Vice President Pence toured Eastern Europe this week to reassure allies there that the United States stands with them against any Russian agression. (Savo Prelevic/AFP/Getty Images)

The Eastern European countries that Vice President Pence toured this week on his 3½ -day trip through the region could be forgiven for thinking that Pence — with his throwback aesthetic of closely shorn hair and a square jaw — was just another happy Cold Warrior abroad.

At nearly every stop, the vice president spoke forcefully about the specter of Russian aggression, talked of “peace through strength,” and reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, reiterating its cornerstone pledge that an attack on one nation is an attack on all.

“Under President Donald Trump, the United States of America rejects any attempt to use force, threats, intimidation, or malign influence in the Baltic states or against any of our treaty allies,” Pence said Monday, at his first news conference with Baltic leaders, in Tallinn, Estonia. “To be clear, we hope for better days, for better relations with Russia, but recent diplomatic action taken by Moscow will not deter the commitment of the United States of America to our security, the security of our allies, and the security of freedom-loving nations around the world.”

Pence’s trip came in the wake of bipartisan sanctions legislation against Russia and Russia’s near immediate retaliation — including ordering the United States to reduce its staff at diplomatic missions in Moscow and elsewhere by 755 people — and his firm, no-nonsense rhetoric was the natural message of a nation that has long considered Russia a chief geopolitical foe.

The only problem is that Pence’s tough-on-Russia talk doesn’t quite align with some of the previous comments from Trump, who remained mostly silent on the issue this week.

Where Trump has called NATO “obsolete” and personally cut the roughly 20-word sentence from a May speech at NATO headquarters affirming his nation’s support for Article 5 — the shared defense touchstone of the treaty — Pence spoke of the United States’ commitment to both its NATO allies and to Article 5.

“Our allies in Eastern Europe can be confident that the United States of America stands with them,” he said Sunday, speaking to reporters in Tallinn’s cobblestone Town Hall Square. “We are committed to NATO. We are committed to our common defense.”

Later, he twice reassured Montenegro — NATO’s newest member — that “NATO is made up of large countries and small countries, but the United States of America has no small allies, and we cherish our new alliance with Montenegro through NATO.”

Where Trump has long coveted a friendly relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin — repeatedly refusing to fully accept the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election and agreeing to sign the sanctions legislation only under political duress — Pence spoke of a Georgian “front line compromised by Russian aggression nearly a decade ago” and promised to stand up to any Russian malfeasance throughout the region.

“The United States strongly condemns Russia’s occupation of Georgia’s soil,” Pence told U.S. and Georgian troops on Tuesday in Tbilisi, Georgia. “The United States prefers a constructive relationship with Russia based on mutual cooperation and common interests. But the president and our Congress are unified in our message to Russia — a better relationship, the lifting of sanctions, will require Russia to reverse the actions that caused the sanctions to be imposed in the first place. And not before.”

While Pence talked up the sanctions legislation this week, Trump signed the bill on Wednesday and focused most of his statement on what he didn’t like about it — lawmakers can block him from rolling back sanctions against Russia — and took jabs at Congress.

“The bill remains seriously flawed — particularly because it encroaches on the executive branch’s authority to negotiate,” Trump said in a statement. “Congress could not even negotiate a health-care bill after seven years of talking.”

In an interview, Pence said Trump is taking a “we’ll see” attitude toward Russia and said the administration hopes the sanctions will lead to an improved relationship.

“We think that creates an environment where there can be a more honest dialogue about resolving differences, and finding common ground,” he said.

Michael McFaul, who was the U.S. ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, said Trump’s stance on Russia is far different from that of many in his Cabinet — a tension, he added, the vice president already has had to navigate. Recalling the Munich Security Conference in February, where Pence offered a similar message of support to NATO and U.S. allies, McFaul remembered, “Everybody liked that message, but everybody wondered: Is he actually speaking for the president of the United States?”

“There’s no question that will be part of the challenge for the vice president,” he said, “to make sure the people he meets with believe him when he says, ‘This is our policy, not just the policy of the vice president’s office.’ ”

But if Pence’s hard-fought diplomacy may yet be undone by a brash presidential tweet, the man on display in Eastern Europe was a confident, comfortable vice president, seeming to find his footing on the world stage on his third trip abroad. Later this month, he will head to South America, where he will visit Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Panama, against the backdrop of a crisis in Venezuela that has reached a feverish boil.

Pence began his trip by coming to the back of Air Force Two to briefly chat with reporters, proffering cupcakes to one correspondent celebrating a birthday and asking if everyone was comfortable or needed anything. His office always travels with a doctor on board, he added, in case anyone is feeling sick.

He then took questions from reporters on his first day in Estonia; chatted for five minutes off the record with the press corps on the flight from Tallinn to Tbilisi; and answered more questions during a joint news conference with Georgia’s prime minister before sitting down for an interview with Fox News Channel. Before his departure, he spoke with Fox News again, and on his return flight, he had interviews with the reporters traveling with him.

Pence’s effort to be accessible offered a contrast with this first trip abroad, where he largely kept the media at bay save for an off-the-record conversation on the flight home, or his second trip — a 10-day jaunt through Asia that left some reporters frustrated about his lack of accessibility.

“The president sent the vice president on this trip with a very clear message about what America first means, but that’s not just a message for our foreign allies,” said Jarrod Agen, Pence’s deputy chief of staff. “The American people need to hear it too, which is why communicating that with the American media who are traveling with us is an important part of the trip.”

In some ways Pence was still relying on a familiar playbook. He tied everything back to Trump, and not a day went by when he did not deliver some greeting or policy he claimed came directly from the president or remind his hosts that he was but a humble messenger for his boss.

In Tallinn’s old town, as he shook hands with onlookers — many of them tourists like him — who had crowded the square to glimpse his motorcade, and often tried to offer connections to the president. When a Polish couple introduced themselves, Pence enthused, “The president was just in Warsaw,” and when a Parisian man said hello, the vice president quickly noted, “The president was just in Paris for Bastille Day.”

He seemed to have talking points ready for questions he didn’t like, turning a query about the latest failed Republican heath-care vote — and what exactly he had said to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the chamber before the senator turned, flicked his thumb downward and torpedoed yet another Republican heath-care plan — into a long-winded response about the Trump White House keeping its word.

“We’ll never give up on our commitment to keep our promises, whether it be on health-care reform or getting the American economy rolling, or our promise to reengage the world,” he said.

Pence — who keeps Air Force Two free of alcohol — did not so much as sip from his wine glass during a toast with the Georgian delegation Monday night, or another with the Montenegro delegation Tuesday evening.

He was also unfailingly polite. While Trump appeared to shove Duško Marković, the prime minister of Monte­negro, out of his way at NATO headquarters in Brussels in May as leaders gathered for a group photo, Pence and Marković spent much of Tuesday and Wednesday together, with nary a push.

“Your courage, particularly in the face of Russian pressure, inspires the world, and I commend you for it,” Pence said at a dinner with Montenegro’s leaders Tuesday night.

In return for Pence’s support, his allies also stuck to script. At one point, a reporter asked Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili if he — as a leader of a country that has long dealt with Russian meddling — had any tips for the United States about Russia’s attempts to sway the 2016 presidential election.

“I don’t think that Georgia is in a position to judge about Russian interference,” Kvirikashvili replied. “With our excellent intelligence capabilities, we were not able to detect any interference, and we think that the American nation has made its decision to elect a president.”

At this, one of the vice president’s top aides, who had been nodding along with Pence’s answers to questions from his seat in the front row, offered a small, appreciative chuckle.