The Alaska Summit
By 
To use the word “negotiations” about tomorrow’s meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, if we consider its historical use for other actions between representatives of their nations, is to commit a category error.
Historically, negotiations on ending wars or treaties or trade or any of the numerous issues that must be sorted out between nations have been carried out by subject-matter specialists: nuclear scientists and engineers for arms control treaties; financial and commerce specialists for trade; and ending a war may require specialists in many areas, including the history and sociology of the nations involved, manufacturing and financial experts, and geographers. Skillful interpreters are needed for the face to face interactions, and translators to make sure that the documents convey the same legal meanings in all languages involved.
As far as we know, Trump has employed only his golf buddy, Steve Witkoff, who knows nothing of Russian history or language, nothing of conventional or nuclear arms manufacture or capability, nothing of trade or national boundaries and the humans living within them. He may know a bit about New York real estate finance, which probably doesn’t help much with sanctions, and he’s open to whomever shows up at the table as his interpreter.
As far as we know, no formal documents to be signed have been prepared for tomorrow’s meeting. So no need for translators.
Trump’s approach to the meeting seems to be two guys meeting to size each other up. He sees the meeting in purely personal terms. He will get a “sense” of Putin, as did George W. Bush.
I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul.
Bush, of course, was horrendously wrong and said so later. Trump’s language is different. He would not speak of Putin’s soul. In two minutes, he says, he will know whether a “deal” is possible.
Ending a war is not the same as a real estate deal. Trump sees only two players as being involved, the Big Men, himself and Putin. They will decide, and the underlings will carry out the details.
But those details are important. We are talking about territories with millions of people whose lives will be very different, depending on how the war ends. Resources like water and electricity are important to their lives and the ways the territories are integrated into nations. There is the enormous issue of Putin’s beliefs in history and the necessity to gather in all the Russias of the Empire. There are all Trump’s erroneous beliefs about, well, practically everything, but economics and history are a large part.
In short, what is at issue is not a vacant lot on which to build a Trump Tower. And even that would require more preparative work than Trump seems to have put into this project.
“I would feel quite confident saying that there won’t be a meeting unless there’s something substantive to agree to at this point,” Russia expert Thomas Graham said on a Council on Foreign Relations virtual meeting August 7. (source)
Graham has worked many negotiations over many years as a diplomat. He is exactly right about all the summit meetings he has helped to prepare for. But that’s not what Trump is doing.
“Whether [US envoy Steve] Witkoff conveyed properly to the Russian side what the conditions were for this meeting or not, we don’t know, in part because we don’t know what the conditions exactly were,” Graham said.
“But a failure at this point for the presidents to meet and agree on something substantive obviously [would] be a significant setback,” he said. “And will, I think, put a lot of pressure on the White House to reconsider how it wants to move forward in its relationship with Russia.”
Putin has mentioned arms control as a subject for tomorrow. Here is a proposal that, again, partakes of a category error. There is no preparation for such a discussion, no documents, no intelligence file, no expert opinion on the effects of such actions. The most that can happen is that the men shake hands and say yes, let’s put our people to talking about it. But Trump cannot do that, is constitutionally incapble of doing that. In his mind, he is the only one who can make the agreement for which he has none of the necessary understanding. Even if they shake hands and say something, he is unlikely to follow up.
Trump caroms from one issue, one position, to another as he speaks to different people. What will impress them the most? Here is a new fact they seem to want me to weave into what I say. A cosmic ray passing through one of his brain cells causes a reset. We have no way of knowing that what he says today, as void of content as those words are, will apply tomorrow.
Photo: Putin and Trump emerge from the conference room at the 2018 Helsinki Summit
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner