The Avoidable War

It's not that the US lacks competent experts. It's the fact that nobody in Washington heeds their advice.

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The war in Ukraine is still raging 16 months after its start. Sadly, a totally neglected aspect of the conflict is being deliberately brushed aside by mainstream American politicians and military brass alike.

I am referring to the fact that for the United States this was very clearly an avoidable war. It took Russia 8 years and two abortive Minsk agreements to decide to put a military stop to NATO's designs in Ukraine, which were perceived by Moscow as an imminent threat to its security. During all this time no major American diplomatic initiative took place to lessen the tensions in the region and to avoid the outbreak of a war. This, to be sure, is a first in the diplomatic relations between the US and Russia.

Connected to all this is the fact that for almost a decade the bureaucrats in charge of framing American foreign policy have ignored their own experts' warnings about the high probability of an outbreak of hostilities with Moscow. 

Thus, James W Carden, former adviser to the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission at the State Department during the Obama administration, explains in a recent article how the current impasse was reached:

 "For years, the U.S. national security establishment was warned by voices from the right, left, and center that America needed to change its policy toward Russia. It was warned that Russia could not be defeated in their near abroad. It was warned that Kiev—by launching an “anti-terrorist” campaign against its Russian speaking citizens—was recklessly antagonizing Russia. It was warned that making a semi-deity out of a corrupt tool of Ukrainian oligarchs was an obvious mistake. It was warned against conflating the interests of ethno-nationalist far-right factions in Kiev and Lviv (and their allies in Warsaw, Riga, Tallinn, and Vilnius) with U.S. national interests. It was warned to take President Putin’s numerous protestations against NATO expansion seriously. Yet America’s bipartisan ruling elite decided to ignore these warnings, and the results speak for themselves."

This geopolitical entanglement in Europe is not only unnecessary for the US, but it has the potential, if unchecked in a timely fashion, to lead to an all-out nuclear war between America and Russia. 

The wisdom of reversing course in Ukraine and starting peace negotiations with Russia is clear for all to see. Alas, to date no one can claim that the current US administration has the required statecraft skills and political wisdom to come up with a negotiated solution.

EUROPE v USA : TWO CENTURIES OF IR HISTORY COMPARED

 Compared to the US' attitude to border changes today, the leaders of the Great European Powers of the 19th century - although generally opposed to territorial modifications themselves - proved to be much more flexible when these occurred, as illustrated by the examples of Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Romania. As leaders of land-based powers, they knew from historical experience that border changes can never be completely avoided.

 I believe that the current crisis in Ukraine gives us historians the opportunity to make a comparison between two centuries of modern world history, the one between 1815 and 1914 and the period of American hegemony between 1920 and 2020, as well as one between autocrats and democrats.

The 19th century was dominated by several great European powers, united in alliances designed to prevent the spread of secularism and border changes in Europe. Beginning with the Holy Alliance (Russia, Prussia and Austria), continuing with the so-called European Concert (Russia, Prussia, Austria, France and Great Britain) and ending after the unification of Germany with the Bismarckian League of Emperors (Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary) the 19th century was, with a few small exceptions, one of peace.

The promoters of this formula for managing military conflicts on the European continent were, with the exception of the French or British leaders, autocratic emperors, namely the rulers of  Germany, Russia or Austria. The collective guarantee of the great powers, as it is known in the history of diplomacy, prevented major armed conflicts, promoted Christian spiritual values, and in 1848 opposed the violent changes via revolutions of the states they ruled.

However, the European concert did not oppose the independence and neutrality of Switzerland, for example, or the appearance of Belgium, Italy, Germany or Romania on the map, which are still among the solidly built states of Europe.

Between 1920 and 2020, the United States was the leader of global affairs, the champion of liberal democracies, and since 1945 the number one military power, becoming the only superpower since 1989.

Although official propaganda has always affirmed that the democracies in the American camp are essentially peaceful or peace-seeking, the conflicts of this period have unfortunately proved otherwise.

Since the end of World War II and continuing with the wars in Korea (1953) Vietnam (1960s and 1970s) or those in Bosnia, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Yemen, the list of military conflicts, most  of them initiated by the US and/or NATO , is getting longer. 

Both in the 19th century and between 1920 and 2020, new state constructions appeared on the map of Europe or the world. The most solid were and remained the states formed during the time of the autocrats,  namely Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Italy or Romania.

States which appeard after 1920 based on the Wilsonian principle of self-determination, did not last long. Thus, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia disappeared from the map after 1990, while Romania lost the territories it  acquired after 1920 in the east and in the north, which have not been recovered. Puppet states like South Vietnam have disappeared, and South Korea lives daily under the military threat of North Korea and with American troops who have been there for decades.

However, since neoconservatives have taken over the management of American foreign affairs, things have gotten worse. The post-1989 period, which led to the implosion of the USSR, Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia, proved to be very turbulent. The construction of new states under the auspices of the Americans began with the creation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995, which has never experienced political stability and is in the process of disintegration.

After 2000, the United States tried its luck in the Orient, sponsoring nation-building in Afghanistan or Iraq, or in North Africa, where Libya is still a deeply divided and dysfunctional state. Since 2014, the American neoconservatives have also become deeply involved in the internal affairs and administrative reforms of Ukraine, with dismal results .

