Diplomacy with Russia is not capitulation, and talking to Vladimir Putin is not a reward for good behavior.

The recent hardening of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s position on Ukraine has led some critics to claim that the Trump meeting in Anchorage was a waste of time. A few have gone further and alleged that Trump effectively capitulated to Putin in the meeting, drawing the obligatory comparisons to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler at Munich in 1938.

This is bad history and poor analysis. In fact, Trump’s diplomacy with Putin was a potentially game-altering move that could pay significant strategic dividends down the road. By focusing on immediate outcomes for Ukraine, critics are missing both the underlying logic of Trump’s moves and their potential benefits for US national interests and international stability. 

First, talking to Russia helps alleviate the number one danger facing America, which is the possibility of a war on multiple fronts beyond our immediate ability to win. The reason we are in this predicament is that the United States and Europe didn’t use the last four years to surge defense production while the Russians (and Chinese) did. 

The Pentagon estimates that it will take between three and eighteen years to replenish the key munitions that have been sent to Ukraine. The quickest way to strengthen deterrence in East Asia is to engineer a denouement in Eastern Europe. Even if that doesn’t transpire quickly, the fact that the United States is spearheading a peace process and dragooning parties to the table means the Chinese have to assume we will have greater bandwidth in Asia than we did previously.

Second, Anchorage has to be viewed in the context of Trump’s overall strategy, which is constraining Putin’s geopolitical field of maneuver. Before the two men even sat down at Anchorage, Trump’s team had used strategic diplomacy to persuade the Arabs to keep global oil supplies up (thereby depressing Russian state revenues), persuade the Europeans to launch the biggest defense spending hike in modern history (from a goal of 2 percent to a goal of 5 percent), and persuade Armenia and Azerbaijan to make peace (eroding Russia’s influence in its own backyard). 

These moves, together with Trump’s closing of Biden-era loopholes on energy-related banking sanctions and efforts to stipulate a reduction in Beijing’s support for Russia as part of any future US-China trade deal, mean that the United States is turning the screws with one hand while nudging Russia toward the peace table with the other. This is exactly the opposite of how Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden approached Russia, both of whom made upfront concessions to smooth engagement with Putin. Biden greenlit Nord Stream 2 and froze aid to Ukraine in 2021. Obama cancelled missile defense programs in Poland and the Czech Republic, failed to hold Putin accountable for the Georgian War, and supported Russian membership in the World Trade Organization. 

Trump’s more realist approach makes Anchorage far likelier to bear eventual fruit than Biden’s meeting with Putin at Geneva in 2021 or Obama’s meeting with Putin at his country estate outside Moscow in 2009.

Third, Trump’s diplomacy is forcing all parties in the Ukraine quagmire to reexamine their hand of cards and rethink previously held positions. Trump’s ticking clock forced Putin out of his preferred mode of stonewalling, forcing him to either ignore the United States and face consequences or engage and risk running afoul of the old adage that “he who speaks first in negotiations loses.” 

Trump’s sterner approach with Ukraine flushed that country out of its preferred mode of refusing to talk while assuming an open-ended line of supply from the West, forcing its leaders to seriously contemplate what they are willing to sacrifice on the altar of necessity. Trump’s stiff demands to Europe have flushed NATO’s leaders out of their comfort zone of talking big while relying on the United States to bail them out of every predicament. 

All of this may or may not produce near-term results for Ukraine. In all likelihood, Putin will continue attacking until the fall rainy season arrives (the vast majority of Russian territorial gains in the war last year came between early May and early October). It took two years of negotiations to bring the Korean War to an end—and even then, a general political settlement did not emerge. The end of that conflict provides us with the best glimpse of what an eventual deal on Ukraine will likely look like: an armistice rather than a ceasefire, accompanied by prisoner exchanges, humanitarian corridors, and a de facto partition not recognized by all parties.

Whatever happens, Trump’s methods represent an improvement over the previous US approach, which amounted to tying the entirety of US national security to one sinking object and hoping that something would change for the better without articulating a clear objective or altering US diplomacy, allied capabilities, US military posture, or defense-industrial capacity. By engaging in strategic diplomacy, not only with Putin but also with other players on the gameboard, Trump has altered the dynamic in ways that will work to the US’ advantage over time, irrespective of what form the peace eventually takes, if it happens at all.

All of this matters for reasons that extend beyond Ukraine. For too long, the US foreign policy establishment has rolled out the tired old Munich analogy any time a US president talks to an adversary. But diplomacy is not surrender, and talking is not a reward for good behavior. The point of diplomacy in strategy is not to transform an opponent from within but to shape his incentives in ways that make him more likely to do what you want for reasons of his own interest. That’s what Trump is attempting to do with Putin, and there’s a good chance he will succeed.