Germán & Co, Karlstad, Sweden, August 16, 2025.
Energy: a constant tug-of-war…
Prologue
In Anchorage’s frozen theatre, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin did not negotiate—they performed.
It was history’s most cynical charade: a masquerade of “peace” for Ukraine, staged not to resolve but to deceive. Cameras rolled, pundits speculated, and the world leaned forward in anticipation. Yet the script was betrayal, and the stage directions came from ambition and fear.
On the eve of the summit, another actor crept into the play. Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko, Putin’s closest proxy and a relic of Soviet dominion, phoned Trump and cast himself as a shadow adviser. For the Baltics, for Finland and Sweden, the message was unmistakable: this was not a dialogue of nations, but a rehearsal of expansion. Belarus was not an outsider—it was the ghost of empire, summoned to remind Europe of its fragility.
Behind the curtain, borders were being redrawn without maps, Europe reduced to a bargaining chip between two men intoxicated by visions of power. Lukashenko whispered fabrications of danger, feeding Trump’s appetite for control. The media, complicit or naive, echoed the spectacle, clapping on cue like extras in a play they barely understood.
This summit was never about peace. It was two aging autocrats, desperate to preserve relevance, scripting illusions while sacrificing Europe’s security. And the world, spellbound, allowed the farce to unfold.
Prelude: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Measure of Humanity
In October 1962, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev stood on the brink of disaster. The Cuban Missile Crisis could have unleashed nuclear war, but both leaders chose restraint, envisioning not just their own survival but the preservation of humanity (Fursenko & Naftali, 1997).
Fast forward to Anchorage, Alaska, in August 2025, where the contrast was striking. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin turned their summit into a spectacle rather than a moment of statesmanship. Cameras captured the show, flags were displayed, and YouTube proxy channels hailed a so-called “new world order” (Germán & Co., 2025). Yet, beneath the surface, there was no trace of humanism. While Kennedy and Khrushchev pulled back from the edge, Trump and Putin turned it into performance art.
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I. Bannon’s Creed and Trump’s Stage
Abraham Lincoln dreamed of “a government of the people, by the people, for the people” (Lincoln, 1863). Donald Trump, under the tutelage of Steve Bannon’s demolitionist creed, has inverted this into a politics of personal rule: a government of the leader, for the leader, by those who serve him (Green, 2017).
Thus, in one figure, America confronts a paradox: a man who blends the flamboyance of a showman with the architecture of totalitarian power. Where Lincoln bound the Republic to its institutions, Trump threatens to dissolve it, transforming politics into a stage where loyalty counts for more than law. In this inversion, the spirit of Stalin looms in the shadow of Lincoln (Snyder, 2017).
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II. Vodka, Fingers, and the Ritual of Collective Despair
In Soviet Moscow, men gathered at metro entrances and factory gates, silently extending fingers—one, two, or three. A code for how many comrades were needed to buy a communal bottle of vodka (na troikh).
This practice was more than alcoholism. It was a sacrament of collective amnesia, pooling despair in a society stripped of agency (Korotayev & Zinkina, 2011). The gesture conveyed both mathematics and philosophy: three fingers, three lives dissolved in forgetfulness (White, 1996).
Ethnographers note that the ritual persists, adjusted for inflation: today, five or six contributors may be needed (Levinson, 2007; Nemtsov, 2011). It remains a testament to alcohol’s role as Russia’s unofficial antidepressant against political disenfranchisement.
By contrast, Western diplomats in 2024 joked about “counting days” until Zelensky arrived to infuse energy into weary conferences (Author interviews, December 2024). Where Russia’s ritual purchased oblivion, Ukraine’s leader transforms despair into defiance, suffering into solidarity (Germán & Co., 2024).
