“It’s Going to Be Up to Him,” Is the Kind of Nonaction I Have Been Warning About with Trump–Putin
- john raymond
- Aug 7
- 2 min read
Let’s not pretend this was some offhand remark. On August 7, 2025, Donald Trump was asked whether his 50-day deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine still stood. His response? “It’s going to be up to him.” Meaning Putin. Meaning the man who launched the war in the first place, the man still bombing Ukrainian hospitals and blackmailing Europe with nuclear rhetoric. Trump’s answer wasn’t strategic. It was submissive. Worse — it was part of the script.
This is what asymmetric collaboration looks like. It’s the mask of neutrality worn by a man whose loyalties have always bent eastward. From the moment Trump was installed as Putin’s chaos vector inside the American presidency, the entire world has been forced to endure the fiction that he might someday act in Ukraine’s interest — in the national interest. But he never does. He performs action. He gestures at force. But when it comes time to actually constrain Putin, the gloves never come off — because they were never on in the first place.
Trump’s “it’s going to be up to him” is not a neutral statement. It is a signal. It is the abdication of leadership disguised as diplomacy. In asymmetric warfare, this is delay as a weapon. This is faux escalation followed by calculated retreat. Trump builds tension, creates a false choice between war and peace, and then conveniently surrenders the choice to the enemy. The goal is not resolution. It’s narrative paralysis.
Let’s be very clear: Trump’s entire posture here is theater. And the performance is being co-written in Moscow.
He did not issue his 50-day deadline to hold Putin accountable. He issued it to buy time — to pacify Ukraine’s allies, to stave off criticism from NATO, and to create the illusion that something was about to happen. That illusion is the weapon. It delays serious action. It breaks consensus. And when the deadline comes, as it now has, Trump blames the inaction not on himself — but on Putin.
Putin, of course, plays his role to perfection. He pretends to hesitate. He issues counter-demands. He stalls. This is the kayfabe of autocrats — the scripted drama of threat and negotiation where nothing real is at stake for them, but everything is at stake for the people they manipulate.
This is asymmetric warfare in its purest form: narrative over substance, paralysis over policy, deceit over deterrence.
For years I’ve warned that Trump’s relationship with Putin is not merely one of admiration or “narcissistic supply.” It is structural. It is instrumental. Trump is not a man hoping to negotiate peace. He is a man who needs Putin to help him appear like a man who negotiates peace. That distinction is critical.
When Trump defers to Putin, he is not negotiating. He is coordinating. And every time the world fails to call this out, we grant both men more space to operate. Ukraine bleeds. NATO fractures. Democracy suffers.
So no, this is not a policy misstep. This was the plan. This nonaction was always the plan.
“It’s going to be up to him” is the tell. It is the moment the mask slips — if only we are willing to see it...
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