Is Diplomacy By President Trump Accurately Defined As Guided By A Compass (Moral Or Otherwise) Or By Randomness Of A Political Version Of Spin The Bottle?
Is Diplomacy By The Trump-Vance Administration Accurately Defined As Guided By A Compass (Moral Or Otherwise) Or By The Randomness Of A Political Version Of The Game Spin The Bottle?
On Friday, 15 August 2025, Donald Trump, President of the United States (2017-2021 and 2025-2029), and Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation (2000-2008 and 2012-2030), met in the State of Alaska at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson located on the outskirts of Anchorage (2024 population approximately 289,600), the largest city in the state. Both President Putin and President Trump traveled approximately seven hours each way for the approximately three-and-a-half-hour dialogue.
Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine (2019-2024; term extended due to imposition of martial law in 2022), did not participate. President Zelensky has accepted an invitation from President Trump to visit The White House on 18 August 2025.
The significant outcome of the dialogue in Alaska is a change in position by President Trump. He arrived in Alaska promoting that implementing first a cease fire was the goal. He departed Alaska promoting that implementing first a peace agreement was the goal.
President Putin’s words and body language did not suggest a head of state who had digested politically something that he found offensive- either while chewing or later.
Today, heads of state and heads of government in countries supporting the government of Ukraine and those either supporting the government of the Russian Federation or not entirely politically embedded with the governments of countries supporting the government of Ukraine, believe they are victims of a political drive-by and hit-and-run by President Trump. Not the first time for them, however. Neither the last time prior to 12:00 pm on 20 January 2029 when his second and final four-year term concludes.
The collective twenty-seven member countries of the Brussels, Belgium-based European Union (EU) and the thirty-two member countries of the Brussels, Belgium-based North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are in unanimity this morning as to one point: death and destruction in Ukraine will continue today, tomorrow, and beyond.
EU: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.
NATO: United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Albania, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Romania, Germany, Slovakia, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary, Spain, Turkiye, Latvia, and North Macedonia, Sweden.
Does President Trump demonstrate a weakness in character when he pivots from one priority to another, and with verbal fluidity transition from support for one idea to support for another idea- particularly when not only may the ideas no align, but are contradictory to one another? He will argue that diplomacy must equate with flexibility. He has a compass, a moral compass, he will also argue, but that compass is absent a true north because it must adapt to the realities of the day rather than wait for the realities of the day to adapt to it. So, wherever he is, whatever he decides, becomes true north.
Which leads to does Trump-Vance Administration (2025-2029) diplomacy really reflect a political version of people at a bar playing spin the bottle to see who drinks what and who has sex with who?
Most concerning is not that President Trump may be spinning the bottle, but that others, in this instance President Putin, is spinning the bottle and determining the result that President Trump will then embrace… until the next spin of the bottle by President Putin or someone else.
On 24 February 2022, the armed forces of the Russian Federation invaded and further invaded the territory of Ukraine in what President Putin defined as a Special Military Operation [SMO] then on 22 December 2022 he redefined as a war. The initial invasion of Ukraine by the armed forces of the Russian Federation was in part from the territory of Belarus.
The war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine did not commence on 24 February 2022. The roots began their trajectories on 20 February 2014 when the armed forces of the Russian Federation invaded the Crimean Peninsula and the area known as the Donbas Region (Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast).
