The American magazine “Foreign Policy” said that although no breakthrough in relations between the United States and Russia was expected during the upcoming summit, next Wednesday, in Geneva between the two countries’ presidents, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, experts hope that the meeting will help put an end to the tension. In the relationship of the two largest nuclear powers in the world.
The magazine – in a report by its editor for national security and intelligence Amy McKinnon – stated that tensions between the two countries have escalated significantly in recent years; Because of cyber attacks, war in Ukraine, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, Russia’s use of the deadly nerve agent Novichok to try to eliminate its opponents, disinformation campaigns and interference in the US presidential election.
Diplomatic
Some have criticized the decision to hold the summit with the Russian leader without conditions, with Republican Senator Ben Sassi, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, saying – in a statement issued last month – “Instead of treating Putin as a gangster who fears his people, we are allowing his precious pipeline (Nord Stream 2 And we legitimize his actions through a summit…this is weakness and weakness.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded to these criticisms, saying – during a press conference last May – “We may have forgotten about this over the past few years, but diplomacy doesn’t work like that… In fact, it is very important that we meet Leaders of a country when we have differences with them, as we do with Russian leaders.”
The magazine believes that the search for a “stable and predictable relationship” will be the secret word of the Biden administration during the upcoming summit, and is the basis of the current US administration’s approach to Russia; But even achieving this goal may be elusive.
“It is unlikely that the two sides will reach the foundations of a stable relationship…I think that the most that can be done during the Geneva summit is for each side to clarify to the other its true red lines,” said Dmitri Trinin, director of the Carnegie Center in Moscow.
Although Moscow and Washington view each other with deep suspicion – according to the magazine – both sides are fully aware and grudgingly of the need for a working relationship between them to avoid disaster. t
basic challenges
Eric Green, Biden’s first aide regarding relations with Russia, believes that Moscow, along with Washington, still possesses the largest nuclear arsenals on earth, and Russia is still a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council; Which means, like it or not, that the United States has to work with it on some of the fundamental challenges that exist in the world.
Observers expect that the summit agenda will include many issues, including rebuilding diplomatic relations between the two countries, arms control and electronic restrictions, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and the Arctic, climate change, and the file of Americans imprisoned in Moscow.
Biden is also expected to raise during the summit the issue of Belarus diverting a civilian plane to arrest an opposition journalist, and to reaffirm the United States’ commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
Foreign Policy expects that the negotiations between the two parties will be tense and tense. Although the Biden administration has been clear from the start that its greatest long-term strategic challenge is to contain Chinese influence; However, from the early days Russia has been the administration’s first and most immediate foreign policy source of annoyance.