Dem
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GOP
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Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in Alaska on Friday. Trump may offer part of Ukraine to Russia in exchange for a temporary peace there so Putin can rebuild his decimated army. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already rejected that option and said that any deal about Ukraine must involve, well, Ukraine. Furthermore he noted that the Ukrainian Constitution does not give him the authority to give away or trade the country's land. Will Trump then pivot and offer to return Alaska to Russia in return for permission to build Trump Tower Moscow? Will Trump include Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) as part of the package, to get rid of her? We don't know what will happen except for one thing: Putin will own Trump.
Russian military bloggers were wildly enthusiastic about the meeting being in Alaska, which they regard as rightfully theirs and think should be returned. The choice of venue couldn't be worse, as it emphasizes that countries can sell or give their land to other countries. Geneva or Vienna would have been far better choices. Unfortunately, those are off the table, because there is an ICC warrant for Putin’s arrest. So, the meeting has to be in the U.S. or Russia.
When asked specifically by reporters about whether Ukraine would have to give up some territory for peace, Trump suggested that Ukraine might have to give up some land but might get some other land. Trump sees this as a real estate deal. Suppose he wants to buy some land for a building, but he needs a bit more on the east side, but doesn't need all the land on the north, so he'll trade some land here for some land there and we have a deal. In theory, if Trump got Putin to agree to give back Crimea, which he stole from Ukraine in 2014, in return for some land in the east, Zelenskyy might take the deal, but there is no way Putin would ever give back Crimea.
Just in case anyone has forgotten, Trump campaigned on a promise to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office. Friday is day 208 of Trump v2.0 and we're not so sure about that deal being completed on Friday. More recently, you may remember that Trump sent a couple of nuclear submarines over to Putin's neck of the woods. Putin probably didn't see that as a gesture of love.
Another meeting of world leaders about somebody else's land comes to mind. It is the 1938 Munich Agreement in which British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier gave Adolf Hitler the Sudetenland, a part of what was then Czechoslovakia, in return for a meaningless promise. Czechoslovakia had no representative at the meeting and no say in the deal. At the time, Winston Churchill said of Chamberlain: "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war." Hitler then swallowed all of Czechoslovakia and that set the stage for World War II. Could that happen again? Probably not, because Ukraine doesn't trust Russia and would never accept a deal without some security guarantees. Still, the chance of a deal that is favorable to Ukraine is very low, because neither Trump nor Putin cares one whit about Ukraine.
Maybe Trump can pull off a miracle, but much more likely he will get played. By now almost every world leader has figured out how to manipulate Trump: Make a meaningless promise that you have no intention of fulfilling so Trump can claim a win. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised the E.U. would invest $600 billion in the U.S., but neglected to mention that all the money would come from private companies and only if they thought it worthwhile for themselves.
So, what could Putin promise? He could promise to stop selling oil to India (but then have China buy it and then resell it to India at a small markup). He could promise to stop attacking Kyiv with drones—and then in a few weeks begin attacking it with missiles. He could promise to work with the U.S. to exploit Ukraine's rare earths to reduce U.S. dependence on China in 10 years. He could promise to eliminate all tariffs on the $500 million worth of goods the U.S. sells to Russia (about the same as the U.S. exports to Bermuda or Latvia). Putin could promise to nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. There are lots of things Putin could promise since all Trump cares about is an announcement he can claim as a win. Then it is back to subjugating law firms, media companies, and universities. That he does care about.
Putin has a terrible record keeping his promises and just sees them as bargaining chips. He knows that Trump has no interest in the details. It's the handshake and the photo op that matter to Trump. Putin knows this very well. Ronald Reagan's approach to Russia was: "Trust but verify." Trump's approach is the same—except without the "verify" part. Putin could agree to a ceasefire and then break it in 2 weeks, something he has done before. What would Trump do then? Probably nothing.
John Bolton said of the meeting: "I have a feeling this is sliding very quickly in Russia's direction." Bolton thinks that Putin will make an offer to Trump that Trump may not even understand and then tell Zelenskyy that he has to accept it because "he has no cards." Again, Trump doesn't care what is in the deal. If Ukraine gets nothing out of the deal, that is fine with Trump. What Trump wants is to get credit for making a deal.
What might Putin want in a deal? He thinks tactically, as well as strategically. In the short run, he would like a deal that Trump thinks is great but is completely unacceptable to the other NATO members, thus driving a wedge between Trump and the rest of NATO. For Putin, a good deal would include some land swaps and promises that no NATO troops would be stationed in Ukraine, Ukraine would not join any military alliances, Ukraine would not be rearmed by the West, and Ukraine would not be allowed to develop its own weapon industries. In other words, his requirement would be that Ukraine would be kept weak so Russia could invade again in a year or two and finally conquer the entire country.
Strategically, Putin is probably thinking about the Yalta conference in 1945, when Joseph Stalin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill carved up Europe. Putin could propose this deal: Russia gets to be the boss of Europe, the U.S. gets to be the boss of North and South America, and China gets to be the boss of Asia. Trump might have some rudimentary knowledge of the world map and be thinking: "North America and South America combined are much bigger than Europe, so I got more real estate than Putin. Boy, I am a good negotiator. What a deal!" For Putin, this would be a gigantic win. He has said the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. If Trump agreed that Putin could reassemble it by force, Putin could go down in Russian history as one of the greatest czars of all time. (V)