President Donald Trump’s unhealthy obsession with winning the Nobel Peace Prize has driven him to make a series of rash decisions in pursuit of ending the war in Ukraine. The latest example is the scheduling of a premature summit with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in Alaska — an object lesson in how not to do diplomacy.
Trump came to office promising to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, perhaps thinking that Putin would stop the Russian invasion as a personal favor to him. He first tried to strong-arm Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, publicly berating the leader during an infamous Oval Office meeting in February.
But after Zelensky agreed to a ceasefire, it started to dawn on Trump that Putin was the problem. By June, the American president started expressing frustration with his Russian counterpart. “We get a lot of bulls--- thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting last month. “He is very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
Trump’s newfound anger led to more erratic behavior. In threatening to impose massive secondary sanctions on countries doing business with Russia, he first set a deadline for early September, then moved it up to this past Friday. He announced his intention to impose an additional 25 percent tariff on India — an important U.S. strategic partner in Asia — as punishment for buying and refining Russian oil. But no such threats were levied at China, America’s chief rival in Asia, which buys more Russian oil than India.
Ultimately, no broad sanctions push was forthcoming on Friday. Instead, Trump announced a “highly anticipated meeting” next week with Putin in Alaska. Eschewing his more realistic recent assessments of Putin’s perfidy, Trump was back to claiming that “President Putin I believe wants to see peace.”
Despite Putin’s continuing air and ground assaults on Ukraine, Trump is rewarding him with a presidential summit — and on U.S. soil no less. This turnaround appears to have been a product of the U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff’s meeting with Putin on Wednesday, where Putin reportedly proposed that Kyiv give up all of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces in eastern Ukraine in return for a ceasefire. With the battle lines frozen in place, the Wall Street Journal reports, a final end to the war would supposedly be negotiated later. In the real world, the odds of that happening are remote. The more likely scenario would be that Russia would violate the ceasefire, as it has done repeatedly in Ukraine in years past.
Trump referred to the possibility of “some swapping of territories” between Russia and Ukraine, but it is not obvious what land, if any, Putin would be willing to hand over to Ukraine. (Is he willing to disgorge occupied territory in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces? Doubtful.) Nor is there any indication that Russia would accept any security guarantees that Ukraine could get from the United States or Europe in return for giving up a portion of its territory.
If Trump was to agree to Putin’s terms, it would be a reprise of the 1938 Munich Agreement in which British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain handed over to Adolf Hitler the Sudetenland — a region of what was then Czechoslovakia that was heavily fortified and defended — without consulting the Czechs. In return, Chamberlain received nothing but empty promises of “peace for our time.” “You were given the choice between war and dishonor,” Winston Churchill said at the time. “You chose dishonor and you will have war.” Churchill was right: The agreement allowed Nazi Germany to swallow all of Czechoslovakia and set the stage for World War II.
The danger of “another Munich” is somewhat lessened in the case of Ukraine, because the Ukrainians, unlike the Czechs, are unlikely to go along with such a dishonorable and destructive bargain. “Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier,” Zelensky said in a video addressSaturday morning. His resolution reflects the will of his people. Ukrainians are increasingly war weary and split over whether to accept some temporary territorial concessions to Russia as the price of peace. But a recent poll from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociologyfound that 78 percent of Ukrainians oppose the transfer of Ukrainian-controlled land to Russian occupation.
By rushing to meet Putin in Alaska — territory that, significantly, was sold by Russia to the United States — Trump risks once again allowing himself to be manipulated by the wily Russian dictator.
There is a better way. If Trump truly wants to win that Nobel Peace Prize, he should follow through on announcing a plethora of sanctions on Russia, work on turning over frozen Russian assets to Kyiv and dramatically ramping up arms transfers to Ukraine. Such moves would have gotten Putin’s attention and potentially set up for far more fruitful negotiations. Instead, Trump is rapidly squandering the leverage he achieved with his sanctions threats and allowing Putin to continue his unprovoked invasion.
