What can we expect from the Alaska summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin? Is this the result of Trump’s recent pressure campaign and the potential ramping up of “sanctions,” even those by another name, such as the tariffs being levied on India? Is it war weariness in Russia, however difficult such a development is to discern? Does it reflect Putin’s belief that by pounding Ukraine relentlessly in the last several months, he’s created a framework for “taking the win”? Will it be merely symbolic, or can something genuine be achieved?
Will any other European leaders attend? They are already complaining about being excluded, and, as I write these words, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is busily orchestrating a telephonic “pre-summit” including Trump, Vance, Zelenskyy, and leaders from the U.K., France, Finland, Poland, and Italy — one hopes that the latter is Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni herself, likely the most consequential European leader at present. One also hopes that the Finns and the Poles will properly represent their Baltic neighbors, whose stake in the outcome of any Ukraine “deal” is huge. (RELATED: Meloni’s Italy: A Refreshing Crescendo to Brussels’ Dissonance)
The Road So Far…
Rather than trying to read all the tea leaves from the daily reporting, I prefer to return to the fundamentals, those things that have governed the war’s progress since the very beginning, the things that will, for better or worse, dictate the real substance of any negotiations. Starting only weeks after I began contributing to The American Spectator, I’ve staked out a consistent position on the Ukraine war. Once the Russian attempt at a coup de main failed, it seemed clear that this would turn into a long war, a grinding war, a war whose outcome would be determined less by outside players and more by the inherent resilience of the combatants.
Eight months ago, as I surveyed the prospects facing the incoming Trump administration and its goal of achieving “peace” in Ukraine, I described all the ways in which “Biden,” that is, whoever had held the foreign policy autopen in the previous administration, had dealt Trump a very bad hand when it came to Ukraine. “Biden” had contributed just enough support for Ukraine to prolong the war, while never offering sufficient support — and sufficient pressure on Putin — to bring about anything resembling a balanced outcome. (RELATED: The Biden Trap)
More recently, and informed by friends capable of supplying a strong dose of “ground truth” from Ukraine, I argued that there was no peace deal capable of satisfying Putin that could be imposed on Ukraine, no pressure that the U.S. could exert that would bring the Ukrainian people to accept, after more than three years of struggle and sacrifice, subjugation to Russian dictatorship. Of course, without U.S. military assistance, the Ukrainian front lines would likely collapse over time, but the result would be a descent into an open-ended guerrilla war, a further humanitarian disaster for the Ukrainian people, but also a quagmire for Russia. (RELATED: President Trump and Peace in Ukraine)
From the outset, I contended that NATO needed Ukraine as much as Ukraine needed NATO, while also acknowledging that NATO itself needs a thorough rethinking — in its Cold War “hand me down” form, it’s clearly no longer fit for purpose. And again and again, I’ve insisted that nothing good can come from a “negotiated” peace that rewards a brute force violation of a neighboring country’s borders. “If we are to have a world with borders — and we should — we should never reward invasions, whether across the Rio Grande or the Dnipro.”
Expectations for U.S.–Russia Summit
Arguably, then, a bit of expectations management is in order as we look ahead to the Alaska summit. It seems clear that there are only three things bringing Putin to a seat across from President Trump. One is simply performative — in spite of the obvious disparities between today’s Russia and the United States, Putin will be able to posture across the world and, importantly, to his domestic audience, as having regained a position on the world stage comparable to his Soviet predecessors. (RELATED: Trump Has Putin Where He Wants Him)
The second is Putin’s quite obvious belief that he has taken the measure of Trump and can impose his will upon him. Despite the frequent blandishments, despite the emollient words about his friendship with Trump, Putin quite clearly has bought into the TACO notion, the (thoroughly wrongheaded) conviction that “Trump always chickens out.” Putin, the one-time KGB hood, demonstrably lacks respect for the New York real estate developer — how could it be otherwise? Trump is someone to be played, not someone to be respected. (RELATED: Melania Steps Into the Breach: Mother Knows Best)
Third, the “New York real estate developer” has, much to Putin’s consternation, come up with a strategy that threatens both Putin’s desired outcome of the war and, potentially, Putin’s position itself. Trump’s recent announcement in favor of providing, via European purchasers, a renewed and expanded military aid stream to Ukraine altogether changes the military dynamic, particularly with the hints that restrictions on the use of this weaponry might be removed. (RELATED: While Trump Arms Ukraine, US Firms Arm Russia)
In spite of the widespread perception that Ukraine is now losing the war, the actual situation on the ground is not quite so dire. Yes, the momentum has shifted in Russia’s favor, not least due to Trump’s pause in military assistance and intelligence sharing from several months back, a pause that Trump himself has now conceded was unfortunate. Russian advances have been glacial at best and have come at the cost of massive casualties.