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III. The Farce
Vladimir Putin flew into Anchorage – indeed, a defunct Russian colony a world away from Europe – to meet Donald Trump. The choice of Alaska was freighted with meaning. Alaska was a "Frontier State" bought from the Russian Empire, the closest point between the superpowers, where 19th-century rivals once had "warm, friendly" ties. It is also the one U.S. state where Putin needn't fear an ICC arrest warrant. As one historian noted, Anchorage was "the perfect place to resurrect [Russo-American] friendship for the sake of world peace". But there was bitter irony in this encounter: Putin arrived as a pariah, flying into the land that once belonged to his empire. The backdrop slogan – "Pursuing Peace" – only highlighted the jarring incongruity of the summit.
In Russian lore, the troika – a three-horse sleigh racing through the snow – symbolises national energy and destiny. It brings to mind Gogol's image of a triumphant Russia, steering its own path with unstoppable force as others step aside. Soviet-era wisdom also revolved around threes: the phrase "soobrazit' na troikh," or "figure it out for three," referred to three men pooling their money for vodka and lively conversation. In Alaska, Trump and Putin invoked their own "na troikh" spirit: two dominant leaders joined by the shadow presence of allied voices like Lukashenko, who had spoken with Trump en route to the summit, striking deals while Europe was excluded. Ukraine and NATO were deliberately left out, relegated to the sidelines. The universal children's chant of "one-two-three" to begin a game seemed to echo on a global scale, as the duo of Putin and Trump moved forward without witnesses, Ukrainians, or any real hope for peace.
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IV. The Alaska Summit: A Theatre of Shadows
The political setup of the Alaska meeting amounted to a diplomatic exclusion act. Neither Ukraine nor any European leader had a seat at the table, despite Brussels pleading unsuccessfully for inclusion. Trump bluntly informed Zelenskyy that the summit was not a multilateral "conference" but a bilateral talk between him and Putin. Video footage later showed the two men side by side on a red carpet, with Putin towering over Trump—a visual that would come to symbolise the entire encounter.
The venue itself carried profound symbolic weight. Alaska, a former Russian colony and Arctic outpost, represented the furthest possible distance from Berlin or Brussels, yet remained closer to Moscow than anywhere else in the United States. This was no coincidence. Alaska's 19th-century purchase from Russia—a transaction that Moscow still commemorates—offered Trump a feel-good historical narrative about transcending ideological differences. Yet the location also served Putin's purposes: nationalist voices in Moscow had publicly demanded America "return" Alaska to Russia, and by meeting there, Putin subtly reminded Americans that even distant territories could feel, in some sense, like Russian claims.
More troubling was what the venue revealed about diplomatic realities. Putin's arrival on a U.S. military base underscored his impunity—no other American leader would have welcomed an indicted war criminal on U.S. soil. Alaska had become the only place where Putin could safely set foot without facing arrest.
The public performance masked a deeper realignment. Trump framed the trip as a high-stakes peace mission, but his behavior revealed different priorities. He praised Putin effusively, later calling him "very, very smart." At the same time, the White House staging—complete with naval bands, generals' salutes, and lavish receptions—treated the Russian leader as worthy of every honour typically reserved for legitimate allies.
Behind this choreographed diplomacy lay substantive policy shifts. Reports indicate that Putin used their private hours to lecture Trump on Ukraine's "anti-Russian integration" into the West—arguments that fell on receptive ears. Trump had long shared elements of Putin's narrative, viewing Russia's territorial seizures as recoveries of historic rights. To the British press, he had previously floated exchanging Ukrainian territory for peace, while on American television he signalled readiness to lift sanctions against Moscow in exchange for any deal.
The policy implications became unmistakable in the lead-up to and aftermath of Alaska. Trump threatened to withdraw U.S. aid to Ukraine while chastising Europe for insufficient support—rhetoric that implicitly aligned with Russian talking points. His officials signalled that Ukraine's NATO membership was "off the table" indefinitely and that any settlement would require Ukrainian concessions. Putin's representatives had already briefed European leaders to expect exactly this outcome.
