Navigating the Vortex

Lucy P. Marcus & Stefan Wolff

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POLITICS
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We live in a complex and ever-changing world. To navigate the vortex we must adapt to change quickly, think critically, and make sound decisions. Lucy Marcus & Stefan Wolff talk about business, politics, society, culture, and what it all means. www.navigatingthevortex.com

1D AGO

Russian drones in Polish airspace (part 2): A provocation – and a test

It's not the first time that Polish airspace has been violated by Russia since its invasion of Ukraine. But early in the morning of September 10, 2025, after Poland shot down Russian drones in its airspace, it became the first time a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member opened fire during this war. Regardless of whether it was intended or accidental, the drone incursions are a serious escalation of the Russian war against Ukraine. There is a real danger of the conflict spilling over into NATO territory and a potential direct confrontation with Russia. The Russian drones forced the temporary closure of several Polish airports, including the main hub in the capital Warsaw and a regional airport in eastern Poland that is a critical for deliveries of Western aid to Ukraine. This and the fact that a significant number of drones were involved — Poland reported 19 of them — and that they only entered Poland — but not Slovakia or Hungary next door — makes it even less likely that this was just an accident. Earlier airspace violations could have been dismissed as drones or missiles simply going astray. In August, a Russian drone crashed in eastern Poland, and on earlier occasions, missiles entered Polish airspace before hitting targets in Ukraine. Russian drones have also previously come down in two other countries on Ukraine’s western border — Moldova, which has ambitions to join the European Union, and EU and NATO member Romania. So far, Ukraine and its European allies have strongly condemned Russian actions as a deliberate escalation. Poland has invoked NATO Article 4 to formally open consultations among the allies. This latest Russian provocation looks more like an actual act of aggression and a concerted test of Western responses. Consider the timing: Russia’s escalation comes just after last week's high-profile meetings in China. First, the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation which provided an ideal platform for Russian President Vladimir Putin, to demonstrate to Ukraine and the West that he retains the strong support of two key allies – China and India. Mr Putin then stayed on for bilateral meetings with senior Chinese officials, including his counterpart, Xi Jinping. Among other things, these resulted, after many years of protracted negotiations, in the conclusion of an agreement to build the Power of Siberia-2 pipeline which, if completed and reaching full capacity, will provide a long-term perspective for Russian hydrocarbon exports to China. Finally, during the military parade celebrating China’s defeat of Japan in World War II, the closer relationship between Russia, China and North Korea was on full display. All of this is likely to have been interpreted in the Kremlin as a significant strengthening of the Russian position in general and in relation to its war against Ukraine in particular. The Kremlin’s key allies are unlikely to issue an outright condemnation of Russia’s reckless escalatory actions — and even less likely to put any pressure on Mr Putin to bring this war to an end. Importantly, the latest Russian provocation also happened just before the start of the Zapad-2025 military exercises in Belarus. Although these are regular joint drills of Russian and Belarusian forces, they have taken on additional significance since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Poland has already announced that it will close its border with Belarus for the duration of the exercises, while Lithuania will block off part of its airspace. In addition, Poland will host the Iron Defender-25 military exercises, framed as a direct response to the Russian and Belarusian Zapad-2025 exercises. The potential for inadvertent escalation into actual hostilities between Russia and NATO is now even higher. This does not bring Europe to the brink of war, but, as the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, noted, the continent is now the closest ever since the end of World War II to a major military confrontation between Russia and the West. The Western response overall does not instil much confidence. There are serious questions about NATO’s preparedness. Fighter jets were scrambled to shoot down the drones, and not all of the 19 drones were actually downed by them. If NATO countries struggle to deal with such a small number of incursions, how, one might wonder, would they be able to cope with the kinds of attacks that involve hundreds of drones as well as missiles at a time — something which Ukraine has experienced every night for months? Beyond full-throated condemnation from Western capitals and talk of more sanctions and the creation of an air defence wall along NATO’s borders with Russia, the subsequent political and diplomatic response has also been underwhelming. This will give Russia a sense of what the Kremlin can get away with. If Mr Putin was yet against testing those boundaries, he has not yet run into a brick wall. Given the feckless EU and NATO response to Russia’s latest escalation, it will ultimately come down to Donald Trump, the American president. He has prevaricated for months over putting any real pressure on Mr Putin to end the war in Ukraine. What little excuse he had left not to get tough on Russia should now have well and truly evaporated. If Mr Trump fails yet again to step up to the challenge that Mr Putin poses, Europe needs to brace itself for further escalation along its borders. An earlier version of this analysis was published by Channel News Asia on September 12, 2025. We hope you'll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including: Apple Podcasts Spotify Amazon/Audible This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

