Dealing with peace talks when ‘nobody knows nuthin’ ’
A curious thing occurred a month ago. The Trump camp reported that the president-elect had had a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump allegedly asked Putin not to escalate the war in Ukraine.
The Kremlin denied that the conversation ever took place. Someone is not telling the truth.
Within 24 hours of that alleged conversation, Russia launched one of its heaviest missile and drone attacks. If the conversation did take place, then Putin seemed to have given President-elect Trump a rather large middle finger.
If the call never took place, why would the Trump camp open itself up to possible humiliation?
All this is set against the backdrop of Trump’s campaign pledge to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, possibly even before he takes office.
There has been an awful lot of speculation about what Trump might do to accomplish that pledge. But let’s stipulate right here that nobody knows nuthin’ – perhaps not even the president-elect.
So, might we gain any insight from the deal that Trump cut in his first term to end the American involvement in Afghanistan – the Doha Accords? It was not put together in 24 hours, because talks dragged on from January 2019 until the final withdrawal in September 2021 under the Biden administration.
One close observer of the accord lamented that it was characterized by a “dispiriting record of misjudgment, hubris and delusion from the very start.”
There are differences between Afghanistan and Ukraine to be sure. The U.S. had troops on the ground, as did our NATO allies in Afghanistan. The war had dragged on for 20 years.
However, the agreement that was struck largely cut the elected government of Afghanistan out of the negotiations and essentially gave away America’s biggest bargaining chip by setting a date certain when U.S. troops would withdraw. All the Taliban had to do was wait and stonewall the direct negotiations with the government in Kabul that were supposed to lead to a coalition government and peace.
The Taliban had no intention of negotiating such an arrangement. Why would they when they knew the Americans and NATO were leaving? They boasted openly they had “beat” the Americans.
As President Biden said, the Doha Accords were not the agreement he would have negotiated, but it was also clear that he wanted the U.S. out of Afghanistan just as much as Trump and the American people did.
One can easily make the argument that Putin is just as trustworthy as the Taliban. In 1994, President Putin signed the Budapest Memorandum guaranteeing Ukraine’s security. In 2014 he signed the Minsk Protocols to end fighting in the Donbas. How did those work out?
So, if one believes Putin has no intention of honoring a deal in Ukraine, what’s the next move?
Would Trump try to negotiate directly with Russia, cutting the Zelensky government and the Europeans out of the talks? Would he provide the security guarantees the Ukrainians desperately want given his jaundiced view of NATO? Could Europe, which has provided far more aid to Ukraine than the United States, give even more? Is Trump concerned that he could be blamed for a Ukrainian collapse?
Perhaps the most important question is this: Does Putin believe he is winning? If so, why would he negotiate? Like the Taliban, he could wait out Ukraine and its supporters,
Today, alongside stories of Russian advances and Ukrainian manpower shortages are stories of horrific Russian battlefield losses and a Russian economy under tremendous strain.
In Trump’s evolving national security team there is every flavor of opinion. Hawks who want to increase aid to Ukraine and America Firsters who think Ukraine can’t win, and besides it’s Europe’s problem. As I said, nobody knows nuthin’.
• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86. His new book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.