Half-Baked Alaska

The empty confectionary masquerading as American leadership in a time of global peril

I didn’t want to write about the recent events in Alaska as if they were events of any consequence. But now that we’ve reached the whatever part of the cycle, it’s time to reflect on how all this inconsequence is squandering our future and putting us in danger.

We live in a time of great peril. It’s a time when serious people are needed to guide the outcome of events.

We Americans don’t have that.

It was obvious to anyone who remains even a little unenchanted by the propagandistic wizardry of the current American administration that the Alaska meeting was a dud from the start. Even the governmental fabulism gravitron set the bar incredibly low: so enamored is the president of his largely-imaginary relationship with a barbarous, freedom-hating war criminal that he wanted a reason to invite him to American soil for lunch. Don’t expect breakthroughs. No one did. Mostly, everyone was just hoping to avoid an overt disaster.

I mean, ok, it’s summertime, everyone expects, dreads, and welcomes a county fair, all apace. And so carnival rides were erected; the tickets and tokens were used to play the rigged games and eat the deep-fried snacks and ride the rides round and round until everyone felt nauseous and little bit sticky.

The unclean feeling was enhanced by the desperation of the broader commentariat of any political stripe to glean some deeper meaning from this display in order to keep the public engaged in the show. But this was just throwing confetti into the vacuous maw of empty pageantry that rolls a red carpet across the bodies of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians.

An unbelievable amount of print space was dedicated to reminders about the purchase of Alaska from Russia, for example. But virtually none to the signaling that drew a posse of European leaders to Washington as Putin beat his way home — that Russia and America were speaking about Europe without Europe and without even being in or crossing Europe. We don’t need you, it said, even if we have to half-ass this thing at a derelict airstrip that doesn’t even celebrate the stunning beauty of the locale.

Ultimately, the problem isn’t that the Alaska meeting happened. The problem isn’t even that it yielded nothing. The problem is that it was the Baked Alaska of diplomacy.

Yes, Baked Alaska — that retched and improbable American dessert constructed from cake, ice cream, and meringue, frozen solid and then scorched in an oven or with a blowtorch or, in its flashiest presentation, drenched in booze and set alight to the oohs and aahs of spectators. You might order it once because you’ve never actually seen it before. But it isn’t really about the pleasure of the consumer so much as the pride of the presenter.

As with everything in American public life right now, the Alaska meeting was a froofy confection meant for show rather than taste, void of all nutrition and quickly forgotten once politely and awkwardly eaten. The point is just that you set it on fire and everyone clapped their little hands in delight.

And behold, peace has been “pursued” in Alaska.

*****

This show is the flash that squanders any the real chance of holding Russia to account for what it has done to global security.

Russia’s illegal war of aggression in Ukraine is reshaping global power and global security for the remainder of the century — the tip of the spear for the axis of disruption that shields and enables Iran, China, North Korea, and an expanding cast of characters who delight in the permanent swap-meet of bad guy stuff to oppress their own people and kill, torment, or occupy others. How the war is won and the peace defined in Ukraine is of desperate importance to America and Americans and to the American future we imagine we still have.

President Trump is not wrong to highlight the immense human suffering in Ukraine. But as with most things Russia, he has it all upside-down. In his orientation, Russia — a nation willing to use barbarism beyond the bounds of international law to achieve its the leader’s strategic objectives no matter what the cost in Russian lives or treasure — is the nation to be engaged and feted. Ukraine — the nation that has survived against all odds, innovated and broken through every limitation and expectation placed upon them, upholding the laws of war even as untold harm is brought against them and their civilian population — is the nation to be chastised.

This balance of perception did not fundamentally change during the meeting in Alaska or the subsequent meetings in Washington with President Zelenskyy and the supporting cadre of European leaders.

But Trump’s meeting with Putin guarantees the war will expand and continue. Anyone selling a different story here is attempting to impose intention on the Russians that simply does not exist.

*****

There are three main takeaways from these exchanges, all about the American leadership.

First, the administration is engaging Russia with people being easily manipulated by the Russians, which is evident in how they echo Russian narrative, present illogical Russian goals as sensible requirements, and scurry back and forth to keep themselves on the hook of Russian “engagement.” The Russians don’t respect this. Every time the president or someone close to him represents a Russian demand as a fair point, the Russians chuckle into their hands at their good fortune and call their counterparts unflattering names.