6 min
1D AGO

Russian drones over Poland are a serious escalation of the war in Ukraine

When Nato jets were scrambled over eastern Poland in the morning of September 10 to defend the airspace of an alliance member against an incursion by Russian drones, it was the first time that the west fired shots in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. This incursion marks a serious escalation by Moscow. But it also highlights yet again that the west has no clear red lines and is unprepared to respond decisively if red lines that were taken for granted in the past — like the territorial integrity of Nato members — are crossed. This latest Russian escalation isn’t the usual war of words. It was only last week that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, warned that foreign troops in Ukraine would be legitimate targets for his invasion force. He slightly qualified his comments by noting that this would be the case “especially now, while the fighting is ongoing”. But the message was nevertheless clear. Russia will oppose any international security guarantees that involve western troops in Ukraine. This has been a long-standing and oft-articulated position by Russia. Yet, Putin’s rhetoric threatening to target western troops clearly ups the ante. But these are not the only ways in which the Kremlin has markedly turned up the pressure over the past few weeks and months. Russia has also retained some momentum in its military campaign in Ukraine and has been further empowered by several successes on the diplomatic front. On the battlefield, Russia has continued to demonstrate significant advantages in manpower and materiel. Where the entire Nato alliance struggled to cope with the incursion of just 19 drones, Ukraine has been subject to an intense air campaign with hundreds of drones and often dozens of missiles every night for months. The attacks have become more brazen – recently targeting Ukraine’s government building in Kyiv. They have also become more deadly, leading to increasing loss of lives among civilians. As in past years, Russia has also targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which bodes ill for another grim winter for the country. On the ground, Russian gains have been small and Ukraine has regained strategically important territory around the key city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. Nonetheless, and this is what matters for Putin’s messaging, Russia is advancing, however incrementally and costly it might be. Diplomatically, Putin received an important boost from the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Tianjin and subsequent bilateral deals agreed with China. He will also have been cheered by the cordial relations on display between Russian, Chinese and North Korean leaders at the September 3 military parade to mark China’s victory over Japan in the second world war. The Russian president can now be more assured than ever that key partners will have his back – economically in the case of China and India, and militarily in the case of North Korea. Buoyed by such “successes” that his war machine will not suddenly grind to a halt, the Russian president felt confident enough to demand that Ukraine negotiate an end to the war with him or face the consequences of him ending the war by force. Putin’s idea of a negotiated end to the war, however, is anything but that. What he has in mind is that Ukraine and its western allies should simply accept his longstanding demands: territorial losses, no Nato membership, and no western forces to secure any peace deal. This multi-layered Russian pressure campaign is not merely an accidental confluence of unrelated forces somehow magically lining up in Putin’s favour. It is part of a carefully crafted campaign for Russia to retain relevance in what will likely shape up as future bipolar US and Chinese-dominated international order. If Putin has accepted Chinese dominance in Asia, he still sees opportunities for Russia to be the dominant power in Europe — and restore at least part of its Soviet-era zone of influence. For that to be achieved, the Kremlin needs to demonstrate that Ukraine’s western partners are feckless in the face of Russian determination. So far, Putin is doing well. All of the deadlines and ultimatums set by the US president, Donald Trump, have so far been ignored by Russia — at zero cost. Trump’s response to Russian drones in Polish airspace was a short post on his Truth Social network that indicated surprise more than an actual response to what could quickly develop into a serious crisis. Meanwhile, Trump has yet to offer his support for a bi-partisan bill in the US senate to put more sanctions pressure on Russia. Similarly, while European leaders have been quick and forceful in their condemnations of this latest Russian provocation, their reactions have, as usual, been at the rhetorical level. Poland merely invoked Nato’s Article 4 procedure for formal consultations among allies in the North Atlantic Council. But the outcome of this consultation was little more than a meek statement by Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary general, that “a full assessment of the incident is ongoing” and that the alliance “will closely monitor the situation along our eastern flank, our air defences continually at the ready”. The statement by the EU’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, offered solidarity with Poland and promised to “raise the cost for Moscow further by ramping up sanctions significantly on Russia and its enablers”. Given that the EU is on its 18th sanctions package and the war in Ukraine continues unabated, it’s hard to see a game-changer here. Delivered the morning after the Russian drone incursions into Poland, the annual state of the union address by Ursula von der Leyen offered little more than confirmation of EU aspirations “to be able to take care of our own defence and security”. None of this will have Putin worried. It should, however, worry Ukrainians and the rest of Europe. An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on September 11, 2025. We hope you'll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including: Apple Podcasts Spotify Amazon/Audible This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

