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| It had to happen . Post Trump attempt to restore relations with Russia . Will Biden and Putin create a new Reset , reestablish diplomacy ? |
I HAVE TO ADMIT . But (1)>>Biden just pulled one off on Putin that made Trump look really bad when he was dealing with the Russians in the four years of the Russia Hoax investigations. Biden’s meeting with President (1.2)>>Vladimir V. Putin in Geneva touched off celebrations on Russia’s often over-the-top political talk shows as well as quieter expressions of cautious optimism in Moscow’s foreign policy establishment.On one point there seemed to be broad agreement: (2)>>Mr. Biden was a new sort of counterpart, more predictable and professional than President Donald J. Trump and more inclined to reckon with Russian interests than other recent predecessors, like President Barack Obama.“The earlier doctrine, put forward by President Obama, which dismissed Russia as just a regional power, has been rejected,” said (3)>>Konstantin Remchukov, editor of the influential Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper, appearing on state-run Channel One. It LOOKED vary positive at restoring relations with Russia, When asked whether the meeting had helped build trust between the leaders, Putin turned philosophical."There's no happiness in life," Putin said. "There's only a mirage on the horizon, so we'll cherish that."He added, "but I believe there's a spark of hope in [Biden's] eyes." (4)>>For myself I was waiting for this kind of dialog between the Russians and Americans under Donald Trump who was publicly the most pro-Putin President we ever had, remember he said that "getting along with Russia could be a good thing" . But Trump failed to do anything with relations with Russia . IN fact under Trump relations with Russia were at a dangerously low point , that one of the factors was the Russia hoax which was a political too to put a wedge to any negotiations on arms talks .But there was hope that the relationship’s downward spiral, which many fear could at some point swerve toward military confrontation, could at least be halted if Moscow and Washington re-engaged in talks. Russian analysts and officials who have long been fiercely critical of the United States for, they say, seeking to weaken Russia, said they saw in (5)>>Mr. Biden a recognition that he had to contend with Russian interests.As an aside, it is really funny to me how many people in the media do not realize what happened here. I saw Anderson Cooper dismissively commenting, oh well, nothing came out of this summit. Well, first of all, that's not true, but that's not the point: the summit itself was the point. Biden proposed it at a time when Russia had troops on the Ukrainian border and (6)>>Alexei Navalny was starving himself and getting sicker by the minute in a jail cell. Biden slapped sanctions on Russia for SolarWinds and proposed a summit in the same speech. Biden knew that Vladimir would never say no to a summit - Vlad knows that the world media would treat it like the Superbowl. Joe gave Putin an off-ramp to back down and deescalate - Russia drew down its troops from the border and allowed Navalny to visit a hospital and Navalny later ended his hunger strike. (7)>>Joe got Ukraine out of a sticky situation and literally saved Navalny's life, or, at least, forestalled his death - there is a way for Biden to save Navalny's life but Navalny is unlikely to accept it. All Putin wants is to be treated as an equal. Biden doesn't want a reset with Russia.if Biden can deliver that - follow Minsk agreements, continue nuclear disarmament, restore embassies and free travel, he will be liked by the Russians, despite the vicious language your media is trying to put on this. BUT The praise of Mr. Biden from the pro-Kremlin commentariat was significant because the Russian elite has long seen Democrats as part of a “Russophobic” American establishment for which democracy and human rights are simply code words to justify attacks on Mr. Putin. But in Mr. Biden, some Russians see an experienced leader focused clearly on his priorities — (8)>>such as domestic affairs and competition with China — for whom confrontation with Russia is not an end in itself. Putin want's to be seen as a equal .The easiest way to put him in the place ,is to treat him like an equal - sure, he will continue his malicious activities but if you draw some red lines and treat him like he is important, he might - might - stay out of your hair.
