When force starts working against force: Trump risks repeating Putin’s strategic mistake

Bloomberg published an article by the famous American columnist Marc Champion, «Trump Is Copying Putin’s Losing Playbook With Canada».

Where he specifically notes: «Sometimes it seems that the Trump administration draws its worldview and foreign policy ideas from a course at the Kremlin School of International Relations, where Putin teaches. The Trump administration’s approach to trade negotiations with Canada is seen as an attempt to force a vassal to pay tribute, not as negotiations between partners. The US is trying to secure its economic interests and physical security in the Western Hemisphere through coercion, not through alliances and soft power, which echoes the policies pursued by Putin. His choice to adopt Moscow’s tactics is a mistake that is already destroying US alliances and forcing dependents in North America and Europe to reduce their dependence on the US for markets and security. This is not a winning model».

Mark Champion’s column in Bloomberg is interesting not only for its criticism of Donald Trump, but also for the fact that it raises a much broader question: what happens to a great power when it begins to perceive its allies not as a source of power, but as dependent clients who can be forced to pay for protection, market access, or political loyalty?

Champion actually draws a parallel between current American policy and the model that Putin has been using for years in the post-Soviet space. In his opinion, this is a paradoxical situation: the United States, which after World War II built a system of alliances precisely on the principle of voluntary attraction of other states to American power, is gradually starting to use methods characteristic of revisionist states – coercion, economic pressure, a demonstration of force, and the demand to recognize a special sphere of influence.

That is why the Canadian story has a significance that is far disproportionate to the volume of bilateral trade or specific tariff disputes. Canada is not just a neighbor of the United States. This is one of America’s oldest and most integrated allies, a country with which the United States has for decades formed a de facto single economic and security space.

If Washington demonstrates a willingness to apply the logic of «pay for access», «accept our terms or face the consequences», to Canada, then the signal is received not only by Ottawa, but also by Berlin, London, Tokyo, Seoul, and other American partners. The question then becomes not «will Canada yield to Trump?» but «can the United States continue to be relied upon as a prospective ally?».

This is the main strategic irony of Trump’s policy. The US president starts from a completely understandable realistic premise: the United States has a huge economic, military and financial advantage over most of its partners, and therefore can use this asymmetry to obtain more favorable conditions. But from this correct premise comes a far from obvious conclusion: if we are stronger, then we can afford to treat partners as dependent states. This is where the strategic error arises.

After all, the power of a state is not only its ability to force another party to do something against its will. Real geopolitical power also lies in the ability to make other states voluntarily want to be next to you. The American system after 1945 was largely built on just such a combination of hard and soft power.

Washington had an unprecedented military advantage, but it also built institutions, opened markets, invested in rebuilding allies, secured sea lanes, established common trade rules, and allowed partners to grow. The Marshall Plan was brilliant precisely because its goal was not to impoverish Europe and bring it to its knees, but to make it rich, stable, and economically linked to the United States. And Champion contrasts this logic of American postwar policy with Russia’s practice of coercion of post-Soviet states.

Putin’s model was based on a different assumption: a neighboring state should not be so independent as to be free to choose its own economic, political, and security ties.

Moscow sought to keep its neighbors in its orbit through energy, trade, transportation, political influence, support for separatist movements, and ultimately through military force. The problem with this model is that coercion can create dependence, but it almost never creates loyalty. On the contrary, it creates fear, resentment and, most importantly, the motivation to look for an alternative.

This is exactly what happened to Russia, according to Champion. Moscow gained the opportunity to put pressure on its neighbors, but lost a significant part of the natural influence that it had after the collapse of the USSR. The historical past, economic ties, cultural proximity and the dominant role of Russia in the region could have become the foundation for an attractive regional system. Instead, the Kremlin has increasingly turned them into tools of control.

However, a state that feels dependent on one center of power sooner or later begins to look for insurance. It diversifies trade, energy, financial flows, defense purchases and diplomatic ties. Moreover, to do this, it does not need to become an enemy of its former patron. It is enough to stop being critically dependent on him.

This is the process that we can see today in Canada’s relations with the United States. Prime Minister Mark Carney has increasingly spoken about the need to diversify Canada’s markets, supply chains, and security relationships. After the deterioration of relations with Washington, Ottawa has intensified its ties with Europe, and Carney is scheduled to address the European Parliament in September. Canada is also seeking to significantly increase the share of its exports that go to non-American markets.

