Kremlin tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda before Tuesday's
election.
Some experts and
U.S. 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 United States.
The demands included
lifting Ukraine-related U.S. economic sanctions, compensating Moscow for those
sanctions and reducing the U.S. military presence in NATO's eastern European
states to the levels of 16 years ago.
Russia's bedrock
concern "is whether they believe the threat of U.S.-promoted regime change
is abating under a President Trump," said Andrew Weiss, vice president for
studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Everything
else is a secondary, lower-order problem."
Putin has accused
the U.S. 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 U.S.-Russian
agreements.
"The agenda's
really threadbare," he said. "We're basically at a standstill."
Reuters
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