" Peace for our time" - Is Trump the 21st century Chamberlein ?

 

 " Peace for our time" - What to Make of the Alaska Summit



The media have portrayed the summit in Alaska, where U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met to discuss a resolution of the war in Ukraine, as a victory for Putin and a loss for Trump. It’s not an unreasonable observation: Trump claimed that if reelected, he would end the war in a day, and after a phone call with Putin earlier in the year, Trump said an agreement was nearly at hand. Putin then continued the hostilities. Trump wanted a ceasefire and then an agreement. Putin wanted the war to continue to shore up his position in future negotiations despite U.S. threats of even harsher economic consequences. It may have been that Putin lied to Trump about a ceasefire, or that Trump misstated the nature of the phone conversation.

These are interesting but unimportant questions. Personalizing geopolitics is natural but misleading. If there is any personal dimension to geopolitics, it is defined by the short-term moves leaders make to protect themselves. Whatever Trump or Putin said, there is a fundamental geopolitical logic guiding their positions. It’s important, then, to focus not on who humiliated whom but on the geopolitical reality.