It would be easy to dismiss the exclusion of not just president Vlodomyr Zelensky but also EU leaders from Friday’s (15 August) summit in Alaska with Vladimir Putin as simply part of Donald Trump\u2019s modus operandi \u2014 relying on personalised deal-making rather than formal negotiations that might restrict his room for creative maneuver. <\/p>\n
And indeed, we have no idea what will happen in Alaska, since one aspect of Trumpian \u2018creative geopolitics\u2019 is also its total unpredictability. <\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Trump was already changing his description of the summit as simply a \u201cfeel-out meeting\u201d to \u201csee what he [Putin] has in mind\u201d regarding a potential deal to stop the war. <\/p>\n
Commentators in US newspapers desperately tried to make sense of the shifting narrative \u2014 “maybe this is strategic ambiguity” commented the Washington Post <\/a>(though the general assessment was that \u2018no one understands what\u2019s going on\u2019.)<\/p>\n But besides Trump\u2019s unique \u2018geopolitical style\u2019, there are much deeper issues at play here: an understanding of international affairs where only certain powerful actors \u2018naturally\u2019 posesses the right to take powerful decisions, such as deciding the fate of peoples and territories. <\/p>\n The history of classical geopolitics provides ample examples, and it is this historical vision that Trump shares fully with Putin. <\/p>\n In such an understanding of the world, there is simply no place for minor players, but neither for an \u2018unidentified international object\u2019 such as the EU.\u00a0<\/p>\n What is more, from such a perspective, the right to speak has nothing to do with the EU\u2019s actual capacities: whether in terms of a single diplomatic voice, or even common defence capabilities. <\/p>\n In this understanding, the EU, by its very non-state nature, will never be able to act as a geopolitical player that counts \u2014 no matter the boost in military spending.\u00a0<\/p>\n This geopolitical prejudice was already firmly rooted with the Obama and Biden administrations, as much as both pressed the EU to take a stronger role in foreign policy, at least in its immediate neighbourhoods. But we have witnessed a quantum leap with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n So where does that leave the EU? <\/p>\n Since the announcement of the Anchorage get-together, a flurry of EU consultations<\/a> took place.<\/p>\n In the communique issued by the \u2018coalition of the willing\u2019 and subsequently in the joint statement by all EU leaders, there is a direct appeal to the principles of territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders, and the affirmation of the right of Ukrainians themselves to determine any just peace, along with the insistence that any discussions cannot take place without president Zelensky.\u00a0<\/p>\n