There are two very different interpretations of what Russia learned from this failed initiative.
RT republished another piece by Valdai Club’s Research Director Fyodor Lukyanov, this time about “What Russia learned from Putin and Trump in Anchorage”. These are that the US and the EU are divided over the extent of their support to Ukraine, “the United States isn’t all-powerful” since it couldn’t get the EU and Ukraine to do what it wanted, and “Anchorage offered a revealing model of modern diplomacy, in which personalities increasingly matter more than institutions, and character more than principles.”
For as compelling as each point may seem, they only reflect Lukyanov’s understanding of Anchorage, and there’s a very different way to interpret everything. In reverse order, personalities and character have always played huge roles in diplomacy, especially as regards the American variant thereof. It’s sufficient to point to the US’ double standards on democracy and human rights with respect to its partners across the world as well as the unique imprint that each president makes on foreign policy as proof of this fact.
Moving along, Trump was persuaded by Zelensky and the European leaders who visited him right after Anchorage to indefinitely perpetuate the Ukrainian Conflict via continued arms sales to NATO and the continued provision of intelligence to Kiev, without which their proxy war on Russia would end. It can only be speculated how they did so, perhaps by convincing him that the US can profit more from bleeding Russia than partnering with it, but he didn’t even try to pressure them to end the conflict.
Finally, the US and the EU are therefore still in agreement about the importance of continuing their proxy war on Russia, and neither has yet to cross Russia’s ultimate red line of directly attacking it. All that happened after Anchorage is that Europe shouldered the financial burden for doing so while the US profited per what’s now known as the NATO 3.0 concept. Lukyanov wrote that “Moscow has long wished to see the end of NATO as we have known it”, but this might not be what it had in mind.
He also concluded that “Russia’s mistake before Anchorage was to imagine Trump as an external force capable of fundamentally changing the situation, but he didn’t play that role, nor could he have done so.” That too, however, is debatable. As was mentioned, Trump didn’t even try to pressure Ukraine and the EU to end their proxy war on Russia, but he could have forced them to by cutting off arms sales and intelligence. Russia therefore didn’t make a mistake in assessing his capabilities, only his interests.
To be sure, its policymakers had good reason to expect him to do so after offering the US a resource-centric strategic partnership as an incentive, which could have revolutionized the global economy, to say nothing of his self-branding as the “President of Peace” who desperately wants the Nobel Peace Prize. What they didn’t expect is that he’d be convinced by Ukraine and the EU to sacrifice these enduring strategic, economic, and reputational rewards for short-term profits. That caught them all off guard.
Trump probably also expected that Putin wouldn’t rescind the aforesaid partnership proposal by the time he’s finally ready to end the special operation, and frankly speaking, he was right about that since Russia is still committed to the “Spirit of Anchorage” as reaffirmed by Lavrov and his deputy. Returning to Lukyanov, his assessment of Anchorage is therefore questionable, so it wouldn’t hurt if he reconsidered his conclusions with a view towards aligning them with the reality that was shared in this piece.
In theory, one should always give peace a "last chance". In reality, especially when facing a bully, there is a point at which one has to realize that the decision is either to obey or to fight. Yet even when a decision to fight has been made, one still has to appear to be willing to negotiate. In this aspect, Iranians play the cards with even more patience than Russians. But maybe this is because Russians felt a much more significant change between the USSR peak and now than what Iranians feel between the 1979 revolution and now.
In the early 1930s, Chiang Kai-Shek clearly understood that China had to fight Japan some time in the future, but he also knew China was not ready. China took a conciliatory stance on the surface but bought German arms at great expense. Peace, however, was detrimental to the Chinese Communists. The Japanese also understood this and provoked China with increasingly aggressive moves. Think from the Western (not just the Americans') hegemony point of view: the last window to move was circa 2014 when Russia was clearly on the path of recovery under Putin. The West cannot afford to wait until Putin fixes the most urgent problems in Russia and manages a smooth transition.
After the failure in 2014, the West was ready to try again in 2022, but Russia decided to launch a spoiling attack combined with shock-and-awe to interrupt the procession, rather than to swallow Ukraine. The West has since been trapped in an attrition war, but they are still fairly far from giving up. Putin would be mistaken to ignore the Valdai Club before 2022. However, if Putin continues to lend his weight to these dreamers after 2024, then Putin has not grasped the hard truth enough. Chinese and Iranians played low-key and endured, but they have always had a clear judgment of the trend and future. As for this Mr. Lukyanov, I am far less well-learned than he is, but my guts' feeling is that he has been living in the ivory tower for too long.
Much simpler: Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated.