The diplomatic marathon continues. After a first meeting on Monday between Russian and American emissaries, new discussions are due to open this Wednesday in Brussels between Moscow and NATO. In the background, Western fears of an attack by Russia once morest Ukraine, while around 100,000 Russian soldiers are still massed on the border between the two countries.
The Kremlin says that this military deployment is a reaction to the deemed growing and threatening presence of NATO in what it considers to be its area of influence. Moscow is demanding Western guarantees on stopping the expansion of this military alliance on its borders. A crisis that looks like the first real test for the foreign policy of the Biden administration, decrypts Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, director in Paris of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
L’Express: Can Wednesday’s talks between Russia and NATO really help ease tensions between Russia and the West?
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Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer: Not immediately. But it is all the same positive that the beginning of a discussion takes place between Russia and NATO. On this point, we can also note a change in the American posture, which is not to refuse the proposals from Russia, but to take them into account and agree to dialogue, while taking care to mark the limits of what one is ready to accept.
The whole diplomatic streak this week – with the US-Russia meeting on Monday, followed by the NATO-Russia format on Wednesday, then the OSCE-Russia meeting on Thursday – is really a way of using all possible multilateral dialogue formats with Russia. It also reflects Washington’s desire not to negotiate alone with Moscow. Since the start of its presidency, the Biden administration has taken care to include Europeans in this process, to show a common front once morest Russia.
The Kremlin has deemed “positive” Monday’s meeting between Wendy Sherman, theUS Under Secretary of State,and Sergei Riabkov, the Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. However, the talks did not really lead to avenues towards a way out of the crisis. Can we say that the status quo is dominant today?
This is the feeling that prevails. However, on both the Russian and American side, expectations regarding this meeting were quite limited. The objective was above all to launch a process of consultation and listening to the red lines of each country. The United States’ room for maneuver is limited, insofar as it must both show a certain firmness towards Moscow, while trying to engage in dialogue.
It is interesting to note that Joe Biden learned the lessons of his vice-presidency during the Obama years, when he was in charge of the Ukrainian file. At the time, he had been the main architect of the “reset” with Russia, consisting in relaunching the relationship between Moscow and Washington. But faced with the meager results obtained by this approach, its posture is different today.
Joe Biden no longer seeks to minimize disagreements with Russia and confronts them head-on. We also see that dialogue is not considered an end in itself, but must be used to try to make concrete progress on a certain number of disagreements. This Ukrainian dossier is the first real test of the Biden administration’s foreign policy, much more than the Chinese dossier.
Russia demands security guarantees, via treaties, implying the prohibition of any NATO enlargement. What the United States refuses. How to get out of this impasse ?
This indeed seems quite difficult, because the American and Russian visions of European security are irreconcilable. It is very clear that neither the United States nor NATO are ready to give up the open door policy of the Atlantic Alliance. The reason is simple: it would discredit both NATO and the American security guarantee. This is one of the reasons why this file is so complicated for the United States.
In a way, they are caught between the risk of a military escalation with Russia on the one hand, and the risk that a diplomatic retreat will put them in a weak position on the other. In this context, the best solution would undoubtedly be to reach an agreement with Russia on other subjects, in order to gradually ease tensions. This is what I call “barter diplomacy”, which the Biden administration seems to favor on all subjects of foreign policy: making a concession in exchange for other concessions from the opposing party, without giving in on the lines. red. This approach does not resolve conflicts, but helps to contain them, to freeze them.
Concretely, what are the concessions that Joe Biden might make to Vladimir Poutin? ?
First, the two leaders might agree on a reciprocal limitation of military exercises on Europe’s eastern flank, in order to reduce tension on both sides. The United States is also ready to discuss the control of strategic weapons in Europe, on the basis of the INF Treaty (Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces). Finally, Joe Biden might open discussions concerning Moscow’s request to re-establish mechanisms allowing more regular contact between Washington, NATO and Moscow. These are entirely possible concessions, provided they are reciprocal.
However, for the moment, we do not see a clear desire to de-escalate on the Russian side. On the contrary, since Monday we have seen an even greater military deployment on the Ukrainian border. In this regard, it is interesting to note that where the West is currently in a defensive posture, the United States publicly excluding the military option in response to this crisis, Russia is using hard power and threat. military his privileged tool to achieve his ends.
The same goes for China vis-à-vis Taiwan. The transatlantic discourse of “de-escalation” seems out of step with the military escalation strategy of these powers and does not convince. The Western “red lines” have in reality become “pink”, because the United States, NATO and the EU are struggling to defend the declared principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity. For its part, Russia feels authorized to impose its own red lines in a completely uninhibited manner.
We imagine that the reaction of the American president in this matter is scrutinized by other authoritarian regimes with expansionist views, such as China with Taiwan for example …
Absoutely. And I think that the firm stance displayed by the United States in its support for Ukraine is precisely intended to send a form of warning to China and to the ambitions it nurtures with regard to Taiwan. I think the Chinese factor weighs a lot in Washington’s diplomatic calculation once morest Russia. If the United States gave the impression of a diplomatic retreat, it would be a signal of weakness sent to China. Which, in the end, might make him want to increase tensions with Taiwan.
In the event of a Russian attack on Ukraine, what might be the American sanctions once morest Russia?
A whole range of sanctions are being considered by Washington. This can range from simple economic sanctions to the imposition of an embargo on all technologies manufactured or designed in the United States, and which are used by Russia. A shutdown of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, to which Moscow is particularly keen, was also mentioned. But the biggest of the sanctions would be to kick Russia out of the Swift international payment system. This hypothesis has also aroused the nervousness of the Kremlin in recent days.
But at the same time, we must not overlook the fact that the question of sanctions once morest Russia is the subject of much debate in the United States. Because it has been years, especially since the Crimean War of 2014, that Washington has sanctioned Moscow, without this translating into a major policy change by the Kremlin.
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The question, then, is whether maximalist sanctions, such as an expulsion from the Swift system, can push Moscow back. One can imagine that Russia will do everything not to come to this. However, the escalation is still ongoing at the Ukrainian border and the risk of accidents remains. So the United States and its allies may have no other choice but to show their muscles more in the coming weeks, in order to move forward in the negotiations with Moscow.
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