What’s on the table at the Munich Security Conference and the rise of the multipolar world

Lots of Ukraine war action yesterday. US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin talked for an hour and basically agreed to meet.

Both sides want a deal, but what is not clear is the terms. Putin has made several gestures to warm Trump up and clearly has high hopes for this tête-à-tête. He congratulated Trump on his election on the day of his inauguration, adding that the Ukraine “might not have happened” if he was president in 2022 as well as saying the 2020 elections was “stolen” from Trump.

This is obviously blatantly pandering to Trump’s ego, but then everyone is doing that as that is how you deal with him. It’s pretty terrifying that you have to offer the nominally most powerful man in the world metaphorical lollipops to get what you want and can’t offer logic as he doesn’t understand it. But Putin is ex-KGB. He gets it . And the KGB were trained how to manipulate people. Trump should be a pushover for Putin.

Not that much concrete came out of the call, but some interesting details did emerge, like the talks will be hosted by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) played a key role in brokering the release of Paul Vogel, a dope smoking former US embassy employee who was working for the famous Anglo-American school in Moscow at the time of his arrest.

(BTW most of the reporting mentioned he was “wrongfully arrested” because he was caught with some “medical marijuana” in his procession. This skips over the fact that there is no such thing as medical marijuana in Russian law, which is simply an illegal narcotic. Just because you are American, doesn’t mean you can apply American laws if you live in Russia.)

MbS is playing an increasingly prominent role on the international stage as he tries to forge tighter unity in the Arab world and at the same time increase its prominence on the international stage – both with some success.

Testament to that was the little noticed fact that Trump expanded the brief of Steve Witkoff, who he recently appointed as the United States Special Envoy to the Middle East, to include Russia and Ukraine. It was Witkoff that actually negotiated the release of Vogel, travelling to Moscow and reportedly meeting with Putin for three and half hours, before escorting Vogel home again to the US. Clearly MbS played a key role in brokering this deal, hence Witkoff’s involvement.

Traditionally it was countries like Sweden, Norway or Switzerland that have been the home to “honest brokers”, not Saudi Arabia or Qatar, which was going to host the talks between Russia and Ukraine on ending the targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure last August, until the Kursk incursion killed that initiative.

This is significant as some very big changes in the way the world is run are underway. The specific goal of invading Ukraine was to prevent it from ever joining Nato, but more generally, Putin is interested in ending the “unipolar” US-led hegemony and running the world on a “multipolar” basis. He has been banging on about this for years – and one of the outcomes of this conflict is that he seems to have achieved this goal. Witkoff’s appointment is tacit acknowledgement of this change. That also means Rubio’s decision to skip the upcoming G20 summit in South Africa is a huge mistake.

Zelenskiy has warned that Ukraine’s defeat in the war endangers all of Europe as it would give Russia the upper hand and be the death of values, but looking at the new global order that is emerging, Russia (and its buddy China) have thrown off the US yoke and an increasing number of countries are join the club. Indonesia pointedly just joined the BRICS+.

People are starting to talk openly about the new multipolar world. Secretary of State Marco Rubio mentioned it earlier this month when talking about the Ukraine conflict. The latest to broach the subject was IMF head Kristalina Georgieva.

"We have to recognize that we are in a multipolar world. So, cooperation, as it once was when one country dominated, is going to be different. We still have one economy that is the strongest, the United States’. But we also have many economies, especially emerging market economies, that are advancing much faster," she said.

That is a pretty shocking admission and comes from one of the leading authorities in the best position to comment. It is tantamount to say that the US is in rapid decline, and it comes on top of the Draghi report that also said that the EU is already dramatically declined and needs to spend €800bn a year to just stand still.

This is going to be a problem for Trump who’s whole thing is MAGA and is throwing his weight about with tariffs as if the US can simply bully its way back to being top gun. He has won several of the first rounds, but all he is doing is alienating America’s closest and most loyal allies which will have obvious long-term consequences.

Munich Security Conference

The next test of US power is the Munich Security Conference (MSC) that starts tomorrow. The new special envoy to Ukraine, retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg is leading the delegation where he will poll Western leaders on how best to work a plan to sell to Putin that will stop the war.

The top story today was my look at what’s on the table – land, minerals, peacekeepers, arms control deals, and sanctions relief – but I have low expectations. Zelenskiy has said he is open to land swaps – basically trading the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) occupied lands in Kursk for some of the regions annexed by Russia – but presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov ruled that out.

Putin will concede some land at the margin, but there will be no big exchanges and the Kremlin is clearly going to hang onto the important bits: the Crimea, the Novorossiya land bridge and the four regions it took in 2022.

Peacekeepers for a proposed demilitarised zone (DMZ) are a non-starter too. Various people, including Zelenskiy, have said that to make this work some 200,000 troops are needed (the line of contact is very long indeed). But the idea that Putin will accept 200,000 armed Nato troops permanently stationed on Ukrainian soil is ludicrous.

This idea of peacekeepers, floated by French President Emmanuel Macron, seems to be the fudge that Western leaders think they can offer to avoid giving Ukraine Nato’s Article 5-like security guarantees – something they really don’t want to do. Ukraine’s ambition to join Nato and reclaim all its pre-2014 territory is "unrealistic," according to US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, spilling the beans and dashing Zelenskiy hope for a real deal that will protect Russia in the future. Understandably, Zelenskiy said yesterday that if Ukraine is not offered Nato (aka real security guarantees) he will have to build his “own Nato” – i.e. build up the AFU as Ukraine’s only real protection against Russian aggression. That is what is going to happen, if you ask me, and Ukraine is already producing some 60% of all the arms it needs to fight Russia from next to nothing at the start of the war.

The mining concessions will work in that it will ensure continued US arms and money, but the US is already winding down its support. The Kiel Institute, that tracks support, says that the EU is already outspending the US on Ukraine by 60 to 40. And under Trump that will probably continue to fall.

On sanctions there are two options: increase them and try and force Russia to concede points or offer to reduce them. The knee jerk action here I think is to increase them as the US harsh oil sanctions and US financial sanctions have been surprisingly effective. But again I think this is a strategic mistake, as despite the tactic success of these sanctions in the short-term, this is a game of whack-a-mole that Russia has shown itself to be very adept at playing. It’s only a matter of time until it finds new workarounds. And it is here that the new multipolar order is so important as Russia will find (has already found) a lot of willing partners to participate in the whack-a-mole game by opening new holes.

Offering to link new arms control talks to Ukraine is one of the more fruitful routes to go. The Kremlin is very keen on this. Trump has said he would like to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, so this is an option. US President Joe Biden kicked off his presidency by renewing the START missile treaty in January 2021 with Putin.

Sanctions relief deals is another option that the Kremlin would jump at. As most of the sanctions don’t work, why keep them? They only hurt Europe more than they hurt Russia and indeed there is already talk of turning Nord Stream gas back on. As a new European energy crisis gathers momentum, restoring a limited amount of Russian gas deliveries makes perfect economic sense and, as long as it's limited, political sense too. But obviously, this will stick in the craw of many of Ukraine’s allies, who just want to see Russia’s economy destroyed.