IN THE name of reclaiming (American) “credibility and moral authority” and of “repairing” U.S. alliances in the post-Donald Trump era, the Biden administration has begun to press NATO and EU members, including Sweden and Finland, plus NATO and EU associates such as Ukraine, as well as Japan, Australia, and India, into a new coalition that is intended to meet “the growing ambitions of China to rival the United States and the determination of Russia to damage and disrupt our democracy.”

 In implementing what can be called a global strategy of “double constrainment,” Joe Biden has emphasized that he is willing to work with both Russia and China, and other “authoritarian” regimes, such as Iran and North Korea, if not NATO-member Turkey, through appropriate diplomatic channels—but only when the United States and these authoritarian states possess the “intersecting interests” to do so.

In addition to immediately extending the New START Treaty for five years, Biden offered to engage in direct discussions with President Vladimir Putin on “the full range of issues facing the United States and Russia.” The June 2021 Biden-Putin summit then engaged in discussions over cyber-security, nuclear proliferation, climate change, the Iran nuclear deal, North Korea, Afghanistan, as well as human rights.

Biden’s initial offer of cooperation with Putin was made just before Washington imposed additional financial sanctions on Moscow after having already placed sanctions in response to Russia’s alleged role in the SolarWinds cyber-intrusion, as well as its alleged efforts to influence American elections in 2020, plus Moscow’s “severe human rights abuses” in Crimea. These were to be just the “first salvo” of Biden’s threatened measures—after he had accused Putin of being a “killer.”

Somewhat similarly, after China flew nuclear-capable bombers over Taiwanese airspace in mid-January, Biden expressed a willingness to work with Beijing on the Covid-19 health pandemic, climate change, nuclear proliferation, as well as Iran and North Korea, while also discussing human rights. He then imposed additional sanctions on China and on Chinese officials accused of “genocide” with respect to Uighur Muslims sent to re-education and work camps, as well as Chinese officials accused of repressing Hong Kong democracy activists. Much as was the case with Putin, Biden accused Chinese president Xi Jinping of being an autocrat who was betting that he could outcompete “democracy.”

Biden’s moves to initiate U.S.-Russia and U.S.-China summits thus far represent positive steps toward peace in circumstances in which Moscow and Beijing believe that Washington is engaging in new forms of “hybrid warfare” aimed at checking their geoeconomic interests, undermining their alliances, and seeking “democratic regime change” in both countries. With Moscow assisting Beijing in developing a major missile defense system, while also supplying advanced weaponry, the Eurasian duo has begun to move toward a full-fledged alliance that hopes to take advantage of U.S. overextension and splinter the U.S.-Japanese alliance, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as NATO and the European Union after Brexit.

TO DEAL with this dangerous situation, it is crucial that the United States and the EU “think outside the box” by implementing an alternative global strategy that enters into real dialogue and flexible diplomacy with all “rivals” where necessary and appropriate.

The formation of a permanent Transatlantic Strategic Council, which would work in conjunction with a U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, as had been proposed at the June 2021 U.S.-EU summit, can help to rebuild allied unity and better coordinate global U.S.-EU geostrategic and political-economic strategies, while also finding a better balance between U.S. and NATO “power” and “responsibility” sharing with a more autonomous EU.

In seeking a rapprochement with Russia and China, a new U.S.-EU global strategy should attempt to draw Moscow and Beijing away from forging a full-fledged defense alliance—without alienating either country or turning one against the other. Concurrently, the United States and the European Union should work with both Russia and China where possible to reduce nuclear weaponry; wind down the Global War on Terror; and mediate disputes in the eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the wider Middle East, Latin America, and the Indo-Pacific, among other regions.

IT IS crucial that a Transatlantic Strategic Council address the ongoing conflict between NATO member Turkey and NATO-EU member Greece over Cyprus and energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean—a dispute that prevents NATO and the EU from fully cooperating.

Reconciliation will prove even more difficult now that Biden has accused the Turks of severe human rights violations and of genocide in 1915–17—at the very time the Europeans and Greece have entered into an uneasy dialogue with the authoritarian Turkish leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in April.

