Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

IRAQ

The State Department is intent on assuring the Iraqi people that the United States is a long-term, steady partner. It announced this week that Washington is pursuing a new US-Iraqi strategic dialogue to discuss the two countries’ financial, economic, security, and diplomatic partnership. The incentive behind restarting the framework now is that Iraq currently faces a number of challenges, including that of quickly forming a new, strong and independent government. As Secretary of State Michael Pompeo stated recently, “…the Iraqi people are urging their government for change and reforms.” Before the pandemic, Iraqis were gathering by the thousands on a daily basis to demand an end to Iran’s influence in the country.

Currently, the US is aiding Iraq’s response to COVID-19 with funds to prepare laboratories, implement public health emergency plans for points of entry, and activate case finding and event-based surveillance for influenza-like illnesses. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Dave Schenker, said Friday that the US remains the “largest donor to demining, clearing over 86 million square meters of [Iraqi] land since 2015.” Since 2014 the United States has provided more than $2.6 billion in assistance, including food, water, medicine, and shelters and is Iraq’s largest humanitarian donor.

YEMEN

The State Department says it wants to do more in Yemen to assist with its COVID-19 response and other humanitarian assistance. The issue facing the US is that the “Houthis are obstructing the delivery of humanitarian assistance, interfering, preventing the monitoring and evaluation, and of course skimming to fund their war effort,” according to Assistant Secretary of State Schenker. He called for a ceasefire as well as a Houthi commitment to start following standard best international practices on the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

CONGO

Secretary Pompeo on Tuesday announced that the Democratic Republic of Congo will declare the Ebola outbreak over. “For almost two years now, the United States has led the global response to the latest outbreak of that horrible disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Within one month from the outbreak,” he said, “America deployed a Disaster Assistance Response Team and other experts who supported vaccination campaigns, diagnostic processes, testing and tracing, and more. We’ve provided more than $569 million since the outbreak began to fight Ebola in the DRC and the neighboring countries.”

AFGHANISTAN

Progress has been made in recent weeks in Afghanistan, according to Secretary Pompeo. He said that while there still is back-and-forth movement, and the Taliban are posturing in the media, it does understand the US commitment to intra-Afghan negotiations. He pointed out that America will deliver on its commitment to reduce its forces in accordance with the agreement on the conditions that are set out in those agreements.

Pompeo pointed out that he doesn’t think there’s any “ambiguity with respect to how all of the parties understand what America’s continued role will be if they execute this peace and reconciliation process properly, appropriately, efficiently… It’s time for these folks to get on with building out a peaceful, reconciled Afghanistan with a real political leadership that can lead the country forward and take down the levels of violence. We’re monitoring that, we are still providing support for the Afghan National Security Forces, and we continue to work to get this process moving forward.”

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RUSSIA

Since 2015 the world has seen a surge in white supremacist terrorism around the globe. Countering this threat is a top priority for the Trump administration. The State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Ambassador Nathan Sales, briefed the media on recent developments related to the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM). He said “the State Department is designating the Russian Imperial Movement – also known as RIM – as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, or SDGT” along with several of its top leaders.

Last month was the first anniversary of the horrific terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. He said the US is not immune to this threat. This administration, according to Sales, “isn’t just talking the talk. We’re also walking the walk. We’re taking decisive actions to counter this threat.”

These designations are unprecedented. This is the first time the United States has ever designated foreign white supremacist terrorists. The Trump Administration is taking actions that no previous administration has taken to counter this threat.

RIM is a terrorist group that provides paramilitary-style training to neo-Nazis and white supremacists, according to the State Department. Ambassador Sales noted that these historic designations are just one part of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to counter white supremacist terrorism abroad. “We’re bringing all of our counterterrorism tools to this fight – information sharing, counter messaging, combatting terrorist travel, engaging with tech companies, and building partner capacity to protect soft targets like synagogues and mosques.”

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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