Tag: China
Europe at sea
On Monday, the Hudson Institute hosted a conversation with Rear Admiral Chris Parry, Royal Navy (Ret.), entitled Europe at Sea: Mediterranean and Baltic Security Challenges. Seth Cropsey, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, moderated. Admiral Parry spoke about the challenges that Europe faces, given that it is surrounded by water on three sides, and outlined several alternative political futures for Europe.
The threats to Europe from the sea are not new. In 1983, the USSR had a plan to attack Europe through the Central Front plus the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas. Understanding the way the Russians view the Black and Baltic Seas is crucial to understanding Putin’s motives. They have a very short coastline on the Baltic Sea. Until they took Crimea, they had a short Black Sea coast as well. This has always made the Russians nervous. Russia and the Scandinavian countries also have competing claims in the Arctic. Russia’s claims extend far beyond the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and Russian icebreakers now escort vessels through the Arctic.
Europe, however, is more worried about the Mediterranean because of unstable states in North Africa and the Levant, as well as migration both by sea and overland through Turkey. There is a risk for the return of Barbary piracy, as well as for seaborne terrorist attacks on coastal tourist areas. Northern Europe believes that it is the responsibility of Southern European countries to deal with this. The EU is not set up to make political decisions because it is an economic union with political pretensions. The effort needed to run the EU saps energy from efforts to address seaborne security threats.
Parry spoke about how influence has shifted, such that the important global players are now the US and the East Asian countries. The US is well-placed to benefit from globalization. If Europe isn’t careful, it will decline and become strategically irrelevant. In the future, Parry sees:
- An increase in the use of state power by non-Western countries.
- Small amounts of high-quality force will be decisive.
- Increased proxy activity, because states don’t want to directly confront each other.
- WMD proliferation.
- Increased terrorism.
- Diffusion of technology and weaponry.
There will be both irregular threats from terrorism, criminality, disasters and disease, as well as renewed threats from China, Russia, ISIS, Marxist revivalists (in Greece, for example), regional aspirants and weapons proliferation. Europe will need to contain a Middle Eastern equivalent of Europe’s Thirty Years War, ensure access to natural resources, and adapt to climate change.
Though Putin constitutes an existential threat, Parry noted that defense expenditure in Europe is declining. NATO countries still however spend more than non-NATO countries. It spends far more to shoot down a cheap missile than the missile costs; this unsustainable cost ratio must decrease. NATO has failed to resist coercion in Ukraine. Hitler knew he would win at Munich because he knew the British and French wouldn’t go to war. Putin is using traditional hard power and is confused by our lack of response. Russia’s Baltic Sea exercises are designed to resist NATO forces.
Scandinavia is nervous. Europe has become strategically dependent on the US; some European countries have armies that aren’t prepared to go to war. The UK is investing in new aircraft carriers but is hollowing out the rest of the Royal Navy. To resist coercion at sea from Russia, a change in attitude is needed.
Parry also spoke about the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The Iran deal represents what is possible, rather than what is desirable. China and Russia have been keen to maintain Iran as a client state and suppress its nuclear ambitions. In the rush to welcome Iran into the global economy, we need to be careful about the security dimensions. As a result of the Sunni-Shiite conflict in MENA, the “Great Satan” tag will shift from the US to Saudi Arabia. China has invested heavily in new trade routes. It may get the bulk of its future oil and gas from Shiite Iran and Shiite-dominated Iraq. But China could also move into the Southern Gulf States if the US and Europe reduce their commitments there.
Like Russia, China is increasing its naval presence, sometimes disregarding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. There are increasing numbers of Chinese warships in the Indian Ocean as well as Chinese ships in the Mediterranean and Chinese icebreakers in the Arctic. China views its oil rigs as sovereign territory, which means that it believes it can base missiles and surveillance off of them. This is illegal under international law.
Parry outlined three different potential futures for Europe:
- A Eurasian future: the US drifts to the Pacific and Europe pursues economic cooperation with Russia and China.
- A maritime future: Parts of Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Korea together control trade on the seas. The sea is the physical equivalent of the World Wide Web and controlling it is vital for international trade.
- A fragmented future: There are no eternal friends or enemies, just interests, and each country pursues its own interests. Europe’s separatist movements could also lead to a fragmented future.
