{"id":51615,"date":"2021-02-24T08:58:20","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T08:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=133402"},"modified":"2021-02-24T08:58:20","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T08:58:20","slug":"bidens-possible-strategic-blunder-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/24\/bidens-possible-strategic-blunder-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden\u2019s Possible Strategic Blunder"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n
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Photograph Source: U.S. Secretary of Defense – CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Donald Trump\u2019s wretched national security inheritance for President Joe Biden included some low-hanging fruit that is being addressed. Biden\u2019s speech to the Munich Security Conference last week reasserted the importance of the transatlantic alliance, particularly the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the U.S. commitment to mutual security. Biden\u2019s delayed discussions with Israel\u2019s Bibi Netanyahu and his warning to Saudi Arabia indicate that the United States considers the renewal of the Iran nuclear treaty a top priority, and that Jerusalem and Riyadh must not get in the way.<\/p>\n

There is no sign of new thinking on our most important foreign policy problems, however\u2014our relations with Russia and China.\u00a0 Biden\u2019s unnecessarily harsh campaign messages to Moscow and Beijing were designed for a domestic audience, but it means that Biden\u2019s national security team is on a \u201cshort leash,\u201d not only for reengaging both capitals but, more importantly, for trying to prevent movement toward a Sino-Russian alliance.<\/p>\n

There is no sign that Biden recognizes U.S. responsibility for the difficult relations\u00a0 with\u00a0 Moscow and Beijing.\u00a0 The expansion of NATO and the aggressive deployment of U.S. and NATO forces in East Europe and the Baltics in violation of a verbal understanding between then-president George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is a key component of Russian-American friction.\u00a0 Trump\u2019s trade and tariff war as well as gratuitously tough rhetoric toward Beijing is part and parcel of Xi Jinping\u2019s annoyance with Washington.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Congress and the pundits of the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0appear to be thirsting for a renewal of the Cold War.\u00a0 The military and intelligence communities are piling on with the recognition that their bloated budgets, which should be facing constraints, are at stake.<\/p>\n

Although Russia and China have been steadily increasing contacts and cooperation on every level, including unprecedented joint military exercises in the Arctic and the Pacific, both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping want to renew dialogue with the United States.<\/p>\n

Putin wants to reopen the arms control dialogue on both the strategic and conventional level.\u00a0 He also favors extending the discussion to the problem of cyberwar and cyber-espionage, the invisible weapons that many consider the \u201cperfect weapon.\u201d\u00a0 Russian military intelligence invaded a major internet software manufacturer nearly a year ago, and as a result roamed widely throughout government and private computer systems without U.S. awareness.\u00a0 The Russians were able to steal a great deal of information over a period of eight months, before a private company\u2014and not the National Security Agency\u2019s Cyber Command\u2014were able to detect the cyber storm.\u00a0 In view of our vulnerability, it clearly is in our interest to pursue such negotiations.<\/p>\n

Xi wants to resume economic cooperation, particularly to gain greater access to U.S. technology exports and to end U.S. sanctions on Chinese officials and companies.\u00a0 The Chinese challenge to U.S. interests is complex, but Sino-American discussions on climate and economic issues could pave the way for wider cooperation in the same way that arms control negotiations between the Soviets and Americans contributed to a strategic detente.\u00a0 The Chinese have never indicated an interest in challenging America\u2019s global hegemony, and expect a continued U.S. military presence throughout the Pacific.<\/p>\n

The United States, meanwhile, is displaying insufficient concern with Sino-Russian cooperation that is taking advantage of U.S. intransigence toward both nations.\u00a0 Biden\u2019s<\/p>\n

personnel appointments, moreover, do not point to \u201cnew thinking\u201d toward either nation, and point to a tougher stance that our European and Asian partners consider counter-productive.\u00a0 The European Union has ignored U.S. wishes and proceeded to conclude a huge investment agreement with China.\u00a0 In the Pacific region, China has strengthened ties with both South Korea and New Zealand over the opposition of the Biden administration.\u00a0 It is noteworthy that China\u2019s neighbors have reconciled themselves to Beijing\u2019s presence in the South China Sea, while the Biden administration has gratuitously sent an aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, into the region.<\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s entire national security team appears to endorse the need for hard-edged statements toward both Moscow and Beijing.\u00a0 Secretary of State Antony Blinken\u2019s remarks have been unnecessarily harsh, and the appointment of Victoria Nuland, a Cold Warrior from the Obama administration, as the undersecretary of state for policy is a bad sign.\u00a0 The appointments for China policy have been worse.\u00a0 Kurt Campbell, the father of containment toward China from the Obama administration, is the National Security Council\u2019s chief of Asian affairs, and the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has promised to take a tough line toward Beijing.\u00a0 Even Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellin took a hawkish line in her confirmation hearings, and the nominee for trade representative, Katherine Tai, will presumably do the same.\u00a0 Biden himself has taken credit for a tough line in his phone calls with Putin and Xi.<\/p>\n

Both Russia and China have adopted abusive practices that can\u2019t be ignored; the Navalny case in Russia and the treatment of the Uighurs in Xinjiang must be addressed.\u00a0 But their actions for the most part have not confronted, let alone threatened, American national interest.\u00a0 Russia\u2019s involvement in Syria does not compromise the U.S. position in the Middle East; China\u2019s treatment of Hong Kong was predictable more than 20 years after Britain surrendered the colony.\u00a0 China\u2019s intellectual property theft must be addressed, and trade relations will always be difficult.\u00a0 Neither Moscow nor Beijing is looking for a fight with Washington, however, and both see their economic security as the key element in their national security.\u00a0 But both will protect their periphery if the United States continues to deploy sophisticated military weapons on the Russian border or lethal naval combatants around Taiwan and the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

An arms control dialogue with Russia that includes reinstating the Intermediate-forces Nuclear Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty could be the key to unlocking the Russian-American stalemate before relations worsen.\u00a0 An improvement of relations with Moscow would enable the United States to concentrate on its number one foreign policy priority: stabilizing relations with China.\u00a0 Too many foreign policy mavens in the Biden administration believe that the containment that seemed to work against Russia should be applied to China.\u00a0 China is not Russia; it cannot be contained.\u00a0 It is time for diplomacy to resolve the differences that tactical military deployments would only worsen.<\/p>\n

Lord Salibury, the former prime minister and foreign minister of Britain, warned that the \u201ccommonest error in politics is sticking to the carcass of dead policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The post Biden\u2019s Possible Strategic Blunder<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is no sign that Biden recognizes U.S. responsibility for the difficult relations\u00a0 with\u00a0 Moscow and Beijing.\u00a0 The expansion of NATO and the aggressive deployment of U.S. and NATO forces in East Europe and the Baltics in violation of a verbal understanding between then-president George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is a key component of Russian-American friction.\u00a0 Trump\u2019s trade and tariff war as well as gratuitously tough rhetoric toward Beijing is part and parcel of Xi Jinping\u2019s annoyance with Washington. \u00a0 More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Biden\u2019s Possible Strategic Blunder<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":200,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,266],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51615"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52208,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51615\/revisions\/52208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}