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Many politicians have taken the train to Kyiv. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister. Or the presidents of Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. And a few have not driven (yet?): Germany’s Chancellor Scholz, for example, or France’s President, Macron.
US President Biden did not travel to Kyiv himself either. Although he personally seemed quite ready, as his press officer Jen Psaki recently revealed. But the Americans preferred to send Secretary of State Blinken and Secretary of Defense Austin. And yet this was the most important trip of foreign politicians to Kyiv so far. Because what the war in Ukraine is bringing about, among many other important political and social upheavals and shifts, is the resurrection of the USA as a superpower.
A bold statement
After their trip to Kyiv, Blinken and Austin were asked how the US would define its goals and corresponding success. The first part of Secretary of Defense Austin’s reply reflected the already well-known attitude of the USA: “We want Ukraine to remain a sovereign country. A democratic country capable of protecting its sovereign territory.”
But then Austin added something that has become more and more obvious of late, but which the Americans had not dared to say so far. Austin said: “We want Russia to be weakened to the point where it is no longer capable of something like invading Ukraine.”
Fight on all levels
US President Joe Biden sees in the conflict with Russia (and China) the basic conflict of our time. He sees it as a struggle between free democracy and authoritarian bondage. And the US, under President Biden, is willing and determined to embrace and fight that battle. And on all levels. With their massive arsenal of weapons, of course. In the Ukraine, the complete dependence of the West on the American armaments industry and the corresponding American position of power are once again becoming apparent. But also on the economic and financial level. The former President of the Swiss National Bank, Philipp Hildebrand, recently said in a remarkable interview with the Handelszeitung: “The way in which the USA uses economic and financial policy as a weapon has reached completely new proportions.”
This is not all good news for Europe. Because the idea that Europe could offer an alternative as a third power factor in a looming new Cold War between the USA and China is gone for the time being. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, however, had nothing to add to the words of his colleague Austin: “He said everything.”