Are two departments of the Biden administration at war with each other?

 

It begins to look as if the State Department is acting on its own over the Ukraine war, and not bothering to consult or coordinate with any other executive department - to the extreme detriment of the USA as a whole.  Sundance explains (bold, underlined text is my emphasis):

Last weekend, the US Department of State, Secretary Anthony Blinken, made the unilateral claim that Poland -a NATO ally- was approved by the State Department to send fighter jets into Ukraine.   Blinken was located in Moldova when he made the statement to three U.S. media outlets. Poland was caught completely off guard by Blinken’s statements, and only learned about them from the media reporting.

Hours later, western media, desperately pushing the pro-Ukraine defense position, began asking the Polish government for details of what Secretary Blinken had stated.  The Sunday afternoon reply from Poland was to call these media reports “fake news,” further stating they had no intention of sending their MiG-29 fighter jets into Ukraine territory.

It became stunningly clear that Secretary Blinken had never discussed the issue with Poland before making his statement.  Obviously, given the nature of the statement from the Pentagon yesterday and affirmed again today by spokesperson John Kirby, Secretary Blinken also did not discuss his position on the transfer of Polish (NATO) jets with the Pentagon.

Now pause for a moment and accept what is evident.  The US Secretary of State, seeking to leverage the public pressure of a global community aligned in favorability toward the Ukrainian people, unilaterally made a national security policy decision that would trigger an escalated NATO conflict with Russia.

The U.S. State Department was willing, intentionally and willfully willing, to set up a scenario that would draw the United States into war with Russia, and Secretary Blinken intended to trigger this “escalation” by pushing Poland into a corner of compliance – without ever discussing it with them.

By the time Blinken traveled to Poland (Monday), he was greeted and told the transfer of fighter jets he proposed and advocated for publicly was not something the Polish government would ever contemplate.

. . .

Secretary Blinken made no effort to extract Poland from the situation he created for them; in fact, he did the opposite. Blinken stayed quiet while western government officials and media kept making inquiries of Poland Tuesday and Wednesday.

Eventually Poland had to extricate themselves from this box Secretary Blinken had built around them.

On Wednesday night, doing exactly the same thing Blinken did to them by not informing the U.S prior to their statement, Poland said they would send the jets to Ramstein AFB in Germany but would not send them to Ukraine.  Essentially, if Blinken wanted to use these jets to create his war with Russia, well, here they are – go for it.

Poland was calling Blinken’s bluff.

The U.S. Pentagon could not support the position Secretary Blinken put them in to, and immediately released a statement saying the proposal by Poland was “not tenable.”  The bizarre nature of the situation left everyone confused.

According to the United States government, per Anthony Blinken, sending planes from NATO base Poland was good.  However, according to the same United States government, sending planes from NATO base Germany was bad.  See the dichotomy?

This dueling scenario was not, and is not, a fracture within NATO.  What surfaced in the insanity is a fracture within the United States government as an outcome of a rogue U.S. State Department led by Secretary Anthony Blinken.

. . .

Do not let this behavior of Secretary Blinken just fall away from your frame of reference without giving it the appropriate weight it deserves.  This is a very dangerous situation.

If Secretary Blinken been successful with his intended plan, we were about to enter a hot war with Russia and no one would realize how exactly it started.

There's more at the link, and it's worth reading in full.

Sundance points out that this isn't the first time such a situation has arisen.  It occurred with the US response to the situation in Libya in 2011.  I can testify to similar confusion between executive branch departments during the war in Angola in the mid-1970's.  We (South African armed forces) were simultaneously receiving (and assisting with) flights into Angola from black-painted, unmarked C-130 Hercules transports, carrying US arms and other assistance to anti-Communist guerrilla (terrorist) movements, and listening to US State Department representatives decrying our involvement there and blaming everything on us.  The crews of those aircraft (not wearing any insignia of nation, service or rank, but speaking in obvious US accents) made their opinions clear about the US State Department and everything it said or did.  They were rather... expressive... about it.

Lord Palmerston of England famously pointed out:

Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.

Nowadays, we should perhaps add to that, "provided the State Department doesn't override them!"

Peter