Imagine you’re a real estate developer.
Imagine you’re trying to entice North Korea to come to the negotiating table over its nuclear weapons. What do you offer?
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You tell Kim Jung Un that North Korea has awesome economic potential if only it would give up its nukes.
Sadly, Kim doesn’t think like a real estate developer. Being a dictator is pretty cool; the United States can’t be trusted to stay away if North Korea gives up its nukes; the nukes aren’t going anywhere.
Imagine you’re trying to entice Hamas to the negotiating table in the Gaza Strip. What do you offer?
If the Palestinians were willing, then the United States could come into the Gaza Strip, move the Gazans out, and build hotels along the beaches. It’s great for everyone! Gazans could live in nice homes, and the Strip would become the Riviera of the Middle East!
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Sadly, Hamas doesn’t think like a real estate developer. The struggle in the Middle East is a centuries-long religious battle; building hotels is not the same as eliminating the Little Satan; one can’t directly trade money for peace.
Imagine you’re trying to entice Russia to make peace in Ukraine. What do you offer?
Russia has great economic potential. If Russia would agree to a peace deal, on pretty favorable terms, the U.S. and Russia could do some joint economic development projects that would make the autocrats in Russia, the Epstein class in the United States, and probably Putin and Trump (although maybe I repeat myself) much richer. How about it, Vlad?
Sadly, Putin doesn’t think like a real estate developer. The first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus, constituted the embryonic origins of Russia during the 9th to 13th centuries. Oleg the Wise, among others, ruled the place. That was the historical origin of Russia, and Putin ain’t giving it up.
Folks other than Trump have known this for decades. Whatever your opinion of Henry Kissinger, his 1994 — 1994! — book, Diplomacy, explains that Ukraine was the cradle of Russian Orthodoxy and that post-Soviet Russia was going to insist on maintaining Ukraine in its sphere of influence.
I’d bet the mortgage that our current real-estate-developer-in-chief has never heard of Kievan Rus or Oleg the Wise, and he’s probably never read Kissinger (whoever he was).
That’s one reason why Trump doesn’t understand what’s going on in Ukraine and why it’s so hard to negotiate peace.
We keep offering economic solutions to problems that do not have economic roots, and we end up getting nowhere.
It turns out that a little knowledge could go a long way.
Just ask Oleg the Wise.
Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].