THE ALASKA TALKS
- Paul Hansbury
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
I have already written a post on today's talks between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska (see previous blog post). Since writing that post, the White House has endeavoured to tone down expectations for the summit. Whereas Trump had initially spoken about a 'deal', the White House shifted to describing it as a 'listening exercise' and a 'feel out meeting'. Strange claims to make after six months of peace-brokering efforts! At the same time, Trump has reaffirmed his claim that he hopes for a subsequent meeting involving both Putin and Ukraine's president Volodomyr Zelenskyy.
My earlier text seemed to come out quite well and I do not wish to repeat myself. I pointed out that Trump has given Putin an opportunity to prevaricate; in fact it is worse than that, Russian forces have made their largest advances in Ukraine for more than a year since the announcement of the summit.
I wish to add a couple of points to my previous post. As I write this, it's Friday lunchtime in the UK, the US president is aboard Air Force One and the Russian delegation has already arrived in Alaska (with foreign minister Sergey Lavrov brazenly wearing a USSR t-shirt). Before heading off, Trump had a phone call with Belarus's Alyaksandr Lukashenka and I may have something to say about that in due course. For now, four points loosely joined into an argument.
1. Mastering the details
One of the main reasons for European diplomats' apprehensions about the Trump administration's peace-brokering efforts is that they think US government officials lack basic knowledge of the conflict. There is ample evidence. Take a Congressional hearing in June, during which US defence secretary Pete Hegseth appeared unaware of Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania, and the Suwalki Gap that connects it to Belarus. These are not 'small details' if you are dealing with Russia and European security.
Concerning Ukraine specifically, in an interview in March, US envoy Steve Witkoff was unable to name the four regions that Russia claimed to annex in September 2022. And media reported that, during his trip to Moscow last week, Witkoff misunderstood what Russia was proposing as part of a ceasefire agreement.
Whether or not these claims are all true is nether here nor there, the point is that they reflect a strongly-held perception among Europeans that the Trump administration does not have a grasp on the most basic details. Quite what is happening in briefings is hard to fathom, because there are a great many sharp minds in the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Defence. Trump, as is widely known, shuns many briefings but it seems he is not the only one.
2. Neutrality
