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Biden's national security adviser warns Russia if Ukraine escalates further: "We are prepared for a strong response"

2022-01-19T15:31:18.049Z


Biden's national security adviser warns Russia if Ukraine escalates further: "We are prepared for a strong response" Created: 01/19/2022, 16:15 From: Foreign Policy US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaks during a news conference in the White House briefing room. © Michael Brochstein/dpa US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaks to Foreign Policy about Russia, China, Afghanis


Biden's national security adviser warns Russia if Ukraine escalates further: "We are prepared for a strong response"

Created: 01/19/2022, 16:15

From: Foreign Policy

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaks during a news conference in the White House briefing room.

© Michael Brochstein/dpa

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaks to Foreign Policy about Russia, China, Afghanistan, relations with Europe and the first year of the Biden presidency.

  • Jake Sullivan, 45, is US President Joe Biden's national security adviser.

  • In an exclusive interview with

    Foreign Policy

    , Sullivan discusses the first Biden year and looks ahead.

  • It deals with explosive issues such as the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the geopolitical tensions with China and the current Ukraine crisis.

  • This interview is available in German for the first time – it was first published in

    Foreign Policy

    magazine on January 18, 2022

    .

WASHINGTON DC – In his first major foreign policy speech as US President, Joe Biden declared America was back. The international sigh of relief was great - and the hope that the disruptive style of former President Donald Trump was now a thing of the past. From the start, Biden has pursued an ambitious agenda to repair alliances and forge new ones, curb corruption, halt democratic backsliding and tackle climate change. At the same time, he had to manage the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian threat to Ukraine and escalating tensions with China.

Things didn't go smoothly. The decision to withdraw the remaining US troops from Afghanistan hastened the collapse of the country's government and fueled chaos in Kabul as hundreds of thousands fled the Taliban. The plan to share nuclear submarine technology with Australia at the expense of Canberra's submarine deal with Paris soured transatlantic relations.

Ahead of the anniversary of Biden's inauguration,

Foreign Policy

's Amy Mackinnon spoke with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, one of the key architects of Biden's foreign policy.

About America's moral responsibility to the Afghan people, about the role of foreign trade in the confrontation with China - and what the very core of the Biden doctrine is.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Russia

Foreign Policy: I would like to start with the immediate crisis of Russian rearmament near the border with Ukraine. Last week we saw a very intense exchange of blows in diplomacy in Europe. But Moscow, publicly at least, is showing little sign of backing down. What is your opinion? Have the talks changed Moscow's approach? What ways are you looking for to avoid war?

Jake Sullivan: Well, I'll let Moscow speak for itself. I can only speak for the US. And the United States is prepared either way. We are ready if Russia wants to move forward with diplomacy, and we have already given Russia some ideas and suggestions on how to proceed. We are quite ready to continue discussions on this. But if Russia wants to go down the path of invasion and escalation, we are prepared for that too - in the form of a strong response, coordinated with our allies and partners.

We have prepared for further diplomacy, even as we have prepared to respond to Russian aggression. This is how we see our best chance of protecting our interests and those of our allies and partners. In my view, there is scope for meaningful advances through diplomacy on critical European security issues that deserve detailed consideration. The US, Russia, NATO, the EU and other partners in Europe could sit down and work through it and find a consensus. But Moscow will have to make its own decisions on this.

FP: This escalation exposed longstanding tensions over NATO expansion. While the alliance has an open-door policy, the reality is that no one expects Ukraine or Georgia to join any time soon. There are many media opinions that in order to meet Moscow's concerns about this possible compromise, the alliance needs to be more honest on this point. To what extent has Russia already succeeded in reshaping the conversation about European security and NATO enlargement?

JS: I think the key point here is that in terms of Russia invading Ukraine – further invading Ukraine – it's not really about NATO. Or something Jim Baker or Mikhail Gorbachev said. It's about much more fundamental questions. Does Ukraine have the right to exist as a sovereign, independent state? The UN Charter says yes. International law says yes. We should all say yes, unanimously, as an international community. Does Ukraine have the right to be a democracy? Again, the UN Charter says yes, international law says yes. And here too, we should all say unanimously as an international community that the answer is yes. In my view, it is incumbent on all of us who are engaged in this to bring the conversation to these core principles.Because that's what it's really about.

Now to the question of NATO and European security. Last week the 30 allies discussed this issue in Brussels and everyone agreed. There is no disagreement on the rationale. What you saw at the Brussels meeting was the rock-solid unity across the Alliance. And I think that will continue in the coming days and weeks.

