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Ukraine War Ushers In ‘New Era’ for U.S. Abroad

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Ukraine War Ushers In ‘New Era’ for U.S. Abroad

WASHINGTON — The battle in Ukraine has prompted the most important rethinking of American international coverage because the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults, infusing the USA with a brand new sense of mission and altering its strategic calculus with allies and adversaries alike.

The Russian invasion has bonded America to Europe extra tightly than at any time because the Chilly Warfare and deepened U.S. ties with Asian allies, whereas forcing a reassessment of rivals like China, Iran and Venezuela.

And it has re-energized Washington’s management function within the democratic world simply months after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan ended 20 years of battle on a dismal observe.

However the brand new give attention to Russia will include laborious selections and inner contradictions, just like ones that outlined U.S. diplomacy throughout the Chilly Warfare, when America generally ignored human rights abuses and propped up dictators within the identify of the battle in opposition to communism.

“It looks like we’re definitively in a brand new period,” mentioned Benjamin J. Rhodes, a former deputy nationwide safety adviser within the Obama White Home. “The post-9/11 battle on terror interval of American hubris, and decline, is now behind us. And we’re unsure what’s subsequent.”

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The assault by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on his neighbor has change into a prism by which almost all American international coverage choices can be forged for the foreseeable future, specialists and officers mentioned.

In current weeks, Western officers have spoken in phrases that usually echo the grand declarations that adopted the 2001 terrorist assaults. On Friday, President Biden mentioned that “the free world is coming collectively” to face as much as Mr. Putin — a phrase harking back to President George W. Bush’s discuss of how “your entire free world” was at battle in opposition to terrorism.

Within the close to time period, Russia’s aggression is bound to invigorate Mr. Biden’s international combat for democracy in opposition to autocracies like Moscow, making vivid the threats to fledgling democracies like Ukraine. But three more and more authoritarian NATO nations — Poland, Hungary and Turkey — play key roles within the coalition aiding Kyiv. And the USA is grappling with inner assaults to its personal democracy.

The battle lends urgency to Mr. Biden’s local weather change agenda, reinforcing the necessity for extra reliance on renewable clear vitality over the fossil fuels that fill Russian coffers. But it has already generated new stress to extend the short-term provide of oil from the likes of Venezuela’s remoted dictatorship and Saudi Arabia’s authoritarian monarchy.

And it creates a robust new incentive for the USA to search out methods of prying President Xi Jinping of China away from Mr. Putin, who is probably going relying on diplomatic and financial lifelines from Mr. Xi amid crushing Western sanctions. However some administration officers see China as a misplaced trigger and like to deal with China and Russia as dedicated companions, hoping which may provoke insurance policies amongst Asian and European allies to include them each.

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Whereas some specialists warn {that a} renewed give attention to Europe will inevitably divert consideration from Asia, a number of prime White Home officers say the USA can capitalize on how the battle has satisfied some Asian governments that they should work extra carefully with the West to construct up a worldwide ideological entrance to defend democracy.

“What we’re seeing now’s an unprecedented degree of Asian curiosity and focus,” Kurt M. Campbell, the highest White Home official on Asia coverage, mentioned at a chat hosted by the German Marshall Fund of the USA.

“And I imagine one of many outcomes of this tragedy can be a sort of new pondering round how one can solidify institutional connections past what we’ve already seen between Europe and the Pacific,” he mentioned.

America’s strategy to the world was already present process a serious shift, with the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq concluded, and conversations over Islamist terrorism not on the fore. Many war-weary People welcomed requires a diminished navy footprint abroad by President Donald J. Trump, who questioned NATO’s relevance and even flirted with withdrawing from the alliance.

Mr. Biden sought to rebuild American alliances, however did so largely within the identify of confronting China. The Russian invasion has expanded his mission dramatically and urgently, setting the stage for a seismic geopolitical shift that might pit the USA and its allies in opposition to China and Russia directly in the event that they kind an entrenched anti-Western bloc.

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But it surely additionally offers Washington a brand new and nobler sense of goal, Mr. Rhodes mentioned. “We’ve been attempting to get to a brand new period for a very long time,” he mentioned. “And now I feel Putin’s invasion has necessitated an American return to the ethical excessive floor.”

Early indicators of how the brand new American priorities are creating diplomatic quakes have already emerged.