7 min
SEP 4

China’s plans for a new world order are built on a fragile consensus

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has been busy on the diplomatic front. China has just hosted the largest annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), followed by an impressive military parade to mark the defeat of Japan in the second world war — all accompanied by key bilateral meetings with heads of state from like-minded countries. You could be forgiven for thinking Beijing is now the diplomatic capital of the world. But look behind the facade of bonhomie on display in the Chinese capital, and the unity underpinning a new China-led global order looks a lot more fragile than Xi Jinping would have you believe. The most important result of the SCO summit on August 31 and September 1 was not the fact that leaders adopted a lengthy communique and more than 20 joint statements on issues as diverse as artificial intelligence, green industries, and international trade. What mattered most was the attendance of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, and the rapprochement between New Delhi and Beijing. This was Modi’s first visit to China in seven years. That his country’s relations with China continue to improve was made clear by Modi’s positive assessment of his bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping as “fruitful”. The Indian prime minister also emphasised that the bilateral relationship with China is based on “mutual respect, mutual interest and mutual sensitivity”, thereby acknowledging that not all of the issues between the two countries are resolved. One of these issues is the relationship with Pakistan. But as an obvious indicator of China trying to pull India closer into the SCO fold, Xi Jinping pushed for the unequivocal condemnation of the terror attacks in Pahalgam in Kashmir in April 2025 in the SCO’s summit declaration. China’s earlier failure to do so, as well as its support for Pakistan in the military confrontation between New Delhi and Islamabad, had soured relations with India and prevented India’s defence minister from signing a similar communique at a meeting of SCO defence ministers in June. Modi’s attendance also provided the opportunity for him and Xi Jinping to demonstrate their continuing support for Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. As far as alliances go, one between China, Russia, and India would be a formidable factor in the remaking of the international order. But while there was an impressive display of solidarity between the three leaders, they are united by little more than their opposition to the current US-dominated order. There was plenty of talk from Xi Jinping at the SCO summit about reforming the current system of international affairs — the latest blueprint of which is his Global Governance Initiative, which aims to transform the UN into a Beijing-led instrument. But the prospects of rapid change are limited. China and India are both deeply integrated into the current international financial and economic system — as are most other SCO member states and partner countries. They may all resent the current dismantling of trade relations by US tariff policies but — with the partial exception of China’s dominance of the global rare-earth trade — they have little leverage. Another problem for Xi Jinping is the fact his various forays into reshaping the international system are at best complementary and at worst contradictory. There is some overlap between the SCO and his other signature project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). But while the BRI is global and primarily aims to extend China’s influence by economic means, the SCO is much more regional in outlook and focused on security. Add to that the Brics group — with China, Russia, and India plus Brazil and South Africa at its core, and another five recent joiners primarily from the Middle East and Africa — and China’s approach to remaking the international system begins to look less like a coherent strategy. It resembles more a series of trial balloons — with even Xi Jinping unsure which of them will eventually pave the way to China’s global leadership role. A final issue for Xi Jinping is that he is limited in his choice of partners. At the SCO summit in Tianjin, it was all about relations between China, Russia, and India. China and Russia then proceeded to finalise their long-overdue agreement on the Power of Siberia II pipeline as part of their bilateral relationship-building. At the victory parade in Beijing, the fledgling alliance between China, Russia, and North Korea seemed to take centre stage. The absence of Modi from the latter two is telling: on the one hand, relations between Moscow and Beijing are at a different level than their individual bilateral ties with New Delhi and rather exclusive; while India, on the other hand, does not want to be too closely associated with North Korea. Clearly, Xi Jinping has different options in how he pursues his challenge to the current world order — but some are mutually exclusive. Not everyone in his orbit is comfortable with all the political and economic alignments the Chinese president chooses. This is not to say that China’s quest to replace the US as the global superpower is bound to fail. There is a logic to what Xi Jinping is doing. He is building a Chinese-dominated sphere of influence in Asia as a power base from which to reach for global hegemony. But outside a small circle of similarly autocratic leaders, what has propelled this project so far is less the appeal of a China-led international system than dissatisfaction with the existing liberal international order. And while this dissatisfaction predates the current incumbent of the White House, it has been aggravated over the first six months of Donald Trump’s second term as US president. More than two decades of careful recalibration of US relations with India, including drawing New Delhi into an alliance pushing back against China in Asia, appear recently to have been sacrificed at the altar of Trump’s insatiable vanity. When India failed to acknowledge his claim to have mediated in its row with Pakistan after the Pahalgam terror attack and declined to join Pakistan in nominating Trump for a Nobel peace prize, his response was to rekindle relations with Pakistan and impose punitive tariffs on India. Simultaneously, Trump’s wholly misguided America-first foreign policy has undermined the very relationships in Europe and Asia that underpinned the liberal international order and secured US dominance within it. At least his latest insight — that China, Russia, and North Korea “conspire against the United States” — gives a glimmer of hope for America’s concerned allies in the west that the US president will change course in how he deals with Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang. But such hopes may be futile as there is little indication that Trump has given up on his vision of a new international order dominated by great powers who are firmly in control of their individual spheres of influence. If Trump doesn’t recognise the value of his country’s allies in managing the challenge that China clearly poses to the US — and not just the liberal international order that he seems to detest as much as Xi Jinping and Putin and their autocratic allies — China’s sphere of influence may quickly extend far beyond Asia. This could relegate the US to a second-order power confined to — but not necessarily secure in — a diminishing sphere of influence and leave Europe to fend for itself. Far from ushering in a new era of stability that Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin all claim to desire, this could mark the beginning of a new period of great power rivalry not unlike the most tense moments of the Cold War. An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on September 3, 2025. We hope you'll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including: Apple Podcasts Spotify Amazon/Audible This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

