Having promised to use diplomacy as a tool of first resort and engage in substantive dialogue with both Russia and China, the new US administration is off to a rocky start. President Biden casually calling his Russian counterpart a killer, followed by a botched attempt at preaching democracy to a Chinese delegation in Alaska, vividly demonstrates the vulnerabilities of this approach. Can diplomacy achieve anything without being diplomatic? To discuss this, Oksana is joined by Alexander Lukin, head of the Department of International Relations at HSE University.