The fashion of allied occupation of a defeated enemy began with the occupation of post-Napoleonic France. Its occupation by Russia, Prussia, Austria, Britain and Bavaria started in 1815 and lasted until 1818.

During the 20th century, a new coalition of victors at the end of WWII occupied defeated Germany. The Soviets remained in East Germany between 1945 - 1990 and were the first to retire their troops from Germany. The last French battalion, however, left Germany only in 2014; the British contingent left in 2020; while the US still has 20 military bases and around 35,000 soldiers on German soil. Worse still, the NATO military alliance has not been wound up after the end of the Cold War and it even expanded to the Russian border.

Undaunted, however, Antony Blinken has commented - during the recent Russian-CSTO military intervention in Kazakhstan - that it is the Russians who are in the habit of overstaying their welcome in the countries they offer military assistance to.

After a brief review of the two formulas for managing global international affairs, one from the 19th century and today's,  one will be able to judge for themselves whether and to what extent the Americans have succeeded in giving the world more peace and stability than their 19th century predecessors, the crowned autocrats of Europe.

US: from Nation-Building to all-out War

"Billions spent on the Kennedy School, grand strategies seminars, and the Georgetown School of Foreign Service has bought us an elite that's about to blunder us into a Ukraine war."(J.D. Vance)

In a few days from now, President Biden will host German Chancellor Scholz in Washington. The expectation of Washington neocons is that he will succeed in pressuring Germany to join a pan-European alliance against Russia. 

To be sure, the German refusal to send weapons to Ukraine - and thus help ignite a fratricide war between Ukraine and Russia - makes sense. Germany was right in refusing to join the neocon-inspired war against Iraq in 2003 and is even more justified in refusing to join NATO in sponsoring a war against Russia now.

Unfortunately, France is no longer led by a president as experienced or astute as Jacques Chirac: Macron seems willing to send troops to Romania, regardless of how pointless this is from a military point of view.

Since 2001 the US have embarked in quite a few military interventions or coups around the world, which were followed by a disastrous drive to promote nation-building: in Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Libya (2011) and Ukraine (2014). All these ill-conceived nation-building efforts have backfired miserably. Undaunted, the Washington neocons who have monopolised American foreign policy for the last two decades are now promoting a war by proxy, encouraging the Ukrainians to fight the Russians.

Since 2007 onwards, Vladimir Putin has cautioned the West against pushing the boundaries of NATO eastwards. His pleas went ignored and - at the NATO summit in Bucharest one year later -  the George W Bush administration officially announced the intention of the US to include countries like Georgia and Ukraine in the alliance (these efforts were thwarted by the refusal of France and Germany to endorse the expansion). In 2014, the US engineered a coup d'etat in Kiev, replacing Yanukovich with an American puppet regime that ultimately bled Ukraine dry and is at the origin of today's crisis.

Unfortunately, after 14 years of unsuccessfully calling for a stop to NATO's eastward expansion, the Russians were deliberately left with no other option by US negotiators than to put a stop to this expansion through military action against Ukraine. 

The fact is that the treaty they are seeking to guarantee Russia's security can only be concluded after fighting a war, not before.

Since the Age of Enlightenment, Western intellectuals have elaborated projects aimed at achieving "perpetual peace". Some of the fruits of this labour have been the multilateral institutions such as the League of Nations and the United Nations. Sadly, however, humanity has been confronted with some of its biggest and most devastating military conflicts regardless of such well-intentioned efforts. To this day, no lasting peace treaty has been able to be concluded without fighting it out on the battlefield first.

The recent, ill-conceived US nation-building efforts abroad have coincided with a period in American history when consensus has evaporated, the nation is deeply divided and American society itself is in danger of internal collapse. Sure, the Pentagon and the US Defence Department are against a war breaking out in Ukraine, but the neocons in Washington and their supporters in the military-industrial complex want it and will most probably get it. 

As long as the American polity remains unable to expunge from their ranks the neocons putting America's future in jeopardy, however, the string of military and nation-building failures experienced by the US is set to continue.

UKRAINE AND THE END OF PEACE IN EUROPE

In an unfortunate turn of events, it seems Ukrainians are intent on finalising their nation-building at the expense of European peace.

Today Romania celebrates 163 years since the double election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as ruler of the United Principalities of Moldova and Wallachia. The double election capped a 3-year diplomatic offensive by Romanian intellectuals in leading European capitals, aimed at securing  international recognition for the new state - formed through the unification of Moldova and Wallachia - by the great powers of the day. 

Cuza's double election was the gimmick used by the founders of the modern Romanian state in order to circumvent the restrictions imposed on the unification of the two principalities by the European great powers during  the 1856 Paris peace congress . The unity of the new Romanian state was thus obtained peacefully, albeit by defying the will of Western and Central European rulers, most notably those of Great Britain and the Austrian empire. Less than a decade later, the Romanian state became a kingdom and in 1877 it obtained its independence from the Ottoman empire.

