With sophisticated weapons supplied by America, Ukraine successfully sank a Russian warship, the Moskva, a symbol of Russian military power in the Black Sea. Russia, in retaliation, has stepped up its shelling in eastern Ukraine that military analysts now predict will lead to a long and bloody war.
Nearly five million Ukrainian refugees have already fled in the largest migration since World War II. In the meantime, prices of every essential commodity — wheat, soybean, oil, natural gas, and fertiliser — are skyrocketing, bringing about economic chaos in Sri Lanka and triggering fears of hunger and malnutrition worldwide.
Welcome to global leadership brought about by a brutal, stubborn Russian leader who ruthlessly bombs civilians in Ukraine after needlessly starting a war that has dramatically altered Europe’s geopolitical balance. And an America led by a President who seems clueless and is run by a coterie of senior administration officials for whom hubris, hyperbole, and acceptance by the moral police among the media elites are more important than any pragmatic attempts to stop this cruel war.
For the last 15 months, anyone that has watched daily media briefings of Jen Psaki — the White House press secretary — knows that behind the serious face is contained a litany of spin and non-responses that denigrate the high office that she holds.
Others in the administration follow Psaki’s lead, believing that the global stage will treat them with the same kid gloves as American media outlets do. The narrative is always spin-based, uber-confident, and centres on a few themes. President Biden has united the West; America will hold Russia accountable; the sanctions are severely hurting Russia, and America is the moral leader of the free world, protecting the liberal order that has been in existence since World War II. Not one official concedes that these themes have not stopped senseless killing and destruction. The World Bank estimates that it will take upwards of $70 billion to rebuild Ukraine.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is an extreme example of administration hubris. When he met with Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi in Rome last month, the focus was on threats to isolate and penalise Beijing if it helped Moscow.
That Sullivan did not care about the context of the relationship between two sovereign countries was downright undiplomatic. The Chinese President’s first foreign trip as China’s leader was to Russia in 2013, and President Xi Jinping and President Putin have since met about three dozen times. On February 4, the two declared a friendship with “no limits”. Four weeks after Sullivan’s high-profile Rome meeting, China’s position in the war has not budged.
India angle
For an American administration peeved at India’s insistence to remain neutral in the Russia-Ukraine war, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s message was characteristically arrogant during his one-day visit to Delhi.
Blinken, seeking India’s support to condemn President Putin, decided to play the Pope, warning New Delhi not to backslide on human rights. Next, he went on with his veiled threat. The US has “not yet made a determination regarding potential sanctions or potential waivers under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) law” when it comes to India’s purchase of S-400 air defense systems. Translation: If India were to buy weapons from Russia, America could place even India, a valued democratic partner, under sanctions.
When you seek favours from a friend, you don’t pontificate, ridicule, or issue threats. Worse, Blinken’s comments were directed at Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar.
Jaishankar, Jiechi, and Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, who has been in office since 2004, are consummate experts in their fields. They also know that their respective leaders, Prime Minister Modi, President Xi Jinping, and President Putin, will likely stay in office for many years, unafraid of any meaningful opposition in their respective countries.
America’s leaders and officials seem impatient and angry, driven more by a sense of career progression and an eagerness to find approval from the elites than by practicing the fundamentals of realpolitik. It is little wonder that diplomacy has taken a back seat in what is turning out to be a brutal worldwide conflict with no end in sight.
The writer is Managing Director, Rao Advisors LLC, US