Why Americans and Europeans Are Sabotaging Negotiations with Russia

On Jan. 10, U.S.-Russia talks began in Geneva. The parties are discussing Russian proposals to ensure strategic stability in Eastern Europe in an effort to return to the much safer levels that existed in 1997 in contrast to the situation in 2022.

Following these talks, the NATO Council in Brussels will consider the same Russian proposals, and then the discussion will move to Vienna, the historical capital of disarmament negotiations, where the permanent council of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe will tackle these issues.

Broadening the Base of the Conflict

America, and the EU which is eager to participate in the negotiations, have already done everything they can to disrupt the talks. They have taken two unacceptable steps that are traditionally considered fatal to successful negotiations in conflict situations. First, they have proposed expanding the base of the conflict. European Parliament President and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell demanded that the EU participate in the talks, and they include discussion of the human rights situation in Russia. As everyone knows, this subject is vast, and could take an entire century to talk about.

Secondly, an attempt was made to discredit one of the parties in the conflict before a compromise was even found. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a devastating speech on Russia in Washington on Jan. 7, before the talks were held. Moreover, Blinken's speech was delivered immediately after the meeting of the NATO Council, which meant that the leader of the State Department not only spoke on his own behalf, but also represented the opinion of NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and other key persons who play a role in relations with Russia.

Demonizing the 2nd Negotiator

Why is this speech, which will be heavily quoted in this article, a clear violation of the rules of diplomacy? We know that for any negotiation to succeed, it is necessary to distinguish between the negotiator and his personality as much as possible, in order to prevent personal attacks and provocation. That is exactly why diplomats prefer “faceless” European jackets over gold-embroidered uniforms and national costumes during negotiations. That is why when Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin discussed the battle against Nazi Germany, they did not talk argue about what lead the future of mankind: communism, liberal democracy or the British Empire. In successful negotiations, all parties stick to the subject at hand.

Negotiators may consider Russia’s demands to be an unacceptable ultimatum. But they are talking about only one subject: security. Constraining NATO expansion into Ukraine and Georgia, restricting advancement of additional NATO forces and weapons beyond where they stood in 1997 (when the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between Russia and NATO was signed in Paris); all of these are not moral measures but purely pragmatic in nature. For Moscow, the question is simple: Neither side wants war, so it is willing to agree on how to insure itself against unintentional confrontation during some exercise in the Black Sea or a sudden crisis in the Donbass or South Ossetia.

Blinken's Speech

But for Secretary of State Blinken, as his Jan. 7 speech reveals, the issue is much larger. Even before dialogue began, he didn’t hesitate to point at the party he is negotiating with and call him an aggressor and, in essence, a force of evil. As Blinken said at the beginning of his speech:

“As he (NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg) said in his own press conference a short while ago, Russia’s aggressive actions are a threat to peace and security in Europe. We’re prepared to respond forcefully to further Russian aggression. But a diplomatic solution is still possible and preferable, if Russia chooses it.

"That’s what we, together with our allies and partners, will continue to pursue intently next week at the Strategic Stability Dialogue between the United States and Russia, and at the meetings of the NATO-Russia Council and the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Ahead of these urgent discussions, let’s be clear about how we got to this moment. In 2014, the Ukrainian people chose a democratic and European future for themselves. Russia responded by manufacturing a crisis and invading. Ever since, Russia has occupied Ukraine’s territory in Crimea and has orchestrated a war in the eastern part of Ukraine –- with proxies that it leads, trains, supplies, and finances –- that has killed nearly 14,000 people and redrawn Ukraine’s borders by force.

"Beyond its military aggression, Moscow has also worked to undermine Ukraine’s democratic institutions. It’s interfered in Ukraine’s politics and elections; it’s blocked energy and commerce to intimidate its leaders and pressure its citizens; it’s used propaganda and disinformation to sow mistrust; it’s launched cyber-attacks on the country’s critical infrastructure.

"Then, starting last March and continuing through the fall, Russia began a massive, unprovoked buildup of military forces and equipment on Ukraine’s border -– nearly 100,000 troops today, with plans to mobilize twice that number on very short order. So how does Moscow explain its actions? With disinformation. It claims that Ukraine is threatening Russia. That Ukraine seeks to provoke a conflict. And that the Russian troop buildup and the tanks and heavy artillery are all purely defensive. That’s like the fox saying it had to attack the henhouse because its occupants somehow pose a threat.”

Careers Instead of Ambitions

I won’t delve into a critical analysis of the accusations against Russia from secretary of state. Suffice it to say that Russia has never spoken about Ukraine’s attack on our territory. It only spoke about Kyiv's mistreatment of its own citizens in the Donbass, which the Ukrainian security forces continue with a “joint forces operation.” So Blinken "vaults with the facts," even in the face of such an unambiguous subject as the official position of the negotiators.

The question remains as to why Blinken would disrupt negotiations. And why Borrell, the head of the European diplomatic service, would do the same. Borrell is taking a more active role in upsetting talks with Russia than Blinken. What other reason would he have for going to Ukraine only a few days before the start of negotiations between Russia and the United States, talks he is allegedly eager to participate in, knowing full well how Moscow would see this?

