If I Were Joe Biden, What Would I Say To Putin Today?



Today is President Biden's video conference with Putin, a last ditch attempt to avoid catastrophe. This morning I read Professor Heather Cox Richardson's letter and commented on it. 

Professor's take, which is the same as that of Jennifer Rubin of Washington Post (and I agree with both) is that the US should begin its global initiatives to defend Democracy and fight corruption right here at home. For us to try to lead the world's fight against corrupt autocrats while Trump and his GOP are stealing billions and stealing elections, inciting violent attacks on our government and tearing apart our Constitutional protections is the height of impotence, posturing, and hollow table-pounding speechifying. It is almost ludicrous to the point that leaders at this Democracy summit will be in a permanent state of "eye roll". One would hope their eyes don't get stuck that way. 

The main issue in Heather's letter is the brewing strategic crisis with Russia. It is a mistake to think this is just about Ukraine however. I wrote this short comment in response.

["It sounds to me that the President is going to tell Putin that large scale asset seizure is on the table if Russia goes into Ukraine. Confiscation of Putin's assets and those of the large coterie of Oligarchs who are his straw men might add up to a trillion dollars. The question is "is that enough leverage"? Honestly, I think not.

Russia has been planning this strategic move for a long time. They didn't do it while Trump was President because they didn't want to undermine their best asset for weakening and dividing the US. So, since they are Chessmasters, they have already thoroughly gamed out the whole thing and made contingency plans for what the US and Europe might do, and I'm fairly certain that China is a big part of their financial/economic fallback plan.

But the bottom line is that knowing the Russians, with their history and paranoia, they see expansion of NATO into Ukraine and possibly Poland right up to their doorstep as a strategic and existential threat, just as they saw the deployment of the Pershing II missiles in Europe in the 1980's and responded with their counter of SS-20's. They will not back down, whatever one might imagine about Russia's reduced power. I have misgivings about Biden's and Blinken's not giving any ground on this NATO expansion."]

The context in which this is happening is that Putin is moving to reestablish Russian military and economic power. After the collapse of the Soviet System, (which Putin described as the greatest political catastrophe of the 20th Century) the United States moved into the power vacuum and humiliated them during the Clinton years. 

The West looted the Russian economy picking it clean like a Christmas Turkey. And inexplicably, we expanded NATO to justify an Air War in the Balkans against the Serbs, right in the heart of Russia's area of strategic influence, against their Orthodox brethren and allies. There was no strategic political or economic reason for US involvement there, other than to show Russia "who was boss" back then. 

Putin and his circle of Russian religious nationalists have never forgotten the treatment they received at the hands of the arrogant Americans, under the rule of the corrupt drunken US puppet Boris Yeltsin. Americans today have little concept of how brutal the looting of Russia's economy was after the Soviet collapse. They will not, cannot allow Ukraine's economy or Russian labor force which works there to default to the West, for reasons of their political and economic survival. 

So, to understand (not support or agree with) what Putin is doing on Ukraine, you have to look back at Russia's history of being repeatedly invaded, and the events of 30 years ago after the USSR collapsed. 

I've written about this, and I'll repost it again. It identifies in my view the extra step that Biden and Blinken must take to avoid war, without capitulation to specific Russian demands. 

From my blog, December of 2020--

https://therosenreport.blogspot.com/2021/01/usbiden-team-must-renounce-clinton-era.html

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