8 min
AUG 27

Xi, Putin, and Modi will showcase their unity at the SCO summit in Tianjin

The upcoming summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tianjin, China, from August 31 to September 1, 2025, will be the organisation’s largest gathering of heads of state to date. It comes at a time when the existing liberal international order is rapidly disintegrating — but rather than offering a concrete new order, the SCO demonstrates the persistent difficulties that anti-liberal powers, such as China and Russia, have in agreeing and implementing a credible alternative. Founded in Shanghai in 2001 with just six members — Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan — the SCO has grown rapidly over the past decade. India and Pakistan joined in 2017, Iran in 2023, and Belarus in 2024. Beyond these now ten member states, the SCO also has two observers — Afghanistan and Mongolia — and 14 dialogue partners, including Turkey, Egypt, Armenia and Azerbaijan, several of the Gulf states, and a number of other Asian states. If measured by the population of its core member states, it is the world’s largest regional security organisation. Size clearly matters, but in the case of the SCO it creates problems instead of contributing to their resolution. The organisation did little in response to escalating tensions between India and Pakistan in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Kashmir that brought the two long-standing rivals to the brink of nuclear confrontation. It took US mediation to de-escalate the violence. The SCO’s subsequent failure to condemn cross-border terrorism explicitly in a joint statement of the meeting of defence ministers at the end of June led to India refusing to sign it. When Israel attacked Iran, the SCO issued a strongly-worded condemnation of the attacks. But India distanced itself officially from the SCO statement. These and other simmering tensions, such as between India and China over a new dam project in Tibet, are likely going to be papered over at the SCO summit in Tianjin. China’s president, Xi Jinping, will be keen to demonstrate Chinese leadership of a large coalition of like-minded countries who oppose the hitherto US-led liberal international order. The theme of this year’s summit — “Upholding the Shanghai Spirit: SCO on the Move” — sounds more like an aspirational plea to member states, observers, and dialogue partners rather than a concrete plan for action. The so-called Shanghai spirit — a hazy mixture of standard Chinese talking points about mutual respect, peaceful co-existence and win-win cooperation — is little more than empty rhetoric. It is also very fragile. Two member states — India and Pakistan — have recently gone to war with each other. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been involved in several full-scale violent confrontations since they became dialogue partners almost a decade ago. And if they have now embraced the Shanghai spirit, they did so, ironically, in Washington and after both their relations with Russia significantly soured. Nor does the SCO have much of a track record of constructive involvement in internal conflicts in its member states and dialogue partners, such as Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar. This is even more obvious in the case of Afghanistan where Russia’s recent official recognition of the Taliban government poses yet another challenge to the SCO. China has cautiously welcomed Russia’s recognition but not followed suit, while several Central Asian member states of the SCO already have a wide range of economic ties with Afghanistan. But Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf states remain deeply ambivalent about the Taliban regime. It is also worth noting that the SCO’s very selective commitment to the Shanghai spirit does not extend to relations between the organisation and non-member states. That much is evident from the SCO’s lack of condemnation of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Previous summits in 2022, 2023 and 2024 produced lengthy declarations of intent — but little follow-through. It is, therefore, difficult to see where the SCO will move. The marked difference to these previous summits is, of course, Donald Trump’s return to the White House. On the one hand, Trump has demonstrated the near-irrelevance of the SCO as a security player compared to the indispensability of the United States when it comes to managing crises, such as those between India and Pakistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Cambodia and Thailand. On the other hand, Trump’s weaponisation of trade has created a new dynamic within the SCO that might see the organisation’s most powerful countries — China, Russia and India — align more closely against the United States. Sanctions against Russia, however unlikely they may be to be fully implemented by Trump, are still on the table. Heavy tariffs have now been imposed on India for continuing to buy Russian oil. And the US trade war with China is only paused but not settled. For their own sake, and even more so for the sake of their actual and potential partners in the global south, China, Russia, and India must demonstrate a unity of purpose at the SCO summit. They will condemn the US and the liberal international order, which Trump himself is actively eroding. But their unity of purpose will be limited and performative. Meanwhile, the differences between them remain and their conflicting individual aspirations of leadership in a post-American international order will prevent them from offering a credible alternative. Undoubtedly, there will be carefully choreographed displays of solidarity and aspirational statements of how the spirit of Shanghai will shape a new international order. But these will rest on the false premise that a post-American international order will be a non-American order. Trump may try to make a deal with Russia and China on a new world order, but a president who publicly muses about renaming the US department of defence to the department of war is unlikely to cede global leadership – at least not without a fight. An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on August 27, 2025. We hope you'll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including: Apple Podcasts Spotify Amazon/Audible This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

