Category Archives: US foreign policy

China’s new aircraft carrier underlines need for the Aukus pact

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Analysis: As the world’s largest navy tries to push it back in the Pacific, the US requires allies in the region

In the dockyards of Shanghai, the next step in China’s naval expansion is taking shape: a 315-metre aircraft carrier, whose construction progress was revealed by satellite photography in May this year.

China has the world’s largest navy and the largest shipbuilding industry, but the Type 003 is the latest step up: a vessel the same size as the latest US Ford class with a matching electromagnetic catapult for launching jets.

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US Afghanistan withdrawal a ‘logistical success but strategic failure’, Milley says

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  • General and other military leaders in heated cross-examination
  • Milley defends loyalty to country and rejects suggestion to quit

The withdrawal from Afghanistan and the evacuation of Kabul was “a logistical success but a strategic failure,” the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has told the Senate.

Gen Mark Milley gave the stark assessment at an extraordinary hearing of the Senate armed services committee to examine the US departure, which also became a postmortem on the 20-year war that preceded it.

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Assad the outcast being sold to the west as key to peace in Middle East

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After 10 years of bloodshed, foreign allies are seeking to rehabilitate the Syrian leader

For almost a decade he was a pariah who struggled to get a meeting abroad or even to assert himself on his visitors. Largely alone in his palace, save for trusted aides, Bashar al-Assad presided over a broken state whose few friends demanded a humiliating price for their protection, and weren’t afraid to show it.

During regular trips to Syria, Vladimir Putin arranged meetings at Russian bases, forcing Assad to trail behind him at functions. Iran too readily imposed its will, often dictating military terms, or sidelining the Syrian leader on decisions that shaped the course of his country.

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Is China stepping up its ambition to supplant US as top superpower?

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Analysis: Joe Biden has cleared the decks to focus on China. But how imminent is the danger?

It may have been an inelegantly, even ineptly, executed pivot, gratuitously alienating key allies, but by leaving Afghanistan and forming the Australian, US and UK security pact in the Indo-Pacific, Joe Biden has at least cleared the decks to focus on his great foreign policy challenge – the systemic rivalry with China.

Yet the concern now is how quickly this rivalry could escalate, especially in Taiwan. The linchpin of the US alliance system in south-east Asia, Taiwan is the biggest island in the “first island chain”, the group of islands that keeps China blocked in. It is China’s next target, and as the former British prime minister Theresa May pointed out, no one quite knows if the west is prepared to fight to save Taiwan or whether the new tripartite pact in some way places a new obligation on the UK to come to the country’s defence.

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Biden recognises there could have been ‘more discussion’ with France says Psaki – video

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During the White House daily press briefing on Wednesday, press secretary Jen Psaki was asked for additional details about Joe Biden’s call with the French president Emmanuel Macron today, after which it was announced the French ambassador would return to Washington.

Psaki noted that the phone call between the two leaders lasted about 30 minutes, and she said it was a “friendly” conversation. “[Biden] acknowledged that there could have been more discussion,” she said.

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Joe Biden warns UK not to damage Northern Ireland peace over Brexit – video

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 Joe Biden has underlined the importance of ensuring peace in Northern Ireland is not jeopardised by post-Brexit tensions. Asked about a UK-US trade deal, the US president told reporters in Washington on Tuesday: 'There are two separate issues: on the deal with the UK, that continues to be discussed, but on the protocols, I feel very strongly about those. It was a major bipartisan effort made, and I would not at all like to see – nor, I might add, would many of my Republican colleagues – like to see a change in the Irish accords, and the end result having a closed border again'

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US is ‘opening a new era of relentless diplomacy’ says Joe Biden in UN speech – video

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Joe Biden has promised to the United Nations that the withdrawal from Afghanistan is a turning point in history, in which 'relentless war' would be supplanted by 'relentless diplomacy', pledging a renewed commitment to the UN and to his nation’s alliances.

Speaking to the general assembly on Tuesday, the president also touched on his country's withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Examining Aukus alliance through the lens of history | Letters

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Readers respond to the new pact between the UK, Australia and the US, and its implications

The Aukus pact is not a “new global order” (17 September) but very much an old order; it is colonial gunboats. I do not expect politicians to have read history such as the first Anglo-Afghan war of 1839, but I do expect them to be aware of history in their own lifetimes. Eton may not teach the failures of empire, but China has been very clear about Taiwan since 1950.

When Biden said, “This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries”, he was committing to another battle in the Pacific. The global dominance of China has been clear for more than 20 years, and yet we are unwillingly signed up to face this new empire?
Simon Allen
St Albans, Hertfordshire

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‘It’s heartbreaking’: Steve McCurry on Afghan Girl, a portrait of past and present

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The US photographer’s image of Sharbat Gula captured the story of a country, its people and refugees across the world. Thirty six years on, another picture tells a similar tale – but also one of hope

On 1 September, a young Afghan girl stood in line with her family at a US base in Sicily waiting to board a flight to Philadelphia. She is about nine years old and is one of more than 100,000 people evacuated from Kabul by allied forces after the Taliban took control of the country in August.

Her photo, taken for the Guardian by Italian photojournalist Alessio Mamo and featured on the front page of the UK print edition, resembles the Afghan Girl by American photographer Steve McCurry. McCurry’s portrait, of a Pashtun child, Sharbat Gula, which appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic, became the symbol, not only of Afghanistan, but of displaced refugees across the world.

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French recall of ambassadors shows extent of anger over Aukus rift

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Analysis: ties between Paris and Washington in worse state than at time of Iraq war after Australia’s cancellation of submarine deal

The recall of the French ambassadors to Australia and the US – without precedent in two centuries of diplomacy between Paris and Washington – has plunged relations to depths unknown for decades.

