RUSSIA/STATE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “America’s most sweeping expulsion of Russian diplomats since the Cold War may have seemed like a dramatic escalation in Washington’s response to Moscow, but the groundwork for a more confrontational U.S. posture had been taking shape for months — in plain sight. While President Donald Trump’s conciliatory rhetoric toward Moscow has dominated headlines, officials at the U.S. State Department, Pentagon and White House made a series of lower-profile decisions over the past year to counter Russia around the world – from Afghanistan to North Korea to Syria. The State Department earlier in March announced plans to provide anti-tank missiles to Ukraine to defend against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Trump’s predecessor as president, Barack Obama, had declined to do so over fears of provoking Moscow…Both the White House and Pentagon’s top policy documents unveiled in January portrayed Russia as an adversary that had returned to the center of U.S. national security planning.”
–Reuters Staff, “Before expulsions, a brick-by-brick hardening of U.S. stance toward Russia,” Reuters, Mar. 26, 2018 5:06pm