The Wobbly Chair at the Head of the American Table -- Bol’shaya Igra, December 3, 2020

 The Wobbly Chair at the Head of the American Table  --  Bol’shaya Igra, December 3, 2020

(The following is a summary of the first 30 minutes of the program, devoted mostly to American foreign policy toward Russia under a Biden administration, and to incoming Secretary of State Antony Blinken. It was a most interesting discussion.)

Begin Summary. https://www.1tv.ru/-/bhfgw

In typical bad humor, the Bol’shaya Igra crew played on President-elect Joe Biden’s recent accident, which has forced him to wear a boot while his fractured ankle heals.  Moderator Vyacheslav Nikonov started things off with a monologue noting that Biden’s new team looked much like President Obama’s old team (Jen Psaki was prominently featured). 

He then stated that Biden’s assurance that America once again wanted to sit at the table with allies and defend its old values instead threatened to inject a brutal nature into the “beau monde” of world affairs (note: “inject a brutal nature” -- inyektsiya ozverina – is a reference to the USSR’s copy of the Tom and Jerry cartoon, “The Revenge of the Cat Leopold” https://www.animator.ru/db/?ver=eng&p=show_film&fid=5130). 

Nikonov ended his introduction with the speculation that although the Americans under Biden would want to reassert their place in the NATO alliance and elsewhere, who would want them? After all, they had an unfortunate habit of putting their feet on the table (i.e., they behaved arrogantly). While Joe Biden wanted to stop America’s decline, perhaps instead he would accelerate it.

Moderator Dmitri Simes chimed in from Washington (or at least a background picture of the White House), noting that the recent elections showed that America was sharply divided. There was some doubt whether Biden could unite the country. But if you were talking about the American foreign policy establishment, they felt victorious and had a new energy. They were ready to work more closely with allies, and use their energy too. They also believed that a closer engagement with Russia was possible, that the Russian people were tired of the current policies, and that Russia might make substantive concessions. Last year, Simes said, he was in a meeting where one of Biden’s recent appointees spoke (by the rules of the meeting, he couldn’t name names, but I’m assuming he’s referring to Tony Blinken). The unnamed appointee said that if Biden became President, there would be an attempt to restart the dialogue with Russia, but that the U.S. had principled positions and would be unable to ignore the negative role Russia had played, particularly with regard to its neighbors. 

Konstantin Remchukov, the editor of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, said that any U.S. attempts to exert pressure on Russia would be rejected.  He expected that the U.S. would insist on its “principled positions,” especially on human rights. Trump was unable to do anything except personal diplomacy.  Biden would be more “collective” (i.e., he would take expert advice). As usual, Remchukov’s lengthy discourse devolved into a word salad which reminded me of a student doing a review of a book he hadn’t read. 

Nikonov then turned the discussion toward the newly-appointed Secretary of State, Antony Blinken. Blinken had surprised everyone with what he had said when he was introduced as the next Secretary of State -- he referred to his Eastern European roots.  Blinken said that his grandfather had escaped the Russian pogroms in the hope of starting a new life in America.  Nikonov was careful to point out that it was actually Blinken’s great grandfather Moishe, and he had left Kyiv in 1904, before the 1905 pogrom, implying that the new Secretary of State had some sort of animus toward Russia (more likely, of course, it was just the usual family lore that got a little mixed up). 

Federation Council Foreign Affairs Chairman Konstantin Kosachev added that Blinken had also told the story of his stepfather, who had been rescued by an African-American tank unit, and who in gratitude had said the only three English words he knew, “God bless America,” omitting the fact that his stepfather had noted in the second part of his memoirs that it was the Soviet Army that had saved the world from Hitler. So, Blinken and Biden were choosing the story they wanted to tell, not the whole story. Kosachev used the example of yesterday’s UN meeting, where the US and others walked out when representatives of Luhansk and Donetsk were present (note: I can't find a report of this meeting).  This trend, he said would be accentuated under Biden. Everyone would have to follow the lead of the United States or suffer the consequences.

Simes had a more benign evaluation of the incoming Biden administration. They were very experienced, pragmatic and knew what they wanted from Russia. The big question was whether Russia would be willing to sit down with the new administration and engage in a dialogue, and at what point would sustained pressure on Russia lead to conflict (both Kosachev and Nikonov were looking very dubious at this point). 

Kosachev replied that if the United States insisted on approaching issues from a position of force, and not diplomacy, Russia would stand on its own principled positions and there would be no progress. He knew well that Biden would be different from Trump, and that Trump differed from Obama, but what was the real difference in the end? Obama was given a Nobel Peace Prize in the expectation that he would do something different and bring peace to the world. But, citing a Soviet anecdote, no matter what they asked him to do, he ended up making machine guns anyway. In this, Obama, Trump and Biden were all the same. NATO was always looking for a leader (“Vozhak” – the leader of the wolf pack), and now they had found one. So, Kosachev said, he expected more trouble from Biden.

End Summary. https://www.1tv.ru/-/bhfgw