Diplomacy with menace
Joe Biden adopts a tough new tone with Russia
But will it be enough to avert another Russian invasion of Ukraine?
WHEN JOE BIDEN met Vladimir Putin in Geneva last June, he spoke of his desire for “stable and predictable relations” with Russia and highlighted the many areas in which the two could co-operate, not least on nuclear weapons and terrorism. This time, in a two-hour video call, Mr Biden warned his Russian counterpart, threatening retribution if Russian troops currently massing on Ukraine’s borders launched an invasion.
“He told President Putin directly that if Russia further invades Ukraine, the United States and our European allies would respond with strong economic measures,” said Jake Sullivan, Mr Biden’s national security adviser. “We would provide additional defensive material to the Ukrainians…And we would fortify our NATO allies on the eastern flank with additional capabilities in response to such an escalation.”
The implicit signal is that Mr Putin’s bullying tactics risk bringing about the very outcome he claims to be trying to stop—the reinforcement of NATO on Russia’s borders. That said, America is also offering Russia a diplomatic off-ramp, in the form of “a discussion that covers larger strategic issues” in Europe. Mr Sullivan appeared to be thinking of the sorts of accords that limited forces during the cold war. But such a dialogue could take place only “in the context of de-escalation”. Teams from both sides will continue meeting in the coming days.
Mr Sullivan did not spell out whether the sanctions would include the “nuclear option” of cutting Russia off from the Western financial networks, notably the SWIFT system of financial transfers. He did, though, raise the prospect of asking Germany to halt the opening of Nord Stream 2, a pipeline built to pump Russian gas to Europe. Asked whether the world was safer after the summit, Mr Sullivan did not offer much reassurance. “The ultimate metric for whether the world is safer or not is facts on the ground and actions taken, in this case by Russia. Let’s see.”
Much will depend on Mr Putin’s calculations. He will no doubt be weighing up the benefits he can gain from diplomacy against the risks and rewards of military action. Many have assumed that his military manoeuvres are designed to get America’s attention. A similar build-up in the spring yielded an in-person summit in Geneva in June. This one got him a video conference. But few can claim to know his true objective.
Russia’s formal demands at first blush seem odd. Mr Putin says he wants a guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO, and that it will not be a base for Western weapons that can threaten Russia—even though neither prospect seems remotely likely. Yet NATO feels it cannot formally say that Ukraine can never join. At its Bucharest summit in 2008 NATO declared that Ukraine and Georgia (another ex-Soviet republic that has lost territory to Russian-backed separatists) “will become members of NATO” even though they were not included in the formal “membership action plan”. And as a point of principle, Mr Sullivan said, “Countries should be able to freely choose who they associate with.” And yet, given the fragility of Ukraine’s government, the widespread corruption in the country and its unresolved conflict, membership of NATO seems a distant if not impossible goal.
The real problem for Mr Putin may be less Ukraine joining NATO than NATO helping Ukraine, says Eugene Rumer of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank. In other words, the Russian government is worried about NATO’s and Western countries’ growing role in arming and training Ukraine’s forces, to the point where they present a more capable opponent—not strong enough to resist a Russian invasion, but probably good enough to retake the breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine were they not protected by Russia. Ukraine is one of the largest recipients of American civilian and military aid. This year it is expected to receive $464m, of which $390m is for military assistance.
More broadly, Mr Putin wants America to recognise that Ukraine should rightfully be within his sphere of influence. In an article last summer the Russian president questioned Ukraine’s historical right to exist as an independent state, declaring: “True sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia.”
In 2014 Mr Putin took over and annexed Crimea, and backed Russian-speaking separatists in the east of the country, crushing Ukrainian forces and creating the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The Minsk agreements, intended to end the conflict, would have created a highly decentralised country and, in effect, given Russia a veto over its actions. But Russia, Ukraine and the separatist forces are in a stalemate over their precise meaning and sequence of steps to be taken. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, has stood up to Russian pressure, albeit by questionable means. His anti-oligarch campaign started by taking on Viktor Medvedchuk, a friend of Mr Putin’s whose TV channels peddled pro-Kremlin propaganda. He is now under house arrest, charged with treason.
If Mr Putin cannot actually reclaim Ukraine as part of Russia, then he may settle for its “Finlandisation”, ie, turning it into a cold-war-style neutral buffer state. “Putin does not necessarily have an end state in mind,” says Kurt Volker, a former special envoy to Ukraine under the administration of Donald Trump. “He wants to create positions of power, create opportunities and exploit them.” Mr Volker argues that Mr Putin has mobilised his troops now because he senses “weakness” in America, which wants to focus on domestic affairs and China; in Europe, after Brexit and the departure of Angela Merkel, the long-time conservative German chancellor; and in Ukraine, where Mr Zelensky is losing popularity.
For all of Mr Biden’s sternness, he appears to have set clear limits to what America is prepared to do. Mr Sullivan said America’s purpose is “to deter a Russian military invasion of further territory of Ukraine”. That would appear to leave open the prospect of annexation of the breakaway regions. And although America was prepared to send more forces to reassure NATO allies, Mr Sullivan made clear that Mr Biden does not propose to commit American forces to Ukraine itself.
If an invasion is averted, the next question will be what Mr Biden and Mr Putin might agree in any diplomatic deal. Although Mr Putin cares deeply about Ukraine, Mr Biden may prefer to get the matter off his plate. The country has figured uncomfortably in America’s internal politics: Mr Trump’s attempt to get dirt on the business dealings of Mr Biden’s son, Hunter, in Ukraine precipitated Mr Trump’s first impeachment. But the questions are hardly comfortable for Mr Biden, whose administration at first slow-walked talks with Ukraine and at one point even briefly suspended some military aid.
Although Mr Biden spoke to European leaders immediately before and after his meeting with Mr Putin, pre-summit contact with Mr Zelensky was left to Antony Blinken, the secretary of state (Mr Biden will speak to Mr Zelensky on December 9th). Mr Zelensky’s tweet thanking the Americans ended with a pointed rejoinder: “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”
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