As Russian forces began to surround Kyiv, Scott and I took a whack at discerning the implications, and what might lie ahead — in the immediate future and over the longer term.
We called to mind that the Feb. 22, 2014 U.S.-sponsored coup (appropriately dubbed “the most blatant coup in history”) was followed by atrocities against Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Odessa on May 2, 2014. Just ten days later, Donetsk and Lugansk broke away from the central government in Kiyv.
Such key events are far from forgotten in Russia, and undergird Moscow’s current determination to prevent such atrocities in the future. Putin, of course, has homed in on the murders in Odessa.
What has emboldened Putin, to the point of invading Ukraine, was also discussed, including what role Chinese President Xi Jinping may be playing simply by having Putin’s back. A good bit of time was devoted to China and its surprisingly strong support for Putin — against the backdrop of the China-Russia “Joint Statement” issued during Putin’s Feb. 4, 2022 visit to Beijing for the first day of the Olympics. China’s recent statements and behavior on the issue of Ukraine have put real meat on that key document and its implications.
The Feb. 4 “Joint Statement” stated that the two sides:
“reaffirm that the new inter-state relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era. Friendship between the two states has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.”
Yet, there remain unsettling indications coming from Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, Antony Blinken, and Jake Sullivan that senior administration ‘dolts’ (copyright North Korean leader Kim Jong Un) in the Washington Swamp still don’t get it.
On today’s program I was asked to comment on what Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine actually means for a “New World Order”. It means a helluva lot, actually.
The biggest — and most significant — surprise/shift is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s unmistakable support for what Putin has done, DESPITE China’s long-standing, consistent, principled policy on the importance of non-interference.
I did not think at the time that Putin would order an invasion of Ukraine, partly because I “knew” China would not countenance such a violation of its oft-stated policy against violating another nation’s sovereignty. Wrong. It turns out to be pretty clear that Xi approved the invasion. This is BIG.
In a fresh piece I penned after this interview, I suggest that this is a liminal time, and that the old Soviet concept of the “world correlation of forces” remains of key importance. Owing to the new Sino-Russian alliance, that balance has now shifted to the West’s disfavor. See what you think.
Our discussion started with a key question: Why is it that Secretary of State Antony Blinken seemed at sea when asked why Russia would invade Ukraine? Yesterday, on Morning Joe, Blinken was gently asked: “What would be the upside for Putin by invading Ukraine?” Strangely, it seemed clear that Blinken had not thought that one through. After a minute of circumlocution, he gave up and said we should “ask Putin”. (See No Thinkin’ Blinken: https://raymcgovern.com/2022/02/17/no-thinkin-blinken/ )
Has President Joe Biden not yet asked Putin? Has U.S. Intelligence “assessed” why in the hell Putin would do such a dumb thing? “Morning Joe” might have suggested to Blinken that he ask his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov the next time they meet [that, reportedly, will be next Wednesday in Europe].
As an aside, I noted that Blinken does not know how to pronounce Foreign Minister Lavrov’s last name — and usually mispronounces Ukraine, as well. (In both cases, the accent is on the last syllable.) This is not mere pedantry; a country’s’ top diplomat really should show enough respect for foreign counterparts to pronounce their names correctly — especially easy ones with only two syllables.
China: the Key to Putin’s Assertiveness
Speaking of disrespect, reference was made to the “attitude” that top Chinese diplomats encountered on the part of the Blinken/Sullivan duo in Anchorage last March. This is far more serious than the nicety of taking the time to learn how to pronounce a counterpart’s name correctly. The Chinese were insulted at the imperious behavior of Blinken and Sullivan, and refused to be talked down to.
Putin suffered a similar indignity at the hands of Joe Biden himself at their summit in Geneva on June 16, 2021. Biden’s words on China showed him to be woefully misinformed about the “world correlation of forces” (to borrow an old Soviet term). He seemed to be stuck in a several decades-old paradigm of Sino-Russian hostility, a reality that President Richard Nixon was able to leverage into key arms control agreements with Moscow during the early 70s.
In my first piece on the strategic backdrop for that June summit, I noted that the triangular relationship had drastically changed in recent decades and that, although the triangle may still be equilateral, it is now essentially a matter of two sides against one – with Washington odd man out.
This is basic: How could any U.S. statesman be unaware? How could it be that foreign policy “experts” could be telling Biden that the US can still try to play Russia and China off against each other amid the radically changed “correlation of forces” today?
Here’s the president at his solo, post-summit press conference:
“Without quoting him [Putin] – which I don’t think is appropriate – let me ask a rhetorical question: You got a multi-thousand-mile border with China. China is … seeking to be the most powerful economy in the world and the largest and the most powerful military in the world.
Plane-side just before departing Geneva, Biden added:
“… let me choose my words. Russia is in a very, very difficult spot right now. They are being squeezed by China. …”
Putin and Xi Give Biden a Tutorial
During the second half of 2021, the presidents of Russia and China spared no effort to demonstrate that their strategic relationship “in its closeness and effectiveness, exceeds an alliance.” ( See: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/world/asia/china-russia-summit-xi-putin.html .) They were at pains to demonstrate that the triangular relationship did indeed amount to two-against-one.
