Key Points and Summary – Following President Trump’s recent admission of “disappointment” in Vladimir Putin, this analysis argues his “reverse Kissinger” strategy—courting Russia to counterbalance China—has conclusively failed.
-Unlike the 1970s, modern Russia and China are not rivals but close partners dedicated to upending the U.S.-led world order, as evidenced by this week’s Tianjin Summit and joint military parades.
-Having made numerous concessions toward Moscow for no strategic gain, Trump is urged to abandon this flawed, hope-based policy and instead pursue a containment strategy against the growing Russo-Chinese alliance.
Reverse Kissinger Strategy Needs to Go
“I’m very disappointed in President Putin,” U.S. President Donald Trump told commentator Scott Jennings this week, alluding to Russia’s continued bombing of Ukraine in the wake of Trump’s peacemaking efforts.
In his dismay with Russia’s president, Trump joined recent predecessors of both parties who sought, naively, to cajole the Russian strongman to improve ties and cooperate on global challenges.
President George W. Bush found Putin “very straightforward and trustworthy” and said their first meeting marked the start of a “very constructive relationship.” President Barack Obama proposed a U.S.-Russia “reset” founded on “common interests that form the basis for cooperation.” President Joe Biden sought a “stable, predictable relationship” and a “strategic stability dialogue to pursue cooperation in arms control and security.”
They all came away disappointed because Putin is, well, Putin: a former KGB agent who is not worthy of trust, does not seek common interests, and called the Soviet Union’s dissolution the 20th century’s “greatest geopolitical catastrophe.” Putin hopes to resurrect as much of the Soviet empire as he can. With the help of his fellow autocrats in Beijing, Tehran, Pyongyang, and elsewhere, he seeks to upend the U.S.-led global order.
President Donald J. Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin during the G20 Japan Summit Friday, June 28, 2019, in Osaka, Japan. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
Now that Trump has joined the ranks of the disappointed, he should recognize Putin for what he is. He should understand that the Russian leader does not share Trump’s hopes for sustained peace with Ukraine and does not value better ties with Washington. U.S. policy must seek to contain Putin’s geopolitical ambitions.
Trump’s effort to coax Putin into greater cooperation is rooted in what’s known as the “reverse Kissinger” strategy. Henry Kissinger as national security advisor laid the groundwork for President Richard Nixon’s successful outreach to China, understanding that closer ties with Beijing would help counterbalance growing Soviet power. Trump has similarly sought closer Russian ties to help counterbalance China’s growing power and curb its pretensions to empire.
In pursuit of that goal, Trump has ambushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a televised Oval Office exchange; blamed the Russia-Ukraine war on Ukraine; paused some U.S. weapons shipments to Kyiv; dropped his demand for a ceasefire before peace talks, at Putin’s behest; pressured Zelensky to accept a deal that would have forced him to cede land to Russia; and failed to follow through on threats to impose additional sanctions on Moscow over its warmaking.
After more than six months of achieving nothing in exchange for his efforts, it is time for Trump to drop the reverse-Kissinger strategy for good. The approach was always based on a misreading of history. It reflects the politics of hope over reality and undermines U.S. credibility around the world.
Nixon’s opening to China in the early 1970s could succeed because of a Sino-Soviet split that dated back to the 1950s; a border war between the Soviet Union and China in 1969; and a growing rivalry over who would steer the global Communist movement.
Today, no such split has opened between a revanchist Russia and a rising China. Quite the contrary, Moscow and Beijing are growing closer. They seek not to counterbalance one another, but instead to counterbalance the United States. They announced a “no limits” partnership three weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and they share the goal of upending U.S. global leadership.
This week, Putin joined Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Tianjin Summit, where they promoted cooperation among the three nations. Putin then joined Xi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a military parade in Beijing. These events proved the futility of Trump’s efforts to separate Russia from China, and they were not the only such showcases.
On the diplomatic front, the two nations (which are both permanent UN Security Council members) joined Iran to declare that the threat by the EU3 (Great Britain, France, and Germany) to reimpose UN sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear pursuits was “legally and procedurally flawed.”
That joint declaration made clear that, if the EU3 imposes so-called snapback sanctions in the coming weeks, Russia and Beijing may refuse to help enforce them. That would open the door to other like-minded nations to follow suit and significantly lessen the sanctions’ impact.
President Donald J. Trump welcomes Russian President Vladimir Putin to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Anchorage, Alaska, August 15, 2025 (DoD photo by Benjamin Applebaum)
On the economic front, Russia and China announced they would build a new pipeline – the “Power of Siberia 2” – between Russia’s Yamal Peninsula and northern China, along with a pipeline through Mongolia. This could send up to 2 billion cubic meters of gas per year to China.
