It was not a Super Tuesday for either Senator Kyrsten Sinema or State Department official Victoria J. Nuland. Each announced that they were stepping down from their positions. Sinema is declining to run once more in Arizona for the Senate. Nuland is exiting her post as the number three official at State, where she was widely seen as the champion of a hawkish approach to foreign policy.
Sinema delivered a mawkish message that essentially blamed the American people for failing to recognize, let alone value, her valorous attempt to restore American power and prosperity. Nuland, by contrast, had to be satisfied with a statement from secretary of state Antony J. Blinken: “She always speaks her mind.”
Of this adventitious duo, it is Nuland who will go down in the history books, largely for her readiness to speak her mind, especially when it came to Russia’s malign intentions. The blunt fact is that she got it right, long before most observers had grasped the extent of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical ambition to restore the Russian, if not the Soviet, empire by creating a glacis over Ukraine.
In 2013, Nuland handed out sandwiches during the Maidan uprising to protesters — prompting the more conspiratorially minded to the absurd contention that Nuland was a key actor in fomenting the opposition to the Russian stooge Viktor Yanukovych. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov later complained, “A coup against the government happened in Ukraine in 2014 after undersecretary of state Victoria Nuland handed out cookies to terrorists.” Why offering cookies was somehow tantamount to providing stinger missiles was left unsaid.
Nuland further earned notoriety in 2014 for alluding caustically to the European Union during a phone conversation with Geoffrey Pyatt, the American ambassador to Ukraine. In Moscow, Nuland was seen as a princess of darkness who never missed an opportunity to decry the Kremlin.
But Nuland was never a dominant force in the Biden administration. National security advisor Jake Sullivan has presided over Ukraine policy, including the cautious disbursement of lethal weaponry to Kyiv, a sore spot for the hawks who believe that a more aggressive posture would have avoided the current stalemate that has taken place on the front-lines. Rather than select Nuland, Biden named Kurt Campbell, a key official on the NSC, to assume the number two post at the State Department which had been held by Wendy Sherman. Campbell is best known for pushing America to pivot to Asia.
So will his ascension signify a diminution in the Biden administration’s willingness to support Ukraine, particularly with the House Republicans stymieing the passage of an aid package to Ukraine? Probably not. Moscow may be crowing over her departure, but the jubilation is premature. Biden himself is invested in Ukraine’s success and the NSC, not the State Department, will continue to guide policy toward Kyiv. Nuland may be departing, but her stern approach toward Russia has become the credo of Biden and his cohort even as Donald Trump brays about his fidelity to the great Vlad.
