What Could Go Wrong in Alaska

Diplomacy is a bit like Alcoholic Anonymous—so long as the parties keep coming back to talk, they’re deemed to be making progress. By this standard, President Donald Trump’s powwow with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in the wastes of Alaska must be judged a success in its own right. 

For those of us outside the addictions racket or the ranks of professional diplomats, though, there’s an actual tangible goal in mind for these activities—getting the wino to hold off from drink, getting the head of state to hold off from war. Framed that way, it’s a little harder to be optimistic about the antics at Anchorage. 

At the beginning of this week, my concern was that the fundamentals for a deal had not changed: Russia’s demands for territory not yet taken by force seemed like a nonstarter for Ukraine; Europe continues to be freaked out beyond measure; the U.S. ending aid to Ukraine seems politically difficult. It seemed like we were set for a reprise of the last round of chit-chat in Istanbul, which kicked off with a bang, and not a very nice one. The basic conditions of Russia thinking it was winning and Ukraine refusing to concede ground continued to obtain; the real costs imposed on Moscow in men and treasure, which I had thought would be determinative when I predicted peace by the end 2025, have not proven to be a sufficiently large and knobby stick to make them want to stop.

The fundamentals may have gotten the reconfiguration they needed this week with a Russian breakthrough at the strategically significant Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. If the Russians capitalize on it, or even just give the Ukrainians a good scare, it may encourage Kiev to be more receptive to a deal.

So what could go wrong? First on the list is Ukrainian intransigence. President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated Wednesday that he will not trade land for peace. If Kiev thinks the Pokrovsk breakthrough is not serious and that Western partners will continue backing the Ukrainian war effort, the prevailing dynamics will continue irrespective of what Trump and Putin say in Alaska. After a rocky start in relations with the Trump administration, Ukraine seems to have taken a lesson from Europe (which is playing a much smoother game with Trump this time, and getting much of what it wants): President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday had a call with Trump that the American president described as “very good.” (“I would rate it a 10.”) Trump’s stated goal for this meeting is a second, trilateral meeting—and, according to Zelensky’s description of the very good call, an immediate ceasefire. 

It is easy to imagine the Russians declining an immediate ceasefire; why would they agree when they’re winning? You can have talks while the fighting is still happening. Likewise, it is easy to imagine the Ukrainians declining a meeting without a ceasefire. And, although it takes two to tango, the president’s ire seems primed primarily for the Russians if things go badly.

On the other hand, if the Pokrovsk breakthrough seems radical to policymakers at Moscow, it may tempt the Russians to make more maximalist demands, or to leave the negotiating table altogether and pursue an outright military victory. This seems less likely—Russia has sacrificed three years, thousands of lives, and inestimable sums trying to capture its own mailbox, and is still doing only just OK—but stupidity is the closest thing we’ve got to Hegel’s Weltgeist, so its action can’t be ruled out here.

But if our war-alkies are ready to surrender themselves to the Higher Power, there is another question: Can the Trump administration figure out what it wants? The Telegraph reported Wednesday that the U.S. proposal includes a “West Bank–style” occupation of the contested portions of Ukraine by the Russians, ceding real authority to Russia without redrawing Ukraine’s borders formally. This seems like a clever trick, although an unfortunate bit of rhetoric. More troubling is the prospect of an American security guarantee for Ukraine, which apparently Trump does not dismiss in principle. If the Russians accept an American security guarantee to Ukraine as part of a deal—and it’s plausible that they would, in preference to a NATO security guarantee—we’ve suddenly got an open-ended commitment in a gnarly part of the world. Depending on what the politics of postwar Ukraine look like, such a peace deal might be even worse for American interests than allowing the war to continue.

It’s concerning that the European amen corner is getting the time of day from Trump at all: Why listen to the most hawkish and least capable segment of your bloc when you’re trying to settle a conflict? Perhaps this is all just high-level feather-smoothing, but the recent experience of the collapsed Iran negotiations comes to mind: a hawkish domestic contingent and a foreign partner pressuring the administration into moving diplomatic goalposts and eventually ditching diplomacy altogether. Trump is a weathervane for public opinion and especially for whoever is praising him loudest at a given time; the Ukrainian cause has a pretty big megaphone. 

Midwifing the peace would be an enormous achievement—and, yes, it would make Trump a shoo-in for the Nobel Peace Prize even in the eyes of normal people, rather than just the thugocrats in Baku and Islamabad. Let’s hope he can hold a steady course; these waters are still dangerous.