As German Chancellor Friedrich Merz observed, the summit created a spectacle where "two men—Trump and Putin—performed for the cameras while proxies flooded social media with narratives of a 'new global order.'" But this performance came at Europe's expense. Trump's warm embrace of Putin on American soil served as a public rebuke to European stakeholders who had sought inclusion in these crucial negotiations.
The Alaska Summit of 2025 was heralded as a turning point, but in practice, it represented something far more troubling: the transformation of diplomacy into theatre. With NATO absent, Europe sidelined, and Ukraine excluded, the meeting achieved little beyond legitimizing Putin's position while undermining the multilateral approach that had sustained Western unity. Rather than resolving the conflict, Alaska deepened existing fractures in the international system, replacing genuine strategy with carefully orchestrated spectacle.
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V. Outcry in Europe and NATO: Deficits and Determination
When the summit’s details emerged, European capitals responded with a mixture of alarm and resolve. Leaders across the continent emphasized that Ukraine—not Russia—should have been the summit’s central figure. In a joint statement, EU and NATO representatives declared that Ukraine must have ironclad security guarantees, urged that no limitations should be placed on Ukraine’s armed forces or its cooperation with third countries, and insisted that Russia cannot be allowed a veto over Ukraine’s pathway to the EU and NATO. They reaffirmed that Ukraine’s borders are inviolable and that sanctions must continue until a just and lasting peace is achieved.
Prominent figures added clarity to this message:
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, while acknowledging Trump’s diplomatic overtures, pledged: “We will keep tightening the screws with even more sanctions until Putin stops.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz reassured that “Ukraine can count on our unwavering solidarity.”
French President Emmanuel Macron invoked the lessons of history, warning against trusting a Russia with a record of broken promises, and affirmed that France would stand with both Trump and Zelenskiy to uphold European security.
European Council President Donald Tusk declared: “Russia respects only the strong… The security of Poland and Europe is at a decisive moment. We must remain united.”
Despite these differences, there’s a clear consensus among European capitals: American leadership alone cannot ensure Europe’s security. As a result, nations are determined to strengthen their defenses, enhance military cooperation, and build resilience.
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VI. The Real War: Energy
Two men stood in Anchorage, each wrapped in the aura of empire. One bore the soul of a Tsar, heir to a vanished dominion yet determined to restore its borders by force. The other carried himself as an Emperor, convinced that the world could be remade through transaction and spectacle.
For both, survival depended not merely on armies or ideology, but on something more primal: resources. Fossil fuel was their lifeline. Rare earths their secret weapon. Oil, gas, and minerals were not just commodities; they were the blood of their power, the veins through which empires breathed and the marrow that armed their soldiers.
Trump and Putin were not adversaries in this sense, but mirror-images: rulers who knew that whoever controlled the flows of oil, gas, and rare earth minerals controlled not only economies, but nations, borders, and wars. Anchorage was not a peace summit. It was the meeting of two resource sovereigns, two dealers of fossil destiny, bargaining over who would hold the spigot — and the mines — of the 21st century.
Fossil Veins and Critical Minerals
Sanctions slashed Russia’s flows to Europe, but Moscow pivoted east. Tankers rerouted toward India and China, where discounted crude and gas sustained Putin’s war chest. At the same time, Russian companies quietly deepened exports of critical minerals — nickel, palladium, uranium — materials Europe could not easily replace.
Trump understood the leverage. Behind closed doors, he dangled access to Ukrainian rare earth deposits as part of his transactional calculus. “If Ukraine’s not in NATO, you gotta give us something,” he had said before. In Anchorage, the something was minerals: the ores buried under Donbas and Dnipro that could power semiconductors, missiles, and electric cars.
Meanwhile, Europe scrambled to replace Russian gas with American LNG. Dependency did not vanish — it merely mutated. The $750 billion energy pact Trump extracted from Brussels was less about molecules of gas than about leverage over Europe’s future industries. If Washington could control Europe’s fuel and its mineral supply chains, the Emperor’s hand would be secure.
