Opinion: The bizarre disconnect between what Trump says, and the White House does, on Russia

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Anti-Trumpers keep hammering away on the following theme: the president’s in the tank for Vladimir Putin. They’re convinced the Russian dictator has the goods on Trump—embarrassing, incriminating intelligence—and the president is somehow being blackmailed into doing Moscow’s bidding.

Trump’s own words, or in this case lack of them, have fueled this perception. In his first year and a half on the job, he has delivered blistering criticism of world leaders, political rivals, minorities, reporters, once-loyal employees—but never Putin. Trump doesn’t seem at all bothered that Russia shot down a civilian airliner over Ukraine, sliced off Crimea, threatens America’s European allies, backs Iran, Syria, and interfered in our 2016 election. The president has sided time and again with the Kremlin boss, saying he believes Putin’s denials of Russian interference—tossing the dedicated men and women of America’s intelligence agencies under the bus in the process.

So you might think Trump’s claim that “There’s never been a president as tough on Russia as I have been”—which he made after last month’s news conference with Putin in Finland—is a joke.

But there’s a bizarre disconnect between what the president says and what his administration has done. For example, it has tweaked Moscow in ways that Barack Obama wouldn’t: agreeing to sell lethal weaponry to Ukraine for example, so it could better defend itself against the Russians, and by launching a cruise missile attack against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to punish him for chemical weapons attacks against his own people. If Trump’s a Kremlin puppet, why would he do such things?

Trump has also criticized a planned 800-mile pipeline that would deliver natural gas from Russia to energy-hungry Germany. “Germany, as far as I’m concerned, is captive to Russia because it’s getting so much of its energy from Russia,” Trump said at last month’s NATO summit. “We have to talk about the billions and billions of dollars that’s being paid to the country we’re supposed to be protecting against.”

That’s a valid point. Why is Germany, a key American ally, helping to prop up Putin’s regime? If Russia’s such a menace, and its economy is so reliant on oil and gas exports, doesn’t it make sense to hit Moscow in its achilles heal? And if Trump’s a Kremlin stooge, why is he out to scuttle the deal?

The administration has also hit Russia, arguably reluctantly, with sanctions. In March, after special counsel Robert Mueller’s indicted 13 Russians for cyberattacks during the 2016 election, the administration imposed financial sanctions on 19 people and a number of Russian organizations, including intelligence services. It was a rare example of Trump rowing in the same direction as the man leading what the president calls the “witch hunt” into alleged campaign collusion.

And earlier this month, the administration imposed still more sanctions against Putin’s government after a chemical weapon attack on an ex-spy living in Britain.

What’s going on here? Is Trump really a tough guy like he claims? Is the opposition claim that he’s rolling over for the Russians just “fake news?”

“It depends on whose policy you think that is,” says Dr. Tom Nichols, a national security professor at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport Rhode Island. “I think these policies are running without him. I think the whole government is basically functioning without a chief executive.”

Nichols, who is speaking on his own behalf and not of the Naval War College, offers this theory: key government agencies, below the level of Cabinet secretaries, “are basically functioning autonomously. To me, there’s this whole other part of the U.S. government that’s dealing with Russia in a fairly sensible way, and the only time Trump affects it is when he gets in the way of it.” He adds: “There has never been a president who has been less interested in governing than Donald Trump.”

Indeed, with his steady diet of cable news and tweeting, Trump himself creates the image of a man who’s out to lunch on serious matters of statecraft. He doesn’t read, can be gotten to with simple imagery—hardly reflective of a deep-thinking man of substance. This hands-off style gives critics plenty of ammo to complain that Trump is the shallowest of presidents.

On the other hand, predecessors with far more granular styles often got bogged down in the weeds of governing. Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama, for example, spent hours reviewing individual bombing targets in Vietnam and Afghanistan, respectively. Was this style better than Trump’s perceived disinterest? One analyst, Dr. Matthew Kroenig, a professor at Georgetown University and a deputy director of the Scowcroft Center at the Atlantic Council, doesn’t think so.

“In the war against (the Islamic State) and in Afghanistan, (Trump) set the overall direction, but then gave much more leeway to commanders on the ground to execute the war in the way they preferred.” He adds: “Many I’ve talked to in the military say that they think Trump has been the better commander-in-chief for that reason.”

But—and coming back to Russia—why does Trump say the things he does—like at last month’s Helsinki news conference with his Russian counterpart? As far as Nichols is concerned, it shows that “Trump has a very personal fear of Putin.”

Kroenig, on the other hand, says people place too much emphasis on high-profile events like a news conference in the first place. “Most commentators and journalists focus on the high-level statements and less on the policy, because it’s easier to do.” He’s critical of journalists who approach their coverage of Russia and Trump primarily through the collusion question: Were Trump and Moscow somehow in cahoots to manipulate the election? “So I guess if that’s all you’re interested in, then you can come to the conclusion that Trump’s weak,” since Trump says collusion’s just a hoax.

But this still doesn’t explain why Trump’s words and demeanor towards Putin are so deferential. Koenig, who acknowledges being “at a loss,” guesses that because Trump wants better relations with Russia, “that’s what he vocalizes.”

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