Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

IRAN

The US is continuing to prevent the Iranian regime from using the country’s natural resources to fund terror and support oppression. The Departments of State, Treasury, and Justice have taken actions to constrain the regime’s oil and petrochemical sales. The US is filing of a complaint to seek the forfeiture of two shipments of Iranian missiles the U.S. Navy seized in transit from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to militant groups in Yemen, as well as the sale of approximately 1.1 million barrels of Iranian petroleum the US previously took custody of from four foreign-flagged oil tankers bound for Venezuela. These actions represent the government’s largest-ever forfeiture actions for fuel and weapons shipments from Iran.

CHINA

On Thursday, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo strongly condemned the arrest and detention of three student democracy activists and calls on Hong Kong authorities to release those that remain detained immediately. The Beijing-controlled Hong Kong government continues to stifle dissent, repress public opinion, and use law enforcement for political purposes, according the US Government.

In a written statement Pompeo said: “The People’s Republic of China has violated its international obligations under the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, while the Chinese Communist Party and its Hong Kong proxies crush the promised autonomy of Hong Kong, and eviscerate Hong Kong’s respect for human rights, including the rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. The United States stands with the people of Hong Kong.”

INDIA

Secretary Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper were in India for the third annual US-India 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue this week. The two nations welcomed the elevation of the U.S.-India Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership, which is vital to security and stability in the region and the world.

Pompeo reaffirmed the increasingly close U.S.-India relationship and the shared goals among like-minded Indo-Pacific countries for regional security and prosperity and welcomed the elevation of the US-India Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership. Talks also included ways to advance the 21^st century defense partnership and expand information-sharing, defense trade, joint service coordination, and interoperability between the two.

ESTONIA

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Pompeo said, in a written statement issued by the Statement that “Estonia is sending a strong message in Europe, and within the European Union, by prohibiting Hizballah affiliates from entering its territory, mitigating the threat Hizballah poses to the security of Estonia and international partners. Like the actions taken by Germany, Lithuania, and Kosovo, and the commitment by Serbia earlier this year, Estonia’s decisive action recognizes that Hizballah is a terrorist organization in its entirety and poses a significant threat in Europe and elsewhere.”

CUBA

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action to remove Cuba’s military from the process of sending remittances to Cuba. Once these changes to the Cuban Assets Control Regulations (CACR) are effective, persons subject to US jurisdiction will no longer be authorized to process remittances to or from Cuba involving any entity or sub-entity on the State Department’s Cuba Restricted List. These changes provide for a 30-day period before they are effective in order to allow for technical implementation.

According to the State Department, remittances to Cuba can still flow, but they will not flow through the hands of the Cuban military, which uses those funds to oppress the Cuban people and to fund Cuba’s interference in Venezuela. “The United States supports the principle that Cubans should be able to prosper and support their families without the Cuban military utilizing their hard currency earnings as it wishes. The Cuban government and military have created a system that seizes hard currency through military-operated financial mechanisms, such as FINCIMEX and AIS, and takes a cut from the remittances ordinary Cubans receive from abroad, including from the United States,” according to the State Department. It is the only country in the hemisphere where the military takes a cut of remittances. The Cuban regime forces ordinary Cubans to use the remittances they have remaining to buy goods at marked-up prices from government-controlled stores.

SUDAN

The US is sending $81 million in humanitarian assistance to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Sudan. It includes more than $64 million from the Agency for International Development and $17 million from the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. The Statement says its total humanitarian response for vulnerable people, including those affected by recent flooding as well as refugees and those displaced by conflict in Darfur, South Sudan, and elsewhere in the region to more than $436 million in Fiscal Year 2020, including for the COVID-19 humanitarian response.

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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