Mr. Macron is convinced that the current crisis, marked by Russian revanchism after its perceived humiliation by the West, reflects a failure to rethink Europe’s collective security after the end of the Cold War. On that, at least, he and Mr. Putin seem to agree. The formidable task before the French president is to figure out what could possibly replace it, and convince others, including the United States, of its virtues.
...
Mr. Macron sees no reason that the structure of the alliance that prevailed over the Soviet Union should be eternal. [!!!]
“The question is not NATO, [???] but how do we create an area of security,” he said. “How do we live in peace in this region?” Part of his goal in Moscow, he suggested, had been to prod Mr. Putin away from a NATO obsession — that Ukraine should never join the alliance — toward another “framework.” He said he had told the Russian leader “the framework you propose is false.”
[What framework did Putin propose--that NATO scale back to pre-1997 composition? That framework is unworkable, not false. Okay, I have to expand this now to a separate paragraph. Bother. The Times' second paragraph is not consistent with its first. Put yourself in the other guy's shoes, it's helpful in diplomacy. "What looks like a duck and acts like a duck and quacks like a duck is a duck." "A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet." Those are common sayings that encapsulate Russia's position. NATO pre-1989: against Soviet Union. NATO post-Soviet Union: against Russia. It even kept the same name. And this duck gobbled up even more countries than when it was anti-S.U. Kept missiles, troops. Added more missiles. Withdrew from a treaty on defensive weapons systems in Europe. Lied to the S.U. about expansion. What's not to be obsessed about?
[The only play that the West has here, and it's not a great play, it's circular reasoning, is, By Macron: "If NATO had wanted to invade Russia we would have done it by now. Or nuke Russia. Could have done it at any time in the last half century. Our inaction is proof of our intent. NATO did not "gobble up" countries as you gobbled up Georgia and are threatening to gobble up Ukraine. The countries that joined NATO post-Soviet Union wanted to join NATO because of a fear of Russia. You have invaded all of them in the last century. They fear invasion by you again without collective defense. But it is defense not offense." By Putin: "Following your logic the Russian Federation proved its intent by its inaction in the ten years between 1997 and 2008. We did not invade Poland, the Baltics. We have never invaded a NATO country since NATO's founding, even when it expanded.Only when NATO invited Georgia and Ukraine to join--countries right on our border--did we invade." What may be workable then is a written guarantee that NATO will not expand to Ukraine (I take it that NATO's invitation to Georgia many years ago has been rendered unworkable?). If the West is not willing to do even that, then I do not blame Putin for his "obsession" with NATO.]
...the exchange of letters between Russia and the United States that Mr. Macron repeatedly dismissed as useless,...
[The Russian list of questions/demands in December and the American belated response, neither of which have been made public? I am not aware of any other letters. If those are the reference, they are not useless. They are the gravamen of the current situation.]
...gained time by locking in meetings in the coming weeks. The two leaders are expected to speak again on Saturday.
[Macron did accomplish that, he gained time. I am surprised that Russia went along with that.]
Over more than five hours on Monday, the two leaders confronted [?] each other. Mr. Macron said he hammered on “the guarantees he could give me on the situation at the border” to such a degree that Mr. Putin at one point said he was being “tortured.”
Mr. Putin, with equal insistence, attacked NATO’s expansion east since 1997 and the aggression this constituted.
[I have often said that I could never be a diplomat. I cannot abide worthless chit-chat. Macron and Putin are speaking incommensurate languages. This is not diplomacy, but farce. They need to hit the nail squarely: Russia is not going to give a guarantee on "the border" unless Macron gives him a guarantee on "the borders"--of NATO.]
The Kremlin has...said there were “seeds of reason” in [Macron's] approach, in contrast to attempted British diplomacy, which was dismissed by the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, as a conversation between “the mute and the deaf.”
[Lavrov is right.]
What Mr. Macron’s new framework might be for Ukraine’s security and Europe’s is unclear. But it appears that it would somehow offer Ukraine ironclad guarantees of its sovereignty and independence in ways that left NATO membership as a mirage, as it simultaneously satisfied Russia that Ukrainian security had not been strengthened at the expense of Moscow’s.Very well. A far-rightist by any other name is a far-rightest. Je Suis Far-Rightist. My name is Benjamin Harris