7 min
AUG 19

Transatlantic unity at the White House disguises lack of progress towards just peace for Ukraine

At a high-stakes meeting in the White House on August 18, the US president, Donald Trump, and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, hammered out the broad contours of a potential peace agreement with Russia. Their encounter was in marked contrast to their last joint press conference in Washington back in February which ended with Zelensky’s humiliation by Trump and his vice president, J.D. Vance. The outcomes of the American and Ukrainian presidential get-together, and the subsequent, expanded meeting with leaders of the European coalition of the willing, was also a much more professional affair than Trump’s summit with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on August 15. What’s more, the results of the meetings in the White House, while not perfect, are a much better response to the reality in which Ukrainians have lived for the past more than three-and-a-half years than what transpired during and after the brief press conference in Alaska. This relatively positive outcome was not a foregone conclusion. Over the weekend, Trump put out a statement on his Truth Social platform that “President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately” — provided that he would accept Ukraine’s loss of Crimea to Russia and forego his country’s future Nato membership. This, and similar ideas of land swaps between Russia and Ukraine, were roundly rejected by Zelensky. Importantly, Kyiv’s position was fully backed by Ukraine’s European allies, with leaders of the coalition of the willing issuing a joint statement on August 16 to the effect that any territorial concessions were Ukraine’s to make or refuse. On Nato membership, the statement was more equivocal. European leaders asserted that Russia should not be allowed to have a veto on Ukraine’s choices. But with Nato membership often used as a shorthand for credible security guarantees for Ukraine as part of any future peace agreement, the reiteration of the commitment that the coalition of the willing as “ready to play an active role” opened up a pathway to Trump offering “Article 5-like protections” for Ukraine against future Russian aggression and promising “a lot of help when it comes to security”. A possibly emerging deal – some territorial concessions by Ukraine in exchange for peace and joint US and European security guarantees – became more certain during the televised meeting between Trump and his visitors before their closed-door discussions. In different ways, each of the European guests acknowledged the progress that Trump had made towards a settlement and they all emphasised the importance of a joint approach to Russia to make sure that any agreement would bring a just and lasting peace. As an indication that his guests were unwilling to simply accept whatever deal he had brought back with him from his meeting with Putin in Alaska, the US president then interrupted the discussions in the White House to call the Russian president. By then, signals from Russia were far from promising, with Moscow rejecting any Nato troop deployments to Ukraine and singling out Britain as allegedly seeking to undermine the US-Russia peace effort. When the meeting concluded and the different leaders offered their interpretations of what had been agreed two things became clear. First, the Ukrainian side had not folded under pressure from the US, and European leaders, while going out of their way to flatter Trump, held their ground as well. Importantly, Trump had not walked away from the process either but appeared to want to remain engaged. Second, Russia had not given any ground. According to remarks by Putin’s foreign policy advisor, Yuri Ushakov, posted on the Kremlin’s official website, Russia would consider “the possibility of raising the level of representatives of the Ukrainian and Russian parties”. This statement falls short of, but does not rule out, the possibility of the Zelensky-Putin summit, which Trump announced as a major success after the discussions in the White House yesterday. Such a meeting was seen as the next logical step towards peace by all the participants of the White House meeting and would be followed, according to Trump, by what he called “a Trilat” of the Ukrainian, Russian and American presidents. The lack of clear confirmation by Russia that such meetings would indeed happen raises more doubts about the Kremlin’s sincerity. But the fact that a peace process – if it can be called that – remains somewhat intact is a far cry from an actual peace agreement. Little if anything was said in the aftermath of the White House meeting on territorial issues. Pressure on Russia only came up briefly in comments by European leaders, whose ambitions to become formally involved in actual peace negotiations remain a pipe dream for the time being. And despite the initial optimism about security guarantees, no firm commitments were made, with Zelensky only noting “the important signal from the United States regarding its readiness to support and be part of these guarantees.” Peace in Ukraine thus remains illusive for now. The only tangible success is that whatever Trump imagines as the process to a peace agreement did not completely fall apart. But as this process unfolds, its progress, if any, happens at a snail’s pace while the Russian war machine deployed against Ukraine grinds forward. At the end of the day, yesterday’s events changed little. They merely confirmed that Putin keeps playing for time, that Trump is unwilling to put real pressure on him — rather than just threatening it — and that Ukraine and Europe have no effective leverage on either side. Trump boldly claimed ahead of his meetings with Zelensky and the leaders of the coalition of the willing that he knew exactly what he was doing. That may be true, but it may also not be enough without knowing and understanding what his counterpart in the Kremlin is doing. An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on August 19, 2025. We hope you'll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including: Apple Podcasts Spotify Amazon/Audible Thanks for reading! Our posts are free, please share them widely. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

