MICHAEL WALSH AMERICAN FREE PRESS CORRESPONDENT: What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? 

It seems we are about to find out as Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump hold their fifth face-to-face meeting in eight years in Alaska on August 15.

Pulling back the curtains of diplomacy, the bonhomie and reassurances from Trump that the two get on fine together, the heads of state are poles apart.

The cold and calculating, inflexible Russian leader will hold the better hand of cards. After all, in many ways, Putin represents the hopes and aspirations of the world’s most powerful trading blocs.

Blowback should have been expected. Many major BRICS members are already ganging up on Trump’s harsh tariffs. This response doesn’t bode well for the US economy and American unemployment levels

On the other hand, President Trump represents a mega state, which, alas, is a front for a largely powerless and increasingly irrelevant Western Alliance. We’re all Americans now.

On the face of things, President Putin, who heads the world’s largest nation with the richest resources upon which much of the world depends, appears to have the upper hand.

The alleged purpose of the meeting is to resolve the Russian-Ukrainian conflict once and for all. The outcome of their meeting will truly be of historical significance.

What really is at stake is how the mop flops after the meeting between the two world leaders, especially if it results in a workable peace deal following a freeze in military action.

Putin will not budge on territorial concessions. If Trump achieves a deal that accepts Ukraine’s loss of 20 per cent of its territory, the richest in natural resources, he will return triumphant as did British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who on September 30, 1938, returned in triumph from Munich to declare ‘peace in our time.’

However, the East and West will see the outcome in positive and negative terms.

Anything short of a return of Ukraine’s lost territories will signal massive failure of the West’s expensive intention to ‘stick it to Putin.’

This would be nothing other than capitulation by the West, the outcome of which would be world-shaking in the aftermath.

Back in May, I wrote that during a speech in Riyadh, President Trump made what could only be described as the most resounding policy about-turn in American history.

During that speech, Trump changed 249 years of American foreign policy. The US president reminded his captivated audience that “the neo-liberal West’s self-styled nation-builders wrecked far more nations than they built.”

Denouncing the history of past US presidents, “afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins, I believe it is God’s job to sit in judgment.”

Is Trump coming to terms with a fast-changing world destined to be multi-polar and peaceful? This would signal that the military and economic war on Russia has fizzled out.

If so, centuries of Western omnipotence have hit the buffers in much the same way as did the Soviet Union. Putin readily concedes that the USSR’s colonialist tendencies were a mistake.

Is the West realizing that the past is best left in the history books? In this respect, Putin might well be speaking from a similar position.

“For centuries, the Western elites got used to filling their bellies with human flesh and their pockets with money. This ball of vampires is about to end.”

Could he be penning the obituary of Western dominion? The question is, are these two world-class leaders about to reach an understanding and a conclusion during their meeting?

Moreover, what of the other players, notably Volodymyr Zelensky and his fragmenting European Union backers?

In terms of legitimacy and their suffering overwhelming policy and popularity failures in their own countries, these elites are irrelevant to the outcome of all talks conducted between the Russian and American superpowers. As reality sets in, Russophobia is evaporating in Western Europe.

The European Union’s two unelected presidents, 720​ advisory-only MEPS and 27 heads of state will be joining the rest of their dispirited, largely disenfranchised electorates watching their televisions for snippets of news emerging from what could be a truly epoch-changing meeting.

One thing is for certain: Both Trump and Putin are desperate to draw a line under the conflict. However, Putin holds all the aces and does not need to capitulate on any of his demands.

Primarily, these conditions insist on no NATO membership of Ukraine and a pledge from the West to keep its promise to curb eastern expansion.

Ukrainian neutrality, the partial lifting of sanctions, primarily those targeting energy exports and financial systems. Resolution of $300 billion of frozen assets.

Occupied territory to be recognized and legal rights for the Russian-speaking populations of Ukraine.

When the two heads of state convene, we shall see who blinks first. You can share this story on social media: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

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