B.M. Scott
14 August 2025
Trump’s Diplomatic Theatre at the Alaskan Summit: Appearance, Power, and Political Continuity
The Path to the Alaskan Summit
As the world marked four years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24th of 2022, the conflict persisted as both an urgent geopolitical challenge and a test of Western solidarity. Amid the growing exhaustion of war—felt acutely in the United States and across Europe—and in the shadow of increasingly insistent calls for a diplomatic settlement, President Donald Trump has seized this initiative in the summer of 2025. Where earlier responses from Western capitals had too often appeared reactive and divided, Trump - newly returned to the White House - sought to place himself unequivocally at the center of the unfolding peace process, adopting the posture of primus inter pares—“first among equals”—amid world leaders. Adopting the trademarks of his distinctive approach to diplomacy, he convened a high-profile virtual meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and leading European heads of government, on the eve of a planned face‑to‑face encounter with Vladimir Putin in Alaska. * This summit seeks to establish the terms of engagement - notably, Western allies agreed upon five foundational principles. Ukraine was guaranteed a seat at all negotiations concerning its territorial future, and Moscow is presented with a clear choice—viz., accede to substantive compromise or face an enduring regime of economic and political pressure. Trump’s orchestration of this moment marked a departure from the disjointed and often chaotic diplomatic improvisations that characterized the early years of the war, while affirming his preference for spectacle and personal control.
* The Alaska Summit between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to take place on Friday, 15 August 2025, at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. Proceedings are due to commence at 11:30 a.m. local time and will open with a private meeting between the two heads of state. This will be followed by extended discussions involving their respective delegations and will conclude with a joint press conference.
Donald Trump & The Anatomy of Diplomacy
Trump’s conduct in this episode is neither accidental nor entirely novel, but reveals a characteristic fusion of performance and calculation. His preference for direct, high‑profile meetings—culminating in the scheduled encounter with Putin in Alaska—reflects a familiar aversion to prolonged institutional negotiation in favor of highly mediated moments of personal engagement. These summits are as much about the careful staging of political theatre as about the pursuit of tangible outcomes—a modern instance of panem et circenses (“bread and circuses”), in which spectacle is marshalled to captivate both the domesticated public and the media-observant world. Their significance is as readily apparent in their symbolism as in their substance. By positioning himself visibly at the center of significant world events, Trump situates both the presidency - and his own persona - as the indispensable locus of decision‑making and global facilitation. Such theatre is accompanied by strategic ambiguity. His warning of “very severe consequences” for Russia, left deliberately unspecified, is emblematic of a method that projects strength and withholds detail—unsettling adversaries, but preserving the freedom to improvise. This calculated vagueness, familiar from his earlier presidency, unsettles both rivals and allies, but it expands his room for maneuver - ensuring that the boundaries of his intent remain opaque.
Notably, there is a renewed urgency on security guarantees and an elevated role for Ukrainian agency—stances that, not long ago, sat uneasily alongside Trump’s more skeptical views of NATO and European entanglements. The altered tone reflects political adaptation: maintaining European confidence and treating Ukrainian sovereignty as non‑negotiable have become essential to any credible settlement, both for substantive and reputational purposes. Trump’s present attentiveness to allied opinion suggests a pragmatism born of experience, pressure, and advisement. Where once he seemed prepared to defy - or even discard - Western consensus, he now reiterates sanctions policy and integrates European (and Ukrainian) perspectives into the choreography of negotiations. This show of unity is intended as reassurance to partners and as a signal to Moscow that Western divisions are not to be mined for leverage. Trump’s current insistence on robust security guarantees and the inviolability of Ukrainian agency marks not simply a pragmatic evolution in approach, but an implicit recognition of the historical wounds that inform Ukrainian fears. Memories of the Holodomor—Stalin’s state-induced famine in the 1930s, which Ukrainians widely regard as an act of genocidal oppression—as well as decades of Soviet domination, have imbued Ukrainian political life with a deep wariness of external guarantees that do not empower national self-determination. For Kyiv and its supporters, any whiff of compromise detached from Ukrainian consent risks resurrecting the patterns of subjugation that have scarred the country’s collective memory.
Even so, the emphasis on alliance and alignment is underwritten by Trump's habitual flexibility. While his rhetoric towards Moscow is uncompromising, he avoids explicit red lines. By framing the Alaskan summit as a “listening exercise,” Trump preserves the capacity to recalibrate, adapt, and claim political advantage regardless of the objective outcome. Beneath all of this lies a pronounced concern with legacy. The structure of the Alaskan summit initiative—a gathering of leaders on American soil, with Trump at its pinnacle—is intended not solely to advance diplomatic aims but to burnish the image of a president capable of bending significant historical currents. Securing an armistice, or even a tenuous political settlement, in so entrenched a conflict would serve as both an emblem of political mastery and a monument to personal ambition.
