Biden's fight-to-the-end speech exposes Washington is between Europe and peace: China Daily editorial

Russia has suspended its participation in the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with the United States, saying that Washington must create the conditions for the resumption of the full functioning of the Treaty and, accordingly, "comprehensively ensuring its viability".

That Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters on Wednesday that Moscow would reconsider its decision should the US stop its reckless anti-Russian campaign points to the reason why its move should not be taken as a show of weakness or bravado on Russia's part but rather a natural response to the campaign the US is waging against it through a proxy.

Something that US President Joe Biden reinforced with his fight-to-the-end speech at the Royal Castle in Warsaw on Tuesday to mark the first anniversary of the conflict in Ukraine.

The one year anniversary of the Ukraine conflict should have prompted serious consideration of how to put an end to the conflict rather than pouring oil on the fire.

The stage setting for Biden's speech was an ugly parody of that for the "Tear down this wall" address then US president Ronald Reagan made at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, on June 12, 1987, which heralded the end of the Cold War, if not the era of a unipolar world.

The comparison between the two speeches only testifies to how poorly the US has played its hand in the course of the time span between them.

The poor judgment of successive US administrations has made a mockery of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's claim that the US has been acting responsibly. That it has been acting to the contrary was highlighted by his admission that "we are posturing appropriately for the security of our own country and that of our allies". Even though the US is not being threatened and any perceived threats to its allies are a consequence of its own designs.

With the US' intention of dragging down Russia at the cost of Ukrainian lives becoming more barefaced, there is no doubt that Europe is drifting further away from a lasting peace mechanism that it was trying to form on the continent. Something those wholeheartedly cheering Biden's speech in Warsaw on Tuesday night would never admit to, since no snowflake would ever feel responsible for an avalanche.

But no matter how high Biden has enhanced his listeners' morale with his democracy-autocracy cliches, those in Warsaw and elsewhere that he was seeking to rally to the US' banner must beware the substantial changes to be brought about by the ball the Russian leader has kicked to their half of the court.