President Donald Trump seems frustrated that his many attempts to resolve global conflicts, including those in Ukraine, Iran, and Gaza, appear to be stuck on hold. He shouldn’t be — he’s being stymied because the leaders he is negotiating with simply don’t want the same things that he does.
Trump implicitly seems to believe that all rational leaders want peace, trade, and the prosperity that comes with it. In his worldview, the obstacles to peace are negotiable differences over temporary obstacles. Remove those, and the default condition of peace and prosperity returns.
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But that’s not what dictators historically want. Whether they are ancient monarchs or modern autocrats, the type of person who aspires to and obtains sole, absolute power defines themselves and their country’s greatness in terms of conquest.
Think of Julius Caesar or Napoleon. They sought and got to rule great empires by force of will and war. But they were not satisfied once they achieved those heights.
Caesar was assassinated as he was about to launch a war on the Persian Empire. Napoleon subjugated Austria and Prussia, then the great central European powers, and held sway over most of Europe. Yet he invaded Spain and Russia, unsatisfied with the mere dominance of most of the continent.
None of the leaders Trump is frustrated with have peace and prosperity as their default values.
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared in 2005 that the breakup of the Soviet Union into separate, ethnic republics was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”. He also lamented that it left “tens of millions” of Russians outside Russia. Most of his behavior over the ensuing two decades can be understood as an attempt to recreate the substance, if not the form, of the old Russian-dominated USSR. Russia is actively seeking to make the five ex-Soviet Central Asia republics de facto satellites, using military and commercial means, with varying degrees of success. It has attacked Georgia, where its proxies now hold power after elections that the European Union said were neither free nor fair.
Russia has effectively made Belarus a satellite, tying the small country to it through a formal treaty of Union, deep economic ties and subsidies, and a mutual defense pact. Its troops defend a small breakaway from Moldova, Transdniestria, and are actively trying to bring Moldova back into its orbit. Putin’s two-decadelong pursuit of control over Ukraine is merely the biggest example of his ultimate desire. One does not sanction the poisoning of a pro-Western presidential candidate and invade a nation twice unless subjugating Kyiv to rule from Moscow is one’s primary objective.
Putin had peaceful relations with most of Europe and extensive, mutually enriching trade. He chose to conquer Ukraine, and is willing to drag Russia through whatever it takes to finish the job.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also prefers war to riches. The Islamic Republic has spent decades building a network of allies and proxies throughout the Middle East to supplant Saudi Arabia as the region’s primary Islamic power.
Pro-Iranian militias and political parties in Iraq keep that country in turmoil and unable to effectively oppose Iran. Hezbollah has effectively controlled Lebanon for years, pushing the once prosperous country into civil conflict and poverty. The Houthis in Yemen and Hamas in Gaza also take money and arms from Iran to attack Saudi Arabia and Israel.
It’s been clear for years that Iran would economically benefit by abandoning its desire to dominate the Middle East and destroy Israel. Yet Khamenei and his minions keep the wars going, plunging their citizens into economic despair. His thugs brutally repress protests that sporadically arise.
This isn’t the first time Trump has encountered this mindset. He thought he could entice North Korean despot Kim Jong Un to eliminate his country’s nuclear weapons with offers of investment and trade. However, Kim’s regime rests on building a military that oppresses the bulk of Koreans while providing the talented and ambitious with luxuries otherwise unavailable.
Trump seemed surprised then when Kim spurned his offer. But that’s simply how a tyrant’s mind works.
He should use that past disappointment to guide his decisions on Russia and Iran going forward. Trump has chosen not to reengage with Kim in his second term, rightly deciding that it wasn’t worth his time. He should adopt similar policies for the other two trying tyrants going forward.
With respect to Iran, it’s crystal clear that there is no hope of reaching any agreement with it that would satisfy those rightly concerned about its pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Trump should stop the negotiations with Khamenei now, just as he walked out of a summit with Kim rather than signing a bad deal.
With respect to Russia, Trump should continue U.S. assistance to Ukraine and stop trying to broker a deal that Putin doesn’t want. He should also consider levying additional sanctions to raise Putin’s costs, but with the tacit understanding that it will almost surely not change Putin’s calculations.
Most importantly, Trump needs to rebuild America’s conventional military power and ensure that it is committed to defending high-priority targets with the substantial support of others in any region with overlapping interests.
EASIER SOLUTIONS TO RESOLVE THE FEDERAL DEBT CRISIS
The quagmires in Iran and Afghanistan siphoned off trillions of dollars for fighting counterinsurgencies, to the detriment of modernizing and increasing the weaponry needed to fight large powers. It will take many years to reverse that error; Trump should commit now to doing whatever it takes.
Trump isn’t the first Western leader to misread cunning tyrants, and he probably won’t be the last. It’s better for him to reevaluate the situation and prepare to truly make America — and the peace and prosperity liberal democracy brings — great again.