Much has been written about Special Envoy Witkoff, his activities in Moscow, his go-it-alone style, and the administration’s attempts to make it look like it’s all part of a plan. Maybe it is their plan. But it sure ends up looking a lot like Moscow’s plan. The Russians do not deserve goodwill. Their grievances have been indulged enough. That path leads only to escalation because Putin sees giving them the benefit of the doubt as the worst kind of weakness.

Second, the administration will not achieve anything if they don’t have an objective beyond “a deal” that is itself just another Baked Alaska. This mindset of “the deal”allows Moscow to set the terms and hold the hoops. There must be a clear vision for what an agreement between Ukraine and Russia should entail, and how that benefits the interest of America and its allies and partners who will have to enforce the peace.

Third, if the administration allows Russia to evade all accountability and reparations for its illegal war of aggression, then “ending” the war weakens the security architecture America relies on even further, rather than bolstering or revitalizing it in any way. This puts Americans in danger and makes the chance of expanded or new conflict greater.

This last point will always be a sticky one, because, as Steve Bannon likes to herald, Trump is a disruptor, a relentless breaker of rules and systems, not a builder of durable ideologies or institutions.

Disruptors are drawn to, admire, sometimes abhor each other, in modern times and in history, learning from each other even if there’s no real bond between them beyond a desire and envy to break and rule.

This is part of what draws Trump as a leader to guys like Putin and Kim and Xi. But what he always gets wrong in his evaluations is that everything he — Trump — does is instinctual. Something in him just understands how to rend the fabric of society and global order in ways he perceives he can benefit from. He is sometimes aided by deeper strategists and ideologues — but never do they constantly have his ear as he views himself to be above them. None of them, he understands, can replicate his primal ability. There will always be a moment when he trusts his own judgment over anyone else’s advice.

Trump may perceive these other men as brother disruptors — but each are more deliberate than instinctual, and they are the product of deep systems and strategies of disruption and replacement. There is directionality that is not self-centric. There is defined purpose. There are real systems of authoritarian central control that work — first and foremost upon the elite, not the masses.

The common desire to end what is may be shared, but the manifestations of that urge are entirely disparate.

*****

I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever felt so deeply uncomfortable as watching an American president clap for the impeding arrival of a murderous dictator, greeting him with genuine affection before mocking the American press on his behalf. Every aspect of this — ick — but in particular, the self-abasement by allowing such a man a position of primacy above you.

There’s just a lack of understanding of the game being played — the game into which the administration has conscripted itself. All this is evident in the Russian fighter jets violating American airspace near Alaska every few days since the meeting, the ongoing Russian bombardment of civilian targets in Ukraine (including the second largest attack launched since the start of the full scale invasion), and the Russian forces attempting to mass a new incursion into Ukrainian-held territory. The Russian tempo has not changed despite obvious frustration from President Trump at these salvos.

During the media spray in the Oval Office with President Zelenskyy, Trump griped about claims that Putin on American soil is “defeat for Trump.” He complained about the media while allowing the entire narrative of the public meeting to be driven by right wing media agitators in the spray.

The string pulled, Trump launched into the spin to tie all the narratives together. The missing ballots and corrupt DC and the stolen election and the war that shouldn’t have happened and whatever cultural bullsh*t that’s the flavor of the week. It’s all one story — in which Russia isn’t a bad guy. It’s all one package that Americans have been too willing to gulp down as some states occupy others to impose policy, while monuments police pull fare-jumpers off DC buses to bolster their arrest statistics, while the cost of everything for Americans is being driven through the roof — like any of this is coherent and sensible.

“This war would have never happened” with the “right results of the election” is a story Putin tries to tell about a lot of different places.

It’s never true. It’s always just about Putin.

*****

Equally unnerving was the sense that Trump was coordinating action with Putin and reporting to him, which was on full display when the European leaders joined President Zelenskyy at the White House.

The Europeans executed a carefully orchestrated act of flattery and appeal to Trump, each building on the one prior and meant to move Trump another half step toward a policy that would be better for America and the alliance. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything like it.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte complimented Trump on his outreach to Putin. President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen mirrored Trump’s own rhetoric about big deals and “stopping the killing.” Trump has favorable views of these leaders at the moment after another bullying NATO Summit and a trade deal with the EU, and would have expected positive comments from them. Easing in.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz then pivoted back to the point that there can be no negotiations without a ceasefire — a bit of cold water on the discussion, as the Trump administration knows a ceasefire is unlikely and thus keeps saying you can end a war without one. When the (outdated) expectation is typically that the Germans are most eager to end the war, it was important to give Merz this line that how we get to the end, and confidence-building in the meantime, really matters.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has good relations with Trump and others in his circle, emphasized that to reach peace and guarantee justice, the allies must be united. An important message to come from someone viewed as a political outlier in the group.

