Tag: Nuclear weapons
Better jaw jaw than war, but the strategic risks are real
Former IAEA Inspector Pantelis Ikonomou writes:
The sixth round of the Vienna negotiations aimed at restoring the multilateral Iran nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – JCPOA) were halted last week. At the same time, the temporary technical agreement between the IAEA and Iran, intended to enable the revival of the Iran deal, expired. Iran denies any obligation to provide an answer on the fate of this accord. Stalemate or death of JCPOA? Will this open the door to an additional de facto nuclear weapon state?
Judging intentions is difficult. Learning from facts has mostly proven wise. Some relevant facts are outlined below.
The development of the current North Korea and Iran nuclear challenges show similarities. The key common shortcoming of the world powers in dealing with these two challenges is that we (ineffectively) talk but they (strategically) continue. Equivalent lessons could also be learned from the earlier “peaceful” nuclear explosion of India in 1974 that has led to about 140 nuclear warheads in its arsenal today and to approximately the same number in Pakistan.
As for North Korea:
I1. n the period 1994–2002 of the “Agreed Framework” implementation, great attention went to terminating the possibility of plutonium production in the Yongbyon reactor while the country’s potential in enriching uranium was neglected.
2. During the years 2003–2009 of the “Six Party Talks,” the US linked other issues to the negotiations instead of concentrating on the main nuclear objective: how to curb fissile material acquisition.
3. Keen observers note the North Korean nuclear program “nuclear progress slowed significantly during times of diplomacy and accelerated during times of isolation, sanctions and threats.”
Result: Creation of an additional de-facto nuclear weapons state, North Korea, with an estimated number of 20 to 30 nuclear warheads in its arsenal, including thermonuclear capacity.
As for Iran:
- The crisis began in 2003 when IAEA inspectors identified a possible military dimension in Tehran’s civilian nuclear program. From 2003 to 2012, despite twelve IAEA and two UNSC resolutions culminating in trade and economic sanctions, Iran continued its non-compliance with obligations under the international Safeguards Agreement. Tehran regarded nuclear activities as its inalienable national right.
- This dangerous escalation was halted by the JCPOA in July 2015, after almost a decade of complex and sensitive diplomatic negotiations between the six world powers (the five UNSC permanent members plus Germany) and Iran. This Agreement stipulated obligations on both sides: termination of critical nuclear activities as well as limits to certain installed equipment, material stockpiles and uranium enrichment levels in Iran in exchange for lifting of sanctions.
- This honeymoon period lasted until May 2018 when US withdrew from the JCPOA and started reimposing sanctions. In January 2020, after the killing of Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani, Tehran changed its stance towards JCPOA. Progress achieved through the Agreement was then reversed.
- In February 2021, Iran’s parliament passed a law on terminating the JCPOA, including the associated voluntary implementation of the rigorous Additional Protocol (AP) to its Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA.
Result: Increased instability and volatility in the region.
“What is next?” is the justified question. A few practical reflections:
- An eventual positive conclusion of the Vienna talks on the revival of JCPOA will not automatically bring definitive relief. The damage done after 2018 to the Iran deal cannot be verifiably restored quickly. Notwithstanding the professionalism and objectivity of the IAEA, restoration of the Agreement will require enormous effort, high additional costs, as well as the continuous and smooth cooperation of Iran’s competent authorities.
- For the successful revival of JCPOA the recently expired temporary arrangement between Iran and the IAEA needs to be extended immediately. Re-establishing the inspectors’ continuity of knowledge of Iran’s nuclear program is sine qua non for the IAEA to be able to draw the necessary broader conclusions on the exclusively peaceful character of Iran’s nuclear program.
- In case the JCPOA is not renewed, monitoring Iran under its IAEA comprehensive safeguards agreement without the AP in place would perpetuate unresolved issues relating to questionable findings of materials, locations and activities. This unfortunate situation would create problems not only with Iran but also with other states in the region, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, who are being called to satisfy the same universal safeguards criteria.