The deterioration of relations with Turkey not only jeopardizes U.S.-NATO-EU-Turkey defense and economic cooperation, but it also risks destabilizing the “new Near East” where Turkey has been asserting its interests in its former Ottoman space. With French and Turkish naval forces nearly clashing in July 2020 over a cargo ship that was believed to be smuggling arms to Libya, Ankara’s assertive policies in its quest for energy resources, support for the Muslim Brotherhood, and close ties to Iran have brought together a coalition of Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, Bahrain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, backed by the United States and France, that seeks to “double constrain” both Iran and Turkey.

By threatening to send Syrian refugees into Europe, engaging in Moscow’s TurkStream energy pipeline that bypasses Ukraine, testing the Russian-supplied S-400 missile defense system that could penetrate NATO defenses, and developing closer financial and defense ties with China, Erdogan has hoped to pressure the United States, NATO, and the Europeans into complying with Turkey’s neo-Ottoman ambitions and “Blue Homeland” naval strategy.

After some heated personal exchanges between French president Emmanuel Macron and Erdogan (over Macron’s defense of “blasphemy” against the Prophet Muhammad and Erdogan’s decision to reconvert Hagia Sophia into a mosque), plus the threat of limited EU sanctions on Turkey in December 2020, Athens and Ankara initiated their first direct talks in nearly five years in mid-January 2021. Then, in April, the UN also restarted 5+1 talks over Cyprus. The UN had come very close to resolving the Cyprus question in 2004 by proposing a complex bizonal, bicommunal federation. To prevent another UN Security Council veto, a new plan will require Russian backing.

As Turkey has not signed the UN Law of the Sea, talks will prove very difficult unless the United States, EU, Greece, and Turkey can soon negotiate the larger issues, including the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne that favored Greece. What is needed is a multilateral conference that seeks ways to engage in maritime delimitation, joint development of energy resources, financial arrangements for sharing gas revenue, and to deal jointly with migration issues, among other mutual concerns, such as Turkish help to stabilize Afghanistan after U.S. and NATO withdrawal.

The dilemma, however, is that after Biden’s accusations that Turkey committed genocide, the chances of reaching a major accord appear even bleaker. Biden’s accusation comes at a time when Turkey opposes potential Biden administration support for Kurdish groups in Syria, Iraq, and Iran, which Ankara sees as potentially aligned with its domestic Kurdistan Workers’ Party nemesis. Biden’s accusations also come at a time when the EU continues to refuse to admit Turkey as a full member—due to “continued negative developments in the rule of law, fundamental rights and the judiciary” under Erdogan, at least since the 2016 “Gulenist” coup attempt.

Even after his meeting with Erdogan at the June 2021 NATO summit, Biden appears to be gambling that Erdogan will lose the June 2023 presidential election due to Turkey’s deep financial crisis. Yet even if Erdogan does lose his grip on power, the spokesperson for the CHP, the major opposition party to Erdogan’s AKP, called Biden’s accusation of genocide a “great mistake.”

Biden accordingly appears to be taking the risk that Ankara will not move even closer to Beijing and Moscow. Even though Turkey is still at odds with Beijing over its repression of Uighur Muslims, it nevertheless needs Chinese finance. And despite the fact that Ankara backed Azerbaijan in the “drone war” over Nagorno Karabakh in 2020 that humiliated Russian-backed Armenia, Turkey and Russia still cooperate over the TurkStream pipeline and in northern Syria over the Kurds.

In this regard, Turkey could still adopt a more independent stance (including the option of a nuclear weapons capability as Erdogan has threatened) and move even further away from its presently loose ties with NATO and the EU while reaching out to China, if not Russia as well. The latter is possible even if Ankara condemned Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, in part to win favor with Washington, but did not impose sanctions on Russia. Much as Imperial Germany was able to penetrate the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of World War I—in part due to strong British criticism of Turkish human rights abuses at least since the Armenian massacres of 1894—Beijing and Moscow could also obtain hegemonic control over Ankara. 

