Zakaj Washingtonu ni všeč, kadar državljani države, kjer ima Washington svoje interese, glasujejo v nasprotju z ameriškimi preferencami? Retorično vprašanje. It’s geopolitics, stupid!

Poglejte spodaj dva tipična primera moralne nekonsistentnosti ameriške diplomacije.

Last week the top court of Romania annulled the results of the country’s recent presidential election, just days before a runoff between pro-EU liberal Elena Lasconi and right-wing populist Calin Georgescu. Georgescu had shocked the establishment with a strong first-round showing, but some opponents attributed it to Russian election interference via social media and other tools. The court, citing a declassified intelligence report, said it had found evidence of such meddling.

Many Romanians and outside observers have been outraged by the ruling. “Essentially, when all the layers are peeled back,” writes Thomas Fazi of Compact, “Romania’s top court annulled an entire presidential election based on a TikTok social-media campaign which the intelligence services claimed—without providing concrete evidence—bore similarities to Russia’s tactics allegedly used everywhere.” Even Georgescu’s opponent, Lasconi, who favors a western-leaning Romania that resists Russian geopolitical influence, decried the court’s decision, saying it “crushes the very essence of democracy: voting.”

If both candidates condemn the election annulment, who is taking the side of the court? Well, Washington, for one. In a carefully worded statement that avoided explicit endorsement of the ruling, the State Department said Romanians deserve confidence that their elections “are free of foreign malign influence”—and, for good measure, added that the US supports Romania’s “investigations into foreign malign influence.”

Romania isn’t the only country whose democratic backsliding the US has lately seemed willing to overlook in the name of fighting Russia’s geopolitical influence. In November, Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili said she won’t leave office when her term expires. Her reason: The electoral success of the Georgian Dream party—whose control of parliament allows it to choose her successor—was illegitimate, she said.

The Georgian Dream party has resisted western pressure to sanction Russia and send weapons to Ukraine, and it wants Georgia to maintain some distance from the EU. As in Romania, pro-EU politicians in Georgia have put forth unproven claims of vote rigging. And, as with Romania, the US has supported such claims. An October White House statement supporting them also complained that Russian officials had, in advance of the election, questioned the impartiality of election observers. “Russia’s attempt to undermine confidence in the observation of Georgia’s election is itself a form of interference,” the statement said. The White House statement didn’t say whether a White House statement undermining confidence in Georgia’s elections is itself a form of interference.

Though Biden has framed his foreign policy as a global struggle between democracy and autocracy, some foreign-policy analysts are questioning whether democratic values really matter much to Washington when geopolitical interests are at stake. In the case of Romania, writes Fazi, “The Western Alliance clearly can’t afford to allow mere popular sovereignty to jeopardize Romania’s role as a NATO garrison.”

Similar concerns may be at work in Georgia. In Responsible Statecraft, Almut Rochowanski of the Quincy Institute points to a recent X post by a regional analyst who used the phrase “geopolitical backsliding” to lament Georgia’s hesitation about EU accession. “That might have been a Freudian slip,” writes Rochowanski. “Or it might have been in earnest, normalizing the conflation of geopolitics with democracy that defines the West’s approach to Europe’s periphery.”

Vir: Robert Wright, Nonzero