Tag: Nuclear weapons
The end is nigh 2019
Except for my 401k, the teens have not been a great decade. We’ve watched the Arab spring turn into the Arab civil wars, Russia reassert itself annexing Crimea and invading Ukraine, China increase its overt and covert challenges to the US, and North Korea defy American efforts to limit or eliminate its nuclear and missile programs. The US has initiated trade wars, withdrawn from international commitments (including the Paris climate change accord as well as the Iran nuclear deal and the intermediate nuclear forces agreement), and abandoned its support for democracy and rule of law, not only but importantly in Israel and Palestine.
Several of these developments could worsen in 2020. The Iran/US tit-for-tat is more likely to escalate than de-escalate. Some Arab civil wars like Yemen and Syria are burning out, but others are spreading beyond the Arab world, with Turkey intervening in Syria and Libya, Russia and Egypt in Libya, and Iran in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Russia is not advancing in Ukraine, but it seems disinclined to withdraw via the Minsk II agreement that would re-establish Ukraine’s control over its southeastern border with Russia and allow a significant degree of autonomy for Luhansk and Donetsk. China and the US have reached a limited and partial agreement on trade, but no more comprehensive accord is in sight. North Korea is bound to test more missiles, if not nuclear weapons.
US mistakes are especially concerning. The withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal has freed Iran to begin to violate its provisions, accelerating the date at which Tehran will have all the technology it needs to make nuclear weapons. Global warming is accelerating and the arms race with Russia is quickening. NATO is not brain dead, but US leadership of the alliance is more in doubt than ever before due to the President’s inability to recognize the real advantages a multilateral partnership gives to American power projection. American abandonment of even the pretense of evenhandedness in Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians has opened the door to extremist Jewish ambitions to annex the West Bank.
Only 11 months remain before the next US presidential election. It will focus mainly on domestic issues like the economy, health care, religion, and race. But there can be no doubt the United States is less well positioned internationally than it was in January 2017, when President Trump took office. The rest of the world increasingly regards the U.S. as a menace to peace and security, not its guarantor. Excessive reliance on military force and erratic decisionmaking have reduced American influence. Even the relatively strong economy, which has continued to grow at the pace established in the Obama administration and thereby reduced unemployment to historic lows, has not propped up American prestige, because of Trump’s trade wars. Enthusiasm for America is at a nadir in most of the world.
We can hope for better and toast the prospects this evening. But there is little reason to believe the United States is going to recover until it gets new leadership, not only in the White House but also in the Senate, where the new year will see some semblance of a “trial” of President Trump on self-evident impeachment charges. He tried to extort Ukraine into investigating a political rival for his personal benefit using US government resources and has withheld cooperation with the resulting investigation. But few if any Republican Senators seem ready to acknowledge the facts. I might hope Chief Justice Roberts will refuse to preside over a sham procedure and insist on testimony, but he has given no hint of that yet.
America is a great country. It has survived many mistakes. But whether it can get through the next year without doing itself irreversible harm is in doubt. It could “acquit” and re-elect a president most of the world regards as more of a threat to peace and security than Vladimir Putin. Or it could, against the odds, redeem itself and its role in the world with a conviction, a good election free of international interference, and inauguration of someone the world and most its citizens can respect. Take your choice, America.
And happy New Year!
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Stevenson’s army, November 16
-WSJ has an article urging a US industrial policy which I find persuasive.
– The Nuclear Threat Initiative has a background paper on Russia’s new weaponry.
– TNSR has a roundtable on reforming the war powers processes.
– Bloomberg reviews the changing Trump trade policies.
– Meanwhile, Trump pardoned war criminals, contrary to DOD recommendations.
– South Korea rejects intelligence sharing with Japan.
And this from WSJ:
U.S. MILITARY reduces press access to combat troops
in Afghanistan. War correspondents accompanied Marines into the country
in 2001, and for years the Pentagon facilitated front-line visits.
After Special Forces and Rangers took the combat lead in 2014, embeds
became rarer.
In the past year, the number of embeds with the 13,000 U.S. troops remaining in the country has declined sharply. The message from Kabul HQ: “We do attempt to make every opportunity available to cover other events—such as the important train, advise and assist mission the Coalition of 40 nations is conducting.”
