America’s Ukrainian dilemma
The shift in US policy towards Russia stems from the need for a new strategy as Beijing’s influence over Moscow grows. The US has not been able to fully adapt to the emerging international order because it no longer has the capacity to shape and impose it single-handedly.
Regarding the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, the gestures at the welcoming ceremony, the messages exchanged, and the leaders’ body language drew great attention. The debate on US foreign policy is increasingly being read through President Donald Trump’s spontaneous, daily statements and actions.
It is clear that Trump acts inconsistently and arbitrarily on many issues. Yet this is more a result of his political style. Behind it lies the set of political choices that fill in that style, and the discussion of method has begun to overshadow content. In this article, I will first argue that the change in US policy towards Russia seen at the Alaska summit does not stem from Trump’s personal choices but from the need for a new strategy. Second, I will examine how the shifts in global balances and the course of the war in Ukraine have placed the US in a dilemma between making concessions to Russia and being pushed closer to China.
WHAT RUSSIA MEANS TO THE WEST
Whether Russia is geographically, historically, socially, and culturally Western or Eastern has long been debated. But strategically, since the 1990s, the US and Europe have considered Russia part of the Western system and tried to keep it close since 1992.
Under Bill Clinton, the “Russia First” policy meant no reaction to what happened in Chechnya between 1994 and 2000, Russia’s inclusion in the G-7 to form the G-8, and giving it influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Even after Russia’s occupation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia in 2008, the US did not react strongly. Obama and Hillary Clinton tried to reset relations in 2011. But when Russia seized Crimea in 2014, its G-8 membership was suspended and only limited sanctions were applied. Russia, in turn, was troubled by NATO’s eastward enlargement.
REVERSE KISSINGER
When the war in Ukraine began, two approaches emerged within the West. One, shared by Joe Biden’s administration and its European allies, viewed Russia as a threat. The other stressed that excluding Russia would be costlier strategically.
Biden, the EU, and the UK upheld the first approach until Trump. Their aims were to wear Russia out militarily in Ukraine, weaken its economy, and damage its international image—in other words, to wage a proxy war on Ukrainian soil. Russia, surprisingly, managed to cope with all three and showed it could sustain the war. Apart from the UK, EU states now want an end to the war, which brings heavy strategic and financial costs. They see territorial questions as matters for Ukraine to decide.
Supporters of this approach also argued that Russia could not be contained through appeasement. Georgia and Crimea had been tolerated, but instead of stopping there, Russia invaded Ukraine. This view dominated in the US until Trump.
The other approach, present in the US, prioritised keeping Russia close to the West, even at the cost of concessions, to prevent it from falling under China’s sway. This continued the earlier policy towards Russia. Henry Kissinger, architect of the Cold War policy that separated China from the Soviets, always opposed isolating Russia. For this reason, today’s policy of trying to pull Russia away from China is sometimes called “reverse Kissinger”.
Thus Trump’s pivot in the Ukraine war after taking office—blaming Zelenski and, through him, the Biden administration—was not due to his unpredictability but to the strategic calculation that China’s growing influence over Russia was becoming more costly.
As the West pressed Russia:
1. Putin drew closer to China strategically.
2. Unable to sell oil and gas to the West, Russia sold to China (and India) at roughly 40% below market prices. Russia financed its war economy while China gained access to cheap energy critical in global competition.
3. Beyond energy, trade and economic ties deepened. The West lost the Russian market to China. Visa and Mastercard were replaced by UnionPay, 27% of trade shifted to Yuan-Ruble, China’s share of imported car sales in Russia jumped from 9% in 2021 to 60% in 2024. Chinese investment in Russia increased, particularly in energy, while the US tried to curb it through sanctions.
4. The Arctic grew more important for energy reserves and transport, making Russian cooperation more valuable.
At some point, this mounting engagement had to be slowed. That task fell to Trump.
WHAT CHANGED WITH TRUMP?
Trump quickly reversed course after taking office. He dispensed with diplomatic niceties, humiliating Zelenski at the White House, threatening to cut aid, demanding repayment of military support, and thus forcing concessions. His aim was to shock Ukraine into surrendering territory under Russian control (about 20% of its land, subject to talks) to relieve US pressure in global geopolitics.
Zelenski resisted, leaning on support from Europe’s Volunteer Coalition, founded in March 2025 by the UK and France. This stalled Trump’s plan. Having shown his hand too openly, Trump could not move Putin, and Zelenski would not yield. Trump then turned criticism towards Putin while keeping sanctions in place.
The West is now searching for a middle way. At the latest Alaska summit, the US appeared to propose that Ukraine not join NATO but instead receive security guarantees from the US and its allies, while conceding most of the Russian-controlled Donetsk and other areas to Russia. The negotiations will revolve around this territorial issue.
THE MEANING OF THE ALASKA SUMMIT
Seen in this context, Trump aimed at Alaska to:
1. Readmit Russia into the Western system and signal this visually to the world.
2. Tie Russia closer to the West by resolving the war.
3. Elevate his leadership (a Nobel Prize perhaps?) and demonstrate US superiority as a problem-solver.
Yet diplomatically, nearly everything was wrong. From the outset, Trump exposed his eagerness to end the war at any cost. His late warning that “the consequences will be bad if no deal is made” carried no weight.
Diplomatic norms were also ignored: leaders discussing a ceasefire directly at a summit is highly unusual. Weapons kept firing throughout the talks. On his way to Alaska, Putin oversaw an Iskander missile strike with 85 drones, while Ukraine struck Russian refineries with long-range drones. Normally, talks begin with at least a temporary ceasefire. That neither Trump nor his confidant Steve Witkoff, who had met Putin five times, managed to secure even this shows how weak the US position was. Most bizarrely, Trump and Putin met without Zelenski present.
In the past, US diplomacy had two major successes: Camp David in 1978, which brought Egypt and Israel together for “land for peace,” and Dayton in 1995, which ended the Bosnian War. In both cases, the US acted alone, sidelining Europe (and Russia), and succeeded after silencing the guns. By contrast, in the Ukraine crisis, the Trump administration is hailing the mere mention of a future Putin-Zelenski meeting as a diplomatic success.
THE WEST’S DIFFICULTY
China’s rise has made things much harder for the US and the West. Putin is leveraging Russia’s population and military to subdue Ukraine, but when pressured, he drifts into a strategic alliance with China—the US nightmare that would shift Eurasian balances.
During the talks, to avoid further pressure on Russia, the US imposed sanctions on India for importing Russian oil. The result was India strengthening diplomatic contacts with its rival China, even launching reciprocal flights as a signal to Washington. We are witnessing the pains of whether or not a new international order can be established. The US has not yet fully adapted, because it no longer has the ability to set and enforce such an order globally on its own. It remains the world’s strongest power and still exerts influence in some regions, but it is finding it harder to be the game-setter in global politics.
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled ABD’nin Ukrayna açmazı, published in BirGün newspaper on August 20, 2025.
