President Donald Trump doesn’t simply wish to negotiate a peaceful end to Russia’s war on Ukraine. He also wants to forge a new relationship with Russia built around increased, mutually beneficial cooperation. Trump frequently references his desire to strike new investment, arms control, and other accords with Moscow.
Two perceptions underpin this effort. First, the president’s belief that Russia poses a major threat to the United States should be addressed by deferential diplomacy. Second, Trump’s view that he can trust Russian President Vladimir Putin to pursue a range of mutually beneficial compromises honestly.
Both these perceptions are misguided.
While real diplomatic opportunities exist with Russia, taking advantage of those opportunities while also addressing threats does not rest with the path of deference. Instead, it is with the path that centered U.S. policy during the Cold War: matching effective military deterrence with diplomatic, economic, and other measures that variably invite compromise or impose costs on Moscow. Trump’s oft-stated belief that Russia can be “trusted” to agree on mutually beneficial compromises is also poorly placed.
The president’s sense that Russian threats must be addressed by deferential U.S. action is clearest regarding the war in Ukraine. Trump regularly warns that the failure to resolve the war is “risking World War III.” Disregarding Russia’s responsibility for starting that war for fundamentally imperialist reasons, Trump more often blames Ukraine for risking U.S. security via its continued self-defense. During the president’s recent meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump warned, “You’re gambling with World War III!” Trump needs more than vague pledges of negative consequences for Russia if it rejects his ceasefire deal with Ukraine, for example.
Aside from the immorality of blaming the victim for defending itself, the broader problem here is that Trump is playing right into Putin’s propaganda narrative. The Russian president’s various nuclear exercises, nuclear weapons policy changes, and propaganda rhetoric are all singularly designed to encourage Western nations to end support for Ukraine or risk a thermonuclear war if they fail to do so. But where the U.S. has traditionally served as the Western anchor point against these kinds of threats, consolidating otherwise fearful European governments against making concessions in the face of Russian nuclear blackmail, Trump is now acting as the fearful one. This poses a number of significant problems.
For one, it increases Trump’s appetite for unilateral pressure on Ukraine versus pressure on both Ukraine and Russia. That undermines Ukraine’s confidence to make concessions while simultaneously making it harder to secure a viable peace. Trump’s excess fear also discourages the U.S. and its allies from making a more robust response to continuing Kremlin aggressions. These include Russian GPS scrambling and undersea cable disruptions in the Baltic Sea, Russian sabotage and assassination plots targeting both Europe and the U.S., and Russian cyberattacks. Equally problematic, Trump’s play to Russian nuclear threats only encourages Putin to stand firm on them. Why wouldn’t he? They’re clearly working with Trump and certain European nations.
Yet, what’s particularly odd about Trump’s deference to Russian threats is the manner in which his deference so fundamentally dissects the president’s carefully established leadership narrative. And how it willfully ignores America’s nuclear weapons supremacy.
Trump revels in the perception that he throws other world leaders off-balance via his unpredictability and threats. But with Putin, at least, Trump allows himself to be thrown off balance. Trump is making both himself and America look weak in response to Russian nuclear threats. A better course of action would be for the president to sit down for a classified briefing from the head of U.S. military’s Strategic Command, Gen. Anthony Cotton. By doing so, he would be reminded of the potency of U.S. nuclear forces and why they remain highly effective at deterring Russian nuclear threats.
Much is said about Russia’s newest nuclear-capable weapons, such as the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile system. The problem for Russia is that a number of these new weapons have fallen far short of their advertised capability when employed in Ukraine. This has undermined the credibility of Russian strategic forces and negatively affected weapons exports. Foreign customers wonder whether Russian weapons systems are worth even their lower-than-U.S. weapons price tag.
At the same time, the practicalities of Putin’s nuclear threats are far thinner than his postulations would otherwise suggest. Even assuming all of Russia’s land-based ICBMs had been maintained adequately, Russia’s nuclear ballistic missile submarine force and its strategic bombers continue to face two defining problems in a matchup against the U.S. military.
While Russia has some impressive submarines entering service, the staple of its ballistic missile force remains unable to evade U.S. and British attack submarines effectively. More than nine times out of 10 that a Russian ballistic missile submarine leaves its port, it is tracked by those attack submarines until it returns home. Trump is aware of this, having previously celebrated the ability of U.S. submariners to remain undetected. But in the event of war or imminent war, U.S. attack submarines would sink the Russian ballistic submarines before they could reach nuclear launch readiness. In contrast, Russian attack submarines always struggle to detect, shadow, and hold at risk the equivalent U.S. Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines. That creates a fundamental U.S.-Russia mismatch in survivable first-strike and second-strike nuclear supremacy. Again, Putin knows it.
Similarly, Russia’s Tu-160 strategic bomber aircraft are aged, non-stealth platforms that are woeful in comparison to the U.S. equivalent B-2 stealth bomber. Where F-22s would likely down the Tu-160s before they could attack at optimal range, the B-2s could likely penetrate deep into Russia to destroy priority targets.
