Antony Blinken: The guitar-loving secretary of state with Russia on his mind

The self-confessed Beatlemaniac is facing his biggest test on the world stage – dealing with Moscow’s troop build-up on the border with Ukraine, writes Chris Stevenson

There are few people US president Joe Biden would want fronting up Washington’s diplomacy on this issue than his secretary of state (AP)

“Hey, you don’t know how lucky you are, boy,“ runs a lyric in “Back in the USSR” – although self-confessed Beatlemanic and US secretary of state Antony Blinken may not feel that way right now in dealing with the build-up of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine.

It is the biggest test of Blinken’s year in office – and his recent few days visiting Kiev, Berlin and Geneva will probably have involved plenty of tension. Particularly Friday in Geneva, when Blinken met with the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. Blinken reiterated that the US and its allies were committed to diplomacy but “if that proves impossible, and Russia decides to pursue aggression against Ukraine, to a united, swift and severe response.”

It is a fine line Blinken is treading, seemingly unconvinced by Lavrov’s repeated denials that Moscow is looking to invade Ukraine. “We’re looking at what is visible to all, and it is deeds and actions and not words that make all the difference,” the secretary of state said. Washington and its European and Nato partners have been clear that they will not acquiesce to Russia’s demands – that Nato promise Ukraine will never be added as a member, that no alliance weapons will be deployed near Russian borders, and that troops are pulled back from central and eastern Europe. Blinken added that he believed that the Kremlin and the White House are now “on a clearer path to understanding each other’s positions” and Lavrov called the talks “constructive” – but there has been no major shift in position.

There are few people US president Joe Biden would want fronting up Washington’s diplomacy on this issue than Blinken. The secretary of state has been an adviser to Biden for two decades in various capacities. In 2002, Blinken was appointed staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Biden, having served as a member of the National Security Council during the administration of Bill Clinton. Blinken would go on to become national security adviser to the vice president (Biden) before serving as deputy national security adviser from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under Barack Obama. Blinken knows Biden so well he has been called his “alter ego” and his trips to the White House multiple times a week to advise Biden have been labelled a “mind meld”. Although there were some grumbles from Republicans during Blinken’s confirmation about the revolving door into Washington, given that during the years of the Trump administration Blinken had co-founded WestExec Advisors, a consultancy that worked for corporations, many in tech, on political and international strategies.

Diplomats and leaders clearly appreciate Blinken’s affable nature and his experience – particularly when compared to the workings of the administration of Donald Trump. When meeting Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg at Nato headquarters in Brussels in March last year, Stoltenberg said: “Secretary Blinken, dear Tony, it’s really great to be here together with you for many reasons, but your knowledge, your experience, your background, and your personal commitment to Nato makes you really a secretary which is very much welcomed here.” He said in the wake of Trump’s stint in the White House and what he saw as the “challenge” to US democracy the end of that term brought: “In a funny way, I think the experience and our response has also reinforced our ability to be a leader for democracy and human rights around the world.”

Some would argue that Blinken’s outlook verges on interventionist. While he helped Biden propose an alternative to George W Bush’s plan to invade Iraq before the senator voted to authorise war, when it came to the Syria conflict Blinken advocated for more robust US involvement. He also broke with Biden to support the armed intervention in Libya in 2011. Although more recently, following heavy criticism of the US withdrawal in Afghanistan last summer as the Taliban took over the country, Blinken faced a congressional hearing to defend Biden’s position, preferring to shift the blame onto Trump.“We inherited a deadline. We did not inherit a plan,” he said. He added that lessons should be learned, including that “using military force to try to remake a society is something that is beyond our means, beyond our capacity”.

We all have something to learn and gain from one another even when it doesn’t seem at first like we have much in common

Antony Blinken

Such qualities seem to run in Blinken’s family. Blinken’s uncle served as US ambassador to Belgium, at the same time that Blinken’s father, Donald, was ambassador to Hungary. Born in 1962, he lived his early years on New York’s Upper East Side and attended the prestigious Dalton School – whose alumni also include Christian Slater and was then run by Donald Barr, the father of future attorney general William Barr. His parents divorced, and in 1971 he moved to Paris with his mother Judith, and her new husband, Samuel Pisar. Blinken studied at École Jeannine Manuel and played Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” on his guitar at graduation.

Blinken also seemingly learned much from Pisar, a Polish Holocaust survivor who had lived through the camps of Auschwitz, Dachau, Majdanek and Sachsenhausen. Pisar’s father had been murdered by the Gestapo and his mother and little sister were gassed in the camps. Pisar would go on to become a lawyer of global renown and a foreign economic policy adviser to president John F Kennedy. Speaking to TheWashington Post in 2013, Pisar said that a teenage Blinken had asked to hear about his experiences during the war. “He wanted to know,” Pisar said. “He took in what had happened to me when I was his age, and I think it impressed him and it gave him another dimension, another look at the world and what can happen here.”

After graduating school Blinken would attend Harvard, writing for the student newspaper The Harvard Crimson – a mix of music (mostly rock) criticism and liberal commentary on world affairs. He would then attend Columbia Law School in the mid-1980s and go on to practice law in New York and Paris. In 1987 Blinken’s thesis was published as Ally vs Ally, it examined a 1982 dispute between America and Europe over a Soviet pipeline. In it he argued for maintaining transatlantic relations rather than exerting diplomatic pressure on the USSR. “The Atlantic Alliance is showing serious cracks,” he wrote – repairs that it could be argued he is trying to make in the wake of Trump. It also shows he has been following relations with Russia for many years.

Blinken married his wife Evan Ryan in 2002 – she is currently White House cabinet secretary – and the couple have two young children. The former US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power tweeted in late 2020, when Blinken’s nomination for secretary of state was announced: “The next US Secretary of State is a new dad. It will be inspiring for working parents everywhere to see America’s top diplomat in action as he also helps raise two toddlers.” Blinken has said how important his family is to him in subsequent interviews. A sense of the values he wants young children to learn can be seen in a 2016 conversation with the Sesame Street character Grover, on the subject of refugees and the fact you may have classmates from other nations. “We all have something to learn and gain from one another even when it doesn’t seem at first like we have much in common,” he said.

Outside of the office, Blinken used to play a weekly game of football with some congressional colleagues and gigged with bands called Coalition of the Willing, Big Lunch, and Cash Bar Wedding before he joined the White House. He has three rock singles on Spotify under the name Ablinken (see what he did there? Try saying it). As well as The Beatles and classic rock, he has an affection for the blues and Eric Clapton’s music. Hee owns “six or seven” guitars but is clear about his playing, telling Rolling Stone last year: “I’m left-handed, but somehow I’m not Jimi Hendrix.” Music “is just a driving passion in my life. And I continue to find joy in that, whether it’s playing a little or listening a lot.”

The secretary of state may want to take some guidance – particularly over dealing with Moscow – from some of his song lyrics and titles, “Patience” being one. Although perhaps not the one named “Lip Service”. The most recent upload of his, from late 2020, is a song called “Without Ya” which includes the lyric: “Must be light along the way/ Lead us to a brand new day”. Blinken will surely be hoping that he can help lead the US – and the west – out of its latest crisis with Russia.