Two grandmasters meet in Alaska

Business Recorder

2 days ago

I've always wondered why NATO, a Cold War relic built to contain communism, not only survived the collapse of the very empire it was created to oppose, but somehow found new purpose in expanding all the way to Russia's doorstep. A promise once made, never to move 'one inch eastward,' was quietly folded into the archives as the alliance, now more bureaucracy than shield, became the lifeblood of western arms manufacturers and eastern European hawks alike. Yet just as questions about its relevance were growing louder, Putin did exactly what the alliance needed. He invaded Ukraine.
Now the spectacle moves to Alaska, a frozen irony if there ever was one. A former Russian colony sold off by a desperate tsarist regime is about to host a modern-day strongman whom many in the western press describe, with a mix of panic and admiration, as yet another desperate Russian dictator. Only this time, he's not selling land. He's allegedly buying time, legitimacy, and influence, on the same soil that Tsar Alexander II sold to Andrew Johnson's administration for two cents an acre in 1867.
The press is already aflame with warnings. 'Putin's playing chess!' they scream. 'Trump will be duped again!' The ghosts of Helsinki 2018 have been summoned in full regalia. Remember that one? When Trump came out of a private meeting with Putin looking like a fanboy, casting doubt on US intelligence and prompting his own adviser to contemplate pulling the fire alarm? The stakes were high then. They're higher now.
Yet the hysteria may be hiding the real twist. What if it's Trump who's playing the bigger game?
This is the man who's already shattered the post-WWII trade consensus with his tariffs, bulldozed the Middle East's power map, and turned global diplomacy into a one-man reality show. His opponents and the markets have laughed at his U-turns, even coined money-making trades around them — the 'taco (Trump always chickens out) trade,' among others. But it's still his word, or even just his mood on a given day, that can and does swing entire sectors, even global markets. And so the question remains — is this all just the chaos of the moment or the method of someone building a new kind of architecture – one announcement at a time?
Is it really Putin manipulating Trump, or is it Trump baiting Putin — and everyone else — into a trap they don't quite understand? What if the real game isn't just about Ukraine, but about rewriting the very structure of global power, calibrated through carefully chosen spectacle rather than traditional diplomacy?
It's hard to say who's playing whom. What's clear is that the Europeans and Ukrainians aren't even in the room. While Trump and Putin sit across the chessboard, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is dialing into video calls and begging not to be cut out of the final score. His plea is simple — no land for peace, no backroom deals, and definitely no Yalta-style carve-up while Ukraine watches from the hallway. But that's exactly what this summit risks becoming, a 21st-century version of the old Great Power bargaining table, minus the courtesy of cigars and chairs for the small countries involved.
Zelensky's fears aren't unfounded. Russia has advanced six to ten kilometres in Donbas just this week, and Putin enters Alaska holding 19 percent of Ukrainian territory. His demands haven't changed: full withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from contested areas, abandonment of NATO ambitions, and recognition of Russia's new 'realities' on the ground. Kyiv, of course, rejects all of it. The math of occupation is as brutal as the war itself.
The EU, meanwhile, looks on in muted impotence. Publicly supportive of Trump's 'efforts,' privately panicking about what might emerge from the Alaskan tundra. European diplomats whisper about 'not being sidelined,' but their absence from the negotiating table suggests that's exactly what's happened. It raises the awkward question – if even Ukraine's strongest backers don't get a seat at the summit, where does NATO's credibility stand? Or its future's?
Some say the summit is all theatre. The White House calls it a 'listening exercise,' while Trump says he's just 'feeling out' Putin. But Trump never walks into a summit without expecting to steal the headlines. Putin wants the photo too, preferably one that softens the glare of the ICC warrants still hanging over him. Neither man is there to negotiate. They're there to perform power – and test who still commands the stage.
Which brings us back to the chessboard. The west loves to frame these moments as contests between intelligence and brute force, between statesmen and strongmen. But this one defies that binary. Trump isn't a diplomat, and Putin isn't just a thug. They're both something else; opportunists shaped by grievance, obsessed with legacy, and uniquely gifted at flipping chaos into leverage.
And while Putin may fancy himself a grandmaster of strategic pressure, it's Trump who is reshaping the global rulebook in real time – tearing through trade structures, unsettling alliances, and redrawing the lines of engagement. But there's a third piece on this board. Russia's war economy is being propped up by China, its main backer. Without Beijing's support, the machinery grinding through Ukraine would seize up fast.
With Beijing watching closely, and much of the world unsure who's steering what anymore, the board narrows back to two players – at least for now. So, as the two men sit down in Alaska, a symbolic scrap of land once discarded by Moscow, they won't just be negotiating over Ukraine. They'll be stress-testing the entire postwar architecture – not to replace it with a new one, but to show how far it's already eroded. One arrives with territorial maps, ceasefire terms, and a shrinking circle of allies. The other brings tariffs, disruption, and a record of dismantling consensus. Neither is offering a vision. They're exposing the vacuum.
This may be the most consequential chess match of our time. And whether it ends in checkmate, stalemate, or the board flipping off the table entirely, one thing's certain: it will show us which of these two grandmasters still knows how to win.
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