Particularly striking is the high-level official commentary now coming out of China explicitly endorsing Putin’s policies. In the past, China typically bent over backwards to avoid getting involved, even rhetorically, in contentious problems on the other side of Eurasia.) Not any more.
China has called on the United States to satisfy Russia’s security concerns regarding NATO expansion in Eastern Europe as a crisis along Ukraine’s borders drags on, with Washington warning the Kremlin could order an invasion at any minute.
Moscow has repeatedly rejected the notion that it is planning to attack its neighbor, and Beijing has joined in cautioning against hyped-up potential war scenarios.
“Disseminating disinformation and creating an air of tension is not conducive to resolving the Ukraine issue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters Thursday. “Clamoring for bloc confrontation and wielding the big stick of sanctions will only impede dialogue and negotiation.” …
“The U.S. side should value and accommodate Russia’s legitimate and reasonable concerns over security protection and play a constructive role for all parties to seek a political settlement to the Ukraine issue on the basis of the Minsk II agreement, rather than hype up and sensationalize the crisis and escalate tensions,” Wang said.
The Critical Hour Interview, Feb. 16 By Ray McGovern
Yesterday’s discussion took off from my Ukraine Invasion Scheduled for Wednesday [Feb. 16] Canceled (See: https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2022/02/15/ukraine-invasion-scheduled-for-wednesday-canceled/). We focused initially on what emerged from German Chancellor Scholz’s discussions with President Putin Tuesday (as well as some of the “anomalies” in Western media coverage of that summit meeting).
HERE IS THE LINK TO CRITICAL HOUR
After talking with Putin on Feb. 15, Scholz described the prospect of a “possible military conflict” over the question of Ukraine membership in NATO as “absurd”. Ukraine membership is “not on the agenda,” the German Chancellor pointed out, because there is zero likelihood in the foreseeable future of Ukraine meeting the entry qualifications. Scholz appealed to all those involved to “step back a bit” and “take stock”.
Mr. Putin appeared to dial down tensions this week in part because he had already made important early gains in a diplomatic effort that could still last for months. The United States, for instance, said it was prepared to revive talks on the placement of short- and intermediate-range missiles in Europe. Some dialogue had already begun last year.
Not a Bad Idea
The Chinese, Germans, and others have said this would be a great idea. So who is feeding the feckless frenzy this morning, and why? The MICIMATT is, understandably, the usual suspect, but so is politics in a narrower sense. Indeed, from the political side, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have given that part of the game away when she said a bit too much to George ‘Is-Biden-a-Killer?’ Stephanopoulos on Sunday:
Spilling the Beans?
STEPHANOPOULOS: The White House is warning of an imminent invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainians seem to think that that’s all hype. Are — do you believe that Putin is poised to invade?
PELOSI: Well, I think we have to be prepared for it. … But if we were not threatening the sanctions and the rest, it would guarantee that Putin would invade. … And the president’s made it very clear. There’s a big price to pay for Russia to go there. So if Russia doesn’t invade, it’s not that he never intended to. It’s just that the sanctions worked. ( See: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-13-22-speaker-nancy-pelosi-sen/story?id=82849151 ) [Emphasis added.]
So it is hardly a surprise that this morning President Biden replayed, well, let’s call it a ‘broken record’ to the media: “The threat of an invasion is very high…my sense is this will happen in the next several days,” warned Biden as he left the White House for a trip to Ohio. (One wag asked whether underground bunkers in Ohio have an extra layer of concrete. (See: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-expects-putin-ukraine-invasion-days/story?id=82954609 )
Putin and U.S. Presidents
President Putin is no stranger to the reality that U.S. presidents are beset by domestic political pressures — like, in this case, having the opposing party take complete control of Congress next year. So, on the Ukraine imbroglio, when he tells the media, that everything is going according to plan (по плану), that plan must take into account the vicissitudes and disarray of current politics in the U.S. While Putin attempts to exude confidence in dealing with this, this is largely pretense, given the immensity and complicated nature of the problem.
Putin acknowledged this last June in a keynote speech to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum:
“I am sure that it [US policy towards Russia] is primarily impacted by domestic political processes. Russia-US relations have to a certain extent become hostage to the internal political processes that are taking place in the United States.” ( See: https://tass.com/politics/1298867 )
As if yet another complicating factor were needed, Putin is painfully aware that at key junctures in the past when a U.S. president gave his word, well, it turned out not to be “the last word”, so to speak. In Oct. 2016, for example, Putin spoke of the “feverish” state of international relations at the time and lamented: “My personal agreements with the President of the United States have not produced results.” Putin complained about “people in Washington ready to do everything possible to prevent these agreements from being implemented in practice.”
For those with short memories, ten days before Putin said this, the U.S. Air Force had just scuttled a cease-fire in Syria that had required 11 months of intense diplomacy and included personal approval by both Obama and Putin. I wrote about it at the time: https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-putin-obama-20161030-story.html
Blinken: Incomprehensibly Clever – or Dense?
Back to Ukraine and to what Secretary of State Antony Blinken might be thinkin’: when asked early this morning “What would be the upside for Putin by invading Ukraine?”, he could not think of any. Blinken actually suggested we should “ask Putin” (No, really!). (See No Thinkin’ Blinken: https://raymcgovern.com/2022/02/17/no-thinkin-blinken/ )
