David Rothkopf Profile picture
Mar 26 18 tweets 3 min read
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has revealed a geopolitical landscape quite different from that officials and many experts thought was in place. On the one hand, as many have noted, the Atlantic alliance has come together and is now more unified than in decades.
There are countries that have indicated that within that alliance that they are less reliable and more sympathetic to Russia, like Hungary. Next, Russia and China have revealed they are committed to a close working partnership.
China may be ill at ease with some of the conduct of this war but has committed to assisting Russia. Both Xi and Putin see the U.S. as a threat to their ambitions and their desire to counter U.S. influence is one of the primary motivations behind the partnership.
As sanctions against Russia mounted and there was widespread condemnation of its invasion, China was willing to buck the trend and offer support for Russia. Interestingly, China and Russia have sought expand the influence of their partnership.
The most notable example here is via their relationship with India. Russia and India have long historical ties. This has led to India buying Russian oil and taking a more neutral stance toward the conflict. China and India have long-standing differences...
...but with a high level Chinese visit this week, have made an effort to moderate those and open new lines of communications. Today, the Russian prime minister even overstated the new reality by referring to a Russian-Chinese-Indian bloc.
It's unlikely to be that big a change overnight given Chinese-Indian border issues, long-standing historical distrust, etc. But the effort is significant and will have near-term real world consequences. One of these, not the least of them, is...
...that U.S. plans to use the Quad (US, India, Australia, Japan) as a foundation for its plans to counterbalance China in the Indi-Pacific region have a new question mark thrown over them.
In addition, we have seen a number of countries choose the path of neutrality or trying to have it both ways with regard to Russia and the West. These include the countries of the Gulf, Israel, South Africa, and a number of countries in the Western Hemisphere.
(See the above cited article for more on those.) Chinese diplomacy worldwide and its efforts to use its commercial clout to build ties are clearly bearing fruit and ushering in a new era of the PRC more actively seeking to use that influence to serve its international agenda.
This is not like the bipolar world of the Cold War era. Much is inchoate. Much is changing. Much is situationally-based. Nothing is set in stone. But is it fair to ask whether we might see a 21st C. facsimile of a new "non-aligned" movement emerging.
Many countries have a historical distrust of the U.S. (especially given the multiple personality disorder that has afflicted U.S. foreign policy in recent years). Many others have a desire to cultivate both the U.S. and China going forward.
To the extent, China and Russia are seen as a partnership, it is clear they also different approaches and very different clout. Other than nuclear weapons, Russia is clearly a second tier power. They are the junior partner in that team.
Also, as one U.S. official observed to me, China sees some utility to Russia playing the "bad cop" and bogging down the West in conflicts (much as, he observed the "forever wars" did) while it can focus on growth, investment and building its strength.
Nothing is set in stone. This is a very fluid moment. But it is fair to ask whether the past weeks have revealed a reality and one that will continue to evolve away from that of the past. Finally, it is also an era that underscores that we should be more careful in our language.
Allies are different from partners, partners are different from friends, friends are different from fair-weather friends, the non-aligned are different from rivals and rivals are different from enemies. These words are often thrown around carelessly or in a self-serving way.
Some countries the US thought it could count on that from time-to-time that might once have been called allies or partners have turned out to be just friends or fair weather friends. New relationships are emerging and shifting.
This brutal invasion clearly marks a geopolitical watershed with ramifications that may be unclear for a while. But we should pay attention to what it has revealed and try to assess what that means for the world going forward.

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More from @djrothkopf

Mar 28
Really grateful for the opportunity to join @Morning_Joe this morning. Excellent conversation on Ukraine with @McFaul @stavridisj @EdwardGLuce @JoeNBC & @morningmika. Genuine props for keeping the conversation on the substance & significance of the Biden speech this weekend.
Mika mentioned that today was her father's birthday. I used to have lunch with him every so often and we would have these wide-ranging discussions about the world but in the end, he always placed things in a historic and strategic concept.
As a historian of the NSC, I'd rank him as the best strategic thinker to ever hold the job of national security advisor precisely because he would always take two steps back from the headlines and focus on the big picture, what really mattered long term.
Read 4 tweets
Mar 27
Brief, cool-headed, foreign policy analysis on why the President saying Putin has got to go is not a problem.
1.) It's true. So long as Putin is at the helm in Russia, the country will be isolated and its people will needlessly suffer.
2.) Offending a sociopathic mass-murderer who has serially violated internationally law, committed countless war crimes and crimes against humanity, and has the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents on his hands, is not actually the wrong thing to do.
3.) No, seriously, what is he going to do that he has not already done? (And please, he is not going to escalate the war because Biden called for him to go when countless others have done so, called him a war criminal, and worse.) He's not that thin skinned.
Read 7 tweets
Mar 26
Naturally, much press attention is being devoted to Biden's final remark. First, it shouldn't distract from the historical significance of the speech. We're a watershed in history. Biden described the stakes well & is correct that this will be the defining struggle of our times.
Next, Russian "outrage" at the remark is transparent, hypocritical & they would have found reason for outrage no matter what Biden said. They are serially committed war crimes against an innocent neighbor. They have attacked American democracy directly.
They have actually tried to choose who America's leader was and depose the leader of Ukraine. They have no moral standing to make any criticism of Biden whatsoever. Finally, while Biden's final comment, that Putin has to go, may have distracted from the foreign policy thrust...
Read 5 tweets
Mar 26
President Biden's historic speech will be seen as defining a line in history, a moment when the world was once again formally divided between the forces of democracy and those of autocracy, between those who value freedom and those who fear it.
It was resonant because it echoed the past. It was resonant because not far from where the President spoke, the brutality of the enemy we are facing, the stakes in this battle and the courage of those we fight alongside were all being made so clear in Ukraine.
But it was also resonant for Americans because unlike in the past, we know the dividing line about which @POTUS spoke cuts through our country like a knife. The forces of authoritarianism have already attacked our democracy and continue to do so.
Read 13 tweets
Mar 25
Before the invasion began, it looked like there were a couple possibilities for the Russians, strengthen claims to Donbas, Luhansk, Crimea or expand them westward possibly to Dnieper or go for all of Ukraine, take Kiev and decapitate the government.
They tried the last option, the big one, and are failing. Now there are rumblings they may fall back to the least ambitious option--after having devastated Ukraine and their own army. If they do, and it's a way out for Ukraine...well, that's up to Ukraine.
But, by any other metric it will have been a failure, a black eye for Russia, the economic consequences of sanctions and the war itself will take many years from which to recover and even if Ukraine cedes those territories, it can be a win for Kiev and Zelenskyy.
Read 6 tweets
Mar 25
I don't want to stir up the hornets nest of Merrick Garland defenders (yes, I know, seeing nothing is exactly what we should be seeing), but I've got to say, so far all we get daily is more proof of serious crimes from Trump & his bunch and so far...
...not one single example of holding them accountable. This is true at the state and local level too. (The @ManhattanDA situation is a clear example of the wrong decision being made at the wrong time in the wrong way.) Yes, yes...don't @me...it all takes time.
Yes, yes...the processes are all deeply secretive. Yes, yes...there are clues buried in the fourteenth paragraph of the twelfth page of the most recent DoJ filing that suggest that it is possible that Trump might be a person of interest in some unspecified investigation someday.
Read 12 tweets

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