You may have heard that Donald Trump just learned something significant about Russia, something that he never knew before: Vladimir Putin is a bad guy. I mean, who knew?
Answer: Everyone.
In what may be one of the most embarrassing moments of candor for an American president on issues of war and peace, Trump claimed that he had “known Putin for a long time” and apparently didn’t know what happened to him. I mean, who could have ever imagined that the leader of a country that unilaterally invaded another, costing roughly 800,000 lives, would be a bad, untrustworthy guy?
Answer: Everyone.
So now that Trump has had his revelation, what is he going to do about it?
Answer: Likely nothing.
This is because Trump does not have the stomach to take on Putin and pressure him to stop his illegal war of aggression. In fact, for Trump, the goal of his Russia policy isn’t to stop the Ukraine war, it’s to instead restore ties between Russia and America. The problem is that Russia isn’t playing along right now by joining Trump’s calls for a ceasefire, and Ukraine is standing up for itself, despite Trump’s best efforts to force it to capitulate. Trump is in a bind… or so it would seem.
You may recall that once upon a time, Trump bragged that he would end the Russia-Ukraine war on “day one” of his presidency. Well, that day has long passed and the war’s end is nowhere in sight.
But rather than taking actions to balance American diplomacy towards that end, Trump seems intent on deepening his pro-Putin positions. But why would Trump do this, when evidence suggests that getting soft on Putin virtually guarantees that there won’t be a ceasefire?
Because getting a ceasefire isn’t the point.
For Trump, this war is an irritant getting in the way of the great project of restoring ties between Russia and America while moving away from our traditional European allies. This is exactly why he has been putting all the pressure on Ukraine.
It’s worth taking a moment therefore to remember all of the unilateral preemptive concessions that we, the United States, have made to Russia in the past four months that have led to zero Russian reciprocation.
First, there was the announcement that Ukraine could never join NATO. Then there was the withholding of intelligence cooperation with and military aid to Ukraine. Then there was the disastrous Oval Office meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. All the while, no new pressure was placed on Putin to get to the table.
Since then, we’ve seen a calming of U.S.-Ukrainian tensions, the signing of a minerals deal, and a warm meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy at the Vatican. But then it appeared that that was too much for Putin. And so, when he was invited by Trump to join a trilateral summit in Türkiye, he stayed home, leaving our top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, jilted and unable to meet with his Russian counterparts.
So what will Trump do, now that he seems to be joining us all in truly understanding Putin? And what will he do about being described as having an “emotional reaction” by one of Putin’s Kremlin flacks? Answer: Not much.
The reality is that the Kremlin is right about Trump having an emotional reaction. It’s absolutely normal for a person to react that way after being duped in public and having that humiliation exposed for all the world to see.
What this all means is that Putin does not take Trump’s protestations seriously and feels no urgency to do anything but continue his war of choice against Ukraine. For Putin, this war is all about restoring Russian greatness and rebuilding the empire. A ceasefire does not get him there. Victory does. Putin is standing firm in his goals and calling Trump’s bluff, humiliating him on the global stage.
Trump’s appeasement of Putin has failed. He’s now at a crossroads.
Let’s just imagine for a moment that Trump was going to take his Putin epiphany seriously and truly seek to end this war. This means that he’d have to get tough on Putin. If he were to do so, there’s a very clear set of actions he could take to turn this political-diplomatic-military fiasco around.
First, he could diplomatically realign us with our NATO allies in support of Ukraine. Second, he could deepen our intelligence coordination with Ukraine's military. Third, he could back new sanctions on Russia, sanctions supported by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in Congress. And most importantly, he could commit to supplying Ukraine's military indefinitely, sending a clear message to Putin that he can’t just wait for Ukraine’s military assets to disappear.
Taking these steps would increase the likelihood that Putin would have to seek a negotiated way out. What Putin fears most is a tough America.
But unfortunately, it’s unlikely that he’ll get it. That’s because Donald Trump has his eyes on the bigger Russo-American alliance prize while Putin wants to gobble up Ukraine. Upsetting Vladimir Putin right now would undermine achieving those goals.
And so my bet is that Trump will play for time, just as he has been for months, hoping that the American people won’t notice, that they won’t remember that for at least a moment, he recognized who Vladimir Putin really was… and is.
Share this post