Tag: Nuclear weapons
Reenter
President Trump has driven the United States into a cul-de-sac. Withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal (aka Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) and re-imposition of sanctions has made it nigh on impossible for Iran to gain the economic benefits of the agreement. But rather than driving Tehran back to the negotiating table, Washington has strengthened its hardliners and given them an excuse to begin enriching uranium beyond the level permitted by the JCPOA, which they threaten to reach within the next 10 days. The Iranians may also have attacked shipping in and near the Gulf, though that is still an unverified American and British allegation.
The first law of holes applies to this situation: when you are in a hole, stop digging. Trump of course is not law-abiding, so instead he is increasing the US troop, naval, and air force presence in the Gulf. That’s simply foolish: it puts more Americans at risk. I’ll know this administration is serious about attacking Iran when it removes as much of the exposed military and civilian presence in the Gulf as possible. Much of it–including the warplanes at Al Udeid in Qatar–are within the range of Iranian missiles. They and the embassies in Muscat, Doha, Manama and likely Riyadh will need to be draw down in advance of even a limited strike.
The alternative is to reenter the JCPOA, which would have prevented Iran from developing nuclear weapons before 2025 or so and arguably thereafter. Had the US stayed in the deal and ensured that the benefits flowed to Tehran, it could now be arguing for negotiations on missiles and Iran’s regional behavior with support from Europe and perhaps even Russia.
It could also have argued for a follow-on nuclear agreement. Iran has very good reasons not to go all the way to developing nuclear weapons. Well-informed Israelis have long believed that Tehran wants to develop all the enabling technology but not build nuclear weapons or deploy them, for fear of what Israel might do if it thought Iran might do so. Even the current runup of enrichment is explicitly planned to stop before the levels needed for nuclear weapons are reached.
The only way out of America’s current cul-de-sac is to back up. Tehran has made plain that it will talk with Washington only if the US reenters the JCPOA. I imagine they might even offer some sweeteners: release of some US citizens from prison, for example, or a modicum of restraint in Yemen, where their Houthi partners are not doing brilliantly anyway. President Trump has backed up in the past with an aspiring nuclear power, when he agreed to meet Kim Jong-un in Singapore. He could do it again, with his usual triumphalist bombast about how the Iranians will be his newest best friends once they see the Trump golf courses they might acquire. The Iranians understand that the North Koreans have not yet given up anything significant in exchange for Trump’s good graces. They might hope for the same treatment.
But Tehran also might figure that Pyongyang is treated with kid gloves because it does in fact have nuclear weapons. The closer Tehran gets without triggering an Israeli reaction, the better from the point of view of the Supreme Leader. So he might just prefer that Trump continue digging his hole by putting more American military and civilian assets at risk. Iran is a country of more than 80 million people. It endured an 8-year war with Iraq, suffered enormous casualties, and continues to pride itself on “resistance.” An American air attack would strengthen Iran’s hardliners further and dismay the Europeans, Russia, and China. Why not let Trump bury himself in the hole he has dug?
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Flim Flam 101
President Trump’s threat of tariffs on Mexican imports to the US was never credible, as it would have devastated the US auto industry and American agriculture. It was a transparent bluff intended to raise the President’s personal visibility, as Senate minority leader Schumer said. Trump got nothing new in the one-page joint statement that resolved the “crisis.” The Mexicans had agreed months ago to the main provisions of the agreement he greeted as a “great deal.”
This is now a boringly familiar pattern. It was what Trump did with Canada and Mexico in renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, which produced a “United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement” (USMCA). Aside from being the worst acronym in the lexicon, USMCA is no more than NAFTA 2.0, a much-needed update of a decades-old agreement. No big triumph, and the Administration is having a hard time getting it approved in Congress.
Bluff is also what Trump with North Korea when he threatened military action and settled instead for a one-page “best efforts” pledge that fell short of previous Pyongyang commitments to denuclearize. There has been no significant progress since, despite a second failed summit in Hanoi, as Kim Jong-un has moved to shore up relations with Russia and China, neither of which has much reason to do favors for Trump. North Korea remains as much, if not more, of a threat to the US as in did in January 2017 at Trump’s inauguration.
The pattern was similar in soon forgotten Venezuela. Trump’s threats against President Maduro caused a temporary “crisis” but led nowhere. Maduro is still in power in Caracas while the American-backed interim president has failed to gain significant support in Venezuela’s armed forces. With no possibility of even a vague one-page statement in sight, Trump has moved on to other targets.
Iran is getting the typical Trump treatment. While deploying military assets to the Gulf and allowing National Security Adviser Bolton to talk tough, President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo have been begging for talks with Tehran. Pompeo has dropped his 12 preconditions. The President had never endorsed them. What the Administration wants now seems to be nothing more than an opportunity to sit at a table and berate Iran for building missiles and using proxies to project power in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. Any statement from such “talks” would be no more substantive than Trump got out of Mexico.
The Iranians are no fools and could teach a Flim Flam 101 of their own. All their threats to close the Strait of Hormuz fall in this category, as their own ships pass there, as well as those of other nations delivering Iranian oil. The Iranians no doubt know that the Trump Administration is incapable of negotiating anything like the 159 pages of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), aka Iran nuclear deal. If ever they agree to talk about missiles and the use of proxies, Tehran will no doubt ask for reciprocity: removal of US weapons from the Gulf and an end to US military support to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar.
