Breaking Up Shouldn't Be A Joking Matter

It shouldn’t be, not when you’re talking about two nuclear powers. But the US simply doesn’t do diplomacy any more—only threats. How many Americans were actually aware of Blinken’s flippant “quip”? But people outside the US do pay attention, and Russians seem not to have taken the “quip” quoting a pop song on a serious matter very well.

Check out this story, which looks a lot like a belated attempt at damage control. I note that Ambassador Sullivan—who was actually appointed by Trump—appears from his background to be a serious and responsible person.

US ambassador urges Russia not to close embassy

Russia should not close the US embassy despite the crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine because the world’s two biggest nuclear powers must continue to talk, the US ambassador to Moscow has been quoted as saying.

When asked whether the two countries’ embassies could be shut down, John Sullivan told the Russian state news agency TASS on Monday that such a move would be “a big mistake”.

President Vladimir Putin has presented the invasion of Ukraine as a turning point in Russian history: a revolt against the hegemony of the United States, which the president says has humiliated Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

Ukraine – and its Western allies – says it is fighting for its survival against a reckless imperial-style land grab which has killed thousands, displaced more than 10 million people and reduced swathes of the country to wasteland.

In a clear attempt to send a message to the Kremlin, Sullivan, who was appointed US ambassador by President Donald Trump, told TASS that Washington and Moscow should not break off diplomatic relations.

“We must preserve the ability to speak to each other,” Sullivan was quoted as saying.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month quipped that he would like to dedicate Taylor Swift’s song We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together to Putin.

Asked about that remark, Sullivan said: “We also will never break up entirely.”

This story was the occasion for a memorable rant by Andrei Martyanov. Martyanov, not for the first time, maintains that there is nobody on the US side that Russia can talk to. US diplomats, he says, are no longer educated or professional—they are “incompetent ideologues.” Martyanov believes that it’s becoming more probable that Russia will break off diplomatic relations with the US, leaving membership in the UN as the only avenue for discussion:

By the way, this video appears at Larry Johnson’s site (cf. THE U.S. DILEMMA–PRICEY WEAPONS THAT MAY NOT WORK) and also contains quotes from Martyanov’s book,

Losing Military Supremacy

The Myopia of American Strategic Planning

Publisher Description

Marytanov explains why and how the US armed forces have lost the military supremacy they thought they once had and how Russia, which supposedly had been defeated in the Cold War, succeeded not only in catching up with USA, but actually surpassing it in many key domains such as long range cruise missiles, diesel-electric submarines, air defenses, electronic warfare, air superiority and many others. Andrei Martyanov's book is an absolute 'must read' for any person wanting to understand the reality of modern warfare and super-power competition.