Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

VENEZUELA

With the Covid-19 pandemic capturing much of the world’s attention US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo did not forget the US citizens wrongly held in a Venezuelan prison. This week he pointed out that the Maduro regime finally is acknowledging that COVID-19 cases are appearing in Venezuela. The Secretary then called for the Americans to be released saying “We are extremely concerned about the risk for the five U.S. citizens and one U.S. resident from Citgo who are currently languishing in the notorious Helicoide prison in Caracas. These wrongfully detained men all have weakened immune systems due to cumulative health problems and face a grave health risk if they become infected. Seventeen hearings have been cancelled. They have already spent more than two years in jail without an ounce of evidence being brought against them; it is time to release them on humanitarian grounds.” The brutal Maduro regime continues to hold a number of political prisoners and many other in the country remain unaccounted for since he took over power in April 2013.

IRAN

The State Department this week added five Iranian nuclear scientists to its growing sanctions list for their involvement in Iran’s pre-2004 nuclear weapons program, known as the Amad program. Secretary of state Pompeo said that the group of five “continue to be employed by the regime to this day.” “After work on the Amad plan was stopped, Iran continued to preserve its Amad-era records and its cadre of nuclear weapons scientists, including these individuals, he added.

The Amad Plan started in 1989 with the goal of developing nuclear weapons for the country. Iran in 2015 denied its existence saying it has no program aimed at the development of a nuclear explosive device. In 2018 Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu referred to the Amad Plan saying there were over 100,000 documents smuggled out of Iran by the Mossad that confirmed its existence. The goal, according to the documents, was to produce and test five nuclear warheads, each with a ten kiloton TNT yield for integration on a missile. The five new names continue to bring attention to the need for a full accounting by Iran of its nuclear weapons program.

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VIETNAM

Morgan Ortagus, the State Department Spokesperson, said the US is dismayed by the conviction of blogger and Radio Free Asia (RFA) contributor Truong Duy Nhat, and his sentencing to 10 years imprisonment. “The conviction is under vague charges related to fraud allegations dating back nearly 20 years. We remain troubled by Nhat’s sudden disappearance from Bangkok, Thailand on January 25, 2019, the day after he initiated a request to register as a refugee with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and his reappearance in a Vietnamese prison three months later.,” Ortagus added.The State Department called on Vietnam to “immediately release Nhat and all prisoners of conscience and to allow all individuals in Vietnam to express their views freely and assemble peacefully without threat of retribution.” Last year Vietnam ranked 176^th out of 180 countries in the Press Freedom Index—just below Sudan and slightly above China’s ranking. Vietnam is “not free,” according to Freedom House, a US government-funded rights group. At least 30 bloggers and journalists are being held in Vietnamese jails. The communist government employs intimidation tactics to control the free flow of information. Even privately owned news outlets are tightly controlled by the regime. It is believed that the overall number of prisoners in Vietnam has increased by one-third since last year. Many are activists charged under Article 117 of a new 2018 penal code that prohibits “making, storing, disseminating or propagandizing materials and produce that aim to oppose the State…” Journalists who don’t comply are warned, fined, and jailed under horrible conditions.

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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