Max Boot, Washington Post
Trump came to office promising to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, perhaps thinking that Putin would stop the Russian invasion as a personal favor to him. He first tried to strong-arm Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, publicly berating the leader during an infamous Oval Office meeting in February.
But after Zelensky agreed to a ceasefire, it started to dawn on Trump that Putin was the problem. By June, the American president started expressing frustration with his Russian counterpart. “We get a lot of bulls--- thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting last month. “He is very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
Trump’s newfound anger led to more erratic behavior. In threatening to impose massive secondary sanctions on countries doing business with Russia, he first set a deadline for early September, then moved it up to this past Friday. He announced his intention to impose an additional 25 percent tariff on India — an important U.S. strategic partner in Asia — as punishment for buying and refining Russian oil. But no such threats were levied at China, America’s chief rival in Asia, which buys more Russian oil than India.
Ultimately, no broad sanctions push was forthcoming on Friday. Instead, Trump announced a “highly anticipated meeting” next week with Putin in Alaska. Eschewing his more realistic recent assessments of Putin’s perfidy, Trump was back to claiming that “President Putin I believe wants to see peace.”
Despite Putin’s continuing air and ground assaults on Ukraine, Trump is rewarding him with a presidential summit — and on U.S. soil no less. This turnaround appears to have been a product of the U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff’s meeting with Putin on Wednesday, where Putin reportedly proposed that Kyiv give up all of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces in eastern Ukraine in return for a ceasefire. With the battle lines frozen in place, the Wall Street Journal reports, a final end to the war would supposedly be negotiated later. In the real world, the odds of that happening are remote. The more likely scenario would be that Russia would violate the ceasefire, as it has done repeatedly in Ukraine in years past.
Trump referred to the possibility of “some swapping of territories” between Russia and Ukraine, but it is not obvious what land, if any, Putin would be willing to hand over to Ukraine. (Is he willing to disgorge occupied territory in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces? Doubtful.) Nor is there any indication that Russia would accept any security guarantees that Ukraine could get from the United States or Europe in return for giving up a portion of its territory.
If Trump was to agree to Putin’s terms, it would be a reprise of the 1938 Munich Agreement in which British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain handed over to Adolf Hitler the Sudetenland — a region of what was then Czechoslovakia that was heavily fortified and defended — without consulting the Czechs. In return, Chamberlain received nothing but empty promises of “peace for our time.” “You were given the choice between war and dishonor,” Winston Churchill said at the time. “You chose dishonor and you will have war.” Churchill was right: The agreement allowed Nazi Germany to swallow all of Czechoslovakia and set the stage for World War II.
The danger of “another Munich” is somewhat lessened in the case of Ukraine, because the Ukrainians, unlike the Czechs, are unlikely to go along with such a dishonorable and destructive bargain. “Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier,” Zelensky said in a video addressSaturday morning. His resolution reflects the will of his people. Ukrainians are increasingly war weary and split over whether to accept some temporary territorial concessions to Russia as the price of peace. But a recent poll from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociologyfound that 78 percent of Ukrainians oppose the transfer of Ukrainian-controlled land to Russian occupation.
By rushing to meet Putin in Alaska — territory that, significantly, was sold by Russia to the United States — Trump risks once again allowing himself to be manipulated by the wily Russian dictator.
There is a better way. If Trump truly wants to win that Nobel Peace Prize, he should follow through on announcing a plethora of sanctions on Russia, work on turning over frozen Russian assets to Kyiv and dramatically ramping up arms transfers to Ukraine. Such moves would have gotten Putin’s attention and potentially set up for far more fruitful negotiations. Instead, Trump is rapidly squandering the leverage he achieved with his sanctions threats and allowing Putin to continue his unprovoked invasion.
Max Boot, Washington Post
If N.Y has to be sacrificed "for now" for the good of the country ,...SO BE IT. Its all about the end game.
