We’ve all seen this line used time and again to justify continuation of the proxy war. What does actually say though, if the west can only negotiate with countries it can trust that basically means the west is only able to have internal dialogue while using the threat of force with everyone else.
This argument is premised on the west being able to dominate and subjugate the rest of the world, and it’s a direct extension of the western colonial mindset.
However, this strategy falls apart when the west is faced with peer competitors such as Russia or China. The west isn’t able to dominate these countries, and it has lost the political expertise to negotiate with them.
Actual politics aren’t built on trust. Politics are about understanding your own interests and concerns as well as those of the other party. Real diplomats spend the time to understand how the other side thinks, what their interests are, what their red lines are and then make deals that are acceptable to both parties. Wars are costly, and it’s always possible to find a solution that doesn’t involve a war.
Yet, the west refuses to do diplomacy, it refuses to respect the basic interests of countries outside the west, and this creates a scenario where war is the only language that the west understands.
After three decades of trying to find a way to work with the west constructively, Russia has now realized that kinetic force is the only language NATO will understand.
The West doesn’t do diplomacy. Diplomacy as you rightly say is about understanding and acknowledging both sides’ interests and motivations. The West refuses to acknowledge that anyone outside of the West even has any legitimate interests, let alone try to understand how they think or view the world. The unipolar moment that they briefly enjoyed in the 90s has imbued them with a boundless arrogance and hubris, and the belief that they can simply bully their way into getting everyone else to do what they want. As such any “deals” or concessions that they appear to make are just tactical ploys and deceptions that they have no intention whatsoever of honoring. They will say one thing and immediately do the opposite.
Exactly, and now the world has changed, but people running the west haven’t realized this which is leading them to take increasingly incoherent actions that continue to erode their geopolitical position. It seems like trying to freeze out Russia economically was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. The west gambled that all the countries would be forced to choose trade with the west over Russia. However, what happened instead was that countries said no and the west found that it couldn’t do anything about it. When China and India openly defied the west that was the start of a new economy forming that’s completely outside western control. BRICS is now rapidly gaining momentum because that’s where most of the world’s population lives, where all the manufacturing happens, and where all the commodities are. There’s no putting toothpaste back in the tube now.
We just seen an excellent example, which significance of course totally whooshed past liberals - Blinken finally gets his talk with China, and during it made some interesting speak, like the affirmation of One China policy, which taken seriously would nullify years of US aggressive maneuvering in the East Asia. Then literally next day Biden publicly calls Xi “dictator”.
US really doesn’t do diplomacy anymore, now it only does racket.