“Let's take stock of what what's happening in the world? Sure, but I would say that it will be a big question mark”. We talk with Stefano Silvestri, former president of the Institute of International Affairs (IAI), a great expert in military affairs, which anticipates our questions with a not exactly optimistic analysis of the two wars and the international scenario.
“I would say – he says – that we are circling around a topic that is unexpected for us and that is war. We thought it was destined to survive only in “wild lands” while now it is very close to us. We have some leaders of 'our' world, guys like Putin to be clear, but maybe also Xi, who believe, or seem to believe, in war as a tool for solving international problems, contrary to what the United Nations Charter says. We also have a "wild card", a warmonger, like Netanyahu. And we have a american president who seems to think he can win only by doing the opposite of everything that has been done before him. As for theEurope we have some leaders who are ready to defend themselves, but they need time to arm themselves properly; and others who discover the truth of Don Abbondio, and that is that if one does not have courage, one cannot give it to oneself. Here, we can start from this framework”.
The War in Ukraine: Do You Think Putin Is Mocking Trump?
"In truth, Putin always says the same things, it is Trump who imagines he is waiting for answers that do not arrive and perhaps never will. The fact is that peace for Moscow means Kyiv's surrender, negotiations mean nothing else for Putin. And this "Russian peace" does not stop only at territorial issues, as Trump has understood (or wants to pretend to understand), who, in one of his most curious speeches, had already announced that, to reach peace, it was enough to dismember Ukraine starting from Crimea, which 'you know, is Russian', as he had said. Not to mention that someone, I think former Prime Minister Medvedev, went even further, declaring that Odessa, never touched by the conquests of these two years, 'has always been Russian'. Letting it be understood that Moscow, at a future negotiating table, will not be satisfied with the territories it has occupied. In reality, the most important fact is that Putin's conditions for reaching peace are not only territorial, but also political: he wants a demilitarized Ukraine, neutralized and which, while remaining partly independent, should depend on Russia".
So what does Trump have to do now to get some results?
“First of all, the Americans should convince Putin that the war is now at a stalemate and that it is necessary to stop the 'military operation'. In conclusion, he should get Putin to stop the war. To leave everything as it is and move on to negotiations. Which, as we know, are not always short. Negotiations are necessary even if someone (Putin and Trump) had the idea of leaving the territories conquered by force to Russia. Because it is not that we can proceed as in the Middle Ages, declaring, without formal acts, that thousands of citizens overnight pass from one State to another. To be precise, we are talking about 7 million inhabitants in Donbass and 600 thousand in Crimea. Negotiations that perhaps then lead to referendums in which the citizens of those places can choose and in which the legal situation can (or cannot) coincide with the factual one. In short, I think that it will take a long time before we arrive at a resolution of the matter, assuming that the war stops. This is why I believe that Putin is betting on Trump's unpredictability and on the fact that in the end the American president will abandon Ukraine definitively. And it is clear that if left alone, Kyiv would risk being overwhelmed. Even if that is not a given".
To go to the US, why does the opposition to Trump appear silent?
“It is true, it is. Or rather it is true that the more moderate part of liberals, the center part to be clear, is still in shock and looking for a leader after being crushed by Trump's victory. While the more radical ones (Barnie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to be clear) are taking their protest around the US, but they are a minority and are therefore Trump's favorites. But it is in the Trump camp where we are witnessing a curious fact, a sort of religious war. The Americans who voted for Trump have been shocked by a sort of schism, between the 'Trump-believers' and the 'Trump-non-believers'. With facts that are a religious war in themselves, if you think about the president's threat to cut funding to those universities that give space to transgender people. The stakes, for the 'Trump-believers' are not only the economy, but also the values in which Americans must believe. The two factions are destined to clash in an increasingly ferocious manner, among themselves and with the rest of Americans who did not vote for Trump. We are already seeing it with the reaction of some universities. Perhaps Trump’s revolution will come from his camp?”
Is it possible that moderate opponents have so much faith in the rules of their democracy that they do not fear (or do not see) that Trump wants to hollow it out from within?
“There is a risk that he will do so. The campaign against judges, against lawyers... these are all things that seek to profoundly change the rules of the game. But this cannot prevent his opponents from preparing to beat him at the polls, the mid-term elections are not far away, and for the moment it is not clear who can beat him and how. And so the discouragement that has struck his opponents is Trump's winning card: the less alternatives appear, the more the only option left to voters is not to participate, to distance themselves from politics. And this is also how democracies die.”
Let's get to the hundred days that Trump has boasted about so much: what has he achieved?
“In the US the debate is all about tariffs, citizens are not very interested in international politics, which is common not only in America. In short, the fact that Trump has not changed anything in Ukraine or Israel does not matter to Americans. On the other hand, tariffs divide and spark discussion. The economic damage has been enormous, we have seen how the stock markets reacted. And only when Trump changed his attitude did calm return. However, the Americans who voted for him have not yet abandoned him, even though his popularity is sharply declining. And so there are those who wonder whether we should wait a little longer, giving credence to the president's ideas, one of which, the one preaching that companies must return (or come) to produce in the US, is the most popular. At the moment, however, there is no great rush by companies to follow the indication; it seems that only one company, from Taiwan and which produces microchips, has adhered to Trump's imposition, deciding to open a factory in Arizona. But the decision had already been made before the tariffs and therefore does not count as a result”.
How has the world changed after these hundred days?
“One thing is certain: these hundred days have not given us any certainty for the future. Trump has kept the level of general uncertainty high with his muscular policy, threatening conquests (against Canada, Greenland) or starting trade wars (the tariffs, in fact). And the serious thing is that no one knows yet what he wants to do and on practically everything. What does he want to do for example in Palestine? Seriously, Gazaland? And the Palestinians? And even on the tariffs: he wants to negotiate, but on what?”
How would you define these hundred days?
“I would say chaotic. General uncertainty has descended on an already difficult context that would have needed anything less than this global uncertainty about the future. The risk is that in the face of Trump's uncertainty, the certainties of a Xi, a Putin, a Netanyahu remain, who are bellicose certainties. Perhaps a little less of Xi, but who knows. If another war really broke out, the one in Khasmir between Indians and Pakistanis, two nuclear powers let's not forget, and China was involved, upsetting not only that chessboard, we could say we have the completion of a prophecy that Michael Howard, a great scholar of military history, had made when he said during a conference, with the usual English humour, that, given what was happening in the world (it was the Seventies, with the Cold War, China boiling, the conflict in Vietnam, the two Koreas divided and enemies) he expected Asia to return the favor to Europe by involving it in two world wars. I am fifty years have passed and the elements of uncertainty are still there, not only have they not been resolved, but they are getting worse".
And how have these hundred days changed Europe and Italy?
“Europe so far, at least in terms of chatter, has a greater awareness of what needs to be done. Italy has clung to an apparently benign Trump who, however, imposes duties on us too. I have not understood whether the Italian government wants to follow the European wave of greater awareness. It seems to me that it still wants to stay out of this process. It may be fine if the process in Europe goes badly, but if it deepens and becomes reality, we will then have to settle accounts. Maybe Meloni could be more in the European flow, but she has problems within her majority. And it makes me a little angry that this is the main reason why we are marginal in the European debate. Because that we are marginal is not a fairy tale told by the opposition, we really are.”
