US DISASTER RESPONSE IN INDONESIA

The United States, through USAID, is now providing a total of $3.7 million in assistance through its partners to deliver essential relief items, including shelter kits, blankets, hygiene kits, solar-powered lamps, and other lifesaving aid, according to the State Department Spokesperson.

USAID is also airlifting heavy-duty plastic sheeting to Indonesia to provide for emergency shelter needs of up to 110,500 people and has deployed a team of disaster experts to coordinate our humanitarian response efforts and is supporting a U.S. Forest Service emergency operations expert who’s on the ground providing technical support to the Government of Indonesia’s disaster response, she added. The Department of Defense has provided three C-130s and has already transported nearly 30 – 63 metric tons of disaster relief supplies into the affected areas.

This is not the first time the US has supported humanitarian disaster relief in Indonesia. During the 2004 tsunami in Sumatra, Indonesia which followed the 9.1 earthquake, the United States providing operating rooms aboard an aircraft carrier. It was the first and only nation to offer such assistance.

STATE DEPARTMENT NOMINEES HELD UP IN THE SENATE

There are still 65 State Department nominees sitting in the United States Senate, according to the State Department spokeswoman. She said: ”That’s over a quarter of all the senior-level confirmable positions that the United States Department of State is tasked with using to achieve its diplomatic outcomes. There is bipartisan agreement that a fully staffed State Department is critical to American national security. The State Department has been criticized for having gaps in leadership positions, but now we’ve done our part to fix that; now the Senate needs to do its part.”

Secretary Pompeo has repeatedly stated that these candidates are quality candidates and that they’re not sitting on the Senate floor because of objections with respect to their quality, their professionalism, or their excellence and ability to deliver American foreign policy.

Democratic members of the Senate not the Administration are at fault, the Secretary noted. He added that those for whom partisanship has now driven delay and obstruction of getting America’s diplomatic corps into every corner of the world, are to blame.

NORTH KOREA

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According to officials, there is some positive movement as Chairman Kim has invited inspectors to visit the Punggye-ri nuclear test site to confirm that it’s been irreversibly dismantled. However, it should be noted that this particular site is an older one which already has been destroyed. While there is some progress, there is a long path ahead.

CHINA

China is providing the United States and other nations critical components for military weapons and equipment, according to a White House study released Friday.

The report recommends that the US invest in domestic manufacturing to eliminate supply chain vulnerabilities that could potentially cripple the American defense sector, and which pose a significant risk to national security. It also points out that the US already is experiencing delays in receiving Chinese solar cells for military use, flat-panel aircraft displays and rare earths for which China is a sole supplier at this time.

According to the report: “China is the single or sole supplier for a number of specialty chemicals used in munitions and missiles.” It also points out that: “China’s actions seriously threaten other capabilities, including machine tools; the production and processing of advanced materials like biomaterials, ceramics, and composites; and the production of printed circuit boards and semiconductors.”

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, 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: Earth from space, as seen by the Apollo 17 astronauts (NASA)

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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