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Beware of Vladimir

The first bilateral summit between the leaders of the United States and Russia took place this week in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting concluded in less time than expected, but it yielded a strong conclusion. Both nations have a common point on which new encounters are going to be built: neither wants a new cold war like the one experienced during the 20th century. Starting from this fundamental assumption, now comes a long way of attempts to explore other aspects in common such as economic, political and military. There is a whole Human Rights agenda to build.

There are many cases of international politics such as Syria, Afghanistan or Iran that will surely remain at opposite extremes. China’s political and economic position is the ball rolling on the playing field. The United States needs China and vice versa. The Russians need it more. Little by little it is seen how other powers want to get closer. The United Kingdom, which after Brexit is negotiating agreements with different nations of Europe individually, has expressed the need to advance in Asian terrain. The powers of the world are entering a preliminary post-pandemic phase and a period of growth, expansion and new alliances is coming.
President Biden was candid about high expectations after the meeting. “We are not old friends, it has been pure work” rescued the press that covered the event. In any case, he was very cautious and preferred not to talk about threats. The clear issue on the table by both leaders was that of possible cyber attacks. The United States considers these types of activities to be violations of its national sovereignty. Russia did not explicitly commit to avoid possible new technological violations, as it is supposedly not a state policy.
The United States reiterated never having used these new forms of weapons. It surely has many digital ways of doing significant damage to Russia’s tech infrastructure. Biden said he is willing to use these methods if he is forced to. A very different speech from the idealistic one he wasted in the recent Democratic campaign against Trump. “Putin knows” was the closing sentence. Is this new panorama of global digital tension a computer nonaggression agreement? They agreed on a list of at least 16 untouchable cyber-attack infrastructures, which include platforms for essential services such as water or energy distribution.

All the countries of the planet will see the advance of this detente for a long time. We have already done what we had pending: to change the Ambassador in Washington and the Chancellor. At least we already have a government official whose messages are answered from the White House.
The Russian president at the end of the meeting quoted one of his favorite writers: Leo Tolstoy. This important novelist considered that happiness does not exist as an absolute concept, that there are only “flashes of happiness”. Putin said there was some “glimmer of confidence and hope” as a result of the summit with Biden. I would take care of Vladimir, as the famous salsa song says. It’s not going to be that you’re going crazy.

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