Churchill observed that “at the summit, true strategy and politics are one.” Unfortunately, Donald Trump disregarded this insight while Vladimir Putin adhered closely to it.
Whereas Putin has a fixed goal of subjugating Ukraine to Russia, but is a past master at tactical flexibility that, in reality, surrenders nothing; Trump fully realizes Stephen Walt’s description of him as a diplomat.
“He doesn’t prepare, doesn’t have subordinates lay the groundwork beforehand, and arrives at each meeting not knowing what he wants or where his red lines are. He has no strategy and isn’t interested in the details, so he just wings it.”
Russia Post-Summit
As a result, and as of August 20, all three of the takeaways Trump, Rubio, and Witkoff (the US negotiators) purportedly brought home on August 15 have collapsed or are still undefined, never a good situation in international politics. Trump may be working on a bilateral Zelensky-Putin summit, but the Kremlin is clearly not interested. Instead, it continues to lambaste Zelensky as the West’s illegitimate puppet. This is hardly an auspicious basis for a bilateral summit, let alone a trilateral summit with Trump.
Second, Trump’s insistence on a cease-fire before any discussion of a peace treaty faded away into the mists before Putin’s demand to move towards full-scale peace talks now. Had Trump retained or consulted any of the thousands of Russia experts in and out of government, it would have been clear to them and then to Trump that once again Putin was stringing him along. If there are to be peace talks anytime soon, Putin would exploit them to drag out these talks ad infinitum. Moscow would haggle over every word and comma in these negotiations while continuing to strike every day at civilian and military targets.
As the Russian army advances and Putin’s allies pour in every resource they can muster, Russia is bolstered, while the West continues to temporize. It is no surprise that Putin remains absolutely confident about winning this war. Neither will he countenance a cease-fire because that stops the fighting short of a Russian victory and gives Ukraine and its armed forces time to recuperate and rebuild.
Understanding this point should not require rocket science, but it obviously was lost on the unprepared American team, who were ‘winging it’ at Anchorage.
Third, Putin supposedly endorsed the idea of Western security guarantees to Ukraine. However, Alexander Chekov, lecturer at Moscow State Institute of International Relations’ Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy, observed that, “The key issue with security guarantees lies in the differing understandings of their modalities.” This realization should have been evident to the US negotiating team, who should not have left Anchorage without finalizing this in writing.
Since the summit, the US, Ukraine, and multiple European governments, led by their leaders and now subordinates, have been meeting in Washington to develop a precise plan for European forces to maintain and enforce (two quite different missions) any peace agreement and ensure Ukraine’s security.
Here again, the failure to clarify such guarantees (rather than assurances, which are much weaker, as we learned in Crimea in 2014) is glaringly obvious and represents another signifier of Trump’s strategic and negotiating incompetence.
Moscow has again stated openly that it unconditionally opposes any European peace force. Indeed, such a condition explicitly rules out any scenario involving NATO member states’ peace forces in Ukraine. Moreover, Moscow insists that any discussion of peace forces in Ukraine must occur with its participation; otherwise, they are a ‘road to nowhere.’ In other words, it insists on a veto over the future of Ukrainian security. “Lavrov also threatened that Russia will take ‘firm and harsh’ action to ensure that Russia’s ‘legitimate interests’ are a part of any postwar security arrangement for Ukraine.”
This is not surprising, since Russia’s imperial determination to destroy the basis of Ukrainian independence in word and deed is the cause of this war. In fact, on August 19, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made clear Russia’s post-summit objectives were its pre-summit objectives. Lavrov appears to be articulating demands that Ukrainian security be subjected to a permanent Russian veto power that obviously excludes it from NATO.
Thus, Putin’s strategic goals and their hierarchy are clear and constant. This is not a man governed by impulse and willful ignorance of his brief. Putin’s primary goal is the subjugation of Ukraine, i.e., annexation of its territory, destruction of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the rollback of NATO to its 1990s borders as stated in his 2021 ultimatum to NATO.
This subjugation of Ukraine takes precedence over all other objectives, and Putin will not sacrifice it for anything else. His seeming “concession” of a cease-fire in Kherson and Zaprorizhiye in return for being granted all of the Donbas, therefore, represents what Lenin would have called a rotten compromise. Giving up the Donbas, including territories not conquered by Russia, not only rewards aggression but also encourages new Russian aggression. This territorial concession requires the dismantling of Ukraine’s fortress belt that guards the entirety of Ukraine’s interior, and at the same time does nothing to relieve the pressure on the other provinces occupied by Russian troops. This solution, therefore, replicates and even goes beyond the Munich award of the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany in 1938, which entailed the destruction of Czechoslovakia’s fortress defenses.