FP: In the first few months, what we most often heard from the new government was the desire to establish a "stable and predictable relationship" with Moscow. And some analysts believe the government may have been a little lax on sanctions over the poisoning of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny and on Nord Stream 2. In hindsight, was that the right approach? Would Russia push just as hard to reshape European security if there had been a harder line in the earlier days?

JS: There's something funny about the causality analysis related to Russia's actions. You have that one group of people who say it's because the US, the West and NATO have been pushing too hard, bringing too many weapons into play, pushing Russia too hard, being too aggressive. That this is why Russia is acting the way it is acting. Then there's the other side that says it's because the US, the West and NATO haven't been tough enough, haven't imposed enough sanctions, haven't taken enough steps. You can make a case out of both arguments. But what we've tried to do is make it very clear what types of actions we're going to respond to and how we're going to respond to them. And then to bring these things to an end.

After taking office, President Biden called President Putin and said, “I'm going to look at the SolarWinds issue. I will address the issue of the use of chemical weapons against Navalny and I will address vote interference in the 2020 election. And if I find that Russia has been responsible for these things in a way that goes beyond our borders, we will respond with economic sanctions.” And that's exactly what we've done vigorously. And so we not only sanctioned individuals or organizations, but also, for example, government debt.

Then the President said that ransomware targeting critical infrastructure in the United States is not simply a criminal act.

It threatens our national security and strategic stability.

And if this continues, we will react.

And we think we've seen a reduction in that activity over the past few months in terms of high-profile ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure.

And just recently, we commended the Russian government for arresting a number of criminals linked to ransomware attacks on the United States.

China

FP: Retired Admiral Philip Davidson, former US commander in the Indo-Pacific, said a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could happen within the next six years. Do you agree with this assessment? And should or would the US provide military support to Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack?

JS: It is the fundamental goal of our cross-strait policy to ensure that this never happens. This is what we aim to achieve through a combination of deterrence and diplomacy, upholding the bipartisan tradition of US policy towards Taiwan, the "One China" policy, the Taiwan Relations Act, the three joint communiques and the Six Assurances maintain. But fundamentally, it is our task to use all the instruments at our disposal to ensure that there is no military strike against Taiwan or a unilateral change in the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.

FP: A key element in competing with China is trade and economic engagement. On the other hand, you have described what you have called a “middle-class foreign policy” to protect jobs and businesses here in America. Don't these approaches contradict each other?

JS: I don't think they conflict on three important points. Firstly, the idea of ​​a foreign policy for small and medium-sized enterprises is fundamentally about investing in domestic sources of strength, in our workforce, our infrastructure and in our ability to innovate and compete. And when we do that, not only will we create a stronger American middle class, but we will also position ourselves to compete more effectively with China over the long term. And that's exactly what President Biden did throughout his first year. And if you look at the prospects for the American economy versus the prospects for the Chinese economy post-COVID, we think we're well positioned.

Second, President Biden has made it clear throughout his career, including during the presidential campaign and his tenure to date, that he believes trade with the rest of the world is a good thing, an important thing, there is nothing to stop it, and American jobs are protected. With the right investments and a fair and equal playing field, American workers can outperform anyone, anywhere. But he has also said it is important to make those investments first before any new trade deals are struck.

But he pursues an international economic policy focused on things that help strengthen America's economy as a leader. These include the global minimum tax, the G-7 infrastructure initiative, Build Back Better World. And I think we'll see a deeper and more intense economic engagement in the Indo-Pacific later this year along with Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, Ambassador Katherine Tai and other key members of our economic team.

FP: Biden has spoken at length about how he sees the struggle between democracy and authoritarianism as a crucial challenge of our time. Concretely, how does the government support the advancement of democracy around the world when countries like China and Russia are willing to influence states with economic coercion or in Kazakhstan on the ground? How do you compete with that kind of clout?

JS: There is no single comprehensive answer to this question. It has to be a whole toolbox that includes economic support for countries facing the kind of coercion that the People's Republic of China has imposed on them. Efforts must be made to tackle the root of the problem in some emerging democratic societies, which is corruption. And we need to use a whole range of tools to reduce corruption around the world. We can all do something to make independent media and independent voices heard. One of the outcomes of the Democracy Summit was an initiative to do just that.

There are steps we can take to ensure that it is democracies that write the rules for trade and technology in the future. So that the technologies that will shape our future will respect more rights and be less subject to authoritarian control and domination. It's a broad agenda, and you saw every element of it at the Summit for Democracy, which brought together more than 100 governments, as well as private sector leaders, civil society leaders and activists. Across all these efforts, America will work to underpin the strength of democracies and ensure that all see that democracy, not autocracy, is the form of government best suited to the challenges of our time.

