Category: Uncategorized
Proliferation without borders
Dr. Pantelis Ikonomou, a former IAEA Safeguards inspector asks:
After 30 years of service as a senior officer in the International Atomic Energy Agency, the world’s watchdog for nuclear weapons non-proliferation and disarmament, an organisation that primarily you, US and Russia, created and continue to support, I dare to address to both of you a rhetorical question:
“How could an international nuclear safeguards inspector comprehend and explain to the stunned public your recent nuclear behavior, in particular your withdrawal from the bilateral Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty that you achieved in 1987 on prohibiting the development and deployment of a wide range of nuclear weapons?”
In March 2018 President Putin stated that nuclear weapons are essential for his county to maintain its position as a great world power. In order to convince the international community, he presented the terrifying capabilities of new Russian nuclear weapons that could target any place on the planet without been detected, thus, rendering nuclear deterrence a useless myth.
Six months later, in October 2018, President Trump replied that the US would unilaterally withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, claiming that Russia does not comply with its obligations.
Moscow rejected the accusations, blaming Washington for refraining from the negotiations on the extension beyond 2021 of the New START treaty, which controls strategic nuclear weapons.
In a continuous blame game the Russian president warned that any deployment of intermediate range missile by the US in Europe will force Russia to respond equally. Moreover, he made it terrifyingly clear that the increase nuclear threat could «result to the global destruction of human civilization and perhaps even of our planet».
Europe reacted immediately urging INF’s survival. The treaty’s elimination will turn Europe into a launcher and target of the ‘’new and modern’’ nuclear weapons of both the US and Russia, respectively. Furthermore, the European strategic objective of an autonomous defense policy will become difficult to achieve.
China, knowing that it will become the target of new US intermediate-rang nuclear missiles deployed in Japan and South Korea, immediately and firmly excluded its possible involvement in a new multilateral INF treaty, which eventually could embrace China’s nuclear adversary, India.
Several nervous countries, such as Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea, maintain active programs to develop intermediate ballistic missiles suitable for carrying nuclear weapons.
If the two super powers, the US and Russia, assisted by the rest of the NPT nuclear weapons states (China, UK and France) won’t proceed to the creation of a new international INF treaty, they will owe the world answers to vital geopolitical questions:
- Do the US and Russia not realize that their nuclear policy contradicts their basic NPT undertaking (Article VI) «…to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament…»?
- Do they not recognize the immediate risk of nuclear weapons proliferation in the Middle East and north-east Asia?
- Is North Korea not enough?
- Why do they risk their own loss of global geostrategic primacy?
- Is it possible that they ignore the increasing global nuclear threat?
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Stevenson’s army, August 5
My SAIS colleague, Charlie Stevenson, distributes an almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. This is a fourth tasting. If you want to get it directly, follow the instructions below:
China seems to be weaponizing its currency in response to the Trump tariff threats.
The Guardian has a good story about how the Chinese government manages businesses.
NYT says US is standing aside while Japan and South Korea deepen their trade and political conflict.
WaPo says US is desperately trying to prevent Turkish invasion of northeast Syria.
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Stevenson’s army, August 4
My SAIS colleague, Charlie Stevenson, distributes an almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. This is a third tasting. If you want to get it directly, follow the instructions below:
– As most of you know, the Senate Majority Leader can control
whatever amendments are offered to any measure by “filling the amendment
tree” and yielding only for amendments he approves. That has reached
such an extent under Leader McConnell that NYT has a front page story noting:
The number of Senate roll call votes on amendments — a key indicator of
whether lawmakers are engaged in free and open debate — plummeted to
only 18 this year, according to a review of congressional data. During
the same time period in the 10 previous Congresses, senators took
anywhere from 34 to 231 amendment votes.
The figures come from a report by the Bipartisan Policy Center. Here is the full report.
– RollCall notes how both parties are targeting state legislative races in order to be in stronger positions to gerrymander after the 2020 census.
-WSJ has more details on the Oval Office meeting where most of Trump’s advisers spoke against the latest tariffs on China.
– Robin Wright of the New Yorker reports that the president had approved an invitation to a personal meeting with the Iranian foreign minister only a few days before deciding to personally sanction him.
