Vladimir Putin Aleksey Nikolskyi | Kremlin | Reuters

Forget the tweets — watch the deeds

Knowing little about social networks, Putin may be inclined to disregard the daily flow of tweets coming from the White House. What he certainly takes seriously are the decisions that point to new policy priorities, muddled as they might seem now. Four such decisions should be matters of serious concern in the Kremlin. First of all, the intention to increase the U.S. defense budget by some $54 billion comes as a grave warning. Russia has been investing heavily in modernizing its military machine for the last five years, but now the country's protracted economic decline has necessitated cuts to the over-ambitious defense plans. Many half-accomplished programs—like the Yasen-class nuclear submarine or the "fifth generation" PAK-FA fighter—have been delayed, while the costs of ongoing interventions in places such as Syria and Ukraine keep piling up. Trump's resolution to boost U.S. military capabilities is not only a reminder of Russia's military-industrial inferiority, but also a confirmation of his proposition to deal with Russia "from a position of strength." This doesn't sit well in Moscow at all. Second, Trump's stated disinclination to engage in talks on strategic arms control caught Putin by surprise in the first (and so far only) telephone conversation since Trump moved into the Oval Office. The Russian leader had turned down every proposition from President Barack Obama on possible new cuts of nuclear arsenals, expecting it to be a more favorable topic for conversation with his successor. Now he has to assess the scope of U.S. nuclear modernization. On top of that, there is a substantiated accusation that Russia has violated the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which Moscow cannot make disappear by flat denials.

There were two kinds of optimistic expectations in Moscow regarding the Trump era: deal-making and confusion.

Third, Russian experts had eagerly predicted a deepening discord between the United States and its European allies and a profound confusion inside NATO. Instead, firm assertions by the vice president, secretary of state, and others on the U.S. commitment to the alliance have been accompanied by the demand that NATO allies increase defense spending. The Europeans see the need to take this demand seriously, and every euro of additional investments in their long-starved militaries buys new capabilities for containing the Russian threat. The top brass in Moscow are not amused, in particular, by NATO's determined build-up of collective defense assets in the Baltic theater. Fourth, there is now strong U.S. pressure on Russia's most sensitive pain point: the price of oil. For many months, Moscow had been in negotiation with OPEC about production cuts, seeking to achieve some upward trend in this market—only to experience another price drop in the last couple of weeks. The primary driver of this volatility is the relaxation of regulations in the United States, bringing new drilling, which over-compensates all the OPEC cartel machinations. The Russian ruble has duly depreciated, and any promised economic stabilization before next year's national election is unlikely at best. The economy will continue to stagnate.

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