The omens for stability and security of the world are not encouraging while the responsibility of the parties involved is growing larger.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Stevenson’s army, June 24
WSJ says new intelligence assessment says Afghan government could collapse as soon as 6 months after US withdrawal.
In testimony Wednesday, Gen. Milley was less pessimistic. Austin and Milley told a Senate hearing last week they believe there is a “medium” risk of terrorist groups regaining strength in Afghanistan, saying it could happen in two years. Presumably President Biden considers these risks acceptable. This reminds me of the Nixon & Kissinger view that they needed a “decent interval” between the end of US combat in Vietnam and the collapse of Saigon. Here’s some of the evidence: Wikipedia; the Nixon tapes; and Kissinger’s handwritten notes. Here’s another summary.
In other news, the debt ceiling looms with no clear plan.
Earmarks are popular.
And SAIS prof Vali Nasr says an Iran deal is possible.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Stevenson’s army, June 20
[Mark Twain was onto something when he wrote: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”]
New Yorker has several archived pieces on fathers.
Glenn Kessler explains the difference between substantive foreign policy amendments and “messaging amendments.“
Paul Kane explains the House dilemma over whether to meet or campaign.
David Sanger explains, counter-intuitively, that the election of a hard-line president may open a brief window for reviving the JCPOA.
Charlie also writes:
What should be done when a government agency does a poor job on one of its key missions? Cutting funds sends a strong message but may also feed a spiral of decline. Adding money may be wasteful. Imposing more oversight and regulation may expose problems earlier, but it may also stultify its operations. Good governance is filled with trade offs and dilemmas.
The New York Times magazine has an excellent article on the Centers for Disease Control, “Can the CDC Be Fixed?” It recounts many of the missteps CDC made in responding to the pandemic, but also makes these points:
- The C.D.C. we have is hardly a monolith: Some of its many pockets are bursting with innovation; others are plagued by inertia. But scientists and administrators who have spent decades working with and for the agency say that three problems in particular affect the whole institution: a lack of funding, a lack of authority and a culture that has been warped by both. Some of these problems come down to politics, but most are a result of flaws in the agency’s very foundation.
- Today the C.D.C. is both sprawling in its reach and extremely constrained in what it can do. It consists of more than a dozen centers, institutes and offices and employs more than 11,000 people in all, in a gargantuan roster of public-health initiatives — not just infectious-disease control but also chronic-disease prevention, workplace safety, health equity and more.
- The C.D.C.’s multibillion-dollar annual budget is both too small — it has barely kept pace with inflation in the last two decades — and subject to too many restrictions. Around half of the agency’s domestic budget is funneled to the states, but only after passing through a bureaucratic thicket. There are nearly 200 separate line items in the C.D.C.’s budget. Neither the agency’s director nor any state official has the power to consolidate those line items or shift funds among them.
- The C.D.C. is resistant to change, slow to act and reluctant to innovate, according to critics. The agency’s officers are overly reliant on published studies, which take time to produce; and are incapable of making necessary judgment calls. Agency departments are also deeply siloed. “We are really good at drilling down,” Darrow says. “But terrible at looking up and reaching across.”
Sadly, similar complaints could be made of several U.S. government agencies, including DHS and DOD. My advice is to acknowledge the conflicting pressures and try to balance between extreme remedies.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
The Biden-Putin professional wrestling match
President Biden and Russian President Putin will meet Wednesday in Geneva. Biden has a long-standing distaste for Putin, whose behavior in recent years will have made Biden even more critical. Since their last meeting in 2011, Putin invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea, had a leading opposition figure murdered just outside the Kremlin, deployed troops and aircraft to Syria to support dictator Assad with a wide array of war crimes, tried to murder an ex-Russian intelligence agent in Great Britain, tried to murder and then jailed another opposition leader on trumped-up charges, backed Belaruan autocrat Lukashenko after he engineered massive election fraud, and is now busily shutting down what remains of political opposition and civil society in Russia. That is on top of the many episodes of election interference in the US in favor of Donald Trump, Russian hacking of US government cyber systems, and Russian tolerance for cyber ransom attacks that have several times closed important American companies.
