"Fellow Democracies Will Always Be Our First Port Of Call" — Blinken Outlines American Diplomacy In New Era

Washington D.C./14.09.23/Turan: The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday outlined the power and purpose of American diplomacy in a new era, saying that fellow democracies "will always be our first port of call," albeit Washington is determined to work with any country "so long as they want to deliver for their citizens, contribute to solving shared challenges, and uphold the international norms we’ve built together," TURAN's U.S. correspondent reports.

In his speech at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, Blinken said the U.S. is leading with diplomacy in a new era, while decades of relative geo-political stability have given way to an intensifying competition with authoritarian powers, revisionist powers.

"What we’re experiencing now is more than a test of the post-Cold War order. It’s the end of it," he said.

Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine is the most immediate, the most acute threat to the international order enshrined in the UN charter and its core principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence for nations, and universal indivisible human rights for individuals.

Meanwhile, China also poses the most significant long-term challenge because it not only aspires to reshape the international order, it increasingly has the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do just that.

And Beijing and Moscow are working together to make the world safe for autocracy through their “no limits partnership.”

"As this competition ramps up, many countries are hedging their bets," Blinken said.

The Secretary went on to share the Biden Administration's vision of what he described as to be a free, open, secure, and prosperous world and described how Washington's efforts to reimagine and revitalize its network of allies and partners have put us in a position of strength to meet the defining "tests of our era."

According to him, the U.S. is renewing and deepening its alliances and partnerships, and forging new ones. This includes NATO with a new member in Finland and Sweden joining soon. It also includes a G7 and critical bilateral relationships with countries from around the world that "we’ve taken to the next level," as Blinken put it.

Washington is also building new coalitions to "tackle the toughest challenges of our time," as the top U.S,. diplomat put it.

"We’ve mobilized hundreds of billions of dollars with the G7 to close the global infrastructure gap, rallied dozens of countries to respond to the immediate and long-term drivers of the global food crisis, are shaping the rules of the road for AI, and addressing the global synthetic drugs epidemic. We are working not only with governments, but also civil society, the private sector, academia, and citizens, especially young leaders."

Alex Raufoglu