Trump's Strategy of Not Fully Understanding What Anyone Is Saying May Actually End the War in Ukraine
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A lot of leaders are big-picture people who don't sweat the details. Donald Trump takes the approach to the extreme: He hates details. He has never sweated a detail for a fraction of an instant. Facts bounce off him like bullets bounce off Superman.
You are probably familiar with the downsides of this approach; we don't need to get into them here. But right now, when it comes to the war in Ukraine, the president's unique method of processing information—or, rather, not processing information—is showing great promise.
Trump has an outcome in mind: The war ends. He seems invested in this outcome largely because he wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize and thinks it will help him get into heaven ( really !), but, sure, fine. No one's motives are truly pure. The point is, in his own head, he has all but officially won the prize by brokering a permanent trick. And he is going to drag everyone else involved—Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, all the European heads of state—toward that outcome by simply acting as if it has already been agreed on. Along the way, he will treat their objections and concerns the way he has treated every other inconvenient fact and statement—“ there's no way you will be able to pay back a loan that large ,” “ that's illegal ,” “ you lost the election ,” etc.— throughout his life. But this time it will be good that he does this.
Heading into his meeting with Putin in Alaska last week, Trump reportedly said he would not discuss the possibility of Ukraine ceding its territory in the Donbas , which Russia has largely taken control of during the war. After the summit, he said it would be fine if that happened. The critics were not kind to him for this—it seemed that it was just another example of Putin making him look like a total chump—but it was just Phase 1 of the plan: telling Putin he was going to absolutely get what he wanted out of the deal.
Phase 2 was Monday, when Zelensky and the European Avengers flew to Washington. They told Trump that Ukraine really didn't want to give up that territory — that it would be like the US ceding Florida, that it constitutes a bastion against barbarians . Trump, a man of Floridian essence who is obsessed with protecting a vague notion of civilization against bloodthirsty anarchists , took this to heart. He told the Ukrainians and other Europeans that they'd get what they wanted too, “promising American involvement in providing security guarantees,” per the New York Times . ( Security guarantees is a term of art meaning that the US and Europe, without technically involving NATO or NATO troops, would backstop Ukrainian forces with such strength that Russia would not be able to launch a further invasion.)
Then he told everyone that because things were going so great, Zelensky and Putin had agreed to meet for their own summit. Said the president on Truth Social : “At the conclusion of the meetings, I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy. After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself.” Switzerland says it's ready to host . Trump apparently wants it to happen by the end of August . All right! Let's get this done! Nobel Prize committee on Line 1?
Now, you might point out that Russia seems taken aback by the announcement that it's ready for direct talks; Putin does not appear to have actually agreed to anything of the sort. The Russian foreign minister responded to Trump's claim by saying that such a meeting would have to be prepared for “gradually” and be preceded by lower-level talks.
And yet, as the Guardian puts it in an official-sounding way, backing out of a party after someone else has RSVP'd on your behalf is, simply put, very awkward:
Trump's promise of a meeting puts Putin in a difficult spot: rejecting it risks tension with the US president, while agreeing to one would elevate Zelenskyy to equal status and confront Putin with a media-savvy rival ready to meet almost without preconditions.
It's embarrassing to correct someone over and over in front of other people, isn't it? And kind of rude? At some point, you have to just let them go on believing what they want about subjects such as whether your nuclear-armed nation-state will be winding down its war of conquest at a meeting in Geneva. And here's the thing: The Trump plan has floated is more or less what experts have for years been saying would be required to end the conflict . Ukraine will have to concede some territory in practice but can save face by not having to agree to formally transfer it to Russia; Russia will have to concede to deterrents strongly enough to prevent it from simply restarting the war in another year or two but can save face by not having to agree to NATO's formal involvement in those deterrents.
Trump also has the leverage: If the United States continues to support Ukraine's military, Russia is unlikely to win the war. If the United States cuts off support to Ukraine's military, Ukraine is unlikely to win the war. And if the United States decides to preemptively announce a diplomatic breakthrough so as to improve its president's case for getting into heaven, despite the stuff about sharing a “wonderful secret” with the nation's most prolific abuser of teenage girls —well, then, the only thing left for everyone else to do is filled in the details.
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