Reflection: Machiavelli and Clausewitz in Administrative Diplomacy
The threads of spectacle, ambiguity, and strategic adaptation that characterize Trump’s diplomacy evoke two of political theory’s most enduring voices from both Renaissance and Enlightenment thought - namely., Nicco Machiavelli and Carl Von Clausewitz. From a Machiavellian standpoint, Trump’s use of perception as an instrument of statecraft is striking. In The Prince, Machiavelli cautions that a ruler “must appear to be all mercy, all faith, all honesty, all humanity, all religion, and yet be ready, if need be, to become the exact opposite" - si vis pacem, para bellum (“if you want peace, prepare for war”). Trump’s posture adheres closely to this dictum - viz., to allies he presents the façade of solidity and principled resolve, while his underlying strategy remains fluid and prepared to pivot in substance if advantage dictates. Likewise, Machiavelli’s observation that “the vulgar are always taken in by appearances, and the world is composed solely of the vulgar” finds contemporary expression in Trump’s stage‑managed summits and heavily publicized warnings—designed as much to dominate media narratives as to alter diplomatic realities. Clausewitz’s influence is discernible in Trump’s treatment of negotiation - as he stated, “War is the continuation of politics by other means”; adding that “the political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose.” Trump appears to treat diplomacy itself as an extension of the contest of wills—another front on which pressure, alliance, and uncertainty can be leveraged toward political ends. For Clausewitz, the ultimate aim is “to disarm the enemy,” not solely in military terms but in the erosion of their capacity to resist politically. Trump’s cautious ambiguities, carefully choreographed position of unity, and the implicit threats embedded in the Alaskan summit all serve to weaken Moscow’s negotiating position before substantive proposals are even tabled for discussion.
Thus, in the Alaskan Summit initiative, the Machiavellian and Clausewitzian strands are not merely present but inextricably bound. The first furnishes the apparatus of appearance, calculated deception, and controlled unpredictability—an exercise in realpolitik, wherein quid pro quo functions as the prevailing currency of inter‑state exchange. The second situates diplomacy within a protracted campaign, in which every maneuver—military, economic, or rhetorical—is subordinated to an overarching political design. Together, they form a coherent - if indeed disquieting - doctrine. This indoctrination shapes political reality through the theatre of performance, wields uncertainty as an instrument of leverage, and refuses to sever the spectacle of negotiation from the enduring contest of power. In this fusion lies the essential character of Trump’s statecraft—strategic, performative, and relentlessly attuned to the art of bending conflict toward advantage. Recognizing this interaction is vital because it reveals not only the logic underpinning the political initiative, but also the methods by which power is exercised, contested, and ultimately normalized within the contemporary geopolitical climate.
Invitation for Reflection
The foregoing analysis has approached the Alaska Summit not merely as a diplomatic event, but as a performance of power in which spectacle, ambiguity, and strategic calculation interact. In keeping with the reflective spirit of these blog articles, the following questions are offered not as a conclusion but as an opening for dialogue — encouraging consideration of the summit’s implications within broader traditions of statecraft, philosophy, and international negotiation. As with all entries, readers are invited to take them up as one would review questions at the end of a chapter review lesson—working through them intellectually, and in doing so, cultivating an engagement unshaped by prescription and open to discovery. Feel free to share your notes in the comments:
- In what respects did Trump’s orchestration of the upcoming Alaskan Summit fulfil Machiavelli’s dictum that a ruler must “appear” to possess certain virtues while being prepared to act in the opposite fashion? How might such calculated appearances serve—or ultimately undermine—the cohesion of alliances?
- Clausewitz conceived war as “the continuation of politics by other means.” How does the Alaska Summit illustrate the inverse—that diplomacy may function as the continuation of conflict by other means—and where does this dynamic blur the boundary between negotiation and coercion?
- How do legacies of oppression—such as the Holodomor and decades of Soviet domination—shape Ukraine’s approach to contemporary negotiations? In what ways should historical trauma influence the diplomatic responsibilities of those who act as mediators?
- To what extent can deliberate imprecision and heavily stage‑managed symbolism enhance a state’s diplomatic leverage? At what point does such ambiguity risk eroding credibility with both adversaries and allies?
- Can highly publicized summits function as catalysts for genuine political change, or do they risk substituting performance for progress? Drawing on historical precedent, what criteria distinguish theatre that serves diplomacy from theatre that obscures it?
- In what ways do local and state politicians deploy spectacle, managed appearances, or strategic ambiguity in their engagement with constituents? Can studied performance in public forums (from town councils to state legislatures) meaningfully shape perceptions and outcomes, and how might this compare with practices observed on the global stage?
- How do large corporations influence the politics of everyday life in visible and invisible ways—through lobbying, advertising, or the design of public spaces and institutions? To what extent do these interventions echo the logics of panem et circenses, providing spectacle, convenience, or distraction to win public acquiescence?
Recommended Reading
Applebaum, Anne. Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine. Doubleday, 2017.
Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. Translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton
University Press, 1976.
Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. Translated by Peter Bondanella, Oxford
University Press, 2008.
Malis, Matt, and Matthew D. Smith. “Quid Pro Quo Diplomacy.” Quarterly Journal of
Political Science, vol. 16, no. 2, 2021, pp. 317–357.
Wilentz, Sean. Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850.
Oxford University Press, 1984.
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