No Swift Solutions to Current Conflicts
On February 28, 2025, the world witnessed an unprecedented public confrontation between President Trump and President Zelensky at the Oval Office, where the former and Vice President Vance castigated their guest for not being grateful for US support in Ukraine’s war with Russia. Three days later, President Trump temporarily suspended the delivery of all US military aid to Ukraine. Eventually, the incident was somehow put behind and arms shipments resumed.
Since then, the question of “suspension of arms deliveries” has remained on the agenda, the latest episode being the pausing, on July 2, of some weapons shipments to Ukraine, including air defense missiles, over concerns about US stockpile. Following the pause, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said: “This decision was made to put America’s interests first following a DOD review of our nation’s military support and assistance to other countries across the globe.”
The next day, on July 3, 2025, Presidents Trump and Putin had another phone call. Later, Mr. Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov told the media that Mr. Trump once again raised the issue of ending the hostilities as soon as possible.[i] In turn, Vladimir Putin said that while it continues the search for a political solution to the conflict, Russia would also strive to achieve its goals, namely the elimination of the well-known root causes that led to the current state of affairs.
Mr. Ushakov also said, “Overall, I would like to point out that the conversation between the two presidents has, as always, shown that they are on the same page. It was candid, business-minded, and concrete. The two presidents will naturally continue communicating and will have another conversation soon.”
A few days later, it was reported that President Trump was caught off guard by the Pentagon’s abrupt move to pause Ukraine weapons deliveries, that Secretary of Defense Hegseth had authorized the pause without informing the White House. Thus, on July 7, the Pentagon said that at President Trump’s direction, additional defensive weapons were being sent to Ukraine to ensure the Ukrainians can defend themselves.
Two days later, Mr. Trump said that he was “not happy” with the Russian President and complained that reaching a ceasefire has been tougher than expected, adding, “He’s very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
Whether the recent arms pause was an incentive knowingly offered to Moscow for a ceasefire or indeed an independent decision by Secretary Hegseth remains a question. What is clear is that the war is likely to continue in the foreseeable future, and Mr. Putin is unlikely to nominate his American counterpart for the Nobel Peace Prize like Mr. Netanyahu.
In a recent New York Times interview titled, “The Head of NATO Thinks President Trump ‘Deserves All the Praise” Secretary General Rutte, defined by the interviewer Lulu Garcia-Navarro as “the man who has been tasked with keeping Trump happy” said:
“There’s a second reason that has to do with the Indo-Pacific. There’s an increasing realization, and let’s not be naïve about this: If Xi Jinping would attack Taiwan, he would first make sure that he makes a call to his very junior partner in all of this, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, residing in Moscow, and telling him, “Hey, I’m going to do this, and I need you to keep them busy in Europe by attacking NATO territory.” That is most likely the way this will progress. And to deter them, we need to do two things. One is that NATO, collectively, being so strong that the Russians will never do this. And second, working together with the Indo-Pacific — something President Trump is very much promoting. Because we have this close interconnectedness, working together on defense industry, innovation between NATO and the Indo-Pacific.”[ii]
His appalling language firstly reveals that keeping Mr. Trump is mission impossible, and others’ praise for him must have no limits. And secondly, it leads one to question where NATO officially stands on the Indo-Pacific confrontations.
Last week, Prime Minister Netanyahu was again at the White House, soon after the Twelve-Day War with Iran. President Trump has recently confirmed that US-Iran nuclear talks are back on the schedule, with a meeting set to take place in Oslo soon. But the future remains more than uncertain.
During Mr. Netanyahu’s earlier visit to Washington in February, Mr. Trump had made a surprise announcement to permanently relocate two million Palestinians from Gaza to nearby countries so the US could develop the Strip into “the Riviera of the Middle East”. This time, while Mr. Netanyahu was in Washington, Israeli Defense Minister Katz told journalists that he wanted to establish a “humanitarian city” on the ruins of the city of Rafah to initially house about 600,000 Palestinians – and eventually the whole 2.1 million population. Perhaps now the plan is no longer a riviera, but of a city of high-rise buildings like New York.
In brief, both President Putin and Prime Minister Netanyahu are after total victory, leaving Mr. Trump with tough and contradictory choices.
As conflicts continue, democracy’s decline has also become a challenge.
In an interview with historian Heather Cox Richardson on June 17, President Obama said:
“I mean, if you follow regularly what is said by those who are in charge of the federal government right now, there is a weak commitment to what we understood, not just my generation, at least since World War II, our understanding of how a liberal democracy is supposed to work. When I say liberal, I don’t mean left. I mean liberal in the sense of believing in rule of law and independent judiciary and freedom of the press and freedom of assembly, protest, compromise, and pluralism…
“Democracy is not self-executing. It requires people, judges, people in the Justice Department, and people throughout the government who take an oath to uphold the Constitution. It requires them to take that oath seriously. — (Applause.) — When that isn’t happening, we start drifting into something that is not consistent with American democracy. It is consistent with autocracies.
“It’s consistent with Hungary under Orban. It’s consistent with places that hold elections but do not otherwise observe what we think of as a fair system in which everybody’s voice matters and people have a seat at the table, and there are checks and balances, and nobody’s above the law. We’re not there yet completely, but I think that we are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like that. (Applause.) We need people both outside government and inside of government saying, “let’s not go over that cliff, because it’s hard to recover.”
As for Türkiye, these are happy times. Our democracy continues to flourish, winning global admiration and setting an example for the Middle East to follow. Our economic performance is the envy of the world. In the face of multiple regional and global challenges, we as a nation are more united than ever. For friend and foe, Ankara’s friendship has become an asset. Thus, our diplomatic stocks are soaring on the international market.
I am not asleep in a meadow and dreaming like Alice, but my imagination must have taken me to “Ali’s Wonderland”.
[i] http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/77354
[ii] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/magazine/mark-rutte-interview.html