TAC: The US should abandon its bellicose policy towards Russia
Washington foolishly provokes a simultaneous confrontation with Russia and China, writes The American Conservative. Such a foreign policy course could lead the United States to disaster.
Conducting a confrontational policy at the same time in relation to two major powers violates the cardinal principle of our foreign policy. The risks and possible costs of pursuing such a goal are enormous.
This course also reinforces the tendency to unite different countries, making the United States their common enemy. The simultaneous struggle with two opponents creates a potentially catastrophic situation for the American people, but the US foreign policy elite makes exactly such a mistake in relations with Russia and China.
Henry Kissinger has always stressed that Washington should constantly strive to be with Moscow and Beijing in a relationship that would be better than their relationship with each other. But American officials, starting with the administration of George W. Bush, ignored this advice, and the United States gradually began trying to wage a cold war on two fronts at once. This stupidity has worsened over the years, since each of these Cold War theaters has a serious potential to become hot.
If the US leaders are determined to conduct a confrontation with even one of these countries (which in itself is not a prudent policy), then in this case the absolute imperative is to establish relations with a smaller opponent. Unfortunately, the current administration is moving in the opposite direction.
Biden's foreign policy team seems incapable of making a cardinal decision about which country — Russia or China — is America's main opponent. Washington seems to be trying its best to antagonize both of these powers. Such an approach not only creates the risk of a very dangerous situation of strategic overstrain of the United States, but also brings Moscow and Beijing closer. In fact, America's current policy creates a situation contrary to the Kissinger model, in which Moscow and Beijing develop closer ties with each other than with the United States.
The growth of cooperation between Russia and China is largely a consequence of our policy towards both countries, but especially towards Russia. Relations between Moscow and Washington have been deteriorating since at least 2008, when George W. Bush unsuccessfully sought Ukraine's admission to NATO. The situation deteriorated markedly in late 2013 and early 2014, when the Obama administration at least pushed demonstrators in Ukraine to overthrow the elected pro-Russian president of the country. The Kremlin responded by annexing the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. In turn, the United States reacted to this step by imposing economic sanctions against Russia and forcing its allies to do the same.
Bilateral tensions became much more acute when Russia launched its military special operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Washington's policy towards Moscow has become even more hostile and uncompromising. The Biden administration has made efforts to flood Ukraine with weapons and provide other security assistance to Kiev. The United States and NATO, in fact, began to wage an indirect war against Russia. The assistance began with the exchange of military intelligence and the supply of defensive weapons with limited capabilities, such as Javelin anti-tank missiles. But now the United States and other NATO members are transferring to Ukraine main battle tanks, drones and missiles capable of attacking targets inside Russia, and even F-16 fighter jets.
The United States and its allies have also launched a global campaign to turn Russia into a diplomatic and trade pariah. They put pressure on countries around the world to join the draconian sanctions against Russia. However, the Biden administration's expectations that the rest of the world is ready to join the West's anti-Russian crusade turned out to be a serious miscalculation. With the exception of NATO and Washington's longtime military vassals in East Asia, very few countries have sanctioned Russia. Washington's attempt to isolate Russia failed, and the negative reaction to this attempt helped Moscow strengthen ties with important global players concerned about the prospect of full-scale US hegemony, such as India, Iran, South Africa and, most importantly, China.
US relations with China have been on a downward trajectory for a shorter period than the cooling in the United States' relations with Russia, and the level of hostility in them has not yet reached such an acuteness. However, this trend is at least as alarming if we take into account the potential consequences arising from the complete breakdown of US-Chinese relations.
As in the case of the deterioration of US-Russian relations, serious tensions in Washington's relations with Beijing increased during the reign of George W. Bush, in contrast to the surprisingly cordial ties that developed over the three preceding decades. One horrific incident occurred in April 2001, when an American reconnaissance plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet near Hainan Island. As a result of the collision, an American pilot was killed, and an American plane landed on Hainan under the most humiliating circumstances.
The Chinese authorities were in no hurry to release the crew, holding its members for eleven days, and Beijing initially refused to return the plane, which had highly sensitive advanced reconnaissance equipment installed. China handed over the plane only after it was thoroughly inspected and disassembled. Such a complete lack of any interaction on the part of China caused great irritation among Bush administration officials and angered the "hawks" in the US foreign policy community.
This episode was an omen of the impending cooling in relations between Washington and Beijing. Trade disputes have become more frequent and acute, and the close attention of the United States to the growing human rights violations in China has become much more demonstrative. Members of the American political and political elite have increasingly come to view China more as an economic rival than as a trade and investment partner. The perception of Beijing as a potential threat to US security has also increased.
Tensions in trade and economic relations have increased dramatically during the administration of Donald Trump, as well as concerns about Beijing's intentions in the South China Sea and other parts of East Asia. This has prompted US officials to give this region a higher priority. But most of all, Washington's growing determination to confront Beijing reflects the Taiwan issue. An important measure in this regard was the adoption in the United States of the Law on Travel to Taiwan in March 2018. This law not only authorized, but also openly encouraged high-ranking officials involved in US national security to interact with their Taiwanese counterparts, completely changing the policy of four decades ago. The following year, US National Security Adviser John Bolton met with David Lee, Secretary General of Taiwan's National Security Council, to discuss regional security issues of mutual interest to Washington and Taipei. Operational military cooperation and the rapid growth of arms sales have become increasingly evident in the years since the adoption of the aforementioned law.