As long as the Russians must continue to batter themselves against a low-tech, but highly effective, fortified belt, this will continue. One of the reasons why Putin badly wants Ukraine to give up the two most highly contested provinces is that this would also involve giving up a mined and fortified zone, including multiple fortified cities, created at great effort over the last three years by the Ukrainians.
Even more important than the military equation is Trump’s threat of secondary sanctions, either direct or, as in the case of India, tariff punishment for purchasing Russian oil. I’m usually a sanctions skeptic, not least because they sometimes cut both ways, which makes it hard to sustain the pressure. In this case, however, Trump has found useful leverage against a Russian economy unsustainably dependent on oil exports and already creaking under the strain of supporting an unbalanced wartime economy. Putin badly needs a break, and gaming his way to one before Trump completely loses patience has become a negotiating priority.
So Putin enters the Alaskan summit hoping that Trump wants a “deal,” any kind of deal, any arrangement that finally draws a line under his promise from day one to “bring the fighting to an end.” That’s his leverage, but Trump’s is immensely more powerful, given the cards that he now holds. But will Trump use it?
The temptation, already evident in much of the commentary, is to view the Alaska summit as an exercise in 3D, 4D, or 5D chess, maneuver, countermaneuver, “will he or won’t he,” played out as a public relations exercise. That, after all, is the long-established history of summitry, which tends only to produce decisive results when the fundamental questions have been settled before the leaders appear to sign the paperwork, all done with great pomp and mutual congratulation.
In the final analysis, however, what should matter to us isn’t the gamesmanship, but rather the underlying fundamentals. There may be an announced ceasefire, but the conditions for a genuine and lasting peace remain as elusive as ever. Zelenskyy can resign and go into exile, but he won’t be replaced by a peacemaker, because, as yet, the price of peace for the Ukrainian people remains too high. Putin could be overthrown tomorrow, but the most likely outcome would be someone who would continue to prosecute the war — because this is what, for the Russian people, has come to justify all the sacrifices already made.
Or, chaos could ensue, and possibly on both sides. This, after all, is the predictable consequence of so vast a bloodletting. We remember the four years of suffering that was the First World War, but too often forget that this was followed by five years of massive violence in Russia, across eastern Europe and the Baltic, and in Germany. More recently, witness the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia into the viciousness — still burbling beneath the surface — of the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
If we want something more stable, say something akin to the decades of stability that followed the Korean War, then a great deal of work remains to be done. South Korea’s eventual prosperity and the containment of the Pyongyang regime required both a settled (and heavily fortified) Demilitarized Zone as well as significant security guarantees — and, in the early years, a huge amount of American investment.
So let’s pray for progress as a result of the Alaska summit, but let’s also pray for strength and for patience. This ain’t over yet.
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James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. He’s just published his new novel, The Zebras from Minsk, the sequel to his well-received 2022 thriller, Letter of Reprisal. The Zebras from Minsk find the Reprisal Team fighting against an alliance of Chinese and Russian-backed terrorists, brutal child traffickers, and a corrupt anti-American billionaire, racing against time to take down a conspiracy that ranges from the hills of West Virginia to the forests of Belarus. You can find The Zebras from Minsk (and Letter of Reprisal) on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions.