In the wake of Donald Trump’s decision to instigate his Ukraine “peace plan”, it’s great to hear from US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, that “everything is on the table”. Also: would President Putin like to keep the table? I get the feeling that Hegseth would be very willing to throw in the table, which is likely to be hewn by Saudi craftsmen. That’s not a bone-saw euphemism: Trump says the putative peace talks could be hosted by the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. For now, the world had to settle for Hegseth popping into a Nato defence ministers meeting in Brussels to announce: “Make no mistake, President Trump will not allow anyone to turn Uncle Sam into Uncle Sucker.” So this week offered an opportunity to watch Eisenhower quotes get Disneyfied by a defence secretary with a Crusades tattoo. Good times!
Anyway: the peace plan. I expect this lesson is contained in Trump’s seminal business text, The Art of the Deal, but one fairly reliable principle of negotiation is that if you say a number first, you end up negotiating down from it. If you get the other side to say a number first, you can negotiate up from that. For whatever reason, and supposedly before formal negotiations have even begun, Hegseth has already effectively surrendered most or all of the land taken by Russia since 2014, the possibility of Ukraine joining Nato, and the threat of any future European security being guaranteed by the US. I image Vladimir Putin will simply accept the terms by pointing at him and saying, “You’re hired!”