On Friday, the USA and its European allies agreed to pause talks with Iran that simply days earlier appeared on the verge of clinching a return to the 2015 deal that restricted Iran’s nuclear program. Western nations are refusing a requirement by Moscow, which is a celebration to the Obama-era settlement from which Mr. Trump withdrew, for ensures that its future transactions with Iran be exempted from the sanctions imposed on Russia in current weeks.

“It’s been clear since final weekend that negotiations to revive the Iran deal couldn’t be walled off from the Ukraine battle,” Dalia Dassa Kaye, an Iran skilled on the RAND Company, mentioned on Friday.

Final 12 months, Mr. Biden made a brand new settlement a core aim of his international coverage. It’s unclear whether or not one might be struck with out Russia, which is a member of the fee that each supervises compliance with the deal and would take management of Iran’s extra enriched uranium.

The US can also be Venezuela from a unique approach. Senior Biden administration officers traveled to Venezuela two weeks after the Russian invasion, changing into the primary to go to the nation in years. Venezuela, a companion of Russia, is underneath heavy U.S. sanctions imposed years in the past to weaken the repressive authorities of President Nicolás Maduro. In 2019, the Trump administration imposed extra sanctions on the state oil firm, central financial institution and senior officers to stress Mr. Maduro to step down.

Now, with Mr. Biden seeking to improve international oil provides to convey down costs, U.S. officers are speaking to Mr. Maduro’s authorities about shopping for his oil once more. The concept has drawn some sharp criticism in Congress, nonetheless, the place Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and the chairman of the Senate International Relations Committee, fumed that “efforts to unify your entire world in opposition to a murderous tyrant in Moscow shouldn’t be undercut by propping up a dictator underneath investigation for crimes in opposition to humanity in Caracas.”

The identical crucial on oil is reshaping U.S. diplomacy with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two Persian Gulf nations that some Biden administration officers view with suspicion or hostility due to their autocratic techniques and main roles in a battle in Yemen that has resulted in a humanitarian disaster. Brett McGurk and Amos J. Hochstein, two senior administration officers, traveled to the Gulf days earlier than the Russian invasion to debate safety and vitality points.

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Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia has declined to this point to extend oil manufacturing, whereas the United Arab Emirates waited till Wednesday to ask the OPEC nations to take action. American officers have been additionally livid with the U.A.E. for declining to vote on a United Nations Safety Council decision to sentence Russia, although it did help an identical decision later within the U.N. Normal Meeting.

The unreliability of the 2 nations and Russia’s place within the oil financial system have elevated momentum throughout the Biden administration to enact insurance policies that might assist the USA extra rapidly wean itself off fossil fuels and confront the local weather disaster. This might lead future administrations to commit fewer diplomatic and navy sources to the Gulf nations in the long run, even when U.S. officers need them to assist on oil now.

“We may even see extra elementary questioning in regards to the worth of those partnerships,” Ms. Kaye mentioned. “These states already imagine the U.S. has checked out of the area, however their stance on Russia might solely strengthen voices calling for an extra discount of U.S. forces within the area.”

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Israel, the closest U.S. ally within the Center East, has additionally staked out a impartial place on the Ukraine battle, largely due to Russia’s presence within the area. However American officers have been extra forgiving of Israel’s stance as Prime Minister Naftali Bennett conducts shuttle diplomacy. He met with Mr. Putin for 3 hours in Moscow on March 5 after which spoke with Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, by telephone earlier than returning residence. U.S. officers say Mr. Bennett consulted with them in regards to the talks, and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken mentioned this previous week that they “respect the efforts.”

In Europe, Russia’s invasion has supercharged the Biden administration’s efforts to revive the morale of a NATO alliance that Mr. Trump undermined.

However the alliance consists of three nations — Poland, Hungary and Turkey — whose democratic backsliding has troubled the Biden administration. Hungary and Turkey have been pointedly excluded from Mr. Biden’s international democracy summit in December, and the European Union has lower billions of euros of funding to Poland and Hungary for what it sees as erosions of authorized and democratic ideas. Now all three nations are collaborating within the coalition in opposition to Russia.

“In occasions of disaster, there may be generally a stress between our values and our pursuits,” mentioned Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a senior fellow on the Heart for a New American Safety. “Within the brief time period, we’re going to need to prioritize pushing again in opposition to Russia, on the danger of taking our foot off the gasoline on the democracy and human rights considerations that had been on the entrance and middle of the Biden administration’s agenda.”