This year, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul has largely ceased speaking to the international media in the Afghan capital. Commanders and diplomats fear U.S. news coverage could lead President Trump to tweet a strategic reversal or further upend peace talks. They glimpsed that possibility with Trump’s surprise withdrawal from Syria.
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Stevenson’s army, November 15
– The US wants South Korea to pay 500% more for US troop deployments.
– North Korea issued a warning to US. Here’s the detailed statement.
– NYT lists disagreements between Trump and US military.
– Here’s more from Senators in the meeting with Erdogan.
-LA Times notes a nuclear problem in the Pacific.
–Legal background on executive privilege.
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. If you want to get it directly, 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).
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Friday stock taking
It’s Friday, so let’s take a look at how effectively the Trump Administration has dealt with world and domestic events this week while it obsesses over impeachment:
- The North Koreans continue to launch increasingly capable ballistic missiles.
- While suffering from reimposed sanctions, Iran is defying the US and increasing uranium enrichment beyond the limits specified the nuclear deal the US withdrew from.
- The Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil production facilities has elicited no visible response from the US or Saudi Arabia, which is joining the United Arab Emirates in playing footsie with Iran.
- While failing to remove from Syria all the troops Trump said would be withdrawn, the US has allowed Turkey to take over a buffer zone along its border with Syria, leading to large-scale displacement of people there. Russia has also gained a foothold in northeastern Syria, as has the Assad regime.
- The trade war with China drags on, with the US trade deficit ballooning and Asian partners and allies doubting US commitments in the region.
- Venezuelan autocrat Maduro has survived despite American pressure, as has the Communist regime in Cuba and Evo Morales’ rule in Bolivia.
- In Europe, French President Macron is describing NATO as “brain dead” because of Trump’s lack of commitment to it and Trump’s pal UK Prime Minister Johnson is being forced into an election to try to confirm his Brexit plan, which Trump has supported.
- In the Balkans, the Administration has confused everyone with the appointment of two special envoys whose relationship to each other and to US policy is opaque.
- That’s all without even mentioning Ukraine, where State Department officials have confirmed that President Trump tried to extort an investigation of his political rivals from newly elected President Zelensky in exchange for Congressionally approved military aid.
The home front is even worse:
- A New York State Court has forced Trump into a $2 million settlement in which he has admitted improper and fraudulent use of his family foundation.
- Republicans lost the governorship in Kentucky and control of both houses of the Virginia assembly in off-year elections earlier this week. Congressional Republicans are nervous.
- President Trump’s personal lawyer affirmed that everything he did in Ukraine was to serve his client’s personal interests, a statement that confirms public assets were used for private purposes.
- The Attorney General, a stalwart defender of his boss, has declined to make a public statement supporting Trump’s claim that he did nothing wrong in his infamous phone call with President Zelensky.
- The House Democrats are piling up subpoenas that the White House is ignoring, heightening the likelihood that obstruction of Congressional oversight will be added to the impeachment charges and limiting the news to the sharp critiques of non-White House officials.
- The economy is slowing, especially in some “swing” districts vital to Trump’s hopes for a win in the electoral college in 2020, when he is sure to lose the popular vote once again, likely by a wider margin than in 2016.
I suppose it could get worse, and likely will. But it has been a long time since we’ve seen an American Administration in worse shape than this.
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The nonproliferation regime is tottering
Pantelis Ikonomou, a former IAEA inspector, writes:
Turkish President Erdogan plainly stated on September 24 at the UNGA: “Nuclear power should be either free for all or banned.” He had already declared in Turkey that he “cannot accept” that a few powerful states have nuclear weapons on missiles while the rest of the world is denied the right to have them.
Erdogan’s words raised worries internationally. But to assess the fate of such statements two sets of facts need to be taken into account. First, the NPT’s limitations and secondly, political defects in the nonproliferation regime.
As for the NPT limitations, they are:
- Breakout: any peaceful nuclear program with advanced fuel cycle facilities automatically includes a possible military dimension. It would only take a decision to “breakout,” as done by North Korea in 2003, to turn a peaceful program into a military one. Turkey does have an ambitious nuclear plan, yet the country is far away from having the critical nuclear installations and their peripherals, specifically uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing facilities, which would make meaningful a ‘‘breakout.’’
- Sneaking out: an NPT signatory could attempt to develop nuclear technology clandestinely. The IAEA inspectors have intrusive means of monitoring and verifying such equipment.
