The Island Editorial

Putin avoids put-in

02 January 2016

 

Outgoing US President Barack Obama’s efforts to challenge his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to a diplomatic duel of sorts have come a cropper. The US expelled 35 Russian diplomats the other day for their alleged involvement in ‘cyber attacks on the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton’s campaign and other political organisations in an attempt to influence the last US presidential election in favour of Republican candidate Donald Trump’. Everybody expected Russia to pay Obama back in his own coin. But, sanity has prevailed. Putin has said he will wait till Trump assumes office to decide how Russia should react. Trump has called Putin smart.

The recent expulsion of foreign envoys is said to be the biggest diplomatic slap Russia has received from the US since 1986, when the actor turned President Ronald Reagan unceremoniously showed as many as 80 Russian diplomats the door for allegedly stealing US state secrets. Russia resorted to tit-for-tat expulsions at that time.

Interestingly, the ongoing bilateral row has also landed a Russian chef, of all people, in the diplomatic soup! The Russians have called his expulsion ‘bizarre and ridiculous’. But, the US apparently seems to believe the way to one’s heart is through one’s stomach and the chef has practised what may be termed culinary diplomacy to gather intelligence through gastronomic means!

Espionage as well as hacking is the name of the game in diplomacy, which is, with apologies to Clausewitz, is war by other means where hostile nations are concerned. Americans and Russians have got that down to a fine art and it is only natural that they always view each other’s diplomats and other officials with suspicion. However, some powerful nations are in the habit of spying on their friends and foes alike. What the Americans have been doing to Germans is a case in point.

US diplomatic cables disclosed by WikiLeaks have revealed that the US National Security Agency (NSA) tapped the telephones of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her close associates. Washington did not spare even her predecessors, according to the leaked cables.

The US has been hoist with its own petard. It has earned notoriety for interfering in other nations’ internal affairs and even plunging some of them into absolute chaos through engineered regime changes etc. It openly backed violent uprisings in Libya a few years ago and unflinchingly welcomed the brutal murder by the western-backed rebels of Gaddafi.

Interestingly, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, too, has accused Washington of having had a hand in his ouster last year. The Hindu has reported quoting him as saying the US spent nearly USD 650 mn to engineer last year’s regime change in favour of his political rivals he blames for being subservient to the US. One may argue that Rajapaksa has saved the US taxpayers a lot of money. How? He helped the US keep the cost of the regime change operations low by ruining things for himself and thereby making the task of removing him less difficult. Else the Obama administration would have had to spend much more to achieve its goal. Or, it may also be argued that if Rajapaksa had managed his electoral fortunes properly, reined in unruly elements who were licking his sandals and going places and cared to punish the corrupt within the ranks of his government the aforesaid amount of US dollars would have gone down the gurgler with the people backing him to the hilt.

Perhaps, if the US had waited a little longer, the Rajapaksa government would have come crashing down without any external intervention, given the rate at which it was abusing power and putting corrupt deals through.

As for the amount the US allegedly spent on the regime change here, whether Rajapaksa is telling us the truth we do not know. Sri Lankan politicians are notorious for plucking figures out of the air. The UNP-led government insists that the Rajapaksa stashed away as much as USD 18 bn in offshore accounts.

The US does not spend greenbacks for nothing. After all, there is nothing called a free lunch. If it has done what former President accuses it of then USD 650 mn may be considered an investment in a port or an airport here vis-à-vis the Chinese involvement in the Hambantota Port at a cost of USD 1.2 bn.

External interventions, real or perceived, hurt all nations, big or small. Hence, all countries, especially the powerful ones like the US should do to others what they would have others do unto them diplomatically or otherwise.