The foreign policy quartet driving America’s decisions in the Russia-Ukraine war – Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Lloyd Austen, and Wally Adeyemo – is running into unexpected problems in the field.
As the war enters the ninth month, it is hard to believe that it was a year ago, in November, that Blinken spearheaded America’s signing of a needless security agreement with Ukraine with an entire section devoted to countering Russian aggression. At this time, not a shot had been fired.
Today, the world is closer to World War III, with Belarus joining hands with Russia and Iran agreeing to send missiles to Russia along with the drones it has been supplying. We are not sure if Blinken saw that all of this would happen a year ago at the signing ceremony.
But since the invasion, the quartet has executed a singular vision based on two consistent messages.
First, Putin is evil, so Russia has to be severely punished and isolated as a pariah nation. Austen said on April 25, “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Second, America is the leader of a global liberal order that saves democratic institutions and values, so all costs and consequences are fair game.
But are all costs and consequences really fair game? How much collateral pain can the world withstand as the quartet pushes relentlessly ahead to support Ukraine?
We will examine several media headlines in the last few days to show how clueless our quartet has been in anticipating the outcomes of their hubris-based policy decisions.
The lead story in Friday’s New York Times talks about how inflation is pummeling Europe and concedes that amid rising inflation and energy costs, Europe has started to see signs of anxiety over support for Ukraine. This is a setback as fractures have already begun to appear. At the EU meeting in Brussels, the countries agreed to disagree on a Russian gas cap. Reuters says that Adeyemo’s efforts in pushing Janet Yellen’s larger oil price cap were likely to fail as Russia is poised to skirt it through its ships in the open sea.
Another Reuters story pointed out that “U.S. firms developing a new generation of small nuclear power plants to help cut carbon emissions have a big problem: only one company sells the fuel they need, and it’s Russian.” The report says the U.S. has funded a company to begin making the fuel. Still, production won’t start until 2028 – and even then, at only a third of the quantity the Department of Energy calculates the power plants will need. The collateral damage here is that the quartet’s single-minded focus on isolating Russia has severe consequences for America’s climate change and energy policies.
ADVERTISEMENT
The New York Times described how FinnAir’s entire corporate strategy of building a European hub to serve Asian customers is in disarray. Sitting on top of Europe, Finnair’s hub in Helsinki was hoping to use routes over the vast land mass of Russia to serve China, Japan, and Hong Kong. When the West sanctioned Russian aircraft from entering Western airspace, Russia retaliated and forbade western planes from entering its airspace. Finnair has begun laying off employees and leasing its aircraft to other airlines. The laid-off employees would surely like the cushy job security of the quartet.
Biden’s quartet unleashed the most stringent sanctions on the Russian Rouble, intending to handicap it. Instead, the Ruble has strengthened 27% against the dollar when every major world currency has fallen to 40-year lows, with the Japanese Yen leading the pack. The Euro breached dollar parity, and the Pound Sterling came close.
The foursome convinced Biden to visit Saudi Arabia to urge the kingdom to pump more oil into world markets. MBS refused and agreed to a cut of nearly 2 million barrels per day in a slap to Washington.
The quartet has relentlessly attempted to save the Iran nuclear deal and rewarded the regime’s ruthless attacks against Mahsa Amini protests by not harshly criticizing it or enhancing nationwide sanctions. Still, Iran defied the quartet by stepping up the delivery of drones that Russia now employs with lethal force in the Ukrainian theater. The EU announced fresh sanctions against Iran, but America has been largely silent.
Finally, the quartet is bumping into political realities both in Washington and abroad. If the GOP takes over the House, potential future speaker Kevin McCarthy has ruled out blank checks to Ukraine. Over in Italy, a conservative firebrand is likely to take over as Prime Minister, supported by former PM Berlusconi, who recently echoed Putin’s grievances that Ukraine caused the conflict. The U.K. is about to have a third PM in under six weeks.
ADVERTISEMENT
No one has the foresight to anticipate all the unexpected events since February 24, but the quartet’s approach of adamantly sticking to a single vision is creating chaos worldwide. And winter in Europe has not even set in yet.
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.
