Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

CHINA

As tensions rise in the South China Sea, the Navy is facing with a little-known challenge. The Navy is deploying additional ships to the western Pacific that can pack a powerful offensive punch. The fluid environment requires it to be prepared for both an offensive and defensive role should hostilities break out between China and Taiwan. The US Navy is installing powerful laser weapons system on nine of its destroyers. Eight installations use the nonlethal Optical Dazzling Interdictor (ODIN) system and one employs the High Energy Laser and generated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system, which has the potential to become an anti-missile defense system. Ships have a limited capacity to carry weapons and payload decisions need to be made between offensive and defensive systems. As the potential for conflict grows in the region more American ships may need to reconfigure the missile payload to increase the percentage of offensive weapons. How Beijing interprets the change may have an impact on it calculates the risk of invading Taiwan.

TAIWAN

As Beijing calculates the risk of a military move against Taiwan, the Biden Administration is faced with the task of determining how best to respond to aggressive Chinese moves toward the island. A bad decision could result in either abandoning democratic Taiwan and the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), or the US could risk involvement in an all-out war. Under the TRA Washington has pledged to help defend Taiwan. Referring to Beijing’s pattern of steadily increasing harassment of Taiwan, State Department spokesman Ned Price on Wednesday expressed “great concern” at Chinese efforts of intimidation. Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told reporters they are willing to defend themselves in a fight with China.

US-TAIWAN RELATIONS

The State Department this week issued new guidelines for government interaction with Taiwan counterparts to encourage American engagement with Taiwan that reflects the deepening unofficial relationship. The guidance, according to the Department “underscores Taiwan is a vibrant democracy and an important security and economic partner that is also a force for good in the international community.” These new guidelines liberalize guidance on contacts with Taiwan in a way that is consistent with US unofficial relations. It provides clarity throughout the Executive Branch on effective implementation of America’s “one China” policy.

IRAN

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Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator in Vienna said Tehran’s view on removal of the JCPOA sanctions, is that it would not be step-by-step but would Iran would require the US to “take its actions in one step, then we’ll verify, and then Iran will follow with its own actions.” Price said that is that “the primary issues to be discussed in Vienna are twofold: on the one hand, the nuclear steps that Iran would need to take in order to effect its return to compliance with the JCPOA; and on the other hand, the sanctions relief steps that we would need to take in order to return to compliance as well.”

IRELAND

Washington is deeply concerned by the violence in Northern Ireland in recent days and has joined the British, Irish, and Northern Irish leaders in a call for calm. State Spokesman Price said: “We welcome the provisions in both the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement and the Northern Ireland Protocol, which help to protect the gains of the Belfast and the Good Friday agreements.” He said that as the United Kingdom and the EU implement Brexit-related provisions, the Biden Administration is encouraging Northern Ireland to prioritize political and economic stability in the area.

ETHIOPIA

Asked if the Biden administration growing frustrated with Ethiopia’s treatment of people in the Tigray region, State Department Spokesman Price said the US has had an occasion to “engage directly with the Ethiopian government.” He added that the messaging across all of those engagements has been consistent as the US is deeply concerned reports emanating from Tigray about the humanitarian plight of the Tigrayan people. Washington is monitoring the implementation humanitarian aid. Price added that “We have left no doubt with…the Ethiopian leadership that there needs to be follow through given the humanitarian crisis that has unfolded in Tigray.”

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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