I suspect Thucydides gave us high prose in the Melian exchange because the real dialogue must have been as vulgar as the treatment Donald Trump meted out to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Be that as it may, what’s happening since Trump took office is likely to be as momentous as the Peloponnesian War marking the dramatic end to the golden age of Greece.
What did happen and why? Short answer: it was a planned ambush.
The Reality Show
By now everyone knows, or should, that Trump is a rapacious practitioner of backroom deals who told the reader in his The Art of the Deal to “protect the downside and the upside will take care of itself.” He has already put the European allies in a black mood and got Vladimir Putin to open a champagne bottle.
“I am a businessman,” he told Zelenskyy. “You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you have the cards. Make a deal or we are out.” It was a tag team ambush.
Zelenskyy got lured into the kill zone when he gave Trump a lesson in history about how and when it started and the previous attempts at diplomacy (Minsk I and II). Trump knew Zelenskyy would go there. He has been listening to Zelenskyy make the case for a long time, even before he (Trump) got into the White House this time. That’s when JD Vance got into the act. Trump let Vance berate Zelenskyy before launching his broadside.
The idea was to not let Zelenskyy get a word in even edgeways. It was almost like a comedy of menace, the interrogation by McCann and Goldberg of Stanley Webber in Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party. Even so, the irony was that while Vance and Trump alternated to pummel Zelenskyy, Trump told him to shut up because “you [Zelenskyy] have done a lot of talking.” As Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov put it, “This is the art of the deal now: loaded, hectoring, callous, bloodless.”
When Vance told Zelenskyy that the issues needed to be discussed away from the glare of the cameras, Trump chimed in with “It makes great television. I have let this go on for this long because of that.” He then wrapped up the reality show, his Oval Office equivalent of The Apprentice, by telling Zelenskyy that his visit was over. No presscon, no luncheon, no further discussion on the minerals deal.
What did Trump gain, especially if the minerals deal were to be the bedrock of the ceasefire and a subsequent peace deal? In other words, if there’s no mineral deal, how would the ceasefire deal come about?
Unless Zelenskyy comes around to looking at the war and the world through Trump’s prism, Putin can continue with what his forces are doing in Ukraine’s east and southeast, inching forward, taking territory and draining Ukraine’s resources
Wrong assumption. That wasn’t Trump's intention. He probably didn’t even know about Ukraine’s minerals until Zelenskyy said some weeks ago that if Trump wanted a deal, let’s make a deal with our minerals.
Trump’s decision to “end the war” predates the talk about minerals. And his deal with Ukraine is not about the Russo-Ukraine War; it’s about how Ukraine can pay back what it “owes” to the United States. The $350 billion figure is of course wide of the mark but Trump is not concerned about truth political, only truth social, which forms his base. The reality show was as much for his MAGA supporters as it was for Europe, Ukraine, and the rest of the world.
In fact, it should be obvious to anyone. If the idea were to make a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, the European Union/Nato/Ukraine would have been at the table. They weren’t. Trump is looking for a deal with Russia and that deal is separate from the war against Ukraine. There’s a war, for sure. But that war is between Russia and Ukraine, not Russia and the US. For Trump, the presence of the US in the middle of that war is a policy blunder by (Joe) Biden, an incompetent president who was played by Zelenskyy.
This is not my assessment; this is what Trump has repeatedly stated himself and stated again at the Oval Office during his acrimonious exchange with Zelenskyy.
He would continue talking to Russia and bring Putin back into the room. The US has already voted against the Ukrainian and European resolutions at the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council, marking a dramatic shift from the past US policy. With talks proceeding with Russia, easing of US sanctions, exchange of ambassadors et cetera, the trajectory is clear. Putin wanted the transatlantic rupture and he has got it. It might be too early for him to go for a victory lap but he is as close to it as he could be.
Meanwhile, unless Zelenskyy comes around to looking at the war and the world through Trump’s prism, Putin can continue with what his forces are doing in Ukraine’s east and southeast, inching forward, taking territory and draining Ukraine’s resources in a positional war of attrition.
Trump is no Kissinger. But as a real estate businessman looking for sweet deals, he understands that wars don’t work for him
What Next?
Russia has aggressed against Ukraine. That is a fact. But Ukraine is not winning and Zelenskyy knows that. He also knows that external help is not interminable. He has increasingly indicated in the past few months that he is amenable to talking peace. Equally, and correctly, he insists on security guarantees — i.e., that Russia will not invade Ukraine again.
The question is, what’s the quid for the quo?
Speaking virtually at the World Economic Forum at Davos on May 23, 2022, the late Dr. Henry Kissinger made two important points about the ongoing Russo-Ukraine war: it is time to think of a diplomatic solution to end the war and such a solution will likely involve territorial concessions to Russia, even though “Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante”; “Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself.”
He was roundly condemned then. But for all his faults, Kissinger understood realpolitik.
Trump is no Kissinger. But as a real estate businessman looking for sweet deals, he understands that wars don’t work for him. “You are gambling with World War III,” he told Zelenskyy and repeated it.
There’s also another difference between Kissinger and Trump. Kissinger wouldn’t have reached out to Russia without the US’ traditional allies. Trump believes they are an impediment. He has now chalked a course that seems to lead him in the opposite direction from traditional US policy and alliances. How that world might shape up is largely unknown, though some of its contours have begun to emerge.
Whether Europe can support Ukraine sans the US is a lengthy discussion. But one thing is clear: currently, it can’t without stretching and stressing its inventories.
That’s what Trump was and is banking on when he ambushed Zelenskyy. He believes Zelenskyy will be back, much weaker and desperate. That’s when Trump will get a better deal — or so he thinks.