- Buying the bomb: a nuclear weapons state could conceivably sell nuclear weapons, not only to Turkey but conceivably also to other states in the region. Turkey has reputedly already bought nuclear technology through the A.Q. Khan network.
The political defects that could inspire Erdogan include:
- The international community failure to terminate the North Korean nuclear program, which demonstrates serious weakness.
- The reactivation of Iran’s nuclear program, precipitated by US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action without any peaceful planning.
- The risky call of President Trump to allied countries to develop their own nuclear deterrents, which jeopardizes the NPT regimae and the IAEA’s mandate.
- The existing legal and political disparity that derives from non-universal adherence to the NPT. As long as some countries manage to stay outside the NPT and yet possess nuclear weapons, as India, Pakistan, and allegedly Israel have done, others might use the logical/ethical excuse to develop their own nuclear weapon programs.
- The continuing failure of the five nuclear powers inside the NPT to fulfill their commitment towards nuclear disarmament expands the gap of confidence between the few nuclear “haves” and the many “non-haves”. This gap provides support to future “nuclear weapon dreamers”.
- The possibility that the US might remove from Turkey the nuclear weapons stationed there for over six decades in Turkey.
All the above limitations and defects in the global nuclear non-proliferation architecture have shaped a fertile global climate for growing proliferation ambitions. Erdogan is not alone. There are others in the Middle East and Northeast Asia who would like to join the nuclear club.
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The nuclear race has begun
As Iran steps up its enrichment of uranium, the harbingers are clear:
- Turkish President Erdogan is asking questions out loud about why his country doesn’t have nuclear weapons,
- Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince is making it clear the Kingdom won’t be left far behind,
- Israel is lying low with its 100 or more warheads somewhere between ready and almost ready to launch, and
- North Korea is successfully resisting American pressure to give up its dozen or so nukes, making it clear to the whole world that Washington is a toothless tiger when it comes to nuclear nonproliferation.
The nightmare many of us feared in the 1970s and 1980s of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East has begun.
The trigger was President Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal (aka Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) and reimposition of sanctions have released Tehran from its obligations, which it is gradually and deliberately breaching. Turkey, which has long relied on the American nuclear umbrella and NATO, has cozied up to Russia–even purchasing its advanced air defense system–as relations with Washington worsened over how to deal with the Syrian Kurds. Erdogan has no doubt heard the talk about removing American nuclear weapons from Turkey and has drawn the obvious conclusion: if the American umbrella won’t protect you, get your own.
The Saudis increasingly view President Trump as unreliable, especially vis-a-vis Iran. They would be fools not to try to keep pace with the Turks in the race with Iran for nuclear weapons capability. What they can’t develop themselves, they’ll buy. The once prevalent and now quaint notion that no nuclear-savvy country would sell its crown jewels disappeared with Pakistani nuclear merchant A.Q. Khan. The Saudis can pay any price if need be.
The Middle East had gotten used to the Israeli nuclear capabilities, which have been regarded for decades as a deterrent for use only as a last resort. They play little roll in the balance of power beyond ensuring that Israel will continue to exist. The same cannot be assumed about Iranian, Turkish, and Saudi capabilities. Multi-sided games are much more complex than one- or two-sided ones. We can be thankful for the modus vivendi between nuclear India and nuclear Pakistan, but it is no harbinger for a four-sided nuclear standoff in the eastern Mediterranean. And the subcontinent’s standoff may not last forever, since at least Pakistan regards nuclear weapons as useful in warfighting, not just the last resort.
We have at least a few years, perhaps even a decade, before this race reaches some sort of equilibrium. In the meanwhile, the push and shove will be made all the more dramatic by US withdrawal from the Middle East. Its interests there have declined markedly with the development of advanced oil and gas recovery technology and the continued reduction of the US economy’s dependence on energy, especially in the form of hydrocarbons.
The big challenges for American diplomacy today are to slow the Middle East nuclear arms race and build some sort of regional security structure in which the Turks, Iranians, Saudis, and ultimately Israelis can work out their differences without resort to either the proxy wars they are already engaged in or the nuclear exchanges that will all-too-soon become possible. US withdrawal from its over-exposure in the Middle East is inevitable and desirable. But the risks are colossal. Diplomacy can reduce but likely not eliminate those risks.
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