You can say what you like about Donald Trump but you cannot fault an almost divine belief in his own abilities to get things done. By his own measure the US president has solved six recent wars, including stopping a nuclear conflagration between India and Pakistan and ending the bloodbath in the Congo.
Whether any of these can realistically be laid at his door is beside the point. He not only believes it when he says it, but no-one dares to challenge the veracity of his declarations, so concerned are they to avoid giving offence. Whether it is a less-than-subtle hint to the Nobel Peace Prize judges in Norway or simple braggadocio is anyone’s guess.
However, by his own admission Trump is finding Ukraine a more intractable problem than he anticipated when he said he could sort it out in a day. He may be learning that stopping fighting does not bring about peace when the causes of conflict are deeply rooted in culture and history, to which he is largely indifferent.
Trump is a dealmaker, a transactional politician who believes that every disagreement can be sorted out with a bit of take here and give there. OK, the Ukrainians may have to give up a chunk of the Donbas but he can get them some “beach-front property” in exchange.
In his book The Art of the Deal he sets out his style. “It is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I am after.”
So what is he after? He wants to be able to say he stopped the carnage, which is a noble ambition that should not be gainsaid. The big question is how and at what price to others. Clausewitz called war the pursuit of politics by other means; so unless the root causes are addressed there will be no lasting peace, just an interregnum before the next conflict.
Vladimir Putin objects to the very existence of Ukraine as an independent nation. He has not changed that position even if he is seemingly prepared to keep only part of the country in exchange for a removal of sanctions and a readmission into the comity of nations. But he, or some successor, will be back for the rest at some point, maybe years from now.
It is easy to forget that Russia (along with the US and the UK) was a guarantor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity under the 1994 Budapest Accords which saw Kyiv hand over its nuclear arsenal for dismantlement.
It is hard to believe Putin will actually agree to a bilateral meeting with Volodomyr Zelensky and treat the Ukrainian leader as an equal. Moscow will more than likely demand preparatory talks in some neutral territory and drag out the process, as they have done before.
Nonetheless, there was one big concession from Mr Trump that will have given the Russian autocrat pause for thought. He told the European leaders who broke off their holidays to travel to Washington that he was prepared to offer security guarantees if a peace agreement needed to be underpinned by a military presence in Ukraine.
This brought an almost audible squeak of delight from Sir Keir Starmer, President Macron and the rest gathered in the White House: here was the man who everyone feared would leave Nato recommitting America to the concept of mutual defence.
You can say what you like about Donald Trump but you cannot fault an almost divine belief in his own abilities to get things done. By his own measure the US president has solved six recent wars, including stopping a nuclear conflagration between India and Pakistan and ending the bloodbath in the Congo.
Whether any of these can realistically be laid at his door is beside the point. He not only believes it when he says it, but no-one dares to challenge the veracity of his declarations, so concerned are they to avoid giving offence. Whether it is a less-than-subtle hint to the Nobel Peace Prize judges in Norway or simple braggadocio is anyone’s guess.
However, by his own admission Trump is finding Ukraine a more intractable problem than he anticipated when he said he could sort it out in a day. He may be learning that stopping fighting does not bring about peace when the causes of conflict are deeply rooted in culture and history, to which he is largely indifferent.
Trump is a dealmaker, a transactional politician who believes that every disagreement can be sorted out with a bit of take here and give there. OK, the Ukrainians may have to give up a chunk of the Donbas but he can get them some “beach-front property” in exchange.
In his book The Art of the Deal he sets out his style. “It is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I am after.”
So what is he after? He wants to be able to say he stopped the carnage, which is a noble ambition that should not be gainsaid. The big question is how and at what price to others. Clausewitz called war the pursuit of politics by other means; so unless the root causes are addressed there will be no lasting peace, just an interregnum before the next conflict.
Vladimir Putin objects to the very existence of Ukraine as an independent nation. He has not changed that position even if he is seemingly prepared to keep only part of the country in exchange for a removal of sanctions and a readmission into the comity of nations. But he, or some successor, will be back for the rest at some point, maybe years from now.
It is easy to forget that Russia (along with the US and the UK) was a guarantor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity under the 1994 Budapest Accords which saw Kyiv hand over its nuclear arsenal for dismantlement.
It is hard to believe Putin will actually agree to a bilateral meeting with Volodomyr Zelensky and treat the Ukrainian leader as an equal. Moscow will more than likely demand preparatory talks in some neutral territory and drag out the process, as they have done before.
Nonetheless, there was one big concession from Mr Trump that will have given the Russian autocrat pause for thought. He told the European leaders who broke off their holidays to travel to Washington that he was prepared to offer security guarantees if a peace agreement needed to be underpinned by a military presence in Ukraine.
This brought an almost audible squeak of delight from Sir Keir Starmer, President Macron and the rest gathered in the White House: here was the man who everyone feared would leave Nato recommitting America to the concept of mutual defence.