Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

UKRAINE

At a press conference in Germany, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo was questioned about the validity of a setback in US relations with the Ukraine. The United States has provided $390 million in security assistance and defense assistance to the country. The Secretary said the United States will continue to fight corruption there. He added that Europe understands deeply “the challenges of corruption in Ukraine.” Pompeo pointed out that this issue has been at the “center of the State Department’s mission set,” and is something the Department worked on last year and will work on again in 2020 by helping to ensure President Zelensky has the “opportunity to root out corruption inside of his own country.”

IRAN

Iran remains the bad boy on the block when it comes to nuclear issues. Its latest nuclear escalations reflect the regime’s intentions all along: to extort the international community into accepting its violence and terror while it undermines the sovereignty of its neighbors, according to the State Department. In a statement by Secretary Pompeo released this week, he said that members of the international community who are rightly concerned with Iran’s latest attacks and provocations should “imagine how Iran would behave with a nuclear weapon. The United States will never allow this to happen.”

Iran’s expansion of proliferation-sensitive activities raises concerns that Iran is positioning itself to have the option of a rapid nuclear breakout. Pompeo charged that Iran’s leaders are using nuclear extortion and that the world must serious steps to increase pressure.

SYRIA

A senior State Department official claimed Russia’s involvement in the Middle East, and Syria and Turkey in particular, was a desperate act. He added that while the Russians don’t think President of Syria won, they are “comfortable” he will survive. The Russians are trying to determine now to move forward in the region, according to the official. He pointed out that Moscow has “played a fairly large role in ensuring that this constitutional committee [in Geneva] would be set up indicates that they know that they cannot simply embrace Assad’s never say yes, never budge, simply they shall not pass policies. It’s not going to get half the population that’s fled their homes back; it’s not going to get the international community to open up its coffers; it’s not going to get the fighting in the end to stop. So therefore – and not going to get all of the armies that are now swirling around inside Syria to go home. So therefore, they’re willing to do this.”

CHINA

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The Uighur minority in western China continue to be threatened, arrested, tortured and harmed in other ways by the government in Beijing. In response to the ongoing harassment and ill-treatment of this minority Secretary Pompeo issued a strong statement condemning Beijing’s actions in the region. It said the “United States remains deeply troubled by multiple reports that the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has harassed, imprisoned, or arbitrarily detained family members of Uighur Muslim activists and survivors of Xinjiang internment camps who have made their stories public. In some cases, these abuses occurred shortly after meetings with senior State Department officials…The courage of Uighur advocates to speak out is vital to unearthing the truth about the PRC’s abuses of human rights, including repression of freedom of religion. We once again call on Beijing to cease all harassment of Uighurs living outside of China, to release all those arbitrarily detained, and to allow families to communicate freely without repercussions.” In a recent interview the Secretary pointed out that the world must recognize what is happening in China and stand up against the atrocities.

EUROPE

The European allies of the United States faced criticism by Secretary Pompeo for their lack of resolve in implementing economic sanctions against Iran and terrorist groups including Hezbollah, Hamas, and others. He did acknowledge that recently Europe is beginning to recognize that the Iranians are moving in the wrong direction. Referring to reports of Iran’s enrichment of uranium, fissile material, the Secretary noted that he believes “the Europeans will come to see this for what it is: a regime that is intent on using nuclear – nuclear material to blackmail, to try and extort money from Europe or from the West.” Washington is continuing to urge its European allies to support sanctions.

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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