From “Negotiating from Strength” to Escalating from Weakness

The West is plumbing new depths of its geopolitics of the absurd

“To negotiate from a position of strength” is a favorite cliché of the West. And understandably so, as that short phrase is quite handy: It serves to cover up the opposite of a genuine negotiation, namely vulgar blackmail and crude imposition of fait-accompli terms, backed up by force and threats of force.

The expansion of NATO after the end of the Cold War, for instance, was handled in that manner: “Oh, but we are willing to talk,” the West kept saying to Russia, “and, meanwhile, we will do exactly as we please, and your objections, interests, and security be damned.”

This approach seemed to “work” – very much for want of a better term – as long as Russia was weakened by the unusually deep political, economic, social, military, and, indeed, spiritual crisis that accompanied the end of the Soviet Union and outlasted it for roughly a decade.

When, finally, Moscow tried to put the West on notice that Russia had recovered sufficiently to demand a healthier style of interaction, Western media informed their publics only in a biased and superficial manner. And Western elites reacted with irritation, while also failing to at least take seriously what irritated them. That is what happened, for instance, after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s now famous speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. Yes, that long ago already.