The goal behind President Biden’s upcoming “Summit for Democracy” was to feature U.S. leadership and unify like-minded democracies, including many the administration hopes will work together to counter communist China’s rise as a rival, autocratic global power.

But the summit, a key promise of Mr. Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, might backfire before the virtual Dec 9-10 event kicks off. Critics and news outlets around the world are questioning the White House’s picky invitations, and U.S. adversaries are scrambling for favor among nations left off the list.

Singapore is among the major democracies conspicuously left off the list of 110 participating countries, while the inclusions of Pakistan and others have triggered speculation about the strategic calculus behind the invitations.

Turkey, a critical NATO ally, didn’t make the cut. Iraq did, despite having a parliament heavily influenced by the nearby theocracy in Iran.

Turkey instead got lumped with China, Russia and other nations left off the list. Moscow and Beijing are now seizing the moment to attack the very idea of the summit and delighting in the tensions it has generated.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it is hypocritical of the U.S. to claim to be “a ‘beacon’ of democracy, since they themselves have chronic problems with freedom of speech, election administration, corruption and human rights.”

Chinese officials accused the White House of using the summit to ratchet up Cold War-style tensions with Beijing. “This year marks the 30th anniversary of the end of the Cold War,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters this week. “The U.S. hosting of the summit for democracy is a dangerous move to rekindle the Cold War mentality, to which the international community should be on high alert.”

‘Strange’ choices

Even some on the invitation list have raised questions. A high-level source from one participating Indo-Pacific nation said it appears “strange” for Pakistan to have an invitation while Bangladesh and Sri Lanka do not. Sri Lanka is widely regarded as the oldest democracy in Asia.

The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, questioned whether the administration used the invitation to smooth over ill feelings in Islamabad stemming from Mr. Biden’s failure after more than 11 months in office to phone Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. The administration, the source said, may be trying to appease the Khan government in exchange for assurances that U.S. forces can rely on Pakistan to be a partner for regional counterterrorism operations, including in Afghanistan.

Such assurances would be welcome when the White House seems to be struggling to reach basing agreements in the wake of the messy troop pullout from Afghanistan. Tajikistan, left off the summit invite list, is a key Central Asian prospect.

Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific Security chair with the Hudson Institute in Washington, cautioned against “rushing to judgment” about why some countries were invited while others weren’t. Still, he said “there are practical reasons some friends of the United States were probably not invited.”

He pointed to Singapore as an example. The Southeast Asian economic hub is known for its vibrant parliamentary democracy and for being caught in the middle of U.S.-Chinese geopolitical jockeying.

“Singapore is being spared the awkwardness of appearing to side with the U.S. and against China,” Mr. Cronin told The Washington Times. “Singapore likes to focus on being a trading hub, rules and good governance, but it also likes to avoid unnecessarily ruffling feathers. That is why it is a partner of the United States and not an ally.”

Still, Mr. Cronin emphasized that the “simple act of inviting countries to participate in a summit for democracy sends a signal that Washington expects participants to live up to democratic norms and non-invitees should step away from authoritarian governance.”

Such logic could explain why Turkey didn’t make the cut, given widespread perceptions in Washington of the increasingly authoritarian nature of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Fighting the autocrats

Biden administration officials have emphasized that a central aim of the summit is to gather government, civil society and private-sector leaders to work together to fight authoritarianism and global corruption and to defend human rights.

A message from Mr. Biden touting the summit on the State Department’s website says the administration is consulting with experts from government, multilateral organizations, philanthropies, civil society and the private sector to solicit “bold, practicable ideas “around three key themes: defending against authoritarianism, addressing and fighting corruption, and promoting respect for human rights.

“Since day one, the Biden-Harris administration has made clear that renewing democracy in the United States and around the world is essential to meeting the unprecedented challenges of our time,” the message states.

Some perceive the reference to “renewing” democracy in the United States as an attempt to stoke Democratic partisan fervor around the notion that President Trump represented a significant decline in U.S. democracy. Many on the left say that was underscored by the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump demonstrators.

With that as a backdrop, some observers question the extent to which internal or foreign autocratic forces are challenging democracies.

Financial Times opinion writer Janan Ganesh said in a column this week that the summit “risks flattering the unfree world.”

“Its premise, that a contest is going on between democracy and its opposite, is right. But the fault line runs mostly through countries, not between them,” Mr. Ganesh wrote. “By calling nations together, and barring Russia, Turkey and China, the event reframes a largely domestic problem as a geopolitical one. It encourages the idea that foreign subversion (which is real enough) is to blame for Donald Trump in the U.S., the dark vaudeville of Brexit, the numerous flavors of Italian populism and the great mass of anti-liberal votes in France.”

