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Blinken, In Kenya, Seeks to Cool Regional Crises

Secretary of State Antony Blinken boards his plane at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021, to travel to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)
Secretary of State Antony Blinken boards his plane at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021, to travel to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)
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Blinken, In Kenya, Seeks to Cool Regional Crises

Secretary of State Antony Blinken boards his plane at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021, to travel to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)
Secretary of State Antony Blinken boards his plane at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021, to travel to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken opened his first official visit to Africa in Kenya with an appeal Wednesday for the preservation of democracy and inclusion in politically and ethnically fractured societies. His message was delivered amid worsening crises in neighboring Ethiopia and Sudan.

With insecurity wracking both of those countries, Blinken began a three-nation African tour in a country with it own turbulent history of democracy. Kenya will face another test of stability in a presidential election next year yet has emerged as a player in attempting to ease the growing Ethiopian conflict, The Associated Press said.

Before meeting President Uhuru Kenyatta and other senior Kenyan officials, Blinken spoke with civic leaders about the importance of combatting what he termed “democratic recession” around the world, including challenges in the United States that show “just how fragile our democracy can be.”

“This is an important time,” he told a small group of human rights, labor and anti-corruption advocates at a Nairobi hotel. “Around the world we’ve seen we’ve seen over the last decade or so what some have called 'democratic recession'.”

“Even vibrant democracies like Kenya are experiencing these pressures, especially around election time," Blinken said, alluding to the presidential election set for August 2022. Combatting misinformation, political violence, voter intimidation and corruption is critical to halting the backsliding.

Blinken is looking to boost thus-far unsuccessful US diplomatic efforts to resolve the deepening conflicts in Ethiopia and in Sudan and to counter growing insurgencies elsewhere, like Somalia. His visit to Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal this week follows months of Biden administration attempts to ease both situations that have yet to bear fruit despite frequent lower-level interventions.

Months of engagement by the administration, including an August visit to Ethiopia by US Agency for International Development administrator Samantha Power, several trips to Addis Ababa and Nairobi by Biden’s special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Jeff Feltman, and a current visit to Sudan by the top diplomat for Africa have produced little progress.

Instead, conflict in Ethiopia has escalated between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and leaders in the northern Tigray region who once dominated the government.

The tensions, which some fear could escalate into mass inter-ethnic killings in Africa’s second-most populated country, exploded into war last year, with thousands killed, many thousands more detained and millions displaced.

Rebel Tigray forces are advancing on Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, amid increasingly dire warnings from the US and others for foreigners to leave.

While holding out hope that a window of opportunity for a resolution still exists, the Biden administration has moved toward sanctions, announcing the expulsion of Ethiopia from a US-Africa trade pact and hitting leaders and the military of neighboring Eritrea with penalties for intervening in the conflict on Ethiopia’s behalf. Sanctions against Ethiopian officials, including Abiy, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, are possible.

Ethiopia has condemned the sanctions and stepped up its criticism of “meddling” in its internal affairs. And in Addis Ababa, the headquarters of the African Union, and elsewhere, there is skepticism and hostility to US pressure for an immediate cease-fire and talks despite America being the country’s largest aid donor.

As Feltman has shuttled between Nairobi and Addis Ababa with an eye toward easing tensions in Ethiopia, he and the administration have also been confounded by developments in Sudan, where a military coup last month toppled a civilian-led government that was making significant strides in restoring long-strained ties with the US
Coup leader Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan tightened his grip on power last week, reappointing himself as the chairman of a new Sovereign Council. The US and other Western governments criticized the move because it did away with a joint military-civilian council already in place. The Sudanese generals responded by saying they would appoint a civilian government in the coming days.

Burhan moved against civilian Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok just hours after Feltman had left Sudan's capital, Khartoum, on a mission intended to resolve escalating tensions between them. The US has retaliated over the coup by suspending $700 million in direct financial assistance to Sudan. Further moves, including a slowdown or reversal of a multiyear rapprochement with the government, could also be in the works without changes.

The top US diplomat for Africa, Molly Phee, was in Khartoum earlier this week and will be joining Blinken in Nairobi to discuss her efforts in Sudan. Phee met Tuesday with Hamdok and with Burhan. Burhan said the leaders of Sudan were willing to engage in dialogue with all political forces without conditions, according to a statement from the newly appointed Sovereign Council.

Burhan was also quoted as saying the military has started releasing political prisoners who don’t face criminal charges.

In addition to trying to cool tensions in the region, Blinken’s trip is also aimed at raising Washington’s profile as a player in regional and international initiatives to restore peace and promote democracy as it competes with China for influence in developing countries.

The Biden administration’s competition with China for influence didn’t get off to a great start in Africa. The coronavirus pandemic canceled A planned early summer visit by Blinken to the continent. The trip was rescheduled for August, only to be postponed again due to the turmoil in Afghanistan that preoccupied Washington.