It is no surprise there will not be a joint press conference after the Putin/Biden summit. While there may be some positive news on specific issues like arms control, climate change, or the Iran nuclear deal, the atmospherics surrounding this meeting are 180 degrees opposite from President Trump’s attempted lovefest with Putin in 2018, when he said at a joint press conference that he believed Putin’s denials of election interference and not the unanimous rejected the unanimous view of American intelligence agencies.
The choreography leading up to next week’s summit has been careful, perhaps even masterful. Biden, committed to rekindling traditional American alliances, met first in Cornwall with UK Prime Minister Johnson, then rallied the G7 (that’s Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and Japan, as well as the UK and the US) to focus on China and cybersecurity, and next week he will meet first with America’s 29 NATO allies before confronting Putin. Unlike his three predecessors, Biden does not want a “reset” with Putin. He wants to confront him where needed but leave the door open to cooperation on specific issues and even improved relations overall if Putin stops his perfidies.
But Biden knows he won’t. Putin has been in many ways a successful President. Russians often give him credit for revival of their pride and their aspirations to great power status after the economically difficult Yeltsin period. His personal popularity is low at the moment, but he is committed to holding on to power by autocratic if democratic means fail. Russian parliamentary elections in September (and the presidential election in 2024) will be far from free and fair. There is not much the Americans can do about that. Even getting Alexei Navalny out of jail is more than they have managed so far.
Putin will want to use the meeting with Biden to shore up his domestic support. He can do that best by being confrontational. Biden, who has much stronger domestic support, will want to do the same thing. He will want to be seen as calling Putin out on election hacking, cybersecurity, and repression of the Russian opposition. Neither bodes well for the occasion. This summit is likely to be like “professional” wrestling: more theater than real, staged for TV and radio, but still with some possibility one or the other protagonist gets hurt.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Stevenson’s army, June 2
Ransomware is big business. New Yorker explains how it works and how payments are negotiated.
Israel is asking for extra military aid.
Fred Kaplan lists the laws limiting military freedom of speech.
Bloomberg says Iran expects nuclear talks to continue in July.
Late addendum:
Summertime means more time to read books stacked in my study. Here’s another book worth checking out.
For me, the 1962 Cuban missile crisis was the two weeks of American crisis decision-making detailed by Graham Allison, Bobby Kennedy, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and Ted Sorensen. Now we have a superb account that includes what was happening in Moscow, and on the ground in Cuba.
Serhii Plokhy, a Ukrainian-American history professor at Harvard, has written Nuclear Folly. Instead of the typical story of smart decisions that avoided nuclear war, Plokhy says he wants to tell about the many mistakes that came close to making that catastrophe a reality. And there were many, at the strategic and operational levels.
Graham Allison explored the bureaucratic behaviors and missteps over U-2 flights that were foolishly cancelled when needed and carried out when they were quite provocative and Navy blockade rules that almost triggered a Soviet nuclear exchange. Plokhy shows the same for the Soviet military.
His basic conclusion is that Kennedy and Khrushchev deescalated the crisis because both feared nuclear war. Both overcame strong pressure to risk actual combat.
Plokhy also details Kennedy’s extraordinary efforts to keep secret the fact that he agreed to withdraw medium-range Jupiter missiles from Turkey as part of the deal. The media seized on the narrative that Kennedy won by being tough while Khrushchev backed down. In fact, there was a deal which gave important concessions to both.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Deal likely, but can it go any farther than rollback?
