A few months can be a long time in geopolitics. In February, the president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, had berated — publicly — the visiting president of Ukraine in the White House after Volodymyr Zelensky had insisted on American aid: he was yelled at by an irate Mr Trump who insisted that Mr Zelensky did not hold the cards. In August, in Alaska, it appeared that in Mr Trump’s opinion, it was Vladimir Putin, the aggressor against Ukraine, who held the cards. At that summit between Russia and the US, Mr Trump insisted that the president of Ukraine had to be amenable to the grim reality — that of Russia’s gains on the battlefield — and agree to giving up territory to its predatory neighbour. Now, however, the cards, it seems, have shifted, once again, slipping out of Mr Putin’s hands. In a recent post on social media after a meeting with Mr Zelensky, the US president announced, in a head-spinning pivot, that Ukraine was in a position, with European aid, to not only win back the land that it has lost to Russia but also take back some more beyond its own boundaries. In response, perhaps sensing the need to make use of Mr Trump’s unpredictable and often fleeting benevolence, Mr Zelensky, during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, appealed for more weapons to keep fighting Russia.
There is, understandably, quite a bit of speculation to analyse the cause of Mr Trump’s sudden, unexpected volte-face. Recent tensions on account of Russian drones encroaching upon Polish and Estonian territories may have been an underlying cause. There is also talk of the rationale of profitability: Europe would have to buy American arms to continue to support Mr Zelensky, giving Mr Trump a reason to gloat to his domestic MAGA support base. But the most compelling explanation for Mr Trump’s sudden 360-degree turn on Ukraine has perhaps to do more with the personal than the political. In Alaska, Mr Trump had put himself in the middle of a potential peace negotiation that would, he hinted, bring Mr Putin and Mr Zelensky to the discussion table. Mr Putin, as is his wont, then went on to pour cold water on Mr Trump’s hopes by not working on these supposed peace negotiations that the US president insisted had been agreed upon. Mr Trump being handed the raw end of a deal could well have brought about the present turn in events.
The larger question, though, is this: can vexing global challenges, such as the one that Ukraine faces with Russia — these two nations have their own layered, complex histories — respond to the kind of transactional resolutions that Mr Trump prides in? The US president, as he salivates for the Nobel peace honour, insists that he has stopped several conflicts, including the brief military engagement between India and Pakistan. But the reality, in the case of the India-Pakistan conflict as well as the Ukraine war, is different, exposing the hollowness — moral and practical — of Mr Trump’s skills in negotiations. A bandage on a wound is not the need of the hour. The world needs lasting solutions to wars. Mr Trump does not have them.