A U.S.-EU rapprochement with an “authoritarian” Turkey that eventually leads to a resolution of Greek-Turk disputes is accordingly crucial to draw Turkey away from moving even closer to Iran and China, if not Russia—in large part as Ankara controls Moscow’s access to and from the Black Sea. Here, Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400s (which violates the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, making Ankara vulnerable to more U.S. sanctions), for example, could possibly be resolved if Turkey refrained from its full deployment.

In short, U.S. and EU diplomatic engagement with Turkey should go forward—and not be postponed due to Turkey’s significant human rights abuses or on the assumption that Erdogan might soon fall from power.

THE IRANIAN Islamic Revolutionary Guards greeted President Biden by unveiling a new underground base for “strategic missiles” on its Gulf coastline. Tehran, now under the harder-line leadership of Ebrahim Raisi, has engaged in a policy of “maximum resistance” in opposition to Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy. The latter had sought to check Iran’s steps to enter the Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization by dumping the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA); yet Tehran and Beijing have moved closer together anyway.

In accord with its “maximum resistance” strategy, Tehran signed a twenty-five-year Strategic Cooperation Accord with Beijing in March 2021. While China and Iran might not have forged a strong secret alliance as previously reported, Tehran has hoped that Chinese and Russian backing will help pressure the United States to grant sanctions relief, while also trying to deter U.S. and Israeli targeted assassinations and military threats—if Tehran continues to upgrade its uranium enrichment capabilities. Beijing and Moscow still need to balance their relations with the UAE and Saudi Arabia—but this will not necessarily prevent the Eurasian duo from moving as close to Tehran as possible.

IN SHIFTING away from Trump’s pro-Saudi policy, Biden has been attempting to “re-calibrate” the U.S. relationship with Iran and with the senior Saudi leadership after Riyadh’s assassination of the U.S.-based Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi—a significant human rights violation by a U.S. ally.

In rebalancing Iran-Saudi relations, Biden hopes to put an end to the horrific war in Yemen. His first step was to drop the Donald Trump/Mike Pompeo “terrorist” label on the Yemeni Houthis—a signal to Tehran which has been seen as supporting the Houthis against Saudi interests. Biden likewise promised to pause the sale of “relevant” U.S. arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In effect, Biden has hoped that reducing Saudi-Iranian tensions could also help to reinstitute the JCPOA nuclear accord. 

At the same time, however, Biden has not turned his back on Riyadh entirely and affirmed that the United States would continue to defend Saudi territory while concurrently engaging in military operations against the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula—in a situation in which allied military supports for the Saudi-led war have not been reduced significantly.

In the meantime, how American lawsuits alleging Saudi government involvement in the September 11, 2001 attacks might impact U.S.-Saudi relations and possibly open the door for Russia and China to augment their influence in the kingdom, remains to be seen.

While UN Contact Group negotiations to renew the JCPOA should remain a separate discussion, new negotiations that seek to put an end to the horrific war in Yemen should also be aimed at winding down Iran-Saudi proxy wars in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. The latter conflicts have been exacerbated by the Trump administration’s Abraham Accords that align Israel with the UAE, Bahrain, plus Sudan and Morocco, and tacitly with Saudi Arabia, against both Iran and Turkey. Yet given reports that Riyadh has secretly been talking with Tehran at least since April 2021, concerted U.S.-EU-UN diplomacy is crucial to helping achieve an Iran-Saudi non-aggression pact.

As Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have all threatened a regional arms race, missile deployments will also need to be discussed in a separate Contact Group forum. Even if Iran appears opposed to such negotiations at present, efforts to implement an agreement of “no-first-use” of any form of weapon of mass destruction for the region—if not for the world—should be pursued.

AS THE scope of the Abraham Accords largely bypassed the Israel-Palestinian conflict, there is a major risk that intra-Palestinian disputes with Israel could soon provoke violence throughout the wider region. The May 2021 war in Gaza, accompanied by civil strife within Israel itself, forewarns of more extensive regional conflicts. It is accordingly time to revive the long-stalled Quartet peace process involving the UN, the United States, the EU, and Russia, plus other regional actors—in accord with the Quartet’s March 2021 communique in favor of “meaningful negotiations.”

