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Reprinted from original.antiwar.com
Location NATO Ukraine
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Fourteen years ago today, when then-ambassador to Russia William Burns, in an IMMEDIATE cable titled "Nyet Means Nyet: Russia's NATO Enlargement Redlines," reported Moscow's warning that NATO membership for Ukraine would cross a red line, the Russians could do little more than grouse. Enter from left stage Chinese President Xi Jinping last year with the shot of adrenalin Putin needed to make "Nyet" stick.
Today's acrimony at the UN Security Council provides the latest sign of Russia's no-holds-barred chutzpah regarding the U.S. on Ukraine, with the words of Russian UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia. U.S. UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield had accused Russia of "actions [that] strike at the very heart of the UN Charter."
Nebenzia retorted that the U.S. is "whipping up tensions and provoking escalation." As for invading Ukraine, Nebenzia addressed the US ambassador with these words: "You are almost pulling for this " You want it to happen. You're waiting for it to happen, as if you want to make your words become a reality."
Burns and Lavrov
No one is better placed to discern the significance of this change of tone than ex-ambassador Burns, who is now-CIA Director. In his Feb. 1, 2008 cable citing Lavrov's admonitions, Burns reported that the NATO membership issue "could potentially split Ukraine in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene." Burns added: "NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains an emotional and neuralgic issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine."
In those dark days of Cheney/Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Burns needed to summon up some moxie of his own to tell his masters, however diplomatically, that Russia is entitled to have its own "strategic policy considerations," and that it might even intervene in Ukraine. It present circumstances, this earlier tell-it-like-it-is behavior offers some hope that CIA Director Burns may be one of the "adults in the room". It seems a safe guess that has been among those advising President Joe Biden to respond with respect and speed to President Vladimir Putin's proposals to conduct serious security negotiations without delay, and even to put on the table what Moscow calls issues of "secondary importance"(secondary only to the more rhetorical issue of NATO enlargement) - like putting limits on where offensive strike missiles can be placed in Eastern Europe.
Two Against One
That President Biden was poorly briefed last June on what the Soviets used to call the "world correlation of forces" became embarrassingly clear after the June 16, 2021 summit when, before he could be whisked onto his departing plane from Geneva, Biden let it be known that the "Russians are in a difficult spot being squeezed by China." And here is the bizarre way Biden described, at his post-summit presser, his bizarre approach to Putin on China:
"Without quoting him [Putin] - which I don't think is appropriate - let me ask a rhetorical question: You got a multi-thousand-mile border with China. China is seeking to be the most powerful economy in the world and the largest and the most powerful military in the world."
Xi and Putin: Our Relationship 'Exceeds an Alliance'
Putin and Xi set out to do Biden's homework for him, emphasizing the closeness of the strategic relationship between China and Russia. This effort culminated in the Xi-Putin virtual summit on Dec. 15, the same day that Moscow delivered its draft bilateral treaty on security matters to the US (no coincidence).
Whether Russia and China have a formal defense alliance or something short of that became largely moot that day when Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that "this relationship even exceeds an alliance in its closeness and effectiveness."
The New York Times insisted (and is technically correct as far as we know) that "the two countries do not have a formal alliance." But as tension grows along Russia's western border and along China's Pacific frontier, prudent statesmen would conclude that the exact definition or description of the China-Russia strategic partnership has become a distinction without much difference.
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