Speak softly and carry a big stick
I watched the Summit meeting between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin intently last week. The two leaders of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world came to start a new dialogue between our two countries.
Biden came from the G7 NATO meeting in Cornwall, England where he reaffirmed American support for our Eastern allies. President Trump was able to get the NATO leaders to pay billions for organization that had fallen into arrears.
The NATO alliance resembled the old “tough guy” moves, followed by the “good guy.” Trump was tough on our allies, Biden benefited from Trump’s shrewd business challenges to the European leaders.
The conference appeared to be successful and it should be remembered and respected that President Biden is no amateur on the world stage. He has traveled the world as vice-president in the Obama administration and has a long history of serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
He has a vast knowledge and experience with world leaders including Chinese president XiJinping who he knows well.
At this Summit the two world leaders shook hands, sat and talked for over three hours over a myriad of subjects.
It was reported that no “hostilities” occurred and that the two very experienced political leaders made some progress towards a better relationship between Russia and the United States.
The leaders agreed to work on renewing the aging nuclear treaty and also to return ambassadors soon to each country.
They both described this as the first steps towards a better relationship between the two very powerful countries with the rising influence and threats from China. America does not need another war against Russia.
Biden has been justly criticized for approving the pipeline from Russia to Germany while halting the Keystone pipeline from Canada into the United States.
Following the private negotiation period, the world focused on the press conferences where each world leader would appear separately. Putin came on stage first making a short statement before answering a multitude of questions. He said, “It was substantive, it was specific, it was aimed at achieving results.” He related that he will return Ambassador Anatoly Antonov to Washington. American Ambassador John Sullivan will also return to Russia a strong step to better nation diplomacy.
Putin took all questions from the media for almost an hour to be followed by President Biden.
I held my breath at this point because the world was watching the new American president. Like him or not, we should be cheering for his success against the Russian leader.
I didn’t want him to fail and he didn’t falter. At the end, as he was leaving the stage, he unloaded slightly on a CNN reporter who asked some foolish question.
If you watched different news reports the CNN version and the FOX news reports varied in content.
My philosophy on the Summit is that of President Teddy Roosevelt who said, “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.” I think President Biden did have a stick in his back pocket.