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“U.S. President Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin exchanged cordial words and plotted modest steps on arms control and diplomacy but emerged from their much-anticipated Swiss summit Wednesday largely where they started -- with deep differences on human rights, cyberattacks, election interference and more.” AP News
The left generally argues that the summit was a success, though some are disappointed Biden was not tougher on Putin.
“The Biden-Putin encounter could hardly have been more different from the bizarre get-togethers between the Russian leader and former president Donald Trump. Biden denied the Russian leader a shared podium, and there was, thankfully, no fawning over Putin, no taking Putin’s word over the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies.”
E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post
“The two leaders reached some agreements, such as allowing withdrawn ambassadors to return to their assigned capitals and committing to launching a ‘strategic dialogue’ to prevent an accidental war. They will also seek progress on nuclear arms control, possible prisoner releases and other areas…
“Still, overall, the meeting was a loss for Putin, who sounded defensive and cryptic. He refused to utter opposition leader Alexei Navalny's name, blaming him for his own predicament amid a slew of falsehoods, and he denied any responsibility for recent cyberattacks in the US. And yet, he went out of his way to say he respects Biden, calling him ‘an experienced statesman... very different from President Trump’ — a comparison sure to hurt his predecessor… ‘I did what I came to do,’ [Biden] declared before heading back home.”
Frida Ghitis, CNN
“Biden’s biggest achievement in Geneva may have been to normalize relations with Moscow while still appearing tough both to a global audience and to voters back home… Ideally, the Geneva summit will produce something more tangible for U.S.-Russian relations than just the formal return of two ambassadors who had been sent home for consultations as part of an ancient diplomatic game of empty gestures. An implicit cybersecurity agreement based on mutual self-interest (‘we won’t attack your pipelines if you don’t attack ours’) would be an obvious starting point.”
Ryan Kearney, New Republic
Skeptics note that “Biden said that he raised the possibility of holding talks on outlawing cyberattacks against 16 areas of ‘critical infrastructure,’ including energy pipelines and water supply. This is an idea that’s been tossed around for several years, but given Putin’s denial of even the most basic facts about Russian cyberoffensives, such talks—if they take place—aren’t likely to be fruitful.”
Fred Kaplan, Slate
“Addressing Russia’s attacks on recent U.S. elections, Biden told reporters: ‘I made it clear that we will not tolerate attempts to violate our democratic sovereignty or destabilize our democratic elections.’ But when Biden was pressed to explain what the consequences to Russia will be, he could list only some relatively modest diplomatic sanctions that had already taken place. Instead, he sought to stress the cost to Russia’s reputation. ‘It diminishes the standing of a country’ that wants to be seen as a world power, Biden said, to have everyone know that they interfere in others’ elections. Which may not exactly have Putin quaking with fear.”
Paul Waldman, Washington Post
“Wednesday's events… play into a longer narrative that has taken hold over the past decade: the West, no matter how hard it talks on Russia, has been largely incapable of reining in Putin and his allies. In the eyes of Putin's opponents, there have been insufficient repercussions for a man who poisons political opponents, meddles in other countries' elections, supports the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in bombing his own country, and annexed foreign territory…
“The summit has also given Putin an opportunity to pause the fallout from deteriorating relations between Moscow and DC, as the US might now be reluctant to place additional economic sanctions on Russia or reprimand Putin for arresting dissenters at home. All of which could be useful when Russia holds parliamentary elections later this year.”
Matthew Chance and Luke McGee, CNN
The right is generally critical of Biden, arguing that he must be tougher on Putin in order to deter Russian misbehavior.
The right is generally critical of Biden, arguing that he must be tougher on Putin in order to deter Russian misbehavior.
“Just a day before, off the Hawaiian coast, Russia’s Navy conducted military exercises on a scale not seen since the Cold War. The provocation cost Putin nothing: The summit ended with Biden calling the meeting’s tone ‘positive’ and Putin declaring, ‘There has been no hostility.’….
“Yes, Biden claimed he took Putin to task for the attempted murder of critic Alexei Navalny and the imprisonment of two Americans. If Navalny dies in prison, said Biden, ‘I made it clear to him that the consequences of that will be devastating for Russia’ — though he didn’t detail any consequences. And he said he chided Putin for letting hackers disrupt US oil supplies from Russian soil. Yet Biden insisted he’d made ‘no threats.’…
“He handed Putin a list of 16 critical infrastructure elements that should be off-limits to cyberattacks — does he then mean he’s fine with Russia or criminals operating from there striking anything else? Russia’s interference in other countries’ elections, Biden also told Putin, ‘diminishes’ its standing. Yet Russia isn’t going to change its bad behavior in the hopes of being liked.”
Editorial Board, New York Post
“Mr. Biden announced the start of a new dialogue on ‘dangerous and sophisticated weapons that are coming on the scene now that reduce the times of response, that raise the prospects of accidental war.’ Russia is a nation that has repeatedly flouted previous arms-control agreements like the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Channels of communication and de-escalation are important, but Mr. Putin would be happy to sign a deal restraining U.S. capabilities with no intention of honoring it himself…
“Russia is not the existential rival the Soviet Union was in the Cold War. But its ambitions in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and cyberspace continue to collide with the U.S. Those threats must be answered firmly. The fruit of the summit will be whether Mr. Biden successfully delivered that message to the man across the table.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
Some note encouragingly that “Biden told Putin that ‘no president of the United States could keep faith with the American people if they did not speak out to defend our democratic values, to stand up for the universal and fundamental freedoms that all men and women have in our view. That’s just part of the DNA of our country. . . . How could I be the president of the United States of America and not speak out against the violation of human rights? I told him that unlike other countries, including Russia, we’re uniquely a product of an idea. . . . What’s that idea? We don’t derive our rights from the government. We possess them because we’re born, period, and we yield them to a government.’…
“This is something Biden’s ex-boss, Barack Obama (who insisted that America was only exceptional to Americans), didn’t say. It’s something that former President Donald Trump (who semi-defended Putin in 2017 by saying America had done bad things, too) didn’t say. But it’s something every president should say — especially now that people in Biden’s own party are talking down America as a white-supremacist evildoer born in original sin.”
John Podhoretz, New York Post
Others note, “Russia today threatens no US vital interests, commands no alliances or strategic resources and remains a world power in only two areas, both inherited from the Cold War — its large nuclear arsenal and its UN Security Council veto…
“Over the intervening decades since the 1985 Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Geneva, Russia has shrunk from an imperial superpower with a swathe of international allies to a middling economy whose only real power is to irritate. The truth is that Biden neither fears, needs nor respects Putin.”
Owen Matthews, Spectator World