Concerted steps must soon be taken to prevent the further devastation of the “wider Middle East” after the U.S.-led military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere, coupled with direct Russian military intervention in Syria. At a cost of more than $6.4 trillion dollars to U.S. taxpayers, these wars of strategic choice (not strategic necessity) have killed more than 800,000 people, with countless numbers wounded, while displacing as many as 37 million people—while diverting U.S. strategic attention away from Russia and China.

Yet in order to re-engage in concerted UN-backed diplomacy, both Moscow and Beijing will need incentives to help defuse their own regional disputes if they are to fully assist the United States and EU wind down conflicts in Afghanistan, Iran, Israel-Palestine, Syria, Yemen, the Sahel, Venezuela, and other regions.

WASHINGTON HAS been concerned that the EU does not possess a strong interest in challenging China’s strategic-military and political-economic “threats”—particularly since the euro crisis began in 2012, followed by sanctions on U.S. and EU trade with Russia since 2014, coupled with the failure to achieve a U.S.-EU trade pact.

As opposed to Trump’s more pain than gain protectionism, Biden argues that it is within the World Trade Organization that the United States and EU should join forces to press China to reform its “unfair” trading practices. In an effort to obtain “collective leverage” to pressure China, Biden has promised to consult with U.S. allies before placing tariffs on Chinese products.

The Biden administration also hopes that the EU will work closely with the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad) of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia in an effort to limit China’s predominance in the global supply chain that provides rare earth materials for smartphones, advanced motors, and electric vehicle batteries. The goal is to supersede Chinese advances in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, quantum computing, and green technologies.

In many ways, U.S.-EU sanctions on Moscow have turned the EU closer to China. Since 2014, sanctions on Moscow have significantly harmed EU (and particularly Eastern European) trade and agri-food relations with Russia, while indirectly diverting EU exports to China and African countries. At that time, in 2015–16, Germany, France, Italy, and Britain all invested in the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)—a move then opposed by Washington which saw the AIIB as a Chinese-led rival to the U.S.-led World Bank. 

Now, the EU has been debating the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on Investments (CAI) with China. If the CAI is approved, the Europeans would be seen by Washington as helping to finance Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and its Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that represent tools for Beijing to govern the burgeoning Asian economy and to reduce China’s dependence upon American markets. The RCEP could encompass more than 50 percent of the world’s GDP by 2030. 

There have, however, been growing EU doubts about the CAI. EU sanctions on China due to concerns for human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, followed by Chinese counter-sanctions on EU officials, could postpone the signing of this major investment deal.

CONFRONTED WITH the U.S.-China trade war, coupled with provocative U.S.-led Freedom of Navigation Operations, plus an ongoing build-up of U.S., French, German, and UK naval and air forces intended to prevent Beijing from dominating the South and East China Seas, Beijing is now enraged at U.S. efforts to “constrain” Chinese global influence after the March 2021 Quad summit between the United States, Japan, Australia, and India, and Biden’s subsequent summitry with the UK, G7, EU, and NATO in Europe in June.

In asserting China’s right to non-interference in its “sovereign” affairs, China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats did not mince their words in berating the efforts of Biden administration officials to criticize China in the name of “human rights,” “universal values,” and an “international rules-based order” during the U.S.-China summit in Anchorage in March 2021.

It is, therefore, not surprising that Chinese fighter jets and nuclear-capable bombers engaged in incursions into Taiwanese airspace in April and again in June—just after NATO declared that China’s “assertive behavior” presents “systemic challenges” for the alliance. In effect, Beijing seeks to counter the “deepening unofficial relationship” between Washington (and possibly NATO) and Taipei that helps to sustain U.S. hegemony in the Indo-Pacific.

