Cohesion and unity are the key words on the second day of the Security Conference. US Vice President Kamala Harris praised “amazing unity. We are now speaking with one voice.” Chancellor Olaf Schultz had earlier emphasized cohesion with the United States.
Harris also says, of course, that it took a good deal of “work over the past few months” to get there.
The US Vice President speaks slowly, as if trying to give weight to every word. She reads her speech from the teleprompter so as not to leave the slightest verbal gap between what President Biden says in the United States and what she says here in Munich. Biden warned that Putin decided to attack.
Harris knows that Euroskeptics laugh at him. The United States recently warned of a possible invasion last Wednesday. But he was absent.
Putin’s actions don’t match words
Explains why the United States is publishing its intelligence findings. This makes it difficult for Putin to launch an attack under a false pretense. “Together, with one voice, we bring the truth into the light.”
Harris stressed that the United States is ready to negotiate with Russia. “We made specific suggestions, and we shared in good faith.”
[Lesen Sie auch unseren Blog zur aktuellen Lage in der Eskalation.]
But as the troop deployment continues, “Russia continues to limit the possibilities for diplomacy. Their actions do not match their words.”
Unprecedented penalties
If Russia invades Ukraine, “the United States, along with its allies and partners, will impose unprecedented sanctions” on key areas of the economy.
[Lesen Sie auch: Aufmarsch an der Grenze zur Ukraine. Wie gefährlich ist die Lage? (T+)]
“We are not going to fight in Ukraine,” Harris explains. “But we will defend every inch of NATO territory.” That is why the United States has deployed an additional 6,500 troops to Poland and Romania and put another 8,500 on high alert.
How far will the unit go, asks the president of the conference Wolfgang Ischinger. And if Putin attacks, will there still be a peaceful security architecture in Europe that “we’ve been working on in the United States and Europe for decades”? Feeling powerless is one of the themes of this security conference.
“We are here together, not alone”
“I’ve been encouraged by the work we’ve done together over the past few months,” Harris said. She alluded to disagreements with Germany over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. “We had different starting points. How do we define aggression? What sanctions are we ready for? But now we speak with one voice.”
Ukraine is a “sovereign country in danger of being occupied again”. The first method is diplomacy. “But we also have to ask: What happens when diplomacy becomes a dead end?”
At this moment, “The value of the Atlantic community is revealed. Here we are together, not individually. We have come to a consensus. We will stand strong together.”
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