Yes, we are talking here about truly awful scenarios in which war would inherently carry catastrophic costs. However, regarding nuclear deterrence, the probability ledger continues to fall strongly in America’s corner. While a total nuclear war between Russia and the U.S. would result in massive destruction to many U.S. cities and key military bases, the U.S. heartlands and some major cities would likely survive. That means the U.S. survives as a nation-state. Russia would certainly not survive as a nation-state; it would become a fundamentally de-urbanized dystopia worse than the darkest days of Russia’s Time of Troubles. And again, even if Trump does not realize this, Putin certainly does. That recognition is the underpinning of American deterrence and Trump’s associated power to leverage Putin in ways favorable to his interests.
Ironically, this nuclear power balance offers Trump the prospect of the diplomacy he craves. The grave devastation America would cause to Russia in a nuclear war underlines why Trump could credibly try to reach a new and verifiable (emphasis on “verifiable”) nuclear arms control treaty with Putin. China, which is surging its nuclear weapons production, refuses to engage in nuclear weapons talks.
Beyond nuclear talks, however, Trump deludes himself into thinking Russia could offer the U.S. major business propositions. Aside from declining weapons exports, organized crime, assassinations, and vodka, the energy sector is the only area where Russia has real economic value. Consider that in 2021, the year before Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian imports of U.S. goods amounted to a measly $6.4 billion. U.S. imports of Russian goods accounted for $30 billion. Contrast that with U.S. exports to the European Union in 2021 ($271.6 billion) and imports from the EU ($491.3 billion). Or with U.S. exports to the United Kingdom in 2021 ($61.5 billion) and imports from the U.K. ($56.4 billion). Europe is set to retain hostile relations with Russia in light of Putin’s war on its continent and continuing threat to member states such as Estonia. Why would Trump want to alienate these allies and trading partners to ingratiate himself with a nation that imported 5,200% fewer U.S. goods and services than Europe did in 2021?
That said, it would take a very courageous American business to engage with the Russian energy sector. For a start, there’s the risk that a future U.S. administration might reintroduce sanctions or enforce corruption statutes against those dealing with Russian businesses (payoffs are a price of doing business in Russia). However, American companies would also have to consider the very personal risk of their engagement. This is a sector where, when power dynamics shift and already greedy individuals get greedier, people start flying out of windows or are later found executed with their families.
If you’re not serving with a corrupt company such as Trafigura, which always keeps oligarch Igor Sechin happy, you risk being killed by your erstwhile partners. Even then, you might suffer an unexplained heart attack or suicide. And if Trump continues to show excess deference to Putin, it won’t matter whether American business executives stay in a five-star hotel in Moscow, the Breakers Palm Beach, or a ski chalet in Aspen. They will greatly risk a Russian energy baron eventually coming for them.
The deeper point is that Putin will use any economic or diplomatic engagement not to provide mutual benefits to both Russia and America but rather to manipulate America into serving outsize Russian gains. At a minimum, Putin will use even tentative U.S.-Russia business engagements to increase the corrupt wealth and hostile power of his regime (perhaps to reinvade Ukraine a few years down the road?), to increase his threats to the best American allies in Europe, to woo Trump into further delusions of friendship, and to undermine the rule of law as a foundational element of international relations. That point of undermining the rule of law also explains why Putin will not, whatever he whispers to Trump, abandon his strategic partnership with China.
What China offers Russia isn’t just a critical economic partner that will sustain that partnership under present or prospective future Western sanctions. Crucially, China also offers Russia a unique partner in undermining the U.S.-led democratic international order. Just as China supports Russia’s effort to conquer Ukraine, Russia actively supports China’s means of conquering Taiwan and dominating the Western Pacific. Just as China can invest heavily in Russian industry and exports, Russia can help China learn how to sink American submarines. China and Russia also act in concert to forge lucrative relationships across the globe in a manner that undercuts democratic authority and American influence. Africa offers the best example of this dynamic. Put simply, Trump can offer Putin nothing more valuable than what Chinese President Xi Jinping can offer Putin.
Moreover, Putin’s Russia does not want mutual prosperity and peace with America. Putin hates the U.S. for defeating the Soviet Union and protecting pro-American democracies in Eastern Europe. Evincing as much, Putin has openly disrespected Trump, most recently by escalating his missile strikes on Ukrainian population centers in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s suspension of some intelligence sharing with Kyiv. The venom with which Putin despises America will soon become clear when the scandal of Russia’s role in the so-called “Havana Syndrome” attacks is made public.
WILL IRAN GIVE TRUMP WHAT HE WANTS?
None of this is to say that Trump cannot do good things concerning Russia policy.
He can secure a just end to the war in Ukraine, negotiate verifiable nuclear arms control accords, and ensure hard-headed but respectful dialogue is the norm for Washington’s engagement with Moscow. But only misery will follow if the president doesn’t get past his fear of Russia or stop viewing Putin for who he wants him to be rather than for who he actually is. This is to say, a KGB Lieutenant Colonel shaped indelibly by his time at the Red Banner Institute.