Throughout history, the meetings of leaders representing the major actors of the system have been remembered as summits that opened the door to a new world, for better or worse. For example, according to many historians, the fundamental order of the 20th century was shaped by the Versailles Summit, led by the "Big Four." US President Woodrow Wilson, British Prime Minister Lloyd George, French Prime Minister Georges Clemencau, and Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando discussed, debated, and agreed on how the post-war order should be shaped. The new world was based on the principle of dismantling multinational empires and weakening the defeated side of the war by reducing it to such a small size that it could no longer play a decisive role in the system. The other actors who lost the war, however, launched a major rebellion against the system 20 years later, triggering World War II, which cost tens of millions of lives. They were defeated again.
The motto of the post-war order was "cold war." The new history would be inaugurated at the Yalta Summit, attended by US President Theodore Roosevelt, Russian leader Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The division and weakening of Central Europe was the fundamental principle. Eastern Europe was controlled by the Warsaw Pact, while Western Europe was under NATO. The establishment of the United Nations reflected the goal of transforming a global order into a holistic structure underwritten by the "Big Five." In line with this goal, Roosevelt was idealistic, Churchill cautious, and Stalin pragmatic. The others were essentially absent.
The historic summit between George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, held on a stormy day aboard a ship off the coast of Malta in 1989, was the most significant signal that the structure of the global order established 44 years earlier would change. Although the outcome of the Malta Summit was a symbolic declaration rather than a formal agreement, it pledged that the two sides would no longer engage in hostility, breaking the tense atmosphere of the "Cold War" and opening the door to a new era. It was a major step. As the walls crumbled, the global village was preparing to embrace.
The most important characteristic of the world system has always been its openness to change. After the collapse of the USSR, it was thought that Russia would never return to the stage of history with the same strength. The first signals of its shakeup under Putin's leadership were sent at the 2007 Munich Security Summit. While China rose from across the Pacific as the new giant of the global village, Russia aggressively pursued a policy reflecting its eagerness to regain what it had lost. It took some time for the US to realize that it was no longer the sole pole of the globe, and the costs also increased.
The end of Obama's idealism came with the coming to power of Donald J. Trump. Putin now faced a different typology that challenged the American establishment. The shift in the language and style of politics caught everyone off guard. Trump viewed all lands in the world as real estate, shaped diplomatic relations based on their monetary returns and potential, and believed that the most serious security threats emanated from within the US itself. It was a profile that rejected psychological factors such as the distinction between the two, while simultaneously promising to make America great.
Trump's view of Putin was naturally shaped in this way. The Helsinki Summit between the two in 2018 took place in a tense atmosphere. Allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 US elections and supported Trump had significantly preoccupied the American public. Russia had annexed Crimea in 2014, and the resulting tensions in eastern Ukraine had reached a peak. Interests were significantly clashing. While the summit did not yield any concrete results on these issues, Trump's actions, taking on the American security bureaucracy and giving credence to Putin's words, and his statements, which went as far as accusing institutions like the CIA, FBI, and NSA, had a devastating impact. US-Russia relations were one thing, but Trump-Putin relations were another.
The Russian Tsardom, sold to the US for $7.2 million in 1867 to pay its war debts and break British pressure, Alaska also hosted the latest summit between Trump and Putin. The two leaders traveled to the meeting location in the same car, creating a strikingly close-knit scene accompanied by B2 jets performing in the skies. Putin, declared a war criminal by the International Criminal Court, traveling confidently on US soil and in presidential vehicles was symbolic proof that international legal institutions and norms are meaningless. While no concrete results emerged from the Alaska Summit, the fact that they weren't even invited to a summit specifically focused on Ukraine demonstrated that the "they weren't actually there" mentality still prevails.
While the exact topics discussed at the approximately two-and-a-half-hour summit haven't been fully disclosed, it's unlikely they'll be limited to Ukraine. It's likely that there was serious give-and-take negotiation, and that China's expanding sphere of influence and the necessary measures were on the agenda, as well as contentious micro-issues like Syria and Gaza. Summits are typically a strategic tailoring environment, where leaders, with needle, thread, and scissors, slice and dice the world map and patch it onto the next. Who will get the blame this time?
