As predicted by this blog, President Trump has followed up his success with Kim Jon Un with the news yesterday that he is to meet with President Putin. A strongman to strongman summit is to be a feature of Trump’s trip to Europe in July. This is very significant because it signals a change in the world order long overdue. The failure of Western post cold war diplomacy, especially since 9/11, with the launching of wars without end spawning a dismal line up of failed states, is stark evidence of this.
The truth is that nothing can be gained by continuing to shun Russia and exclude her from dialogue and inclusion, unless she submits to a string of demands, which in a million years we all know the Kremlin will never agree to. My guess is that Trump will seek to push the Democrats onto an island on the wrong side of events, by finessing their obsession with the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia. This he will do with a deal that brings Russia back to the G8 and to its formal association with NATO, from which it is currently excluded, in return for a cyber security pact of some kind. No more election interference etc. They will agree to continue cooperation in the fight against what is left of IS. Difficult issues like Ukraine and Syria will be discussed but solutions will be further down the track. When they come they will concede that Assad has won the war in Syria with Russian help, the ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine will never agree to give up Russian protection and Crimea is, and has for centuries been, Russian.
Many people across the West, politicians, diplomats and generals, are unsettled by the dawn of an era for which they have no blueprint. Like all world orders of the past, the collective, pact driven, block system is crumbling, in part because it is no longer working and in part because people are tired of it. Whatever its merits before, now it breeds endless tension and solves no issues. Ahead is the more unpredictable world of strong leaders dealing with each other direct, rather than through armies of minders and negotiators sheltering under the broad umbrella of diplomacy.
The main players will be Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping. They will each have their red lines but they will be driven by their common interests in the new interdependent and inter-connected world which technology has empowered. This in turn may bring smaller players together to protect the interests of the majority of countries beneath the super-power strata. In other words instead of superpowers herding their followers, the superpowers will be a law unto themselves, leaving the rest to forage wherever they fancy. This may not be as bad as at first it sounds. Britain’s priority, especially post Brexit, will be to get along with all three. No prizes for guessing who, in the short term, will pose the biggest problem.