French President Emmanuel Macron, maintaining his mantle of being out front on military issues, said a “robust and long-standing peace” would require a credible Ukraine army “for years and decades to come,” and that Europe would support the necessary security guarantees for Ukraine and its own security. This put an essential message — that Russian demands for Ukrainian disarmament are not up for negotiation— next to a message Trump wants to hear — European security won’t have to be his problem IF…

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer added some words about security guarantees.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb echoed the man-love Trump had thrown in his direction at the top of the meeting, saying something about how more progress had been made in last few weeks than last few years. This was barfy but necessary flattery — and it greased his pivot into the most significant statement of the group:

Why is the President of Finland here? I think the reason is that we might come from a small country, but we have a long border with Russia — over 800 miles — and we of course have our own historical experience with Russia from World War II — the Winter War and the War of Continuation. And if I look at the silver lining of where we stand right now, we found a solution in 1944, and I'm sure that we'll be able to find a solution in 2025 to end Russia's war of aggression.

The Winter War may be a topic most Americans know nothing about, but it still strikes fear into the heart of Russian soldiers and informs Finland’s entire mobilization strategy. This is not a casual mention. Russia can be defeated. Russia should be defeated. There are things that can be done to ensure this is the case. Likewise, calling Russia’s wars of aggression what they are is critical. Russia is the aggressor, the invader, and Ukrainian defending itself. Flattening out that reality does no one any good when it comes to ending a war.

In only a few minutes, the eight European leaders delivered a masterpiece of diplomacy that made the tarmac glad-handing in Alaska seem shoddy and ill-fit. I can’t even imagine the time that must have been spent constructing it and assigning parts. There was a moment when you allowed yourself to hope —

And then Trump spoke again for the absent Putin. The balloon bursts.

*****

Putin’s war is spun from lies, lies repeated for so long they have a mythic air. Trump — and now his envoy, and various right wing propagandists before him — breathes in and parrots these myths, which precludes the possibility of ending the war.

Why? Because they attribute to Russia sentiments they do not have, and ignore motivations that they have clearly articulated through word and deed.

Russia steals Ukrainian children, tortures civilians, starves and maims prisoners of war, and encourages its soldiers to commit atrocities on their enemies because they do not view Ukrainians as “real.” To dismiss this as some footnote instead of the headline is to enable more atrocity by dusting over what has occurred — which is pretty much the story of the last century of Moscow’s relations with its neighbors.

Continuing down this path is a choice — expecting it to have a sharp change of direction is folly.

President Trump has strange ideas about what it is to be a soldier serving a democratic nation and pledged to uphold the constitution — and these ideas are no doubt reinforced by having an unqualified defense secretary who has championed the pardoning of American war criminals who forgot who they were, conflated cruelty with justice, and were convicted by their own peers for their crimes.

The Trump administration has largely abandoned America’s great work, born from Nuremberg and Tokyo, of documenting and prosecuting war crimes to build a more just world — a world better able to navigate into the future on the understandings of the lustrated past. Similarly, they have abandoned America’s work supporting the democratic aspirations of other nations. If you think like this, it seems a small enough thing to walk away from the idea of holding Moscow accountable for its 150,000+ modern war crimes. Trump certainly never mused that be would be the one to put Vladimir Putin on trial.

But it is not a small thing.

It is the deepest and most fundamental thing. Moscow evades accountability and it obfuscates and repeats its history. Western nations that have never experienced Russian occupation — and don’t understand its inherent brutality — minimize and dismiss this history, and this in turn misguides contemporary decision-making. Just like erasing January 6 as a great crime against Americans has weakened America by making heroes of its traitors, failing to bring accountability to the Russians allows them to repeat their crimes.

Witkoff, star-struck by the golden glove treatment from the band of leading propagandists that have been his hosts in Russia, presents issues from Moscow as if they make sense. A closer read shows he is just representing the same tired Russian complaints as if they are new. Russia wants the right to retain cultural supremacy over Ukrainianness. Russia absolutely refuses to pay reparations for its illegal war of aggression. This is posited as a dispute over frozen assets — but what Moscow wants, as always, is to ensure there is no accountability for any of its crimes, and it wants Witkoff to carry this bag on their behalf as a “negotiation with Ukraine.” Helping Moscow evade accountability also puts the US at odds with most of our European allies, who have already committed to seeing this process move ahead.