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Stevenson’s army, August 3
My SAIS colleague, Charlie Stevenson, distributes an almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. This is a second tasting. If you want to get it directly, follow the instructions below:
Interagency conflicts are a normal part of the policy process. Officials and agencies have different perspectives on problems and often different views on solutions. Yesterday I noted WSJ report of the conflict over trade policy. Today, NYT has THREE stories about other policy fights.
– The US military sees ISIS as a bigger threat in Afghanistan than does the intelligence community, assessing double the number of ISIS fighters as does the community.
-SecState Pompeo opposed the recent agreement with Guatemala, but the DHS acting secretary won the fight.
– Pompeo has fired the head of policy planning, apparently for management problems, but who knows.
– A trade prof argues that Lighthizer’s trade strategy has been proved a failure.
– BTW, the trade war with China has led to a drop to only 3rd US trade partner.
– Cong. Ratcliffe’s removal as DNI designee led the president to justify his poor vetting policy in an unusual way:
“I give out a name to the press and they vet for me. We save a lot of money that way,” Trump said.The president also seems to take China’s side on Hong Kong, calling the protests “riots” that China should deal with.
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Stevenson’s army, August 2
My SAIS colleague, Charlie Stevenson, distributes an almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. This is a first tasting. If you want to get it directly, follow the instructions below:
WSJ [alone among the media I see] reports that none of the president’s economic advisers except Peter Navarro supported the new 10% tariffs on Chinese imports.
WaPo has more on the planned reductions in US troops in Afghanistan.
WSJ reports Israel launched two air attacks inside Iraq.
New Republic says swing states get special favors in Congress, like ethanol for Iowa and coal for Pennsylvania.
In my assessment, Lindsey Graham has a lot of pluses and minuses, but this week’s gross abuse of Judiciary Committee rules and norms is a big minus.
[I’m not sure if you can open this, but CFR has a good set of articles on cyber issues.]
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The real America
I take as proven and irrefutable that President Trump is a racist (call it white nationalist or white supremacist if you prefer), so I won’t offer evidence. It is pointless to argue the case both with his supporters and with his opponents, since the former aren’t interested in evidence and the latter are already convinced. Even National Public Radio, usually shy of controversy, is referring this morning to Trump’s tweets about black politicians as racist. A racist is as a racist says and does.
The question is whether racism is politically advantageous or not. The best numbers I’ve seen on this subject say not. Even among white males, who constitute his core support, Trump is not breaking 50% approval. His overall approval rating has never broken 50%, and in fact he got only 46% of the votes in the 2016 election.
That is possible for a winner because:
- third party candidates in 2016 arguably deprived Hillary Clinton of some key states;
- the electoral college, where states have votes equal to their number of representatives plus their number of senators, favors less populous, more rural states that are predominantly Trump supporters.
The United States does not have a one-person, one-vote system for presidential elections. Someone living in Wyoming has about three times of the weight of someone living in California in electing the President. Odds are Trump will get an even smaller percentage of the popular vote in 2020 than he did in 2016, because populous Democratic-leaning states like California and New York will vote overwhelmingly against him, whereas Texas and Florida (both of which went for Trump in 2016) will continue to be fairly close, whoever wins.
If Trump wins without a majority of popular votes in 2020 it will be the third time since 2000 that has happened, with increasingly wide popular vote margins for the Democratic loser. That is a formula for minority, racist rule even before we take into account racist efforts to suppress voting by non-whites. Let’s ignore for the moment the racist drawing of Congressional districts by Republican-dominated state legislatures, which doesn’t directly affect the electoral votes, and the effort to undercount non-whites in the 2020 census, which does.
America is a young country. But it is an old governing system. No other written constitution has been in effect for more than 230 years. The electoral college is a feature of the original. It cannot be changed without a constitutional amendment, which is unthinkable, since the states that gain political weight in the electoral college would not agree to surrender their privilege. Its anti-democratic feature can be defeated by a compact among states to give their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. Such a compact is in process of adoption, but it seems unlikely to be in effect by 2020.
So the 2020 election will be an unfair referendum not only on Trump but on racism, as well as the misogyny and xenophobia that accompany it. I’d like to think that the outcome is predictable, even if the playing field is not even. Any American who believes people are born with inalienable rights should have no problem voting against Trump. Anyone who doesn’t believe that–who believes instead that a white skin, male genitalia, or birth to an American parent conveys entitlement beyond that of other citizens–should vote for Trump. The 2020 election will reveal the real America.
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