Jon Huntsman, the US Ambassador to Russia, isn’t in Russia right now. This week, he’s been hanging out on the USS Abraham Lincoln, an American aircraft carrier which is traveling with its carrier strike group through the Mediterranean as a show of force.
The US makes a lot of these shows of force, because they have quite a
few of these carriers. It’s to the point where it probably wouldn’t even
register as a thing unless US officials are there to point out that
it’s definitely a thing, and Russia is definitely the target.
Huntsman declared the carrier to “represent 100,000 tons of
international diplomacy,” saying it demonstrates to Russia that they
have to change their activities around the world to come into line with
US expectations.
Russian Deputy FM Sergei Ryabkov says that the he hopes the US will
realize that they’ve failed to find normal, constructive dialogue
options with partners instead of relying on “megaphone diplomacy.”
The ambassador is correct. At least on how we interpret “diplomacy”.
Another interpretation could be “100k tons of tax dollars better spent on anything else”… That ship cost $4.7B just to build (and god knows how much to operate), and Mr. Ryabkov is on to something: the signal that it sends to the rest of the world about our priorities is arguably that, instead of investing in any kind of sustainable, constructive & civilized ‘diplomacy’ as such, we are far more committed to winning George Carlin’s ‘prick-waving contest’?
Gunboat diplomacy, the hallmark of freedom-loving nations.
A very large sitting duck, in a real “superpower” engagement.
When they say “diplomacy” they mean “threats of unprovoked aggression.” Otherwise they don’t know what diplomacy is.
This has to be satire right?? 110K tons of floating target practice. Aircraft carriers are floating coffins for sadly the military people on the front line serving tyrannical mass murderers who care nothing about the rule of law, sovereignty, human rights…none of that matters to Murder Inc aka: The US Gov.