An American president embracing an authoritarian dictator and rolling out the red carpet for him. That’s what took place a week and a half ago in Alaska. I know that the president’s defenders will say that this is all the “art of the deal” and that the president is buttering up Putin in order to gain an advantage. But I didn’t see that in the meeting or the outcomes from the Alaska summit. What I saw was a focus on short-term outcomes with no consideration of the long-term consequences.
Before we even get to the optics of the red carpet and the giddy-looking president waiting at the end of that carpet, let’s talk about inviting Putin onto American soil at all. Vladimir Putin is a war criminal, a violator of human rights within his own country, and an avowed enemy of the United States of America. Russian intelligence assets are hard at work running bot farms and burner accounts trying to influence Americans on social media sites as we speak, engaged in a cyber war on our society.
And what did we get for rolling out the red carpet? Nothing. Putin was brought in from the cold and left with the visual he wanted - being embraced by the American president. The only supposed concession that Putin had offered was an acceptance of Western troops in Ukraine, but even that offer had evaporated by the next Tuesday.
Putin is a former KGB agent. He will use manipulation and deception as easily and as readily as he will use force in his fight against the West. He has yet to live up to any peace deal that he has made and there’s no reason to believe that he will change that trend any time soon.
And the meeting put our allies on edge, something that became evident when European leaders rallied for a meeting at the White House just the Monday after Trump’s meeting with Putin. They were in attendance both to support Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was berated and treated like a child in his last White House meeting with the president and vice president, and as a show of force, letting the American administration know that they are united in their support of Ukraine.
They were also probably there to try to wrest President Trump from Putin’s influence and mind games. And it’s a good thing they came. Even as Trump talked with Zelenskyy, you could hear Putin’s talking points being repeated verbatim, primarily that no ceasefire agreement was necessary. Trump said that a ceasefire could offer a strategic advantage for one side in the war, a rationale taken straight from Russian state television.
Putin bares sole responsibility for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian people have been the victims of missile and drone attacks on their cities, had their children kidnapped from their homes, and have been raped, tortured, and murdered by Putin’s forces. So, what does it say about us as a nation that we rolled out the red carpet for this guy? Strategy or not, what happened to our role as leader of the free world and defender of democracy? I am not so naïve as to believe that American intervention abroad has always been on the side of the just or in defense of the wronged. American history is filled with economic deals with dictators and backing autocratic regimes, especially in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. But at least in regard to Europe we seemed to have some moral clarity. The Alaska summit puts that clarity into jeopardy.
The fact that European leaders were able to quickly rally around Zelenskyy and come to the White House demonstrates how important this issue remains to our allies in Europe. No doubt it must have been an ego boost to our president to have so many world leaders quickly come to him. But their willingness to swallow their pride should be lauded.
Putin has always been someone who plays the long game, a skill he learned during his KGB days. After his summit with Trump, I’m not sure Trump is playing any game at all. He just wants peace, no matter what the cost. But our enemies abroad are lying in wait, watching to see how we react to one nation taking land from its weaker neighbor. If that is allowed to stand, and if the consequences are minor or nonexistent, you can bet that this will not be the last land grab, with China eyeing Taiwan at the top of that list. If we rush this process, if we force our allies into a peace deal that cedes victory to Russia, we will be paying the price for generations to come.