NEW YORK – By a very symbolic coincidence, a former American ambassador to Russia (from 2005 to 2008) gets the go-ahead from the Senate and becomes the new head of the CIA just as the tension rises to the maximum between the two superpowers that faced each other during the first war cold. He’s the 64-year-old William Burns the former diplomat chosen by Joe Biden to head the best known (but not the only) of the US intelligence agencies. Equally singular of his long diplomatic career, is his last post: after retiring from the Foreign Service, the former diplomat went to head the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, one of the most authoritative American think tanks specializing in geopolitical analysis.
In the mission entrusted to that institute by the patron who founded it (the steel capitalist Andrew Carnegie whose foundries had also worked for the war industry) there is the construction of world peace. But Burns is called to lead the CIA in a resurgence of international tension with its great rivals, China and Russia. His professionalism and expertise as a bipartisan ambassador and government man (he served under George W. Bush and Barack Obama) will be invaluable to him in governing a CIA political reconversion.
There is a bipartisan consensus in Washington on this: like many other military and intelligence assets, the CIA has also been a victim of the 9/11 syndrome, that is, it has focused excessively on counter-terrorism tasks; at the same time, his best energies have been devoted to supervising the theaters of the Middle East. He missed out on the challenge with China, which is now at the center of priorities. Burns’ mission is to focus intelligence on size rivals.
The confirmation of Burns by the Senate crosses the events along the Washington-Moscow axis, also because the Republican senator Ted Cruz insisted on the issue of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the hearings.
The day after Biden accuses Putin of being “a killer”, the White House does not try to put out the fire. On the contrary: confirms the tightening of relations with Moscow; rally allies and gain a cohesion check. Finally, it sends a precise warning to the allies themselves: those who double-cross and entertain dangerous relationships (read: Nord Stream 2) will pay a price.
Shortly thereafter, a joint statement from all G7 foreign ministers arrived, harshly condemning Russia for its actions in Ukraine. The press release is a list of accusations already known, not related to events that have just happened: its function is therefore clear, it was urged by the Americans to give Putin a proof of compactness from the front of the major democracies (not all belonging to NATO given that in the G7 there is Japan).
The White House has cashed in another cohesion test with the statement Josep Borrell, the EU high representative for foreign policy: “There is a long list of successful or attempted assassinations in Russia and in the case of Navalnyj the EU has imposed sanctions. The Russian authorities have done illegal actions in Ukraine and have a clear role in conflicts in our neighborhood and the president of the Russian Federation is responsible for these Russian actions ”. But solidarity between allies must not stop at declarations, according to Biden. And so another signal was sent, a warning to Europeans about a dossier that for many years has divided the two sides of the Atlantic: the gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.
He is the secretary of state Antony Blink to warn Europeans: “As the president said, Nord Stream is a bad business. It is for Germany, for Ukraine, for our allies and partners in Central and Eastern Europe. The Department of State monitors operations to complete the pipeline and is evaluating information on those involved. Several US administrations have been clear about this, the pipeline is a geopolitical project by Russia to divide Europe and weaken its energy security. The sanctions legislation approved by Congress in 2019 and extended in 2020 has broad support from a bipartisan majority ”.
Bilnken thus reiterated the perfect continuity between the Biden administration and that of Donald Trump on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and on the determination with which the companies involved, even if European, will be affected. Moreover, the American objections to that pipeline date back to the Obama presidency. The problem is that the main recipient of the warning, Angela Merkel, on this point he has never given signs of wanting to give up, whoever it was the American president who insisted on this point. Incidentally, there is an ancient conflict of interest on Nord Stream 2 in Germany, since the former Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder became an administrator of the Russian energy agency.
Quickly the cold war between Biden and Putin involves the European Union, which, beyond the cohesion on sanctions, has always had inside the “doves” that wanted to mend with Moscow, for economic interests or for geopolitical calculations. Biden is aware that if the United States has minimal and almost irrelevant trade with Russia, the European position is different. But he is also determined to mark an Atlantic recovery after the years in which Trump neglected NATO, and Russian forays into many fields had not received adequate responses.
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