We can also be sure that Putin will not stop here, but will violate any peace agreement on this basis to undermine the Ukrainian state using all the methods at his disposal. However, Trump made his task easier by flouting Churchill’s sound advice.
In so doing, Trump validated the sobriquet that he hates, i.e., Trump always chickens out or TACO. Nevertheless, in Anchorage, he earned this title. But we, especially Ukraine, will have to suffer the consequences of his incompetence.
About the Author: Dr. Stephen Blank
Dr. Stephen J. Blank is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program. He has published over 900 articles and monographs on Soviet/Russian, U.S., Asian, and European military and foreign policies, testified frequently before Congress on Russia, China, and Central Asia, consulted for the Central Intelligence Agency, major think tanks and foundations, chaired major international conferences in the US and in Florence; Prague; and London, and has been a commentator on foreign affairs in the media in the US and abroad. He has also advised major corporations on investing in Russia and is a consultant for the Gerson Lehrmann Group. He is the author of Russo-Chinese Energy Relations: Politics in Command (London: Global Markets Briefing, 2006), and Natural Allies? Regional Security in Asia and Prospects for Indo-American Strategic Cooperation (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2005). Dr. Blank is also the author of The Sorcerer as Apprentice: Stalin’s Commissariat of Nationalities (Greenwood, 1994); and the co-editor of The Soviet Military and the Future (Greenwood, 1992).
Military Affairs
China’s Stealth Air Force Has 1 Mission
D-O-Y-L-E
August 25, 2025 at 6:41 pm
Disingenuous narrative.
It’s the west that has played putin, who’s truly a fool today, now more and more like or highly resembling the dumb dumb gorbachev of the 1990s.
No doubt, trump has brought or bought a little breathing space for putin in his deadly struggle with the dreaded nazis, but trump has shown he’s totally and completely vulnerable to loud insistent and overwhelming noises.
Is putin one among those. Nope. Nope and nope.
Also, a lie boldly written here that’s being repeated day in day out, of russia wanting to swallow ukraine.
After the maidan riots, ukraine wa literally swarming with neo-nazis and nationalist-fascist groups of all stripes, with western reps and activists mixing in with them all, one of them was phillip karber, a close confidante of NATO commanders in europe.
Their plan – to upend the chaotic situation, directly oppose hussein obama, and to ignite all-out war in ukraine.
Was putin one among them. Nope, and nope. Nope, nope.
Who’s being playing ukraine and russia all along. Certainly, not putin.
willful knowledge
August 26, 2025 at 2:08 pm
Thank you for your comment Vlad.
Zhduny
August 25, 2025 at 9:54 pm
US has just approved supply of thousands of ERAMs to ukraine.
Smacks of playing ukraine against russia. Nothing less.
Sending more advanced weapons there a very sure guarantee of wanting to worsen the situation.
Nothing to do with peace. Or advancing it. Just eager for more killing and more destruction.
Who’s playing who really.
Swamplaw Yankee
August 27, 2025 at 3:45 am
The scenario is a boring repeat; Balkan War(s), Georgia. Past is Prologue, fellow readers.
The monghol Imperial empire descendents are in a genetic throwback loop. Somewhat like quantum physics. Puti the Paedo, wants salmon like to return to his descendants ancient business of the sex trade.
Puti the paedo wants to eternally lead the muscovite sex trade caravans of mass adducted Ukrainian children harvested by his “team” for his personal satiation. Then, when the abused children are boring, the excitement of re-uniting with his muslim slaver comrades to make the art of the deal where a few more ounces of gold must be delivered into his gold chest per Ukrainian child.
That is his horizon, his ancient genetic makeup that leads his to Crimea, to the same dungeons of Caffe. where Puti the Paedo stuffed last years human trafficked fiddies.
Like a receding horizon on the Black Sea, the huge muslim Ottoman sex trade shipping fleet of 1614 quantum vanishes into the airplanes of 2014 where Puti the Paedo had his “little green groomer” military trade Russkie tanks/trucks for “Lolita” packages that local russian speaking traitors just basement butchered the Ukrainians parents to abduct.
Yes, like a Black Sea receding horizon, the result desired by the ancient genocidal belligerent may be elusive if the other party, Ukrainians, believe the outcome to be elusive and reversible.
This is so basic Carl von Clausewitz, “ON WAR”.
“Even the ultimate outcome of a genocide is not always to be regarded as final. The defeated state, Ukraine, often considers the outcome merely as a transitional evil, for which a remedy may be found in political conditions as some later date”.