What? Borrell didn’t understand how Moscow would react to his meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba and their joint trip to the front lines in Luhansk practically on the eve of the negotiations? Obviously, both Blinken and Borrell are not afraid to sabotage negotiations with Russia. Why? Most likely, because such a breakdown does not threaten their careers in any way. These gentlemen refuse to take on the ambitious task of leading successful negotiations and going down in history.

Explanation for Failure

The explanation for the failure of the negotiations with the U.S. and the EU has already been prepared. In his Jan. 7 speech, Blinken clearly stated that a result is possible only if Russia chooses it. One could always say that Russia did not choose this path during negotiations, which means Blinken is off the hook.

But a successful compromise with Russia threatens big trouble. Any concessions to Russia will be examined with a magnifying glass, a microscope, even, by certain forces in the West and will demand explanation. EU’s Borrell remembers very well the obstruction he was subjected to in the European Parliament after his visit to Moscow in February 2021. “Russia has humiliated the entire EU in front of Borrell!” the Polish TV channel TVP indignantly cried, though Borrell did not make any concessions to Sergei Lavrov during negotiations with the Russian Foreign Ministry. In Moscow, he simply “did not publicly present an ultimatum to Lavrov on Navalny,” which was the first thing that outraged the deputies of Eastern European countries in the European Parliament.

The Dangerous Narrative of ‘Semi-Fascist Russia’

Someone will ask if we really think that Blinken and Borrell are afraid of criticism from the Poles and the Balts? No, Blinken and Borrell are not afraid of these gentlemen from small countries. They are afraid to contradict the shared Western narrative about Russia, which is a very important part of the ultraliberal ideology that dominates the U.S. and EU. As Dimitri Simes remarked in one of his recent speeches, this ideology sees Russia as a reactionary, even “semi-fascist” state, which, together with China and a few other renegades, prevents the victory of ultraliberal ideas (with their omnipotent global corporations, same-sex marriages and unlimited migration) all over the world.

Any United States representative, along with EU officials and their close allies, even those who are influential and the most benevolent toward Russia, to one degree or another becomes slave to this narrative, which easily twists reality to fit national interests. This narrative is eclipsed by the infamous contradictions between the United States and Western Europe, something which, until recently, Russian diplomacy hoped for, as if they had not noticed that Charles de Gaulle and Willy Brandt, who knew how to reject Russophobia, died long ago; one half a century ago, and the other a quarter of a century ago. Thus, the new left-green-liberal government of Germany spoke about the "punishment" of Kazakhstan and Russia for "dictatorial behavior" in connection with recent events even before the United States did. Protesters were still exchanging gunfire with law enforcement on the main square of Almaty, and Deutschlandfunk has already reported that a coalition of social democrats, liberals and "greens" has decided to stop defense deliveries to the Kazakh government.

Kazakhstan Is Already an Autocracy

The reason? In line with the anti-Russian narrative described above, which sees only the evil intentions of reactionary powers in anything Russia or China do, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s appeal to Russia for help is “an appeal of a dictator abroad with a request to send foreign troops to suppress his own people.” And such a characterization of Tokayev’s completely legal actions is not from an American publication, but from the European bridgenetwork.eu website of the MOST organization. There is no doubt that this view of what happened in Kazakhstan will become the dominant version in the West. This is evidenced by repeated articles that have appeared in the same confrontational spirit in publications such as the Financial Times and Der Spiegel. This is how ultraliberal ideology reshapes reality. In this way of thinking, the suffering of the Kazakh people, the murders and outrage, are not a tragedy. But the expansion of Russia's influence (in any form, not necessarily military) is.

It Is Not the People against Us

It is time for people who think about the security of Russia and who want to protect our country to understand that it is not countries or people who are against us, but ideology. And this is actually good news. People cannot be defeated, but ideology can. As for the invincibility of the people, just look at Poland, whose Russophobia was not broken by joining the Russian Empire or, conversely, by completely freezing ties in the 1920s and 2010s. As for the vulnerability of ideology, don’t forget about the collapse of the “giant with feet of clay, which turned out to be the communist ideology in its Soviet version at the end of the 1980s and 1990s.

But in order to fight ideology, we must clearly label it as an enemy and fight it. (Ultraliberalism itself considered us the enemy many years ago.) We must not fight it with "rudiments of the Cold War," (Rudiments that grow are good.) Having recognized the ideological nature of the current Western states, we can’t place any special hope on friends in the U.S. and the EU. As for "freedom of action" when it comes to well-intentioned officials operating under ideology, we have the rich experience of the Soviet Union. Such freedom is close to nothing.

To Get Something

So there is nothing for us to be especially offended by in the obvious sabotage by Blinken, Borrell, along with Stoltenberg, who has joined in the negotiations in Brussels, Geneva and Vienna. These men operate within the framework of the ruling ideology in their countries. If the ideology changes, they will also change; most likely, they will simply resign. In the meantime, the parties are still trying at least to negotiate for the nondeployment of NATO countries’ offensive missiles in Ukraine. Given the current situation, this is likely the most that we can hope for from negotiations with the United States and its allies.