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

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.