NOTES AND COMMENTS:
(1)>>Biden just pulled one off on Putin that made Trump look really bad . I don't like Biden but I have to give him some merit on his summit with Putin. Donald Trump failed to deal or make a deal with Putin because he was caught in the middle of the Democrats Russian-phobia witch hunt , which prevented any of rational diplomacy . Even the Helsinki meeting between Trump and Putin was tainted. President Trump was meeting him in the first place.But while Mr Putin came over as the seasoned professional, eager to present his country as an equivalent to the US in terms of being a nuclear superpower; an energy provider; and a key actor in the Middle East, Mr Trump seemed more intent on castigating his opponents back home. The Trump approach with Putin was a bit comical . Later it seemed vary clear that Putin was not happy with Trump after his administration kicked out Russian diplomats , closed down embassies . Trump even pulled out of nuclear treaties that were signed by both Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev . As Trump has repeatedly and openly cozied up to Putin, his administration has imposed harsh sanctions and penalties on Russia.The dizzying, often contradictory, paths followed by Trump on the one hand and his hawkish but constantly changing cast of national security aides on the other have created confusion in Congress and among allies and enemies alike. To an observer, Russia is at once a mortal enemy and a misunderstood friend in U.S. eyes.(1.2)>>Vladimir V. Putin in Geneva. Enter Vladimir Putin as the reaction to Yeltsin and a decade of turmoil and crisis for the Russians. Putin is not a communist, despite confused liberals failing to grasp this, but the chief administrator of these same Russian Bourgeoisie, who ultimately realize that they are in a better position with a strong and united Russia opposing NATO expansion, rather than one where NATO is allowed to balkanize Russia, carving them up into smaller countries, to have their assets stripped and sold off to the West ala Yugoslavia. Putin is the heavy hand keeping them in line, basically saying 'you can keep getting rich off of the Russian proletariat and Russian industry, but if you sell out Russia to NATO I will fucking end you.'This is how Russia exists today, and why Putin has such strong, consistent support within Russia. To Russians, Putin is clearly not great, but it was obvious how preferable and better for their lives that Putin has been than Yeltsin. Putin is a far right wing capitalist dictator, but one that prioritizes a strong and functional Russia over one that collapses to be strip-mined and sold off by NATO. Given the lack of real alternatives (the Communist party was outlawed for a time), Putin has clearly been the only real option for Russians for most of the past two decades. (2)>>Mr. Biden was a new sort of counterpart.While Biden stressed that he did not make threats during the three-hour meeting, he said he outlined U.S. interests, including cybersecurity, and made clear to Putin that the United States would respond if Russia infringed on those concerns.Both men used careful pleasantries to describe their talks in a lakeside Swiss villa, with Putin calling them constructive and without hostility and Biden saying there was no substitute for face-to-face discussions.Back in 2018, on a lovely summer day in Helsinki, in a press conference that will long be remembered as a most bizarre sellout of American interests, Trump had alternately praised his Russian counterpart and cowered to him. He said that he accepted Putin’s word over that of his own intelligence agencies about Russia’s election interference in 2016. He blamed the United States for bad relations with Russia. Putin stood smirking alongside him as he said all of these things.Biden’s summit was carefully orchestrated to send a very different message. Most significantly, given Helsinki, there would be no joint press conference, no side-by-side appearance at which Putin could upstage Biden or provoke or taunt him. Biden would not meet alone with Putin, without a note-taker, as Trump had insisted on doing—who knows why—in 2018. And there would be no chatty lunch or informal socializing, as is often scheduled during such superpower summits.(3)>>Konstantin Remchukov. It has been revealed, Remchukov said, that Russia is an indispensable power that the United States “needs to talk with” and that Putin is “no longer demonized” as a pariah.Both Biden and Putin said they shared a responsibility, however, for nuclear stability, and would hold talks on possible changes to their recently extended New START arms limitation treaty.In February, Russia and the United States extended New START for five years. The treaty caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads they can deploy and limits the land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.