This outstanding example of diplomatic skill and statecraft allowed the new state to survive and prosper. At the end of WWI, the Romanian kingdom more than doubled its territory and population, reuniting within its borders all the Romanians hitherto living in Austro-Hungarian or Russian empires. To this day, for all its shortcomings, Romania is a functioning democracy, a stable and peaceful nation of Europe.

Europe is unfortunately witnessing today the different saga of yet another new state, Ukraine, at its doorstep. The evolution of Ukraine since 1991 has not matched Romania's peaceful model in any way shape or manner. The initial Western enthusiasm from the 1990's having evaporated, Ukraine is barely functioning and looks set to put an end to peace in Europe - a peace that has lasted largely uninterrupted since 1945. 

In my professional view, this is happening because Ukraine lacks a patriotic elite. Sure, there are pro-western politicians and parties, as there are pro-Russian parties and politicians. What Ukraine badly needed, however, is a breed of politicians and intellectuals who are pro-Ukrainian, that is, exclusively dedicated to advancing a purely Ukrainian agenda on the international stage. 

The lack of such an elite was and is currently being used by interested parties, like Russia and the United States. Their geopolitical designs, however, have very little to do with the core interests of the new nation. Sadly, however, the Ukrainians have failed to prove to them both that they have what it takes to build a strong and peaceful nation.

The very latest developments are a case in point. In an open-for-all-to-see international conspiracy, some politicians from the UK and the United States are using the Russian military build-up on the Ukrainian border to sell rumours and unconfirmed stories to the Western public about Moscow's intention to install a puppet regime in Kiev. Echoing the London or Washington storyline, current Ukrainian authorities have vowed to round up all the local politicians who might be part of the plot. In so doing, they seem to overlook the fact that they behave as a puppet regime of the West themselves. Moreover, Ukrainian leaders are showing a bizarre willingness to send their own citizens to the slaughter , by beating the drums of war with Russia on behalf of the West.

In truth, taking part in a conspiracy against peace in Europe is not the way to advance Ukrainian nation-building. As an historian, I am more convinced today than ten years ago that what we are dealing with in Ukraine's case is the failed launch of the new state. In other words, over the past 30 years Ukrainians have proved to the rest of the world that they are not mature enough to have their own state and to govern themselves peacefully , with only minimal foreign interference.

Unfortunately, as Ukrainians rejected neutrality out of hand - which is the only realistic solution to their problems -  they are running the serious risk of disappearing again from the map of Europe as an independent state. In case that happens, they will not be able to blame Russia or the West, but only themselves.

US DIPLOMACY AND THE SPHERES OF INFLUENCE

 Today's American diplomacy refuses to accept the existence of spheres of influence. Both Hillary Clinton and Blinken have unequivocally stated that spheres of influence belong to the past, although the 50-year long peace that characterized the Cold War period was based on the existence of two spheres of influence, one American and the other Soviet.

The United States has consistently pursued a foreign policy based on spheres of influence since the adoption of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, completed in 1904 by the Roosevelt Corollary . Thus, the United States has reserved for itself the status of regional policeman in the Western Hemisphere and the right to intervene militarily in the internal affairs of any South or Central American state.

The hypocrisy of American diplomacy and its current representatives is devoid of pragmatism and could lead to serious military conflicts, which can be avoided by simply acknowledging that there are other great nations in the world - such as Russia or China - with major geostrategic interests in their immediate vicinity.

US Diplomacy v. the Military-Industrial Complex

 The last time the United States achieved lasting peace with its former enemies was in 1945. Since then America has been dragged into an endless succession of regional wars, with its diplomats being forced to play second fiddle to the hawks in various US administrations.

Nowadays it's not diplomats who come up with solutions to solve tensions between states, but the direct or indirect representatives of the American, Russian or French military-industrial complexes, that is - military attachés or secret service chiefs posted  in embassies. The situation arose after 1945 and gradually worsened as the military-industrial complexes in question gained increasing levels of influence over politicians.

Of course, unlike diplomats, the people of the military-industrial complex (MIC) do not aim to settle conflicts between states, but to stall solving them in order to keep the level of arms sales as high as possible.

A recent example from Australia illustrates how toxic a MIC can be for the conduct of normal diplomatic relations between states. Thus, a country like France - hitherto known to have the oldest and most prestigious diplomatic service in Europe - recalled its ambassadors from 2 of its oldest Western allies, namely the US and Australia, simply because the French MIC lost an order to supply submarines to the Australian Navy in favour of the Americans.

The Russian MIC is also a strong competitor to the American MIC when it comes to sales of military hardware.Thus, the Russians have succeeded in selling sensitive military hardware even to NATO members like Turkey. Cash-strapped nations like India are also traditional customers. The huge success of the Russian MIC, however, lies elsewhere. Twenty-odd years ago one of their own - Vladimir Putin - took over the presidency and made sure that no traditional politician will ever gain power in Russia again. The domination of the Russian MIC over state institutions is so complete due to the fact that no alternative power centres have been allowed to exist.

