Biden would be delighted to be wrong about Putin
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the U.S. secretary of state went to the United Nations to share intelligence showing an urgent threat posed by a rogue nation.
When Antony Blinken addressed the UN Security Council Thursday morning, the echoes of recent history were obvious. Blinken acknowledged them in his speech. “I’m mindful that some have called into question our information,” he said, “recalling previous instances where intelligence ultimately did not bear out.”
Instances like when then-U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell incinerated his otherwise sterling reputation and American foreign policy credibility when he addressed the UN in 2003 to claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It’s overly euphemistic to say the “intelligence didn’t bear out” — more plainly, that intelligence was manufactured.
But, Blinken said, this time the whole purpose of the U.S. in coming forward is importantly different: “I am here today, not to start a war, but to prevent one.”
A war the U.S. has made clear it will not be fighting in, under any circumstances.
Blinken wasn’t looking to have his justification for an action endorsed. He was instead aiming to prevent an action the U.S. claims is pretty much already underway, one he said threatens not just the people of Ukraine but the very principles of national sovereignty and self-determination the United Nations was founded to ensure. “Russia has amassed more than 150,000 troops around Ukraine’s borders,” he said. “Russia says it’s drawing down those forces. We do not see that happening on the ground. Our information indicates clearly that these forces — including ground troops, aircraft, ships — are preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days.”
On Wednesday evening, a senior U.S. administration official had been more specific, telling reporters in a background briefing that Russia had actually added about 7,000 troops near the border after it announced it was sending some home.
Powell’s warning turned out to be misinformation provided as a pretext for an invasion. Thursday, Blinken was warning of Russian misinformation coming as a pretext for an invasion. “We don’t know exactly what form it will take. It could be a fabricated so-called terrorist bombing inside Russia, the invented discovery of a mass grave, a staged drone strike against civilians. Or a fake — even a real — attack using chemical weapons. Russia may describe this event as ethnic cleansing, or a genocide, making a mockery of a concept that we in this chamber do not take lightly.”
If the U.S. strategy here works, it will turn out to be another false alarm. The goal of sharing these stark warnings, in recent speeches by U.S. President Joe Biden, by his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and now by Blinken, is to invite — almost to dare — Russian President Vladimir Putin to prove them wrong. Putin famously likes to wrong-foot the world with surprise moves and barrages of misinformation. In predicting what they don’t want to happen and explicitly outlining anticipated misinformation strategies, they are both preparing the world for these possibilities and hoping Putin will shift gears to maintain his proud tradition of doing the unexpected.
It is obvious that Russia is paying attention, and has taken some delight in loudly mocking the U.S. for being wrong about their intentions. On Wednesday, previously pegged as a possible date for the launch of an invasion, Russian media and officials made much of the lack of an invasion, implying it destroyed Biden’s credibility. “Feb. 15, 2022 will go down in history as the day of the failure of western war propaganda. Humiliated and destroyed without firing a shot,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on Facebook. Another Kremlin official this week mocked the invasion warnings by comparing it to the threat of a U.S. invasion of Canada.
But as they ridicule U.S. predictions of an invasion, Russia has done little to dispel fears one might be imminent. Starting Wednesday night eastern time, pro-Russian forces were shelling an area near the border, in a move portrayed by Russian state media outlets as an attack on Russia. On Thursday, the second-highest-ranking U.S. diplomat in Russia was expelled from Moscow. Russia has responded officially to the U.S. and NATO’s demands, and the summary of that response in Russia’s leading state newspaper, according to the translation and interpretation of national security and Russian relations expert Tom Nichols, amounts to a flat refusal to back up an inch.
But of course, as ever, Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery. “This could either be the prelude to war or a middle finger to the West as Vladimir Putin heads back into his supervillain lair,” Nicols wrote on Thursday. He fears it’s the former.
As does Blinken, he told the UN Security Council delegates on Thursday. As does Biden, who told reporters in the morning “every indication we have is they’re prepared to go into Ukraine, attack Ukraine.”
But boy, would they welcome Putin’s middle finger instead. “If Russia doesn’t invade Ukraine, then we will be relieved that Russia changed course, and proved our predictions wrong,” Blinken said. “We’ll gladly accept any criticism that anyone directs at us.”
In 2003, American warnings to the UN were based on false information, and led to war and disgrace. Today, the U.S. is once again making dire predictions — but this time, the messengers hope they’re wrong. They’d consider that a great measure of victory.