Geopolitical focus

Others have focused on the geopolitics of the summit itself.

The Australian newspaper cited critics questioning whether U.S. strategic interests may have been as vital to the invite list as any given country’s democratic bona fides.

“Important U.S. allies Pakistan and the Philippines made the list despite endemic corruption and human rights abuses,” an analysis by the paper stated this week. “Yet Singapore and Thailand — respectively one of America’s closest regional security partners and one of its oldest regional ­allies, notwithstanding their deeply-flawed democracies — have been excluded alongside one-party-state Cambodia, communist Vietnam and Laos, the kingdom of Brunei and the ­murderous Myanmar junta.”

Ben Bland, Southeast Asia program director at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, told the paper that the “Biden ­administration seems to have picked some states because of their genuine commitment to democracy while others appear to be there more because of their strategic relevance.”

The invitation list has exposed ­inherent tensions in U.S. efforts to build a broad-balancing coalition against China while framing competition with Beijing in ­ideological terms, Mr. Bland said. “The fact that only three ASEAN members are invited,” he said, “shows that pitching competition with China as a grand battle between democracy and authoritarianism will not get Washington very far in Southeast Asia.”

Mr. Cronin said the administration is approaching the summit “not from a position of supreme confidence born of some unipolar moment, but from a position of necessity to push back on illiberal governance at a moment of profound crisis in democracy.”

“In our age of plurilateralism, in which various constellations of countries can choose to partner or opt out of specific frameworks, it would be great for most participants to sign onto an agreed set of democratic principles regarding rules of the road, including for digital technology,” he told The Times. “Over time, a summit process might enhance not just the confidence but also what some have called the operating system of world order.”

Correction: Sydney was misspelled in an earlier version of the story.

Moscow will face “serious consequences” if it invades Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told his Russian counterpart point-blank Thursday as tensions rise in Eastern Europe and the Biden administration faces one of its thorniest international tests.

Mr. Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met briefly behind closed doors during a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Stockholm. The tense diplomatic standoff comes as tens of thousands of Russian troops remain gathered along the country’s border with Ukraine and as some foreign policy analysts warn that Russian President Vladimir Putin may see this as his last window to keep Ukraine from cementing security and economic ties with the West by using military force — or at least the direct threat of it.

As the U.S. and its NATO allies seek to stave off war, Mr. Blinken pushed Moscow to abide by the Minsk agreements, a 2014 pact aimed at ending the fighting in the disputed Donbas region of Ukraine, the site of regular clashes between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow.

Mr. Blinken said the U.S. seeks a stable relationship with Russia but warned that any action in Ukraine would force America’s hand.

“We have deep concerns about Russia’s plans for renewed aggression against Ukraine. That would move us in exactly the opposite direction, and it’s simply not in anyone’s interest,” Mr. Blinken said during brief public remarks before his meeting with Mr. Lavrov. “We have a strong, ironclad commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”

“The best way to avert a crisis is through diplomacy and …  full implementation of the Minsk agreements, with Russia pulling back its forces,” he said. “The United States is willing to facilitate that, but — and again, in the spirit of being clear and candid, which is the best thing to do — if Russia decides to pursue confrontation, there will be serious consequences.”

Speaking in South Korea on Thursday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the U.S. and its allies will coordinate a global response to any Russian military aggression.

But it’s unclear just how far the U.S. and Europe may be willing to go. International condemnation and threats of economic sanctions failed to prevent Mr. Putin from taking over Crimea in 2014, nor have those same measures stopped a string of major cyberattacks by Russian-backed hackers against U.S. and other foreign targets.

Mr. Putin has said increased Western support for Kyiv, including NATO membership down the line, would be a “red line” Moscow would not tolerate. Mr. Lavrov said Thursday that Moscow sees the current crisis as part of the broader issue of keeping Ukraine away from NATO and firmly in Russia‘s orbit.

“I have no doubts that the only way out of today’s crisis, which is indeed quite tense, is actually to seek the balance of interests, and I hope this is what we are going to do today,” Mr. Lavrov said just before his meeting with Mr. Blinken.

“The fact that everyone is talking about the escalation of tensions in Europe on the border between Russia and Ukraine — well, you know very well how we treat this,” he said. “We … do not want any conflicts, but if our NATO partners have stated that no one has a right to dictate to a country that would like to join NATO whether it can do or not, we can say that every country is able to define its own interests to guarantee their security.”

Mr. Lavrov added that NATO’s expansion “will infringe upon security.”

NATO leaders have made clear in recent months that the organization believes the time is right to bring Ukraine further into the fold, even though such a strategy clearly irks Moscow.

