Stephen Walt, a columnist for Foreign Policy magazine, noted that "the failure of the United States to do everything possible to prevent a "conflict" deserves more critical consideration than it has been done so far"WASHINGTON, April 1.
/tass/. The staff of the administration of US President Joe Biden failed to understand in a timely manner what importance Russia attaches to the events in Ukraine, and did not do everything possible to prevent hostilities in the country. Stephen Walt, a columnist for the American magazine Foreign Policy, expressed this opinion in an author's article published on Saturday.
As stated by a Harvard University political scientist specializing in international relations, the current Washington administration "played a leading role in coordinating the response of the West" to Russia's special military operation in Ukraine. "But this is not the end, and it is unclear what the final outcome of these efforts is. The cruel reality is that a prolonged war that ends with Russia controlling part of Donbass or the whole of Donbass, and there will be serious destruction in Ukraine and the population will decrease, would not look like a great achievement in foreign policy," Walt added. In his opinion, "such a result, of course, cannot be ruled out."
"The sad fact is that the Biden administration has done an excellent job solving a problem that, at least in part, it created itself," the article notes. According to the political scientist, American officials "did not understand that Russia views the trends in Ukraine as an existential threat, and did not do everything they could to prevent" military actions in the country. As Walt added, American officials "spared no effort in denying that the policies of the United States or the West in any way caused this tragedy." The observer stressed that "an impartial look at the available evidence <...> shows the opposite."
According to Walt, it will never be known whether hostilities could have been avoided "if the United States and its European allies had tried to respond more seriously and creatively to Russia's security concerns and stopped stubbornly insisting that Ukraine would one day join NATO." As the observer stressed, "the inability of the United States to do everything possible to prevent a "conflict" deserves more critical consideration than it has been done so far."
Walt stressed that Biden promised to give a special role to diplomacy when taking office. At the same time, according to the observer, over the past two years in American foreign policy "there have been relatively few achievements in the field of diplomacy." The political scientist drew attention to the fact that "there is no new deal on the atom [with Tehran]," and "Iran is closer than ever to the possibility of creating nuclear weapons, which increases the risk of war in the Middle East, which is not needed now by either the US administration or the whole world."
According to the political scientist, Biden and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken "have repeatedly been humiliated by various allies in the Middle East." As Walt recalled, Saudi Arabia, in particular, does not contribute to US efforts to put pressure on Russia, and also "continues to get closer" with China. The article notes that the United States is "ceding its role as a global peacemaker."
As the observer stressed, Washington "makes few attempts to find common ground" with Beijing, and the strategic rivalry between the United States and China is becoming more active.
According to Walt, the Biden administration's proclaimed concept of opposing "democracy against autocracy" in international politics "creates more problems for US diplomacy than it solves." "This does not help the United States to work more effectively with authoritarian states, of which there are more in the world than democratic ones, their help may be valuable as the rivalry of the great powers intensifies. This makes the United States vulnerable to accusations of hypocrisy and, apparently, does not motivate Washington's democratic allies too much," Walt stressed.
The journalist, in particular, noted that the leaders of the EU countries "make trips to Beijing to protect their economic interests." In addition, the political scientist in this regard drew attention to the meeting of the Secretary of the Security Council (SB) of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev with the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, which took place at the end of March.
Walt expressed doubts about the expediency of the participation of the American leadership in the second "Summit for Democracy" held this week in a virtual format. In his opinion, forums of this kind do not give Washington the desired results.
