On August 22, The particular Washington Post released a excellent profile of the current ALL OF US secretary of condition titled, “Can Antony Blinken update generous foreign policy for a world gone crazy? Inside the shaping and execution of the Biden-Blinken doctrine. ”
The author, a former beat reporter for the DC suburbs and longtime contributor to the Post’s Style section, appeared to be the perfect fit for that PR exercise. Which usually isn’t to say the profile is without having value: The stenographer’s pen provides a crystal clear record of how their state Department Seventh Floor views itself – and, perhaps essential, wants to present itself to the world.
Yet in a number of respects, the view Blinken and the White Home have of their dealing with of the conflict within Ukraine is at odds with reality.
Blinken’s Feb 17 presentation before the United Nations Security Authorities is described as something of a diplomatic tour sobre force . The Post informs all of us that Blinken, “in strikingly precise terms, offered their version of the instant future – ‘here’s what the world can get to see unfold’ – as if glimpsed within an especially apocalyptic amazingly ball.
“’This crisis directly affects every member of this council and every country in the world, ’ said Blinken. ‘Because the basic principles that sustain serenity and security – principles that were enshrined in the wake of two world battles and a Cold Battle – are under threat. ’”
Yet in the months that followed, the planet has failed to see this thusly. Blinken’s crystal ball no doubt expected a world that would move in response to the Ruskies invasion of Ukraine, united behind the US-imposed sanctions program aimed at imposing undesirable costs on the Russian economy, thereby threatening the very existence of the Putin regime itself.
As it happens Blinken’s crystal basketball is about as good as everyone else’s. Six months to the war, Russia is definitely far from being remote. As Reuters documented on August 17, “efforts to separate Russia at the EL have stalled . ”
Reuters reports that “Western countries are usually shying away from some specific moves, fearing tepid support, since rising vote abstentions have signaled an expanding unwillingness to widely oppose Moscow. ”
Interim, the Cato Institute’s Ted Galen Carpenter recently noted:
“The rest of the global map confirms that no countries in the Middle East, Main and South Asian countries, Africa, or even Latin America have responded favorably to Washington’s pressure and imposed economic sanctions. It really is especially significant that will such key capabilities as China, Indian, South Africa, Indonesia, Brazilian and Mexico remain on the sidelines. ”
To put it differently, US President May well Biden’s and Antony Blinken’s ham-fisted reaction to the Ukraine problems unwittingly sped up the particular emergence of the post-American world order.
Yet there is little indication that they determine what has happened.
The primary thesis of the Washington Post profile is the fact that Biden and Blinken have set out, with “humility and confidence, ” to “reimagine American foreign policy – and, towards all odds, to try to save the old generous international order – by striking a new balance between both of these very contradictory ideals. ”
You can find any number of terms to explain the Biden-Blinken wedding with the world, but “humility” surely is not one of them.
After all, Blinken’s pointed refusal to engage in diplomacy before and throughout the Russian war within Ukraine hardly shows a turn toward humility: Blinken plus Russian Foreign Ressortchef (umgangssprachlich) Sergey Lavrov have spoken only once within six months.
The sanctions plan carried out by Biden is, likewise, the antithesis of humility. The abuse of the dollar’s position by US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has long been a source of vexation to friend and foe alike. The policy of confiscating and/or freezing associated with foreign gold and currency reserves got an unprecedented convert this past March when the US halted $300 billion in Ruskies Central Bank possessions.
Yet the resource freeze and Russia’s exclusion from the international payment system FAST has, in the view of some experts , only sped up the de-dollarization of the global economy. With hubris comes nemesis: The days of the dollar’s “exorbitant privilege” as the global reserve currency are designated .
N evertheless, the Post good remarks the new era of diplomacy in Biden’s Washington for signaling “a new sympathy for foreign partners’ points of see. ”
Which is all well and good, but empathy needs to be extended in order to one’s enemies too – indeed, the imperative to accord in international diplomacy is arguably also more acute when dealing with your rivals.
Since the editor and reporter Katrina vanden Heuvel and I argued as the Ukraine problems was approaching the crescendo last December, the Biden administration would have been much better served by taking on policy of tactical empathy that simply “requires which the president and his national-security team ask themselves: How might they react if the army and economic pressure the US routinely applies against designated adversaries was aimed in our direction? ”
This is actually the very opposite from the Biden-Blinken doctrine, which usually seems to be “keep your pals close and disregard your enemies. ”
Perhaps the smartest thing that can be said about this is that it was constructed for another time. The particular doctrine seems to have absolutely nothing to say about the principal challenge the US confronts currently and into the medium- to extensive future: the introduction of a multipolar entire world.
The Biden-Blinken doctrine, with its goal of trying “to save the old liberal international order, ” is attempting to navigate the existing geopolitical environment with the operating system 20 to 30 years out of date.
The retired career Indian diplomat M K Bhadrakumar recently observed that will for India, “The choice is between a subaltern role meant for perpetuation of America’s global hegemony and Western dominance in the international system, or even a more just globe order where countries can pursue their very own paths of development as equals with mutual respect. It really is nonsense that with no US conducting alone as the world policeman, ‘anarchy’ will set in. ”
Bhadrakumar’s binary applies along with equal force towards the other BRICS, the particular countries of the Non-Aligned Movement, and the Worldwide South.
Having nothing to say about the emerging multipolar world, the Biden-Blinken doctrine misses the minute: It is simply more American hubris wrapped in a cloak associated with humility.
Finally, a foreign plan based on the illusions of the “US-led rules centered international order” just serves to motivate the worst instincts of the US foreign-policy establishment all the while alienating the rest of the world.