Biden versus Putin

On June 16, 2021, U.S. President Biden and Russian President Putin plan to meet in Geneva, Switzerland.  Jeff Zeleny, Chandelis Duster and Betsy Klein of CNN.com report that the White House has stated that the two men plan to discuss “the full range of pressing issues.” *

We can only hope that President Biden will make a better showing with the Russians than his people did with the Chinese in Anchorage, Alaska (March 19, 2021).  That meeting was reminiscent of 1938 in Munich when Adolf Hitler bullied Neville Chamberlain into giving him the Sudetenland prior to the beginning of World War II.  There is little evidence to show that Mr. Biden will do any better.

As much as we may wish that he would retire peacefully to a villa near the Black Sea, Vladimir Putin is an able leader and an experienced judge of the mettle of other men.  The Biden Administration’s weak performance in Anchorage cannot have escaped him.  It is reasonable to think that, prior to the meeting, President Putin will take Joe Biden’s measure and find him wanting.  President Biden is all bark and no bite.

These men have two things in common: they are both political survivors and they are both corrupt.  The most likely outcome is that Putin will dominate Biden and get what he wants.  Then, the Biden spin doctors will call it a great victory for our side.

What does Putin want?  He wants the United States and its NATO allies to get out of the way, so Russia can pursue its goals.

Historically, the Russians have wanted warm water ports.  They have wanted a buffer zone of client states on their Western border to defend against invasions from the West.  Russia has worked to develop a world class economy on a par with other world powers. Even today, however, their economy is flawed.  Without economic improvement, they cannot sustain the kind of military power they needed to be a superpower.

Russia has always survived financially by exporting raw materials and importing finished goods.  Currently, their economy is heavily dependent on exporting petroleum products. 

During the Soviet era, they tried to export communism to less developed countries to build a geopolitical sphere of influence.  Now, they are trying to build an economic network of client states to grow as an economic power.  Hence their ambitions in Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, the Middle East, and South America.

Russia has sought to expand her influence in the Middle East giving her the ability to expand or contract the world’s oil supply.  It would increase her economic, political, and military clout.  For the same reason, the Russians, (through their proxy, Cuba), are attempting to make a vassal of Venezuela, which has vast reserves of oil, precious metals, and minerals.  It is also a nice place to put missiles and airbases from which they could strike the United States with very little warning.    

The draconian methods the Soviet Union used to control the nations of Eastern Europe following World War II left a legacy of bitterness.  The strong economies and high standard of living in the European Union and the United States made it attractive for the nations of Eastern Europe to align themselves with the West after the Soviet Union collapsed.  Under Putin, Russia tried to strong-arm Eastern Europe into aligning with herself.  Unfortunately, he has not learned that threats, intimidation, and force drive people away from you.  (Note that Russia has moved large numbers of troops to its Western border prior to the meeting in Geneva.)  Military aggression in Georgia and the Ukraine, and a coerced plebiscite in Crimea, have caused the Baltic states and Eastern European countries to look to NATO for protection.

In the West, memories of the Cold War have made people loathe to see Russia become a resurrected Soviet Union.  To some, Russia under Putin has become the Soviet Union all over again.  After the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States and others provided economic aid to Russia in the hope that they would become a thriving democracy.  The absence of a democratic tradition has made it possible for an undemocratic oligarchy to gain and hold power.  The United States and other NATO countries have tried without much success to restrain the more aggressive of Russia’s actions.  

The current situation is a recipe for disaster.  NATO has no stomach for a fight, and President Putin knows it.  However, there is a delicate balance between what Putin can bully his way into, and what will create a situation from which the NATO countries cannot back down.  What we hope President Putin will discern is that Joe Biden has no clue about how to find that balance.  Biden may not even know that it exists.  Pray that each of these two flawed men will somehow avoid putting the other in a position from which there is no reasonable way to extricate themselves.

 

*  https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/25/politics/biden-putin-summit-geneva/index.html