According to Parry, the US now faces choices as well. Unconventional oil and gas have been a game-changer for the US economy. The US has to decide whether it will use this money to remain strategically dominant or turn inward. The 2016 election will be crucial. In the future, if it becomes clear that help isn’t coming from the US, European countries will seek accommodation with Russia and East Asian countries will seek accommodation with China. This will have major geostrategic consequences.
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The truth in criticisms of the Iran deal
Here are some criticisms of the Iran deal that contain at least a kernel of truth. I thought I might go over these, for the sake of clarifying some of the arguments pro and con:
1. It will give Iran a lot of money to do bad things with. That is true. It’s not as much money as some are claiming: perhaps $50 billion fairly quickly the US Treasury thinks, rather than the $100-150 billion deal opponents cite. Since the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its affiliates has lost a great deal (two-thirds of the country’s centrifuges and virtually all of its enriched uranium, not to mention a plutonium-producing reactor filled with concrete), the pressures to compensate it with both money and freedom to do bad things in the region will be enormous. That means more money for shipping arms to Bahrain, Yemen and above all Syria as well as compensating Hizbollah for its losses. Only by countering Iranian moves in those places can the US hope to avoid some of the consequences.
2. All the agreement does is buy time. Yes, that is the main thing it does, by pushing Iran back from a breakout time (the time it needs to get the fissile material needed to build a singular nuclear weapon) of 2 months or so to a year, and preventing any shortening of that breakout time for 10-15 years. But that is not all it does. The verification mechanisms put in place will be the strictest and most comprehensive installed anywhere and will last forever. The obligation Iran takes in the agreement not to pursue nuclear weapons is binding and permanent. The military option so many critics implicitly favor remains an open should Iran move in the direction of getting a nuclear weapon.
3. The verification measures are inadequate. It is difficult to prove a negative, as we all know. That is what the verification measures are asked to do. But no country has ever made nuclear weapons in facilities monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as Iran’s will be. Iranian facilities will be covered by the tightest monitoring scheme ever devised, with the real capability of detecting diversion of any nuclear material. Still, a clandestine nuclear program is possible, conducted outside monitored facilities. That is why Iranian delivery to the IAEA of answers to questions about its past activities with “possible military dimensions” (PMDs) is so important. That is due October 15, with an IAEA report due December 15. If you want an early indication of whether this agreement will be effective, watch that space.
4. Lifting of sanctions cannot be “snapped back.” Existing contracts will be grandfathered, so the legal impact of any reimposition of sanctions–which can be decided by the US and its allies over Russian, Chinese or Iran objections–will not be immediate. That’s true. But the fact of reimposition will be much more significant than the legal impact. Companies that do business with Iran will immediately dial it down, if not out, should sanctions be reimposed, if only to avoid getting into trouble with US and European financial regulations. In the longer-term, Iran will be less vulnerable to sanctions if it invests its money well and is able to develop its oil and especially gas resources. That is an inherent part of the deal.
5. The deal allows industrial-scale nuclear facilities that make Iran a threshold nuclear state. I wouldn’t rank 5000 or so centrifuges or a few hundred kilos of light enriched uranium as industrial scale or nuclear threshold. But fine if you do, because Tehran has much more than that now and would be under no obligation to give any of it up if there is no deal. Are we better off with numbers two and three times as large as will exist if the deal is not approved? Not to mention that without a deal we can expect Iran to accelerate its nuclear efforts.
6. The sanctions will hold even if the US withdraws from the agreement. It is true that the US can make life extremely unpleasant for any company or bank anywhere in the world that does business with Iran if Washington says no. But there is a high price to be paid for extraterritorial extension of our sanctions: other governments don’t like it and Iran will build an elaborate network to get around it, as they have with the existing sanctions. Especially on the Repubican side of the aisle, it should be appreciated that anti-market restrictions are unlikely to be watertight or last forever.
7. The arms and especially missile sanctions should not have been lifted. The UN Security Council imposed them in order to get Iran to negotiate on nuclear issues. Iran expected them to be lifted as soon as it had implemented its portion of the nuclear constraints. Instead they will remain in place far longer than we had a right to ask. I’d prefer they not be lifted too, but I never got a pony either.
I’m reasonably confident the Congress will not muster the 2/3 majority in both houses required to kill the deal. But if they do, we can expect most of the world (that’s everyone but Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu) to think us deranged and to refuse American leadership on Middle East and many other issues for a long time to come. All those Gulf countries complaining about the deal now will make much more noise if the deal falls through and Iran acquires the material for a nuclear weapon in the next couple of months. Remember President Wilson, the League of Nations and the period between the World Wars? This would be at least as bad.
