Koos Malan: Trump, Putin and better world politics?
Key topics:
- Trump cuts military aid, seeks peace aligning with Russia's goals.
- Russia views itself as an empire with security fears from the West.
- Realpolitik, not ideology, now drives US-Russia relations.
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By Koos Malan*
As elsewhere, discussions in South Africa about the current war in Ukraine and Russia are often heated. The temperature has risen further in recent weeks, triggered mainly by the policy reversal on this issue by the new US administration under President Donald Trump.
The Trump administration is currently trying to establish a new working relationship with Russia under President Putin. It is now essentially neutral on the war, announced on March 4 cuts to American military aid to Ukraine, and is pursuing a peace agreement that, according to current indications, will meet the essence of Russia's war aims.
According to the expected agreement, Russia is likely to retain several territories in Ukraine that it has occupied since the start of its "special military operation" starting February 24, 2022. The territories will either be incorporated into Russia or become autonomous republics – essentially Russian protectorates. Ukraine will be neutralised and will not – ever – become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Ukraine will also have to do without military "security guarantees" from the US thereafter. (It could possibly get some substitute, albeit much weaker, "guarantees" from Europe.)
In the South African context, it is actually incorrect to speak of a 'debate on' this issue in mainstream media and corporate circles, because it is largely a one-way street. Russia and Putin are vehemently denounced. Putin is simply diabolical. He embodies the resurrection of Adolf Hitler and is, therefore, far right, a fascist, racist and similar evils, or simply irrational, inherently war-like or "mad". Russia is the aggressor who "barbarically" invaded Ukraine without cause. Contrary to the so-called "rules-based international order" as determined by international law, the roaring Russian bear is trampling on the "national sovereignty" and "territorial integrity" of another state – the completely innocent Ukraine under the leadership of the heroic President Volodymyr Zelensky. Russia's operation expresses its unbridled expansionist drive, according to which Ukraine is just the first victim, after which the insatiable bear will devour the rest of Europe. Moreover, the Russian bear's bloodthirsty army is killing civilians indiscriminately.
During the first phase of the current conflict, it was also confidently predicted that the Russian public would rise up against Putin and topple his government. It was also expected that Russia would lose the war.
Everything was essentially unfounded. There is no evidence that Russia is a rising power intent on overtaking Central and Western Europe. Nor is Russia capable of that. It is much weaker than the former Soviet Union, of which Russia was once a part.
The civilian casualties in Ukraine are also not consistent with the Russian military wantonly wiping out civilians. According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, civilian casualties from February 24 2022, when the war began, to January 31 2025, amounted to 12 605 deaths and 29 178 injuries. This is far fewer than the civilian casualties in Gaza during the recent conflict there in three times the period and far fewer than South Africa's annual murder tally.
Now, leading forces in the Russian elite indeed view Russia as an empire – in the footsteps of the Roman and Byzantine empires. According to this self-consciousness, Russia is not simply a nation-state. Quite rightly, Russia also perceives itself as the spearhead of a unique civilisation – the (Christian) Orthodox civilisation – and as such the protector of the Orthodox world that also extends far beyond the borders of Russia, namely in Southeast Europe and elsewhere. This empire – and civilisation – in addition to its national consciousness and its vast natural resources, makes Russia a formidable power, which, like any other power, must be balanced and kept in check by counterpower in the best tradition of realpolitik.
However, there is an even more important fact that weighs heavily in the current circumstances, but is unfortunately largely overlooked. It is that Russia, because of its history, is suspicious, weary, and even somewhat fearful of dangers that threaten it, more particularly from its western flank. From its west, Russia has been struck several times by unprecedented disasters and misery.
In 1812, disaster from the west came in the form of the devastation wrought by the Grand Armée – the imperial army of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Russians were forced to abandon Moscow, leaving their self-burnt city behind, which was occupied by Napoleon. Ultimately, Napoleon's power was broken on his retreat to France, but the devastation of their country left an indelible mark on the minds of the Russian people.
Russia suffered great damage from the west again during World War I and had to cede large parts of its territory with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. During World War II, Russia (then part of the Soviet Union) was again devastated from the west. Nazi Germany invaded Russia from 1941 onwards, inflicting enormous losses.
Towards the end of the war and after, the Russians swept across Eastern and Central Europe, creating a belt of communist vassal states around the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union thereby extended communist rule far west.
While this constituted an aggressive expansion of communism, there is also a defensive interpretation of this, which takes into account the Russian experience and fear of aggression from its west.
According to this, Russia wanted and did establish a cordon of security around itself to repel future threats far beyond its borders. To this end, it also established the Warsaw Military Pact with the now communist states to its west in 1955, which stood in opposition to NATO, which was founded in 1949 after the Second World War.
After 1989, this defensive Russian strategy collapsed. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, all these countries moved out of the Russian sphere of influence, and the Warsaw Pact dissolved on July 1, 1989. With this, the entire Russian defence constellation that was supposed to protect it from threats from its west was gone. It was once again exposed to dangers from its western flank.