" Russian defense companies do not need to spend money on lobbyists (as their U.S. counterparts do) because key individuals working for them simultaneously hold senior political posts and already take part in high-level decision-making. Thus, Russia’s defense-industry lobbying, such as it is, focuses on access to the federal budget—funds distributed by the government with the active participation of the presidential administration and Putin himself for arms procurement, R&D and industrial modernization programs. " ( Pavel Luzin )

Many analysts and Western politicians have mistakenly compared Putin to the likes of Stalin or Hitler. For a start, unlike them, Putin is not a politician and has never aspired to be one. Secondly, unlike Stalin, he has an excellent working relationship with the top generals of the Russian army, or with the heads of Russia's main secret services like the GRU and the FSB. Thirdly, Vladimir Putin has demonstrated that when his country is backed into a corner, he and his army commanders act as one in pushing back against what they see as trespassers to the Russian security sphere. And finally, Putin and the other top leaders of the Russian MIC take a dim view not only of traditional politicians, but also of the role diplomats can play in solving international crises. In other words, unlike his Western counterparts, Putin is not a politician but the leading PR representative of the Russian MIC.

In the United States, the typical political representatives of the MIC are the  neo-conservatives, the most belligerent of Americans. They are often found in important positions, either in the White House or in the state or defense departments , where they exert a strong influence on US foreign and defense policy. (Two best-known such people are Paul Wolfovitz or Victoria Nuland.)

Even worse, four of the top 5 corporations in the military-industrial complex in the US are run by women , who unfortunately have a dubious reputation for being more aggressive in negotiations than men ...

Whenever the issue of diplomatic negotiations between states  comes up -  such as the planned Biden Administration negotiations with Russia this month - representatives of the mass media associated with the complex fill up the public space with articles describing the diplomatic efforts as being a sign of weakness on the part of the US, insisting instead on the need to send more weaponry to the US' allies.

In other words,  when it comes to extinguishing armed conflicts,  the tactic of ​​the American military-industrial complex is to pour more gas on the fire, in order to be able to provide as many weapons as possible to the conflict zones of the world.

THE CRISIS OF DIPLOMACY II : " MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR " ☺

 

With each passing day, Western states are taking resolute steps towards becoming  irrelevant.

Woke ideology, left-wing feminism, critical race theory  are all undermining a civilization that seems determined to shed its  past achievements and give up the pre-eminent role it has played until recently.

States that are much less economically developed or that are more primitive from a social or political point of view are, as a result, becoming much more insolent and confident that they will soon take over the world.

A last-minute trend in the demise of the West is the so-called " feminist foreign policy, " which is sure to strike a blow at the diplomatic profession,  already badly affected  by the changes of the past 30 years.

Feminists who fancy themselves  as diplomats do not seem to understand that the essential role of diplomats is to sign peace treaties, to settle conflicts between states, not to catalyze them. Feminist assumptions about diplomacy being mistaken, their "contributions"  are useless. It's enough to consider the performance in office  of Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton or  Victoria Nuland and one gets the picture.

Thus, if  Albright had tempered the Baltic states' desire to become NATO members, for example, Russia would not have a casus belli today against the West. She was also responsible for botching the peace negotiations with Milosevic and for the bombings in Bosnia and Serbia from 1999. There are a few American IR specialists who have deplored the way NATO turned out after 1989. Thus from a military alliance tasked with keeping the peace in Europe, NATO has emerged as an aggressive organisation which started quite a few wars since 1999. In no small measure, this shocking shift in NATO's mission is the legacy of the first woman to become Secretary of State in the history of the US, and not that of  any "toxic" NATO general.

We should also remember the disaster in Libya patronized by the then head of American diplomacy, Hillary Clinton. Counter to the advice of the Defence Department , which was opposed to military action against Gaddafi, Hillary Clinton convinced Obama to authorize the bombing campaign in Libya, with devastating consequences .

One should not forget the "contribution" to peace in Ukraine made by Nuland , who personally oversaw the overthrow of the Yanukovych regime in Kiev...

So far, therefore, the presence of women in diplomacy has not shown that they are better negotiators, less aggressive than men, or better trained professionally. So where are the exaggerated claims of German feminists coming from?

Ukraine and the Crisis of Diplomacy

  I propose to look at the current crisis from another angle, that of the crisis of the diplomatic profession.

200 years ago, in a turbulent European context marked by the Napoleonic Wars, a neutral state appeared on the map of the continent, a republic in the middle of the kingdoms of the time: Switzerland.

This was made possible by the support of Tsarist Russia and the diplomatic genius of its Foreign Minister Ioannis Kapodistria . Thanks to his talent and sustained efforts, Switzerland's independence and neutrality have been recognized and guaranteed by all the great European powers.

Fast forward to the 21st century, when the tradition of competent diplomats has almost completely disappeared. The main cause for this situation is without a doubt the usurpation of the competencies specific to the diplomatic profession by the heads of Western states, eager to appear as great international crisis solvers (they are not!) in the spotlight of the TV cameras. This has delegitimized the field of diplomacy and marginalized career diplomats, who would now have been the only ones able to negotiate a neutral status for Ukraine and help resolve the political-military stalemate the tensions have reached.

