Two weeks before the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden in Geneva, Moscow reminds us that the agenda for a meeting between the presidents of Russia and the US does not coincide, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said bluntly today
There is nothing surprising in this statement, given the history of relations between the two countries in recent years. It is not Russia who is responsible for the dismantling of bilateral relations, it is not Russia who has imposed sanctions and called for the isolation and punishment of a partner – but our country is ready for a dialogue on the issues really important for the two countries (and the world as a whole). Is the US ready for it? In words yes, the Biden administration has repeatedly said that dialogue with Russia is important and that it generally wants predictable relations between the two countries. But what will happen in reality at the Geneva meeting?
Theoretically, there are two scenarios: it may take the format of an exchange of mutual complaints or there may be a substantive dialogue-dispute about specific topics and problems. No one expects a breakthrough or even local success in the form of agreements (apart from a very likely easing of restrictions on embassies), but in the case of the first scenario there would be widespread disappointment. Vladimir Putin is not in the mood for an altercation with Biden – but it is clear that if the U.S. president begins to bill Russia, list complaints, set conditions and make demands, our president will have to respond in the same manner (not in form, but in substance). In this case there will be little benefit from the event – apart from the fact of holding it.
It is clear that no one needs a summit for the sake of a summit – not Russia, not even the States. Biden needs to show Americans and the world that America is getting back to its levers of controlling the world order. If the Geneva meeting is anything like the Anchorage meeting – i.e. the March talks of the Chinese and US delegations during which the sides exchanged harsh accusations on TV cameras – it will not score any points for the White House. The American president will want to find some kind of balance: demonstrate to the Americans and the West his firmness with Putin and at the same time show his capacity for negotiation and dialogue. Biden’s personal qualities and experience allow him to play such a role, although many things (including the domestic American situation and his initially stated foreign policy course) push him towards a much more primitive game and, therefore, a knowingly losing one.
In other words, instead of limiting himself to a short list of American claims against Russia (the already canonical set of “interference in elections”, “threat to democracy”, “aggression against Ukraine” and “persecution of Navalny”) and then moving on to a discussion of real geopolitical and strategic issues, Biden may get stuck at the first stage – and everything will end in failure. The preconditions for this are there, although they can also be attributed to the usual artillery preparations before the summit meeting.
In making his Remembrance Day address, Biden speculated about American exceptionalism:
“America is unique. It is an idea. Unlike every other country in the world, it was founded on an idea. Almost all other countries are based on creed, on religion, on geography, on ethnicity, but not us. We are based on an idea: we believe it is an obvious truth that all men and women are created equal. We are unique in the world. I recently had a long – two-hour conversation with Chairman Xi, and I let him know that we cannot help but advocate for human rights around the world, because that is who we are. I will meet President Putin in a couple of weeks in Geneva and I will let him know that we will not stand by and allow him to violate those rights.”
Yes, of course, it is all familiar: we are not like everyone else, we are the “shining city on the hill”, we have a special mission, so we care about everything that happens in the world and we have the right to shepherd nations and interfere (“help”, “save”) in your internal affairs and teach you how to live. All this propaganda is a hundred years old, but it was particularly active after World War II. In recent decades, “protection of human rights” has been called a priority of U.S. foreign policy – that is, it has officially stated that universal (global) interests take precedence over domestic American interests.
The entire non-Western (and not a small part of the Western) world understands what it is dealing with: an ideological justification for American (although it would be more correct to speak of a supranational Atlanticist) global expansionism and a means of promoting and consolidating American influence. It is of course possible to talk to the Americans about human rights, knowing that what you are dealing with is brazen and shameless manipulation, an attempt to distract and weaken you.
That is why Russia does not refuse to talk to the States “for human rights”. Commenting on Biden’s words, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it was “traditionally ready to respond to any questioning on the American side. At the same time, Ryabkov noted that “there is much less counter readiness and less frequent” – and this despite the fact that “the agendas of the US and Russia do not coincide”. So we are ready to play your games, to answer your questions, but then you should be ready to answer ours too. Do you have values that prevent you from being silent about human rights in Russia?
This is how Sergey Lavrov reacted to Biden’s words:
“President Biden said that he would definitely raise the topic of human rights in his contacts with the leader of the People’s Republic of China, with our president, because, as he explained, human rights, these values, as if the entire US state system is built on, they cannot pass by these issues. <…> Well, by this logic – we also have values on which our state, our society is built and which suggest adherence to fairly serious principles that are violated in practice by our Western colleagues. Therefore we are ready to talk, we have no taboo topics, we will discuss everything we think necessary and will be ready to answer the questions that the American side will raise. This also applies to human rights.”
Shall we talk about values and rights? OK, we won’t laugh and play your game. Let’s remind you of the BLM and the recent presidential election, i.e. your internal affairs that contradict your own values. And then let’s talk about our values – among which is the absolute unacceptability of interference by outsiders in our internal affairs, pressure and mentoring of our people. On what grounds do you think you have the right to ignore our values? Because you have made yourselves responsible for the human rights of the world?
We value equal respectful dialogue between nations, but instead we are told not to respond to the sanctions imposed on us, to turn a blind eye to the campaign to demonise our state. That is, to renounce our values and moreover: just renouncing them is declared a condition for our forgiveness and return to the “family of civilised nations”. Wrong Russians with their wrong state – that is why they do not want to cede Ukraine to the right West, they strengthen the army, they do not vote for pro-Western “freedom fighters”, they protect their obscurantist traditions and do not support LGBT rights. Their values are not values, but a threat to peace.
The good thing is that this kind of propaganda is becoming less and less effective – even in the still united West. Especially against the backdrop of the values crisis in the US and Europe: it is difficult to assure our citizens that they care about human rights on a global scale against the backdrop of interracial problems in their own home. If you do not respect, do not protect the rights of your own population, then why should they believe that you care about the problems of distant peoples? And precisely those who do not ask for help, and by a strange coincidence live in the states that have defied Atlantic hegemony – China, Russia, Iran? Is there not, to put it mildly, slyness here, a resident of the modern West might ask himself.
He does, and not only himself – only Biden is not going to answer these questions. But what would happen if Vladimir Putin asked him these questions? Not to hear Biden’s answer but to expose to the world the falseness of the “value” upon which the idea of American exceptionalism is based.
Biden might yet take the Geneva conversation in a constructive direction, however, i.e. talking about real geopolitics rather than US value bubbles.
Peter Akopov, RIA