By pressuring Taiwan, as well as ASEAN allies, such as Rodrigo Duterte’s Philippines, China hopes to “win” control of Taiwan and the entire region without actually fighting. Beijing’s threats to Taiwan have taken place after it has, in effect, “peacefully” smothered Hong Kong’s autonomy by applying its new national security law. The Biden administration has subsequently opted to maintain Donald Trump’s largely symbolic decision to revoke Hong Kong’s special status—a policy that will not stop China’s domestic crackdown while harming U.S. business and financial interests.

Beijing has additionally threatened New Delhi, Tokyo, and Canberra against establishing closer defense ties with Washington and Taipei. And while developing the Northeast Arctic trade route to Europe over Russia (concurrently pressing EU members Sweden and Finland closer to NATO), Moscow and Beijing have begun to engage in joint defense measures aimed at pressuring the U.S.-Japan alliance. With Moscow’s tacit backing, President Xi Jinping has continued to assert claims to unify Taiwan by force if necessary.

On the one hand, Beijing believes that demands for Taiwanese “independence” will strengthen demands in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia for “democracy” and “independence.” On the other, by obtaining control over Taiwan, China would eliminate a major trade rival, while putting itself in a stronger position to dominate the sea lines of communications (SLOC) from the Pacific to the Arabian-Persian Gulf. Xi appears to believe that the very legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party and his own personal authority will be strengthened upon China’s “unification.”

IN MARCH-APRIL 2021, prior to the June U.S.-Russia summit, Moscow deployed some 83,000 troops near eastern Ukraine and engaged in a naval blockade of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Straits. Concurrently, in a gambit to secure Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko against his domestic opponents who are seen as supported by the United States and EU, Moscow and Minsk deployed forces on the Belarus-Ukraine border to pressure Kiev—even if Lukashenko distrusts Putin and has not recognized Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

On the domestic side, Putin has hoped to deflect Russian popular attention away from domestic protests, in which many of Putin’s critics have aligned with his imprisoned political opponent, Alexei Navalny, even if they do not fully support Navalny’s movement. On the international side, Putin seeks to pressure Kiev into accepting a relative autonomy for Russophile autonomists in the Donbass, while also signaling to Kiev to stop damming the North Crimean canal that supplies 85 to 90 percent of Crimea’s water from the mainland, in accord with Kiev’s policy of “No water until de-occupation.”

In addition to providing additional military assistance to Kiev, the Pentagon sent warships into the Black Sea with Turkey’s permission at the same time that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky urged NATO to speed up Kiev’s path toward membership—a prospect that Moscow warned would make matters much worse.

After Germany, France, and the G7 called for a de-escalation of tensions, and after Biden and Zelensky proposed summit meetings with Putin, the situation calmed down. Yet renewed tensions could be sparked by recent Moldovan and NATO demands for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Transnistria. And given Erdogan’s efforts to play Russia and the United States against each other, Ankara has provocatively backed Kiev’s aspirations to join NATO and promised to expand defense cooperation by possibly selling drones to Kiev—while insisting that Turkey’s support for Ukraine is not against third countries, i.e. Russia.

And in expectation of strong U.S., European, and Turkish support (including the proposal to designate Ukraine as a major U.S. non-NATO ally), Kiev is planning to establish a “Crimean platform” at its August 2021 summit aimed at achieving the return of Crimea.

IT IS now clear that Paris and Berlin could not by themselves resolve the Russia-Ukraine dispute over the Donbass region through the Minsk Accords and Normandy Four format. Paris and Berlin could not deal alone with the strategic issues raised by NATO’s promise to bring Ukraine into membership, plus aspects of the EU’s Eastern Partnership that appeared to exclude Russian political and economic interests from Ukraine and other post-Soviet states.

The dilemma is that NATO, as illustrated by its NATO 2030 Reflection Group report, continues to assert the contradictory policy that combines “deterrence and dialogue” with the Open NATO Enlargement. Concurrently, the European Union will need to reform its political-economic policies toward Moscow as well—if tensions are to be fully abated.

Opposition to NATO and EU expansion, plus nationalist opposition to Nikita Khrushchev’s “illegal” (as re-interpreted) decision to hand Crimea from Soviet Russian control to Soviet Ukraine, helped Putin to rationalize the preclusive Russian take-over of Crimea. President Biden, NATO, the European Union, and Turkey have all subsequently declared that they will “never” recognize Moscow’s annexation. If there are any fundamental laws in politics, one is that one should never say “never.”