What's worse is the fact that seasoned diplomats like Kennan or Kissinger have been replaced by militant women, either feminists like Hillary Clinton or neoconservatives like Victoria Nuland, who have greatly aggravated the geostrategic situation throughout Eastern Europe. Such "diplomats" not only did not help ease geostrategic tensions, but even catalyzed them (see Victoria Nuland's actions in Maidan Square in 2014). It is well known that in diplomacy the persons for whom ideological options prevail cannot function effectively, regardless of the nature of their ideology.

It is interesting to note that the role of diplomats in international negotiations, which has been severely eroded over the last hundred years, has never before been so completely affected, not even by interwar dictators, such as Hitler or Stalin. The latter did not take any interest in Soviet foreign policy until 1936, leaving the field almost exclusively in the care of Litvinov, the USSR's foreign policy commissioner. Litvinov's replacement in 1939 was followed by one of the great failures of Soviet diplomacy: the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. However, the treaty in question was negotiated and signed on behalf of the two states by Ribbentrop and Molotov, respectively, on behalf of the USSR.

The trend for summits between the leaders of the world's most important states started during World War II, with Churchill, Rosevelt and Stalin meeting in Tehran and Yalta. It was resumed in 1989 when Presidents GH Bush and M. Gorbachev met in Malta, and summits have remained in fashion to this day.

The most important successes during the Cold War, however, such as the policy of detente or the signing of strategic arms reduction treaties, are attributed to diplomacy corps led by Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, not Leonid Brezhnev. The signing of the peace treaty that ended the Vietnam War was negotiated by Henry Kissinger, not by Richard Nixon, etc.

Let's be serious, the United States (and for some time Russia, France or the United Kingdom) no longer have well-trained diplomats who will play a key role in reducing tensions between states or blocs of states. In crisis situations, such as now on the Ukrainian border, it is not Blinken or Lavrov who are called to resolve the stalemate, but President Biden or Vladimir Putin directly.

The conclusion to the above is clear. In the absence of competent senior diplomats, fully in charge of the foreign policy of their states, crises between blocs can degenerate into military conflicts, which jeopardize peace in Europe or elsewhere in the world. The absence of the diplomatic buffer is therefore very ominous for all parties involved in economic or military conflicts. However, until the role of diplomats in international relations is restored, situations of this kind can only degenerate.

EU Diplomacy's Munich 2.0 Moment

 

May 9, 2020

European diplomatic traditions, which are some of the most illustrious in the world, have not prevented the External Action Service from writing one of the most inept letters I have ever read. After months of China’s diplomatic bullying, aimed at changing the pandemic narrative in its favour, is this ill-conceived message addressed to the Chinese leadership all that the best diplomatic experts within the EU have been able to come up with ? To add insult to injury, the EU officials have even accepted the letter to be censored by Beijing before its publication, deleting any reference to the fact that the pandemic started in China.

Diplomatic intimidation was not invented by the Chinese. The Nazis used it before them. Just before the start of the second world war, this type of bullying made Neville Chamberlain bow to Hitler’s demands in order to achieve – in his view – “peace with honour”.

Pushing back against Chinese bullying, however, is the only reasonable course of action of any country and self-respecting diplomatic establishment. From my personal experience working for Chinese bosses, I also happen to know that taking a firm stand against their bullying is the only way to deal with the representatives of a nation that has recently achieved economic success, but is still haunted by a huge inferiority complex. Trying to appease Chinese bullying or to ignore it will not make it go away, but will only lead to more serious bullying in the future.

To give but one example, Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called for an international inquiry into the origins and handling of the coronavirus pandemic. His initiative has prompted a furious attack by the Chinese ambassador to Canberra, who by now is used to treating Australia like a de-facto Chinese colony. He used the media to threaten that Chinese consumers could stop importing Australian beef and wine. This type of threat echoes the Davos speech of a Chinese official this year, who claimed that the United States will not do anything to counter China’s recent belligerence because his country is the biggest market for American hamburgers outside the USA.

“If you give China an inch, they will take a mile. And if you succumb to bullying and intimidation, you can expect only one more thing: more bullying and intimidation. It’s going to be a question not simply of what is Australia saying about what’s happening in China: it’s about China trying to dictate what’s happening in Australia.” (Dr Samantha Power, former US Ambassador to the UN Security Council, in Financial Review, November 2019)

The Chinese amhassador’s assertion that his country’s consumers might decide not to buy Australian beef in the future is also directed against the Chinese middle class. These are the biggest consumers of beef in the country, and if the communist party decides for some reason to stop importing it, they will have to revert to a more traditional, pork-based diet. In other words, the communist party seems as displeased with Australia as they are with the restless Chinese middle class, who have nevertheless made the fatal error of putting their future prosperity into the hands of the communist officials.

The EU , on the other hand, is China’s biggest export market and this fact alone gives it a lot of clout, a temporary disruption in supply chains notwithstanding.

This is why appeasing China’s offensive diplomatic behaviour makes so little sense.

Instead, EU diplomats should intensify calls for an independent inquiry into the handling of the pandemic and declare at least a few Chinese diplomats in Europe persona non grata after their unwarranted offensive behaviour in Paris or Stockholm. Anything else will be construed by the communst regime in Beijing as proof of Western democracies’ inherent weakness. Indeed, like the Nazis before them, their entire propaganda machinery rests on proving to the population how strong China’s communist government is and how weak Western democratic governments are by comparison.

