At the Alaska summit, Trump must decide whether to resist Putin’s demands or repeat the fatal appeasement mistakes of 1938 — with Ukraine’s fate, and Taiwan’s future, hanging in the balance. The US leader will have to choose who he wants to be like and how his role will be described in history.
By: Vlad Green
In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich proclaiming “peace for our time” after conceding to Adolf Hitler’s demand to annex part of Czechoslovakia. Winston Churchill, however, warned that appeasement would not satisfy Hitler’s ambitions — it would only encourage them. Within a year, Europe was engulfed in war.
Today, as U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, the world faces an unsettling historical echo. Putin’s demands — Ukraine’s withdrawal from key territories and abandonment of NATO aspirations — follow the same dangerous logic as Munich: trade land for the promise of peace. History has shown us that such deals often pave the way for even greater conflict.
Trump has suggested that both sides might “swap” territory to end the war. To many, this sounds less like a peace plan and more like a potential capitulation. If he agrees to Putin’s conditions, it would not just be Ukraine’s sovereignty on the bargaining table — it would be the credibility of the United States and the security architecture of Europe.
European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are already voicing concerns. They fear the U.S. could dictate terms that favor Moscow, especially given Trump’s track record of praising Putin and downplaying Russian aggression. If this summit ends with territorial concessions, it will be viewed by many as a surrender in all but name.
The stakes stretch far beyond Eastern Europe. China is watching. Any territorial gains secured by Putin through pressure and force would send a clear signal to Beijing that similar tactics could work in Taiwan. The Alaska summit, therefore, is not just about Ukraine’s future — it is about the stability of the global order.
If Trump chooses the path of concessions, it will be his Chamberlain moment — a deal that offers the illusion of peace while inviting greater danger. But if he stands firm and defends the principle that borders cannot be changed by force, he may yet be remembered as a leader who, like Churchill, refused to yield to tyranny. The choice he makes in Alaska will echo far beyond the frozen north — it will reverberate through Kyiv, across Europe, and all the way to Taipei.