The new Secretary of State of the United States, Mike Pompeo, said that the time for a soft policy toward the Kremlin has passed.
If the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Moscow could - indeed, completely unreasonable - rely on an understanding of Putin's claims and ambitions, Pompeo's behavior does not leave such chances.
The US Secretary of State is determined. The new national security adviser, John Bolton, is determined. The Congress is determined. It remains only to understand how President Donald Trump is set up.
Russian analysts are still stuck between the three yesterday's tweets of the unpredictable American leader. In the first of them Trump threatens. In the second - calls for mutual understanding. In the third, he explains the misunderstandings with Russia about the continuation of the investigation of contacts between his entourage and the Kremlin. What inconsistency!
But in fact, there is nothing inconsistent. Trump is really impulsive and is not always able to accurately express his thought. But his idea of reality is the instinct of a construction magnate. Trump presses on his opponent until he realizes that it's more profitable to negotiate than to continue confrontation.
Trump wants an agreement with Putin. And he believes that this agreement will free him from suspicions of cooperation with the Kremlin during the election campaign. Because this agreement should restore the world order that was destroyed in the days of Barack Obama.
That's only the probability of concluding this transaction is zero. Putin simply can not give Trump what the American president would like him to get. Trump thinks Putin knows that Russia is not like America. And that it will not sustain economic confrontation.
And Putin does not want to know anything about this. And - most importantly - the subjects of the Russian emperor, citizens of the Middle Ages do not wish to know anything about this. Vladimir Putin simply can not afford to look like a "weakling" before such a dense people.
That's why Trump, Bolton and Pompeo will press in the hope that Putin is aware of everything and will begin negotiations on an agreement. And Putin will fuss in search of the weak places of the West - so that they understand how dangerous it is to pressure him and lag behind him, finally. Or they shared with him the world according to his, Putin's, "concepts."
As in the times of the collapse of the Soviet Union - when the Americans also pressed and wanted to negotiate - it all ends up not an agreement. It will end with a collapse.