Biden’s
Diplomacy of Benign Neglect
Apr 12, 2021SŁAWOMIR SIERAKOWSKI
By not rushing to call his counterparts in Poland and Ukraine, US President
Joe Biden is signaling to democratic forces in both countries that they must
first stand on their own two feet. The strategy already seems to be working in
Ukraine, and it may eventually bear fruit in populist-ruled Poland, too.
WARSAW – US President Joe Biden is very familiar with both Poland and
Ukraine. His decades of service as a United States senator and his eight years
as vice president under Barack Obama taught him that the two countries are
among America’s most devoted friends and allies. Yet he waited until April 2 –
just as Russian troops were once again massing on Ukraine’s eastern border – to
call Ukraine’s president, and he still has not spoken to his Polish
counterpart.
Biden’s relative silence seems to speak of a policy of “benign neglect,” a
term coined by Daniel
Patrick Moynihan when he was a domestic policy adviser to US President Richard
Nixon. But whereas Moynihan wanted Nixon to avoid becoming entangled in
America’s racial issues, Biden’s decision to keep Poland and Ukraine at a
distance may seem surprising. Although Poland is sliding from liberal democracy
into populist dictatorship, Ukraine is desperately trying to consolidate its
democracy despite constant Russian meddling and threats.
Moreover, even Poland’s illiberal government still tries to position the
country as if it was America’s 51st state, with the US embassy in Warsaw
playing a role similar to that of the Soviet embassy before 1989. During Donald
Trump’s presidency, a mere phone call or tweet from then-US
Ambassador Georgette Mosbacher was enough to make Poland’s Law and Justice
(PiS) party suspend its plans to shut down critical media outlets like the
private television network TVN24.
Ukraine, still at war with Russia and heavily reliant on US support
(preferably in the form of military equipment or sanctions against Russia), is
in a very different position. US support has indeed helped, not least by
halting the progress of “little green men” (Russian soldiers without insignia)
in the eastern Donbas region after they had claimed some 7% of Ukraine’s national territory back
in 2014.
As a result, Russia’s strategy of aggression has not paid off. Its
occupation of Crimea and the Donbas – both economically devastated and cut off
from the global economy – has come at a massive cost to its budget. More to the
point, Russia has squandered centuries of goodwill among Ukrainians, who are
now united around their national sovereignty.
Without Ukraine, Russia cannot be considered a global power – Russian
President Vladimir Putin’s goal in annexing Crimea and invading the Donbas in
2014. At home, Putin’s approval ratings, which had been flagging, soared above
80% following that invasion. But these gains were only temporary.
If Russia were to conquer Ukraine now, Poland would be next in line. For
250 of the last 300 years, Poland was also part of the Russian Empire. The
independence that Poland and Ukraine achieved with America’s victory in the
Cold War thus remains a lasting testament to US primacy.
And yet, while Biden’s election victory was met with euphoria in Ukraine,
President Volodymyr Zelensky had to wait two months for a call. (The official
reaction in Poland to Biden’s election was more muted: After kowtowing to Trump
for four years, Polish President Andrzej Duda was among the last foreign
leaders to congratulate Biden.)
Biden’s coolness toward the two countries should not be interpreted as a
change in US policy toward the region. After all, he has repeatedly stated –
including in a conversation with
Putin – that the US will never recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Rather,
Biden slow-rolled his call to Zelensky precisely because he knows Ukraine so
well.
Biden understands that Ukraine’s anti-corruption reforms are the key to its
survival as an independent democratic country. Without these reforms, Ukraine’s
oligarchs – some with close Kremlin ties – can simply steal financial and even
military aid to the country. Through a show of benign neglect, Biden sought to
motivate Zelensky to act against the oligarchs on his own.
So far, the strategy appears to be working. In February, Zelensky approved
a decision by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council to shut down
three Russian-language TV channels linked to the oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk. In
addition to being one of the leaders of the pro-Russian party Opposition
Platform – For Life, Medvedchuk is so close to Putin that he lists Putin
as godfather to one of
his daughters. More important, Zelensky also moved against Ihor Kolomoisky, the
oligarch who had bankrolled Zelensky’s earlier career as a comedian who played
a Ukrainian president on TV.
These moves triggered a series of violent incidents on the informal
“border” between Donbas and the rest of Ukraine, killing more than 20 Ukrainian
soldiers since the start of the year. With Russian troop movements near the
Ukrainian border threatening the security of both Ukraine and Poland, Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has claimed that anyone inciting a new war in
the Donbas will bring about Ukraine’s destruction.
But it is unlikely that Russia’s ostentatious troop movements are
preparation for an actual invasion. Rather, with his popularity nose-diving in
the run-up to Duma (legislative) elections this September, Putin is resorting
to his old bag of dirty tricks. Indeed, the situation on the ground amounts to
a proxy war over Ukraine’s anti-corruption reforms, which both strengthen
Ukrainian civil and political society and threaten Russian interests, including
by offering an example of cleaner government to Russians themselves. The
prospect of a “Maidan in Red Square” – a Ukraine-style democratic revolution in
Moscow – haunts Putin.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter, PS on Sunday
Meanwhile, Duda has yet to hear from Biden. Unlike in Ukraine, America’s
benign neglect of Poland has not persuaded that country’s populist rulers to
suspend their war on democracy. Instead, the Polish government seems to have
decided that maintaining good relations with the US would require too many
concessions, threatening PiS’s position at a time when its pandemic policies
have dented its popular support (Poland has become a world leader in COVID-19 infections and
deaths as a proportion of its population).
Under PiS, Poland’s foreign policy is ultimately a function of domestic
policy. As public support for PiS declines, more and more Poles may begin to
realize why even their US patron is keeping its distance.
No comments:
Post a Comment