Pak Sahafat – The expert of the Atlantic Council think tank states that it is beneficial for Washington to divide among its enemies because the emergence of many divisions and tensions among these actors will create opportunities for Washington.
In an analysis for “National Interest” magazine, “Mark Katz”, an expert at the “Atlantic Council” think tank, emphasized the necessity of Washington’s intelligence in using the differences between the enemies of the United States. Exploiting the differences between the enemies of the United States is an attractive idea that in the past, Washington was successful in this field; The most notable example was Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s use of the growing tension between China and the Soviet Union to improve Washington’s relations with Beijing and Moscow in the early 1970s.
According to this report, there are other similar examples in this field. “Timothy W. Crawford” in his 2021 book with the theme of divisive power and its use in the competition of great powers, the successful effort of the United States and England in the hostility of the Spanish leader with Germany in 1940-1941, the adventures between the leaders of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the 1940s Kissinger’s actions towards Egypt-Soviet relations in the 1970s, the management of US-Iraq relations in the 1980s, and George Bush Jr.’s diplomacy towards Libya are other successful examples of such an approach in the White House.
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Recent U.S. efforts to improve relations with adversaries have either been unsuccessful or stalled by successive administrations, Katz added. The George W. Bush administration’s success in improving relations with Libya came to an abrupt end during the Obama administration. The Obama administration’s efforts to improve relations with Cuba and Iran ended in the Trump administration, and the Trump administration’s efforts to improve relations with Russia, North Korea, and even with Iran later failed. In this period, the efforts of the Biden government to revive the Iran nuclear agreement have been unsuccessful so far.
This report states: This is unfortunate for American foreign policy. The United States now faces many enemies, including powerful countries such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, and various jihadi groups. Of course, Washington still has smaller enemies in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, etc.
The expert of the Atlantic Council think tank states that it is beneficial for Washington to create a gap between its various enemies because the emergence of many differences and tensions among these actors may create opportunities for Washington.
However, the American analyst believes that the United States is not able to do this in the current situation or does not seem willing to do so. Among the reasons mentioned in the book “The Power of Division” is the opposition of the current allies of the US government to granting concessions to the enemies of the United States in order to change their behavior. In cases where America succeeded in the past, all the allies in question were more or less on the same page as America, and Washington created a gap between the enemies by giving concessions to one of them. However, an ally’s opposition to trying to recruit an enemy or even fear of losing an existing ally makes things more difficult. Opposition from an ally can complicate a major government’s efforts to attract an enemy. Washington now has relatively few allies, and has had fewer allies since the Cold War, so it is in a very different position.
This report then discussed the status of the JCPOA agreement and added: Israel and Saudi Arabia strongly opposed the efforts of the Obama administration to cooperate with Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran. Although the agreement was reached in 2015 despite their opposition, the two instigated US President Donald Trump to withdraw from the agreement in 2018; even now Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is against the efforts of the Biden administration to revive the agreement. When the politics of a great power is influenced by smaller allies, the United States will obviously have difficulty attracting enemies that its allies perceive as threats. However, small allies can only succeed in disrupting US efforts to exploit differences between adversaries if they interfere in the US foreign policy process as well as US domestic politics.
Crawford cites American domestic politics as highly influential in explaining why the United States cannot successfully pursue divisive strategies. This is because in the United States improving relations with hostile governments is often frowned upon. Republicans’ criticism of the Biden administration in the field of foreign policy towards Iran and Venezuela can also be interpreted in the same framework. However, the normalization with Vietnam, the Obama administration’s nuclear diplomacy with Iran, and even the Trump administration’s efforts to improve relations with North Korea have shown that Washington was able to overcome domestic opposition and allies’ dissatisfaction in the past. However, some analysts argue that heightened political tensions within the United States in recent years have made it more difficult to pursue or even rationally debate these political issues.
At the end of the report, the success of America’s enemies in exploiting the differences between Washington and its traditional allies shows that US diplomacy should not only emphasize exploiting the differences of America’s long-standing enemies, but should also focus on reducing their growing closeness. It is now important for the United States to increase its efforts to exploit the differences between its adversaries. The inability of the United States to do so successfully, whether due to obstruction by allies, domestic political opposition, or any other reason, will lead to the development of the capabilities of Washington’s adversaries.