First, largely ineffective sanctions against Russia and Russian officials will make it even more difficult to find ways to fully cooperate with Moscow over major disputes. Certainly, U.S.-EU sanctions placed on pro-Putin elites and companies have hurt the Russian economy, and have also resulted in a severe drop in Crimean imports, exports, and tourism that has not been recuperated by Russian funding, thereby hurting Crimean inhabitants. Yet tougher sanctions have also linked Russia even closer to China and Iran—if not also tying the EU closer to China.

Second, even if Putin should somehow lose power despite (or because of) his repressive measures, it appears dubious that any future Russian leadership would agree to return Crimea to Kiev—for fear that Moscow would lose to NATO its military bases at Sevastopol that provide defense for vital trade and energy imports/exports as well as power projection into the eastern Mediterranean.

While there is a historical precedent for Russia to give up its precious territory, after Tsar Alexander II gave Alaska up to the United States in 1867, Crimea appears strategically more important for Russia now than Alaska was for Tsarist Russia then. Even Alexei Navalny, Putin’s imprisoned political opponent, has taken an ambiguous position, stating that he supports an “honest” referendum on Crimea—in criticizing Putin’s rushed referendum. But Navalny also recognizes that a mere referendum will not resolve the dispute.

Even if legally “correct,” it is not certain that returning Crimea to Ukraine is what the majority of Crimean inhabitants want. Autonomy, independence, and joint Ukrainian-Russian sovereignty are possible options. Yet it appears dubious that Moscow will accept any of the latter after having rapidly seized Crimea at such great cost.

EVEN THOUGH Russian elites tend to regard offers of dialogue by Biden and Zelensky as a victory for Putin’s refusal to capitulate, it is nevertheless still possible for Moscow and Washington to “reset” relations as then-Vice President Biden himself had supported in 2009—that is, if Washington takes a realist approach and compromises its presumed “values.”

In the effort to prevent the “return of hostile regional powers,” in the words of French president Macron, that could include Russia (and NATO-member Turkey), the United States and EU need to strengthen their support ​for the French-led rapprochement with Russia that involves sharing expertise and intelligence, a mechanism to defuse EU-Russia tensions, and working together on international crises.

What is needed is intense diplomatic engagement with Moscow that seeks to draw Russia closer to the EU and U.S./NATO. This can be achieved by formally designating Ukraine as a neutral non-aligned non-nuclear country that would not join either NATO or the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization in the future—a neutral status that was initially demanded at the time of Kiev’s independence in 1991. In effect, this would mean declaring a formal halt to NATO enlargement.

According to the Minsk II accord, Kiev is supposed to grant a degree of constitutional autonomy to the Donbass region—a proposal thus far opposed by the Ukrainian parliament and extreme nationalists. Here, the United States and EU will need to press Kiev to talk directly with the autonomist movements in the Donbass instead of relying on Moscow as an intermediary—if the Ukrainian tragedy is ever to be resolved. As for Crimea, one feasible option is for the peninsula to become a demilitarized free trade zone under Russian sovereignty. This approach would permit Ukrainians and others to trade and invest. Through negotiations, Kiev could obtain some form of compensation from Moscow. 

If both Kiev and Moscow can eventually agree that the rights of pro-Russians in the Donbass under Ukrainian jurisdiction should be respected just as the rights of non-Russians in Crimea under Russian sovereignty, there might be a chance for a diplomatic breakthrough. The United States, NATO, and the EU can then work with Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey toward arms reductions/eliminations and security and confidence-building measures and UN or Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe-backed peacekeeping in the formation of a Black Sea Peace and Sustainable Development Community.

With respect to China, a new transatlantic global strategy should seek to draw Moscow away from a defense alliance with Beijing, but without attempting to turn Moscow against Beijing—once Moscow realizes that the rapid rise of China will soon reduce Russia to the role of a “junior partner.” The goal for the United States and EU should be to work with Moscow not to “constrain,” but to channel Beijing’s regional ambitions in a more positive and peaceful direction.