In Asia-Pacific area, a number of vital U.S. companions and allies are working with Washington on sanctions and export controls on know-how in opposition to Russia. These embrace Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Australia. Some Asian nations have agreed to long-term gasoline swaps with Europe to assist relieve a possible Russian shut-off of vitality exports. And Australia has dedicated to spending $50 million to ship weapons to Ukraine, together with missiles and ammunition.

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Nonetheless, India — probably the most populous U.S. ally within the so-called Quad coalition of democracies in Asia — has kept away from condemning Russia’s invasion due to decades-old safety ties with Moscow. That stance undermines Mr. Biden’s insistence that democratic nations band collectively in opposition to autocracies.

However it’s the different Asian behemoth, China, that presents the most important diplomatic problem for the USA. China is Russia’s strongest companion, and their bond has strengthened in recent times.

Even because the Russian navy decimates Ukrainian cities and kills a whole bunch or 1000’s of civilians, China has signaled that it stands by Moscow by issuing anti-U.S. declarations and amplifying the Kremlin’s propaganda and conspiracy theories.

Mr. Xi’s persistent help of Mr. Putin, with whom he shares a drive to dilute American energy, has made administration officers wonder if there may be any technique to pull them aside on Ukraine.

On Thursday, William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, advised U.S. senators he believed that Mr. Xi was “unsettled” by the battle. Some China analysts say that if Beijing needs to salvage its status with Western nations, significantly in Europe, it would conform to take steps to assist Ukraine with out straight breaking from Russia.

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Ryan Hass, a China director on the Nationwide Safety Council within the Obama White Home, proposed testing Beijing with particular requests, resembling asking them to supply extra humanitarian assist and chorus from recognizing Russian-installed governments in Ukraine or shielding Russia from battle crimes investigations.

“If China’s leaders take concrete actions to alleviate struggling,” he mentioned, “then lives could be saved and there could be much less centrifugal stress towards cleaving the world into rival blocs.”

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Tim Walz Endorses Ken Martin, a Fellow Minnesotan, to Lead the D.N.C.

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Tim Walz Endorses Ken Martin, a Fellow Minnesotan, to Lead the D.N.C.

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the Democratic Party’s 2024 nominee for vice president, on Thursday endorsed Ken Martin to be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Mr. Martin, the chairman of the Minnesota Democrats, is a longtime Walz ally who led the state party during Mr. Walz’s rise from Congress to the State Capitol to the national ticket. Mr. Walz is now the highest-profile Democratic official to endorse Mr. Martin to lead the party.

“In Minnesota, Ken has built a national model for how to elect Democrats in a competitive state,” Mr. Walz said in a statement provided by Mr. Martin’s campaign. “I have seen Ken’s leadership in action, and it’s exactly what we need from our next D.N.C. chair.”

Mr. Martin and Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic chairman, are the front-runners in a sprawling field of candidates. The election is set to be held on Feb. 1.

Mr. Martin has claimed endorsements from more than 100 D.N.C. members, including entire delegations from Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota and Tennessee.

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Mr. Wikler’s team has not disclosed his whip count, but Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate minority leader, endorsed him.

On Tuesday evening, the Association of State Democratic Chairs, which Mr. Martin founded and is the president of, declined during a virtual meeting to endorse a candidate in the D.N.C. race. An effort by Mr. Wikler’s allies for the group to make a dual endorsement of Mr. Martin and Mr. Wikler failed.

Jaime Harrison, the current D.N.C. chairman, is not seeking a second term. Others vying to replace him include Martin O’Malley, a former governor of Maryland and former mayor of Baltimore; James Skoufis, a New York state senator; Marianne Williamson, the perennial presidential candidate; and Nate Snyder, a former Homeland Security official.

The party has planned four forums for its candidates for chair, vice chair and other positions. Those are set to begin with a virtual session on Saturday.

The party’s most influential figures — President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Barack Obama and Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, among others — have yet to weigh in on who should be the next D.N.C. leader.

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The next Democratic chair will have significant influence over how the party navigates President-elect Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House. Among the most imminent and high-profile tasks will be setting the rules for the 2028 presidential primary race, including which states vote first.

