We don't really know what the new administration's policy is on anything so far. It's important to emphasize that. Not only do we not have clear statements of policy, but we don't even have key personnel in positions who would be able to either formulate or implement it. That is a little unusual a month into a new presidency, but nonetheless it is a fact.
I think if you look at some of the statements that were made during the campaign by Trump and some of the more ideological people around him, such as Bannon, as Anders mentioned, you get this sense of the world that is dominated by two major threats. One is China, from an economic perspective, somehow. The merits of that assessment are beside the point. I'm just giving my observations about what they seem to think. The other is what they call “radical Islamist/Iran”, the merits of which and the nomenclature are beside the point. I'm just saying what I think they think.
I think if you look at the world in those kinds of terms, and you don't have a particular background dealing with Russia, you think that Russia might be helpful on both of these issues. I think when you look at the details it gets far more complicated, as Anders suggested. I don't expect them to have a reverse Kissinger, where somehow we're aligning with Russia against China because I don't think Russia would go for that.
I do think they came into office with this initial intent to improve relations to see if Russia could be useful for them on their two big priorities in the world, particularly on the second one, on counterterrorism, as it used to be called.
I think you've already seen that the events, particularly of the last 48 hours, and the political pressure they have generated, affect their ability and interest in pursuing that initial intention of improving the relationship. If you look at the press secretary's statements made a couple of days ago where suddenly—Trump has always been tough on Russia—we immediately demand the return of Crimea, I think that's more by way of damage control, but suggests that there's already been a course correction at least because of the politics surrounding this issue, which is very intense right now in the U.S.