Fossil Veins of War: Disinformation and Amnesia
The war for energy and minerals is also a war for memory. By 2023, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program counted 59 armed conflicts, the highest since 1946. Many were fueled not only by weapons but by fossil veins and mineral riches.
The oil shocks of the 1970s should have taught us that dependency breeds vulnerability. Jimmy Carter glimpsed this truth with his solar panels on the White House; Ronald Reagan tore them down. Since then, fossil corporations and mining lobbies have perfected disinformation: from outright denial of climate science to Orwellian slogans like “freedom gas” or “green growth” masking extractive violence.
As Ambrose Bierce might have written in The Devil’s Dictionary:
“Disinformation: lies and half-truths, dispersed with cunning, capable of shaping perceptions, undermining wills, and aiding despots.”
Energy and rare earths are no longer mere commodities. They are weapons, propaganda tools, and battlefields.
Anchorage as Allegory
Seen through this lens, the Alaska summit was never about Ukraine alone. It was a stage on which the Tsar and the Emperor rehearsed their parts in a dual drama of hydrocarbons and minerals. The clink of glasses masked the unspoken calculus: Russia’s eastward oil flows, America’s LNG gambit, Ukraine’s buried rare earths, and Europe’s illusions.
The handshake was not a step toward peace, but a performance meant to obscure the deeper war. A war in which empires feed on hydrocarbons and rare earths, and in which every sanction, every contract, every mine, every new pipeline is a shot fired.
The illusion of reconciliation melted like Arctic ice. What remained was the truth: so long as fossil fuels and rare earths rule the veins of power, peace will remain a mirage, and war its endless shadow.
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Epilogue: The Choice of Humanity
Kennedy and Khrushchev once stood at the edge of the abyss and chose restraint. They decided to preserve life rather than to perform before it. Trump and Putin, by contrast, approach the same precipice and mistake it for a stage. What to Kennedy was a warning, to Trump becomes theatre.
Lincoln preserved the Republic by binding it to institutions, ensuring that even in crisis, the fabric of law and democracy held. Trump toys with dissolving that inheritance, converting democracy into spectacle measured in applause and television ratings. Stalin built his empire on fear, on purges and gulags; Trump flirts with that ghost, mistaking cruelty for strength and repression for power.
But the stage on which these leaders act is not merely political. Behind every gesture lies the lifeblood of modern power: energy. Oil and gas, rare earths and uranium—these are no longer fuels alone but weapons. They bankroll wars, shape alliances, and enslave economies. Putin grasps this with the instincts of a Tsar: fossil flows are his empire’s veins. Trump grasps it with the hunger of an emperor in decline: energy markets are his last bargaining chip. To both men, resources are not humanity’s inheritance but their currency of rule.
There is another history to recall. In 1984, Desmond Tutu stood in Oslo’s cathedral to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He did not invoke conquest or exclusion but humanity itself. He spoke of dignity for the oppressed, of justice without borders, of a peace that recognized no race as inferior and no stranger as alien. His message was simple and enduring: peace cannot be born from exclusion.
Trump has chosen the opposite creed. His politics is not sanctuary but siege. He treats immigrants as enemies, builds walls as monuments, and preaches division as destiny. Where Tutu saw the indivisibility of humanity, Trump imagines purity—a fractured world where belonging is rationed and cruelty masquerades as order.
This is the fork at which history now stands. Without restraint, without memory, without truth, politics degenerates into spectacle, energy becomes weapon, and democracy collapses into farce. To follow Trump’s path is to repeat the logic of apartheid: to exclude, to diminish, to divide. We know where that road leads—to chains, to silence, to unmarked graves.
