A World in Turmoil – USA Gov Policy

What is the State Department highlighting this week in its media releases? The headlines coming out of Washington include: “China Could Overtake US in Space,” “Terrorism Rising in African Sahel,” “US is Participating in UN Chiefs of Police Summit,” and “The Kremlin’s Illegitimate Tribunals in Mariupol,” among others. On Saturday, the Department released a joint statement with other nations saying it met to talk about the problems in Syria. A day earlier the Department noted that it met for the ninth in a series of talks labeled the” US-Vietnam Asia-Pacific Dialogue.” One day earlier on Thursday the Department released a statement saying the “G7 Non-Proliferation Directors Group remains profoundly concerned by the serious threat over the continued control of Ukrainian nuclear facilities by Russian armed forces pose to the safety and security of these facilities.” The list goes on week after week, meeting after meeting, during a period of severe instability across the world. Diplomacy is a war of words, but it requires strong, unambiguous action backing up those statements. What is the leader of the free world doing? Why all talk and so little action out of Washington?

China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, among other states hostile to the west, are joined together in an unholy alliance that is historic in size. The population of these four states alone surpasses 1,658,478,000. They supply each other with weapons of war and buy each other’s goods that are sanctioned by the rest of the world to help keep their economies afloat. Iran builds and sells drones to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine. China buys Russian wheat and energy. They take action.

The State Department’s response to a ship getting past the Russian Navy this week said that it was “grateful” a Ukrainian wheat shipment got through the Black Sea to its African destination. “The United States welcomes the arrival in Djibouti of 23,300 metric tons of Ukrainian grain aboard the ship Brave Commander. This grain will be distributed within Ethiopia and Somalia, countries that are dangerously food insecure after four years of drought. The United States is grateful for the important role Djibouti has played facilitating the flow of humanitarian goods to the region.”

In the past it was said that other nation-states knew US foreign policy by the actions Washington took, or the ones it deliberately did not take. The message was made clear to those who violated the rules-based international order. What is left of US foreign policy today appears muddled in broad announcements reacting to what other states are doing. Again, where is the leadership? What is our foreign policy?

The United States in 1954 signed a Mutual Defense Treaty with Taiwan. Since that time the US derecognized the country, formalized relations with China, and continues to attempt to placate both sides of the Strait. This week it came down to a retired Taiwanese tech mogul, who was weary of US inaction, pledging his millions to fund training for civilian troops to protect Taiwan. Robert Tsao says he is willing to spend $33 million to fund the training of 3 million civilians for three years. That is action. At the same time this week the Biden Administration announced the “United States will continue to advocate for a fair, practical criminal justice instrument that respects human rights and provides a modern electronic evidence framework built on consensus and informed by experts” to handle cybercrime. The US media are culpable, too. ABC News spent more time this week reporting on the “emotional support alligator” seen in Love Park in Philadelphia than on the genocide of over a million Muslim Uyghurs in western China. A year ago, the Biden Administration failed in its withdrawal from Afghanistan. Americans lost their lives. No one in the Biden Administration is taking responsibility or talking about it. This Thursday at a State Department briefing for the media, the Spokesperson responded to a reporter’s question about the impact of potential leak of radioactive material from the Russian-bombed ZNPP power plant in southern Ukraine. Vedant Patel, Principal Deputy Spokesperson in the Bureau of Global Public Affairs said: “We strongly condemn any action at ZNPP or elsewhere that impacts the health and welfare of civilians throughout the region.”

Now that the US has offered its statement of concern our European allies downwind can rest easy.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Image: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

NATO’s Growing Challenges

Gen. Christopher Cavoli, supreme allied commander Europe and the head of U.S. European Command has warned of growing threats facing NATO. “There is a lot of work to be done, and there are big challenges looming — some of them are right in our face, right now,” he warned at the Aspen Security Forum. He is not alone in his concern. the Germany-based Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom notes that “The beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine … marked a deep break … Questions concerning Europe‘s self-image as a voluntary alliance of nation states, its ability to defend itself and the protection though NATO as well as the values for which it stands are further tested by refugees coming to Europe from Ukraine. The democracies of the European Union are vulnerable and their reaction to Putin’s war are carefully watched. Authoritarian states, such as China, predict Europe’s decline and emphasize their own superiority over the ‘Western systems.’” The most interesting fact General Cavoli emphasized was that, in addition to the renewed danger from expansionist Russia, is the growing threat from China. The German Marshall Fund describes the problem.. “Russia and China continue to deepen their partnership, mounting a common challenge to the West. They can advance their strategic objectives better together, undermining perceived Western domination of the global order and impacting Europe’s future security. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has de facto upended the post-Cold War security architecture in Europe and is a direct, existential threat to European security. Beijing plays an important role for Russia’s war efforts, regardless of China’s status as Europe’s largest trading partner or its desire to hedge on Europe to win its geostrategic competition with the United States. “ NATO has continued to concentrate on the potential threat from Beijing. . It developed its concern against the backdrop of China’s designation as a “long-term strategic competitor.” Both the Trump and Biden administrations have sought to expand transatlantic cooperation on China, motivated by the belief that greater European support to US policies is key to effectively addressing the economic, political and strategic challenges associated with China’s growth. While Washington has put much emphasis on discussing with the EU and individual European countries how best to tackle the geo-economic, technological and diplomatic challenges associated with China’s rise and behaviour, NATO has also become an increasingly important partof transatlantic cooperation on China. Some Chinese military threats to Europe are conventional. China and Russia have engaged in joint maneuvers in the Mediterranean, and the Chinese naval presence in the Middle East has grown. Others are of a different variety. The Atlantic Council says that some Chinese threats to European security are merely insidious. For example, China undermines Europe’s military capabilities by stealing defense-related intellectual property and sharing it with its own military and defense industry as China develops new weapons and capabilities. Similarly, Chinese investment in European infrastructure—especially shipping terminals, utilities, and telecommunications networks—provides an excellent platform for intelligence-gathering on NATO military operations. In a worst-case scenario, China could weaponize its ownership or operation of infrastructure in Europe to frustrate, limit, or prevent US or allied use. In other cases, the Chinese threat to Europe manifests in the form of outright attacks. Chinese cyberattacks on European government, industry, military, academic, and civil institutions—including, reportedly, on hospitals during the pandemic—are relentless and massive. In 2014, NATO declared that cyberattacks could trigger the invocation of Article 5, the Alliance’s mutual-defense clause. Increasingly, the links between Russia, China, and now Iran as well, are a source of deep concern to Europe, the United States, and other nations.