Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

IRAN

US Special Envoy Malley is currently leading an interagency delegation to the eighth round of talks in Vienna. According to Ned Price, US State Department spokesman, it is too early “to say how substantive that progress may have been. At a minimum, any progress, we believe, is falling short of Iran’s accelerating nuclear steps and is far too slow.” In contrast to Washington’s appraisal, both Iran and Russia have stated in positive terms that the talks are going at the right speed. Iran has yet to return to talks with a more constructive approach for this week’s talks although Tehran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian claimed Iran showed “good faith” in renegotiating the 2015 nuclear agreement. In response to a reporter’s question about why the Biden Administration continues to state it is “too soon” to expect progress, Price said that President Biden “will not allow Iran to possess a nuclear weapon.” He did not provide any details about how the Administration planned to accomplish the goal other than for Iran to comply before lifting sanctions.

RUSSIA-UKRAINE

The Biden administration says its diplomatic approach on Ukraine has been “clear and consistent” between two tracks: deterrence and diplomacy. “We are unified as a NATO Alliance on the consequences Russia would face if it moves on Ukraine, but we’re also unified in our willingness to engage in principled diplomacy with Russia,” according to a State Department official. The US will begin talk with Russia in the Strategic Stability Dialogue on January 10^th followed by Russia and NATO discussions under a Russia-NATO – NATO-Russia Council meeting on the 12th and an OSCE meeting a day later.

SAUDI ARABIA

There have been more than 375 cross-border attacks 2021 by the Houthi that have endangered Saudi Arabians and the 70,000 U.S. citizens residing there. The Secretary of Defense said in December that with American support Saudi Arabia has been able to knock down 90 percent of those attacks. The US goal, according to Price, “is to see to it that that number rises to 100 percent.” He added that “… we will continue to hold the Houthis accountable for their reprehensible actions… [and] have taken an approach that is targeting those Houthi leaders who are responsible not only for these attacks but also the other malign activities for which the Houthis are responsible.” The Biden Administration condemned the recent escalation of Houthi attacks along the Saudi border. On Christmas Day an official from the Saudi-led coalition said the border town of Jizan was attacked, resulting in the death of two and injury to seven residents.

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NORTH KOREA

The Biden Administration has been accused of “strategic patience” when it comes to dealing with North Korea. In response a State Department official said the Administration “undertook a policy review of our approach to the DPRK.” According to the official, “We’ve made clear in recent months that we harbor no hostile intent toward the DPRK.” The current Administration has reached out to South Korean officials, Japan, and others to ask how to engage North Korea in what an official called a “calibrated, practical approach.”

AFGHANISTAN

Secretary of State Tony Blinken in a press conference last week said: “The last time I was in this briefing room, I faced some appropriate questions about our ability to continue to facilitate the departure of American citizens and others [in Afghanistan] to whom we have a special commitment.” He suggested that since he last spoke to reporters the US has “made good” on its pledge to help any US citizens leave Afghanistan. He put the number receiving assistance since September 1 at close to 500 people. The State Department reports that US taxpayers will be paying to resettle 95,00 people in the US through at least September 2022. Since the end of August, the US has processed over 77,000 Afghans in various locations. Unlike those crossing the border illegally and being dispersed throughout the US, Afghan refugees must be vaccinated before leaving the port of entry.

Photo: Pixabay

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.

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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