Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

AFGHANISTAN

Chaos rules despite what President Biden said in his Friday speech. In it he made promises to try to rescue Americans still in Afghanistan, but also said “I cannot promise what the outcome will be.” Biden said not that he has, but that he “will” authorize every resource to help where needed to evacuate Americans. The story on the ground in country is very different from what the Administration in Washington is reporting to the American people. A Washington Post reporter in Afghanistan, Susannah George, confirmed that Taliban fighters were beating men, women, and children attempting to flee the country. Some, according to George, were struck with rifle butts. Others were called traitors and harassed physically. Some were killed. She wrote in a Washington Post article Friday that “…there was no system to get people safely inside the airport.” There also are reports of Afghan children being crushed by the rush of people at the airport. According to The Hill, “Adding to the mayhem is mixed messaging from the State Department, which is urging Americans and those with travel documents to head to the Hamid Karzai International Airport ‘as soon as possible’ even though the U.S. Embassy alerted people that it could not guarantee safe passage.” On Friday the US military had to temporarily stop evacuations after the overflow of evacuees passed the capacity of the air base in Qatar to accept them. Apparently, the Biden Administration did not plan this well.

The situation on the ground is extremely dangerous in Afghanistan. According to Reuters and other news organizations this week, the Taliban have seized dozens of aircraft and thousands of weapons, as well as pieces of US provided high-tech equipment including night -vision goggles, unmanned aerial vehicles, M-16 rifles, US Humvees, Super Tucano attack aircraft, and Black Hawk combat helicopters. One report out of Washington stated that the Taliban was now better equipped than Great Britain’s military.

RUSSIA

The State Department announced this week it is imposing new sanctions on the Russia Federation as punishment for its role in the poisoning of Aleksey Navalny, the opposition leader who was sickened by a “Novichok” nerve agent in the August 2020. New sanctions imposed today under the CBW Act include restrictions on the permanent imports of certain Russian firearms and new and pending permit applications for the permanent importation of firearms and ammunition manufactured or located in Russia will be subject to a policy of denial. The Department also said there will be additional Department of Commerce export restrictions on nuclear and missile-related goods and technology pursuant to the Export Control Reform Act of 2018.

NATO

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In a joint statement by the NATO foreign ministers on Afghanistan, they expressed deep concerns about reports of serious human rights violations and abuses across Afghanistan. “Our immediate task,” it stated, “is now to meet our commitments to continue the safe evacuation of our citizens, partner country nationals, and at-risk Afghans, in particular those who have assisted our efforts… As long as evacuation operations continue, we will maintain our close operational coordination through Allied military means at Hamid Karzai International Airport.”

TAIWAN

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is refuting Chinese government claims this week that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan indicates the United States is an unreliable partner and that it marks weakened support for Taiwan. “When it comes to Taiwan, it is a fundamentally different question, in a different context,” noted Sullivan on Tuesday.

CUBAThe United States has imposed additional sanctions on Cuban military and security leaders in response to the Cuban regime’s continued violent suppression of freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly in the days and weeks following the protests on and after July 11, according to a State Department announcement issued August 19.

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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