White House Foreign Policy Reversal Unlikely

The White House is making much of its decision to return one hundred tanks to Eastern Europe in response to Russian aggressiveness on land, sea and in the air on that continent. It is an emphatic statement on its extraordinarily foolish decision, earlier in 2014, to withdraw all U.S. tanks from Europe. It also glosses over the Administration’s failure to take the nonlethal step that could have truly halted Putin’s return to the Cold War: opening up American federal lands to energy exploitation, and ending the EPA’s war on coal. These acts, which would have also helped western consumers, would have essentially stopped the flow of funds Putin needs to continue expanding his massive armed forces.

This timid and minor reversal is deeply similar to the return of at least some American forces, mostly trainers, special forces, and Air Force missions, to Iraq to combat ISIS. Just as the withdrawal of American tanks was a factor in Moscow’s decision that it could safely conquer Crimea without fear of a western response, so too the premature withdrawal of American forces from Iraq directly precipitated the rise of ISIS.

Will the President, chastened by his complete and overwhelming foreign policy and military strategy failures across the globe, finally begin to reverse course? Currently, it appears that while some minor adjustments may be made, the likelihood of a thorough White House rethinking of its international and military strategies appears unlikely.

American forces are still scheduled to depart from Afghanistan, although more will be left behind than previously planned. Nevertheless, expect the Taliban, the architects of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, to make a significant comeback there as a result.

There is little that can be done to undo the absurd decision to depose Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator who had genuinely renounced both terrorism and his own nuclear program. His nonthreatening rule has been replaced by a state in danger of becoming an al Qaeda subsidiary.

The rapidly growing military influence of Russia in Europe, China in Asia, and Iran in the Middle East has been greatly facilitated by the White House’s reduction of funds for U.S. defense, its increasing estrangement from allies, and its reluctance to employ substantive diplomatic responses to threats.

Consider these examples:

Come January, as a result of the shrinking Navy, there will be no U.S. aircraft carrier on patrol in East Asia for the first time since World War 2 ended.
There has been no U.S. response to the growing influence of Russia, China, and Iran in Latin America.
The U.S. defense budget is still strained. A key result of that is the loss of key personnel.
The President still opposes implantation of an adequate anti-missile system.
The Administration has given Iran yet another extension in the nuclear arms talks, allowing that nation time to develop its atomic arsenal.
No firm response has yet been made to Russian and Chinese cyber-attacks on U.S. computer systems.
No significant protective measures of American electrical and computer infrastructure have been taken.

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The White continues to take positions which harm our allies, as it did to the United Kingdom in the New START talks, Poland in the ABM decision, and Israel in issues related to Palestinian negotiations.

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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