Kurt Michael Campbell was born in August 1957 in Fresno, California. He earned an undergraduate degree from the University of California, San Diego. He received a D.Phil from Breasenose College, Oxford. 

He served in the U.S. Navy, on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Special Intelligence Unit of the Chief of Naval Operations. He was an associate professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He was also an assistant director of the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He has served as an executive on national and international security. 

President Obama appointed Campbell as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. He later served on an editorial board and founded an advisory company that specialized in Asia. He served on the Council on Foreign Relations. 

President Biden nominated Campbell to Deputy Secretary of State and the Senate confirmed him in February of 2024. He was sworn into office a week later. 

He is married to Lael Brainard.

Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell spoke with Philippine Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Maria Theresa Lazaro after an incident between the Philippine and Chinese navies in the South China Sea. Filipino boats were confronted by Chinese coast guard who disrupted the supply mission.

State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said the two diplomats agreed that China’s “dangerous actions threatened regional peace and stability.”

Spokesperson Miller continued, “Deputy Secretary Campbell and Undersecretary Lazaro discussed shared concerns over the People’s Republic of China’s escalatory and irresponsible actions on June 17, which obstructed the Philippines from executing a lawful maritime operation in the South China Sea, interfering with the Philippines’ freedom of navigation.“

He added, “The Deputy Secretary reaffirmed that Article IV of the 1951 United States-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft – including those of its Coast Guard – anywhere in the South China Sea. Deputy Secretary Campbell and Undersecretary Lazaro further reiterated the critical importance of the United States-Philippines alliance to maintaining our shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.“

Did you pray for Deputy Secretary Campbell today? You can let him know at:

The Honorable Kurt Campbell, Deputy Secretary
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

https://www.presidentialprayerteam.org/2024/06/20/kurt-campbell-deputy-secretary-of-state-2/

READ FROM TOP

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

GUS LEONISKY, POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951, IS A RABID ATHEIST...............

BY  ROD MCGUIRK

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Several serving and former Australian military commanders have been stripped of medals over allegations of war crimes committed during the Afghanistan war, Defense Minister Richard Marles said Thursday.

Holding commanders to account for alleged misconduct of Australian special forces between 2005 and 2016 was recommended by Maj. Gen. Paul Brereton in his war crime investigation. Brereton found that around 25 Australian Special Air Service Regiment and Commando Regiment troops were involved in the unlawful killings of 39 Afghans. 

“The allegations which are the subject of the Brereton Report are arguably the most serious allegations of Australian war crimes in our history,” Marles told Parliament.

Marles wrote to commanders of those troops about medals they had received for their service during the periods war crimes allegedly occurred. He did not specify to Parliament how many he had written to or identify their ranks, citing privacy concerns.

The removal of medals was condemned by Australian Special Air Service Association chair Martin Hamilton-Smith as a betrayal of the courage and sacrifice of soldiers in Afghanistan.

“The government’s decision overlooks the courageous leadership of these young officers on the battlefield based on unproven allegations that somewhere in a remote village unseen and unknown to these commanders, an unlawful act might have occurred on their watch,” Hamilton-Smith said in a statement.

Marles later explained the medals weren’t stripped because of the officers’ wrongdoing.

“No one is … suggesting they knew what happened, were aware of it or didn’t act — that’s not the issue,” Marles told reporters.

“But the issue is that when you command a unit, you will receive often the benefits and the accolades of what that unit does irrespective of whether you’ve personally been right there in the front line and commensurately, you accept the responsibility of that unit in terms of what failings occur,” Marles said. “Had we known what had occurred, would the medals have been granted?”

Opposition lawmaker Andrew Hastie, who as an SAS captain commanded troops in Afghanistan in 2013, said Australian political leaders and the military hierarchy should also be held accountable for war crimes.

“I believe that our troops were let down by a lack of moral courage that went up the chain of command all the way to Canberra — including in this House,” Hastie said, referring to the House of Representatives.

Hastie was not decorated for his service in Afghanistan and so was not among those officers stripped of medals.

“I want to be clear: Those who are alleged to have shed innocent blood are alone responsible for that. I do not say this to absolve or condemn anyone,” Hastie said. “But those in the chain of command who saw the post-mission slide decks with the kill counts and pictures of dead individuals had an obligation to ask questions.”

No Australian veteran has been convicted of a war crime in Afghanistan. But a whistleblower and former army lawyer, David McBride, was sentenced in May to almost six years in jail for leaking to the media classified information that exposed allegations of Australian war crimes.

In 2023, former SAS trooper Oliver Schulz became the first of these veterans to be charged with a war crime. He is accused of shooting dead a noncombatant in a wheat field in Uruzgan province in 2012.

Also last year, a civil court found Australia’s most decorated living war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith likely unlawfully killed four Afghans when he was an SAS corporal. He has not been criminally charged.

https://apnews.com/article/australia-afghanistan-war-crimes-stripped-medals-4611f87ccd4748fd010c5328f91ddb2f

READ FROM TOP

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

The most senior US officials, including President Joe Biden himself, refer to US alliances with individual or groups of countries in the Indo-Pacific as benign and defensive in nature. These references contrast with warnings about the possible “knock-on” effect of a Russian victory in Ukraine which, it is said, could encourage China to seek to incorporate Taiwan by force. However, an examination of the situation in Europe provides a different lesson for our part of the world; that is that building an alliance system which excludes the most important country in a region can have disastrous effects.

