Putin’s Meeting with Trump: The Triumph of Delusion Over Reality

But then Trump suddenly ordered his aides to arrange a meeting with Putin in a week. The explanations we have been given for this is that Putin said Trump’s negotiator Witkoff had made an acceptable proposal. Putin’s negotiator Kirill Dmitriev declared “a historic meeting in which dialogue will prevail.”  One dreamer proclaimed that Putin and Trump “may reconfigure the world order.”

These premature declarations of agreement and success have led to further romantic theorizing. One Russian commentator declared that Alaska was chosen for the historic meeting because it “so clearly embodies the spirit of neighborliness and mutually beneficial cooperation lost during the Cold War.” The Russian Atlanticist-Integrationists whose hearts and interests are in the West are hopeful that their declarations of bliss, even if it involves Russian surrender, will prevail  over Russian nationalism.

For example, Putin’s negotiator is Kirill Dmitriev, nominally a Russian, but in fact a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Business School–entrances into the American Establishment–who began his career at Goldman Sachs, an establishment member. He is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. His long list of honors and directorships of Russian companies is provided by the WEF. Currently he is chief of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and Putin’s Special Envoy on International Economic and Investment Cooperation. Could Putin have chosen a more conflicted person to negotiate with Washington?

Among these and other highly hopeful statements, what is the reality of the situation? Does it conform to the expressed expectations?

No.  As far as I can tell, Trump is headed into a “historic meeting” with his Russian counterpart and still has no idea what Putin’s position is. Trump most recently spoke of a peace deal based on a “swapping of territories,” which Zelensky’s European supporters say must be a “reciprocal” swap of territory. Zelensky’s position is that all territory must be returned to Ukraine. Putin’s position is that all territory now incorporated into the Russian Federation must be accepted as Russian by Ukraine and the West. Otherwise, Russia has to repudiate its military victories in a war that was provoked by Washington.

But the main problem with Trump’s approach is that he is thinking of the meeting in a very limited context of ending the military conflict with a land swap, whereas Putin wants a mutual security agreement with Washington and NATO that gets NATO off of Russia’s borders. The war that Putin wants to end is the West’s hostility toward Moscow. The war in Ukraine Russia can take care of.

Putin’s objective is a highly desirable goal, because the worsening provocations of Moscow will eventually result in nuclear war. But how realistic is Putin’s goal?

I would say it is not realistic.

First, the Wolfowitz Doctrine is in the way. The Wolfowitz doctrine declares the principal goal of US foreign policy to be to prevent the rise of any power that can serve as a constraint on American unilateralism. The neoconservatives who originated this doctrine are still very influential in US policy-making circles. No US president or Secretary of State has repudiated this doctrine. Trump himself recently declared the policy when he said “I rule America and the world.” That is a hegemonic statement.

Indeed, the current military conflict in Ukraine is entirely the product of Washington’s hegemonic foreign policy. Washington orchestrated the “Maidan Revolution” in order to overthrow a Russian-friendly democratic government and to install a Russophobic puppet. The puppet government then attacked the people in the Russian territories of Ukraine until they forced a Russian intervention after the West used the Minsk Agreement to deceive Putin and after the West refused the Kremlin’s request for a mutual security agreement during December 2021-February 2022.  At this point Putin was forced to intervene in order to prevent the slaughter of the Russians in the independent Donbas republics by a large Ukrainian army trained and equipped by Washington.  If Putin had had the foresight to accept the Donbas republics’ request in 2014 to be reunited with Russia like Crimea, the war would have been avoided.  But Putin, badly advised, confused a defense of Russian people with a provocation to the West.  In 2014 the Atlanticists-Integrationists, whose interests are in the West, not in Russia, still intended for the Kremlin to crawl on its belly back into Western acceptance by being a good subject of Washington’s hegemonic rule..

The entire point of Washington’s orchestrated conflict in Ukraine was to destabilize Russia. Has Washington abandoned this policy goal?

Second, there is the interest of the US military/security complex. The power and profit of the military/security complex depends on having enemies. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the creation of the “Muslim Threat” used to sustain the military/security’s profits and powers with Washington’s 21st century wars that destroyed, so far, five Muslim countries, while supporting with money, weapons, and diplomatic cover Israel’s genocide of Palestine, and Washington is now being aligned with Israel to destroy Iran. A few days ago President Trump bragged that he had negotiated a deal with the EU to purchase hundreds of billions of dollars of US weapons to send to Ukraine. What happens to this deal if peace comes to Ukraine? How does the military/security complex see the loss of its Russian enemy? Has Trump promised them an Iranian war and/or a war with China as replacements?

Third, if Trump favors peace with Russia, why did he just reinstall in Europe the US intermediate-range nuclear missiles that President Reagan had removed, and in addition deploy two submarines with nuclear missiles closer to Russia?

More importantly, why has Washington suddenly struck a massive blow against Russia, China, and Iran in the South Caucasus by obtaining for 99 years the Zangezur Corridor that runs along Iran’s northern borders with Armenia and Azerbaijan? This move by the Trump regime is a strike at the heart of China’s New Silk Road, BRICS, and Russia’s influence in former Soviet provinces, and it completes Washington’s encirclement of Iran. Washington is opening more points of military confrontation with Russia and its allies while Russia backs away, thereby inviting more provocations

This audacious Washington strike against Russia, Iran, and China should shatter the Russian illusion that a mutual security agreement is obtainable with Washington. Washington has made a decisive move against three powers which indicates Washington’s seriousness about its hegemony.

Russian commentators downplay the loss of the corridor as they fight to keep reality out of their hopes that Russia will become part of the West.

Before Putin goes to Alaska, Putin should ask Dmitriev how Washington’s takeover of the Zangezur corridor fits in with the “acceptable American proposal” about Ukraine.

And someone, if there is anyone, should ask Putin, XI, and the Iranians why they were yet again asleep at the switch.

Will Putin also be asleep at the switch in Alaska, lulled into illusionary dreams by the likes of Dmitriev?

In his two masterful histories, The First World War and The Origins of the Second World War, A.J.P. Taylor explains the triumph of delusion over reality when governments are confronted with conflict. We are watching it again in our time.