Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

FOREIGN POLICY UPDATE

June 21, 2019

INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

The State Department released its 2018 Report on International Religious Freedom on June 21, 2019. According to Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, 80% of the world still lives in areas where religious freedom is under attack. He pointed out that: “Iran has one of the worst records on religious freedom in the world and continues to show a blatant disregard for protecting individuals’ religious freedom.”

“Countless members of Iranian religious minorities, including Baha’is, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Sunni and Sufi Muslims, face discrimination, harassment, and unjust imprisonment because of their beliefs. Their religious books are banned. They are denied access to education. Their cemeteries are desecrated. Blasphemy and proselytization of Muslims is punishable by death.”

Last year, he said, the Iranian regime violently cracked down on the peaceful protest of Gonabadi Sufi dervishes in what Human Rights Watch called “one of the largest crackdowns against a religious minority in Iran in a decade.” He reaffirmed the United States always will stand up for religious freedom.

INDIA

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo is traveling to India to meet with Prime Minister Modi and his new counterpart, Minister of External Affairs Jaishankar to accelerate the relationship and to set additional goals. A senior State Department official briefing the media noted that Jaishankar is “really one of the visionaries behind the expansion of the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership.”

According to the senior official, India has stopped its importation of Iranian oil, with an exception for humanitarian relief supplies to Afghanistan. The United States has worked to increase its crude oil production to ensure its partners have a staple supply in recent months.

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The Trump Administration views India as a critical component to its Indo-Pacific strategy. Washington is encouraging India, and other US allies, with respect to the S-400, to forego transactions with Russia, according to the senior official. He also pointed out that the “administration has taken great steps to enhance our military interoperability with India, to finalize groundbreaking enabling agreements that allow us to do more together militarily, and has also taken steps to enhance the quality and quantity of our defense technology relations.”

The Trump Administration also has taken the unprecedented step of offering the armed UAV Sea Guardian to India, the first non-treaty partner to be offered that high technology. The US eased the process and granted India Strategic Trade Authorization Tier-1 status that gives them the same license-free access to defense articles as Washington’s NATO allies, Japan, South Korea, and Australia.

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS

Secretary of State Pompeo released a new Trafficking in Persons Report this week commending those countries that have taken action to stop the abuse of human traffickers. He noted that nations like Senegal, as well as Mongolia, the Philippines, Tajikistan, and others have improved conditions but also called out those nations that aren’t doing enough.

Tier 3 designations – the lowest possible designation – were given once again to China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela, among others. The Secretary noted that a few countries, including Cuba, were added to the Tier 3 list. In some case, the governments allow human traffickers to run free or are human traffickers themselves. In North Korea, the government subjects its own citizens to forced labor both at home and abroad and then uses proceeds to fund nefarious activities. According to the report, in China, authorities have detained more than a million members of ethnically Muslim minority groups in internment camps. Many, it states, are forced to produce garments, carpets, cleaning supplies, and other goods for domestic sale.

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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