2025 can be a year for history textbooks

Only occasionally there are years when the world goes through some fundamental, convulsive change. 1968, with the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Paris riots and the protests against the Vietnam War in America, were one of them. 1989, the year of the slaughter of Tiananmann, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the implosion of the Soviet Empire, was different.

I was on hand to see how each of these things happens, and from this point of view, it seems to me that only seven weeks in 2025 could be a year like this: a time when the basic assumptions about the way the world works No, it is given to the shrederer.

The main reason, of course, is Donald Trump.

Since the end of World War II, each of the 13 US presidents before Trump's current term of office has paid the lowest lip service for a set of key geopolitical principles: that America's own security depends on Europe's defense from Russia from Russia And not -not that he is not concerned with no – -communist countries of Asia against China.

Trump increased this approach. He says he puts American interests in the first place, above all. Most of all, this comes down to the only question about how much the United States costs.

In itself, this is quite difficult for his friends and allies abroad, especially in Europe. But this is much more difficult than Trump's own personality. No US president in modern times, even Richard Nixon, let his personal characteristics shape his policies, as Trump does.

“He is just like Louis XIV,” a retired American diplomat told me, citing the self -esteemed sunny king of France.

Critics like this believe that Trump is both breathtaking and amazingly thin -skinned. As a result, the appointments who surround him, people like Elon Musk and JD Vance, may think that their position depends entirely on how much they praise and support his views.

When President Trump claims without evidence, that President Volodimir Zelenski of Ukraine is corrupt And there is a low approval rating, then Musk makes it a further: it accumulates to say that Zelenski is despised by the Ukrainian people and feeds on the dead bodies of the Ukrainian soldiers.

No one in Trump's circle today seems to cough discreetly and say, “President, maybe you should think of rowing in this statement.”

Judging by his previous service office, we can be sure that each of the people around him knows how he disagrees with disagreeing. And they will also know that many voters with all the heart support Trump's approach and believe that they have been banking the security of a distant continent.

He is committed to stopping Ukraine's war from Easter. He is absolutely correct when he says President Vladimir Putin is willing to do so. Russian troops, through the pure power of numbers, make slow progress in the eastern part of Ukraine.

But the price in Russian life is huge. If the process continues, Russia may need to turn to a summons, which would be dangerously unpopular and can even destabilize the Putin regime. All that Trump says of getting peace is music on his ears.

John Bolton, a Trump National Security Sports Advisor during his first administration, said that day, that the Kremlin champagne would explode when they heard the Peace Plan of the Trump Administration. I certainly felt like a historical moment – not only in Moscow, but all over the world.

Putin emphasized the idea that Trump has indeed won the 2020 election. It may not be true, but President Putin knows that Trump favors anyone who supports his opinion on things.

Why, unlike this, Trump and the people around him go so much to President Zelenski? It must be partly because he does not obedient what he has been told, such as returning to the negotiating table and making a deal to access the United States to the critical minerals of Ukraine.

At the same time, President Trump realizes that Zelenski is the weakest connection in the US-Russia-Ukraine trio and can be pressed in a way that Putin cannot be. The more pressure is accumulated on Zelenski, the faster the peace deal will come.

President Trump never looks, at least in public, to show great interest in the subtle details of each agreement. This is the very agreement that is important to him, even if Ukraine and his allies think it is clearly unfair and allows Russia to return to some future date and begin the war at first.

British and German diplomats I know about were angry with the way Trump went to make Russia at the negotiating table. “He had two main cards in his hand,” one said. “The first was Russia's isolation. Putin would have made a lot of discounts to focus on conversations with America – only Trump did not insist on any discounts at all. He just let him sit and start talking.”

The other card, said the diploma, was to insist that Ukraine should be allowed to join NATO. “Trump could hit this and blackmail any Putin's agreements before he finally said OK, well, Ukraine would not join NATO in this case.” In the European capitals, it is felt that he threw out his two main cards before the conversations even start, without any prerequisites.

However, some European diplomats with experience in American policy have advised their governments that this great monarchical period in the presidency of Donald Trump, where his advisers reflect on him (he literally refers to himself as a “king” this week), will not Last.

Trump currently has control over Pliant Congress and a conservative Supreme Court-but for only 20 months, in November 2026, there will be medium-term elections in the United States.

There are signs that inflation is beginning to grow in America and enough people can be affected by cataclysms to want to punish Trump Republicans.

If he loses control of one or both houses, the force he has to currently push every plan and policy, however contradictory it will decrease.

But the next year and eight months can happen a lot. Trump's expansionism can strengthen China. A major international trade war caused by Trump's tariffs can be opened. It seems that the European Union is likely to become politically and economically greater than ever.

Mira's consent in Ukraine, according to Russia's terms, will be something completely new to the United States. In the bigger part of the 1945 negotiations, Russia is struggling to make its way because of America's economic and military power.

Now President Putin, making the expensive decision to invade Ukraine three years ago, seems likely to get out with him and prosper.

If that happens, then 2025 will really be remembered as a key year: a moment when the history of the world has changed and nothing was quite the same again.