The Putin Trap

By Matthew Continetti

Sunday, March 16, 2025

 

The delusion persists. Ever since Vladimir Putin became Russia’s president in 2000, four U.S. presidents have wanted to be his friend. And every time, the relationship ends in tears.

 

President Trump is the latest suitor. On February 18, he dispatched Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to Saudi Arabia for meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The goal: Set the table for peace talks on Ukraine and reduce tensions between America and Russia.

 

After several hours with Lavrov, Rubio was encouraged. He said that Russia was interested in ending the war, and that a cease-fire might be the first step toward a new approach in U.S. policy. He told the AP that peace would unlock “incredible opportunities” between the United States and Russia “that hopefully will be good for the world and also improve our relations in the long term.”

 

What those incredible opportunities might be, Rubio did not say. Nor did he explain why Putin and his bagman Lavrov ought to be trusted. Indeed, as of this writing, Russia has taken no action that suggests it is interested in peace or a cease-fire.

 

On the contrary: The Russian military has increased the tempo of its offensive operations. Fresh Russian and North Korean troops, backed by relentless artillery, are driving hard to retake the pocket of Russian territory that Ukrainians captured last year. Iranian-made drones and rockets pound Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Russian missiles kill Ukrainian civilians.

 

The second Trump term, then, begins as a particularly egregious example of how American presidents attempt to deal with the Putin of their dreams rather than the Putin who exists.

 

Even as President Trump says on social media that he is “strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED” (his caps), he has done nothing but pause U.S. military aid to, and intelligence sharing with, Ukraine.

 

Meanwhile, asked during a March 10 media availability if he thought Putin wants peace, Trump said, “I believe him.”

 

That makes one of us.

 

The most favorable reading of Trump’s rhetoric is that he’s boosting Putin in public to induce the Russian dictator to negotiate in private. Yet this tactic is simply a hyperbolic version of the unsuccessful methods used by Trump’s predecessors to woo Putin. In fact, Trump’s own record shows that the only effective way to deter the Russian bear is through diplomatic hardball and the credible threat of force.

 

Trump’s first-term initiatives—more money for defense, financial sanctions, lethal aid to Ukraine, withdrawal from the INF Treaty, sanctions on the Nord Stream II pipeline, and above all the destruction of Russian mercenary forces in Syria—were a departure from the norm. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both tried to welcome Putin into the international fold. They both sought areas of cooperation with Russia. They both extended their hands to Putin. He slapped them down.

 

In the summer of 2001, President Bush met with Putin in Slovenia. Bush had telegraphed his plans to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and missile defense was the main topic of discussion. The summit went well. Putin seemed pleased. Bush famously said he was “able to get a sense” of Putin’s “soul.” After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush and Putin sought closer ties based on a mutual interest in counterterrorism. Putin visited the Bush ranch. The two nations shared intelligence.

 

Then the relationship began to deteriorate. Russia joined with Germany and France in opposing the war against Saddam Hussein. America supported the “color revolutions” that overthrew Russian-backed kleptocrats in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), and Kyrgyzstan (2005). The Baltic states joined NATO. The price of oil spiked, enriching Putin’s regime. In 2007, Putin went to the Munich Security Conference and declared his intention to challenge the U.S.-led unipolar world. Russia invaded Georgia the next year.

 

When Barack Obama entered office in 2009, Putin was serving nominally as prime minister. Dmitry Medvedev was Russia’s president, but Putin was still in charge. Obama wanted to reverse the Bush legacy. He ordered a U.S. retreat from Iraq, cut defense spending, and canceled missile-defense plans in Eastern and Central Europe. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Lavrov with a “Reset” button that symbolized the new spirit of diplomacy. America and Russia agreed to the New START Treaty, reducing nuclear-weapons stockpiles.

 

In the spring of 2012, as Obama campaigned for a second term, he met with Medvedev in South Korea. A “hot mic” picked up the U.S. president telling his Russian counterpart, “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.” Medvedev replied, in good moose-and-squirrel fashion, “I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.”

 

Message received. One year into Obama’s second term, Putin, who was president once more (and this time for life), annexed Crimea. He launched a guerrilla war in eastern Ukraine. He intervened in Syria’s civil war. Obama did nothing but pout.

 

As a candidate in 2016, Donald Trump said that he could succeed where other presidents had failed in getting along with Putin. Yet Trump’s efforts were constrained by the Russia-collusion pseudo-scandal, which dogged his presidency from the November election to the release of the Mueller report in the spring of 2019.

 

Putin was politically toxic for Trump, and never more so than after the disastrous Helsinki Summit of 2018, when Trump sided with Putin over America’s intelligence agencies. By the time the Covid pandemic landed on America’s shores in 2020, the window of opportunity had closed on a Trump-style Russian reset. Only his hardline—and effective—policies remained in place.

 

Those policies were among the first that President Biden threw overboard. The Biden foreign-policy team wanted to “park” Russia into a “stable and predictable relationship” with the United States. They reasoned that, with Russia on the sidelines, they could focus more attention on China. Hence Biden dropped sanctions on Nord Stream II. He renewed the New START for five years with no preconditions. He cut defense spending. And he met with Putin in Geneva.

 

Two months later, America beat a hasty retreat from Afghanistan. Inflation coursed through the U.S. economy. Millions of illegal immigrants showed up on the southern border. And Putin began preparing for a direct invasion of Ukraine.

 

The Biden administration tried diplomacy. It tried “deterrence by disclosure”—releasing declassified information on Russian troop movements and communications. It tried threatening sanctions. Putin ignored them. On February 24, 2022, Russian tank columns rolled toward Kiev.

 

The Biden administration offered Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky a means of escape. Another blunder. Zelensky’s response was, “I don’t need a ride. I need ammunition.” For the next three years, President Biden and Congress worked to supply Ukraine with the weapons necessary for its defense. Yet the Biden administration slow-walked the aid. It hemmed and hawed over crucial decisions—whether to send Patriot missiles, HIMARS, ATACMS, F-16s, Abrams tanks, and long-range fires. Biden used maximalist rhetoric to obscure lackluster deeds.

 

Now Trump is forgetting the lesson of his first term and repeating the mistakes of the past. He has spent the first months of this administration weakening Ukraine and flattering Russia. He is walking, with eyes open, into a trap that has been set many times before. And from which there is no easy or honorable escape.