7 min
AUG 16

Trump caves to Putin yet again at Alaska summit

The only certainty after a three-hour meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska on August 15 is that there is no ceasefire in the war between Russia and Ukraine. This is bad news for Ukraine, which has been under assault for three-and-a-half years. By contrast, it is a clear victory for Russia, and a personal triumph for Mr Putin. Not only can he now continue his air and ground campaigns against Ukraine, but he has also been able — again — to avoid Mr Trump’s threats of “very severe consequences” in the absence of a Russian agreement to a ceasefire. Add to that the prestige of an invitation to the United States and the warm personal welcome he received from Mr Trump, and it is obvious that Mr Putin is very much in control of events on and off the battlefield. The outcome of the highly anticipated meeting does not reflect well on the American president. If anyone had any faith left in his deal-making prowess, it would have been severely diminished – if not completely evaporated – after Friday's events. Despite Mr Trump’s apparent commitment to get tough on Russia if there was no ceasefire, he appears to have caved in yet again to Mr Putin. Both presidents were eager to portray their encounter as productive and successful, but from their brief statements to the press afterwards, it was clear that significant differences between them remained. While Mr Putin emphasised progress in rebuilding relations with the United States, Mr Trump was clear that “some headway” had been made but that there was “no deal” yet. Both presidents teased the possibility of a follow-up meeting — possibly in Moscow — but nothing concrete to this effect was agreed. Where does this leave Ukraine and its European allies? The good news is that no deal was made over their heads or — as far as is known — behind their backs. Mr Trump noted that “significant” differences remained on the path to a ceasefire. This is likely a reference to the gap between what Russia and Ukraine are willing to accept in a future settlement, with Moscow’s demands for Kyiv to recognise occupied territories as Russian the most serious stumbling block. In his subsequent interview with Fox News, Mr Trump advised the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to “make a deal” because “Russia is a very big country, and they are not”. Whether this is merely Mr Trump parroting a well-worn Russian speaking point — that Moscow will ultimately prevail over Kyiv in a war of attrition — or whether it is his genuinely held belief is almost immaterial. But it signals that Mr Trump is yet again pivoting away from supporting Ukraine in its quest for a just peace. For now, the American president has not completely abandoned his efforts to bring peace to Ukraine. But he has put the onus on Mr Zelenskyy without offering any of the reassurances that were given to him and other European leaders only days ago. Mr Zelenskyy reportedly had a lengthy conversation with Mr Trump after the Alaska meeting, and will meet his American counterpart in the White House on Monday. Mr Trump’s deal-making is very much premised on the idea of “winner takes all”. Unfortunately for him, and above all for Ukraine, he has left Alaska empty-handed and Mr Putin with a big smile on his face. An earlier version of this analysis was published by Channel News Asia on August 16, 2025. We hope you'll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including: Apple Podcasts Spotify Amazon/Audible This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