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Big surprise is no surprise
The Middle East Institute published my piece this evening:
The Iran nuclear deal has only one big surprise: it is consistent with the April 2 “parameters” that preceded it and contains no surprises. No one caved. Nothing got walked back.
But there are some interesting additions. One is this: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.” This is a written confirmation of the Supreme Leader’s controversial “fatwa” against nuclear weapons. It was not so long ago that Iran’s critics in the United States were complaining that the fatwa was only oral and not written. I have not noticed anyone welcoming the written version.
The “reaffirmation” wouldn’t be worth the paper it is printed on except for the detailed limits and intrusive inspections that the agreement provides. No softie on Iran, Dennis Ross confirms that these fulfill previous Iranian commitments to limit centrifuges, enrichment, and enriched uranium; end all plans for separating plutonium; and no longer engage in any research and development related to a nuclear explosive device. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring will be more comprehensive and intrusive than for other countries. While no system is foolproof, nuclear weapons have never been developed within an IAEA safeguarded program.
That leaves the possibility of a clandestine nuclear program outside the purview of the IAEA. There is reason to believe that Tehran had such a program until 2003, when it was allegedly stopped. Iran, which previously stonewalled IAEA inquiries on this subject, has now committed in the nuclear deal to clarifying its past nuclear activities with “possible military dimensions” by October 15, with a final assessment due from the IAEA on December 15. This will be an important early milestone in implementation (or not) of the nuclear deal. It is not the first time the Iranians have promised clarification. Beyond that date, the IAEA can request access to locations of concern. Iranian objections can be overridden by five of eight members of a joint commission overseeing implementation of the agreement. That joint commission includes five Western members (the United States, the UK, France, Germany, and the EU) as well as Russia, China, and Iran.
The agreement provides for sanctions to be lifted once Iran implements its obligations or passes certain time limits in compliance with the agreement. No sanctions get lifted without implementation, and some—like the arms embargo—remain in place for five or eight years (depending on the weapons involved). While most restrictions are lifted within 15 years, some remain in place in perpetuity, including strict IAEA safeguards and the prohibition on nuclear weapons research and development.
The question is what happens if one or another obligation is breached. There is an elaborate, but quick-paced (I count 35 days), dispute resolution mechanism. At that point, UN Security Council sanctions would be reinstated, unless the Council votes within 30 days to continue lifting them. This is a “snapback” mechanism, unprecedented so far as I know in the Security Council. It would give the United States (and other permanent members) a veto over sanctions lifting. Iran has stated that it would treat reinstatement of sanctions as grounds to cease performing its commitments.
So, is this agreement a good thing or a bad thing?
It depends on what you think the alternative might be. At worst, it would be no constraints on the Iranian nuclear program, no IAEA monitoring, and no multilateral sanctions, as the EU and China are champing at the bit to do business with a cash, oil, and gas-rich Iran. At best we might in the absence of an agreement be able to sustain the sanctions for a while but not likely the IAEA monitoring and technological constraints, giving others in the region reason to initiate their own programs to produce weapons-grade uranium or plutonium. War might set back the Iranian nuclear program for a few years, but it would also give them incentive to finish the job and unleash even more chaos than the region is currently enduring.
Relief from sanctions will unquestionably provide the Iranians with resources. Tehran is owed upward of $100 billion that will flow into its coffers, in addition to whatever its renewed exports will bring in today’s bearish oil market, likely to go down further because of Iran’s reentry into it. The Islamic Republic is a profoundly anti-Western regime that even without much available cash has managed to contribute to instability in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. Its anti-Americanism may sound hollow after this agreement, which engages Iran in a continuing process involving the United States and three of its allies as well as the European Union, but unless there is a dramatic and unexpected change of heart at the top in Tehran we can anticipate more trouble from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxies in the region and even beyond.
America’s friends in the Gulf will therefore be nervous about the implications of this agreement, though the United Arab Emirates was quick to say it welcomed it. Israel denounced it even before the ink was on the page. But soon enough both the Gulf states and Israel will become keen about insisting on fulfilling its every letter, as they have with the interim agreement currently in effect.
