🇺🇦 The Ukrainian elites have shaped their foreign policy interest — attracting Western countries to their side and turning Ukraine into a bulwark against Russia.

Instead of focusing on internal development, Ukraine is striving at all costs to attract the attention, and better the resources of the West for confrontation with Russia, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov.

#Conflict_and_Leadership

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/ukraine-s-foreign-policy-as-an-experiment/

🇺🇸🇦🇫 The withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan was one of the foreign policy steps of President Joseph Biden. Why did it happen right now?

1️⃣ First, it was argued that conditions had been created in Afghanistan where the government in Kabul could retain power for at least several months after the departure of the Americans.

2️⃣ Second, it had become acutely clear that the US presence in Afghanistan was not pursuing significant political goals. It was this idea that became the leitmotif of President Biden’s speech, in which he explained the meaning of the American troops’ withdrawal. This is paradoxical in itself. The United States has spent 20 years and about $1.5 trillion — an amount comparable to Russia’s annual GDP — on the implementation of a politically dead-end foreign policy programme.

3️⃣ Third, realism returned to American assessments, and Afghanistan took its due peripheral place in the hierarchy of American interests. The National Intelligence Council’s annual report listing American threats has deservedly put the fight against terrorism in one of the last places.

4️⃣ Finally, the United States has realised that it must concentrate its resources on the key area, the confrontation with China.

For 20 years, the United States had a painful experience in the Middle East and the whole world was a spectator in this process, without influencing American actions in any way.

Why do Americans get away with their experiments so easily? Writes Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/how-much-is-experience-worth-twenty-years-of-us/

#Conflict_and_Leadership @valdai_club

🇦🇫🇺🇸 The Western withdrawal from Afghanistan makes it clear once again that the unipolar Western order that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union 30 years ago is coming to an end.

The multipolar world order is a reality. The vacuum left by the West in the Middle East will very quickly be filled by China and Russia.

The US has made its strategic choice, and its European allies have no choice but to follow Washington further. America will focus on containing China and Russia – the two main rivals in the fight to preserve the pro-Western world order. The danger of Islamism, the emergence of a new "Islamic State" in the Middle East - is considered secondary by the USA. Unfortunately, the international community will have to live with this miscalculation. 

The West has contributed to the destabilization of the Arab world by supporting the Arab revolutions, and now it must accept that its diplomacy based solely on liberal values has been fatal. The West has lied to itself by believing that it can always delight the entire world with its liberal ideals, writes Alexander Rahr, Research Director of the German-Russian Forum.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/afghanistan-a-new-vietnam-for-the-west/

#Conflict_and_Leadership @valdai_club

🇺🇸🇦🇫 Biden, an experienced politician, took an important theme from the Republicans: “the end of forever wars”.

America’s image as a “responsible superpower” has faltered, but it is unlikely that American allies in other regions will learn from this story.

For Eurasia, the Taliban’s coming to power is fraught with not leaving, but returning the topic of combating terrorism to the current agenda, and the advanced American weapons left in Afghanistan hypothetically bring this struggle to a new technological level, writes Valdai Club expert Maxim Suchkov @postamerica.

#Conflict_and_Leadership #Afghanistan #Biden

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/biden-s-withrawal-from-afghanistan-consequences/

🇺🇸🇷🇺 If there is one lesson to take from the Cold War it is that even when bilateral relations are most strained everyone benefits from continued communication.

The dialogue, which was announced following a summit meeting between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin on 16th June, has been seen as an important first step in addressing a growing range of national and global security concerns held by both parties, and to hopefully lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures.

What is hoped is that these high-level meetings will help to address the most pressing national security concerns, explore possibilities for arms control and thus hopefully prevent a future arms race and conflict, writes Andrew Futter, Professor of International Politics, University of Leicester, UK. Professor Futter’s work is currently funded by the European Research Council.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/us-russia-strategic-stability-dialogue-why/

#Conflict_and_Leadership #US #Russia @valdai_club

🇺🇸🇦🇫 The war in Afghanistan is an extraordinary textbook on the American strategy that can be summed up as a growing up novel.

Inflated expectations, a sense of omnipotence, which, through a series of crises, gives way to deep disappointment and the overestimation of goals.

This painful experience for the United States was too expensive, but perhaps it will push it to become more sober in the future, writes Andrey Sushentsov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/the-war-in-afghanistan-as-a-textbook-on-us/

#Conflict_and_Leadership #Afghanistan #USA @valdai_club

❌🌎 What the West does not understand is that NATO is facing a historic end after the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Even if the West does not want to admit it, the terrorists responsible for the attacks of 9/11 exactly twenty years ago inflicted a historic defeat on the West and drove NATO out of the Middle East.

The aim of Bin Laden's diabolical plan was to lure the US into the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan in order to defeat it there in the gruelling petty war. The West is footing the bill for its mindless policies.

Instead of promoting democracy in the region, NATO has left behind a field of devastation. Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan have become failed states. Worse still, instead of Arab nationalism, the "Islamic State" will be resurrected on the territories of these countries – ideologically and militarily directed against the West. And much stronger than in Iraq at the time.

Who needs a highly armed military alliance that has been defeated by local Islamists?

