My friend shared an article with me today, and for a minute I could almost hear the choir warming up. Not the church choir—the political one. The kind that turns diplomacy into a superhero movie, where history is an impatient editor and the messy parts get cut for runtime. The article’s own author is more careful than the headline energy around it: he says Trump’s claim to have “ended eight wars” is debatable, notes that several items on the list are disputed or already unraveling, and still argues that the spectacle contains a lesson Europe should not ignore.
Let us grant the strongest charitable interpretation first, because that is the only honest way to test an idea. Suppose a U.S. president, by speed, pressure, and top-level attention, forces multiple parties to sign papers they had been avoiding. That is not magic. It is leverage. It is also not new. What is new, if anything, is the marketing—slapping a single name on a collective process, as if war is a stubborn jar and the right strongman can open it with one twist. The jar metaphor is seductive. It is also false.
Diplomacy has always had two hands: the hand that offers a deal, and the hand that changes the cost of refusing it. Theodore Roosevelt mediated the end of the Russo–Japanese War in 1905, pushing both sides toward the Treaty of Portsmouth; it earned him the Nobel Peace Prize, and even then historians argued about how decisive his personal role really was versus the parties’ exhaustion and interests. Henry Kissinger’s “shuttle diplomacy” in 1974–1975 was built on deadlines, pressure, and repeated, exhausting flights between capitals until disengagement agreements were reached—hard bargaining wrapped in ceremony. Jimmy Carter locked Begin and Sadat into a two-week political pressure cooker at Camp David in September 1978, personally grinding through details until two frameworks were signed. Bill Clinton’s administration, with Richard Holbrooke doing the heavy lifting, used a mixture of diplomacy and coercion to get the Dayton Accords initialed in November 1995, after years of slaughter and failed European initiatives. In Northern Ireland, Senator George Mitchell imposed a deadline in April 1998; deadlines are not poetry, they are tools.
So if someone tells you that a modern leader has invented “tough dealmaking,” you are not listening to analysis. You are listening to branding.
The Carnegie article opens with an almost perfect symbol of this age: the U.S. Institute of Peace—created by Congress in the 1980s to build knowledge and capacity for conflict resolution—was shut down and then theatrically reopened with Trump’s name on the building. That is not peace policy; it is narrative engineering. It says: institutions are slow, people are fast; experts are replaceable, strong leaders are destiny. Doctor would diagnose it as a public addiction: “You don’t want the truth. You want a simpler story where the hero is you.” Rational person would call it what it is: a category error. A signature is not a stable equilibrium.
Here is the part that supporters and critics both often skip because it is boring, and boring is where reality hides: peace agreements frequently fail. Depending on definitions and datasets, a large fraction collapse within a few years; one synthesis citing Uppsala Conflict Data Program statistics puts failure at roughly 45% within five years. You can find the same “about half within five years” claim repeated in policy writing because it matches what practitioners experience: the ink dries, spoilers appear, funds evaporate, enforcement is weak, and the losers of the new order start shopping for weapons.
This is why the article’s most useful point is not “Trump is a genius.” It is the quieter, less flattering lesson: breaking a deadlock and sustaining a peace are different jobs, requiring different temperaments and different institutions. The person who is willing to threaten, bully, or shock the system can sometimes create movement. But the person who enjoys the shock is often bored by the maintenance. And peace is maintenance: demobilisation, policing, verification, prisoner exchanges, local legitimacy, constitutional design, economic stabilisation, and credible security guarantees. In research on civil-war recurrence, third-party guarantees and peacekeeping are repeatedly associated with more durable peace; Fortna’s work, for example, finds materially lower rates of relapse where peacekeepers are present compared to similar conflicts without them.
Now look at the modern claims the Carnegie author mentions. He notes that some items on the White House “eight conflicts” list are not really peace agreements, and that at least one (Thailand–Cambodia) was reportedly unraveling with renewed fighting and public denials around a ceasefire claim. That is not a minor footnote; it is the central test. If a deal can be reversed by the next week of shelling, it was not a settlement. It was a pause.
The author also gives Trump administration credit in the Armenia–Azerbaijan case, while pointing out something cult narratives hate: the parties already had a draft and were looking for a new guarantor; the Americans moved fast at the top and staged the signing. In other words, the “hero” may have been the midwife to a pregnancy that already existed. Midwifery is valuable work. It is also not divine.
And then there is Ukraine, hovering over every European conversation like a live wire. Even today’s reporting describes negotiations circling around the truly fatal details: enforcement, security guarantees, and territory—issues that decide whether a ceasefire is a bridge to peace or simply a reload timer. In this context, worshipping “the deal” is not just naïve; it can be dangerous. A bad bargain can freeze injustice long enough to rearm the aggressor. A fast bargain can externalise costs onto the weak. “Peace” that buys quiet today by promising violence tomorrow is not peacemaking; it is deferral.
So what should Europe learn, if it wants to learn something real and not just take selfies next to the signing table?
First, stop confusing moral seriousness with procedural comfort. If a status quo is killing people, managing it politely is not neutrality; it is a choice with a body count. The Carnegie author is right that protracted conflicts acquire momentum and that someone has to spend political capital to change the incentives. Europe often has money, expertise, and legitimacy—and still hesitates to use leverage because leverage creates enemies.
Second, build leverage that is not theatrical. The American advantage is not personality; it is the ability to credibly promise and credibly punish at scale—security commitments, sanctions enforcement, market access, military aid, diplomatic recognition. Europe can do parts of this, but only if it coordinates and accepts tradeoffs. Otherwise it becomes the stage crew while others write the script.
Third, treat implementation as the main event, not the afterparty. If “around half fail within five years” is even approximately correct, then the signature ceremony is the beginning of the risk window, not the end. Fund the monitors, design verification, plan for spoilers, and make enforcement boringly automatic—less dependent on the mood of a single leader or election cycle.
Fourth, immunise yourself against personality cults by asking one cold question every time: what would still be true if we removed the leader’s name from the story? If the answer is “not much,” you are watching propaganda. If the answer is “power shifted the incentives and institutions locked it in,” then you are watching statecraft. Trump’s fans say he is the man behind the wheel. I can accept the metaphor—on one condition: a driver is judged by control, not by sitting in the seat. So I ask a simple, almost boring question: what exact levers were pulled, what incentives changed, what enforcement exists, and what measurable outcomes should persist when the cameras leave? If the answer is only ‘trust the driver,’ then we are not discussing diplomacy; we are discussing faith. Peace is not a personality trait. It is a system that survives bad days, bad actors, and the next election.
A final thought: people love the peacemaker-messiah fantasy because it absolves everyone else. If peace depends on one exceptional man, then you, and I, and every committee in Brussels can remain spectators—complaining about methods while quietly enjoying the fact we do not have to choose. That is the real cult: not of Trump, but of comfort. History does not reward it.
