International diplomacy – It’s dangerous now

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But even more important than the possibly marginal results of the presidents’ and foreign ministers’ telephone conversations, it is that the diplomatic back channels freeze up. Behind the leaders’ often propaganda-motivated moves, you no longer know what the political leaders are really thinking, or how they will react to one or the other move. The exclusive world between the economic and military superpowers at the very top level has in recent years – and especially in recent months – become significantly more unpredictable. Therefore, it is dangerous now.

Biden ble i sin conversation with Xi said he is playing with fire in US support for Taiwan, the de facto independent island of nearly 24 million people, but which China is threatening to attack militarily to underline the seriousness of its “One China” policy. We are talking about a forced reunification with China, ultimately with military force. According to the minutes, the talks were completely irreconcilable on this point, and it remains open whether the US will support Taiwan wholeheartedly militarily if China were to attack. The good news, after all, is this; the two agreed to meet face to face. Sometime in the future.

Blinken’s call with Lavrov was not about the war in Ukraine, but about basketball star Brittney Griner, who is imprisoned in Russia for having hashish oil in her luggage, and ex-soldier Paul Whelan, who has been sentenced to 16 years for espionage. It is expected that the two will eventually be exchanged for arms dealer Viktor Bout, who sold Russian weapons on a large scale to the Middle East and Africa after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia has placed a lot of prestige in getting Bout – who is a real thug – free.

The arrest of the two Americans bears more of the impression that they have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Therefore. In Russia. And now. They play the thankless role of currency in an increasingly totalitarian state, and Lavrov has no intention of selling himself cheaply.

When it comes to the war in Ukraine, the two were completely irreconcilable, and spoke more to their audience at home than to each other. Blinken emphasized, according to US leaks from the conversation, that “the world will never accept annexation” of Ukrainian territory. While Lavrov, according to Russian leaks, said that the country will achieve all its goals in the “military special operation” in Ukraine. So, the diplomatic channels between the US and Russia at this level, in this matter, are practically non-existent.

And we can perhaps live with, since we know that their most important role in this phase of the war is to confront the intransigence of their governments. And where dialogue used to be a virtue, it is now confrontation that is a virtue. Worse is that the professional diplomats also have their channels frozen. All the confidence-building and arms-limiting agreements between the US and Russia were scrapped long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the exception of the START-2 agreement on the long-range, intercontinental missiles. Mutual inspection and trust-building measures are gone.

Britain’s national security adviser Stephen Lovgrove stressed at a seminar in Washington last week that it is more dangerous now than during the Cold War. His point was that then you had a common understanding of each other’s doctrines, which is now gone. Lovgrove emphasizes that this applies to the USA’s relationship with both China and Russia.

During the Cold War did you know where the limits of what you could do and say were. Now you no longer know to the same degree where those boundaries are. When Russian President Vladimir Putin more or less openly threatens the West with nuclear war, do you know if it is a real threat? Or maybe it’s just a rather masculine joke? The point is that you don’t know. And that is precisely Putin’s point. He has long had the habit of seeing as much uncertainty as possible as a strategy in international politics. But this also applies to Joe Biden, who is deliberately unclear about whether, and how, the US will react to a possible Chinese attack on Taiwan.

This is dangerous, because politics at this level increasingly becomes a game. A game – since this is also about nuclear weapons – where we are all made hostages. A game in which it is even more dangerous if world leaders speak on deaf ears.

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