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FBI informant who made up Biden bribe story gets 6 years in prison

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FBI informant who made up Biden bribe story gets 6 years in prison

A former FBI informant who prosecutors say fabricated a phony story of President Biden and his son Hunter Biden accepting $10 million in bribes from the Ukrainian gas company Burisma was sentenced Wednesday to six years in federal prison. 

Alexander Smirnov, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, has been behind bars since he was arrested last February on charges of making false statements to the FBI. 

The indictment came in connection with special counsel David Weiss’ investigation into Hunter Biden. Weiss later indicted Hunter on tax and gun-related charges, but President Biden granted him a sweeping pardon in December before his son was to be sentenced. 

The Justice Department tacked on additional tax charges against Smirnov in November, alleging he concealed millions of dollars of income he earned between 2020 and 2022, and Smirnov pleaded guilty in December to sidestep his looming trial.  

BIDEN CLAIMS HE ‘MEANT WHAT I SAID’ WITH PROMISE NOT TO PARDON HUNTER, HOPES IT DOESN’T SET PRECEDENT

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In this courtroom sketch, defendant Alexander Smirnov speaks in federal court in Los Angeles, Feb. 26, 2024.  (William T. Robles via AP, File)

Smirnov was accused of falsely telling his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid then-Vice President Biden and his son $5 million each around 2015. Smirnov’s explosive claim in 2020 came after he expressed “bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, according to prosecutors. The indictment says investigators found Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma starting in 2017 — after Biden’s term as vice president.

Prosecutors noted that Smirnov’s claim “set off a firestorm in Congress” when it resurfaced years later as part of the House impeachment inquiry into President Biden. The Biden administration dismissed the House impeachment effort as a “stunt.”

Smirnov covers his face while leaving his lawyer's office

Former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, left, walks out of his lawyer’s office in downtown Las Vegas after being released from federal custody Feb. 20, 2024.  (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)

SPECIAL COUNSEL WEISS TELLS LAWMAKERS POLITICS ‘PLAYED NO PART’ IN HUNTER BIDEN PROBE

Before Smirnov’s arrest, Republicans had demanded the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, though they acknowledged they couldn’t confirm if they were true.

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“In committing his crimes he betrayed the United States, a country that showed him nothing but generosity, including conferring on him the greatest honor it can bestow, citizenship,” Weiss’ team wrote in court papers. “He repaid the trust the United States placed in him to be a law-abiding naturalized citizen and, more specifically, that one of its premier law enforcement agencies placed in him to tell the truth as a confidential human source, by attempting to interfere in a Presidential election.”

The Bidens in July 2024

President Joe Biden, wearing a Team USA jacket and walking with his son Hunter Biden, heads toward Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, July 26, 2024.  (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Prosecutors agreed to pursue no more than six years against Smirnov as part of his plea deal. In court papers, the Justice Department described Smirnov as a “liar and a tax cheat” who “betrayed the United States,” adding that his bogus corruption claims against the Biden family were “among the most serious kinds of election interference one can imagine.” 

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In seeking a lighter sentence, Smirnov’s lawyers wrote that both Hunter Biden and President-elect Trump, who was charged in two since-dropped federal cases by Special Counsel Jack Smith, “have walked free and clear of any meaningful punishment.”

His lawyers had asked for a four-year prison term, arguing that their client “has learned a very grave lesson,” had no prior criminal record and was suffering from severe glaucoma in both eyes. Smirnov’s sentencing Wednesday in Los Angeles federal court concluded the final aspects of Weiss’s probe, and the special counsel is expected to submit a report to Attorney General Merrick Garland in accordance with federal regulations. Garland can decide whether to release it to the public. 

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Smirnov will get credit for the time he has served behind bars since February. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Column: Forget Reagan and Schwarzenegger. In California governor's race, boring can be beautiful

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Column: Forget Reagan and Schwarzenegger. In California governor's race, boring can be beautiful

California is about to ease into the 2026 race for governor, and if you can pick any of the current candidates from a police lineup, either you work in Sacramento, have an unhealthy obsession with state politics, or both.

That’s not to impute criminality on the part of any of those running to succeed the term-limited Gavin Newsom. (Not that a rap sheet is necessarily a detriment these days. Just look at our president-elect.)

