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Washington's real credibility problem

The US has an increasing tendency to go back on its word and tear up agreements in a fit of pique or with changes in political power.

Analysis | Washington Politics

The United States is no good at making lasting diplomatic commitments anymore. Other states have no difficulty believing in U.S. threats to use force and impose broad sanctions, but it is much harder to convince them that the U.S. can be trusted to honor its promises in negotiated agreements.

Our government has a real credibility problem in that our government’s promises to lift sanctions and make other concessions are not believable. This greatly complicates the ability of our negotiators to strike bargains with other governments to resolve outstanding disputes, because the U.S. has an increasing tendency to go back on its word or to tear up agreements in a fit of pique.

Even when certain other governments reach an agreement with the U.S. and abide by its terms, that is no guarantee that the U.S. won’t turn around in a few years and seek to attack or depose them. The Libyan government ended its international pariah status in exchange for ending its unconventional weapons programs and halting its support for terrorism in 2003, but the U.S. intervened to support regime change in Libya in 2011 and helped to destroy the government. Iran was fully complying with the nuclear deal for years only to be rewarded with severe U.S. economic warfare after Trump reneged on the agreement.  

Iran has been under sanctions for a longer period since it agreed to the nuclear deal than it was able to enjoy sanctions relief because of the deal. Republican hawks are already promising that any agreement that Iran makes with the Biden administration and the other major powers will be torn up by the next administration. Even allowing for demagogic posturing and hyperbole, the Iranian government has to assume that will happen and plan accordingly. 

U.S. diplomacy also suffers from an overreliance on threats of military action. There has been a flurry of articles and letters in the last few months urging the Biden administration to make threats of military action against Iran more “credible,” as if our government’s willingness to resort to force were somehow seriously in doubt. For example, just last week the Washington Institute of Near East Policy (WINEP) released a letter signed by several high-profile former officials, including Leon Panetta, Michele Flournoy, and David Petraeus, urging Biden to “restore Iran’s fear” of military attack. The idea that the U.S. needs to instill fear to make progress in the talks gets everything backwards. The Iranian government doesn’t need convincing that the U.S. might attack them. The Iranian leadership needs credible assurances that the U.S. can deliver lasting sanctions relief, because without that assurance they have no incentive to give up the leverage they have built up over the last few years. 

The U.S. overuse of sanctions serves to handcuff diplomacy and makes it very difficult for a president to use the offer of sanctions relief to get concessions in return. When a targeted state is sanctioned on a wide range of issues, it has fewer incentives to make concessions on any one issue because the practical benefit of having only some sanctions lifted is limited. Because it is politically easy to impose sanctions and it is politically toxic to try lifting them, the promised relief is overshadowed by additional coercive measures. 

Congress’ enthusiasm for sanctions frequently boxes presidents in and gives them very little flexibility in dealing with targeted states. Even when the president can waive sanctions, as Biden did in the case of Nord Stream 2, the backlash from hawks can be politically costly and can undermine U.S. diplomacy in other ways. Ted Cruz’s outrageous and unprecedented blanket hold on State Department nominees has created a huge backlog in the confirmation process for department officials and ambassadors, and all of that has been to protest one decision against imposing sanctions on an ally. 

The U.S. hardly ever negotiates treaties anymore, but it will cast aside successful arms control treaties over the smallest violation or suspicion of violation. Trump pulled the United States out of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and Open Skies, ostensibly over Russian violations, but scrapping the INF Treaty let Russia off the hook and freed them to deploy more of the missiles that had been prohibited by it. Being able to monitor Russian troop movements more closely on short notice shows the benefit that the U.S. would have had from Open Skies if U.S. withdrawal had not effectively killed it.  

Full compliance by the other government is no protection against U.S. withdrawal from a treaty. Washington withdrew from the ABM Treaty twenty years ago in the name of expanding missile defenses. That decision sped up the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations at the beginning of the century and eventually led to the destabilizing arms racing that we are seeing now. Arms control treaties that have worked as intended have a remarkably narrow base of support today. While Biden kept it alive and extended it for five more years, New START was almost allowed to collapse despite the fact that Russia has verifiably complied with its requirements for the last decade. When one of our major parties is ideologically hostile to arms control agreements, it is hard to see how the U.S. will be able to negotiate and ratify future treaties with Russia or China.

Another reason why Washington doesn’t have more success in its diplomatic efforts is that our political culture doesn’t place much value on diplomacy or the people tasked with carrying it out. Diplomatic compromise is often treated as being synonymous with weakness, and virtually every significant diplomatic initiative with a rival or pariah state is denounced as appeasement before it even begins. 

Hawks attack even the most minor, necessary concessions as a betrayal of national security. The seesaw of partisan control in Washington means that agreements negotiated by a president from one party rarely survive long when the other party comes to power, and the Senate’s inability to ratify new treaties ensures that presidents have to settle for whatever short-term agreements they can get.

The United States still has a stifling bipartisan foreign policy consensus on military intervention and sanctions, but when it comes to negotiating a compromise that benefits all parties it is usually met with bitter partisan and ideological factionalism. This applies to political agreements and treaties alike. No negotiated agreement is safe from being scuttled when diplomacy itself is held in such low regard by many political leaders and policymakers. 

Washington policymakers often worry about how the U.S. can verify compliance by other governments, but the bigger problem at the moment is that our government can’t be trusted to do what it says it will do for more than a few years at a time. Why should any government take the political risk and make major concessions in negotiations with the U.S. when it is practically guaranteed that its position will change after the next presidential election? If the U.S. cannot relearn how to keep its diplomatic commitments, American diplomacy will continue to atrophy to the detriment of national interests and international peace and security.


