Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

AFGHANISTAN

Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Kazakhstan Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mukhtar Tileuberdi on August 13 to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. Secretary Blinken updated the Foreign Minister on plans to reduce our civilian footprint in Kabul in light of the evolving security situation. Analysts in Washington are discussing the fast pace at which the Taliban captured six of the seven major cities in the country. The US is sending back American 3,000 troops to secure the evacuation of American diplomatic personnel and as many Afghan citizens who worked previously with the US Government and whose lives are in danger due to the situation. It appears that the US is not capable of evacuating all given the advances made by the Taliban in recent days. Many are calling this Biden’s Vietnam moment in reference to the end days of the Vietnam war when many American diplomats were literally picked up off the roof of the American Embassy and flown to safety. The Taliban are capturing US equipment and weapons during the US exodus making extraction of personnel more dangerous. According to the State Department Spokesperson, Ned Price, a core staff will remain at the US Embassy in Kabul. Price refused to answer reporters’ question as to the future location of the Embassy.

VENEZUELA

Nicolas Maduro, who currently is holding the position of President of Venezuela, has said that the first point in this agenda is a total withdrawal of the US sanctions to Venezuela. Price said that the US has been “committed to promoting accountability for the Maduro regime and its enablers for the actions that undermine democracy or fail to respect human rights.” He added that this “requires the Maduro regime to engage in sincere discussions with the opposition, led, of course, by Interim President Juan Guaido, that result in a comprehensive negotiated solution to the Venezuelan crisis.”

POLAND

The US is deeply disappointed in two pieces of Polish media legislation. One is limiting press freedom in the country and the other concerns Holocaust restitution. Price said that the US is “concerned by any steps that would impede the ability of Holocaust survivors and their families, as well as other Jewish and non-Jewish property owners, to attain restitution or compensation for property wrongfully confiscated during Poland’s communist era.” When asked by a reporter what steps the US is taking, Price suggested that, given Washington’s level of concern, it will “continue to urge” the Polish government to demonstrate its commitment to “shared democratic values.”

CARICOM

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The United States is donating $5.5 million Pfizer vaccine doses along with ancillary kits to the 15 member countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), according to the State Department Spokesperson. As part of this donation, a shipment consisting of nearly 569,000 doses will be delivered to Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago today, and to Barbados.

QUAD SENIOR OFFICIALS MEETING

Senior officials from the US, Australia, India, and Japan met virtually as part of regular Quad consultations to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific region, according to the State Department. They discussed the importance of ongoing international cooperation to end the COVID-19 pandemic in the Indo-Pacific and to promote economic recovery and strategic challenges confronting the region, countering disinformation, promoting democracy and human rights, strengthening international institutions including the United Nations and related organizations, and supporting countries vulnerable to coercive actions in the Indo-Pacific region. The senior officials involved, according to State Department Press Office, also discussed the importance of peace and security in the Taiwan Strait, the ongoing crisis in Burma, and reaffirmed the Quad’s strong support for ASEAN centrality and the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific.

BELARUS

The Lukashenka regime in Belarus is ordering the United States to reduce its diplomatic presence in country. Price said “The regime has also recalled its agreement to receive Julie Fisher as US ambassador to Belarus. It is important to remember in all of this and to acknowledge that Belarusian authorities are responsible for the deterioration in U.S.-Belarus relations through relentless repression against their citizens. And that includes through the intensifying crackdowns that we have seen targeting members of civil society, targeting media, targeting athletes, students, legal professionals, and other citizens.”

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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