Jamestown Post-Journal
An Achievement For Preemptive Diplomacy
APR 23,
2022
ROLLAND KIDDEr
Preemptive war
has always been a bad idea. Those who start wars usually end up losing them.
Yet, it is possible that preemptive diplomacy might help end this most recent
one–Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
I am not sure
who should get the credit but I have to believe that the American Secretary of
State, Anthony Blinken, was deeply involved in the decision by the United
States to warn the world days and weeks before it began–that the Russians were
coming.
Those days and
weeks of putting the world on notice laid the basis for the near universal
condemnation of the invasion of Ukraine when it finally happened.
I don’t know
much about Tony Blinken, but I like his demeanor. He is soft-spoken,
hard-working and does his best to stay out of the limelight. He reminds me a
bit of Dean Rusk, Secretary of State for President John F. Kennedy. Rusk was
the same way. He was not a “glory hound” who made
bombastic statements. When he spoke, his words meant something.
Blinken
recently met with reporters from a group of local news outlets in Washington
and said this: “One of the principles that we’ve been inspired by, animated by,
is that when we’re not engaged in the world, when the United States is not
leading at the table in the room, then one or two things [can happen:] either
someone else is and doing things in a way that may not actually advance the
interests of the American people and the values that we hold, or maybe no one
is, and then you have vacuums and chaos–and that has a way of coming back and
biting us.”
If ever there
was a lesson that we should have learned from World War II, this is it. The
United States as still the strongest democracy in the world cannot just stand
by and let world affairs spin out of control. We need to stay engaged, working
with our allies and always be vigilant for those who want to turn the world
back through dictatorship and war.
When I listened
to the words coming from the White House and State Department prior to the
Russian invasion, it made me think that we were seeing, in a sense, a new and
aggressive form of diplomacy. The United States wasn’t waiting to just react to
Russian aggression–it was warning the world of what was likely coming and
preparing it for worst. I think it was that preemptive approach that prepared
the Western world (those nations that believe in democracy and the rule of law)
for the common decision to support Ukraine against the aggressor.
Maybe it was
the botched effort at leaving Afghanistan which paved the way for this. Perhaps
it took some time for the Biden administration to regroup after that. But this
time, I believe, they got it right. Now that the world has seen what unprovoked
war can do with millions of refugees fleeing from destruction and an underdog
nation fighting back–democracies around the world have become unified in
support of Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin
has made his bed and must now lie in it. His own preemptive war is what caused
it. Preemptive diplomacy is what has blunted it. How it will all turn out, we
don’t know. Yet, let us hope that civilization can dig out from under this
latest assault on human rights and find a way back from the brink.
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