Naturally, no European country wishes to confront China, which is fair enough. However, by appeasing its diplomats’ bullying and ignoring its shameless propaganda, the EU is making a huge error, one which is already being put to good use by the continent’s “ideological competitor”.

Western Diplomacy and the North Korean Nuclear Menace

 September 10, 2017

The current North Korean threat highlights one of the most troubling shortcomings facing today’s Western governments : the almost total inability of diplomacy to help solve such crises.

For thousands of years, various states in different periods of history have nurtured the development of a special class of bureaucrats, employed exclusively in the diplomatic service. In time, these people acquired the know-how necessary to deal with countries’ foreign friends and foes alike. Diplomats were always at hand when war was declared, peace terms negotiated or when tensions between states needed mediation.

Closer to the modern era, career diplomats became leading members of government. Their advice was highly respected and their status was second in importance only to the prime minister of the day.

Alas, after thirty years of neoliberal budget cuts and political leaders’ insistence on small government, the diplomatic services of Western countries have been severely degraded and the number of competent career diplomats has been drastically diminished. The global international relations system, as a result, is experiencing the effects of a dangerous loss of shock absorbers.

Everywhere in the world, Russia and China excepted, diplomats are being marginalised and face near extinction as a professional foreign affairs elite. This unheard-of development in history is due to the fact that Western leaders these days prefer to deal directly with one another, “to get things done”, even though they don’t possess the specialised knowledge and skills to do so.

To put it more bluntly, we can compare the performance of a political leader in the field of international relations to that of a quack next to a doctor. By relying on executive briefs instead of drawing on a solid knowledge of history, culture and international events, career politicians usually delude themselves as to their abilities in the field of foreign relations.

Unfortunately, we are talking here about political leaders who have, in the words of Henry Kissinger, oversized egos and think they could match the skills of career diplomats when negotiating treaties, appeasing important allies or dealing with enemies. Elected Western leaders, however, owe their jobs to their ability to convince their constituencies to vote for them on domestic issues, and not to their skills in dealing with other heads of state.

The above can easily be illustrated with the classic example of the negotiations between Presidents George H. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, which took place prior to the reunification of Germany in 1991. On that occasion, Gorbachev agreed to peacefully remove the Red Army units from East Germany in exchange of a verbal promise from his American counterpart that NATO would not expand to the east. The deal was concluded among the two presidents directly, without the involvement of their top diplomats or the signing of a formal treaty to that effect. Needless to mention, the handshake deal between the two leaders did not stop NATO from expanding eastwards a decade later and generating the military tensions witnessed today at Russia’s western borders.

There is no doubt that – as the leader of the Western world – the United States is chiefly responsible for these negative developments. The US has never consistently nurtured the development of a professional diplomatic corps and, bare a few exceptions, American foreign ministers have never carried significant weight within the US government. The performance of Henry Kissinger as State Secretary remains exceptional simply because it confirms the rule.

The US State Department has consistently been denied adequate funding, especially over the last thirty years, with the bulk of the budget allocations going into the Pentagon’s coffers. In the first decade of the 21st century, George W Bush even named a general as Secretary of State (Colin Powell) and the invasion of Iraq soon followed, despite stark warnings and protests on the part of career diplomats and UN officials. Moreover, as events in Ukraine have recently shown, US ambassadors are repeatedly being used, in a subordinate capacity, to assist the CIA in organising coups d’etat or to influence election results in a variety of countries around the globe. More often than not, American diplomats are continuously undermined in the performance of their duty by the CIA or other representatives of the military-industrial complex.

The Obama Administration has tried and partially succeeded in diminishing the influence of the military-industrial complex in the framing of US foreign policy. It provided more adequate funding for the US State Department by constantly insisting that the use of military force should only occur as a last resort and that diplomacy and negotiation should be given priority. This has resulted in one of the few successes of the Obama administration: the Iran deal. Barack Obama’s error, however, was that of naming Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State. She lacked the intellectual standing necessary in the field of international relations and, like her husband, was mired in controversy.

The influence and respectability of diplomats is even more problematic within the European Union, where various heads of the EAS (European Action Service), from Catherine Ashton to Federica Mogherini, have failed in getting the respect and trust of the EU’s external partners. As a result, the EAS is perceived as an annex to the American State Department and as a nuisance by the foreign policy establishments of EU member states. At the national level as well, very few EU states have succeeded in preserving diplomats’ former status and in protecting their departments from budget cuts.

In countries like Romania, for instance, we are also witnessing an exceedingly worrisome development, namely the replacement of career diplomats with former industrial engineers without language skills and/or with covert operatives of the country’s spy agencies. This bizarre development has been made possible by the fact that over the past ten years Romania’s foreign affairs ministers have been – either prior to or after their mandates – directors of the state’s spy services (SIE). Moreover, ex- foreign intelligence directors like Catalin Harnagea or those of the country’s internal secret service SRI, have been awarded ambassadorial positions despite the lack of prior experience or solid training in international relations.

