On Thursday, attempting to weaken U.S. confidence, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov blamed the Trump administration for escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Lavrov claimed that the potential of sanctions to pressure North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been “virtually depleted.” The U.S. push to tighten international sanctions on North Korea, he added, “deliberately aim to provoke Pyongyang into taking new drastic steps … One gets the impression that everything was deliberately done to make Kim Jong Un lose his nerve and take another reckless action. This is regrettable.”
It’s Russian trolling 101: make the U.S. seem aggressive, delusional, and dangerous.
Why troll the U.S. on such a dangerous issue?
Well, why not?
Whether in terms of Russian diplomatic activities in the U.S. or expelling U.S. diplomats from Russia, Putin’s government is always seeking opportunities to troll the U.S. When it comes to North Korea, the Russian government senses it has nothing to lose.
After all, Russia knows that Kim has no interest in damaging their interests and that in the worst case, China and South Korea would have to absorb the consequences of a new Korean war.
Still, what Russia really wants is for the U.S. to accept North Korea’s nuclear-ICBM capability. That outcome would provide yet another challenge to U.S. security and would foster global perceptions that the U.S. is unwilling to take major risks for its own security. That global perception feeds Russia’s broader effort to displace U.S. leadership in the Middle East and Europe.
That said, Lavrov’s trolling on Thursday was also personal.
Lavrov singled out U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley for criticism. As he put it, “If [the Americans] want to find a pretext for destroying North Korea, as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. has stated, then they should say this openly … We would then make a decision on how to respond to this.”
While Russia’s dislike for Haley is understandable (she keeps playing them), Lavrov is also a keen manipulator. And the foreign minister has a proven record in manipulating former President Barack Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry on Syria.
As I noted last year, the Syrian diplomatic dance had a familiar tune:
Kerry holds a news conference with his Russian opposite, Sergey Lavrov, in which both men express guarded optimism for the future. These Lavrov waltzes then produce faux-deals that are worse than nothing. Putin then openly breaks the faux-deal, escalates a little more, and the cycle starts over. This merry-go-round – in companionship with Obama’s many-times-crossed red lines – has shredded Obama’s credibility.
In turn, by calling out Haley, Lavrov is showing his dissatisfaction that she won’t fall for the same tricks he used with Kerry and wants her to appear war-crazed.
Regardless, Haley and the Trump administration should ignore Lavrov’s latest trolling.
Ultimately, whatever Lavrov might say, Russia and the U.S. just don’t have that many interests in common.