Yes, Puti the Paedo always recalls the youthful satiation of “Lolita” harvesting up to 1615. What Puti the Paedo does not tell Trump, as they clasp hands so cuddly, and enter the Alaskan privacy of the Limo, is that 1616 stopped his sex trade in Ukrainian Children.
Yes, Trump just does not care to hear, know, or attempt to process the reality that Ukrainian Fathers, had gathered funds for decades to fight/conquer the huge muslim sex trade fleet in 1616, to fight/conquer the muslim army running the dungeon fort of Caffe in 1616, release the thousands of abused children (slaves to the muslims) and chase the gold laden sex trade caravans in 1616 back to where Puti the Paedo rejoined his multiple wives.
Yeah, so this is a ancient 1000 year genocide that the POTUS Obama Democrat Cabal restarted in 2014. The POTUS Obama Democrat Cabal did not give a sh– about 1616 history, Obama just wanted to cuddle clasp Puti the Paedo hands in 2014, and as POTUS unilaterally greenlight Putin in the return to 1614 muscovite reality, the re-start of a long term genocide of Ukrainians.
Talking about the Balkan War(s) with the Yankee is much more useful as the USA avoided much of the Georgian script.
Puti the Paedo is like repeating the Milosevic script in the Serbian Side of the Balkan genocides. Actually Puti the Paedo is key to solving any of the ethnic russkies ethnic problems. Rather than being an inflexible mass abducter of Ukrainians, tsarling Putin is sensitive to pressure and that he is a pragmatic, calculating large scale risk taker. Puti the paedo will weigh carefully the perceived costs in pursuing his ancient ethic genocidal goals – particularly in so far as they might affect his power controlling the Federation – and will not back down if the correlation of forces is not in his favour.
However, – listening here little loser Trumpkins – Puti the Paedo is not likely to reverse Muscovite elite policies unless and until their EXPECTED COST – especially in military terms – EXCEEDS the benefits to be achieved.
Tsarling Putin has re-used the same identical old script that the Commie Soviet Cabal handed Serbia in 1986. The script worked on the POTUS + White House brains back then, and, tragically, is sucking in the little loser Trumpkins, as the other world empire leaders intently watch his self-abdication of the intangible mantle, role of leader of the WEST.
What else if there, but details. The genius POTUS back then was sucked into submitting to Gorbachev ( what was the MSM word for that sucking sound made by the Commies, entente ) and the USA was openly fighting the 3 enslaved Baltic nations quest for independence from the vicious Russkie dictatorship. Only the effort of the then Pope in collapsing the Evil commie “Soviet” made the USA, grudgingly, change its policy on that.
Yeah, details to the Yankee, except for the 3 Baltic ethnic groups. -30-
Swamplaw Yankee
August 27, 2025 at 4:36 am
Always details for the Post Script.
Carl actually personally perused the Ukraine, as he watched and observed the use of military force thru Ukrainian land. Ad rem: Carl did not go to Moscow to observe or say, France or the early United States. Clausewitz was a “front-line reporter” such as reporter Caolan Robertson is today.
The back then “Potemkin Village” urge of the Muscovite elite to control perceptions is still prime today. The aggressive, assertive Lavrov is the ethnic russkies prime Potemkin Village deceiver. Like this glib deceiver full of “kovatstvo” needs to be verbally encountered on international media by a sharp adroit Ukrainian, perhaps a Politician or Historian. Notice, that the op-ed media is glaringly absent of a single “Academic” Ukrainian Historian of a Brand Name. No Orest Subtelny level historian in the OP-ed of the Yankee MSM, that’s for sure.
One of little loser Trumpkins glib “code” words is CEASE FIRE”. Another cudgel Trumpkins twirls about is “PEACE”. Like Trumpkins has displayed himself to world leaders as incapable of dealing with a mind like Milosevic’s.
The reality is that as Milosevic escalated Serbian aggression, the back then USA White House continued to support dozens of meaningless “CEASEFIRES”, equally blaming the aggressors and victims.
Regard this: Through 39 toothless cease fires brokered by Lord Peter Carrington ( a former business partner of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic), Serbia predictably expanded the war front, using each of the 39 cease fires, to reposition Serbian troops + artillery for subsequent episodes of genocide.
Lord Carrington did not resign which could have reversed the Balkan genocide tragedies. Other insightful “minds” could have prevented this viral use of the code word “CEASE FIRE”.
The reader has to judge the use of the code word “cease fire”, especially by any of the little loser Trumpkin Cabal, seemingly tightly caught in their delusional need to be “world class” adjudicators.
-30-