At first glance, this may seem like a minor problem for the United States. America is so much bigger than Canada that the economic asymmetry is obvious. But here is a principle that is often underestimated by major powers: for a major power, even a small reduction in its dependence on allies can have a much greater strategic effect than initially appears.

As Canada gradually creates alternative markets, Europe increases its defense autonomy, Japan rethinks security risks, and other partners begin to insure themselves against American unpredictability, the United States does not lose its power all at once. It loses its status as an indispensable partner.

American power for decades was based not only on the fact that the United States is stronger than its allies. It was based on the fact that the American presence was more profitable than the alternatives. Washington provided security, but allies were given the opportunity to trade, invest, develop, and participate in a system whose rules were largely shaped by the United States itself.

As a result, the American system was not a classical empire, where the center holds the periphery solely by force, but a much more complex construct in which other states had a vested interest in preserving the American order.

Therefore, the claim that the allies «gave nothing» to America in exchange for American security is strategically incomplete. The United States received from its allies access to markets, investments, military support, political coordination, the ability to project power through a system of bases and partnerships, and much broader international influence. In other words, such an alliance is not a charity of the stronger towards the weaker. It is an investment in interdependence that creates additional strength for both sides.

That is why the tariff war with Canada has potentially much broader consequences than its immediate economic outcome. It changes the psychology of alliance. If a state that for decades considered the American market to be its safest economic environment and American military potential to be the foundation of its own security is suddenly faced with the idea that this very dependence can be used by Washington as an instrument of political blackmail, the rational response is to reduce dependence.

Therefore, Canada’s current behavior may be a much more important lesson for the United States than it seems. Ottawa cannot simply «disengage» from the American economy. Geography cannot be eliminated. However, it can make dependence less critical. This is exactly what is happening.

Here, in fact, we come to a fundamental difference between the American and Russian approaches to the international system. Putin’s Russia viewed security as a situation in which a neighbor should not be able to become stronger without Moscow’s permission. Hence the logic of «spheres of influence»: Russia’s security supposedly requires limiting the strategic choices of other states.

The problem is that each such limitation stimulates the neighbor to seek even more external guarantees. NATO becomes more necessary precisely because Russia demands neutrality from its neighbors; Western markets become more attractive precisely because Moscow uses economic dependence as a weapon. As a result, policies designed to expand Russia’s sphere of influence contribute to its narrowing.

If Washington starts to act according to the same «logic», it risks falling into a mirror trap. Demanding greater dependence from allies can generate their desire for greater autonomy. Pressure for control can generate coalitions against control. Using economic advantage to obtain political concessions can force partners to invest in exactly what the United States would like to avoid – in creating alternatives to American markets, the financial system, and security infrastructure.

In this sense, Canada is only the first, but very illustrative, case. Europeans have already learned their lesson: now even a formal alliance with Washington does not guarantee that American economic and military advantage will not be used as political leverage.

As a result, European capitals are faced with a question that seemed almost abstract a few years ago: how much can they rely on the United States if the American administration itself questions the traditional nature of the transatlantic partnership?

And here a paradox arises. If Washington wants Europe to spend more on defense, that in itself may be in American interests. If Washington wants allies to take more responsibility for their own security, that too may be a rational policy. But if Washington simultaneously convinces allies that American guarantees can be politically conditional, economically costly, and strategically unpredictable, what it gets is not stronger allies who invest more in a common system, but allies who increasingly build a system without it.

This is a fundamental difference. A strong America can demand more from its allies. But a strong America should not make allies doubt whether it will remain an ally tomorrow.

This is about the clash of two concepts of American power. The first is traditional for the post-war history of the United States: America is strong because there is a network of states around it that voluntarily associate their interests with it. The second is transactional: America is strong because it has more leverage than others and must convert this advantage into specific concessions as much as possible.

The first model creates a system. The second is agreements. But the international system is much more complex than a series of bilateral agreements. It is not only how much Washington received today from Ottawa, Brussels, or Tokyo that matters. What matters is what expectations these capitals have about the behavior of the United States tomorrow.

If expectations become negative, the state begins to insure itself. And it is precisely insuring partners that may become the greatest strategic price of Trump’s policy.

