Updated: ‘Peace’ For Our Time After All?

There have been few political meetings as relentlessly hyped as Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska yesterday, even though the White House had done its best in recent days to tamp down expectations.

After all, the President of the United States, the most powerful man on Earth and purported leader of the West was literally rolling out the red carpet for a man wanted by the International Criminal Court and who had authorised an invasion of a neighbouring independent country that has seen hundreds of thousands of people killed. Trump even applauded Putin as the Russian leader strolled towards him and warmly greeted him, both men clearly relishing the moment.

Whilst several hours of talks followed, the bald truth is that Putin had achieved most of what he wanted in those first few highly telegenic minutes. Here was the cracking of the cordon sanitaire the West had imposed on Russia in the immediate aftermath of its unprovoked invasion, broken at the instigation of the President of the United States himself and the return of Russia to the global stage.

And what did Trump extract from Putin in return for this immense concession?

Not a damn thing.

Trump and Putin emerged from their talks with no ceasefire, with the Russian leader clearly sticking doggedly to his insistence on ‘removing the causes of the conflict’ which is code for the destruction of Ukraine as an independent state wherein the best outcome that can be hoped for is that a rump version of the country exists as a demilitarised satellite of the Russian Federation.

Trump had clearly hoped to produce some kind of breakthrough due to his ill-concealed hunger for the Nobel Peace Prize, which many believe he desires because his great rival Barack Obama was awarded the prize in 2009. This desire had many other Western states and Ukraine deeply worried about the one-on-one meeting between Trump and Putin as they feared his desire to be seen as a peacemaker would leave him amenable to ANY peace, rather than a fair or a just one.

Ultimately, Trump didn’t emerge from the meeting brandishing a piece of paper declaring ‘peace for our time‘  and the Ukrainians can breathe a sigh of relief that they were not a modern victim of great power realpolitik just yet. The failure to achieve anything at the summit after so much build-up means Trump leaves Anchorage in a position he hates, having come off the worse for the interaction.

Putin may not have gotten Trump to return Alaska to Russia but he leaves the clear victor. His international isolation has been broken, he has been feted by the American President on American territory, he conceded nothing on his core points and even managed once again to delay the imposition of the swingeing tariffs Trump has long threatened on Russia but never actually gets around to carrying out.

At the end of the summit, Putin asked Trump ‘Next time in Moscow?’ Trump may as well take him up on the offer.

It is clear Moscow is calling the shots.

UPDATE (17/08/2025):  It seems my initial optimism that Trump had at least conceded nothing to Putin’s diplomatic triumph was too hasty. All through yesterday and this morning reports started to trickle through that Putin had offered to freeze the existing frontlines in Ukraine so long as Ukraine gives up the remainder of the Donetsk oblast, thus allowing Putin to fully claim the entirety of the Donbas region and declare victory to his people. This is a region Ukraine had shed immense blood to defend and it is not just moving a line on a map, it is handing over towns and villages containing tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians who may now be faced with the terrible choice of leaving their homes or remaining under Russian occupation.

The parallels with Neville Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier handing over the Sudentenland to another land hungry dictator over the heads of the Czechoslovakians in 1938 for the promise of ‘peace’ are too obvious to ignore, and whilst most American Presidents relish comparisons with Winston Churchill, it may sting Trump’s ego to be compared to the man whose place in history is the indelible image of him waving a peace of paper declaring it meant ‘peace for our time’ whilst the German war machine geared up to unleash mass death on Europe. Chamberlain though was motivated by visions of the horrors of the First World War in his desire to prevent a new war with Germany, whereas Trump is likely driven by visions of himself holding that nobel peace prize (though the committee absolutely should, for its own integrity, evaluate the nature of the peace that Trump is seeking to impose. Peace is more than the absence of war, and an unfair peace foisted upon a weaker state to sate the gluttony of greater powers really shouldn’t be getting any accolades).

There is no information as of yet regarding Putin’s other two major demands; namely the demilitarization of Ukraine (dismantling the large and experienced Ukraine army and making it much easier for Russia to threaten and cajole Kyiv) and Ukraine’s ‘denazification’ (Russia has hyped the presence of Far-Right groups within Ukraine as a justification for co-opting the imagery and rhetoric of the Second World War for propaganda purposes).

Some form of security guarantee for Ukraine along its proposed de-facto borders is apparently a part of the mix too, though that will have to be robust. President Putin will be watching like a hawk for any opportunity or excuse to relaunch his invasion, with a rested and refitted military.

I don’t know what the next few days, weeks and months will bring. Trump may succeed in stopping the killing by appeasing Putin, but it won’t be a peace. It will the clearest sign yet that the tragedy of history really is that we are doomed to repeat it.

It is worth reminding ourselves that this was all foreseen too…

I’m a firm believer in Irish unity and I live in the border regions of Tyrone.