News Analysis: Ukraine crisis gives Kamala Harris a new role

It was partly coincidence that Vice President Kamala Harris was in Poland, assembly with leaders and talking with refugees on Thursday, the identical day that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had roughly the identical itinerary right here.

Nevertheless it’s additionally a sign that she had arrived close to the middle of a disaster that’s absorbing the world’s consideration.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has turned Harris, a relative rookie in international affairs, into one of many administration’s main diplomatic faces throughout its most harmful international disaster.

Final month, as Russian troops menacingly surrounded Ukraine’s borders, Harris met with European allies and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a safety convention in Germany. This week, she grew to become the highest-ranking American official to go to Jap Europe since Moscow launched its assault on Feb. 24. Her three-day journey was geared toward exhibiting solidarity with Poland and Romania, susceptible allies dealing with a Ukrainian refugee disaster as they search to bolster defenses towards a possible Russian assault.

It’s a standard function for vice presidents, making pressing journeys overseas within the president’s stead. Joe Biden, the oldest president in historical past at 79, has traveled overseas lower than his predecessors. Sending him close to the border with Ukraine could possibly be seen as provocative and logistically disruptive for nations coping with an inflow of refugees.

It’s a comparatively new function for Harris, who final yr traveled abroad occasionally due to issues about COVID-19 and the administration’s deal with its home agenda. The disaster in Europe may additionally shift scrutiny away from Harris’ different predominant international coverage portfolio — the troublesome job of curbing migration from Central America.

Her job in Europe appeared largely symbolic — reinforcing American help for NATO and warning Russian President Vladimir Putin that the U.S. will deploy troops if he assaults a member of the 30-country alliance.

Along with assembly with Polish President Andrzej Duda on Thursday, she visited Polish and American troops and spoke with Ukrainian embassy staffers who are actually working from Warsaw and met with a small group of displaced Ukrainians. On Friday, she flew to Bucharest and held conferences with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.

At every cease, she delivered a constant message: “An assault towards one is an assault towards all,” she informed about 40 Polish and American troops inside an airport hangar in Warsaw on Friday. Later, in Bucharest, she repeated that mantra. “We’re agency in our dedication,” she mentioned.

Rick Stengel, an undersecretary of State within the Obama administration, mentioned there was “nothing magical” about Harris’ function, together with the repetition.

“Diplomacy may be very conventional, and once you ship the second-highest-ranking official within the U.S. authorities someplace, you’re telling them, ‘Hey, we care about you,’” he mentioned. “Plenty of diplomacy is symbolism, and that is essential symbolism.”

Polish and Romanian leaders are looking forward to such consideration. The nations, comparatively latest additions to the North Atlantic Treaty Group and former Soviet satellites, would most likely be on the entrance traces of any assaults by Russia.

“Romania has roughly 650 kilometers [400 miles] of land border with Ukraine. It’s the longest land border of all allies neighboring with Ukraine,” Iohannis mentioned by way of an interpreter throughout a Friday information convention with Harris, through which he requested for extra army and humanitarian assist. “So, sure, we’re involved.”

Biden administration officers have sought to move off thorny diplomatic conditions for Harris, who likes to have interaction in near-obsessive preparation earlier than conferences and customarily stays on script.

For instance, officers made a sequence of definitive public statements within the hours earlier than Harris landed in Warsaw on Wednesday evening to defuse a dispute with Poland over how and whether or not to provide Polish fighter jets to Ukraine. Duda needed the U.S. to ship the planes, however the White Home balked. U.S. officers have been anxious that getting the planes into Ukraine may escalate the battle with Putin.

A senior administration official, who briefed reporters on situation of anonymity, mentioned the fighter jet dispute got here up when Harris met with Duda privately. However making the U.S. place clear beforehand allowed the 2 leaders to shortly transfer on to different topics, the official mentioned.

Harris, nonetheless, appeared unprepared for Duda’s greatest request: permitting Ukrainians with American family members to remain within the U.S. till the battle ends. In a information convention with Duda, Harris emphasised different measures the administration was taking to assist Ukrainians, together with permitting these already within the U.S. to remain on expired visas. However she didn’t say what, if something, the administration would do to deal with Duda’s attraction.

The administration official mentioned Harris’ diplomatic function on Ukraine dates to November, when she traveled to Paris to fulfill with French President Emmanuel Macron. The 2 mentioned a joint response to early indicators of Russian troop motion. The official mentioned Harris spoke with 5 prime ministers from Jap Europe final week and expects to proceed to have interaction with allies.

Daniel Fried, a veteran U.S. diplomat and former ambassador to Poland, mentioned Harris appeared to have efficiently executed the journey’s goal: “calming down the state of affairs.”

On the fighter jet subject, her presence despatched the message that the U.S. and its allies, although working below wartime stress, have to “take a deep breath” and bear in mind that they’re going to misspeak at instances, Fried mentioned.

He mentioned the journey would additionally present Harris wanted expertise and a real-world really feel of a possible scorching spot. Vice President George H.W. Bush realized these classes throughout a go to to Poland in 1987, simply earlier than the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Fried mentioned, including that such journeys are “a superb funding.”

As she has traveled overseas extra steadily in latest months, Harris has appeared extra snug on the world stage however is clearly cautious of constructing errors. Throughout the information convention with Duda, she laughed nervously when the 2 leaders volleyed over who ought to reply questions first. And in answering questions, she seldom ventured past speaking factors and platitudes.

“I need to be very clear,” she mentioned when requested in regards to the pressure over the fighter jets. “The USA and Poland are united in what we have now accomplished and are ready to do to assist Ukraine and the individuals of Ukraine. Full cease.”

Occasions employees author Tracy Wilkinson in Washington contributed to this report.