Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson will serve as the backdrop for Trump to welcome the Kremlin leader to American soil for the first time in a decade. The base sits on 85,000 acres of land that were included in the US purchase of Alaska from the Russians in 1867, and today houses more than 5,000 active military and civilian personnel.
Security on the base is, of course, is guaranteed. But getting to Anchorage and securing accommodation there during peak holiday season is proving testing for the armies of officials, journalists, lobbyists and diplomats who hope to be there in time for Friday.
The Arctic Thunder Air Show at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardsonmilitary facility in Anchorage, Alaska, where Friday’s summit is set to be held (Photo: Hasan Akbas/Anadolu via Getty Images)The biggest question going into the summit is which of the two leaders will seek to project a greater degree of power at their meeting on the base. Even top Trump officials conceded this week that the ball was very much in Putin’s court, days after he eagerly accepted Trump’s invitation.
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“We’re going to have a meeting with Vladimir Putin, and … probably within the first two minutes I’ll know exactly whether or not a deal can be made,” Trump told reporters on Monday. When pressed on how he could possibly make that prediction, Trump scoffed. “Because that’s what I do. I make deals,” he said.
Rubio indicated that Trump – who in April voiced the suspicion that Putin “doesn’t want to stop the war” and later suggested he was “just tapping me along” – now wants to get the personal measure of his interlocutor in order to make final decisions. “A meeting is what you do to kind of figure out, make your decision. I want to have all the facts. I want to look the guy in the eye. So honestly, I think we’re going to know very early in the meeting whether this thing has any chance of success or not,” he said.
Trump speaks to US troops at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage in February 2019 (Photo: Saul Loeb / AFP)There is precedent for Friday’s meeting to be held at the base. In January 1971, President Richard Nixon welcomed Japanese Emperor Hirohito for a brief summit meeting there. It was the first time any reigning Japanese Emperor had ever set foot on foreign soil, and Nixon noted that 25 years before the meeting, Japan had been under postwar American military occupation.
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How quickly Trump decides to depart Elmendorf-Richardson on Friday may prove to be a key clue regarding the summit’s success or failure. Putin aides have made it clear that the Russians leader intends to draw Trump into a discussion about the “root causes” of the conflict in Ukraine, by which he means the very existence of Ukraine as a sovereign state, and the presence of NATO troops along Russia’s borders.
Trump is tantalised by economic opportunities for the US that could be exploited in the event that Ukraine-related sanctions on Putin, his top officials and leading Russian industries are relaxed. “Russia has a very valuable piece of land”, Trump told reporters on Monday, while musing about the possibilities that would exist “if Vladimir Putin would go toward business instead of war”.
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