Given Xi Jinping’s threats to seize Taiwan, possibly as soon as 2027 if deemed “necessary,” the United States, EU, and Russia will need to bring Beijing and Taipei into a dialogue that seeks to implement a regional system of cooperative/collective security. Beijing should realize that seizing Taiwan will not prove as easy as Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and that engaging in peaceful relations with its neighbors, including Taiwan, represents a much better way for Beijing to boost its leadership role and legitimacy as a major power.

In building upon Henry Kissinger’s concept of “constructive ambiguity,” a new EU-U.S. diplomatic approach (with the EU taking the lead) should provide sufficient China-Taiwan political and economic cooperation for Beijing to be able to claim Chinese “unity,” but with enough autonomy for Taiwan that Taipei could claim to be “independent”—with the backing of joint U.S., European, and Russian security guarantees.

In protecting SLOC from Japan to the Gulf, the EU and United States should urge Beijing to sign the 2002 Code of Conduct agreement with the ASEAN countries, even if Taiwan is presently excluded from these talks. The United States, EU, and Taiwan could also revive proposals such as the East China Sea Peace Initiative. Much like Turkey, China will not accept international legal adjudication over its island claims, but Beijing could possibly agree to an international conference that would negotiate compromises over maritime delimitation, the joint development of energy and sustainable fishing projects, and financial arrangements for sharing gas revenue.

An international conference could consequently create an Indo-Pacific Community for Peace and Sustainable Development that would seek to balance Chinese and Russian interests with those of Taiwan, the ASEAN states, India, Australia, and Japan, while concurrently seeking a “confederal” solution to the Korean conflict in accord with the hopes of South Korean president Moon Jae-in to achieve an “irreversible peace” with Pyongyang. Such a community would accordingly work with China and Russia by engaging in peacekeeping operations and joint naval patrols where appropriate under a general UN Security Council mandate.

In dealing with both “authoritarian” rivals and allies, the United States and EU should emphasize “good governance.” This is not to avoid questions of “democracy,” but to argue that democracy (which threatens the power of authoritarian leaders) and human rights are not exactly the same thing, and yet are often conflated in political discourse. Instead of proselytizing in favor of the very different forms of American and European democratic governance—which are both in dire need of major reforms—the United States and EU should point to examples of humanistic governance and philosophy from the history and culture of their authoritarian “rivals.”

The dilemma is that accusations of human rights abuses and the instrumentalization of the term “genocide” have begun to fuel a nationalist backlash, counter-accusations of interference in internal affairs, and of “double standards” that then question America’s own “moral authority” (in Biden’s words). Both China and Turkey have counter-accused Washington and its democratic and non-democratic allies of severe human rights abuses, war crimes, if not acts of “genocide,” in differing degrees and historical circumstances.

Moreover, the fact that the United States, China, Turkey, and Russia, among other states, are not members of the International Criminal Court makes such genocide accusations even more problematic to deal with in practical terms. While non-violent civil society movements and non-governmental organizations can, and should, put media and legal pressure on any government accused of such crimes, these grave issues can only be handled by rational dialogue between and within states and societies—in an effort to achieve a modicum of social reconciliation and justice where possible.

While it is rare to so strongly criticize a major ally, American accusations of NATO-ally Turkey’s repression of its own citizens—in addition to accusations of Turkey committing of “genocide” in 1915–17 (even if Biden’s statement was accompanied by his hopes for “healing and reconciliation” of Turks, Armenians, and all peoples)—are coming at a time when the wounds caused by World War I and World War II in the “bloodlands” of eastern Europe and the Black Sea—between Germany, Ukraine, Russia, as well as Turkey—are re-opening with distorted interpretations of history. And to go further back into the past, there is no need for a twenty-first-century remake of the mid-nineteenth-century Crimean War—that could have expanded to an all-European war.

