The red carpet was perfectly rolled out. The military flyover was precisely timed. The backdrop reading “Pursuing Peace” was strategically positioned for maximum photogenic impact. And yet, when the curtain fell on Donald Trump’s carefully choreographed summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, the American president had little to show for his theatrical diplomacy except the bitter taste of being outmaneuvered by a more cunning adversary.

The Alaska meeting, which concluded without the Ukraine ceasefire Trump had promised, represents the latest chapter in a troubling pattern: the 45th and 47th president’s persistent confusion of stagecraft for statecraft. Where Reagan walked away from Reykjavik rather than accept a bad deal, Trump seems perpetually seduced by the optics of the moment, the h

See Full Page