Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

SUDAN

The United States on Wednesday condemned the recent attacks on protesters in Sudan. The State Department Spokesperson said the US calls on “Sudan’s Transitional Military Council and the Rapid Support Forces to desist from violence and we call for resumed contact with the Forces for Freedom and Change with the aim of a civilian-led transition that leads to timely elections and free expression of the will of the Sudanese people. We support the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council’s April 30 communique.”

Senior Department officials currently are engaging with officials in the region in an attempt to encourage restraint and find a peaceful solution to the challenges in Sudan. Washington also welcomed the recent statements from the AU, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia calling for restraint from violence and resumption of dialogue.

GERMANY

Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel last week to discuss key shared priorities, including supporting Ukraine and countering Russian aggression. The two discussed the Iranian regime’s escalating threats in the region against American interests and the need to counter Iran’s missile activities and regional aggression, according to the State Department Spokesperson. The leaders also discussed the countries’ shared interests around efforts to forge a political settlement that ends the conflict in Afghanistan, while preserving the gains of the last 18 years.

CHINA

The Internet of the future, according to the Secretary of State, must have western values within it. While in Europe Secretary of State Pompeo spoke with the press. When asked about the threat from China’s Huawei he responded: “Western countries, liberal democracies share a common value set. The Chinese don’t share that value set, and so their infrastructure, their IT systems, and in a particular case a company called Huawei, are fundamentally different.”

Pompeo pointed out that the incentive, if you’re Huawei, is to work with the Chinese Government. He said they have “three members of the Communist Party sitting on their board of directors. This is deeply inconsistent with how we protect security of the people of Netherlands and the people of Europe and the people of the United States. And we have made very clear that there’s real risk.”

IRAN

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When asked if there was any divergence between Europe’s and the United States’ position on Iran, Secretary Pompeo last week responded: “I saw foreign minister – Foreign Secretary Hunt, right? He said… we share a common view on the threat from Iran. We’ve departed ways on the JCPOA. We had a different analytical analysis of the best way to prevent Iran from having a pathway to a nuclear weapon system. Yeah, that technical piece we disagree on. But the thrust, the goal, the risk, the threat, I think Europeans and Americans share a very common understanding about.”

While in Europe this past week Pompeo said that those items that are subject to sanctions, “we will do our best to enforce the American sanctions regime that is put in – has been put in place.” But for those that aren’t, he added, for “humanitarian goods, things that are permitted to move, whether they move through INSTEX or through another mechanism – those are lawful and appropriate and are permitted to continue under the sanctions laws that we’ve put in place.”

SYRIA

Responding to questions about Syria from reporters in Europe, Pompeo pointed out that US efforts in Syria are “aimed at a political resolution of the conflict in Syria” with UN Security Resolution 2254 as the guidepost. He added that the “effort to get the constitutional assembly put together is something that we collectively have been working on for some time, and we hope to make progress. There is another element to our effort, which is to reduce risk of violence. You’ve seen the work that we’ve done with the Turks in Manbij, west of the Euphrates River, and we are attempting to set up a system – something akin to that, call it a buffer zone, call it what you will – that will reduce risk of terrorists attacking from Syria into Turkey and reduce risks that Turkey will come south and disrupt Kurdish activity inside of Syria.”

Pompeo noted that the United States is committed forces there to work towards that political resolution and has asked its European partners to assist as Washington develops plans and sees what the force requirements will actually look like.

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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