Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

ISIS and SYRIA

In a December 21 interview with NPR Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo said that the United States has made the caliphate in Syria “go away.” The remaining battle, he added, is to eliminate the threat of terrorism by groups such as ISIS, al-Qaida, HTS, and others. The US is supporting the UN peace process which seeks a political outcome. Washington had a very clear set of goals in Syria, which centered on the elimination of the ISIS caliphate in Syria. Pompeo said that the United States has achieved it goals, but that Washington would continue to support or allies in the region. With more than 90% of ISIS’ territory taken back, it no longer makes sense to keep 2,000 American troops in the area, he added.

IMMIGRATION and the SOUTHERN BORDER

The United States announced a fundamental shift in how the government handles immigrants coming to the US from south of the border. Secretary Pompeo said the policy shift is “consistent with U.S. law, and more importantly it is deeply consistent with the protection, the humanitarian protection, of these migrants as they transit their way through Mexico. We will no longer permit those who are seeking asylum to remain inside the United States during the pendency of their immigration process.

They’ll file a claim and then they will be returned to Mexico. This is both deeply lawful and deeply humanitarian.” The State Department believes that this new model will disincentivize immigrants and reduce the migrations flows across the southern US border. Earlier in December Washington had announced it was making a financial commitment in Central America to create good projects that will, hopefully, lead to conditions that will reduce the number of people attempting to illegally enter the United States.

CHINA

The Department of State issued a statement pointing out that since at least 2014, Chinese cyber actors associated with the Chinese Ministry of State Security have “hacked multiple U.S. and global managed service and cloud providers.” They then used this access to compromise the networks of the providers’ clients, including global companies located in at least 12 countries.

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The State Department pointed out that these actions by Chinese actors to target intellectual property and sensitive business information, present a very real threat to the economic competitiveness of companies in the United States and around the globe.

CHINA TRADE

In an interview with KMUW public radio of Wichita, Kansas, Secretary of State Pompeo said the Chinese trade relationship with the US is “fundamentally unfair.” He added that they steal US intellectual property and charge huge tariffs on American made products. The United States wants a fair and reciprocal trade relationship with China.

“It is fundamentally unfair to allow the United States to continue to have the Chinese have forced technology transfer, force American companies who want to operate in China to behave in ways that are inconsistent with their own workers’ best interest. And President Trump is the first president in an awfully long time to take this threat to American workers,” according to Pompeo.

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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