The world of 2025 is not that of 1972, when Nixon could play Moscow and Beijing against one another. Trump should throw out hopes of a Kissinger-style breakthrough, expect more Russia-China cooperation, and proceed accordingly.
About the Author: Lawrence J. Haas
Lawrence J. Haas is a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and the author of, among other books, Harry and Arthur: Truman, Vandenberg, and the Partnership That Created the Free World.
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Jim
September 5, 2025 at 9:52 am
The article skips over how we got to the point where Russia and China have close relations.
By consistent U. S. foreign policy actions against Russia and continued think tank articles and politicians stating China is the major threat and must be confronted (specifically over Taiwan).
I find it particularly difficult to accept foreign policy advice from voices who cheered confrontation with Russia and China which directly led to China and Russia coming together, then turning around and wanting to offer further advice.
These voices have been wrong for 25 years without letup.
Where are we now?
A failed Ukraine policy (and no easy way out).
China hawks seemingly seeking a confrontation over Taiwan and the South China Sea (illegally annexed by China in a soft conquest).
In other words, confrontation failed against Russia and likely would fail against China, but these voices want more of the same…
… what did somebody say about repeating the same failed strategies and expecting a different result?
James Snead
September 5, 2025 at 10:33 am
I understand the need to raise revenue, but the extensive non-related ads and, in particular, the obscuring pop-ups ads make trying to read this website highly distracting. The content loses its “punch” due to these distractions.
Swamplaw Yankee
September 6, 2025 at 11:21 am
Well, Komrade dzzhimmm, this op-ed contribution sure does skip over much history. But, interestingly, enough, so do the SVR-KGB-FSB Shills glibly skip over their own extensive gulag butchery but, here in the USA, still enjoy the US Constitutional protection of free speech.
Over in the 2025 EU, Komrade dzzhimmm types, would be hunted down by the EU private speech police with huge NGO government funding as part of their legal comprehensive pre-emptive censorship. The EU MSM sometimes allows broadcast of snippets of video as EU ( say even UK ) municipal police legally smash into private residences to lay charges against Komrade dzzzhimm types who deviate in obsession with selectively pre-bunking the past ( his style ) against the EU style.
Wow. We still have the US Constitution protected by Yankee style judges!
But, way over there, the new EU3 SUDDENLY emerges with its unique PR lines. What colour lines are those actually? Yellow?
We all recall Stalin’s “Redlines” dictated, post WW2, to USA POTUS Truman as POTUS Truman danced Russkie style to prevent any free surplus NAZI or IMPERIAL ammo/hardware from reaching anti-commie ancient Chinese people fighting the commies. Boy, the US State department put on their red leather dance boots with red sashes and whirled genuine Russkie style to Stalin’s vicious “Redlines” to equip with the same ammo for FREE his little vassal commie Mao Tse-tung.
So, 1945 POTUS Truman was the “Real” second poppa of this Mao commie PRC CCP that the new EU3 leaders are muttering about in 2025.
And POPPA POTUS Truman refused to send over a single piece of Ammo from 1945 to 1951 when the pro-commies, with Truman donated FREE Axis hardware, wiped out their competing huge anti-commie “ammo-less” Chinese army. Yes, right?
Or, what is the new EU3 version of EU3 historical opinion? It is, or course, not the same facts as the USA historians select.
Is it still allowed to mention the Russkie peasant butchery of 20,000,000 Ukrainians in 1932-33, the HOLODOMOR, in the EU? Or, does that offend the progeny of the butchers, who have conducted the 1000 year old Genocide of Ukrainians as part of their genetic need to eliminate Ukrainians, “Lolita” style.
One can immediately imagine the huge armies of overly well-paid NGO private police, at the ready, to demand with EU “third party” litigation scam that they have the “real” disinformation numbers for the Ukrainian HOLODOMOR children/families. Submit to the EU pre-emptive censorship NOW or, be seized, placed in EU’s perpetual litigation scam incarceration.
Where do Mexican + Canadian historians stand on these new EU “Taubira”, et al, Laws? Just as an aside op-ed to come.
The op-ed is so very soft + gentle in warning the inner beltway types that 2025 is not 1972, nor 1945. The 1972 USA inner beltway types are still playing the most popular USA hit song of 1971, unaware that the EU NGO structure is now hunting these “evil” US song players.
“When your Hot, your Hot, when your Not, your NOT”, is the prime example of 2025 USA MSM freely bowing down with Yankee under pants pulled way down to pre-emptive censorship “Stalin” style. Yeah, Stalin’s “Redlines” seem now tsarling Putin’s “REDLINES” and one can actually hear yellow belliee cowards screaming in the USA MSM “give up any illegally occupied ancient Ukrainian soil to the russkie genociders of Ukrainians and asap”!! It is not ours to give away, but, we Yankees are such cowards so we cowards give it away to russkie Putin as he Redline demands. Is Putin now happy?!
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