Peace according to Trump and Tacitus

“They plunder, they steal and they slaughter: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace,” wrote Tacitus.

Replace “…they call” with “Trump calls”, leave everything else intact, and this quotation reads like today’s reportage.

[Note to Trump, should he accidentally read this: Tacitus was a Roman historian, sort of a cross between a wop and a kraut.]

This little bowdlerisation of the classic has been prompted by Trump’s radio interview the other day. There, for the first time, Putin’s long-time admirer outlined his peace plan for the Ukraine.

[Note to Donald: Ukrainians live in the Ukraine, not in the UK.]

Trump has said a thousand times if he said it once that, had he been president a year ago, the war wouldn’t have even started. And even if it had started, he would have ended it within 24 hours.

Donald has been trying to score points off Biden so hard that once he even held “Sleepy Joe” solely responsible for the war. Dastardly Biden twisted Putin’s arm. “Frankly,” said Trump, “I don’t think Putin wanted to do it. I think he was sort of forced in by the statements being made by Biden.”

Vlad was sort of forced, and Donald could sort of unforce him – such is the recurrent theme. And though Trump’s fans never doubt his omnipotence, some still ask tactless questions about the specifics of his peace plan. Finally, their idol’s natural loquacity burst out.

First Trump reiterated, in his typically elegant style, his subjunctive mantra about what would have happened had he and not “Sleepy Joe” been president last year.

Putin, explained Trump, would have “understood” what’s what. To wit: Vlad “took over nothing” while Donald lived in Pennsylvania Avenue. However, since he tragically no longer lives there, Vlad is going for “the whole enchilada”.

That understanding would have come osmotically: “That’s without even negotiating a deal. I could have negotiated. At worst, I could’ve made a deal to take over something, there are certain areas that are Russian-speaking areas, frankly, but you could’ve worked a deal.”

I might have said this before, but it doesn’t hurt repeating that I detest Trump’s favourite word, ‘deal’, in a geopolitical context. Shaking hands with a chap whose name ends in a vowel on building a Mafia-run casino is a deal. Negotiating a momentous geopolitical development produces a treaty, an agreement or a compact.

But forget semantics, never Donald’s strong point. Let’s see what he is actually saying.

He would have blackmailed the Ukraine into ceding to the invader the whole eastern part of the country, mostly inhabited by Russian speakers. The linguistic argument comes straight out of Putin’s copybook: any place where Russian is spoken rightfully belongs to Russia.

By the same logic, Germany could now claim all of Austria where they blabber away in German like there’s no tomorrow. But hold on a second – Germany did do that, citing exactly the same reason, back in 1938. And the German-speaking Sudetenland also had to belong to Germany, along with the rest of Czechoslovakia for good measure.

[Note to Donald: I’m referring to what happened immediately before and after the Munich deal involving the krauts, the limeys and the frogs. The next year the krauts grabbed the whole enchilada.]

That historical reference clarifies the meaning of the deal Trump has in mind. He would deliver half of the Ukraine, and therefore a resounding victory, to Putin. That would make a mockery of the devastation wreaked on the Ukrainian people by the Russian invaders, the plunder, the slaughter – just reread the Tacitus quote above for the general idea.

Moreover, just like his typological predecessor from whom Putin borrowed the linguistic argument, the Russian Hitler would treat any such deal as only a breather. He would rebuild his army, replenish his arsenal and, a few months later, pounce again.

That time it wouldn’t be just the Ukraine on the receiving end. Like Hitler before him, Putin doesn’t even bother to conceal his far-reaching aggressive designs. He wants to rebuild the Russian or, to be more precise, Soviet empire that, it’s useful to remember, included several current Nato members.

That would put the whole world at risk, not just the low-rent part of Europe. Now, Ukrainians understand all this, which is why they’d never accept any such deal unless forced to do so. And the only way Trump could bend them to his (and Putin’s) will would be to threaten cutting off all American and Nato supplies.

The words ‘Manchurian candidate’ come to mind. Though the term may not be quite accurate, there’s no doubt that, if Trump were president now, Putin would have a de facto ally in the White House – with globally catastrophic ramifications.

Fox News, which can never be accused of anti-Trumpism, reran the radio interview in question. But Trump’s pro-Putin plans were too much even for the Tucker Carlson crowd. Hence they cut off the interview after “I could have negotiated.” Even Fox realised the rest of it was a continuation of Putin’s policy by other means.

Trump enthusiasts among my American friends insist that his domestic policies were, and would be, much better than Biden’s. That’s undeniably true. Yet talking about domestic policies at a time when a global catastrophe looms large is neither moral nor clever.

In the same vein, people praised Hitler for the German economy picking up, Mussolini for trains running on time, and Stalin for industrialising the Soviet Union. That reminds me of the old American joke: “Yes, but apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”

[Note to Trump: President Lincoln was shot dead when watching a play in the theatre.]