Two years into the War that has set Ukraine aflame and is nearly destroying the country, America and the EU — so-called NATO allies — now seem to be dancing around each other in a macabre embrace of death.
Last week President Macron embarrassed President Biden by dropping a diplomatic grenade at a EU summit meeting. https://nypost.com/2024/02/27/world-news/french-president-macron-does-not-rule-out-sending-european-troops-to-ukraine/amp/ . He announced that if push came to shove, France on her part would not shirk sending ground troops to fight in Ukraine against Russians. With a flourish of French bravado he said, “We will do everything that we must so that Russia does not win.”
What Macron was indirectly suggesting was that he was getting fed up with America as a laggard … it’s waning interest in saving Ukraine, with the U.S. Congress now dragging its feet on approving another tranche of $.61 billion in aid and arms to Ukraine. The United States is baulking at giving anything more to Ukraine than the c. $45 billion already given by way of arms and military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s massive invasion in February 2022. Macron was really telling Biden how ineffective he has been in coming to the aid of EU and NATO in prosecuting the war against Russia. By contrast, Macron was clearly hinting, France was willing to even commit ground troops to Ukraine if that is what it might take to take the war to Putin. As the most powerful member of NATO, the Frenchman was asking, what is America doing for its NATO allies in EU?
Biden clearly and terribly embarrassed by Macron’s EU summit outburst had to retaliate. He called up Janet Yellen and advised her to strike back at EU and Macron where it would hurt them all the most.
Yellen swung into action with a typical announcement of American bravado.
The U.S. Treasury Secretary suddenly issued a statement calling upon the G7 nations —- in which France is major domo — to support America’s move to “monetise Russian global financial assets” and use proceeds to pay for aid and reconstruction of Ukraine.
About $.300 billion of Russians financial assets in the international banking system across western nations were frozen by US, UK, EU and UN when draconian economic sanctions were imposed on Russia in the wake of war in Ukraine. Under international law, the funds are sovereign in nature and hence no other nation can expropriate it or otherwise monetise it without the express concurrence of Russia. Doing so in defiance of international law would tantamount to declaration of War by NATO on Russia. And Putin had already given notice to the West that if Russia’s assets abroad were sought to be expropriated in any way by the Western powers, it would be casus belli and Russia would retaliate in kind and in more ways than one.
EU nations themselves have for several decades now been hugely investing and doing business with Russia. In 2019, the year before the war began in Ukraine, EU was the largest investor in Russia. The EU foreign direct investment (FDI) outward stock in Russia amounted to €311.4 billion, while Russia’s FDI stock in the EU was estimated at €136 billion. Janet Yellen and Joe Biden know that only too well . So, by suddenly asking EU to support the American motion, Biden and Yellen are only playing diplomatic tit-for-tat with Macron knowing fully well that besides escalating the war by several dangerous notches up, France and EU would end up hurting real bad — far more than America ever would if the West went ahead with playing hardball with Russia, trying to expropriate its sovereign assets .
In other words, all what America and France have done to each other in the last one week is to score diplomatic brownie points while embarrassing each other terribly in the international theatre of the diplomatically absurd.
France tries to shame America through military oneupmanship and America pays France back in the same coin through financial brinksmanship!
Ukraine is a now a dead cause . It’s only all too plain for both America and the EU to see that’s the reality … In the battlefields of the Donbas, there’s nothing but fires raging, blood being spilt and countless lives being lost everyday . Ukraine is the deadly flame around which America and EU like mindless fireflies are dancing a macabre dance …. Both will surely burn if they foolishly think they can drag Putin down with them too into the flames. “We will do everything that we must so that Russia does not win,” Macron has said … well… isn’t that exactly what Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler said too, once upon a time, not so long ago in history?
Sudarshan Madabushi