Russia and America Are Once Again at Odds

“I imagine [Donald will] fall out with his new friend Vladimir pretty quickly.” That’s what Fiona Hill, a Russia expert now serving on Donald Trump’s National Security Council, told me shortly after the 2016 election, when she was working at the Brookings Institution. At the time, when the Russian president and American president-elect were busy heaping praise on each other, her prediction was hard to accept.

Now, after Trump’s bombing of an air base used by the Syrian and Russian militaries, it is hard to deny. The Russian government the strikes, intended to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for a communications system for preventing unintended conflict between U.S. and Russian aircraft flying over Syria, to strengthen Syrian air defenses, and a warship armed with cruise missiles to the Syrian coast. The U.S. government, for its part, it’s investigating whether Russia was involved in the suspected sarin-gas attack. Judged by the tortured history of U.S.-Russian relations, the war of words so far has been pretty mild. But we’re still a long way from the talk of Vlad and Don teaming up to fight terrorism.