Is Biden smart enough to cut his losses? The question seems to answer itself, but it would great to be wrong on that one. From Martin Jay at strategic-culture.org:
It would make a lot of sense for Biden to start talks, Martin Jay writes.
Are backchannel talks going on between the Biden camp and that of Putin’s? Despite a number of articles in the U.S. press alluding to this, a number of Russian experts who follow such matters closely reject this idea. In a nutshell, their arguments are that Putin is in such a strong position on so many levels that there is no possibility that he would entertain such an idea and that the reports, as elusive and opaque as they are, are nothing but wishful thinking from those in the West who have joined up the dots and see no endgame in Ukraine.
And yet there are some, perhaps operating on the fringe of the events, who insist such talks are either going on, or are about to start. Edward Luttwak, an author on world events and an advisor to many world leaders, is often dismissed as a bit of an eccentric, at best, by Russian experts. But a recent interview he gave summarised that such talks are imminent if they have not already started. Furthermore, he argues that he knows who is participating in them – the CIA director himself and his opposite number in Moscow.
The Russian hacks who don’t take him seriously argue that Luttwak is obsessed with the idea of an imminent war between China and the West and that Biden is worried about any confrontation with China and therefore wants to get out of Ukraine as soon as possible to prepare the U.S. The geopolitical expert, who has written well over 20 books in his career, believes that a war with China is inevitable but, perhaps more far-fetched, that the West wouldn’t send its own troops but opt for a partner for the cannon fodder: Russia.