The debate in Congress will be vigorous. Most Republicans and a good number of Democrats will oppose the deal on the grounds that it licenses Iran to become a nuclear threshold state, ignoring the Obama administration’s conviction that this would happen faster and with fewer controls in the absence of an agreement. But the opponents are unlikely to muster the two-thirds majority in both houses required to override a presidential veto. The Supreme Leader is thought to have given the green light for this deal, but he has not yet pronounced on it. Assuming he says a dramatically reluctant “yes,” the Iranian Majlis will not block it.
The saga of implementation has not yet begun. It will last 10-15 years. If the agreement holds and prevents Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, it will have made an enormous contribution to peace and stability. If it fails, we will have to deal with the ugly consequences: war or a nuclearized Middle East.
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Yes, a nuclear deal means trouble
I am a proponent of a good nuclear deal with Iran. But I have taken some time this week to appreciate Israel’s perspective. Here is what I have understood and how I react.
The Israelis are concerned with the geostrategic impact of a deal with Iran that will accept and thereby legitimize its enrichment program. Other countries in the region that have in the past been constrained from pursuing enrichment will now proceed, in particular Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Whereas Turkey may be a more or less consolidated democracy, it is unpredictable who might come to power in the Kingdom or Egypt and what they might do with nuclear technology.
At the same time, Iran’s pernicious proxies in the region–until now deterred by Israel’s military capabilities–will be emboldened and enriched with resources once multilateral sanctions are lifted. Iran doesn’t much care about US sanctions. The ideology of the regime requires that the US remain an enemy. It will be sufficient for Europe, Russia and China to begin doing business with Tehran to put lots of money in its pockets. Any help the US gets from Iran and its proxies in fighting the Islamic State will be short-lived.
Everyone in the region, not just Israel, will feel less secure. An arms race will ensue. The buying spree will put advanced weapons into the hands of regimes that are not stable or reliable. No one knows where they will end up.
American reassurances are dubious. One hundred per cent access to Iranian facilities is impossible. No country has ever provided it. Iran won’t either. Nor can sanctions “snap back.” Neither the Russians nor the Chinese will agree to a mechanism that they are unable to block.
In my view, these preoccupations all have their validity. The trouble is the outcomes feared are likely whether there is an agreement or not. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are already under no legal restraint from enriching uranium whenever they please. Multilateral sanctions are unlikely to survive much longer, due to Chinese and European hunger for oil and gas as well as their interest in exporting to Iran. Arms have been pouring into the Gulf countries as well as Egypt and Jordan for years. There is already no lack of advanced equipment in hands that may or may not be reliable.
On top of all that, no agreement means no inspections and no constraints on the Iranian nuclear program. That is worse than the ample access to Iran’s nuclear program, and serious constraints, that an agreement will have to provide.
It is hard not to see the Israeli preoccupations as nostalgia for a region that they dominated for decades. Iran was marginalized, the Arabs were under America’s thumb, and Israel could do, and did, as it liked.
But that is not the eternal order in the Middle East. There is no way to keep Iran in its diminished position, much as we might like to try. Nor are the Arabs inclined to remain under American control. The prospect of a nuclear deal is ironically inclining them more than ever before to make common cause with Israel against Iran, whatever the Americans think. Just think what would happen if the Israelis were to settle with the Palestinians!
The bottom line: Israel wanted Iran to be forced to give up enrichment and will be satisfied with nothing less. But that was unlikely at best and impossible at worst.
Provided the verification mechanisms in any nuclear deal reached in the next few days are robust, including accounting for past military dimensions, all of us will need to learn to live with a still non-nuclear-armed Iran that is less constrained and more flush with cash than in the recent past. We’ll also need to be prepared to deter and counter its troublemaking, at least until someone who doesn’t see America as an enemy governs in Tehran.
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Asia will move ahead no matter what
With continued conflict in the Middle East and Europe, the US “pivot to Asia” has taken a back seat in the past few months. On Wednesday, the Center for Strategic and International Studies reignited a discussion on US interests in Asia with Singapore’s Foreign Minister and Minister of Law, K. Shanmugam. The event was hosted by Ernest Z. Bower, Senior Adviser and Sumitro Chair for Southeast Asia Studies at CSIS, and moderated by Ambassador J. Stapleton Roy, who spent much of his diplomatic career in East Asia.
Shanmugam emphasized the importance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would set new terms for trade and business investment among the US and 11 other Pacific Rim nations—a group with an annual gross domestic product of almost $28 trillion that represents 40% of global GDP and one-third of world trade. On June 12, the US House of Representatives rejected a bill that would have provided assistance to workers displaced by global trade, hindering completion of the TPP this year.