Russia's vulnerability was exacerbated when the Soviet Union itself dissolved only a few months later. As a result, its buffer to its immediate west in the form of Ukraine, which had been part of the Soviet Union, was removed, leaving Russia in the same geopolitically vulnerable position as before World War I.
In these circumstances, it was of the utmost importance for Russia to secure its western border by redeveloping a sphere of influence in its western near-abroad. However, several former Warsaw Pact members – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and Romania – understandably joined NATO in a desire to counter Russian influence. Former Soviet states, namely Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, are also now part of NATO.
But not Ukraine. Russia could not tolerate Ukrainian NATO membership, because it would bring NATO a few hundred kilometres from Moscow, in the heart of Russia.
In 1962, the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev cooperated with Fidel Castro to deploy Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba. Under the "rules-based international order," it was perfectly within the sovereign rights of the Soviet Union and Cuba to do so, just as it was within the sovereign rights of the US and Turkey to deploy missiles in Turkey.
However, President John F Kennedy and his administration opposed the deployment of missiles in Cuba and were even prepared to go to war with the Soviet Union to prevent it. Kennedy's military and diplomatic pressure was eventually so formidable that Khrushchev and Castro had to abandon their plans.
Were Kennedy and his men irrational or "crazy" to act this way? Apparently not. In order to protect American security, they could not tolerate this kind of behaviour from Khrushchev and Castro.
But what about the much-vaunted "rules-based international order"? There is in international relations a system of (public) international law, and in certain areas of interstate relations (diplomatic immunity, extradition of suspected criminals, etc.) international law is ordinarily followed. But when the core interests of states, especially great powers, are at stake, so-called international law becomes irrelevant. No government or head of state can be expected to compromise vital security interests in deference to international law norms. Not Kennedy in 1962 and not Putin in 2025.
Putin sought to protect the security interests of Russia through the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015. However, the agreements foundered, ultimately leaving him with no choice but to take military action, at least according to the Russian interpretation of events.
Furthermore, since 2014, after the (unconstitutional) removal of its then pro-Russian government, Ukraine has had a regime that is dismissive of Russia and pro-NATO. Russia consequently (re)occupied the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. In doing so, it regained this area, which had been under its control with a few short interruptions since 1783, and thus also secured Russian access to the Black Sea (and hence the Mediterranean Sea), an obvious geostrategic imperative for Russia.
Since 2014, a low-level civil war has also been raging in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, which is inhabited by Russians, among others. One of the causes of this is the allegation that the Ukrainian government is violating the language and political rights of the Russian-speaking population.
At the same time, the pressure for Ukraine to join NATO grew, which naturally rekindled Russia's old and understandable fears of threats from its west. Russia would clearly not allow this and consequently proceeded to its special military operation in 2022.
The Russian interpretation of the circumstances is of course contested. There are also opposing views. It is also clear that Russia underestimated Ukraine's determination to defend itself. Russia also miscalculated NATO's willingness to support Ukraine with weapons and to – as it is sometimes cynically put – fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.
However, it is crystal clear that Putin has not acted irrationally; neither is he "crazy." In fact, against the backdrop of Russia's troubled history referred to above, Putin is currently as rational and calculating as Kennedy was in 1962.
Similarly, there are no grounds for labelling Putin the unqualified aggressor or for the propaganda that Russia is planning to overwhelm Europe.
There is just as little basis for the rather childish insinuation that the Trump administration is now "in Putin's pocket".
The American government has apparently moved away from the policy of trying to impose the "values and ideals of liberal democracy" and "human rights" everywhere in the world and, with that in mind, engaging in unsavoury wars everywhere.
Instead, the US appears to be moving toward practicing realpolitik. To that end, it advances its interests. Accordingly, it will wage war when required but will prefer to establish working relationships and make agreements – deals, as Trump would say.
Russia's approach is essentially the same. It does not, like the former Soviet Union, seek to implement communism and wage wars for that purpose. For the sake of its interests and especially its security, it has demonstrated that it will go to war, but would rather enter into working relationships and conclude agreements – strike deals.
The new American government understands this well and, therefore, understands that it can indeed reach an agreement with Russia. They can count on each other because they understand each other's interests.
There is likely now a growing understanding by other governments that they must follow in the footsteps of Moscow and Washington. If anyone acts outside their interests, the opponent will call them to order – even militarily if it comes to that.
The way in which America and Russia are now increasingly acting towards each other (and will hopefully find each other) encapsulates much of the logic of interstate relations over the past centuries. Cardinal Richelieu, Clemens Metternich, Otto von Bismarck, Lord Palmerston and many other of the greatest figures in political history have practised realpolitik along this path. It has been thoroughly recorded in the annals of history, including fascinatingly in Henry Kissinger's comprehensive Diplomacy.
Great theorists of political realism such as Hans Morgenthau, George Kennan and Kissinger himself had a thorough insight into this, as do present day analysts Jeffrey Sachs and the formidable John Mearsheimer.
Perhaps without Donald Trump realising it, his art of the deal similarly is largely in accordance with this realist style of international relations.
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*Professor Malan is a constitutional jurist from Pretoria.
This article was previously published in Afrikaans on Netwerk 24.