Now, three months later, Blinken hopes to deliver the administration’s “America is back” message to Africa. Despite its importance in the US-China rivalry, Africa has often been overshadowed by more pressing issues in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and even Latin America despite massive US contributions of money and vaccines to fight the pandemic and other infectious diseases.

All the while, China has pumped billions into African energy, infrastructure and other projects that Washington sees as rip-offs designed to take advantage of developing nations.

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How Likely Is the Use of Nuclear Weapons by Russia?

This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
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How Likely Is the Use of Nuclear Weapons by Russia?

This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)

On 24 February 2022, in a televised speech heralding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin issued what was interpreted as a threat to use nuclear weapons against NATO countries should they interfere.

“Russia will respond immediately,” he said, “and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.”

Then on 27 February 2022, Putin ordered Russia to move nuclear forces to a “special mode of combat duty’, which has a significant meaning in terms of the protocols to launch nuclear weapons from Russia.”

Dr. Patricia Lewis, director of the International Security program at Chatham House, wrote in a report that according to Russian nuclear weapons experts, Russia’s command and control system cannot transmit launch orders in peacetime, so increasing the status to “combat” allows a launch order to go through and be put into effect.

She said Putin made stronger nuclear threats in September 2022, following months of violent conflict and gains made by a Ukrainian counterattack.

“He indicated a stretch in Russian nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for nuclear weapons use from an existential threat to Russia to a threat to its territorial integrity,” Lewis wrote.

In November 2022, according to much later reports, the US and allies detected manoeuvres that suggested Russian nuclear forces were being mobilized.

Lewis said that after a flurry of diplomatic activity, China’s President Xi Jinping stepped in to calm the situation and speak against the use of nuclear weapons.

In September 2024, Putin announced an update of the 2020 Russian nuclear doctrine. The update was published on 19 November 2024 and formally reduced the threshold for nuclear weapons use.

According to Lewis, the 2020 doctrine said that Russia could use nuclear weapons “in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.”

On 21 November 2024, Russia attacked Dnipro in Ukraine using a new ballistic missile for the first time.

She said Putin announced the missile as the ‘Oreshnik’, which is understood to be a nuclear-capable, intermediate-range ballistic missile which has a theoretical range of below 5,500km.

Lewis added that Russia has fired conventionally armed nuclear-capable missiles at Ukraine throughout the war, but the Oreshnik is much faster and harder to defend against, and suggests an escalatory intent by Russia.

Nuclear Response During Cold War

In her report, Lewis said that nuclear weapons deterrence was developed in the Cold War primarily on the basis of what was called ‘mutually assured destruction’ (MAD).

The idea behind MAD is that the horror and destruction from nuclear weapons is enough to deter aggressive action and war, she added.

But the application of deterrence theory to post-cold war realities is far more complicated in the era of cyberattacks and AI, which could interfere with the command and control of nuclear weapons.

In light of these risks, presidents Biden and Xi issued a joint statement from the 2024 G20 summit affirming the need to maintain human control over the decision to use nuclear weapons.

The US and Russia exchange information on their strategic, long-range nuclear missiles under the New START agreement – a treaty to reduce and monitor nuclear weapons between the two countries which is set to expire in February 2026.

But, Lewis said, with the US decision to exit the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019, there are no longer any agreements between the US and Russia regulating the number or the deployment of ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range of 500-5,500 km.

She said short-range nuclear weapons were withdrawn and put in storage as a result of the 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives but are not subject to any legal restraints.

The 10th NPT Review Conference was held in 2022 in New York. The issue of nuclear weapons threats and the targeting of nuclear power stations in Ukraine were central to the debate.

Lewis noted that a document was carefully crafted to finely balance concerns about the three pillars of the treaty – non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. But Russia withdrew its agreement on the last day of the conference, scuppering progress.

“It was believed that if Russia were to use nuclear weapons it would likely be in Ukraine, using short range, lower yield ‘battlefield’ nuclear weapons,” she said, adding that Russia is thought to have more than 1,000 in reserve.

“These would have to be taken from storage and either connected to missiles, placed in bombers, or as shell in artillery,” Lewis wrote.

Increasingly the rhetoric from Russia suggests nuclear threats are a more direct threat to NATO – not only Ukraine – and could refer to longer range, higher yield nuclear weapons.

For example in his 21 September 2022 speech, Putin accused NATO states of nuclear blackmail, referring to alleged “statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.”

Putin added: “In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.”

There have been no expressed nuclear weapons threats from NATO states.

NATO does rely on nuclear weapons as a form of deterrence and has recently committed to significantly strengthen its longer-term deterrence and defence posture in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The current UK Labor government has repeatedly reiterated its commitment to British nuclear weapons – including before the July 2024 election, according to Lewis.

Therefore, she said, any movement to ready and deploy Russian nuclear weapons would be seen and monitored by US and others’ satellites, which can see through cloud cover and at night – as indeed appears to have happened in late 2022.

Lewis concluded that depending on other intelligence and analysis – and the failure of all diplomatic attempts to dissuade Russia – NATO countries may decide to intervene to prevent launch by bombing storage sites and missile deployment sites in advance.