Alaska summit heralds change of direction for global diplomacy

When Russian President Vladimir Putin met US President Donald Trump on August 15, in Anchorage, Alaska, the geographic significance of the event was not lost on Russian observers. Putin became the first Russian leader to visit the former colony at a time when the Arctic is a high priority in Russia’s foreign policy strategy. However, the summit itself was an anticlimax. Peace in Ukraine remained postponed; there was a meagre readout and the delegation lunch was cancelled. As Putin remarked earlier, when it comes to negotiations, “all disappointments come from inflated expectations”. Instead, let’s look at the Alaska summit for what it is – not a provider of immediate peace but a step towards a grand deal. It should be understood in the context of what the war means to its belligerents, how the format of the meeting transforms global diplomacy and how the meeting affects other great powers, including China. Since the outbreak of fighting on February 22, 2022, Europe has spared no expense. It has invested everything possible, draining its defence stockpiles, to prop up Ukraine’s conscripts. French President Emmanuel Macron gave an example of Europe’s tone in February last year, saying, “Nothing should be excluded. We will do everything that we must so that Russia does not win.” Europe sees the conflict as an ontological war that threatened the “rules-based order” that Brussels holds so dear. The often-repeated phrase “illegal and full-scale invasion” shows the scale of Brussels’ worries. For Russia, though, the invasion was neither illegal nor full-scale. Even after over three years of conflict, Putin reiterated in Alaska that he saw Ukrainians and Russians as essentially one people, “no matter how strange it may sound in today’s circumstances”. Many in Russia mirror this viewpoint and see what is happening as a civil war with foreign intervention. It is an important regional conflict but not existential. The underlying causes of the conflict are outside Ukraine itself. Trump’s team wants an off-ramp. US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth indicated as much in Brussels in February when he said, “we must start by recognising that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,” and “this must not be Minsk 3.0.” His words were as clear as day. Alaska gave Trump a road map to hand the management of the conflict to Europe and pursue separate diplomacy with Russia. As a first step, Trump conceded that a peace agreement was necessary before fighting would stop, rather than an unconditional ceasefire. Europe, on the other hand, has done everything to entangle Washington. The EU invested significant resources into isolating Russia, pressing companies to end operations in the country and making trading with Russia a taboo. The Joe Biden administration worked in tandem, including by sending Treasury officials on tours to banking hubs including Hong Kong to threaten corporations with sanctions for working with Russia. Despite the pressure, Moscow has managed to strengthen its cooperation with China, India and the Global South. The Brics bloc of developing nations has evolved into a worldwide organisation, and Russia’s trading partners have not been cowed into submission. The Alaska summit is a triumph for Russia’s consistent and positive diplomatic strategy. It is an admission not only that Moscow cannot be isolated but also that isolating Russia is detrimental to US interests. The fact that the Putin-Trump bilateral meeting took place puts Europe and the UK on the back foot. It heralds the return of bilateral diplomacy and the gradual decline of bloc confrontation, the latter being a key point in China’s diplomatic strategy. True, the Alaska summit did not move the Ukraine conflict closer to peace. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected Russia’s terms before even seeing Trump. Such brash actions show the winner and loser from the summit and how the meeting really did change the direction of travel in global diplomacy. For China and the rest of the world, the summit heralds an opportunity. Russia has suggested China as a guarantor of peace in Ukraine, raising its involvement with respect to Beijing’s global weight. As expected, Ukraine rejected this suggestion. Not only does the summit show that Washington is ready to move forward from Cold War thinking, it also shows that Trump is now open to grand bargains on issues the previous administration was dead set against. Diplomacy is no longer a zero-sum game. The underlying causes of the Ukraine conflict are deeper than one summit can address. They lie in the global security architecture. For now, the guns have not fallen silent. However, the vector has changed from confrontation to negotiation. This benefits all parties that want peace. Constructive global players including Beijing will be victors, while those that stick to zero-sum thinking will find themselves at a deepening disadvantage. Thus, after Alaska, Moscow has punted the ball firmly back in the court of London and Brussels.

Alaska summit heralds change of direction for global diplomacy

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Trump-Putin meeting a victory for Russia’s positive diplomatic strategy and an admission that Moscow cannot be isolated

Trump-Putin meeting a victory for Russia’s positive diplomatic strategy and an admission that Moscow cannot be isolated