Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

CHINA

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its proxies aim to make Americans receptive to Beijing’s form of authoritarianism, according to Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. In a Thursday interview he said the CCP “is hard at work at the state level.” Pompeo pointed out that they have rated every government essentially a friend, foe or somewhere in between. They also are evaluating whether American governors are working in ways that benefit them, he said. In the United States the CCP works actively to develop relationships with state elected officials. When the Secretary was in Wisconsin on Wednesday, he talked about China’s using their “United Front development programs to undermine our democracy and to move the direction of opinion in the direction of their authoritarian regime.” Washington is working to actively push back on aggressive moves conducted by China inside the US.

IRAN

President Obama and Vice President Biden entered into a bad nuclear deal in Iran. Pompeo said it was “just crazy,” as it presented a clear pathway to a nuclear weapon, and that this was unacceptable for the security of the Middle East, Israel, and the United States.

The Trump Administration has “flipped the script,” according to Pompeo, and spent the last three years and few months working to “deny the regime the money, the resources, the wealth, the capacity to build that nuclear weapon.” Pompeo argued that it won’t happen while President Trump is in office. He said that America is safer now, and that the Administration has created the conditions for the good news out of the Middle East earlier in the month concerning the UAE-Israeli relations.

President Trump previously had said the US took out Qasem Soleimani, one of the premier architects of the terror campaign around the world, and “there is no reason to not continue the diplomatic, economic, and security efforts that this administration has undertaken over these years.” It has weakened the regime and made America safer, according to Pompeo. He added that the United States welcomes the return of virtually all previously terminated UN sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror and anti-Semitism.

ISRAEL/BAHRAIN/UAE

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For 40 years the West believed that pace and stability in the Middle East were not possible until the Israel-Palestinian problem was resolved. It served as an informal “precondition” for improved relationships among Israelis and Arabs. Pompeo said: “The Abraham Accords are the classic overnight success that took forever.”

President Trump, according to Pompeo, “knew that couldn’t be the case, and so for several years we’ve been working on a set of actions that would create conditions where great leaders like the crown prince and the United Arab Emirates and the senior leadership in Bahrain now have acknowledged that Israel has a right to exist, that it is the Jewish homeland, and they want to do business with them and they want to have diplomatic relationships with them and economic and security relationships.” With the Abraham Accords there now is a decreased risk in the Middle East and more opportunities for peace, according to the Secretary. He also pointed out how wrong critics were when they said that moving to the US Embassy to Jerusalem would cause more conflict.

CZECH REPUBLIC

On Friday Secretary Pompeo spoke at the Prague 5G Security Conference about the launch of the Clean Network Initiative. He said it is an effort to “safeguard our citizens’ privacy and our companies’ sensitive information from untrusted vendors.” The Clean Network’s comprehensive approach is rooted in the Prague Proposals, and other internationally accepted digital trust standards. More than 30 countries and their carriers have joined the Clean Network, and many of the world’s biggest telecommunications companies are becoming Clean Telcos. Pompeo also announced to the conference that the United States is expanding globally the Digital Connectivity and Cybersecurity Partnership launched in 2018. The program promotes increased connectivity and a competitive global marketplace for trusted 5G vendors. “The EU’s 5G Toolbox, which ensures the security of its 5G networks, is another initiative the US strongly supports.” said Pompeo. The US goal is to deny malign actors, such as China and its CCP leadership, access to foreign nations’ sensitive data.

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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