Secretary of State Blinken on Ukraine territorial negotiations
It’s very hard to tell from the outside just what senior government officials are signaling about negotiations over Ukraine. Not least because they have to consider multiple audiences, including Russia, China, Ukraine, and the NATO allies. And also the American public and the Congress.
The State Department has posted on its website an interview between Blinken and Jeffrey Goldberg, currently of The Atlantic.1
On the face it, Blinken seems to be saying the US is prepared to accept negotiations with Russia for some kind of peace agreement in Ukraine that would include something less than complete immediate return of Ukrainian control over all its sovereign territory, i.e., the pre-2014 situation. Officially, of course, the diplomatic pretense has to be maintained that Ukraine is deciding on such negotiating terms and the US is simply supporting their efforts.
MR GOLDBERG: Let me ask you one last question. I would do this all day, but I’m afraid for your vocal cords. The – and the last question is the biggest of all. What does victory look like to you?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, on one level, there’s already been a victory in the sense that Putin’s first objective, his primary objective was to erase Ukraine from the map, to end its identity as an independent country, to absorb it into Russia. That has not happened. That clearly will not happen. So in that sense in terms of Putin’s fundamental objective, he’s already failed. But, of course, it’s also important that there be an end to the fighting but in ways that are both just and durable. And by just, I mean an outcome that reflects the basic principles of the UN Charter when it comes to things like territorial integrity and sovereignty; durable in the sense that when this ends in the way it ends, it needs to end in a way that makes it much less likely, if not impossible, that Russia will simply repeat the exercise a year or five years later.
So the actual contours of that – exactly where lines are drawn, when they’re drawn – that really is fundamentally up to the Ukrainians.
MR GOLDBERG: But —
SECRETARY BLINKEN: We have a shared interest in making sure that we can confidently say that the result is a just and durable one.
MR GOLDBERG: Is it victory, though, if Russia remains in any part of Ukraine, including those parts it seized in 2014?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Look, I think, again, fundamentally the success that’s already been achieved in ensuring that Ukraine remains an independent, sovereign country, that’s fundamental and that is already – that’s already there. But it’s really, I think, vitally important that exactly where this settles, as I said, is basically just and durable. That’s up to Ukrainians to decide. They may decide that they will – look, they rightly believe that one way or another every part of Ukraine needs to be made whole, but any way or the other could be by continuing the fight on the ground, one way or another could include negotiations at some point over what remains.
All of that is basically up to them. And our job is to make sure that, for example, if it does come to a negotiation, they’re in the strongest possible positioning from which to negotiate, which is why we are maximizing the efforts that we’re making now to help them regain territory that has been taken from them, whether it’s since February or since 2014. [my emphasis]
Hyperventilating hawks insist that Russia has to be decisively defeated in Ukraine and pushed out of every inch of Ukrainian territory before any peace negotiations can begin. For aspirants to respectability in the foreign policy establishment in the US or Europe, and for former generals working now as defense industry lobbyists, that’s a completely safe position to take. Safe for them professional, but not for much of anyone else. Blinken’s comment above looks like a version of, well. the Russians really did lose in Ukraine already.
This gets to one of the questions that has been hanging out there about American policy for nearly a year, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s statement of US war aims in April 2022:
“We want to see Ukraine remain a sovereign country, a democratic country able to protect its sovereign territory. We want to see Russia weakened to the point where it can’t do things like invade Ukraine.”2
The goal of weakening Russia militarily is not necessarily consistent with Ukraine surviving as a sovereign and viable nation. The longer the war drags on, the better it will fulfill the weaken-Russia goal. And the more devastated that Ukraine will be, physically and economically, including a debt burden that they will never get down to a reasonable amount under the neoliberal economic policies the EU and the IMF are likely to insist they follow.
Aside from the Dr. Strangeloves out there, nearly every foreign policy analyst looking at the situation sees a near-term attempt by Ukraine to militarily retake Crimea as a step involving a high risk of escalation on Russia’s side. There are also time factors involved.
The closer the US Presidential primaries get, the more tempting it will be for Russians strategists to prolong the war in hopes of getting Trump back in the White House. Trump is too dumb and corrupt to be the pliant Russian agent that liberals obsessed with the “Russiagate” narrative like to fantasize about. Trump as President actually did push European NATO partners to boost their military budgets, presumably not something that Russian strategists were happy about. And US-NATO military support for Ukraine was sustained during his 2017-2021 Presidency.
But Trump makes a great spreader of political chaos inside the US and the NATO alliance. And Putin and other Russian leaders would not only welcome that, but also see advantages in having a dumb and personally corrupt President subject to various kinds of blackmail in the White House. There’s are potential downsides for them in having a blundering demagogic fool as US President. But its very conceivable that the Russians would prefer that if it increases their chances of controlling and/or crippling Ukraine. And he did threaten to pull the US out of NATO when he was President.3
So the clock is ticking. And there is some real urgency for the Western side to push for some kind of viable peace settlement or ceasefire this year. Whether that will be possible depends on many factors. But Secretary Blinken’s recent public statements suggest the Biden-Harris Administration may be less intent on making Ukraine “another Afghanistan” for Russia than they may have been since February of 2022.
Blinken, Anthony (2023): Secretary Antony J. Blinken Virtual Conversation on “Russia’s War on Ukraine: One Year Later” With Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. US State Department website 02/23/2023. <https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-virtual-conversation-on-russias-war-on-ukraine-one-year-later-with-jeffrey-goldberg-of-the-atlantic/> (Accessed: 2023-28-03).
Sabbagh, Dan & Livingstone, Helen (2022): US pledges extra $713m for Ukraine war effort and to weaken Russia. The Guardian 04/25/2022. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/25/us-diplomats-to-return-to-ukraine-and-fresh-military-aid-unveiled-after-blinken-visit> (Accessed 2022-21-12).
Trump, Donald & C-SPAN (2018): Trump Confirms He Threatened to Withdraw from NATO. Atlantic Council website 08/23/2018. <https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/trump-confirms-he-threatened-to-withdraw-from-nato/> (Accessed: 2023-28-03)