Hundreds of millions of people witnessed the recent shoot-out in the Oval Office. Among them, in the room, was a reporter from Russian media. Note that Reuters and the Associated Press were not invited by the White House to join the press corps assembled there. In my opinion, the two news services not invited are among the most unbiased of media outlets. I read both daily.
Here are some takeaways that are mine alone.
- It makes no difference what people wore. That is a tool of media manipulation and means nothing in substance. Modi doesn’t wear a suit. Musk goes in and out of the Oval in a baseball cap and tee shirt. President Trump has a blue-suit, white-shirt, red-tie uniform. President Zelensky wears as a uniform a dark shirt symbolizing a war-torn country. For those who remember, Arafat wore a keffiyeh when he signed the peace accord that he later broke with the Intifada. Enough about haberdashery.
- The president’s critics claim this was an ambush. Trump supporters deny that. Nobody outside of the DT inner circle knows for sure. And, in my opinion, it doesn’t make a difference.
- This is a new form of non-diplomatic diplomacy. It is the version of world-order diplomacy (or lack of same) applied by DT. 2.0. Some folks like this style; others detest it. Kotok view: Style isn’t substance.
- Realpolitik is the substance. That German word refers to no-nonsense politics focused on practical objectives rather than ethics or philosophical ideals. Realpolitik is at work still and will play out in a big way. For an understanding of the German term realpolitik, here’s a history primer from Study.com: “Realpolitik Definition, Origin & Examples,” https://study.com/academy/lesson/realpolitik-definition-meaning-diplomacy.html. John Bew’s book Realpolitik: A History, reviewed in detail at https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=45660, offers a more in-depth look at the history of the concept.
Lastly, in the US the verbal shoot-out in the Oval has a historical parallel in the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Here’s the story about the Earp brothers and the Clanton-McLaury gang. On the face of it, the famous gunfight was about a city ordinance and the carrying of weapons. Dig deeper, and you will find it was about minerals and mining rights and who controlled them: https://www.ok-corral.com/pages/history.shtml.
Access to Kursk Oblast’s rare earths appears to be a key objective. The geopolitical array has the US and the Europeans on one side and not in full agreement over what to do. And it has the Chinese and Russians on the other other side, and they are not in full agreement about what to do, either. Ukraine and its natural resources are a pawn but a critical one.
Note that realpolitik is brutal and pragmatic and ignores “right versus wrong.” (When it is nakedly about power above all, it veers into machtpolitik, or power politics.) In the Oval shootout, we witnessed a 7-minute, one-act play about the clash between power on the one hand and a discussion about right versus wrong on the other.
Kotok view. If you want something (weapons?), and you are arguing the right vs. wrong argument, you will lose to power. Power demands and only understands respect. Machtpolitik doesn’t care about right or wrong. It requires respect and subjugation. Zelensky has now seems to have learned that, in my opinion. That assessment is based on his recent actions trying to “patch things up.”
Note another observation. Republican Senator Murkowski was brutally direct in her criticism of Donald Trump. Republican Senator Graham was the defender of Trump. There are reports that friendly members of Congress briefed Zelensky before the meeting about how to repeat and repeat “thank you” to DT. But Zelensky remembers watching Putin kidnap Ukrainian children, kill Ukrainian citizens, and attempt the destruction of his country.
The battle for these mineral rights isn’t over. My guess — and it is just a guess — is that realpolitik prevails. That means the contest is between Putin and Trump over who controls those mineral rights. Machtpolitik at work!
We close now with a message from the Polish ambassador to the UN, Radosław Sikorski.
Stay tuned.