(4)>>For myself I was waiting for this kind of dialog between the Russians and Americans under Donald Trump . Former President Obama pretty much gutted relations with Russia over the issue of Ukraine , beefed up military support the Ukrainian regime which started a unilateral conflict with Russia . Though Trump made overtures to Putin which always looked like he was going to lift sanctions . It seemed like double talk on Trump's part. After Trump touted the plan to collaborate with Russia on Internet security issues, he was criticized by fellow Republicans, including his former rivals for the presidency.. "It's not the dumbest idea I've ever heard, but it's pretty close," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on NBC's Meet the Press.Graham called the meeting with Putin "disastrous," and said that while he sees Trump having success in other foreign policy areas, "when it comes to Russia, he's got a blind spot." ( 5)>>Mr. Biden a recognition that he had to contend with Russian interests. Mr. Biden announced that the United States will propose to Russia a five-year extension of the New START accord limiting strategic nuclear weapons, which expires Feb. 5 and has a provision for such an extension. This is the last remaining bilateral treaty limiting nuclear weapons after the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty under President Donald Trump, whose policies toward Russia veered between his own affinity for President Vladimir Putin and more skeptical approaches in his administration. Extension of the New START accord, which limits both sides to 1,550 nuclear warheads on 700 launchers and has effective verification, is in the interest of both nations. Mr. Trump’s administration dithered on seeking an extension while trying unsuccessfully to lasso China into a multilateral negotiation, a worthwhile long-term goal that can be pursued later.Mr. Biden should not fail to take advantage of the five-year extension to take stock of future threats, both nuclear and conventional, from Russia, China and elsewhere. Where it is in the interests of the United States, he ought to look for new arms control opportunities.(6)>>Alexei Navalny. The anti-Putin opposition leader made a mistake ,Vladimir Putin said that jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny ignored Russian law when he went to Germany for treatment after a near-fatal poisoning attack last year. "This person knew that he was breaking the law in Russia," Putin said after a summit meeting with US President Joe Biden in Geneva, in reference to Navalny violating the conditions of a suspended sentence."Consciously ignoring the requirements of the law, he went abroad for treatment," Putin said, accusing Navalny of having "deliberately acted to be detained".Navalny was subsequently jailed for two-and-a-half years on old fraud charges and his organisations banned as "extremist", barring members and sponsors from running in parliamentary elections in September.Putin said Navalny's anti-graft group "publicly called for riots, involved minors in riots" and "publicly described how to make Molotov cocktails". When Navalny announced he would finally return to Russia, after recovering from Novichok poisoning in a German hospital, it begged the question: why? The Kremlin had made it clear for months it did not want President Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken opponent to return, and was willing to play dirty to discourage it . Navalny is another Yeltsin, a far right neoliberal stooge, looking to carve up and sell off Russia to NATO, hence the tremendous popular support for this figure from the West and Western media. It's also worth remembering that Navalny is not the opposition in most parts of Russia, but actually a distant third (and sometime fourth) place, but because he's a Western stooge, they present this information to you as if he is some sort of rival to Putin or the legitimate opposition. A poll conducted by the reputable Levada Center revealed that one in four Russians even have a negative view of Navalny's endeavors. The center quizzed over 1,600 Russian adults in both rural and urban environments in late October, according to the Interfax news agency.(7)>>Joe got Ukraine. Biden affirmed US's commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.Putin said Russia is acting appropriately to counter threats emerging against them. He also said that Ukraine joining NATO would be a "red line." Ukraine said afterwards that they were pleased that America kept their promise and didn't try to make some sort of deal without Ukraine present. As Russia mounted 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border in March, the White House and the Department of Defense readied a $100 million military assistance package that was frozen once President Joe Biden announced a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to reports.In a statement after this article was published, White House press secretary Jen Psaki took issue with the characterization that aid to Ukraine was lacking: "The idea that we have held back security assistance to Ukraine is nonsense. Just last week—in the run-up to the U.S.-Russia Summit—we provided a $150 million package of security assistance, including lethal assistance."Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he learned through the press — not any direct heads-up — that President Biden had decided to stop trying to block a Russian pipeline that Ukraine sees as a dire national security threat.(8)>>such as domestic affairs and competition with China. Russia fears China ? Putin actually understands that China is becoming more powerful than Russia, but sees it as better for Moscow to be subordinate to Beijing than to Washington. When it comes to Russia’s relations with China, Putin has been remarkably deferential and respectful. Putin has even described Chinese President Xi Jinping as “a good and reliable friend.” An important reason for this, of course, is Russia’s increasing economic dependence on China, which has partly been brought about by Western economic sanctions on Russia over Crimea and other issues. But being the hard-headed realist that he is, Putin must surely see that China has been growing more and more powerful economically while Russia has been stagnating, and that China’s greater economic strength as well as population size could soon result in Beijing becoming stronger than Moscow militarily. And a China that Russia is increasingly dependent on could serve to limit Moscow’s — indeed, Putin’s own — freedom of action internationally.