Rifts over the Iraq war or Nato pale into insignificance. True, the French recalled their ambassador to Rome a couple of years ago, irked by the insults sent their way by the upstart Five Star leader Luigi di Maio, but that was a little warning to populists to stop encouraging the disruption of the yellow vest protests.

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Boris Johnson flies to New York to tighten transatlantic ties after strained summer

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PM will hope signing of this week’s Aukus deal will help the allies move on from the chaos of Kabul

Boris Johnson will fly to New York this weekend for his first foreign trip since the Covid pandemic, hoping to cement his relationship with the US president, Joe Biden, after a rocky summer marred by the chaotic Kabul airlift.

Two years ago, when Johnson made his first foreign trip as prime minister to the Biarritz G7 summit, the hope was that Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for the man he called “Britain Trump” would help smooth the way for a rapid post-Brexit trade deal with the US.

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The Aukus pact is a sign of a new global order | Rana Mitter

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The deal has upset China, but it also binds the US into European security, in a world where Nato may be less relevant

France is furious. Theresa May is worried. The announcement of the new Australia-UK-US alliance (Aukus) and the ditching of a previous French-Australian submarine deal has led France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, to term the pact “a stab in the back”, while the former British prime minister is concerned about Britain being dragged into a war over the future of Taiwan.

Oddly enough, Beijing’s reaction has been rather muted. Yes, it has accused the west of a “cold war mentality”, and Xi Jinping has warned foreigners not to interfere in the region, but its warning that China would “closely monitor the situation” was close to a “cut and paste” outrage.

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North Korea fires two ballistic missiles into sea, South Korea military says

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Launch comes as Chinese foreign minister is in Seoul to discuss stalled nuclear diplomacy and two days after North tests a new long-range cruise missile

North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast on Wednesday, South Korea’s military has said, two days after the North claimed to have tested a new missile in its first weapons test in six months.

South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff (JCS) said the missiles flew from a central inland area towards the waters off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast and that further analysis with US officials was under way. “Our military maintains a full readiness posture in close cooperation with the US,” the JCS said.

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Top general feared Trump would launch nuclear war, Woodward book reports

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General Milley worried about Trump’s ‘trigger point’ after the election and monitored him to prevent catastrophic military strike

Before and after the assault on the US Capitol on 6 January, the most senior US general took steps to prevent Donald Trump from “going rogue” and launching a nuclear war or an attack on China, according to excerpts of an eagerly awaited new book by the Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward.

Related: Senate Democrats pitch new voting bill in effort to break filibuster logjam– live

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FBI document holds no evidence Saudi government was involved in 9/11

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Newly released file relates to logistical support provided to two of the Saudi hijackers before the 2001 attacks

The FBI has released a newly declassified 16-page document related to logistical support provided to two of the Saudi hijackers in the lead-up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The document describes contacts the hijackers had with Saudi associates in the US but offers no evidence the Saudi government was complicit in the plot.

The document, released on the 20th anniversary of the attacks, is the first investigative record to be disclosed since President Joe Biden ordered a declassification review of materials that for years have remained out of public view.

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‘Tomorrow they will kill me’: Afghan female police officers live in fear of Taliban reprisals

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With at least four women, including a pregnant mother, targeted and killed by Taliban fighters, female ex-officers feel abandoned by the world

Negar Masumi, a female police officer with 15 years of experience, was determined not to flee when the Taliban took control of her home province of Ghor in central Afghanistan.

On Saturday night, gunmen, who called themselves Taliban mujahideen, stormed Negar’s home. They took her husband and four of her sons into another room and tied them up. Then they beat Negar with their guns and shot her dead, according to a family member, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

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What’s next for American foreign policy?

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Anniversary of 9/11 and fall of Kabul trigger questions over US interventionism

The 20th anniversary of 9/11 and its fallout was always going to be a moment of deep soul searching about what has been lost and learned.

But the retrospective, until a few weeks ago, risked having a historical, even sepia, quality as the attention of political leaders moved to a more contemporary set of threats – health pandemics, climate emergencies, Big Tech and great power competition, including the rise of China. The “war on terror”, after all, looked if not won, at least drawn. It was even possible Islamist terrorism was a temporary manageable phenomenon, increasingly confined to Africa and some lethal loners in European shopping centres.

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The US strategy to counter China in the Pacific could be a $1bn misstep | Gerard Finin and Terence Wesley-Smith

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The US is proposing big spending, but initiatives are designed to undermine China rather than address actual needs on the islands

After decades of ambivalence, the United States plans to expand its footprint in the Pacific islands region to dimensions larger than at any time since the second world war.

But the Biden administration may be on the brink of embracing a flawed foreign policy initiative spanning almost one-third of the globe.

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Afghanistan: Taliban claim to have taken control of Panjshir valley

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Taliban fighters pictured outside governor’s compound, but Ahmad Massoud’s rebels deny province has fallen

The Taliban have fought their way to the capital of Panjshir, the last Afghan province holding out against their rule, and seem on the brink of total victory.

The group posted pictures on social media showing Taliban fighters standing in front of the gate of the governor’s compound. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid issued a statement, saying Panjshir was under the control of Taliban fighters.

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Four men arrested over violence at Kabul women’s rights march, say Taliban

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Spokesman says men ‘mistreated the women and a reporter’ but tells Afghans it is ‘not a time for protest’

The Taliban have arrested four men who hit protesters and held journalists at gunpoint to break up a women’s rights’ demonstration in Kabul on Saturday, the spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

The demonstration came amid fierce fighting in Panjshir valley, the last holdout of anti-Taliban forces from the fallen government, and as Afghanistan waits for the country’s new rulers to reveal how they plan to govern.

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