Taking the above developments into account, it comes as no surprise that there is no negotiated settlement possible between the West and the North Korean regime.

Even at the height of the Cold War -as Britain’s late Sir Michael Alexander duly noted in one of his books – career diplomats from both sides of the fence were able to keep communication channels open and thus avoid major nuclear catastrophes in the process. De-nuclearisation treaties were negotiated and signed and the fall of communism, as a result, happened in a peaceful manner.

Today, when the military call the shots in the White House and there are no more top American or European career diplomats to speak of, the world edges closer to nuclear holocaust than ever before. We should also be frank in admitting that President Trump’s “Twitter diplomacy” is a poor substitute to the real thing. His tête-à-tête meetings with Vladimir Putin, for example, have not succeeded in improving the US’s relationship with Russia, on the contrary.

Let us all hope that it is not too late to reverse this dangerous trend. Diplomats need to be put back in charge of framing foreign policy and in conducting difficult negotiations, without the overriding interference of their political leaders, intelligence or military establishments.

A Possible Blueprint for Preserving Peace in Europe

 August 2, 2017

Remember Montesquieu and his “doux commerce” ? “L’effet naturel du commerce est de porter à la paix. Deux nations qui négocient ensemble, se rendent réciproquement dépendantes: si l’une a intérêt d’acheter, l’autre a intérêt de vendre; et toutes les unions sont fondées sur des besoins mutuelles. Mais si l’esprit de commerce unit les nations, il n’unit pas de même les particuliers.”

Over the past few hundred years, this belief has become an integral part of the liberal credo and it animates the economic thinking of globalists to this day. Alas, the promise of trade as a peace-promoting activity among nations has never been fulfilled to date. The recent adoption of additional sanctions against Russia by the US senate amply proves that geopolitical tensions among nations and blocks of nations can thwart the beneficial effects of trade among them. One of the problems is that Russia and the United States are essentially alike tradewise. Both countries rely heavily for their export earnings on commodities (oil & gas) and sales of military hardware to their allies…

In many ways, the European Union is caught in the current crossfire between the former cold war enemies. A new and more dangerous version of the first cold war between the Americans and the Russians has emerged, one that is commonly called cold war 2.0. It has occurred as a direct result of the relentless expansion of NATO eastwards since the turn of the millennium and it is now seriously affecting international trade.

Nevertheless, restoring peaceful relations between the EU, US and Russia is an essential precondition of resuming normal trade relationships. But how to achieve this?

First, the Western alliance should recognize that the presence of NATO in the countries bordering Russia is viewed in Moscow as a huge security threat. Thus, not only should its expansion into Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia be halted, but additional confidence-building steps should be undertaken in order to defuse the current tensions.

Second, the Baltic countries should themselves revert to a neutral status, even as they retain EU membership.

Third, a newly-formed neutral zone between NATO and Russia should be created. This would include Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, whose security should be guaranteed by multilateral treaties between NATO powers and Russia.

Past experience has proven that in case of conflict, in all these countries with sizeable Russian minorities, their allegiance naturally tilts towards Moscow. This makes these states, at the best of times, unreliable NATO allies or candidates. Furthermore, history has also shown that states like Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia achieve a relatively higher level of internal stability when led by pro-Russian leaders.

Putting a stop to NATO’s expansion and taking a step back from the Russian borders would restore peaceful relations with Russia and improve trade ties. Just as important, it would prove that NATO is not bent on expansion at the expense of trade, but stays true to its original mandate of preserving peace on the continent.

Turkey, the Indispensable Negotiation Partner

 September 30, 2011

Over the last two weeks, Turkish diplomacy went all out to capitalise on the country’s increasing international clout. President Abdullah Gul has made a 4-day visit to Germany, Turkey’s main European partner, whereas premier Erdogan has made a highly publicised visit to Egypt and has recently met with President Obama in New York to discuss the situation in Syria.

Turkey’s sustained economic growth and the pro-Islamic geopolitical agenda it adopted a few years ago have transformed the country into an indispensable partner for the West. Turkish diplomacy and influence could become instrumental in helping the EU, for instance, deal with the upheavals in the Maghreb and help stabilise the region. The US, too, needs Turkish assistance in dealing with the crisis in Syria and in resolving the Palestinian question. Finally, Russia might find it opportune in future to use Turkey’s help in dealing with the political upheavals in countries like Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan or others in Central Asia.

Even if Turkey’s increased international standing, as well as its status as a major regional power in Asia and within the Islamic world, are by now indisputable, a cooler approach to the Palestinian issue might make its efforts more effective than it has been the case so far. Pushing Israel too hard on the Palestinian question is – as the latest events prove – counterproductive. The Turkish diplomacy has to find a way to help Palestinians by working closely with EU diplomats and the US administration in order to persuade the Israelis to soften their resistance to international efforts of helping Palestinians achieve statehood. As cooperation on the issue brings more rewards than confrontation, threats to accompany Gaza-bound humanitarian convoys with Turkish warships could only aggravate matters and increase tensions in the Middle East. Such a display of hard power could only play in the hands of Israel’s military and undo the successes achieved by the Turkish diplomacy’s soft means over the last decade.

