If this was an intentional maneuver, then it was a satisfyingly catty one with a nice bit of historical symmetry.
I have to register mild disagreement with brother Jim in his Jolt this morning on the decision to invite the Russians to the G20 summit in Asheville, N.C. Jim writes: “Those of us who want to see Russia’s influence on the world stage decline are left asking: What’s the upside here? How does rolling out the red carpet for representatives from Moscow who are still on a U.S. sanctions list amount to prioritizing American interests?”
I certainly count myself as among those who want to see Russia’s influence on the world stage decline, and I’ve been critical in the past about noises President Trump and others around the White House made about welcoming Russia back into the G8/G20 fold. But if reports out of the meeting are true, then Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov flew 6,000 miles from Moscow to Asheville to get the equivalent of a diplomatic cold shoulder.
As Jim himself notes, per Reuters: “U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made clear to Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov on Monday that no economic relief for Russia or agreements on other issues were possible until its war in Ukraine ends.”
If this was an intentional maneuver (and who knows with this lot), then it was a satisfyingly catty one with a nice bit of historical symmetry.
No American president was more accommodating toward or frankly naïve about the possibility of friendly relations with Russia than Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who infamously gave Winston Churchill — who advocated a harder, realpolitik line on the Soviets — the cold shoulder at multiple summits as a demonstration of goodwill to Stalin. Roosevelt also made a series of decisions to yield to Stalin on a number of territorial questions that made the Iron Curtain and the Cold War all but inevitable.
For his troubles during the last years of the war, Stalin gave Roosevelt precisely nothing. When Roosevelt invited Stalin to a one-on-one meeting in the Bering Strait (again, openly snubbing Churchill), Stalin demurred. He then saw to it that all three summits between Roosevelt and his successor Harry Truman took place, effectively, on Russian home court. Tehran, miles from the Soviets’ southern frontier; Yalta, in Crimea; and Potsdam, inside the Russian zone of occupation in Germany. Yalta in particular was a dangerous and arduous trips for the ailing President Roosevelt and, again, had the upshot of strengthening the Soviet position in postwar Europe.
So there was something pleasing about making the Putin flunky fly deep into the Blue Ridge to get nothing for his troubles. Hopefully, he caught a bluegrass show and visited the Sierra Nevada brewery; it’s a great spot.
To be sure, the snub paired a stick with a carrot — the invitation itself — and Jim has it right when he says, “When you make a concession to the Russian government, they put it in their pocket and wait for the next concession. They feel no obligation to reciprocate, or any need to express gratitude.”
Nevertheless, I LOLed.