Biden’s ‘permissive environment’ strikes again

If the Biden administration has an overarching foreign policy or approach to U.S. national security, it is, as Winston Churchill famously said of Russia in 1939, “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Examples abound.

President Biden wants to help defend Ukraine. But he and his national security team also seemingly fear Russian President Vladimir Putin losing. Biden has pledged to defend Taiwan from China using military force; however, it is increasingly clear that the U.S. may not be adequately prepared to meet that pledge.

Now, like in August 2021, when Biden abandoned Afghanistan, the U.S. is abandoning a key region — this time by withdrawing U.S. diplomatic and military personnel under the cover of darkness from its embassy in Khartoum, Sudan.

Sudan on the surface may seem inconsequential. After all, the modern history of the troubled North African nation is a turbulent one, replete with political intrigue, infighting and coup d’états. In that vein, certainly, as the country devolves into civil war, the power struggles between two former putative allies (Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese military, and Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedt, leader of paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF)) are par for the course. 

But the global participants in the conflict and members of the audience are very different this time, and the outcome of the Sudanese conflict is highly likely to increase Moscow and Beijing’s influence throughout Africa at the expense of the U.S. and its Western allies.

Unlike Biden, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping seem to comprehend that they are in a global contest for supremacy with the West. Whereas the Biden administration keeps haphazardly “pivoting” from one regional crisis to the next, Putin and Xi are simultaneously challenging Washington globally — especially in resource-rich Africa and as evidenced recently with Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East as well. 

Sudan is just one more Russian and Chinese master chess move that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has failed to anticipate, let alone counter. Spatially, Blinken tends to view crises as one-dimensional events and not part of a larger game. Further, both he and Biden fail to understand that it is their “permissive environment” that is enabling Moscow and Beijing to score wins on the “3D chessboard” against the U.S. 

This “permissive environment” arose out of Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan and has continued unabated. The consequences were immediate. As retired Army Gen. David Petraeus presciently noted in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, “American adversaries” quickly realized they could globally sell the notion that “the U.S. is not a dependable partner and ally.” 

On Tuesday, yet another African country in the audience referenced above took notice. South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that his ruling African National Congress announced its intent to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) citing “bias in certain situations.” TASS, the Kremlin’s official Russian News Agency of record, wasted no time in trumpeting the decision — especially since it is the ICC that indicted Putin as a war criminal for crimes against humanity in Ukraine. 

Ramaphosa’s move, which still needs to be ratified by South Africa’s National Assembly, was likely motivated by two things. One, the reality that Biden and Blinken are continuing to abandon Africa, and two, because in the wake of that void, Moscow and Beijing are substantially increasing their collective military, diplomatic and economic influence, if not grip, across Africa. From South Africa’s perspective, the Russian or Chinese enemy that you know is better than the American “friend” you cannot count on.

Washington, in Pretoria’s eyes, did not just abandon Sudan. The Biden administration left thousands of American civilians, many of them dual citizen African Americans, to fend for themselves. If Biden cannot safeguard U.S. citizens in Sudan, Ramaphosa justifiably has reason to believe Washington will not protect him either. 

The Russian and Chinese threat Ramaphosa is facing is very real. As the Washington Post detailed in a comprehensive graphic, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group has conducted or is now conducting paramilitary, political and economic operations in 13 African nations, two of which, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, directly border South Africa. 

Ramaphosa cannot help but notice that the RSF in Sudan is being militarily supported by Prigozhin and the Wagner Group. Lest Putin turn Prigozhin loose on him, Ramaphosa has only one clear direction and that is to embrace the Russian president who has confirmed he is attending the upcoming BRICS summit to be held this summer in Durban, South Africa. Because of Russian and Chinese intimidation, personal and political survival are trumping right and wrong throughout Africa.

For Prigozhin, Africa is solely about funding his ownership of The Wagner Group globally. In Ukraine, he is doing so by robbing the continent of gold, especially in the Central African Republic and in Sudan. Yet, rather than confront this reality, especially as it relates to funding The Wagner Group in Ukraine, Biden once again has chosen the path of least resistance and has, at least for now, abandoned the U.S. Embassy and in the process yielding Sudan to Moscow — and by default to China. 

How many more instances will Biden and Blinken require before they finally conclude that their piecemeal and ever-pivoting approach to U.S. foreign policy and national security is untenable — and is only enabling Putin and Xi to pick off U.S. and Western interests around the world despite Putin’s losses on the battlefields of Ukraine?

How long until the Biden administration realizes, as we have previously argued, that Washington is indeed late to a dystopian version of World War III that in many respects has already begun?

Enough “pivoting.” Enough “strategic ambiguity.” It is time for Biden’s “permissive environment” to come to an end. It has struck once too often and now again in Sudan — and it must be stopped lest it strikes again in Taiwan and destabilizes the entirety of the Pacific Rim and global economy by extension. Either the U.S. begins taking a global stand everywhere or it will risk not standing for the principles of democracy anywhere.

Mark Toth is a retired economist and entrepreneur who has worked in banking, insurance, publishing, and global commerce. He is a former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis, and has lived in U.S. diplomatic and military communities around the world, including London, Tel Aviv, Augsburg and Nagoya. Follow him on Twitter @MCTothSTL.

Jonathan Sweet, a retired Army colonel, served 30 years as a military intelligence officer. His background includes tours of duty with the 101st Airborne Division and the Intelligence and Security Command. He led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012-14, working with NATO partners in the Black Sea and Baltics. Follow him on Twitter @JESweet2022.