Dear CCI Readers,
Each day brings new complications and changes. Anatol Lieven, Quincy Institutes new Russia specialist and ACURA (American Committee for US Russia Accord) board member, again takes us to the front lines of accusations and sanctions. We need serious professionals to understand these terms and act judiciously.
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
Why Biden’s new Russian sanctions are shortsighted, and dangerous
April 15, 2021
By Anatol Lieven
The Biden administration’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan is a wise and morally courageous one. It refuses to inherit and continue a disastrous American tradition in foreign and security policy: the obsession with defending meaningless U.S. “credibility” (aka prestige), irrespective of real national interests and of the cost in American lives and money.
Previous U.S. “strategy” in Afghanistan was a kind of zombie policy: in reality dead, but still walking around because nobody in Washington could bring themselves to bury it.
The obsession with mortal threats from Russia is a zombie dating back to the Cold War, and should have been buried when that struggle ended. It is a terrible pity that Biden cannot break with this obsession, and also with a bipartisan belief in sanctions as a way to bludgeon other countries into subservience to America’s will, instead of getting them to compromise on shared vital interests.
Biden has stated that the new sanctions against Russia announced today have been imposed for three reasons — and all three of them are wrong.