SZOLNOK, Hungary — Secretive, behind-the-lines mission rehearsals and other operations by 1,400 U.S. and allied commandos to combat shifting Russian threats have laid bare a fundamental tension in the Trump administration: While the president courts Moscow, much of his government considers it an increasingly dangerous foe.
Just days before President Trump made light of Russia’s interference in U.S. elections during a meeting last month with President Vladimir Putin, teams of Army Green Berets and Navy SEALs were practicing support missions for local resistance forces in Eastern Europe and the Baltics should they have to confront Russian commandos without insignia, the so-called little green men who helped Moscow seize Crimea in 2014.
Under a revamped Pentagon strategy to counter growing threats from Russia and China, U.S. commandos are teaming up with partners on Europe’s eastern flank to thwart Russia’s so-called hybrid warfare, which allied officials say increasingly involves manipulating events using a mix of subterfuge, cyberattacks and information warfare. The threats hark back to Cold War-era intrigue, but so far are being fought with bytes and bandwidth, not bombs and bullets.
“This is back to the future,” said Gen. Richard Clarke, the head of the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command. “Special Operations forces have to work on the edges to counter Russian aggression.”
The two-week exercise in Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania offered a window into shadowy so-called gray-zone operations, which are meant to stay below the threshold of inciting open conflict but always run the risk of touching off exactly what both sides are trying to avoid: a shooting war.
The Special Operations exercise came at the same time as one of the largest U.S.-led exercises since Russia invaded Crimea. It involved...
