The Kremlin has been moving troops toward the border with Ukraine while demanding Washington guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO and that the alliance will refrain from certain military activities in and around Ukrainian territory. The crisis has provoked fears of a renewed war on European soil and comes ahead of a planned virtual meeting next week between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The Russian plans call for a military offensive against Ukraine as soon as early 2022 with a scale of forces twice what we saw this past spring during Russia’s snap exercise near Ukraine’s borders,” said an administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information. “The plans involve extensive movement of 100 battalion tactical groups with an estimated 175,000 personnel, along with armor, artillery and equipment.”
Applying some pressure, no? "Make a firm commitment to keep Ukraine out of NATO and make it fast" is the clear message.
It's being conveyed diplomatically as well:
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had a testy exchange over Ukraine at a dinner with dozens of their colleagues this week, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The verbal tension erupted as the U.S. and its European allies seek ways -- including possible sanctions -- to counter the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine after President Vladimir Putin’s troop buildup on the neighboring country’s border.
Lavrov took the floor at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe dinner in Stockholm on Dec. 1 to revisit Russia’s view that the collapse of a pro-Moscow administration in Ukraine in 2014 was a coup, according to two of the people. He also alleged that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union were suppressing dissent and threatening Russia.
Blinken responded by recapping the 2014 events, including that forces loyal to then-President Viktor Yanukovich fired on peaceful protesters in Kyiv, killing more than 100 people, before he fled and surfaced in Russia. Blinken also told his Russian counterpart that NATO is a defense alliance.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed reports that Blinken had shut down Lavrov during the exchange at the 57-nation forum. She was responding on Facebook to Ukrainian reports that Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Blinken had put Lavrov, one of the world’s most senior diplomats, in his place.
Rather reminiscent of the March meeting in Alaska between top US and Chinese diplomats:
Top diplomats from the U.S. and China had a public blowup in front of reporters Thursday as the two global powers met in Alaska to discuss policy and attempt to restore ties that have become increasingly strained in recent years.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was joined in Anchorage by Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, to meet with their Chinese counterparts, State Councilor Wang Yi and Chinese Communist Party foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi, for two days of talks in their first face-to-face meetings.
The atmosphere was expected to be tense because days earlier the U.S. had slapped sanctions on China for Beijing's crackdown on political freedoms in Hong Kong. But the contentious on-camera exchanges that followed were a clear departure from the light pleasantries traditionally offered before diplomatic discussions.
Blinken opened his remarks by saying Beijing needed to return to a rules-based system, lambasting China for violating international norms through their crackdown on Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang, cyber attacks against the U.S. and “economic coercion.”
“Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability," Blinken said. "Our intent is to be direct about our concerns, direct about our priorities, with the goal of a more clear-eyed relationship between our countries moving forward.”
Sullivan added, "We do not seek conflict but we welcome stiff competition, and we will always stand up for our principles for our people, and for our friends."
China’s Yang Jiechi replied with a lengthy lecture against the U.S. that went on for so long the subsequent translation took 17 minutes. According to a senior official, there had been an agreement that each side would speak for two minutes at a photo opportunity before the session began.
"China is firmly opposed to U.S. interference in China's internal affairs. We have expressed our staunch opposition to such interference, and we will take firm actions in response of human rights. We hope that the United States will do better on human rights,” he said, referring to the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. “China has made steady progress in human rights."
He added, "And the United States has United States-style democracy. And China has Chinese-style democracy. It is not just up to the American people, but also the people of the world, to evaluate how the United States has done in advancing its own democracy in China's case, after decades of reform and opening up, we have come a long way in various fields."
Blinken then signaled for the news cameras to stay so that he could rebut the criticism of U.S democracy, noting the Chinese officials’ lengthy remarks. Sullivan followed suit. Blinken then attempted to dismiss the press pool but the Chinese officials insisted they be given the chance to offer their own second round.
This spat turned a four-minute photo-op into a diplomatic spat that lasted more than an hour.
You'll note that this was five months before the utter debacle of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
A new tone has been set for world-stage dynamics.
In a Washington Examiner piece that I can't get out of my head, Matthew Continetti puts it thusly:
China builds up its nuclear weapons cache as it sails a submarine through the Taiwan Strait. Russia shoots down a satellite as it builds up forces on the border of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s recent comments about Russia’s strong relationship with China are the most disturbing and underreported aspect of rising tensions in Eastern Europe. Putin and Xi Jinping seem to have assessed that America has become so decrepit, so inward-looking, so guilt-ridden and risk-averse that the moment has arrived to make the world safe for autocracy. Biden’s response is weak sauce. Holding a summit of democracies may be worthwhile. But it certainly is not a deterrent.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between the world as it really is - tangible, right in front of our noses, unfolding faster than explanations of it can be formulated - and the less concrete ways we're comfortable dealing with it: analysis, revisiting of our ideals, speculation.
Human history has been unfolding for some time, but it seems that we're still learning lessons from it afresh, and usually in the form of rude awakenings.
No comments:
Post a Comment