5 min
AUG 14

Low expectations, high anxieties

What happens when a convicted felon and a man under indictment for alleged war crimes get together? This sounds like the opening line of a great joke, but sadly, describes what will most likely be the defining meeting of the second term of Donald Trump as US president. As with any meetings involving the current incumbent of the White House, expectations are low and anxieties are high in the run-up to the US-Russia summit in Alaska on August 15. The White House, and Trump himself, have played down expectations of an imminent breakthrough towards peace in Ukraine, claiming that this would be “a feel-out meeting” to determine whether a ceasefire is possible. In typical hyperbole, the US president added that he was confident that it would probably only take him two minutes to know whether a deal is possible. His subsequent threat that “there will be very severe consequences” if Putin does not agree to stop the fighting appears somewhat hollow now given that the reward for Putin ignoring Trump’s last deadline was an invitation to the US. While framed almost solely as a meeting about the Russian war against Ukraine, it would be naive to assume that this is all that is on Trump’s agenda. There are two possible deals Trump could try to make: a deal with Putin on a ceasefire for Ukraine and a deal resetting relations between Russia and the US. Trump is interested in both, and he does not see them as mutually exclusive or mutually constitutive. Trump has long talked about a ceasefire, and is probably genuinely keen for the fighting to stop. The US president likely also sees an instrumental value in a ceasefire agreement in his quest for the Nobel Peace Prize. There have been serious and justified misgivings in Ukraine and among Kyiv’s European allies that the meeting between Putin and Trump is just that — a bilateral get-together by the two presidents without any Ukrainian or European participation. This has prompted a flurry of diplomatic activity within Europe and across the Atlantic. As part of this, Ukrainian red lines have been clearly set out and fully backed by European leaders. Neither will accept full legal recognition of the kinds of land swaps that both Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, have suggested. Security guarantees and Russian reparations for the damage done to Ukraine in three-and-a-half years of war are likely other stumbling blocs. If there is a deal on a ceasefire, this will probably take the form of a broad and ambiguous framework that all sides would subsequently interpret differently. Part of such a framework would likely be a timeline and conditions for a Trump-Putin-Zelensky summit, most likely again without European participation. This would be another gift for the Russian president, and potentially put Zelensky into a position where both Trump and Putin would pressure him to accept an unfavourable deal or lose all US support. By contrast, a US-Russia reset would be a more straightforward business deal — primarily with US economic interests in mind, but with significant geopolitical implications. There are few signs that Trump has given up on his agenda to “un-unite” Russia and China as he put it in an interview with Tucker Carlson during his presidential campaign last year. But, importantly, this is less about new American alliances and more about Trump’s ideas of re-ordering the world into American, Russian and Chinese spheres of influence — something that is easier done for the White House after a reset with the Kremlin and when Moscow and Beijing are no longer the strategic partners they claim to be right now. As an outcome of the Alaska summit, such a reset of US-Russia relations is also most likely to materialise as a framework that simply identifies areas for future deals between the two sides. Any process to implement such a bilateral agreement between Moscow and Washington could begin immediately and run in parallel to any Ukraine negotiations. This, too, would be a big bonus for Moscow: with the Kremlin hoping that the further along things move on the US-Russia reset track, the more likely Trump will back Putin in negotiations with Ukraine. Putin is clearly more interested in improving bilateral relations with the US than he is in a ceasefire. He has, for now, skilfully avoided Trump’s threats of sanctions while his forces have achieved what looks like an important breakthrough on the battlefield. This is not necessarily a game changer in the war overall, but it certainly strengthens Putin’s hand ahead of his meeting with Trump. His troops’ battlefield success also decreases the urgency with which the Russian president is likely to approach negotiations — in the absence of Trump following through on his recent ultimatum threats, and with Ukraine and its European allies shut out of their meeting, Putin has every incentive, and opportunity, to play for more time and to push his current advantage on the battlefield as much as possible. However, the Russian president has to tread a careful line, bearing in mind that Trump got increasingly frustrated when, after seemingly productive phone calls between them, Putin then launched airstrikes a few hours later. Putin might therefore offer a limited pause in Russia’s air campaign to avoid the civilian casualties that Trump has condemned. But as long as his ground troops make further territorial gains, he is unlikely to stop — at least until he has full control of the four Ukrainian regions that the Kremlin has claimed as Russian in addition to Crimea. Ukraine, by contrast, needs a ceasefire now — and then a credible peace deal in which any necessary concessions are minimal and which comes with proper security guarantees. The European-led coalition of the willing appears to offer such guarantees now, and Trump might even support this. But this is no guarantee that the US president will stay the course and not flip again to take Putin’s side and push for an overly pro-Russian deal at a future three-way summit. During such a summit, even if it were just a carefully scripted signature ceremony, there is every chance that Trump would go off-script or that Putin would manipulate him to do so. This could then derail in a way similar to what happened during the White House row between Trump and Zelensky on February 28. It would be even more dangerous if there was no prior agreement on a deal and the meeting would be an actual negotiation. Given how volatile Trump’s decision making can be, the outcome of such a meeting would be very difficult to predict, but chances are that it would not be in Ukraine’s favour. Kyiv’s European allies have made it clear that they will not abandon Ukraine, regardless of what is, or is not, achieved at the summit in Alaska. For all his deal-making bluster, a similar commitment is unlikely to be made or sustained by Trump. An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on August 14, 2025. We hope you'll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including: Apple Podcasts Spotify Amazon/Audible This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

7 min
AUG 7

Has Trump finally realised he needs economic and military muscle to force Putin to agree a peace deal?