I refer, of course, to the war in Ukraine which, inspite of Ukraine having been part of the Soviet Union until its collapse, Russia — and Vladimir Putin in particular — came to see as “the tip of the NATO spear” pointed at it, with the aim of, and giving NATO the ability to, permanently relegate it to second-tier status.

There has been much discussion of whether the West deceived Russia over the possible future eastward expansion of NATO after the end of the Cold War and the re-unification of Germany. However, there is little doubt that at that time Russia was looking to full participation in a new Europe-wide, or Atlantic-wide, security organisation, but was snubbed. And years later, that led to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine which has already had disastrous consequences for both Ukraine and Russia. We can only hope the disaster does not spread to involve the rest of Europe, or even the wider Western world. In hindsight, it would have been a much more positive course to fully involve Russia — the world’s second strongest nuclear power, resource-rich, technologically advanced, with a history of a major role in European affairs, including a much-admired role in World War II — in post-Cold War developments and arrangements including in the security sphere.

The same description and arguments apply to China in the Pacific. One linkage, commonly made by Western officials and commentators, is that a Russian victory in Ukraine would encourage China to invade Taiwan. But another lesson for the Pacific from the Atlantic is that it isn’t wise to try to construct a security system that excludes the major regional country. There’s no doubt that in the Pacific that is China, and indeed the US is paranoid about its rise. To quote University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer yet again, “the US cannot tolerate a peer competitor”.

Some writers date the United States’ fear of China to 2008, when its economy remained strong while those of others faltered. Certainly, at some point, the US’s attitude to China changed, as has the attitude to the US of the Chinese public. Of course, all is not lost between the two, as shown by the recent visit of US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to Beijing, where he was reportedly given the highest level reception. But the emphasis often placed on the United States’ relationship with its allies like Japan, South Korea and the Philippines — and increasingly Australia, after the latest AUSMIN — tends in a different direction. Statements of purpose by American officials are full of phrases like “opposing China” and “curbing China’s rise”, and US Pacific diplomacy seems centred on building “mini-lateral” cooperation to confront China. Our government certainly seems to go along with this: for example, recent talks with Japan have foreshadowed exercises with both US and Japanese Marines in Northern Australia.

Yet what do we actually have in China? It can be described in much the same terms as Russia above – the world’s first or second largest economy, technologically advanced, a nuclear power, with a history as the central power of Asia and which, like Russia, played a much-admired role in World War II.

Internationally it is expanding its role and influence, as the just-concluded China-Africa meeting exemplifies – although it harms its international standing by what seem to an outsider to be unnecessary displays of assertive behaviour in the South China Sea. Its international relations are also haunted by the question of the status of Taiwan, which is the main issue left over from the major civil war in China 70 years ago. At least, a very recent Chinese formulation again included “peaceful” in its longstanding goal of reunification with Taiwan.

Multilaterally, China has been an active participant in both regional — the ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asia Summit, the RECEP — and international — the UN, the WTO — bodies. In fact, it has frequently combined its activities in these bodies with the influence acquired from its active world-wide diplomacy to produce outcomes that were surprising — and sometimes unwelcome — to members of longer standing. But that is a result of competition, one of the principles on which the Western world prides itself, and which we can hardly condemn.

A distinguished recent visitor to Australia, former South Korean Foreign Minister Dr Kyungwha Kang, now president and CEO of the Asia Society, head-quartered in the United States, was interviewed on 7 September on Radio National. She said the US’ aim in relation to China should be “managed competition, plus dialogue”. She did not think China was expansionist, or aggressive. Indeed, it had a defensive mindset, being so dependent on imports from all over the world – an important element in its attitude to the South China Sea.

As we know, China is Australia’s most important customer and trading partner, a country with which we have a “comprehensive strategic partnership”. There is a strong people-to-people element in the relationship – students as well as permanent citizens. Senior Chinese have often made the point that Australia and China have no history of clashes to bedevil their relationship. It is, therefore, puzzling and regrettable to see that at the latest AUSMIN, as at its predecessors, the Australian side agreed to formulations whose only rationale is to better enable the United States to wage a war against China.

And, looking at it from a wider perspective, and with the lesson of NATO, Russia and Ukraine in mind, it is also unrealistic to pin our hopes for a secure, stable and prosperous Pacific on a grouping essentially consisting of the US, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines – as well as Australia, if we don’t disentangle ourselves from it. To do so is to ignore China’s central role in the Asia-Pacific, and the fact that most countries of Asia — India, for example — and of ASEAN — Indonesia and Vietnam, for example — don’t wish to take sides  between the US and China. And see the views of the former Foreign Minister of South Korea, one if what the Americans call the “squad”, reported above.

“Involvement and engagement” should be our key words in relation to China, not “exclusion” or “containment”, as we seek to avoid a repetition of the Ukraine disaster in the Pacific.

https://johnmenadue.com/avoiding-an-exclusion-disaster-in-the-pacific-a-different-lesson-from-ukraine/

THE AMERICAN EMPIRE DOES NOT LEARN ANYTHING AND IN GENERAL HAS ZIP INTEREST IN KNOWING WHAT OTHERS THINK, BUT THE EMPIRE WILL GIVE LESSONS TO OTHER COUNTRIES LIKE A DUMB DOG GIVES LESSONS TO A STICK....

READ FROM TOP

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.