What Trump is doing wrong about Putin

The new book by journalist Bob Woodward contains an explosive revelation: Former President Donald J. Trump has spoken to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin seven times since leaving office. Trump’s presidential campaign denied the accusation. Nevertheless, his continued praise for Putin has raised fears that a re-elected Trump would help Russia reach a favorable peace deal by cutting off aid to Ukraine.

This concern likely underestimates the danger that looms regarding Russia if Trump returns to power. The history of US-Russia relations suggests that the former president is seriously misreading Putin. During the more than two decades that the Russian president has worked at the highest levels of his country’s politics, high-level flattery and attention from US officials have simply encouraged Putin to push the boundaries of what the West will tolerate further, which provokes Russian aggression.

Bill Clinton was the first American president to wrestle with Putin. In the mid-1990s, Clinton visited St. Petersburg, Russia, which turned into a “one of the worst stops” of his presidency because the Russian organizers of the trip kept him away from interacting with ordinary people. Later, American diplomats told the president who was responsible for the decision: Putin, then the little-known deputy mayor of St. Petersburg who had been a KGB counterintelligence officer during the Cold War.

Two years later, Putin returned to the radar of US officials after a conversation between Deputy Foreign Minister Strobe Talbott and Igor Malashenko, a supporter of Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the director of NTV, Russia’s first independent television station. Malashenko had dark premonitions about the future of Russian democracy in the wake of a financial crisis in 1998. Malashenko told Talbott that his country was most likely heading toward “isolation and a xenophobic regime‘, albeit ‘a milder version’ than existed during the Soviet era. The television director explained that one should mainly look at Putin’s career trajectory, which would be a test of which path Russia would choose. Russian liberals viewed current developments cautiously. director of Russia’s Internal Security and Counterintelligence Service, who they feared had presidential ambitions and would lead Russia back to its past.

In June 1999, U.S. officials got a glimpse of what was troubling Russian liberals thanks to the Kosovo War. Putin met with Talbott amid rumors that Russia would invade Kosovo. He seemed surprised when Talbott warned that such a move could provoke a direct military confrontation between the US and Russia. In the words of Talbott: Putin “adopted the bedside manner of an experienced physician with a hypochondriac as a patient.” He flatly denied that an invasion was imminent and assured the American official that “nothing had changed on the Russian side.”

But while Talbott was in the air and returning to the US, he learned that the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Bosnia was heading to Kosovo via Yugoslavia. He turned his plane around and headed back to Moscow to try to prevent a Russian invasion. Once again he met Putin, who continued to downplay what happened.

Still Russian troops did They would eventually invade Kosovo, despite Putin’s denials, and what stayed with Talbott was the ease with which Putin had lied to him. It made him and his colleagues at the State Department wary of the rising Russian leader, especially given his background. Talbott was concerned that Putin would conduct foreign policy in the way he operated as a mid-level KGB official – a role in which he cultivated paranoia and suspicion as a professional need. If this were to happen, it would be impossible for the US to trust Russian officials. Talbott and his colleagues also worried that Putin’s mentality and paranoia would breed aggression and hostility.

Putin became prime minister in August 1999, just as tensions increased between the Russian army and Chechen rebels in the Caucasus. Two months later, the situation erupted into the second Chechen war, which turned out to be Putin’s ticket to the presidency. When he became Prime Minister, he had a mediocre approval rating of 31%. Yet by January 2000, this figure had skyrocketed to 84%, thanks to Putin’s determination to brutally prosecute the war. Russian voters saw him as a leader who could get things done and knew how to use force effectively.

Putin cared little that the war soured his relationship with the West. Clinton felt that “as long as those in power gained popularity,“They would see little reason to change the course of the war. Putin made this clear during a meeting with Clinton in November 1999. When Clinton raised the issue of a possible negotiated solution, Putin said he was more concerned about “how we crush this base of terrorism and suffer minimal losses.” Putin was dismissive of Clinton’s concerns, despite having booked a meeting with the US president.

Putin further showed his disdain for American concerns and also began toying with the idea of invading neighboring Georgia, where both Chechen civilians and guerrillas had fled. Clinton sent Talbott to clarify that “any Russian intervention in Georgia against the wishes of the Georgian authorities would significantly worsen the already tense relationship between Russia and the rest of the world.”

However, it was clear to the Clinton administration that Putin had a fundamentally different view of Russia than his predecessor Yeltsin – or US officials. In addition to this bellicose foreign policy and ignoring American warnings, Putin at home began to abandon Russia’s path of reform and instead combine an open economic system with an authoritarian regime. He shut down the free press and took aggressive action against dissident voices.

Despite embracing capitalism, like many Russian reformers, Clinton sensed that Putin was determined to challenge the sovereignty of his country’s neighbors with a view to restoring Moscow’s control in the former Soviet space . He warned German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder that “we will still run the risk that Russia will do things they should not do in Georgia and Moldova and put pressure on Kazakhstan and other states that were part of the Soviet Union.”

These warnings soon seemed prescient. Clinton’s successors all saw opportunities for cooperation with Putin and courted him. President George W. Bush looked his Russian counterpart in the eye and invited him to his Texas ranch. But despite Bush’s prioritization of democracy, Putin stepped up his attacks on the free press and turned Russia into a “managed democracy” during the Bush presidency. The West did not respond to this in 2008 Russian war in Georgia. Rather than impose consequences, the Obama administration and its allies sought a “reset” in relations with Moscow just a year later.

While President Barack Obama’s engagement With Putin making tentative progress on nuclear weapons reduction, the 2011 “reset” was over when Putin blamed the US for facilitating public protests against the rigged 2011 Russian parliamentary elections. In 2014, the West failed to in Russia to deter and contain it after the start of its crisis war against Ukraine, which made possible Putin’s large-scale invasion in 2022. And in 2016, Putin tested the limits of what US policymakers would tolerate in the most daring way possible: by interfere in the American presidential elections.

Despite this interference, when Trump took office, he courted Putin as his predecessors had done. But as he did so, Russia continued to violate the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Weapons Treaty by deploying new weapons. nuclear weapons in Western Russia aimed at NATO. Putin also reportedly used Trump as a source to manipulate American politics.

The pattern repeated itself with President Biden. In June 2021, he met with Putin Genevawith little benefit. The Russian military soon conducted the largest military exercises since the end of the Cold War and began amassing troops close to the border with Ukraine. Putin was so dismissive of American interests that he used a press conference at the summit to direct questions at the US. Just four months later, Biden received intelligence indicating that Russia was planning a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The pattern is clear: Although U.S. officials have tried for decades to cultivate Putin and meet with him despite his open lies and authoritarianism, he has consistently pushed the boundaries and ignored U.S. warnings. This behavior has led to a new era of confrontation with Russia. Essentially, because of Putin’s paranoia and aggression, flattering him or trying patient diplomacy hasn’t worked. Any concession or willingness to tolerate his aggression has simply fueled his hunger to move on. That warns of potential danger if Trump returns to power and forces Ukraine to accept a unilateral settlement while it continues to try to charm Putin.

Stephan Kieninger is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and author of two books on US foreign policy during the Cold War and European security. He is putting the finishing touches to a new book on Strobe Talbott’s NATO-Russia diplomacy, based on Talbott’s private papers and newly declassified archival material. Columbia University Press will publish it next year.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Read more about Made by History at TIME here. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.