Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

CUBA

Communist Cuba continues to repress the Cuban people while simultaneously undermining democracy in the region, according to the State Department’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Michael Kozak. He said the United States is increasing pressure on the Castro regime to “stop the repression of its citizens and its intervention in other countries, particularly Venezuela.”

The country’s leadership is unable to produce the resources it needs to feed its population. Kozak noted that “Its economy is parasitic, depending for years on massive subsidies from the Soviet Union, and later on depending on a revenue stream from its essentially colonial relationship with Venezuela.” The extreme poverty of Venezuela is now impacting Cuba as its communist economic advisors find themselves facing extreme shortages under the government-controlled economy.

US policy toward Cuba is designed to restrict their other key sources of revenue to force the regime to face up to the deficiencies of its own model and allow some major freedom to its own people. The US is exposing the truth about the Cuban medical missions program, a moneymaking scheme disguised as humanitarian assistance, according to Kozak. The State Department also is discouraging travel that involves staying in hotels run by the Cuban military to break the monopoly of the Cuban military as established on processing remittances.

VENEZUELA

Elliott Abrams, the US Special Representative for Venezuela, said that there were roughly 7,000 extrajudicial killing over the last year in the country. He quoted the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Michele Bachelet, as saying that the UN “remains concerned about the lack of independence of the justice system in Venezuela,” and “is concerned about the continuing use of the military justice system to try civilians.”

The UN report stated that “Relatives of victims also reported various forms of intimidation, threats, and reprisals by members of the security forces to stop them from seeking justice. In the most serious cases, this led to forced and prolonged displacement of family members or even, in some cases, their killing” and “Documented cases included severe beatings with boards, suffocation with plastic bags and chemicals, submerging the head of a victim underwater, electric shocks to the eyelids, and sexual violence in the form of electric shocks to genitalia.”

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The US is attempting to counter the downward spiral in Venezuela by naming and sanctioning the individuals most responsible for it, according to Abrams. The US sanctioned two additional individuals this week along with previously announced sanctions against the head of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, Maikel Moreno, due to his involvement in significant corruption.

CHINA

No foreign policy human rights problem the US faces is greater than that posed by China, according to Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. In a recent interview he cited the enormous risk to believers of all faiths inside of China and offered the mass genocide suffered by the Uyghur people at the hands of the communist regime as an example of China’s egregious behavior. He added that Christians have been under pressure inside of China for a long time and that the situation is deteriorating. Pompeo pointed out that Beijing appears to be hacking Vatican websites to get a jump on negotiations with the Vatican about the appropriate role for the Catholic Church inside of China.

He believes this type of behavior is typical of the regime as it threatens total rule by the Chinese Communist Party. Pompeo said: “They can’t allow religious freedom because people of conscience understand that those freedoms that they value would be at risk.” The party “understands that the things the CCP leadership want to keep people from doing would be a risk if they permitted any dissent or exercise of individual conscience rights,” he said.

In his final comment to a reporter Thursday, Pompeo said: “Weakness breeds risk and strength is respected with respect to the Chinese Communist Party. So, you can see that in how China has responded to President Trump just being candid, just being honest. This isn’t about being angry. This is about rebalancing a relationship that has fallen out of balance over 40 years and demanding that the Chinese Communist Party participate on the global stage in the way that we demand every country does.”

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

Part 3: AMERICA’S STRATEGIC POSTURE

We conclude our summary of the urgent recommendation of the Congressional Committee on the nation’s Strategic Posture NON-NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES The Commission recommends: The United States urgently deploy a more resilient space architecture and adopt a strategy that includes both offensive and defensive elements to ensure U.S. access to and operations in space. The United States and its Allies take steps to ensure they are at the cutting edge of emerging technologies – such as big data analytics, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence (AI) – to avoid strategic surprise and potentially enhance the U.S. strategic posture. The United States prioritize funding and accelerate long-range non-nuclear precision strike programs to meet the operational need and in greater quantities than currently planned. x America’s Strategic Posture The United States develop and field homeland IAMD that can deter and defeat coercive attacks by Russia and China, and determine the capabilities needed to stay ahead of the North Korean threat.4 The Secretary of Defense direct research, development, test and evaluation into advanced IAMD capabilities leveraging all domains, including land, sea, air, and space. These activities should focus on sensor architectures, integrated command and control, interceptors, cruise and hypersonic missile defenses, and area or point defenses. The DOD should urgently pursue deployment of any capabilities that prove feasible. The Secretary of Defense and the Military Departments transfer operations and sustainment responsibility for missile defense to the appropriate Military Departments by 1 October 2024. This will allow the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to focus on research, development, prototyping and testing. ALLIES AND PARTNERS The Commission believes it is in the U.S. national interest to maintain, strengthen, and when appropriate, expand its network of alliances and partnerships. These relationships strengthen American security by deterring aggression regionally, before it can reach the U.S. homeland, while also enabling U.S. economic prosperity through access to international markets. Withdrawing from U.S. alliances and partnerships would directly benefit adversaries, invite aggression that the United States might later have to reverse, and ultimately decrease American, allied, and partner security and economic prosperity. Further, the Commission believes that our defense and the defense of the current international order is strengthened when Allies can directly contribute to the broader strategic posture, and the United States should seek to incorporate those contributions as much as possible. The Executive branch should recognize that any major change to U.S. strategic posture, policies, or capabilities will have great effect on Allies’ perceptions and their deterrence and assurance requirements. As a result, any changes should be predicated on meaningful consultations. RISK REDUCTION The Commission believes it is of paramount importance for the United States to work to reduce strategic risks. This involves activities and programs across the U.S. government, including in nonproliferation and arms control, as well as maintaining strong, viable, and resilient military forces. The Commission recommends that a strategy to address the two-nuclear-peer threat environment be a prerequisite for developing U.S. nuclear arms control limits for the 2027-2035 timeframe. The Commission recommends that once a strategy and its related force requirements are established, the U.S. government determine whether and how nuclear arms control limits continue to enhance U.S. security. The Commission recommends that the United States continue to explore nuclear arms control opportunities and conduct research into potential verification technologies in order to support or enable future negotiations in the U.S. national interest that seek to limit all nuclear weapon types, should the geopolitical environment change. Where formal nuclear arms control agreements are not possible, the Commission recommends pursuing nuclear risk reduction measures to increase predictability and reduce uncertainty and the chances for misperception and miscalculation. The 2009 Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States reported that the United States was at “a moment of opportunity, . . .but also a moment of urgency” – because the security environment had improved and the threat of nuclear proliferation was the principal concern. Since 2009, the security environment has dramatically worsened and new existential threats have emerged. This Commission concludes that the United States now faces a highstakes challenge that requires urgent action. Nevertheless, the Commission has not seen the U.S. government demonstrate the urgency and creativity required to meet the challenge. Nothing other than synchronized steps taken by the Executive and Legislative Branches will craft the strategy and build the posture the nation requires. The challenges are unmistakable; the problems are urgent; the steps are needed now. Photo: An Air Force Global Strike Command unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launches during a test at Vandenberg Space Force Base (DoD)