So too in China does the accusation of “genocide” evoke the “hundred years of national humiliation” (1839–1949) since China’s Opium Wars with a democratic Great Britain, the “unequal treaties” with Tsarist Russia, and the horrific Sino-Japanese wars. The latter are even more sensitive from the Chinese perspective—given America’s post-World War II alignment with Japan in which Washington largely pardoned Japanese war criminals and acts of genocide versus the Chinese and other peoples.

In the contemporary situation, the persecution of the Uighurs, Tibetans, and other groups is often justified by Beijing on the basis that foreign powers will support the “democracy” and “independence” claims of those persecuted. At the same time, China has accused Washington of double standards given the U.S. alignment with China’s rival India—which has been accused of violently repressing Kashmiri autonomy since 2019, while presently engaging in a major “offensive/defense” military deployment near the Pakistani and Chinese borders.

The crux of the matter is to avert the real possibility that accusations of “genocide” could serve as a pretext for war in the name of “democracy,” “human rights,” and “responsibility to protect” versus the defense of state “sovereignty” and the “non-interference in the internal affairs of States.” What is needed is not political moralizing, ineffective sanctions, and domestic political restraints that limit the ability of the United States and EU to fully negotiate with authoritarian states—but concerted, flexible, and engaged diplomacy that aims at preventing even greater human rights abuses where feasible—and the real possibility of regional, if not global, war.

GIVEN THE range of common concerns confronting the United States and Europe, a Transatlantic Strategic Council, in working with a U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, is needed to find ways for the United States and EU to resolve their own differences after Brexit. And after the scandal of U.S. National Security Agency spying on German chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as the Pegasus spyware scandal, it is crucial for the United States, the EU, and other allies to restore the trust necessary to fully cooperate on issues of mutual concern.

A Trade and Technology Council could work toward a new U.S.-EU trade pact and help the United States and EU deal with trade, subsidy, and agricultural disputes; taxation of transnational corporations; tax havens; antitrust legislation; intellectual property rights; labor wages and rights; alternative energy sources; and climate change, among others. Such a council could help firms compete with Chinese advances in 5G, AI, quantum accounting, green technologies and to find constructive ways to deal with Beijing’s Belt and Road and RCEP initiatives, while also finding ways to engage with Moscow.

Closer U.S.-EU cooperation is concurrently needed to better manage the new artificial intelligence, digital, and robotics revolutions. These new innovations have begun to transform the military-technological capabilities of all states and anti-state groups by expanding espionage, surveillance, and sabotage capabilities, and by raising not-entirely-exaggerated fears of a “cyber-Pearl Harbor.”

As the June 2021 NATO summit affirmed, a series of “cyber-activities” could be interpreted as an “armed attack”—so that NATO could invoke its Article V mutual defense clause. Biden accordingly proposed at the June U.S.-Russia summit that Washington and Moscow should sign a cyber-security treaty, in addition to pursuing high-tech and nuclear arms limitations. For his part, Putin has called for a global agreement of mutual non-interference in the domestic cyberfields of all countries and “no-first-strike”—a proposal that should be extended to include all forms of weapons of mass destruction.   

Stronger U.S.-EU strategic coordination is urgently needed to prevent the possibility that regional conflicts could soon draw the United States and Europe into new forms of “hybrid warfare” against a Eurasian axis of predominantly “authoritarian” states led by China and Russia. No matter how it is sparked, a major power war would result in even greater crimes against humanity, pandemics, and destruction of the natural environment than have already taken place in the post-Cold War era.

A Transatlantic Strategic Council then, in close interaction with a U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, can help better coordinate U.S.-EU strategy and decide where and when it is necessary to reach diplomatic compromises with Russia and China, among other “authoritarian” and “democratic” states—and what precise measures to take. The task is evidently enormous, but not insurmountable.

Hall Gardner is a professor and former chair (1993–2019) of the History and Politics Department of the American University of Paris. His recent books include IR Theory, Historical Analogy and Major Power War (2019); World War Trump (2018); Crimea, Global Rivalry and the Vengeance of History (2015); NATO Expansion and the U.S. Strategy in Asia (2013); and Averting Global War (2007).

Image: Reuters.