Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

SUDAN

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, in a written statement, said that with the enactment of the Consolidated Appropriations Act on December 28, the way is clear for victims of the 1998 East African Embassy bombings, the 2000 attack on USS Cole, and the 2008 murder of USAID employee John Granville, to receive long-awaited compensation for their immeasurable losses. According to the State Department, achieving compensation for these victims of terrorism has been a top priority.

Pompeo said that the enactment of this legislation “represents a fundamental change in Sudan’s relationship with not only the United States but also the entire international community. It removes a major impediment to Sudan’s full reintegration into the global economy by reducing the risk of attachment of Sudan’s assets, opening the possibility for substantially increased trade and investment.”

BAHRAIN

Developments in the Middle East are continuing at a fast pace after the November presidential election. In December, the US launched the Bahrain Strategic Dialogue to broaden and elevate the US-Bahrain bilateral partnership. Its focus is on cross-cutting priority areas of cooperation to enhance prosperity through trade and investment, strengthen mutual security, and build understanding through people-to-people exchanges in education, culture, science, and environment. The two countries are working closely together to maximize opportunities to accelerate their mutual peace and security objectives, including combatting human trafficking, labor and human rights standards, and advancing women’s rights.

CHINA

The United States strongly condemned China’s “sham prosecution and conviction of citizen journalist Zhang Zhan” on December 28. Pompeo called on the PRC government to release her “immediately and unconditionally.” He said: “The Chinese Communist Party has shown once again it will do whatever it takes to silence those who question the Party’s official line, even regarding crucial public health information.” Pompeo said that “Her hasty trial, to which foreign observers were denied access, shows how fearful the CCP is of Chinese citizens who speak the truth.”

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Referring to the Wuhan virus, Pompeo added that “lying is a feature,” not a bug of authoritarian regimes. The CCP restricted and manipulated information about the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan from the start and brutally silenced other brave truth-tellers, such as Dr. Li Wenliang, Chen Qiushi, and Fang Bin. In a written Statement this week Pompeo said that due to the “CCP’s gross malfeasance, the rest of the world relied heavily on uncensored reports from citizen journalists like Zhang to understand the true situation in Wuhan after the CCP-imposed strict media controls were enforced and a controllable outbreak turned into a deadly global pandemic.” China’s fear of transparency and its ongoing repression of fundamental freedoms. Pompeo pointed out, are a “sign of weakness, not strength, and a threat to all of us.”

RUSSIA-LIBYA

In December, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the United States of playing political games in the Mediterranean and stalling the appointment of a new UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Libya.  Pompeo said that it’s “unfortunate and unhelpful that Mr. Lavrov again gets the facts wrong and attempts to rewrite history.”

The United States is working actively with allies and partners in the Eastern Mediterranean to promote greater stability, security, and prosperity, according to the State Department. In Libya, Pompeo added, the United States “supports the formation of an inclusive government that can secure the country and meet the economic and humanitarian needs of the Libyan people.”

The overarching US goal remains to bring Libyan parties to a negotiated, inclusive UN-facilitated political solution through the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum.  The United States is urging the United Nations to help accomplish this goal. Pompeo said: “To this end, the United States worked with our partners on the UN Security Council to strengthen the UN system and create a UN Special Envoy position and a complementary UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Coordinator in UNSMIL’s 2020 mandate renewal.” Russia and China were the only UNSC members to abstain on the Security Council resolution renewing UNSMIL’s mandate.

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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