“It is deeply in the US national interest to intensify communication with China on critical issues where war and peace are at stake,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the CSIS think-tank.
America's goal
America's goal is to remain in charge, the global hegemon, for ever. America built its global institutions after the last world war, which express its rules for free and fair trade, and it enforces them globally, using mostly the powers of its reserve currency and its military alliances, for example Nato. An alliance is built on the basis that there is a common enemy and this would tend foreign policy to war rather than peace.
Problems for America
Small problem at the moment: its currency and military are under threat and there are also serious problems at home from inequality to the Culture Wars. Its current idea is to parley with China, the time to rebuild its economy and military and hold back the Rise of China until China is defeated by its own demographics.
The American plan
This blog has been complaining for a long time about the quality of the West's leaders and the focus on hegemony and military rather than peace and diplomacy. Take the example of Jake Sullivan, NSA, the Ukrainian offensive and the Jeddah peace conference. Or the case of Tony Blinken, US secretary of state, who visited China in June and is now creating two working groups to focus on Asia-Pacific regional issues and maritime issues, and a possible third group to focus on broader areas.
Sullivan, United States national security advisor, is in reality Biden's campaign manager, not a diplomat, not a military man either. He is looking at November 24 and sees this war as a major obstacle to a Democrat victory - as understanding of this war grows the American taxpaying public will turn increasingly against and in any case the truth that America is losing this war is emerging.
Sullivan is a campaign manager, not a diplomat. Diplomacy is about negotiation, not conquest per se. Diplomacy is listening, understanding, reaching agreements where each side can satisfy itself by conceding on points less important to itself than the other side. The object is peace.
Contrast this with the present American leadership whose object is to preserve American primacy through victory. These people's formative years were the 70s and they are determined to reverse the defeat of Vietnam. To a neocon, seeking peace through negotiation is appeasement.
Whereas to an older generation, with scary memories of the last war, the objective is peace. Peace requires neutrality of individual countries, rather than military alliances. Austria was one example, Ukraine is another, Stalin himself arranged a disarmed and neutral W Germany, with peace in mind.
(Organisation note
Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor, heads the National Security Council (NSC) and usually chairs meetings, when it isn't Biden himself, US President, of the Principals Committee of the NSC with Blinken, who is the Secretary of State, and Lloyd Austin, the US Secretary of Defense.)
Here is where our leadership falls down and comes across as mediocre. This blog has already pointed out the futility of Copenhagen, where Sullivan was supposed to persuade the global south to come off the fence, join the sanctions, pressure Russia to withdraw. Now Sullivan has organised this Jeddah "peace" conference to follow through on this aim. And we have Blinken now opening these new lines of communication with China to tackle contentious issues.
Focus on Jeddah
As a peace conference can never work since one of the protagonists, Russia, has not been invited, so it cannot in all seriousness be about peace.
The invitees
China has already declined and had declined Copenhagen before. Mexico has declined because Russia is not present. Brazil and India look unlikely to send top diplomats, if they attend at all. So failure in terms of peace, or persuading the global South to join the sanctions regime, is pretty much baked in by the absence of key participants.
The most absurd part is that the conference is supposed to sell the Ukrainian position, which is that Russia must withdraw completely from all "its" territories including Crimea before it will negotiate, ie it will only negotiate with Russia once Russia has surrendered.
And the saddest part is the Ukrainian offensive. This strategy is Sullivan's, it is Sullivan's strategy. The Ukrainian 9th Corps was supposed to punch through the Russian defence lines and the 10th was supposed to follow through to this sea of Asov.
That plan is a failure with 30,000 Ukrainian losses since 4th June and the 10th sent in to supplement, with the Ukrainians still stuck in the gray zone without having even got as far as the first line of Russian defenses.
Reminder: the Stakes are high
The stakes could not be higher - war and peace, rhe survival of The Russian Federation or The American Order, ultimately of the human race through the avoidance of nuclear war.
Just to set the context once again. Remember that this demonstration of American might as well as the strength of its reserve currency is being closely watched by China. Remember too that Russia has complained for decades about NATO expansion and Ukraine is the brightest of red lines which it sees as threatening to its very survival. Could the stakes be any higher?
Well yes they could, instead of conflict and war, we should be looking at a new architecture for security in Europe if not globally, we should be working together to preserve the planet, with the goal of peaceful coexistence between nation states and the wellbeing and prosperity of peoples everywhere.
Thinking by everyone, for everyone
This is how reality is perceived by those with whom we should be negotiating. Our goal should be to agree solutions to bigger problems, from Security in Europe to Climate Change across the planet. Do you think our current leadership is up to this? What if it isn't?
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