Putting the bloody Russians on trial is the best way for all of us to reinvigorate our values and gain momentum in this century. There’s a nicer way to say that and 45 supporting explanatory points — but maybe just saying it that way is how we need to do it.

President Trump looks for any opportunity to complain that he wants the media to be fair.

Well what’s fair is — President Trump can end the war. Or the war can expand and continue. When Trump is too focused on Putin as a friend, he isn’t ending the war. There is no incentive that will get Putin to stop doing the thing he most wants — because it is the thing he most wants and believes he needs to survive. There is no carrot to offer. Only pain — economic, military, and diplomatic pain. Only the enforcement of boundaries and accountability for sins will ever stop Moscow.

We can learn that in the actions of Ukraine and the mindset of Finland. After all, America, too, has a long border with Russia.

*****

As the weeks slide by with no results, Trump’s interest has predictably waned.

“Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.” We need to have a ceasefire to make peace. Who needs a ceasefire to make peace? If Putin doesn’t agree we’ll sanction him. Maybe we’ll “do sanctions” on Russia. Maybe “economic war.” Maybe the US will support European security guarantees for Ukraine. There won’t be territorial concessions from Ukraine. Ukraine will have to concede territory. Europe is unrealistic. Ukraine must decide. You guys should decide. Ask me in two weeks.

The President, his people say, just “wants it over” — not for any ideological reason other than his own self-narrative about being a peacemaker worthy of international recognition. The problem with this is, as any dealmaker knows, your lack of perceived outcome gives the opponent the upper hand.

Trump wants to be lauded as a diplomat while applying the math of dictators — which is why there is never a solution.

But you can’t explain this to anyone in Washington, which is deep in the midst of agonizingly re-narrativizing “realism” as a “new” idea that can make a coherent orientation out of this soup. It all stands for nothing, it wants to be great — but the isolationism and laziness are dual poisons to that aspiration. It wants to use force, but has given up all our leverage. It wants to be strong-man, but writes policies to weaken the nation now and into the future, and diverts security resources to propaganda security operations.

Truly only Washington and its denizens could look at this and see a through line. The rest of the world has little problem seeing what is happening without requiring any new terminology at all.

When faced with bloody-minded dictators, hope is nice, but actually mustering the will and resources to stop them is essential.

Yes, stopping Russia will take time. But there will be time because Putin doesn’t have the resources to fight us, and has no intention of stopping until he is stopped. I get that America doesn’t want this to be an American problem. But, well, it is.

Overall there is this divergence, where we Americans don’t see how far out of alignment we are with other wealthy, democratic nations because our cultural, media, and political leaders have realized they do better when we are isolated in an information environment entirely our own. The American island, on the map and in our minds.

We’ve coasted a long time on goodwill and assumptions. We bought that goodwill partly through winning the war against the Nazis — but mostly by winning the peace after the defeat of the Nazis. Our security guarantee of that peace and prosperity is why our closest cousins are too polite to point out that the baseline standard of what Americans believe about health care and climate science and the duties of democratic government and a dozen other things is — to be polite — unique. But we brought the guns, and let others lead those other fights. Every partnership has different strengths.

But then we let the crazy eating America bleed back out into the world while simultaneously deciding we weren’t interested in this job of setting the terms of global security. We’ve singlehandedly exposed all our weaknesses while taking away the thing that protected us from those who would exploit them. And it’s frickin’ madness — a flaming ball of sugar, every damn day, with all the little hands clapping.

There are many things that are or were unique to America that did make us great. But it’s not and if:then statement. There are equally as many things unique to America now that are making us weaker, more insecure, and destined for manipulation and domination by nations that will not give one-eighth of a sh*t about what happens to any of us.

In the same way Trump can spin all the stories together into one grand narrative of grievance, America is allowing its strengths — the things that protect all of us Americans in reality, not fairy tales — to be subsumed by its ravenous weaknesses. The surest litmus test I have of our clarity, or lack thereof, of this necessary separation and survival, remains how we imagine the task to save Ukraine, and the American toolbox we bring to bear in this task.

I don’t know why we want to keep hearing this story of our weakness being greater than our strength. It’s as much a myth as the world Putin describes as his own. There is no world where a vibrant, free America prospers after the subsumption of a vibrant, free Ukraine. None.

Anyone telling you this century is going to be easy if only we can take a thing from someone else is lying to you. Stop ooohing and aahing the flames, and put them out. Stop clapping for the show, and pick up a tool, and get to work.

—MM