The Russian experience is very instructive here. Moscow could demand loyalty from post-Soviet countries, but the stronger Russian coercion became, the less trust remained in Russia as the center of the regional system.

Countries began to seek alternative transport corridors, energy routes, trade links, military partnerships and diplomatic guarantees. In the end, Russia found itself in a situation where its attempts to maintain its sphere of influence generated the very external alliances and alternative structures it most feared. This is the «losing model».

Its losing position is not that coercion never works. On the contrary, coercion sometimes works very well. A large power can force a smaller power to make concessions. The problem begins after the concession. If the defeated side starts thinking not about how to cooperate with the stronger one, but about how to avoid being so dependent next time, victory turns into a strategic defeat.

So the real test of American policy is not whether Trump can force Canada to make individual concessions. He may be able to. The question is: Will Canada in five or ten years be more integrated with America than it is today, or less dependent on it? If the answer is the latter, Washington can formally win individual negotiations while losing strategic competition for influence.

That is why the historical experience of the United States is particularly important here. America after World War II was strong enough to dominate, but it chose a different model: it created a system in which dominance was disguised as mutual benefit so successfully that many states themselves became interested in continuing American leadership. This is the true genius of American geopolitics.

Putin, on the contrary, tried to turn the dependence of its neighbors into a guarantee of «Russian security». As a result, the dependence turned out to be unstable, and the neighbors began to seek freedom of maneuver. If Trump repeats this logic with Canada and other allies, he risks not strengthening the American sphere of influence, but accelerating its transformation.

And here is another important circumstance. In the 21st century, the economic power of states is less and less determined by their territory alone. Supply chains can be reorganized. Markets can be diversified. Energy routes can be changed. Capital can be moved. Military technology can be purchased from different suppliers. Even political alliances can be partially replaced by networks of partnerships.

Thus, the modern world is much less suitable for the classic «sphere of influence» policy than the world of the 19th or even 20th century. A great power can control its neighbor – but it is increasingly difficult for it to control its choice of alternatives.

That is why the strongest strategy of the United States today is not to force Canada, Europe or Asian allies to be dependent on America, but to make American partnerships so profitable, reliable and predictable that they themselves do not want to abandon them.

This is the difference between imperial logic and the logic of leadership. After all, imperial thinking is focused on how to keep others from leaving. While the leader’s thinking is focused on how to make them want to stay. American power has historically been built mainly on the second principle.

If the United States switches to the first, it may very quickly find that the world has become different. Allies will not necessarily rebel. They will simply start looking for alternative partnerships. They will not necessarily declare a break. They will simply conclude new agreements. They will not necessarily side with China, Russia or Europe. They will simply cease to consider orientation to Washington as the only possible path of development. And this is precisely what may turn out to be the greatest geopolitical price of Donald Trump’s policy.

Therefore, Mark Champion’s thesis should not be taken literally – they say, Trump is simply «copying Putin». There are fundamental differences between the American and Russian state models, and it would be wrong to draw an equal sign between them.

It is much more accurate to talk about the similarity of strategic logic: the belief that the security of a great power requires not just allies, but control over the strategic choices of weaker partners; that economic dependence is a natural instrument of political coercion; that neighbors should demonstrate gratitude for protection; and that power itself creates the right to dictate terms.

It is this logic that has proven self-defeating in the Russian case. And if Washington really begins to build relations with allies according to the same scheme, it risks repeating all of Russia’s failures.

This is the main paradox of modern American politics: the United States is so strong that it can afford to lose allies – but it is so strong precisely because it has not allowed itself to lose them for decades.

Canada is therefore not a peripheral episode in American trade policy, but a kind of strategic mirror. It shows Washington what happens when a partner stops perceiving American power as a guarantee and begins to perceive it as a potential risk.

In international politics, the most dangerous mistake a great power makes is not that it overestimates the strength of its adversary. Much more dangerous is to overestimate its own ability to coerce an ally and underestimate its ability to change its own behavior.

That is why the Canadian crisis may turn out for the United States not to be a story about how much America is able to put pressure on its neighbor, but a story about how far allies are willing to move away from America if Washington itself convinces them that dependence on it has become dangerous.

And if this happens, Moscow will indeed have reason to rejoice – not because Trump will make America look like Russia, but because Washington can, with its own hands, begin to destroy the system of alliances that Moscow has been unsuccessfully trying to destroy or weaken for decades.