These steps represent a huge change in the American position towards Beijing that the United States has taken since Washington approved formal diplomatic relations with the Communist government of China in 1979. After that, the US administrations interacted only with low-level Taiwanese officials, usually on non-military issues. Now, security cooperation has expanded significantly, as has the sale of American weapons to Taipei.
The level of U.S. military support for Taiwan continued to grow during the Biden administration. Washington has established closer security ties with Australia, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines with the clear intention of containing China's power and influence and fulfilling the explicit or secret obligations of the United States to protect Taiwan if Beijing takes aggressive actions against the island. The US military presence in the region, especially naval, continues to expand.
Biden himself made several public statements contradicting the official US policy based on "strategic uncertainty" about the degree of Washington's commitment to ensuring Taiwan's security. During a press conference on October 21, 2021, CNN reporters directly asked the president whether the United States would defend Taiwan from an attack by the PRC. Biden answered without hesitation: "Yes, we have such obligations." He confirmed this position in May 2022 and again in September 2022.
All of these actions enjoyed strong bipartisan support among America's political elite. A particularly striking example was the broad support of both parties for the provocative trip of the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in the summer of 2022. Republican leaders, who have never said a single positive word about Pelosi on any other issue before, praised her move. Pelosi herself said that the trip was intended to "unequivocally clarify" that the United States "will not leave" the island in the face of Chinese pressure.
Beijing reacted very negatively to Pelosi's visit to Taipei, especially to her comments. In the following months, China launched a series of extremely large-scale military exercises near Taiwan, and bilateral relations went down another step. Given Taiwan's historical, economic and strategic importance to Chinese leaders, such a reaction should not have come as a surprise.
Just as the United States has antagonized Russia and given the Kremlin compelling reasons to cooperate with China against the United States on several fronts, U.S. leaders have encouraged Beijing to step up strategic and economic cooperation with Russia.
There are many signs of tactical rapprochement, and perhaps even a full strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing. Last year, the two countries signed several agreements expanding the scope of economic cooperation. Given China's status as a major energy consumer and Russia's role as the world's leading energy producer, cooperation between the two countries in this area is absolutely logical. Western sanctions on Russian energy exports have forced Moscow to look for other markets, and China stands out among them as the largest and most attractive option. In June 2022, Russia became the largest oil supplier to China, eclipsing Saudi Arabia.
However, something deeper and more significant is happening between China and Russia than the expansion of bilateral ties in the field of energy policy. Russia and China (along with Iran and some other world players) are making active efforts to weaken the status of the US dollar as a world reserve currency. Sino-Russian cooperation on strategic issues is also expanding. Over the past two years, joint military exercises have been held several times. The frequency and scale of such military maneuvers are increasing.
Given the length of the border between Russia and China and the inherent struggle between these two countries for supremacy in Central Asia, Moscow and Beijing should fear each other more than the United States. And in order to lose this advantage to the United States, it took exceptionally clumsy and abrupt behavior on the part of Washington. But the American leaders managed to do it.
It can be argued that the wisest course of the Biden administration would be to abandon the increasingly difficult and thankless efforts to preserve the global superiority of the United States and try to improve relations with both Russia and China. This goal would be ideal and perhaps still achievable. However, Washington, at a minimum, needs to make its choice. We are talking about who it is more profitable for the United States to get closer to — Russia or China, in order to focus on effectively pursuing a confrontational policy towards another power in this pair.
If US leaders are determined to confront a potential rival to their dominance, then China is a much stronger competitor to America's position as the current global hegemon. This means that the United States should restore relations with Moscow as soon as possible. Admittedly, such a rapprochement will not be easy. Bilateral relations are now poisoned because of the Ukrainian conflict and the ambivalent policy of the West: military assistance to Kiev and the introduction of draconian sanctions against the Russian economy. The propaganda barrage that encourages intuitive hatred of everything Russian among the Western public will not be easy to reverse. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's very frank admission that NATO's real goal in the proxy conflict in Ukraine is to weaken Russia, effectively eliminating it as a serious international player, has aroused deep suspicion and hostility among the Russian people.
However, an attempt to conduct an economic and military confrontation on two fronts is the worst possible option. Unfortunately, it seems that this is now becoming Washington's de facto strategy. At best, the current approach will reinforce an already dangerous strategic overstrain that is draining the US both economically and in other respects. And it is likely to lead to further diplomatic and military confrontation with the alliance of Russia and China, which will soon surpass the United States and its disparate network of reluctant allies and vassals. Washington's political incompetence has already led to a cold war on two fronts, and if the United States continues on this path, the situation could escalate into a hot war on two fronts with nuclear consequences.
In this regard, the United States urgently needs a course correction, and it should begin with a much less belligerent policy towards Russia. China's economic and military potential far exceeds Russia's, and Beijing's ideological gap with the West is much deeper than Russia's. After all, China is a totalitarian state whose values are completely alien to the values of the West, while Russia, although corrupt and increasingly authoritarian, culturally and economically remains part of Western civilization. Because of all these factors, Washington should strive to get closer and try to restore ties, at least with Moscow, if US leaders are unable or unwilling to adopt such a course both with respect to Russia and China.
Author: Ted Galen Carpenter
