SitRep: Emerging Trump China Policy; U.S. Officials Underline Russian Threat

On phone calls and tweets. Two days after speaking with President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen — overturning decades of U.S. policy toward China without any input from the State Department — President-elect Donald Trump went on a Twitter spree Sunday. Targeting China.

Trump sent two Twitter messages blasting Beijing for its economic policy and Chinese work to “build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea.” Twitter shorthand being what it is, the general criticism over China constructing airstrips and landing military aircraft and troops on man-made islands is one that White House and Pentagon have been making for several years, though in much a different form.

Here it is. Foreign Policy has lots of background on the tensions between Washington and Beijing in the South China Sea, hitting on the Chinese deployment of missiles to the disputed islands, China bucking international law in the critical waterway, Capitol Hill’s reaction to Chinese aggression, fishing disputes, and rising tensions between China and South Korea.

Beijing lodged a diplomatic protest over the call on Saturday, and foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said, “the whole world knows about the Chinese government’s position on the Taiwan issue. I think President-elect Trump and his team are also clear.” Trump’s team says the call, and his comments, are part of a long-discussed policy to get tougher on China.

FP’s Tea Leaf Nation editor David Wertime has a great explainer on the relationship, reminding us that “the whole arrangement may seem contorted and formalistic, but it has accompanied decades of relative stability in the Taiwan strait, and has taken on a talismanic quality in Beijing. Diplomats in the United States and China are loath to see what happens without it.”

On tour. Defense Secretary Ash Carter lands in Japan on Monday for the start of a long tour of Asia, which will also take him to India by the end of the week. One of Carter’s goals will be to reassure allies unsure of what to expect from Washington’s commitment under a Trump administration, since he campaigned on the possibility of pulling U.S. troops out of overseas bases if the host countries didn’t start paying Washington for the deployments.

There are about 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan, and Tokyo already pays about $1.6 billion annually to offset the cost of their basing and supply. Carter told reporters on his plane on the way to Japan that if his named successor, retired general James Mattis, is confirmed by Congress, he’s ready to help him “hit the ground running.” Mattis is “an extremely capable person,” Carter said. “I’ve known him literally for decades.”

Don’t forget Russia. Despite then-candidate Trump’s dismissal of U.S. intelligence agencies assessment of Russian hacking of the Democratic party’s email, and his praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Pentagon still sees Russia has Washington’s biggest military rival, and the only true existential threat facing the country.

That was on full display over the weekend at the Reagan National Defense Forum at the Reagan library in California, where Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford said that Russia’s goal to undermine NATO is a dangerous game, and Russian forces “are operating with a frequency and in places that we haven’t seen for decades,” in places like Syria, Ukraine, Crimea, and elsewhere, and have stepped up air attacks on eastern Aleppo.

“Russia is the No. 1 threat to the United States,” Air Force Secretary Deborah James told Reuters in an interview. The Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer, Frank Kendall, also said that Russian activities have changed how the Pentagon has constructed it budgets in 2017 and beyond, as “their behavior has caused us…to rethink the balance of capabilities that we’re going to need.”

Good morning and as always, if you have any thoughts, announcements, tips, or national security-related events to share, please pass them along to SitRep HQ. Best way is to send them to: paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or on Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley

PEOTUS

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he’d like to discuss what he calls America’s “bad deal” with Iran over its nuclear program, Reuters reports. Speaking at the Saban Forum at the Brookings Institution, Netanyahu said his prime concern wasn’t Iran violating the agreement but rather that it “can walk in within a decade, and even less … to industrial-scale enrichment of uranium.” During the campaign, Trump said he’d tear up the deal the Obama administration negotiated with Iran and negotiate a new one that would purportedly be better in ways not specified by Trump or his campaign.

Syria

With rebel-held territory in eastern Aleppo collapsing and a Trump administration with apparent inclinations towards Russia and the Assad regime coming into office, Syria’s opposition is working on a Plan B. The Washington Post reports that rebels are now mulling whether to move closer to al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, turn away from the U.S., and further towards Gulf backers or mount a campaign of insurgency in regime-captured territory in lieu of trying to hold onto it. Many in the intelligence and diplomatic world fear that cutting off U.S. support for rebels — something the incoming Trump administration appears to advocate — would reduce Washington’s ability to influence it.

What’s the future for the Islamic State after Raqqa and Mosul? The desert of Deir Ezzour in Syria, according to a piece in the New Statesman. The move would draw on the group’s experience hiding out in the rural hinterlands of Iraq after a surge in American troops put pressure on the group in the mid-to-late 2000s. In the remote towns and villages of Deir Ezzour the Islamic State already exercises a great deal of control and may already have begun sending senior personnel there to hide from the forthcoming assault on Raqqa.

A second Russian warplane has crashed while landing on the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, Russian officials said Monday. The pilot of the Su-33 ejected from the plane and is safe, the defense ministry was quoted as saying. Last month, another plane from the Kuznetsov hit the water when trying to land on the ship, Russia’s only aircraft carrier, which is on its first ever combat mission.

Iraq

Islamic State fighters surrounded by Iraqi forces launched a series of counterattacks around Mosul this weekend after days of retreating. Reuters reports that troops from the terrorist group carried out attacks on advancing Iraqi troops in eastern Mosul as well as a surprise attack on a military barracks in Anbar province. The ferocity and tenacity of the group’s fight in Mosul as the noose tightens around it has many worrying that the assault on the city will drag on through the winter, putting further strain on the civilians trapped inside.

Afghanistan

The Guardian reports that American commanders in Afghanistan are increasingly at odds with the United Nations over a U.S. drone strike which the Defense Department says killed Islamic State fighters and the U.N. claims killed civilian children. The strike took place in late September in Nangarhar province, where a faction of Islamic State-aligned fighters has been active. The U.N. says the strike killed 15 civilians, reportedly enraging U.S. Forces Afghanistan commander Gen. John Nicholson so much that he considered revoking the U.N.’s access to a U.S. base in Kabul.

Russia

Russia claims to have killed the leader of the Islamic State’s affiliate in the Northern Caucasus. Agence France Presse reports that Russia’s Federal Security Service says a raid it launched killed Rustam Aselderov and four other members of the Islamic State’s Caucusus Province affiliate. Many Chechen militants have joined the ranks of the group in Syria, but the Northern Caucasus branch claimed to have carried out a number of attacks on police. Footage of the raid released by Russia also shows a small, unmanned ground vehicle equipped with rocket-launchers participating in the operation.

Surveillance

The Wall Street Journal published a deeply-reported long form piece about the FBI’s attempt to prosecute veteran U.S. diplomat and Pakistan hand Robin Raphel. The FBI arrested Raphel in 2014, accusing her of improperly retaining classified information and insinuating that she was a spy for Pakistani intelligence only to later have Justice Department close her case without filing any charges. The Journal walks through the origins of the case, showing how Raphel, a diplomat accustomed to meeting and talking to foreigners to get information, clashed with the new era of diplomacy, where Americans are isolated in embassies and talking to foreigners about sensitive political issues is now a legal and professional hazard.

Photo Credit: Feng Li/Getty Images