The real lessons of 9/11 have yet to be learned, writes Alexander Rahr, Research Director of the German-Russian Forum.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/9-11-and-the-defeat-of-the-west/

#Conflict_and_Leadership #NATO #Afghanistan

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇬🇧🇷🇺 Are there ways to stabilise UK-Russia relations?

There are two quick and cynical responses to what has become over the past decade an almost eternal question: how can relations between the UK and Russia be, if not improved, then at least stabilised.

1️⃣ The first would be to observe that relations have, in fact, been quite stable for most of that time - stable at a rock-bottom setting of very bad, verging on non-existent.

2️⃣ The second would be to suggest that maybe both sides like it that way, or at least that it suits their interests.

Anyway, now could be the time for both countries to start making the change, writes Mary Dejevsky, Chief editorial writer and a columnist at The Independent.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/are-there-ways-to-stabilise-uk-russia-relations/

#Conflict_and_Leadership #UK #Russia

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇷🇺🇺🇸 No one believes US-Russia reset is possible.

Indeed, neither Moscow nor Washington wants one, so great are the contradictions between them.

The most ominous threat might arise from the continuing intense rivalry in cyberspace, which could spin out of control, despite the ongoing cybersecurity dialogue.

Both have settled for the less ambitious goal of stabilizing relations to halt, if not reverse, a dangerous downward spiral. That sounds good and responsible. But what does it mean?

👉 Writes Valdai Club expert Thomas Graham.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/stabilizing-u-s-russian-relations-so-far-so-good/

#Conflict_and_Leadership #UnitedStates #Russia

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇺🇸🇦🇫 Apres nous le deluge?

The withdrawal of American troops not only turned into a worldwide crisis of confidence in the United States, but also became the biggest challenge for the presidential administration on the domestic political front.

It is becoming obvious that after the “Afghan exodus” a real war of compromising materials began in Washington. The State Department blamed the Pentagon, the Pentagon — intelligence, and intelligence agencies blamed the White House. Together they blame former President Donald Trump: he was wrong to make an agreement with the Taliban, organised the negotiation process poorly, etc. However, it was Joe Biden who turned Afghanistan into one of the most critical problems literally from scratch. It was supposed to coincide with the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The metaphorical connection between the 20th anniversary of the terrible terrorist attacks and the inglorious end of the retaliatory operation deeply hurts the American public and the elite alike, Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov writes.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/apres-nous-le-deluge-afghanistan/

#Conflict_and_Leadership #UnitedStates #Biden #Afghanistan

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇺🇸🇦🇫 Since the mid-2000s, the Americans themselves have begun to admit that the strategy of democratisation both in Iraq and in Afghanistan had turned out to be wrong and did not bring results.

Systematically, the Americans failed, because they were not able to build trusting relationships with a society that they did not respect, considering it underdeveloped, archaic, chaotic, and completely undemocratic, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/why-was-the-soviet-experience-not-useful-to-the-un/

#Conflict_and_Leadership #Afghanistan #UnitedStates

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇮🇳🇦🇫🇺🇸 India has yet to come to terms with the Taliban takeover. The Taliban cabinet consists of UN-sanctioned individuals who have committed heinous terror attacks in the past. The Taliban are not independent, writes Arvind Gupta, Director of the New Delhi-based Vivekananda International Foundation.

#Conflict_and_Leadership #India #Afghanistan #UnitedStates

🔗 How Will the Collapse of the Government in Afghanistan Affect Relations Between India and the United States?

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🏰🐉🗽The European NATO countries are pushing the United States to confront China.

However, the American understanding of security problems in East Asia is also deeply mistaken. For decades, the United States has pursued a strategy of engaging China, seeking to manage its rise and development. When the Americans became convinced that this strategy didn’t work, the United States moved on to contain China, prevent its technological development, cooperate with the EU countries, and even more so prevent it from taking over Taiwan, a key semiconductor manufacturer.

As we know well from the experience of Russia, the countries of Eastern Europe have coped successfully with torpedoing relations between Russia and the West. It is possible that they will do even more damage to the US relationship with China, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov.

🔗 NATO in the Pacific: How Will Article 5 Work?

#Conflict_and_Leadership #NATO #UnitedStates #EasternEurope #China #worldorder

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇺🇸🇷🇺 From attempts to universalise the American-centric world order, the United States has moved to its consolidation and defence, and from the “post-Cold War” era to the era of a new global confrontation.

US foreign policy is undergoing an important transition. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan drew a final and symbolic line under the period of its foreign policy, which began not on September 11, 2001, but in the early 1990s — what’s commonly called the “post-Cold War” period. 

The abandonment of the paradigm of universalisation of the American-centric world order is in no way a signal of the readiness of the United States to form a joint multipolar world order with non-Western centres of power, primarily with China and Russia. 

Liberal ideology in its newest left-liberal form is turning from a means of expansion into an instrument for consolidating the “collective West”, defining “us and them” and splitting the international community into opposing blocs, writes Valdai Club expert Dmitry Suslov.

🔗 New Paradigm of US Foreign Policy and Relations with Russia

#Conflict_and_Leadership #UnitedStates #Biden #worldorder #geopolitics

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club