The TPP, Shanmugam thinks, offers a mutually beneficial deal by allowing Asia to benefit from US dominance in the energy and IT sectors and granting the US economic leverage over close to half the world’s GDP. But the region will not wait for America. In today’s global economy, China has arisen as a significant player with the ability to set up alternative multilateral institutions to which other countries will happily subscribe. This does not mean the Southeast Asian countries will choose the “Chinese side.” Indeed, the region wants the US to partake in its prosperity, as it did after WWII. Nevertheless, the fact remains that in today’s multipolar world, the U.S. cannot control the outcomes—even if it is the single most important power.
Another pressing regional issue is the South China conflict. China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines all have competing territorial and jurisdictional claims, particularly over oil and gas reserves in the sea. Little progress has been made in resolving these conflicts. Shanmugam believes it is unrealistic to expect any understanding on the issue of sovereignty. No claimant will be willing to give up its claims. A more feasible outcome is a Code of Conduct that regulates the behavior of the claimants. The US can play a role by encouraging the process of reaching agreement on such a Code of Conduct.
Shanmugam also elaborated on the slim possibility of developing an ASEAN economic community. Unlike member states in the European Union, there are huge disparities in the GDP of Asian countries. Singapore’s GDP per capita is $60,000 while that of some other countries is as little as $3000. Furthermore, Asian states don’t share cultural, religious and historical experiences that allow for integration. Islam dominates in Indonesia, Buddhism in Thailand and even Communism is a religion in some places.
What is doable is easier movement of goods and services across the Asian states. The creation of manufacturing hubs, heavy investment in infrastructure, reduction and equalization of tariffs across borders and simpler rules and regulations can contribute to making the ASEAN community an economic powerhouse. The US needs to decide whether it wants to be a part of the resulting prosperity. Either way, ASEAN countries will forge ahead to build a brighter future.
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Droning on at home and abroad
On Thursday, June 11, the Project for the 21st Century hosted The Future of Drones with panelists Erik Lin-Greenberg, former US Air Force Officer and PhD candidate at Columbia University, and Lisa Ellman, Counsel for McKenna Long and Aldridge LLP and member of the firm’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Practice Group and Public Policy and Regulatory Affairs practice. The event was moderated by Ryan Hagemann, Civil Liberties Policy Analyst at the Niskanen Center and adjunct fellow at TechFreedom, specializing in robotics and automation.
Lin-Greenberg clarified the commonly misunderstood concept of drones. These aircraft are otherwise known as remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs) whose pilot undergoes the same training as a pilot flying a manned aircraft. Often, large military aircrews operate a drone, as opposed to one person operating it. Furthermore, drone operations fall under two broad categories—Title 10 missions for military use and Title 50 missions for covert action (not necessarily flown by the military crew).
The use of drones today, however, is moving in a completely uncharted direction. Ellman explained there is a growing field of commercial drone operations in which companies use drones for deliveries, crop dusting, providing internet service and taking aerial photos of properties for sale. Currently, the commercial use of drones is illegal in the US. The only way one can circumvent the law is through special permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). However, drones for recreational purposes are legal, i.e. the law permits a hobbyist to fly drones in an open air space.
Other countries are ahead of the US in the commercial use of drones, including pizza delivery in England and crop dusting in Japan. The data on the safety of commercial drones is however still scant, which makes policy formulation difficult. The US has the most complex airspace in the world. Other countries have a lot more free airspace. The FAA must regulate “as if drones might fall from the sky” because its objective is to prevent accidents.
The potential commercial and widespread use of drones also introduces questions on privacy. Companies often want to use drones but don’t want others’ drones to spy on them. The critics’ response to this argument is that other technology, such as satellites and helicopters, can already do what commercial drones will do. This begs the question of whether the US must formulate drone-specific rules or can utilize existing general privacy rules.
Lin-Greenberg noted that drones still do not have the payload of manned aircraft. Nevertheless, drones’ tactical effectiveness in minimizing collateral damage could mean that RPA use will continue to increase. The State Department has also relaxed rules on RPA exports, which will limit the clientele that buys Russian and Chinese drones and will allow the US to leverage more influence on foreign buyers, she suggested.
The future of drones remains uncertain, but in order to sustain progress, it is imperative policymakers maintain pace with technology . Industries should begin moving towards commercial drone use, while safety and privacy issues continue to inform the policymaking process.
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