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The questions posed led me to comment candidly on the regrettable state of Western statesmen like EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Yes, the same Blinken who, in one breath excoriates China and the “systemic challenge” it supposedly represents, and in the next makes a pathetically quixotic attempt to cajole his Chinese counterpart to abandon Beijing’s lockstep with Russia on Ukraine. (It’s a bipolar world again: the lily-white West pitted against pretty much everyone else – most of whom are people of color.)
Since Blinken and President Joe Biden will spend two days in Israel later this week, I called to mind the key role Blinken played in greasing the skids for the attack on Iraq in March 2003, in large part to eliminate what Israel argued was an existential threat from armed-to-the-teeth-with-WMD Saddam Hussein.
The Israelis loudly rejoiced when Biden nominated Blinken to head the State Department, The Times of Israel noting:
Tony Blinken, US President-elect Joe Biden’s choice for secretary of state, is the stepson of a Holocaust survivor whose stories shaped his worldview and subsequently his policy decisions, including in the Middle East.
Where Blinken stands on Jewish issues, from immigration to Israel
I have a feeling this Middle East trip will yield as much success as Blinken and Biden were able to achieve during their recent trip to the Far East – that is, zero success.
Josep Borrell, for his part, recently lamented that the West had failed to win a “battle of narratives” (sic) on Ukraine and – worse still – that countries of the “Global South” won’t join in punishing Russia because [get this!] they are more concerned about their own national interests. In Borrell’s dismissive words, they worry more about “the consequences of the war for themselves” than in going after the supposed culprit. Wow.
Among the other issues discussed was Lithuania’s restrictions on the passage of sanctioned material through Lithuania to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. In response, the governor of Kaliningrad has just proposed a total ban on the movement of goods between Russia and the Baltic states.
I suggested that Russia had all kinds of levers to press in these circumstances and that its response to the Lithuanians is likely to be low key and proportionate. But who knows? I’ve guessed wrong before. And the Lithuanians are not above jabbing the bear in its other eye with a more lethal stick. And, just on general principle, it’s best to avoid provoking the kind of bear not likely to be deterred by bear-spray.
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April 30th is an important date in American politics. This is the day 100 for the American President in the White House, and all attention will be on the reports of his achievements and failures. But nothing can be more critical than Peace…
6 mins read
Russia’s invasion has made ordinarily outspoken critics of antisemitism wary of criticizing Ukrainian Nazi collaborators
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Richard Sakwa has for many years been one of the most distinguished and insightful observers of relations between the West and Russia, and one of the leading critics of Western policy. In this talk with Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute, Sakwa discusses his book, The Culture of the Second Cold War (Anthem 2025). The book examines the cultural-political trends and inheritances that underlie the new version of a struggle that we thought we had put behind us in 1989. Sakwa describes both the continuities from the first Cold War and the ways in which new technologies have reshaped strategies and attitudes.
