Ukraine: A clash long in the making
One senior diplomat from a NATO country conceded that it is Putin who is forcing NATO into introspection and giving new life to an idea openly expressed by Emmanuel Macron when he declared the alliance “brain dead.”
You need to go back in history to understand what happened in Geneva last Monday (January 10) when Russians and Americans met for eight hours. The tension between the two sides was predictable. Read Vladimir Putin’s major address at the Munich Security Conference in 2007 and you have a list of all the current sticking points underlying the difficult discussion between Washington and Moscow. The speech helps to understand the fundamental lack of trust among the parties involved.
When asked by a journalist whether she trusted the Russians, the head American negotiator Wendy Sherman answered that she “generally doesn’t approach this kind of situation on the basis of trust.” This “situation” includes the presence of an estimated 100,000 Russian troops near the Ukrainian border.
In a world marked by deep mutual distrust between the great powers, that such meetings even take place has to be seen as an accomplishment. Both sides recognized as much even if it didn’t mark the beginning of a formal negotiating process. “This was not a negotiation, so we were putting ideas on the table today. And we have a long way to go,” Sherman insisted.
Seasoned observers of the international scene in Geneva tell The G|O that this cautious front shows that it is not clear to the Americans or the Europeans if Vladimir Putin intends to negotiate. One senior diplomat from a NATO country conceded that it is Putin who is forcing NATO into introspection and giving new life to an idea openly expressed by Emmanuel Macron when he declared the alliance “brain dead.”
Also speaking to The G|O under the rules of non-direct attribution, a Western diplomat saw in the Russian approach a tactic that has become customary here: propositions known to be unacceptable are tabled with the intention of either slowing down discussions or driving wedges within the Western bloc. “It’s a kind of crisis diplomacy that we see at work in numerous fora here, from the Human Rights Council to the Conference on Disarmament,” the diplomat said.