This discussion of the possible return of the US to the Iran nuclear deal was convened by the Middle East Institute May 26, as US-Iranian talks in Vienna entered their fifth round. Participants analyzed the prospects for a deal between the US and Iran and its implications for the region’s security. The panel discussed the possibility of expanding on the original JCPOA, as well as broader regional security dynamics and specifically their implications for Iraq. They agreed a new JCPOA seems to be imminent. However, the question remains whether it can be used to reduce Iranian influence in the region and if it should.
The speakers were:
Amb. (ret.) Rend al-Rahim
Co-founder and President
The Iraq Foundation;
former Iraqi Ambassador to the US
Michael Rubin
Resident Scholar
American Enterprise Institute
Ali Vaez
Iran project Director
International Crisis Group
Alex Vatanka (moderator)
Director, Iran Program
Middle East Institute
A mutually beneficial deal?
All speakers agreed that a deal appears imminent. Ali Vaez pointed out that sequencing will remain an issue, but that the largest problems will likely be solved at the 11th hour. Iranian or Israeli brinkmanship is unlikely to derail the negotiations. This was shown by their continuation after the attack on the Natanz facility and Iran’s announcement that it would start enriching to 60%. Rubin believes Congress should be asked to ratify the agreement. Congress might prove more concerned about brinkmanship than the negotiators in Vienna. Ali Vaez expects that the deal will be announced right after the Iranian presidential elections. In this way, the result will not influence the popularity of conservative candidates. At the same time, Rouhani would still be responsible for the deal’s implementation, meaning he can serve as a scapegoat for any of its shortcomings: a win-win for conservatives in Iran.
The speakers disagreed on whether more than the original JCPOA should be on the table. Ali Vaez argued that a return to the original deal is needed to build trust after the unwarranted American abandonment of the deal under president Trump. Ambassador al-Rahim, however, said she does not believe that any further progress can be made after this deal. Just like after the initial JCPOA’s conclusion, no further deals – for example on ballistic missiles – will be forthcoming. Michael Rubin argued that some important issues need to be addressed. In this ‘JCPOA+’ framework, attention needs to be paid to the role of the IRGC in Iran’s economy. Rubin emphasized that any easing of sanctions could go to the IRGC’s economic wing, rather than benefiting the Iranian people in dire need of economic relief. In fact, lifting sanctions without addressing the IRGC’s entanglement in the economy would only aid in its projects throughout the region.
Thinking about a new Middle Eastern security arena
This brought the discussion to the second point of disagreement: the level of Iranian influence that is desirable. Ambassador al-Rahim outlined the difference in strategic visions between Iran and the US. According to her, the US fails to use its potential in the region (for example through the Iraqi Strategic Dialogue). Instead it focuses on disengaging and setting up a post-US strategic order. The US needs to consider whether it is content with leaving Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon under Iranian influence, with an Israeli-Gulf alliance hegemonous over the rest of the region. Iran, as Rubin pointed out, meanwhile sees itself as a pan-regional power, not merely Shia. It is unlikely to accept such a limited sphere of influence. He emphasized that there are ways of resisting Iranian influence without major US investments. Regional countries need to be armed to do so themselves.
Ali Vaez also sees these problems, but challenges the US to consider how much Iranian influence is acceptable. If the US and its allies are content only when Iranian influence in Iraq is zero, then the goal is simply unrealistic. Should we consider influence in a country like Iraq as zero-sum, as Israel and the Gulf appear to do? Also, can we expect Iran to disarm while we are arming its neighbors to the tune of billions of dollars? A regional détente with concessions from all sides is his preferred means of lowering tensions. Ambassador al-Rahim contends that Tehran sees its influence as zero-sum too. If it is allowed to have any influence, it will aim for total influence. Furthermore, she contends that Iran did have zero influence in Iraq before 2003. Its entanglement in Iraqi power structures is not unavoidable she thinks. She and Vaez agree that both Washington and Tehran should agree that Iraq needs to be allowed to be its own sovereign country. Recent Shia protests in Iraq show that the population shares this desire.
RSS - Posts