With only two days to go before the expiry of his latest ultimatum to end the Russian aggression against Ukraine, US president Donald Trump dispatched his envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow for the fifth time on August 6. After three hours of talks in the Kremlin with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Trump announced that “Great progress was made!” This, according to US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, includes a Russian ceasefire proposal that Witkoff was bringing back from his meeting with Putin. At a subsequent press conference, Trump indicated that he could soon meet in person with Putin and Zelensky. However, there was no indication of an imminent breakthrough. In a phone call with Zelensky and European leaders, Trump appeared optimistic that a diplomatic solution was possible but would take time to achieve. Rubio also expressed some caution and noted that “a lot has to happen before” a Trump-Putin-Zelensky summit as there were “still many impediments to overcome”. For once, Trump appears to realise that he will only make progress on ending the war if he keeps the pressure up on Putin. Shortly after the meeting between Putin and Witkoff concluded, Trump issued an executive order explicitly stating that “the actions and policies of the Government of the Russian Federation continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” This is hardly surprising, given that Trump’s frustration with Putin has steadily built up since the end of April. However, unusually, Trump has publicly and specifically endorsed an earlier executive order, issued by his predecessor, Joe Biden, just days after the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in March 2022. Increasingly seeing Putin as the main obstacle to peace in Ukraine, Trump initially imposed a 50-day deadline for his Russian counterpart to agree to a ceasefire, which he subsequently shortened to ten days. Under the terms of the ultimatum, failure by Russia to comply would lead to severe economic disruption for Moscow’s war economy. If activated, sanctions threatened by Trump are likely to target Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of oil tankers that the Kremlin uses to sell oil at prices above the G7-imposed price cap of currently US$60 per barrel of seaborne crude oil and other petroleum products. The US president is also considering the imposition of 100% tariffs on imports from countries still buying Russian oil. This would particularly affect China and India, who remain Russia’s largest costumers. If Beijing and New Delhi were to decrease their imports from Russia, this would deprive the Russian war economy of a much-needed revenue source. But this is a big ‘if’. There are serious doubts that China can easily be pushed to wean itself off Russian oil supplies, and India has indicated that it will not bow to pressure from the White House. While trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing are still ongoing, those with India have broken down for the time being. But as a likely indication of Trump’s determination to get serious on increasing pressure on the Kremlin and its perceived allies, the US president has now, as part of his executive order, imposed an additional 25% tariff rate on Indian imports to the United States. This will be on top of the existing 25% rate and come into effect within three weeks. China and India might continue to resist US pressure in public. However, given the billions of dollars of trade at stake for them, they might try to use their influence with Putin to sway him towards at least some concessions that may lead to a ceasefire — however temporary or partial it might be. This might give Trump and Putin both a face-saving way out, albeit not one that would move the dial substantially closer to an actual peace agreement in the war against Ukraine. There is also the question how Russia would respond — and concessions do not appear to be foremost on Putin’s mind. Expect more nuclear sabre rattling of the kind that has become the trademark of Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and now one of the Kremlin’s main social media attack dogs. In public, such threats were mostly ignored in the past. But in another sign of his patience wearing thin, Trump responded to Medvedev’s latest threat by announcing on his Truth Social platform that he had ordered “two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that.” Neither the Kremlin nor the White House are likely to go down the path of military, let alone nuclear escalation. But, like Washington, Moscow, too, has economic levers to pull. The most potent of these would be for Russia to disrupt the Caspian oil pipeline consortium, which facilitates the majority of Kazakh oil exports to western markets through Russia. There is precedent for this. A Russian court halted flows back in July 2022 under dubious pretexts. And the Kremlin flexed its muscles again in April this year by partially shutting down the consortium’s terminal in the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. If completely shut down, this would impact around 1% of worldwide oil trade and could lead to a spike in prices, increase Russian revenues on remaining oil sales, and negatively affect global economic growth. Trump’s economic statecraft will thus likely at best produce mixed results and do so only slowly. However, the US president has also recommitted to supporting Ukraine militarily — at least by letting Kyiv’s European allies buy US weapons and supply them to the country’s beleaguered military. Germany was the first to agree the purchase of two much-needed Patriot air defence systems from the US for Ukraine. Since then, this new way of funding arms for Ukraine has been formalised as the so-called Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List. It will require substantial financial commitments from Nato countries to turn this new support mechanism into a sustainable military lifeline for Ukraine. But the scheme got off to a relatively smooth start with the Netherlands and three Scandinavian members of the alliance — Denmark, Norway and Sweden — quickly following in Germany’s footsteps. Developments over the past two weeks, thus, appear to indicate that Trump has finally accepted that, rather than trying to accommodate Putin, he needs to put pressure on him and his backers economically and militarily. If the US president wants a good deal, he needs more leverage over Putin — and weakening the Kremlin’s war economy with further sanctions and blunting the effectiveness of its military campaign by arming Ukraine are steps that might get him there, provided he does not blink first in what remains a contest of wills between him and his Russian counterpart. When and how the war in Ukraine ends will ultimately be determined at the negotiation table. But how soon the belligerents get there and what the balance of power will be between them will be decided on the battlefields of eastern and southern Ukraine. The stronger Kyiv and the weaker Moscow will be when they sit down to end this war, the more likely will it be that a just and sustainable peace agreement can be achieved. An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on August 7, 2025. We hope you'll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including: Apple Podcasts Spotify Amazon/Audible This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Navigating the Vortex at www.navigatingthevortex.com/subscribe

8 min

We live in a complex and ever-changing world. To navigate the vortex we must adapt to change quickly, think critically, and make sound decisions. Lucy Marcus & Stefan Wolff talk about business, politics, society, culture, and what it all means. www.navigatingthevortex.com

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