The events in the Oval Office on Friday 28 February may have profound consequences for all of us for years.  In retrospect, it seems unfortunate that things developed as they did. Let’s assume that we could not influence the way in which President Trump and Vice President Vance conducted themselves. What might we have suggested to President Zelensky if we had the opportunity to coach him in advance – or even whisper in his ear as the press conference became increasingly fraught?

First, we need to recognise that this is a man who carries the weight of his country and its suffering on his shoulders.   He may well be traumatised by his experiences. If we were in his position, we might all have been susceptible to triggers, especially when the many sacrifices made by the Ukrainian people were called into question. We know that the fight or flight (or freeze or faint) default setting comes into play when we feel threatened or under-valued – or quite simply under attack, even if there is no actual physical danger. The approach taken by the President and Vice President could have caused many of us to react with a mix of defensiveness and self-protection, manifesting in words and actions we would later regret.

So, what might we have suggested to President Zelensky – or indeed anyone placed in this kind of situation, which is not unfamiliar to us as mediators? ‘Separate people from the problem’ might be the first thought. How people behave and what they say may not necessarily represent what they really mean or feel. ‘What lies beneath the mask?’ is a question we might need to pose. We might remind the President that, as Ken Cloke puts it: “…everyone in conflict experiences essentially the same intransigent emotions, ego defences, moral rationalizations, and alienations…”.

Perhaps even they, Trump and Vance, are fearful in some way and trying their best in the circumstances in which they find themselves. Let’s assume that anyway, we might suggest. The poet Longfellow captures it well: “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

And remember, they think that they are ‘right’ from where they sit – and they will be right, on some things at least. Nobody has a monopoly on truth and we must all guard against the ‘danger of the single story’. Maybe, if he had the opportunity, we would advise the President to watch the TED talk of that name delivered by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

In any event, however they behave, it is usually a good policy to treat others with respect and courtesy, especially in a potentially hostile environment such as that in the Oval Office that day. That does not mean passive acquiescence of course – far from it. Maintaining a dignified silence can be a very powerful way of meeting aggressive behaviour. Not only that but MIT research apparently shows that increased silence leads to better negotiations; silence is the ultimate power move in negotiation, says William Ury. And pausing before responding can give us time to breath and to engage system 2 thinking, as Daniel Kahneman would describe it.

The London-based mediator Maria Arpa once summed this up well, in a blog entitled ‘Mind The Gap’: “There is a place. It is sacred. It is the space of a thousand possibilities. It resides ‘in between’. In between the exhale and the inhale. In between the stimulus and your response. …. In between what someone says and how you reply. In between what you see and how you interpret it. … This is the place of mindful choosing or Pavlovian conditioning.”  Ury, in his latest book Possible, describes this as “The power to choose to stop and stop to choose”.

Back to President Zelensky: it is usually helpful to appear to be really listening and to let the others run out of steam – or at least let them calm down a bit before responding. Listening, itself an act of humility, and observing in silence, with curiosity, provides all sorts of useful information which can provide the basis for some important questions later. And demonstrating the kind of behaviour which would increase the prospect of productive negotiations, being the change he would like to see, might well have worked to Zelensky’s advantage.

When discussing this incident during a recent training course, we explored how acknowledgement and acceptance of the others’ position, as seen by them, can help to de-escalate a situation, combined with recognition of the constraints under which they operate. We might add the reassurance that we all wish to address the issues raised. This detoxification approach, done well, might have helped to make President Trump and Vice President Vance feel that they, and their country, was valued and appreciated for all they – and it – had done. None of this suggests agreement with what they have said, especially if what was said is obviously untrue. But approaching the situation in this way, calmly and quietly, could have enabled President Zelensky to then set out his stall: how he – and his fellow Ukrainians – see things.  The Power of the Positive No in action.

He might have started with emphasising the common ground which the US and Ukraine share and the importance of not letting understandable disagreements on the little things divide them, when agreement on the big things should bring them together. He might have reflected on Margaret Wheatly’s wise words that it is often our judgments about each other which divide us rather than our differences. He might even have acknowledged that each came into the room with some baggage from the past.

Zelensky might also have recognised that the matters they were all dealing with are inherently complex, paradoxical and nuanced and suggested, gently, that adopting a binary, or dualist, mindset is just not helpful. He might have had in mind the words of the American commentator and satirist, HL Mencken, who said that “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong”. President Zelensky might of course also have realised that such a relatively sophisticated analysis might not land well with people who may seem at times rather unsophisticated in their approach, at least in public.

And that might have led President Zelensky to the best strategy of all: not to try to set out the Ukrainian position in public, but to suggest to the two American leaders that it might be easier for them all to have a frank conversation in private. That might have avoided the exchanges which have led to him needing to try to claw back lost ground after the very public disagreement, especially knowing that one thing to which President Trump is unlikely to react well is public disagreement with what he says. Zelensky might even have suggested going for a walk in the White House gardens: after all, who fights while they walk, as Ury puts it, or, in the words of St Augustine: “Solvitur ambulando” – “It is resolved by walking”.

It is good to read that Jonathan Powell, now UK National Security Adviser and former Chief of Staff to Tony Blair and one of the key architects of the Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland, has been advising President Zelensky. No doubt, in preparing for future meetings, the President will have been going to the balcony and viewing the big picture, thinking about what he and his country really need out of this, building golden bridges to make it easier for the other side(s) to make the decisions he’d like them to make, thinking about ‘victory speeches’  – what others on the outside may need to hear for progress to be made – and reinforcing that he can only achieve a satisfactory outcome for his people by working cooperatively with other nations, including hopefully the US.

Nelson Mandela’s words resound down the years: “I never sought to undermine Mr de Klerk, for the practical reason that the weaker he was, the weaker the negotiations process. To make peace with an enemy one must work with that enemy, and the enemy must become one’s partner.”  Or, as the Dalai Lama once put it: “Realising that the other person is also just like me is the basis on which we can develop compassion, not only toward those around us but also toward our enemy. Normally, when we think about our enemy, we think about harming him. Instead, try to remember that the enemy is also a human being, just like you.” Hard though these words are to apply, what other course is open to those who seek a peaceful resolution to all manner of crises in the world today?

Finally, we would need to acknowledge to President Zelensky that all of this requires a huge amount of self-discipline, especially when under real pressure. That’s why practice and preparation for really tough meetings is so important – and why, in some instances, it is really useful to have an independent third party in the room to help. Anyone for mediation in the Oval Office?

John Sturrock, 13 March 2025