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Analysis | Washington Politics
Trump Zelensky
Top photo credit: Joshua Sukoff / Shutterstock.com

Blob exploiting Trump's anger with Putin, risking return to Biden's war

Europe

Donald Trump’s recent outburst against Vladimir Putin — accusing the Russian leader of "throwing a pile of bullsh*t at us" and threatening devastating new sanctions — might be just another Trumpian tantrum.

The president is known for abrupt reversals. Or it could be a bargaining tactic ahead of potential Ukraine peace talks. But there’s a third, more troubling possibility: establishment Republican hawks and neoconservatives, who have been maneuvering to hijack Trump’s “America First” agenda since his return to office, may be exploiting his frustration with Putin to push for a prolonged confrontation with Russia.

Trump’s irritation is understandable. Ukraine has accepted his proposed ceasefire, but Putin has refused, making him, in Trump’s eyes, the main obstacle to ending the war.

Putin’s calculus is clear. As Ted Snider notes in the American Conservative, Russia is winning on the battlefield. In June, it captured more Ukrainian territory and now threatens critical Kyiv’s supply lines. Moscow also seized a key lithium deposit critical to securing Trump’s support for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian missile and drone strikes have intensified.

Putin seems convinced his key demands — Ukraine’s neutrality, territorial concessions in the Donbas and Crimea, and a downsized Ukrainian military — are more achievable through war than diplomacy.

Yet his strategy empowers the transatlantic “forever war” faction: leaders in Britain, France, Germany, and the EU, along with hawks in both main U.S. parties. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz claims that diplomacy with Russia is “exhausted.” Europe’s war party, convinced a Russian victory would inevitably lead to an attack on NATO (a suicidal prospect for Moscow), is willing to fight “to the last Ukrainian.” Meanwhile, U.S. hawks, including liberal interventionist Democrats, stoke Trump’s ego, framing failure to stand up to Putin’s defiance as a sign of weakness or appeasement.

Trump long resisted this pressure. Pragmatism told him Ukraine couldn’t win, and calling it “Biden’s war” was his way of distancing himself, seeking a quick exit to refocus on China, which he has depicted as Washington’s greater foreign threat. At least as important, U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine has been unpopular with his MAGA base.

But his June strikes on Iran may signal a hawkish shift. By touting them as a decisive blow to Iran’s nuclear program (despite Tehran’s refusal so far to abandon uranium enrichment), Trump may be embracing a new approach to dealing with recalcitrant foreign powers: offer a deal, set a deadline, then unleash overwhelming force if rejected. The optics of “success” could tempt him to try something similar with Russia.

This pivot coincides with a media campaign against restraint advocates within the administration like Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon policy chief who has prioritized China over Ukraine and also provoked the opposition of pro-Israel neoconservatives by warning against war with Iran. POLITICO quoted unnamed officials attacking Colby for wanting the U.S. to “do less in the world.” Meanwhile, the conventional Republican hawk Marco Rubio’s influence grows as he combines the jobs of both secretary of state and national security adviser.

What Can Trump Actually Do to Russia?
 

Nuclear deterrence rules out direct military action — even Biden, far more invested in Ukraine than Trump, avoided that risk. Instead, Trump ally Sen.Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another establishment Republican hawk, is pushing a 500% tariff on nations buying Russian hydrocarbons, aiming to sever Moscow from the global economy. Trump seems supportive, although the move’s feasibility and impact are doubtful.

China and India are key buyers of Russian oil. China alone imports 12.5 million barrels daily. Russia exports seven million barrels daily. China could absorb Russia’s entire output. Beijing has bluntly stated it “cannot afford” a Russian defeat, ensuring Moscow’s economic lifeline remains open.

The U.S., meanwhile, is ill-prepared for a tariff war with China. When Trump imposed 145% tariffs, Beijing retaliated by cutting off rare earth metals exports, vital to U.S. industry and defense. Trump backed down.

At the G-7 summit in Canada last month, the EU proposed lowering price caps on Russian oil from $60 a barrel to $45 a barrel as part of its 18th sanctions package against Russia. Trump rejected the proposal at the time but may be tempted to reconsider, given his suggestion that more sanctions may be needed. Even if Washington backs the measure now, however, it is unlikely to cripple Russia’s war machine.

Another strategy may involve isolating Russia by peeling away Moscow’s traditionally friendly neighbors. Here, Western mediation between Armenia and Azerbaijan isn’t about peace — if it were, pressure would target Baku, which has stalled agreements and threatened renewed war against Armenia. The real goal is to eject Russia from the South Caucasus and create a NATO-aligned energy corridor linking Turkey to Central Asia, bypassing both Russia and Iran to their detriment.

Central Asia itself is itself emerging as a new battleground. In May 2025, the EU has celebrated its first summit with Central Asian nations in Uzbekistan, with a heavy focus on developing the Middle Corridor, a route for transportation of energy and critical raw materials that would bypass Russia. In that context, the EU has committed €10 billion in support of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.

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Middle East

On June 30, President Trump signed an executive order terminating the majority of U.S. sanctions on Syria. The move, which would have been unthinkable mere months ago, fulfilled a promise he made at an investment forum in Riyadh in May.“The sanctions were brutal and crippling,” he had declared to an audience of primarily Saudi businessmen. Lifting them, he said, will “give Syria a chance at greatness.”

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