What if Trump is playing Russia like he played the media?

Now for the stretch on your part — and mine: What if President-elect Donald Trump is playing the Russians and Vladimir Putin as effectively as he played the U.S. media throughout 2015 and 2016?

What if the incoming president has a strategic vision that views China, Iran and radical Sunni Islamists as far greater threats to U.S. national security than Russia is? Even if Russia is rightly understood, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) put it after President Obama’s imposition of sanctions, as “not our friend,” and is “guilty, guilty, guilty” of interfering in our election and harassing our diplomats, as I and most conservatives believe?

I know the guffaws that just erupted. I have firsthand knowledge that the new president is not — or at least was not — educated in matters such as the nuclear triad or the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah. The collective, deep, probably unbendable assumption is that he just doesn’t know much about many aspects of national security. From that assumption it is an easy, and dangerous, leap to “he’s clueless, cannot learn and has no interest in learning.”

That might be true. Or it might be that Trump is, first and foremost, a developer, who will bring a developer’s habits and strengths to the presidency.