American Secretary of State Marco Rubio is one of the few within the Trump administration who has a political background and understands something about politics. But alas, he is an American politician, and, therefore, obsessed with ideological constraints. Ideology, as we know, is an inverted representation of reality; and it is because of their ideological qualms that American leaders have – over time – gifted Mao’s China after 1949, Nasser’s Egypt after 1956, and Castro’s Cuba after 1962 to the Soviet Union.

Even though – unlike those of today – they were very serious people, American politicians of that era were also deeply obsessed with their own ideological representations; thus interpreted the Cold War as a clash between good and evil, between democracy and communism, between the free world and the totalitarian world. However, there were also those who did not succumb to the songs of those ideological sirens. For example, Henry Kissinger was able to restore relations with China in 1972 despite Mao proclaiming himself the world’s only true and great communist leader. For Kissinger, the goal was to use China to limit the ambitions of Russia and, above all, Japan’s desire for autonomy from the United States.

We are talking about Marco Rubio because, according to some rumors, the Secretary of State might be inclined to oppose or at least modify the 28-point diktat that the United States and Russia together have imposed on Ukraine. Rubio is tied to the logic of the Cold War – ideologically interpreted as a struggle against communism and against Russia – and therefore, he continues to see Russia as the principal enemy — or at least the actor that had long been perceived, presented, and portrayed as such. People of Rubio’s kind did not understand that the Cold War was — on the European front — fundamentally a collaboration between the United States and the Soviet Union to keep Europe divided for 45 years.

The United States has always tried to use Russia for its own purposes; in fact, everyone has tried to use Russia. And this is because of a very simple reason: Russia is a weak country; a country structurally incapable of rising above the threshold of a middle power or regional power for reasons that are at once geographical, historical, and psychological. Only a complete reversal of all known data today could solve Russia’s structural problems. So, to put it briefly, Russia, on its own, does not represent a threat to anyone, and most certainly does not represent any threat to the United States. It becomes a threat to the rest of Europe only when it allies with the great powers of the moment who want to prevent European unification – essentially what happened at the time of the Napoleonic wars and the Second World War; but, in any case, it is not a threat to the United States. At least not a direct threat: “containment” was, in reality, America’s strategy to contain Japan and Germany from the temptation, during the Cold War, to do again what they had done during the hot war: ally with Russia.

But let us return to the present.

Before the November 2024 elections, many in the American “deep state” were counting on the election of Donald Trump, seen as the right man to pull the United States out of the Ukrainian quagmire and reach an agreement with Moscow, with the strategic aim of decoupling Russia from China. Moscow could only view such a possibility extremely favorably because — let us remember — the Russians have always had a deep fear of China: they were terrified when China represented a tiny fraction of the strength of the Soviet Union, let alone today, when China is ten times stronger than Russia.

Trump was the right man precisely because he understands nothing about politics, is seduced by the toughness of dictators, and has a clear soft spot for Vladimir Putin. When Trump said during the campaign that he would solve the war in 24 hours, it was because he thought that a wink at Putin would be enough to resolve the conflict. Obviously, it could not be so. But Trump is like a broken clock that shows the correct time twice a day: you just have to wait for the right moment, and there you have Trump becoming the right man.

For his part, Putin has kept the rudder straight: he has continued relentlessly pounding Ukraine, even if some tiny territorial gains were certainly not his initial objective; he nevertheless gained some meters every day, sending tens of thousands of people to their deaths, until obtaining what he hoped to achieve from the very beginning of the conflict: Ukraine’s capitulation and its reduction to a state of political vassalage.

In Washington, Rubio is isolated — assuming, that is, that the hypothesis that Rubio dissents from this 28-point plan is true. It is a plan much less sketchy than the one, with a few fewer points, presented for Gaza. It is less sketchy because, while on Gaza the US had to negotiate not only with the Israelis but also with the Saudis, Emiratis, Qataris, and Turks — all pawns from whom Trump thinks he can extract something — in this case on one side there is Russia, and on the other side there is no one.

Because let us say it frankly: Ukraine has no cards, and Zelensky has no cards. This was clear in February and is even clearer today, particularly at a time of deep political crisis in Kyiv. Not only that: while Hamas, Gaza, and the Palestinians have been instrumentally supported by the Saudis, Emiratis, Qataris, and Turks, in this case Ukraine has been supported, apart from the United States, only by Europe, which means —frankly — by no one. Not because this or that European head of state or government lacked the will, but because Europe on its own is incapable of supporting Ukraine; if the United States withdraws, the game is over.

It is surprising, however, that after two days in which nothing else has been talked about but these 28 points, there has still not been a clear and explicit position taken by Europe — or at least by the Europeans. So much so that one might think that, behind the scenes, a new Munich is being prepared. The Munich of the 28 points.

When European leaders had gone to Washington with Zelensky last August, they had received a surprisingly benevolent welcome from Donald Trump to the point that those who continue to believe in fairy tales, among political classes and media, had come to believe that the Europeans had convinced Trump. But we know that Trump is always convinced by the last person who spoke to him or whom he heard speaking on television. The problem is that he then listens to someone else and changes his conviction even by 180 degrees. In short, every statement by Trump must be considered null and void, as if it had never been made.

In the case of the 28 points, it is different because the broken clock shows the correct time. That is, the time for the implementation, once again, of the historic American strategy of allying with a weak Russia against a strong rival: in the past, Germany and Japan; in the present, China. If the threat of US withdrawal from NATO, and the threat of withdrawing American troops from European soil, had left European leaders — including Great Britain — in a state of political nakedness, today that nakedness is even more evident: Europeans have been reduced to a condition of impotence. Thus, the capitulation is not only Ukraine’s capitulation but also Europe’s capitulation.

One last consideration, apparently unrelated to the rest, but which is not. on November 22, the G-20 summit began in Johannesburg. When it was created, the G-20 was rightly considered the forum of multipolarism, the political result of globalization, where the twenty major world powers could discuss their respective interests and find ways not to bring them onto a conflictual terrain. Well, for the first time, the United States will not participate in the G-20 summit at any level. Along with the absence of the entire American delegation, many other heads of state and government will also be missing. An annual meeting of the G-20 thus took place in reduced format. And, probably, without the United States, in an agonizing format.