Ukraine: There is no safety in appeasement

Prior to his election to a second presidency in November 2024, Donald Trump repeatedly claimed that he would easily and swiftly bring the conflict to an end.

“It’s a very easy negotiation to take place. I will have it solved within one day, a peace between them”, he said as early as March 2023, in a Fox News Interview with Sean Hannity.

He repeatedly maintained that he would have the conflict resolved within 24 hours of becoming president.

On several occasions, he was even more optimistic, repeating the same words: “Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after we win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled.”

Scores of statements like this have been identified and verified. But 76 days passed between his election and inauguration. At the time of writing, over 5000 hours have elapsed since Trump’s inauguration, and there is no peace.

While there may be no peace, there has continued to be a great deal of posturing. On 22 January, Trump warned that he would impose sanctions if Russia did not stop the war. No new sanctions, however, were ever imposed. Real estate investor-turned peace envoy Steve Witkoff has personally met with Vladimir Putin five times, emerging with no obvious progress on settling the war but always news of more meetings down the road. Last week’s Anchorage meeting was hastily organised after the latest Witkoff (mis)adventure on 6 August, when the envoy is reported to have absurdly misunderstood Putin’s request for peaceful Ukrainian withdrawal as an offer of peaceful Russian withdrawal!

In between these meetings, various informal deadlines and formal ultimatums have been set. On 27 April, 19 May, and 28 May Trump indicated actions or at least decisions would be made within two weeks. The two weeks expired each time without a change in policy or new comment. On 14 July, Trump gave Russia an ultimatum: agree to end the war within 50 days, or face very severe secondary tariffs - about 100 percent - on countries still trading with Russia. The deadline was subsequently reduced on 28 July to 10-12 days. These threats have not been executed.

Perhaps they were not executed because, again, a meeting was agreed: this time it would bring Putin and Trump face to face for the first time in six years, in Anchorage, Alaska – a state on land purchased from Russia. Trump warned of severe consequences if a ceasefire was not agreed at the meeting. A ceasefire was not agreed. There have been no severe consequences. The US President has, yet again, postponed considering them by “two weeks or three weeks or something."

The Anchorage meeting was much-hyped but proved something of a damp squib to the discerning observer. No questions were answered on either side of the very abbreviated meeting and the scheduled lunch was cancelled indicating to some perhaps that relations were not as warm as otherwise indicated. But it is hard to see Anchorage as anything other than a propaganda victory for Russia among its supporters, and an unforced failure on the American side.

The carrot of Alaska was dangerously dangled in front of revanchist Russia, as the red carpet was (quite literally) rolled out on American soil to welcome a man wanted for war crimes. As American soldiers knelt to secure the carpet, the visiting presidential plane’s Cyrillic script for “Russia” loomed over them, witlessly creating a now widely circulated image of Russian triumph. Whereas the world was treated to an embarrassing spectacle of unjustified and undignified Trumpian anger in the Zelenskyy Oval Office meeting earlier this year, the Alaska summit showed an abundance of warmth and gushing praise with faint mention of any disagreement. A B-52 bomber flyover was perhaps meant as a flex – but any message meant was surely diluted by the facts: just moments before, the US President had applauded the Russian President as he walked to meet him. The summit could have still been held without any of this entirely inappropriate fanfare.

No concern was etched across Putin’s face: he grinned like a Cheshire Cat as he was honoured with a ride in the US presidential limousine, and chuckled to himself while making a range of dismissive and taunting faces at the press corps. No tears could be seen in the eyes of his delegation as they left, clearly chuffed at a peace meeting that brought no accountability, agreed no ceasefire, achieved no peace, answered no questions, mainly conveyed optics of friendship and agreement, and kicked sanctions or other consequences down the road.

Winston Churchill’s six volume history of the Second World War begins with a volume entitled, "The Gathering Storm." A front page of that book state’s the volume’s theme: “How the English-speaking peoples through their unwisdom, carelessness, and good nature allowed the wicked to rearm.”

Will we now allow the wicked to do a great deal more than rearm? Putin has thus far gotten away with theft and murder. A growing number seem to believe that he should be rewarded, even with land his army has not captured. There is much talk of “land-swapping”, but Russia only gains land and Ukraine only loses land so what is being swapped?

President Ronald Reagan once said, in 1986, “there is no security, no safety, in the appeasement of evil.” His earlier words to a 1983 gathering of evangelical Christians regarding the pretences of the Soviet Union’s leaders (bosses to a much younger Putin!) are prescient for those who have heard the Russian President’s words over the past week: "Because these 'quiet men' do not 'raise their voices,' because they sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace, because, like other dictators before them, they’re always making 'their final territorial demand,' some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simpleminded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom."

The strategy of appeasement instead of accountability detailed in Churchill’s Gathering Storm was recorded as a warning - not an encouragement. Appeasement, not decisive action, is what led to World War Two. Perhaps this principle is beyond the comprehension of tycoons and tyrants, but peace in our time cannot and will not come apart from a recognition of the moral category of wickedness and a pursuit of the moral priority of justice.