Yet that choice is not foreclosed. It remains with us. We can think in humanity, as Kennedy and Khrushchev once did, and as Tutu reminded the world in Oslo. We can bind our future not to spectacle but to solidarity. We can remember that freedom without justice is an illusion, and democracy without compassion is a corpse.
Energy, too, must be reclaimed from the empire of spectacle. Not a weapon in the hands of strongmen, not a currency of betrayal, but a shared foundation for survival—sun, wind, and rare earths harnessed not for domination but for endurance. Humanity’s veins must not run with fossil fuels of war but with the lifeblood of a sustainable peace.
History is watching, and the abyss is before us. Either we step back into humanity, or we plunge forward into spectacle. Either Lincoln’s soul endures, or it is sacrificed to Stalin’s shadow. Either energy becomes the engine of survival, or it remains the weapon of empire. The world must decide.
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Complementary Annex
(Background facts and data supporting the Anchorage analysis)
1. Diplomatic Context
Exclusion of Ukraine and the EU: Neither Ukraine nor European leaders were invited to Anchorage. European officials had requested inclusion but were denied; Trump insisted it was a bilateral meeting with Putin.
Belarus’s Role: On 14 August 2025, Belarusian state TV broadcast a large prisoner exchange as a propaganda victory. Lukashenko subsequently spoke with Trump before the summit, presenting himself as mediator—signaling Belarus’s integration into Russia’s strategic agenda.
2. European Reactions & NATO
Joint EU/NATO Statement: Declared Ukraine’s “ironclad security guarantees,” rejected any “Russian veto,” and reaffirmed that Ukraine’s borders are “inviolable.”
National Responses:
UK’s Starmer pledged more sanctions until Russia stops.
Germany’s Merz: assured “unwavering solidarity.”
France’s Macron: invoked “lessons of history,” stressing Russia’s broken promises.
EU Council President Donald Tusk: “Russia respects only the strong.”
Defense Spending Trends:
Poland: 4.2% GDP (highest in NATO).
UK: 2.3%; France: 2.1%.
Germany: 1.9%; Italy: 1.6%.
NATO average (EU states, 2024): 1.99% (moving towards 2.04% in 2025).
Strategic Commitments: NATO allies pledged to reach 2% of GDP defence spending by 2025; under the new Hague commitments, aiming for 3.5–5% by 2035.
3. The $750 Billion Energy Pact
Announcement: August 2025, Washington and Brussels announced a framework for Europe to purchase $750 billion worth of U.S. oil, gas, and nuclear fuel during Trump’s term.
Criticism: Analysts and trade experts called the figure “unrealistic” and “a fantasy,” since:
EU’s total energy imports in 2024 = €375 billion.
U.S. share = €76 billion.
To meet Trump’s number, Europe would need to triple U.S. imports and displace other suppliers (e.g., Norway).
Interpretation: The deal was viewed as a political fig leaf—a headline for Trump, but structurally unattainable.
4. War for Energy
Russia’s Pivot: After EU sanctions, Russia redirected oil flows eastward. India and China absorbed Russian crude at discount, keeping Moscow’s revenues alive.
Europe’s Scramble: The EU increased U.S. LNG imports, but dependency persisted—only the supplier changed.
Zelensky’s Framing: In 2024, Zelensky declared, “This is the real war—the war for energy.”
Historical Echoes:
The 1970s oil shocks showed dependency as vulnerability.
Jimmy Carter promoted renewables (solar panels on the White House, 1979).
Ronald Reagan dismantled them in the 1980s, signaling a return to fossil dominance.
Disinformation: Fossil industries spread climate denial and euphemisms like “freedom gas” (U.S. Department of Energy, 2019).
5. Global Conflicts
Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP, 2024): recorded 59 armed conflicts in 2023—the highest since WWII.
Energy Link: Many conflicts (Middle East, Caucasus, Africa) involve fossil fuel resources as a central stake.
6. Moral and Historical Parallels
Kennedy & Khrushchev (1962): The Cuban Missile Crisis was avoided from catastrophe through restraint and compromise.
