Two of Russia’s most prominent strategic analysts took to the pages of RT yesterday to provide an overview of what is at issue for the Aug. 15 Alaska summit of Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Dmitry Suslov (Valdai Club expert and member of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy) and Fyodor Lukyanov (also of the Valdai Club and editor in chief of Russia in Global Affairs) concurred that far more than territorial issues or even the Ukraine war is at stake, but rather that a fundamental shift in the global security order is afoot. Lukyanov’s article was headlined “A New Security Order Is On the Table in Alaska: Putin-Trump meeting recalls the stakes of German reunification.”
Lukyanov stressed that the Alaska summit could be a milestone “for the principles on which a broader settlement between the world’s leading powers might be reached.… What is troubling is that the public debate remains focused on territorial carve-ups—who gets what, and what is given in exchange. This misses the core issue. The acute phase of the Ukraine crisis was not triggered by a hunger for territorial expansion. It began when Moscow challenged the security order that emerged after the Cold War—an order built on the open-ended enlargement of NATO as the supposed guarantor of European stability.”
Lukyanov also emphasized that the Global Majority, led by the BRICS, were taking significant steps themselves towards a changed paradigm. “Donald Trump’s recent attempt to pressure the largest states of the so-called ‘global majority’—China, India, Brazil, and South Africa—to fall in line with Washington’s instructions,” did not produce the intended results. “The attempt has failed to produce the outcome the White House wanted.… But the bluntness of the American push this time forced them to stiffen their positions.” Lukyanov concluded: “The frequency of Putin’s meetings with BRICS leaders shows that Moscow understands this reality. Whether Washington does remains to be seen.”
