Biden vs Putin: the risks of jokes for internal use and consumption without any coherent policy
Obama had already underestimated Russia enormously and we have seen the results …
Biden gave Vladimir Putin the murderer. But really? Indirectly yes. In reality, the reporter George Stephanopoulos, who was interviewing the president for the ABC station, said so . "You believe that Putin is a murderer" "I do" , replied Biden, which in that context should be read as: "Yes, I think he is". Those two little words unleashed the Kremlin's fatal wrath and apprehension in Europe. Although, to be honest, it has taken up very little space in the US and Anglo-Saxon media in general. Biden uttered those two words in a distracted way, as if to reiterate something obvious. And in the US, calling Putin a criminal is actually taken for granted.
This accusation is true, it must be said. One cannot pretend nothing has happened, one cannot believe, like the last warriors of Pravda , that Navalny fell ill of natural causes, that Nemtsov was killed by the British secret services or that the case of the attempted murder of Skripal in Salisbury is a whole London hype. Even the Russians no longer believe in this popular counter-information. In Western Europe (Germany, France, Italy) we always have a thousand scruples in talking about Russian things, both for business reasons and for the sacred fear of a neighbor who, although no longer the Soviet superpower, remains the first nuclear power. But in the Anglosphere, no one is afraid to say things as they are, calling Putin an autocrat, a kleptocrat and even a murderer. And this is a transversal belief, both of progressives and conservatives. So Biden's hint of reply is news only from us. As well as in Russia.
Is the episode not serious at all and will it soon end up in oblivion? Until a certain point. The consequences could be worse than the democratic administration believes. Biden, speaking of Putin, was not thinking at all about Russia, or about US-Russian relations. He was thinking of Trump, as usual. In his interview with ABC , the scandal was not, for him, the Russian aggression in Ukraine, or the annexation of Crimea, or the presence of the Russians in the Middle East (Libya and Syria), but the interference of Russian propaganda in the American elections. That is the wrong that, according to Biden, Putin will have to "pay dearly".
And this is an example of how to misuse foreign policy for domestic policy reasons. Biden, at ABC , did not issue a speech "against Russia" or "against the Putin regime". His distracted exit is nowhere near comparable to Reagan's speech in March 1983, when he called the USSR "the epicenter of evil in the world". It is not in rhetoric, but neither in facts. Reagan, when he delivered that speech, had consistently set the strategy of "active containment" of the Soviet bloc two years ago, which in six years would bring about its collapse. Biden, on the other hand, is promising cuts to the military , if only to offset the huge expense of post- Covid reconstruction it now faces. So there is no coherent foreign policy against Russia, only jokes for the use and consumption of domestic politics.
What is the risk of talking about foreign policy while thinking about domestic politics? What the other party listens to you and takes you seriously. Putin seems to have taken the words of Stephanopoulos' interview with Biden seriously. The Russian president yesterday celebrated the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea and gave the tenant of the White House a violent response, disguised as etiquette and jokes. “I wish him good health” would seem like a Mafia curse / threat, in this context. To the accusation of being a murderer, Putin responds by deliberately choosing a childish language. “Whoever says it knows it is”. On the relations between the two powers, in the near future, according to Putin: “The United States bases its relations with us on issues of interest to them, on their own terms. They think we are the same, but this is not the case: we have a different genetic, cultural and moral code, but we know how to defend our interests. We will work with them, but on the fronts that interest us and on the conditions that we believe are advantageous for us. They will have to take this into account, despite the fact that they do everything they can to block our development. Despite the sanctions, and the offenses, they will have to take them into account ”. And on Saturday the Russian ambassador will leave Washington, summoned to Moscow.
Obama had already greatly underestimated Russia. In the 2012 electoral campaign he made fun of his rival Mitt Romney, who pointed to Moscow as the main geopolitical challenge, dismissing it with a "we are no longer in the 80s". Obama had granted the " reset and restart " in relations with Moscow, he was willing to come to terms on everything, starting with the European anti-missile defense. Above all, Obama considered military methods as "outdated", as could be read in his words of extreme bewilderment about Russia: "A 21st century power using 19th century methods". Words spoken in 2014, when Russia had annexed Crimea militarily. And Obama, who did not expect it, could no longer react. If now Putin were to decide to provoke or test the determination of the US with another military enterprise, in whatever chessboard he is engaged in (Libya, Syria, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Ukraine … Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Biden would be almost certainly caught off guard. It would realize too late that a hostile attitude, adopted only for internal use, not seriously and not accompanied by a solid and consistent diplomatic and military preparation, can cause lethal consequences.
Let it be clear from now on that a crisis with Russia would have immediate repercussions in Europe. So let's get ready. But even in this case we should be mature enough to be able to distinguish foreign policy from domestic policy. The clash will be (if it is) between Russia and the US, with their respective blocks of allies in tow. It will not be between Putin, a dictator who likes the right (out of controversy against the politically correct , the multicultural left and Islamism), against Biden, a president who likes the left (out of controversy against sovereignty). It will be a confrontation between systems and blocs, not between parties and politicians. We must therefore hope and pray that even in Italy we know how to distinguish reality from ideology, foreign policy from domestic one, and that we still choose to be on the side of the West, regardless of Biden. A US president gets back into the game every four years. Being with Russia, on the contrary, would bury our freedom and independence forever, as unfortunately the history of all the countries ended up, willy-nilly, in its sphere of influence demonstrates.
The post Biden vs Putin: the risks of jokes for internal use and consumption without any coherent policy appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/biden-vs-putin-i-rischi-delle-battute-ad-uso-e-consumo-interno-senza-alcuna-politica-coerente/ on Fri, 19 Mar 2021 05:02:00 +0000.