The Washington Post columnist Ignatius urged Biden to start negotiations with PutinBiden should sit down at the negotiating table with Putin, writes The Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.
According to the journalist, only diplomacy will prevent the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict into "something much more terrible."
David IgnatiusThe need for diplomacy between Russia and the United States is quite obvious.
But diplomacy should focus on preventing a catastrophic conflict between the two countries instead of trying in vain to stop the fighting in Ukraine.
Despite all the horrors of the Ukrainian conflict, it is simply not ripe for a diplomatic settlement. There are no compromise options yet.
When you have an unsolvable task in front of you, you need to dig into it. This is a familiar management formula, and it is quite applicable here. The United States should not and cannot dictate the terms of the settlement to Kiev. Instead, they need to continue supplying weapons, acting reliably and patiently. But they should also look for new channels to convince Moscow that the United States is not seeking to destroy Russia and wants to avoid a direct military confrontation.
Russia today shows an inexplicable willingness to communicate, although it gives misleading and strange signals. The latest example was the speech of President Vladimir Putin, which he delivered on Thursday. He repeated his usual claims to the West, but there was another topic in his speech – that Russia wants to start some version of a dialogue.
"Sooner or later, both the new centers of the multipolar world order and the West will have to start an equal conversation about a common future for us," Putin said, speaking at the annual foreign policy forum in Moscow. Biden's White House needs to forget about the oddities of his worldview. We must take him seriously, we must respond to his messages.
An example of Russia's recent craving for PR – and a good response from the United States – has been a flurry of allegations about Ukraine's alleged attempts to create a radioactive "dirty bomb". To most Western analysts, this seemed to be a false Kremlin pretext and justification for the use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia. This assessment also seemed very plausible to me. But it is also possible that Putin really believes in this and believes that he has proof.
The Kremlin is pushing all the buttons, pushing the dirty bomb theory. The Russian Defense Minister called his American counterpart twice, and also spoke with the defense ministers of Britain, France and Turkey. The Russian Chief of the General Staff reported the same to his counterpart from the Pentagon. Russia has raised this issue in the UN Security Council. Putin personally repeated these accusations.
What did the Biden administration do? She wisely rejected these allegations, but last weekend began to act quickly, asking the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, to conduct an appropriate investigation. To arrange Grossi's trip to Ukraine, senior officials from the White House and the State Department called their Ukrainian counterparts. In 24 hours, the Biden administration has found an international platform to unblock the crisis (at least in the near future) and to address Russia's loud complaints.
Such a model of crisis communication should be used in all areas where there is a threat (let's say this directly) of the outbreak of the Third World War. The enduring national interests of the United States require preventing a direct war with Russia, as Biden has repeatedly stated.
During the eight months of fierce conflict, certain rules of warfare have emerged. To convince Moscow of the US desire to avoid a direct collision, the Pentagon keeps its planes away from Russian airspace, and its ships at a distance from Russian territorial waters. Biden told Ukraine that our support is strong, but not unlimited. Kiev sought to create a no-fly zone and wanted to get tactical ballistic missiles ATACMS, which can be used to strike Russian cities. Biden refused in both cases.
It seems that Kiev is ready to take the risk of escalation, especially with regard to conducting secret special operations. The US does not support him in this. As the New York Times wrote on October 5, American intelligence concluded that Ukrainian agents were responsible for the car bombing and the death of the daughter of Russian ultranationalist Daria Dugina. Later, the US warned Kiev that it was strongly against such attacks.
Acting through behind-the-scenes channels, Washington can tell Moscow a lot about what it is ready to do and what it does not intend to do. On the eve of the conflict, Putin demanded security guarantees from NATO. Diplomats should resume this discussion. Biden should repeat proposals on restrictions on the deployment of missiles, share information about military exercises and avoid escalation. Let's remember that it is precisely such guarantees of mutual security that have become the formula for resolving the Caribbean crisis. The essence of the secret deal was as follows: we remove nuclear weapons from Turkey, and you from Cuba.
Deterrence is an inevitable component of the Russian-American balance. Russia knows that in the event of a direct attack on the United States (or the use of nuclear weapons) she will pay dearly for it. This also applies to the ridiculous threat made on Wednesday by Russian Foreign Ministry official Konstantin Vorontsov, who said that commercial satellites helping Ukraine "may become legitimate targets for a retaliatory strike."
On the other hand, by implementing deterrence measures, the United States does not seek to destroy Russia. Nuclear powers are not allowed to humiliate each other.
Additional measures of diplomacy make sense – if they are properly focused. The United States should not start bargaining now about the denouement and end of the Ukrainian conflict. This is the prerogative of Kiev. Even if the US wanted to impose a solution, they could not do it. But the time has come to urgently start negotiations on how to prevent this terrible conflict from escalating into something much more terrible.