Afghanistan

FP: I would now like to turn to another focus of the past year, namely the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Looking ahead, when 97 percent of Afghans are at risk of falling below the poverty line, how do you feel now about US sanctions against the Taliban?

After two decades of war, what responsibility does the United States have to the Afghan people?

JS: We have a genuine responsibility to provide humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people to try to alleviate suffering and improve the prospects of a stable country that can meet the basic needs of its people. We are the largest donor to the people of Afghanistan. We just announced another $300 million tranche of funding in the last few days. We work closely with the United Nations, the World Food Program and NGOs like the International Rescue Committee to try to allocate as many resources as possible to tackle the humanitarian situation there.

We do not believe that simply issuing blank checks to the Taliban is consistent with the long-term interests of the people of Afghanistan unless the Taliban take action for an inclusive government that respects the rights of all. We believe it is a great responsibility of the United States and the international community at large to ensure that funds flow into the hands of those independent agencies and actors that use them wisely on food, medicine and other basic needs. We are ready to do our part for this.

FP: I understand your point on humanitarian aid, but it's certainly not a substitute for a functioning economy. What needs to be done? What would you like the Taliban to do to take steps to lift sanctions?

JS: Well, we've dealt with the Taliban diplomatically and laid out to them, not as public ultimatums but, as I said, as a private inquiry, coordinated with other allies and partners, the kind of steps we think they should take . I won't go into detail here because I don't want to negotiate publicly. But the rough parameters are known. It's about human rights. It is about continuing to allow Afghan allies of the United States and other countries to safely exit the country. It is about treating women and girls with respect and equality. It is about the fundamental obligation not to allow Afghanistan to be misused as a base for terrorism against other countries or peoples. These are some of the areasthat we are discussing with them and we believe it is imperative that we see progress in these areas.

Biden Doctrine

FP: I'd like to zoom out and get a bird's-eye view of what many observers call the "Biden Doctrine."

What do you think is the connection between all the major foreign policy initiatives that the government has undertaken so far?

What ideas or ambitions underlie the foreign policy of this government?

JS: I would say that there are two very simple ideas that underpin both this administration's approach to geopolitical competition and our approach to the grand transnational challenges of our time: climate and COVID, nuclear rearmament, economic equality and more. First, heavy investment in allies and partners so that we can face all of these challenges and harness the strength of friends as well as our own strength.

And second, the theorem that American power in the world is fundamentally rooted in American strength at home. And that the connection between foreign and domestic policy is close. It's fundamental to the lives of all Americans, whether it's things like the global minimum tax, or managing the supply chain crisis, or dealing with the climate, or China's economic duress. The connection between domestic and foreign policy must be maintained consistently and permanently. These two fundamental theses support the President's general premise that we are in a pivotal decade when it comes to democracy. A premise proving that democracy is the form of government best suited toto do something for their citizens and to meet the great challenges of our time in a way that improves people's lives.

Transatlantic Relations

FP: You mentioned the importance of allies and partners.

After Biden's election, anticipation in Europe was great.

But this year has had its ups and downs with Europe, with tensions over the Afghan withdrawal and over the submarine deal with AUKUS.

How would you characterize the state of the transatlantic relationship now, almost a year into Biden's presidency?

JS: Well, I'd say my assessment is probably less relevant than what you're seeing with your own eyes right now when you look at NATO's 30 allies speaking with one voice on the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Or the close coordination between the US and the European Union when last year's G-20 discussed steel and aluminum tariffs, the global methane commitment, the global climate summit, and the Trade and Technology Council. I think it's been an exceptionally powerful few months of coordination and collaboration across the Atlantic.

And I admit that this follows a period when many European leaders were skeptical about the scope and nature of the consultation and coordination in the early months of last year. But having weathered this period, I think we have achieved a level of strength and confidence in the transatlantic partnership that is truly remarkable. And I think if you went to European interlocutors today, you would hear a completely different story than six, eight months ago. And that, I think, is strong evidence of a really important thing, which is listening. We have listened to our partners and allies. We heard what they had to say. We responded to that and I think the results speak for themselves now.

Amy Mackinnon

is a national security and intelligence reporter at Foreign Policy.

Twitter: @ak_mack

This interview was first published in English in the magazine "ForeignPolicy.com" on January 18, 2022 - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to the readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.

*Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.

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Source: merkur

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