Baked Alaska

It’s kind of hard to have an opinion about something that hasn’t happened yet, which is why I was somewhat hesitant to write about President Trump’s upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss a possible ceasefire in the three-year Russia-Ukraine war.  

At press time, there were still a number of issues not yet solidified for the August 15 summit in Alaska, most importantly, perhaps, whether Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend. 

The notion that he may not be permitted to attend is absurd, given that it’s his country that was invaded and partially occupied by Russia in the bloodiest war the European continent has seen in decades. In an appearance on Fox News, Vice President JD Vance said the U.S. was working to set up a trilateral meeting among the three leaders, but “one of the most important logjams is that Vladimir Putin said that he would never sit down with Zelensky.” 

So, against that backdrop of relative uncertainty about what exactly will transpire in Alaska, including who will even attend, it’s accurate to state that President Putin has already won the first diplomatic volley of the peace negotiations by meeting with a U.S. president on American soil. 

As former national security advisor John Bolton put it, “a Putin-Trump summit in former Russia-America, Alaska, is not quite as bad as Trump inviting the Taliban to Camp Davidbut certainly reminds one of that." 

That comparison is perhaps a bit over the top, but the sentiment holds true. A meeting with President Trump has been President Putin’s primary goal since the new administration took office, particularly since their 2018 bilateral Helsinki summit went so swimmingly for President Putin.(That was the summit that sparked so much outrage on both sides of the political spectrum when President Trump refused to side with U.S. intelligence findings on Russian interference in the 2016 election, a somewhat quaint memory in today’s world). 

My guess is that President Zelensky won’t attend the Alaska summit, but depending on its outcomes, will more likely attend a trilateral meeting as a future step in the negotiations, which will likely take weeks to months. I guess we’ll see. 

As critical as the Alaska summit is to the war in Ukraine, its spill-over effects will have massive global implications, particularly in regard to China, depending on what is ultimately negotiated. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a longtime Russia hawk, gave Meet The Press a pretty clear-eyed assessment days after the summit was announced: “I think everybody knows that how this war ends can be a good thing or a bad thing. If it ends in a way that looks like Putin’s overly rewarded, there goes Taiwan,” meaning an invasion by China. 

President Zelensky, sidelined for now from negotiations, continues to ring the alarm bell, warning that President Putin will leverage the talks to drive a deeper wedge between the U.S. and Ukraine and its allies, make offers Ukraine would never accept, and ultimately blame Ukraine if peace talks fail. 

In an evening address to his nation after the talks were announced, President Zelensky said, “We understand the Russians’ intention to try to deceive America – we will not allow this.”   

In short, President Trump is embarking on an extremely complicated diplomatic mission to bring an end to the war in Ukraine without destabilizing other parts of the world. 

It’s a complicated game of three-dimensional chess, or perhaps a better analogy is Baked Alaska. Most home chefs don’t even try Baked Alaska because it's too hard to get the combination of meringue, cake, and ice cream just right. One element gets out of balance, and you’ve failed. 

So, yes, I applaud President Trump for taking on the complicated peace process that lies ahead, because as Ukraine’s European allies admit, President Trump is the only person who has a decent shot at success. 

But if past is prologue in the Putin-Trump relationship, it’s hard to be too hopeful that such an outcome will be achieved without broader and potentially more damaging consequences.