It is perhaps significant that the first meeting between the American and Russian presidents will not be a set-piece bilateral encounter with all the trimmings of honor guards, speechifying and an exchange of gifts but will rather take place on the sidelines of tomorrow’s G20 summit in the German port of Hamburg.
Though it will almost certainly be the most important part of this gathering of the world’s most powerful states, that Putin and Trump are fitting this first encounter into the summit’s busy schedule demonstrates how hopes of a Moscow-Washington rapprochement have faded since Trump became president eight months ago.
It is now hard to believe that when news of Trump’s victory broke, there were cheers in the Russian parliament. At every level, relations between the White House and the Kremlin have hardened and cooled. Indeed it is more serious than that. US jets in Syria have shot down a Syrian warplane as well as Iranian drones, on the basis that they were threatening Coalition airspace. As a result Russia has pulled out of the liaison arrangements that had been put in place with the US to avoid an aerial clash. This means that an incident could occur in which a Russian or US warplane is shot down by the other side. The potential for triggering a wider conflict is, therefore, now very real.
Trump famously said that he thought that Putin was a man with whom he could do business. It was this that engendered such enthusiasm for his candidacy in Moscow and what US conspiracy theorists insist caused Russian hackers to meddle in the presidential election. In the event Trump has done no business with Putin. US sanctions that followed the seizure of Crimea and Moscow’s clear support for Ukrainian rebels in the east of that country are still in place. Trump is still insisting on regime change in Syria and, unlike Obama, acted decisively when Assad crossed the new president’s red line and once more used chemical weapons. Even though Moscow this week joined Beijing in calling on North Korea to cease its provocative long-range missile tests and nuclear development, there is rising concern at Trump’s saber-rattling directed at the Pyongyang regime.
It is, therefore, hard to see what Putin will take away from his G-20 meeting with Trump except perhaps a better idea of the man himself and the way he conducts himself. Kremlin briefers have been saying that any sort of political breakthrough is highly unlikely. Yet given Trump’s mercurial track record, it is just conceivable that tomorrow he will try and pull some sort of rabbit out of his hat.
And this, of course, sums up the difference between the two leaders. Putin is, like most Russians, a chess player. He thinks several moves ahead. Trump looks more like a checkers player, advancing his pieces quickly and with apparent decisiveness. And herein lies a key reality; unlike chess, the checkers player cannot move any of his checkers backwards. For Putin and Trump the further difference is that Putin is in complete command of his chessboard. By contrast Trump, facing an unprecedented domestic hate campaign and with a rebellious Republican bloc in Congress cannot be said to be in control of his own, simpler game.
