U.S. ready to further support its allies to boost their defense capabilities - State Department

Bolstered by a historic $32 billion in approved defense sales to allies and partners for the month of July, the Trump administration said this week that it is ready to further support its international allies to boost their defense capabilities.

"We are going to work together to make sure that the United States and our security cooperation partners are interoperable with each other," Assistant Secretary of State R. Clarke Cooper announced during a teleconference organized by the State Department's Foreign Press Center.

July was "our second-highest-yielding month in defense trade for the history of the Department of State." Cooper, who is in charge of the Political-Military Affairs Bureau at the Department, added.

A listing of U.S. arms sales to partners in 2020 indicates an aggressive offering of air and naval platforms internationally.

The U.S. will "continue to march forward" with partners, the assistant secretary said, and "continue to still work with them on their defense requirements.  And we’re going to continue to work together to make sure that the United States and our security cooperation partners are interoperable with each other."

When asked by TURAN whether Washington was planning to offer its security tools in the South Caucasus and Black Sea regions in response to crises such as escalations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, or political tension in Belarus in the event of Russia’s interference, Cooper said, in general, the U.S, has a host of tools in its toolkit and that "our embassies abroad look at how that works in the context of providing resilience and readiness for the host country."

In Europe, he said, a good example is the U.S has an account called the Countering Russian Influence Fund that can be applied in many ways.

"That could be applied in a defensive toolkit. It could be applied in a cyber domain defense posture. It could be applied to support some defense material. So to the question as to what are we looking at as to what is available, we have certainly identified for our embassies the host of tools that range from either the kinetic to the non-kinetic, and where those accounts could be applied, specifically, as you mentioned, countering Russian influence," he said.

The U.S. also has a new global account and that’s called the Countering Chinese Influence Fund, or other tools such as humanitarian demining, conventional weapons destruction.

"There’s a host of what’s available that we can provide a country to supplement what they’re doing for their own national security interest, and in some cases, as you mentioned, neighboring states, working with them together on where there could be some joint elements or efforts, especially if we’re talking about border integrity or we’re talking about an area or region, a trans-regional space that may be impacted by something like unexploded ordnance," he added.  

In a general frame, he said, "what we are doing with our embassies is informing them of what’s available here for them to apply there. And it certainly does take a broader [State] department effort; even though the tools may reside in PM, we certainly work with our regional counterparts and our embassies to make sure that they are – those are essentially pushed out the door for our partners."

Cooper refused to get into details when asked whether the U.S.was planning to update its security assistant programs following the recent escalations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, only stressing the situation "is closely of notice to a number of my colleagues, including myself.  To put it in the frame of the communications are not just at the post level, they also are very here in Washington as well."

How does the U.S. policy guidance on arm sales address human rights consideration? Answering to TURAN's question, Cooper said, it is among the host of factors that the current administration takes into consideration when making arms transfer decisions with foreign partners.

In 2018, President Trump issued guidance to the State Department to update and bolster its arms policy. It’s called the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy. 

"When this [guidance] was updated by the Trump administration, it included a host of factors. So in that calculus of burden sharing, in that calculus of addressing shared threats, in that calculus of providing capabilities and bolstering the sovereignty of a partner, is human rights," he said.

"I could tell you that the calculus factors in which we’re looking at how a country applies those resources not only for their sovereignty, but how they’re able to do that in a way that mitigates the risk of civilian harm, that mitigates the risk of civilian casualty," he added.

Alex Raufoglu

Washington D.C.