It’s a familiar refrain: A new American president seeks improved relations with Russia. And like his predecessors, Donald Trump is running into a thicket of obstacles, new and old, to even maintaining a functioning relationship with Moscow.
For Trump, the grievances inherited from Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have been compounded by Russian-backed Syria’s chemical weapons attacks, retaliatory U.S. missile strikes, election meddling allegations and Ukraine’s unsolved crisis. At the center of each problem is an energized and uncompromising force: Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia,” Trump nevertheless tweeted Thursday, as his top diplomat departed Moscow empty-handed after discussions with Putin and other Russian officials. “At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!”
Trump’s optimistic prognosis followed his declaration Wednesday that U.S.-Russia relations “may be at an all-time low,” and that “right now we’re not getting along with Russia at all.” The sudden U-turn underscored long-standing difficulties that have plagued the two nations’ attempts at greater understanding since the days of their World War II alliance. The Cold War may be over, but from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, Washington and Moscow don’t see the world the same way.
“The Trump administration came in with a set of problems and a level of disagreement that are more difficult to just put aside in the way the Bush and Obama administrations had been able to do,” said Stephen Sestanovich, a Council on Foreign Relations expert who was U.S. ambassador-at-large for the former Soviet Union from 1997 to 2001. “The obstacles in the way of a reset now are more serious than you had at the outset of any other administration since the end of the Cold War.”
The list of complaints is long, particularly on the Russian side. They range from NATO’s expansion and European missile defense systems to a fear the U.S. is promoting opposition to pro-Russian leaders and even Putin himself.