Exclusive Geopolitics and Its Costs In Terms of Peace Policy

This article is a modified English version of an article published in German on 16 September 2025 in the online journal Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft.

Image: bella1105 / shutterstock.com

It's no secret: the era of multilateralism is over, and the age of a liberal world order has come to an end. The reasons for this have been apparent since the 2010s, with the rise of China and the confident formation of the BRICS-plus group—which now extends beyond Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. At the same time, the liberal world order is being undermined even more significantly from within: by the former hegemon. Trump 2.0 means the downright joyful destruction of existing structures at a breathtaking pace, without any outlines of a new order emerging.

The peace policy costs of this demolition project are high. Whereas since the 1990s—often within the framework of the United Nations (UN)—the concept of a liberal and sustainable peace has been pursued, counterforces currently dominate in regional conflict hotspots. Where ceasefires or peace agreements are possible, these are power-based arrangements that resemble a patchwork of short-term stabilisation attempts rather than following any overarching design.

Libya and Syria, which became pawns in regional and global geopolitics, were severely affected by this epochal shift, which began even before Trump 2.0. The Israel-Gaza war is also overshadowed by geopolitical power struggles, but would require a separate analysis. Instead, the focus here will be on Ukraine, where the world's most costly war has been raging since Russia's attack and where territorial cessions were recently negotiated in Alaska over its head.

Securing geopolitical spheres of influence

The changed world is characterised by geopolitical competition. The exact strategy pursued by the US in this regard is still controversial, as Marc Saxer has correctly analysed: while the neoconservative camp of primacists insists on the global superiority of the US—especially vis-à-vis China—the prioritizers favour disengagement in Europe and the Middle East in order to be better equipped to deal with China. The isolationists, on the other hand, are sceptical of any global power claims and want to concentrate regionally on the American continent.

In his fluctuating statements, US President Donald Trump oscillates between the first two camps, but shows a clear tendency towards prioritisation. He seems to be aware that a direct confrontation with the nuclear superpowers China and Russia would be dangerous at present. For the time being, he seems to have committed himself to a policy of securing spheres of influence in order to gather strength for the major conflict with China. For the interim phase until the big showdown, there could be a kind of tacit agreement between Russia and the US. This would then be a world in which the US would have access to Greenland, among other things, and in which Ukraine would be kept small and patronised by Russia, which would have significant repercussions on peace negotiations (if they deserve to be called that). Whether, as a consequence of this logic, China would then also be able to assert its claims over Taiwan remains to be seen. Much more so than his predecessor Joe Biden, who clearly supported Taiwan, US President Donald Trump is pursuing a policy of strategic ambiguity, in which the promise of protection remains ambiguous and vague.

Power-based rather than sustainable peace

Since the late 1980s, attempts have been made worldwide, under the leadership of the United Nations, to establish an ambitious model of conflict resolution and sustainable peacekeeping. This followed liberal designs that sought to transform, not merely stabilise, war-torn societies through democracy and market economy. Today, we seem further away from these aspirations than ever.

This is certainly due to the failure of Western-dominated military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Sahel region. Secondly, counter-models of authoritarian conflict management and illiberal peacebuilding have been developing for some time. David Lewis, John Heathershaw and Nick Megoran] cite domestic conflicts in Russia, Sri Lanka, China, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Turkey as examples. Finally, there are forces that explicitly oppose sustainable peace ("counter-peace"). As Oliver Richmond, Sandra Pogodda and Gëzim Visoka point out, they find the emancipatory element of liberal peacebuilding a thorn in their side. Such destructive forces were already active in the Libyan war, for example Russia, Turkey, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, all of which undermined a UN arms embargo.

However, the paradigm of power-based peace is perhaps best illustrated by the war in Syria, which ended far too late and, for the time being, only provisionally. This was symbolised by the Astana talks between Russia, Iran and Turkey, which began in early 2017. As Juline Beaujouan has indicated, these talks were ultimately about de-escalation and short-term stabilisation, as well as the continuation of an autocratic regime. Significantly, however, these efforts were not crowned with success, as the power-political interests of Russia, Iran and Turkey converged only to a limited extent. Instead, the strongest regional player prevails in 2024: Turkey seized the opportunity in 2024 and supported the Syrian rebel alliance Haiʾat Tahrir ash-Sham (HTS) in capturing central areas and conquering Damascus in December 2024. At that time, Russia was tied up in the war in Ukraine, and Iran had to watch as Israel dealt a decisive blow to its ally, the Hezbollah militia, in Lebanon.

Negotiating without the party concerned: the Alaska summit on Ukraine

The trilateral forum of the Astana talks did not aim for a lasting peace. At the same time, it stood for a small-scale multilateralism that rivalled the UN's efforts, but also had an eye on connectivity with UN diplomacy. Finally, the inclusion of representatives of the Syrian government and selected opposition groups resulted in selective inclusivity.

With Trump 2.0 and his approach to the Russia-Ukraine war, geopolitical negotiations are being taken to a new level that focuses on exclusivity. According to Stefan Meister, this approach accommodates Putin's ideas of resolving the Ukraine war in the style of a Yalta Conference. However, there is one important difference compared to February 1945: at the Alaska summit on 15 August 2025, the president of the most powerful country in the world negotiated with an aggressor (and not with the victorious powers that had previously been attacked) about the potential spoils. The affected party (i.e. Ukraine) was not at the table—and the other Europeans were also excluded.

The current US strategy opens the door for a revisionist power not only to annex militarily conquered territories in violation of international law, but even to expect international recognition. Kyiv is not prepared to do so. However, Washington's military and economic leverage over Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is ultimately considerable.

Europe at the side table of great power diplomacy?

Are we irrevocably heading towards an era of geopolitics? With regard to Ukraine, it seems that the train has not yet completely left the station. For just as in Syria, deals between major powers are coming up against inherent limits. For the US, these limits lie not least in the fact that it is dependent on the Europeans when it comes to security guarantees for Ukraine. The Europeans should not rush into commitments and arrangements that they have not been involved in shaping. They have considerable negotiating power, as they will inevitably have to play a central role in any peace agreement. They could also push for external, non-European observers to be involved in order to open up possible peace talks to a multilateral process at an advanced stage of negotiations.

However, this would require a more independent position in transatlantic relations, such as we find in France rather than in Germany. In concrete terms, this means that with regard to China, the EU should pursue a balanced course that recognises the multilateral efforts of the East Asian superpower and does not follow the black-and-white notion of an inevitable hegemonic conflict. With regard to the Russian threat, confidence in American security guarantees has become fragile. At the same time, as Herbert Wulf rightly argues, there is no reason for alarmism that paints a scenario of an imminent and quasi-natural Russian attack on NATO and belittles European NATO capabilities. In short, it is not helpful in the current situation for flatterers such as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to take the lead. Instead, clear language should be used when communicating with the US administration. European security guarantees for Ukraine are possible. But it must be emphasised that these will only be provided if the US also gets involved in this risky undertaking and does not present the European allies with a fait accompli. Otherwise, the Europeans risk ending up at the side table of great power diplomacy and being unable to exert any influence on peace policy.

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Tobias Debiel, Dr. sc. pol., political scientist, is Professor of International Relations and Development Policy at the University of Duisburg-Essen and Deputy Director of the Institute for Development and Peace (INEF). His main areas of work are violence prevention, conflict mediation, peacebuilding and development policy in war-torn states