Western allies should not describe the acts of Russian military aggression against Ukraine that would “trigger” trans-Atlantic penalties, according to a senior British official who cautioned against focusing overmuch on Russian tanks.
“We don’t want to go into too much detailing exactly what might be the trigger,” British lawmaker James Cleverly, the United Kingdom Foreign Office’s lead minister for North America, told reporters Monday during a visit to Washington. “I think a lot of people are calibrating their thinking to something like what we see in the movies — lots of tanks, lots of troops. But we also know Russia are experts in a whole spectrum of aggressive, disruptive actions that might fall short of what would be regarded as an ‘invasion.’”
Shortly thereafter, President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz faced questions from reporters eager to learn “what the definition of ‘invasion’ could be” and whether the two allies have agreed on what kind of assault would necessitate the closure of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline linking Russian natural gas fields to German markets. Biden offered the cinematic answer.
“If Russia invades — that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again — there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,” Biden said. “We will bring an end to it.”
DESPITE DIFFERENCES, BIDEN AND GERMANY CHANCELLOR PRESENT UNITED FRONT AGAINST RUSSIA
Scholz demurred, not only from offering a definition but even from stating explicitly that Nord Stream 2 would go on the chopping block if Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized the assault that more than 100,000 Russian military forces appear poised to undertake.
“It is necessary that we do this in advance so that Russia can clearly understand that these are far-reaching, severe measures,” he said. “It is part of this process that we do not spell out everything in public because Russia could understand that there might be even more to come. And, at the same time, it is very clear we are well prepared with far-reaching measures.”
Scholz, widely perceived as overeager to preserve Nord Stream 2 in the face of Russian aggression, justified his posture as one of “necessary strategic ambiguity” for the sake of Ukrainian security.
“This is also critical for giving this strong message that it will be very costly — so they cannot go to a computer and count whether it will be too expensive or not,” he told the Washington Post. “It is something they should avoid, and it would be too high a price to intervene in Ukraine.”
Cleverly likewise cautioned against too much clarity about what kinds of penalties would attach to which acts of aggression. “What we don’t want to do, and what I think would be counterproductive, is start giving [Putin] a shopping list of ‘If you did this much, but no more, then we would say this but not do that,’” he told reporters. “That kind of narrative can be counterproductive.”
Biden evinced a similar concern during a press conference last month when he implied that a “minor incursion” by Russia would not provoke major economic sanctions. When a reporter observed that the remark could be interpreted as “effectively giving Putin permission to make a small incursion into” Ukraine, Biden acknowledged, “That’s how it did sound like,” before offering a clarification.
“It’s one thing to determine that if they continue to use cyber efforts, well, we can respond the same way, with cyber,” he said. “If there’s … Russian forces crossing the border, killing Ukrainian fighters, et cetera — I think that changes everything.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rebuked Biden for that remark, saying, “We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions,” and Secretary of State Antony Blinken soon declared that “if a single additional Russian force goes into Ukraine in an aggressive way,” then the trans-Atlantic alliance would impose stiff economic penalties on Russia.
“That would trigger a swift, a severe, and a united response from us and from Europe,” he said in a televised interview.
Cleverly emphasized that greater specificity might damage Western efforts to deter Putin from authorizing the next phase of military operations against Ukraine.
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“What we’re saying to Russia is ‘You should de-escalate. … The sword of Damocles that Russia is currently hanging over Ukraine is completely inappropriate and unjustified, and you need to back off,’” the British official told reporters. “What we’re not going to do is say, ‘Oh, and if you were to do this, we would then do that.’ The bottom line is we’ve got a wide spectrum of potential responses against, as I say, both individuals and institutions. … Any more granularity and, I think, we start drifting into the areas where it becomes counterproductive. And, ultimately, what we want to do is prevent a conflict.”