Most analysts, especially from Europe, believe that Turkey is in fact a responsible stakeholder in the Middle East and contributes to increasing the political stability of the region. By spreading the message of democracy and human rights around the Islamic world now in turmoil, Turkey is also viewed by many inside and outside the Arab world as a positive force for democratic change. These are but a few reasons why the Turkish diplomacy will have to tread much more carefully in future on the Palestinian question and avoid antagonising unnecessarily Israel and its main backer, the US. (sources: Today’s Zaman, Project Syndicate, Reuters, Al Arabiya)

India's Energy Diplomacy

 October 15, 2010

If compared to China, India’s energy strategy is far less successful to date. Although it closely matches China’s (investing in oil assets worldwide, developing oil & gas fields in Iran, joining transnational pipeline projects, signing bilateral supply contracts or developing special relationships with countries such as Saudi Arabia), India’s efforts to diversify its energy supplies away from coal run into strong opposition from the United States and major logistical problems.

India’s energy needs

According to the researchers of the Council on Foreign Relations and India’s Planning Commission, the country faces formidable hurdles in meeting its current and future energy needs, if it wants to maintain its current 8 percent per year economic growth rate.

Over the next 25 years, the Indian government’s priority is the eradication of poverty. To get there, however, India will need to keep growing by 8 percent a year for the full quarter-century. Indian officials, however, fear that this noble goal is going to generate huge energy shortages, as Indiahas been less suceessful in securing energy supplies from its neighbours or from Central Asia than China has been.

The troubles of the energy sector in India are compounded by state control over the import, production and distribution of oil and gas products, which are coordinated by 4 different ministries. More than half of India’s electricity is generated by burning poor-quality domestic coal, which is expected to run out in about 40 years. Furthermore, a third of India’s oil is imported from countries the US is at odds with, such as Sudan, Syria or Iran, whilst the gas is imported mainly from Iran, Bangladesh or Burma. India’s dependence on imported oil, which currently stands at 60 percent, is expected to grow to 90 percent by 2030. That lifts energy diplomacy to the top of India’s agenda, when it comes to dealing with countries from Central Asia, Middle East, Africa or Latin America.

India’s pipeline projects

To date, India has tried to emulate China and build gas pipelines that are needed by its electricity generation sector in order to diversify away from coal. Its two projects are the IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India) pipeline, also dubbed “the peace pipeline”, and the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) pipeline.

First discussions concerning the IPI project started during the Clinton administration in 1993, when the so-called moderates where apparently coming to power in Iran. It involved the construction of a 2,700-km pipeline from the South Pars field in Iran, through Pakistan to India’s border, at an estimated cost of some 8 billion dollars. Beside international sanctions and US opposition which affected the project, the Iranian and Indian officials could not lock in the price for the gas to be transported, and could not agree at which border the gas supplies were going to be paid for.

Whilst the Indians insisted they were only going to pay for the gas when it reached the India-Pakistan border, the Iranians asked to be paid when the gas reached the Iran-Pakistan border. As the projected pipeline was due to pass through Beluchistan (Pakistan), home to some of the most radical Islamic tribes, India wanted to make the Pakistani government responsible for the gas’s transit through its territory, in exchange for the $1.2 per mmBtu in transit fees. Thus, practical difficulties and US opposition to the project determined India to recently abandon IPI, of which only the Iran-Pakistan stretch, or about 1,100 km, is going ahead with construction.

The failure of the IPI project has recently determined India to enter fresh negotiations with the Teheran regime for the construction of an undersea gas pipeline, which could cost 9 billion dollars. This would have the advantage of bypassing Pakistan and doing away with transit fees. Again, the project’s chances of success are slight, given the US’ opposition to investments in developing Iran’s energy sector.

In 2008, India initiated the TAPI project to bring gas from Dauletabad (Turkmenistan) to the India-Pakistan border, with a construction price tag of 3.5 billion dollars. This project is favoured by the US, but is quietly opposed by Russia, which needs the Turkmen gas for its European customers.

India, the 5th largest consumer of energy in the world, desperately needs to exponentially increase its imports of oil and gas. Consequently, it has taken an option to develop, at an estimated cost of 8 billion dollars, the Farzad-B area of the Pars gas field at the Persian Gulf, again running into some opposition from the US. Already, the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) which slaps fines on foreign companies that invest in Iran’s energy sector, has been invoked by American officials against Indian companies. As Indian companies are the biggest foreign subcontractors of IT services to US corporations, India stands to lose vital data processing business, as well as foreign currency earnings. Meanwhile, much better capitalised Chinese state oil and gas companies are aggressively investing some 20 billion dollars in the development of the South Pars gas block.

For the time being, India is being encouraged by the US to convert its gas in LNG form and transport it by tanker. It is also currently being advised by the US to develop oil and gas fields recently found on its own territory and to invest in shale deposits in the US. With so many logistical restrictions and the threat of US sanctions looming, India’s energy diplomacy agenda is becoming ever more complex. (sources: Times of India, FNA, Iran Daily, Heritage Foundation Brief, Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder, Hindustan Times, Financial Express, Asia Sentinel)