“We should provide more support, more training, more capacity-building, help them implement reforms, fight corruption, build their security and defense institutions,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said during an October speech at Georgetown University.

“We need to establish there is a lot in between nothing and full membership,” he said of Ukraine and other neighboring nations.

Some foreign policy specialists say the fact that NATO and Ukraine continue to inch toward one another despite the takeover of Crimea and fighting in Donbas has convinced Mr. Putin to get more aggressive.

“The first reason he‘s escalated is his 7 1/2-year war in … Donbas is a failure. That war was undertaken to push Ukraine‘s foreign policy in a direction that Moscow would approve of and he‘s had zero results,” John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said Thursday.

“Instead you have a stalemate … which favors neither Russia nor Ukraine, but that means it’s a victory for Ukraine because it gets to maintain its foreign policy and independence,” he said during a virtual Atlantic Council forum. “The idea is to intimidate Ukraine.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the United States is concerned about China’s development of hypersonic missiles, including the orbiting weapons tested in August. 

“We have concerns about the military capabilities that the PRC continues to pursue, and the pursuit of those capabilities increases tensions in the region,” Mr. Austin said in Seoul. “And we know that China conducted a test of a hypersonic weapon on the 27th of July. It just underscores why we consider the PRC to be our pacing challenge.” 

The United States continues to maintain what Mr. Austin said were a range of weapons and capabilities to both defend and deter threats posed by China. 

The hypersonic missile test in July involved a unique capability called a “fractional orbital bombardment system,” or FOBS, first developed by the Soviet Union. Air Force Lt. Gen. Chance Saltzman, deputy of Space Force operations, confirmed in remarks Monday that the hypersonic glide vehicle involved a space-based orbiting strike test. 

“I think the words that we use are important, so that we understand exactly what we’re talking about here. I hear things like ‘hypersonic missile,’ and I hear ‘suborbital’ sometimes,” Gen. Saltzman told the Mitchell Institute, noting the July test involved neither. 

“This is a categorically different system, because a fractional orbit is different than suborbital. A fractional orbit means it can stay on orbit as long as the user determines and then it de-orbits it as a part of the flight path.” 

The FOBS test involved a missile launch of a glider payload in low-Earth orbit that then re-enters the atmosphere and maintains speed above Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound, en route to the target. China has developed the capability specifically as a way to defeat U.S. strategic missile defenses. 

Mr. Austin said the hypersonic missiles in China’s arsenal are not the only worry. “My job is to focus on the broader picture and to make sure that we can defend ourselves against any and all threats,” he said. 

The Chinese space strike capability was first disclosed by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall in a speech in September. 

China’s new DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile, which is being deployed in new missile fields in western China, is expected to include a variant capable of carrying nuclear-armed hypersonic vehicles. 

Air Force Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, commander of the Northern Command, told Congress in February 2020 that “China is testing a [nuclear-capable] intercontinental-range hypersonic glide vehicle … which is designed to fly at high speeds and low altitudes, complicating our ability to provide precise warning.” 

Analysts said China’s July hypersonic test may violate a 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which China signed in 1983. Signatories to the pact agree not to orbit any objects carrying nuclear weapons or install weapons in space. 

China also has deployed a hypersonic missile known as the DF-17 that carries the DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle. 

The Pentagon’s forthcoming national defense strategy blueprint due in the coming weeks is expected to place a high priority on developing both offensive and defensive hypersonic weapons. Other new high-technology capabilities being developed for the military include artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons and robotics and directed energy arms. 

The Pentagon requested $3.8 billion in fiscal 2022 for hypersonics weapons and $248 million for hypersonic defenses. 

The Navy is building hypersonic weapons for its conventional prompt global strike programs — missiles that can hit hardened or time-sensitive targets with conventional warheads. 

During talks in Seoul, Mr. Austin said the U.S. military commitment to its South Korean ally remains strong. 

North Korea continues to pose a threat to the region by advancing its missile and weapons programs, a push that is “increasingly  destabilizing for regional security,” he said. 

The United States and South Korea are enhancing combined deterrence postures and approved a new strategic planning guidance for the two militaries. 

“Nothing’s changed about our goal. We seek the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, and we believe the best way to achieve that goal is a calibrated and practical approach to explore diplomacy with the DPRK, and that’s obviously backed up by a credible deterrent and military readiness,” Mr. Austin said, using the acronym for North Korea. 

South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook sidestepped a reporters’ question when asked if Seoul would follow the recent announcement by Japan’s military and join the United States in a defense of Taiwan from a Chinese attack. 

“We’re always exploring different means for continued cooperation between our countries,” Mr. Suh said, noting he did not discuss threats from specific countries.