Summit will be a telling show, but full of uncertainties
President Trump will meet President Putin in Alaska today, and while there has been a vast amount of speculation about what might happen, I am reminded of screenwriter William Goldman’s admonition:
“Nobody knows nuthin’!”
Well, that is not quite true. There are some things we do know.
President Putin will set foot on American soil, but there is no danger that he will be arrested and sent to The Hague to face war crimes charges for the snatching of Ukrainian children, as the United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute.
Allowing Putin to stride onto the world stage as a statesman is seen as a gift, but without Ukrainian President Zelenskyy or the Europeans there, it allows Putin to confirm what his propagandists have been saying. This is a struggle between Russia and America not Russia and Ukraine.
We know that Putin’s stated demands for territory, for a disarming of Ukraine and for a guarantee that Ukraine can never join NATO are non-starters with Ukraine and the Europeans. The Europeans say Trump agrees with those points. We’ll see.
We know that President Trump has some leverage, and he is threatening to use it. However, we also know that after he speaks to Putin, he has a disturbing tendency to echo Putin’s talking points.
We also know that Putin’s generals are telling him that Russia is slowly, painfully, winning and so he has no great incentive to stop the fighting (he obviously does not care about casualties), and Putin cannot be trusted to keep his word in any kind of bargain (see the Minsk Accords).
We know the U.S. will not be selling any weapons to Ukraine directly, but will let the Europeans buy U.S. weapons and forward them to the Ukrainians, at least for now.
However, President Trump might not have as much leverage as he thinks. One could seize the $300 billion in Russian assets in European banks and there is precedent for that. He could impose further sanctions, though the current sanctions have not had the desired result, as Masha Gessen has recently documented.
Trump could impose tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil, as proposed in the bill that he has put on hold in the Congress. However, there are problems with that. He does not want to disrupt oil markets raising the price at the pump or fueling inflation. Does he want to disrupt the delicate trade negotiations with China by suddenly slapping 100% or 500% tariffs on the Chinese for buying Russian oil?
Given President Trump’s purely transactional approach to leadership, one has to wonder which fundamental principles will undergird his discussions. International borders shall not be changed by force (Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter), is one, but President Trump has spoken about land swaps and Ukraine has suggested it might be open to some kind of deal, however unpalatable.
Putin has also shown no hesitancy to rattle his nuclear sabre but Trump recently reacted by rattling his own. Will he call Putin’s bluff?
There is an argument to be made that the only point of leverage that might get Putin’s attention is if he started to lose on the battlefield. Ukraine has fought bravely, creatively, and tenaciously but the West, with all its wealth, has not unleashed its full capacity to help.
In the face of Putin’s intransigence, might America and Europe finally provide what’s necessary to allow Ukraine to inflict real damage?
Today will be a show, but without representatives of all the parties in the room, no one should expect a breakthrough. But let’s hope the aftermath doesn’t result in a rupture between America and the EU and Ukraine. We know unity is everything.
• 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 book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.