On Tuesday, the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, arrived in Moscow to meet with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, to try to discuss a way forward in Syria following the Trump administration’s airstrikes against the regime of Bashar al-Assad late last week.



Syria is directly protected by Russia, which is dedicated to maintaining Assad in power at whatever human cost. A US war against Syria by its very nature risks a US war against Russia.

Under any other president that would be scary enough, given Russia’s nuclear arsenal and global influence. But what makes it even more troubling is that it comes during an ongoing investigation into the extent to which the Russian government meddled in the 2016 US election.



Trump, in other words, is playing chicken with Russia even as the nature of his relationship with Russia remains bizarre and unexplained.

Even before the election Trump faced accusations of being a Russian “puppet”, including, memorably, from Clinton herself during one of the debates. Some pundits preferred the term Manchurian candidate.

It is reasonable to ask whether a president under the direct sway of the Kremlin would attack Syria in a way that has provoked a predictably angry response from Russia. Indeed, Trump seems to be carrying out precisely the same policy toward Syria that Clinton promised, not only during the campaign but also in an interview just hours before the strikes.

The puppet rhetoric was always a bit overblown. We still don’t know what Trump’s Russia ties are because he and his aides won’t give straight answers, but it seems increasingly likely that “dupe” would be a more accurate description.



Where any other presidential candidate would have carefully avoided any association with Russia, Trump was happy to praise Putin. He also worked closely with fringe figures such as Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn who a more professional campaign would have avoided. In short, Trump left himself wide open to be used by Russia to destabilize the US political system, but it is highly unlikely he conspired in advance to achieve that goal.

That leaves Trump in an awkward place as far as Russia is concerned. As a president with no policy experience and no deep understanding of the world, he is reliant on advisers, and increasingly that means national security establishment figures like secretary of defense James Mattis and national security adviser HR McMaster, who hold mainstream hawkish views toward Russia.

Last week, the establishment consolidated power in the Trump White House at the expense of less traditional advisers such as Steve Bannon, whose position toward Russia was more conciliatory. What this suggests is that to whatever extent Trump’s campaign and initial administration might have been “pro-Russian”, its current orientation is the same as Clinton’s, or any of Trump’s conventional Republican rivals such as Marco Rubio, would have been.

On the other hand, that orientation is subject to Trump’s whims, which are erratic and ever changing. There’s also the possibility that Russia has damaging information on Trump, whether that means the infamous hotel incident alleged in an unverified dossier, or just embarrassing details about his business dealings or campaign contacts. This is not something that should be hanging over the president during tense geopolitical negotiations.

And then there’s Tillerson. As the former CEO of Exxon Mobil, he has a direct financial stake in lifting US sanctions leveled against Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, which would allow his former company to make billions in the Arctic.



Many believe Tillerson was chosen specifically for his close relationship with the Russian government. On the other hand, in his first months Tillerson has been sidelined within the administration, which has left the state department badly understaffed as Trump increasingly allows career military officers such as Mattis and McMaster to shape his foreign policy.



Whatever Tillerson might hope to achieve in Moscow could turn out to be less important given the influence of officials inclined to look for military solutions to problems like Syria.

Trump has been accused of being a Russian puppet by some and a militarist by others, but the reality may be scarier than either: he has no idea what he’s doing, and can be cajoled into supporting wildly contradictory policies by anyone, including but not limited to Russia.