Rather, those bidding to become California’s 41st governor aren’t exactly a collection of name-in-lights celebrities. If they formed a support group, they could call it Candidates Anonymous.

For the record, those officially running are Toni Atkins, a former Assembly speaker and Senate president pro tem; Stephen Cloobeck, a Southern California philanthropist and businessman; Eleni Kounalakis, the state’s lieutenant governor; Tony Thurmond, California’s superintendent of public instruction; Antonio Villaraigosa, a former Los Angeles mayor; and Betty Yee, a former state controller.

There is talk of others possibly entering the contest. Atty. Gen Rob Bonta is often mentioned. Former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter has acknowledged eyeing the race. Vice President Kamala Harris, foremost among the possibilities, has done nothing publicly to either stoke or squelch speculation she might hop in after leaving office later this month.

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But even Harris and Porter, as well known as they are, lack anywhere near the candlepower of the two most famous bold-faced names who were elected California governor, Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Or even remotely disqualifying.

In fact, contrary to California’s glitzy image, Reagan and Schwarzenegger are the odd men out in a long line of drab, largely ho-hum candidates who have been elected to the state’s top office. Think George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Gray Davis, whose public personas might best be rendered in broad strokes of beige, taupe and, yes, gray.

Even Jerry Brown seemed staid by the time of his return gubernatorial engagement, 36 years after he first took the oath of office. (There were no African safaris with Linda Ronstadt or quixotic tilts at the White House in his second go-round.)

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“There’s a perception that somehow Californians are entranced with movie stars and TV stars, and to some degree that’s true,” said Garry South, a Democratic strategist who twice helped elect Davis governor. “But I don’t think that view really reflects accurately the way California voters feel about politicians.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger won his first term as governor under the exceptional circumstances of a recall election.

(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

The state electorate, it turns out, is a whole lot more pragmatic than the autograph-hounding, Hollywood-worshipping stereotype would suggest.

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Gale Kaufman, another veteran Democratic strategist, has sat through countless focus groups. She said whenever voters are presented the name of someone famous — speculation about this or that celebrity running for governor being a staple of California campaigns — “they immediately take it to the next phase and say, ‘Well, what would they do as governor?’”

Which suggests voters aren’t nearly as titillated by all that sparkle and shine as the political mentioners would like to think.

Schwarzenegger, it should be said, was elected in 2003 under extraordinary circumstances, a drastically truncated campaign that lasted only a little over eight weeks. The fleeting time frame gave the movie super-duperstar a unique opportunity to leverage his fame and name recognition to replace Davis — who was recalled by voters on the same day — in a single fell swoop.

It’s also worth noting that Schwarzenegger was not entirely a political novice.

His association with the Kennedy clan, through marriage to Maria Shriver, his chairmanship of the Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under President George H.W. Bush and, especially, his sponsorship the year prior of a successful statewide ballot measure promoting after-school youth programs gave Schwarzenegger a patina of political know-how that helped legitimize his candidacy.

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Reagan, who was essentially washed up as an actor by the time he ran for governor, had an even longer and more thorough political resume than Schwarzenegger by the time he launched his 1966 campaign. Even then, Reagan was helped greatly by the restive climate stemming from the Watts riots, widespread campus unrest and voter fatigue shrouding the incumbent, Jerry Brown’s father, Edmund G. “Pat” Brown.

Campaign experience counts a great deal in California, a vast, unruly state with more than 22 million registered voters, notwithstanding the success of those two actor-turned-politicians. Other than Schwarzenegger, every candidate that followed Reagan had successfully run for statewide office at least once before being elected governor.

“It’s easy for people on the outside to think we’re celebrity-focused because of what they see from Hollywood and movies and television,” said Mark Baldassare, who has spent decades surveying voter opinions and now directs surveys for the Public Policy Institute of California. “But the reality is it’s a big state to govern, and it’s hard to win elections unless you’ve been in them before.”

No one, least of all your friendly political columnist, has any clue what will happen in 2026.

It wouldn’t be a bit surprising if California voters opted for someone without the Hollywood looks, the flash or conspicuous national ambitions of the current governor — just as the leaden Deukmejian followed the flamboyant Brown, and the buttoned-down Brown succeeded the megawatt Schwarzenegger.

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None of the candidates currently running are going to set the tabloids alight or break any box office records.

That may be one of the best things they have going for them.

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