Lincoln (1861–65): Preserved the Union by anchoring democracy in institutions.
Stalin (1924–53): Ruled through fear; symbol of authoritarian domination.
Desmond Tutu (Nobel Prize, 1984): Awarded for nonviolent resistance to apartheid. His Nobel lecture at Stockholm Cathedral (10 December 1984) stressed reconciliation, human dignity, and solidarity across borders.
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Conclusion
This annexe demonstrates that the Anchorage summit was not an isolated “photo-op,” but part of a larger geopolitical struggle where energy, disinformation, and authoritarian manoeuvring converge. By contrasting complex data with historical lessons, it underscores the stakes: Europe must strengthen itself or risk being sidelined again in a theatre of power dominated by others.
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The Author
Germán Toro Ghio is among the rare commentators able to traverse the frontiers between energy, politics, and culture. With an audience of more than a quarter of a million readers worldwide, he has become a reference point in the global energy debate. As an Expert in The Energy Collective and a contributor to Energy Central’s Power Perspectives™ series, he has distinguished himself by rendering legible the often opaque interplay of markets, geopolitics, and infrastructure. His career in the sector spans more than three decades, including leadership roles such as Corporate Vice-President of Communications for AES Dominicana, where he pioneered strategies for natural gas development and regional energy integration.
Yet Toro Ghio’s path extends far beyond kilowatts and contracts. Before entering the energy sector, he navigated the realms of literature, diplomacy, and cultural policy. He served as Executive Secretary of the Forum of Culture Ministers of Latin America and the Caribbean; he co-authored Colombia en el Planeta with William Ospina and Beatriz Caballero of the La Candelaria Theater Group for the UNDP; he collaborated with the Nicaraguan poet-priest Ernesto Cardenal; and, with the encouragement of Octavio Paz, he revived Carlos Martínez Rivas’s La insurrección solitaria—restoring Central American poetry to its rightful place in the currents of twentieth-century literature.
As a writer, he has published works ranging from Nicaragua Year 5—a documentary testimony in images, catalogued by Lund University—to The Non Man’s Land and Other Tales. He has directed and overseen literary editions such as Joven arte dominicano, promoted by Casa de Teatro in Santo Domingo and distributed to universities across the world.
Chilean filmmaker and political scientist Juan Forch—an architect of Chile’s historic 1990 “NO” campaign, later dramatized in Pablo Larraín’s Oscar-nominated No—has written of Toro Ghio’s narratives that they “enrich our understanding of history beyond traditional battlefields and royal courts,” praising journeys that move effortlessly “from the discomfort of a Moscow hotel to the exhilaration of the Nicaraguan jungle.”
English
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Prologue
In Anchorage’s frozen theatre, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin did not negotiate—they performed.
It was history’s most cynical charade: a masquerade of “peace” for Ukraine, staged not to resolve but to deceive. Cameras rolled, pundits speculated, and the world leaned forward in anticipation. Yet the script was betrayal, and the stage directions came from ambition and fear.
On the eve of the summit, another actor crept into the play. Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko, Putin’s closest proxy and a relic of Soviet dominion, phoned Trump and cast himself as a shadow adviser. For the Baltics, for Finland and Sweden, the message was unmistakable: this was no dialogue of nations, but a rehearsal of expansion. Belarus was not an outsider—it was the ghost of empire, summoned to remind Europe of its fragility.
Behind the curtain, borders were being redrawn without maps, Europe reduced to a bargaining chip between two men intoxicated by visions of power. Lukashenko whispered fabrications of danger, feeding Trump’s appetite for control. The media, complicit or naive, echoed the spectacle, clapping on cue like extras in a play they barely understood.
This summit was never about peace. It was two aging autocrats, desperate to preserve relevance, scripting illusions while sacrificing Europe’s security. And the world, spellbound, allowed the farce to unfold.
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