In Alaska, Trump staged a diplomatic spectacle for Putin—but with no allies or prep, the summit resulted in only punchy headlines, and no real progress.
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International politics can often be disorienting for authoritarian leaders. Domestic politics reinforces their self-image as dominant agents of power, through which they influence, impress upon, and effect change around them, that too on demand. However, on the international stage, this can instead lead to a false sense of security and an assumption that their personality and charisma are sufficient to drive results. It is the structural realities and balances of power that steer the outcomes in international politics. Donald Trump could only recently come to terms with this reality during the Alaska Summit.
Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin, complete with a military flyover, a ride in the presidential limousine—“The Beast”—and formal ceremonies—all indicating a carefully staged diplomatic spectacle.
Communication is the first casualty of conflict. Therefore, getting into the same room with the adversary can clarify positions and create room for compromise, but only to a certain extent. It is in this hope that the United States (US) President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin met on 15 August 2025, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin, complete with a military flyover, a ride in the presidential limousine—“The Beast”—and formal ceremonies—all indicating a carefully staged diplomatic spectacle. Trump was accompanied by key aides, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and real-estate executive Steve Witkoff, who was acting as a special envoy, while Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other officials joined Putin.
The visit proved to be a symbolic moment for Putin. He was received with full honours on a US military base despite an active International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant issued against him. Moreover, the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was excluded from the Alaska talks, which played directly into Putin’s narrative that Russia and the US are the real decision-makers on European security. This also runs counter to Europe’s longstanding position that no talks about the Ukraine conflict should happen without Ukrainian involvement. European allies were not aligned with Trump’s approach and had openly distanced themselves from the summit. Given this backdrop, the summit was a significant diplomatic investment for Trump. Nonetheless, it produced no breakthrough whatsoever in actually ending the Russia-Ukraine war and ultimately failed. A bilateral lunch planned between Trump and Putin was also abruptly cancelled before the joint press conference, following which Trump quickly made his way back to Washington.
The summit was a significant diplomatic investment for Trump. Nonetheless, it produced no breakthrough whatsoever in actually ending the Russia-Ukraine war and ultimately failed.
Despite a string of failures, Trump remains a staunch proponent of Summit Diplomacy. He held a series of high-profile summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his first presidency—in Singapore (2018), Hanoi (2019), and at the Korean Demilitarised Zone or DMZ (2019). Although Trump was the first US President to do so, he failed to produce any tangible outcomes from these meetings. North Korea did not give up nuclear weapons or halt development, nor did the US lift sanctions. By 2020, diplomacy stalled completely, and North Korea resumed weapons testing. Similarly, Trump also met his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at the former’s Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago (2017) and later in Beijing (2017). Nevertheless, by 2018, the US-China trade war had escalated, tariffs soared, and relations soured.
In fact, Trump had a failed summit with Putin as well—in Helsinki (2018). Trump was supposed to negotiate the future of the New START treaty and nuclear weapons limits, the coordination on Syria after the US withdrawal, Crimea, as well as the Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. The summit was part of Trump’s broader attempt to reset US-Russia relations, which he often claimed were unfairly strained by the “Russia hoax” investigations at home. It was also a chance to prove he could achieve diplomatic breakthroughs where previous US Presidents had failed. In 2018, Trump and Putin met one-on-one for two hours, with only translators present. There is still no official US record of the conversation even today. Still, Trump failed to extract any concessions from Putin. Instead, he publicly sided with Putin’s denial of election interference over US intelligence findings.
The most successful breakthroughs are not leader-to-leader magic; they are the culmination of long, tedious diplomatic efforts, with the summit itself serving as the political seal of approval.
Trump is hardly unique in the annals of diplomatic history, especially in assuming he has extraordinary powers of persuasion. However, summitry of this nature has serious limitations. Diplomats often work behind the scenes to ensure a formal agreement is already in place before heads of state meet officially. This avoids the risk of disappointment and further deterioration in bilateral ties due to misplaced expectations. The most successful breakthroughs are not leader-to-leader magic; they are the culmination of long, tedious diplomatic efforts, with the summit itself serving as the political seal of approval. Some popular examples include—the Camp David Accords (1978), the Yalta Conference (1945), the Paris Peace Accords (1973), and the Helsinki Accords (1975). There are outliers, too, and cases where personal chemistry between leaders has strained structural factors. Instances that stand out are the Geneva Summit (1985) and Reykjavik Summit (1986), during which former US President Ronald Reagan and his Russian counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev, significantly reset the tone of US and erstwhile Soviet relations.
The Trump-Putin dynamic evidently lacks such chemistry. To further exacerbate the situation, there were virtually no US-Russia working groups to produce a draft framework on Ukraine, sanctions, or security guarantees. Unlike the multilateral groundwork of successful summits such as the Helsinki Accords (1975), European allies and Ukraine were not involved. Before the summit in Alaska, diplomats had not built options that leaders could agree on. One possible reason for this could be the inexperience of the Trump diplomatic team. For example, Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, is a real estate executive and has no traditional diplomatic background.
When that groundwork is missing, summits generate spectacle and headlines but little lasting substance.
The failed summit in Alaska shows that personal Diplomacy can be a force multiplier. However, it is not a substitute for real diplomatic bargaining. The historical breakthroughs mentioned earlier—Camp David, Nixon’s trip to China, Reagan’s meetings with Gorbachev—worked because teams of diplomats had already laid the scaffolding in the form of draft agreements, frameworks, and quiet back-channel understandings. By the time leaders walked into the room, most of the hard compromises were already mapped out, leaving only the tough political choices for heads of state to settle. When that groundwork is missing, summits generate spectacle and headlines but little lasting substance. Leaders cannot improvise peace. And when summits fail, not only is an opportunity lost, but it can also breed disappointment and worsen relations. At its worst, the summit in Alaska may have moved us further away from a settlement of the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
Dr. Ameya Pratap Singh is a DPhil (PhD) in Area Studies at the University of Oxford.
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Ameya Pratap Singh is a DPhil (PhD) student at the University of Oxford and has published on Indias international affairs economy and politics for The ...
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