Tehran knows those will be non-starters for the US. The only likely outcome of talks with the US would be an exchange of prisoners: Iranians held on criminal charges in the US for Americans (including Iranian Americans) held in Iran. Trump may decide that would be worth his while, as it would give him a much-needed boost on the international stage, where he is more pariah than hero. But I have my doubts he’ll be willing to pay the price for even that small gain: the Iranians will want relief from at least some of the sanctions that are tanking their economy.
Trump is a bad negotiator who follows a transparent pattern: threaten, cause crisis, settle for little, declare victory, take personal credit. It isn’t working. He has been unable to negotiate a single agreement worthy of presidential attention, and his threats are making other countries hedge their bets. The bullying with sanctions and tariffs is gaining nothing. It is instead undermining international confidence in the US and making other countries look elsewhere for leadership. Would you do business with a flim flam man who bullies?
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Trust but verify
On May 29 the Hudson Institute hosted Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lieutenant General Robert P. Ashley Jr., who talked about the arms control landscape in regard to Russia and China, focusing on the modernization of their nuclear arsenals. Lt. Gen. Ashley’s remarks and the audience Q&A were followed by a panel discussion featuring Dr. James H. Anderson, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans and Capabilities, U.S. Department of Defense, Tim Morrison, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Weapons of Mass Destruction and Biodefense, National Security Council (NSC), and Thomas DiNanno, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defense Policy, Emerging Threats, and Outreach, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, U.S. Department of State.
Ashley explained how Russia has been upgrading the capacity of its nuclear forces. In addition to a growing stockpile of nuclear weapons Russia has been adding new capabilities to its arsenal, especially non-strategic nuclear weapons with greater range, accuracy and lower yield. The DIA estimates Russia has up to 2000 of these new non-strategic warheads. Russia has also explored new nuclear delivery systems, such as nuclear powered and nuclear armed underwater drones and nuclear armed cruise missiles. Furthermore, Russia’s new 9M729 intermediate range ballistic missile violates the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
Russia has also worked on their upload capability. Currently the New START treaty between the United States and Russia limits the number of deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550, and the number of platforms deployed to 700. Russia, Ashley says, has been working on delivery systems with additional warhead capacity, allowing them to quickly go beyond the New START limit of 1550 warheads if needed. Russia prioritizes its nuclear programs over others, having increased the ROSATOM (the State Nuclear Energy Corporation) budget by over 30% in recent years. Russia sees nuclear weapons as the ultimate war fighting tool and considers “nuclear use to compel and end a conventional conflict.” This modernization is not only aimed at deterring the United States, but also at China and its growing nuclear arsenal.
China, Ashley says, will at least double its nuclear stockpile in the next decade and launched more ballistic missiles last year than the rest of the world combined. Had China been a signatory to the INF their DF-26 and DF-21 missiles, which could be used regionally in the South China Sea, would have been in violation of the treaty. They are also working on new road and silo-based ICBMs as well as new nuclear submarines and nuclear bombers, completing their nuclear triad. China may well be preparing nuclear test sites for year-round use and their behavior is inconsistent with the rules and intent of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), Ashley says.
Ashley pointed out that Russia does not have a “no first-use policy” and considers the first use of nuclear weapons an opportunity to control escalation. A translated phrase from an interview with Russian officials comes out to “escalate to win.”
During the panel discussion, Tim Morrison explained that the world has moved on from the Cold War and limited bilateral treaties and needs better and wider arms control. China should now be included in nuclear arms treaties. Russian violations of the INF treaty compel the US to consider if it can afford to be the only country bound to it. The biggest obstacle to effective arms control is the need for verification measures and rules for timely and consequential punishment for treaty violations and non-compliance.
DiNanno echoed Morrison’s sentiment that more effective verification and enforcement measures are needed. This is only possible if there is trust among the US, Russia, and China. Quoting President Reagan, DiNanno said the US should “trust but verify.” The US should withdraw from the INF treaty in early August if Russia is not in compliance by then.
Anderson discussed the differences between the US, Russian, and Chinese modernization programs. Russia has an estimated 2000 warheads not covered by the New START treaty. Moscow’s talk about nuclear weapons as well as actions in Georgia and Ukraine are troubling. Similarly, Beijing is rapidly expanding its arsenal and is closing in on the nuclear triad following President Xi’s call for China to acquire a first-tier military.
In contrast, US modernization is not nearly as far along as Russia’s, which is almost 80% complete. The US is not building new nuclear weapons, has run no nuclear tests since the 1994 agreement, and is still using older equipment. Anderson says:
The US is in the infancy of its modernization. The Ohio-class nuclear submarines, first introduced in 1981, are set to be replaced in 2031 after 50 years in service. The Minuteman III ICBM was first deployed in 1970 and is only due for replacement in 2029. The B-20 program will eventually replace the aging B-52 and B-2a bomber fleet but is set to augment them first. More importantly, unlike Russia and China the United States has been very transparent about its nuclear arsenal.
Anderson also mentions the importance of US modernization for deterrence, establishing a backbone for US efforts and “giving our diplomats a strong hand in negotiating arms control.
With the advancement of Russian and Chinese missile technology the panelists brought up the necessity for the US to continue to develop and improve its missile defense systems. Russia and China, however, routinely complain about them. Anderson pointed out the double standard in their critique: China and Russia are both interested in missile defense themselves, with Russia having set up 68 missile defense batteries around Moscow alone. Heinrichs asked why the US has not increased its missile defense budget to counter the threats from Russian offensive nuclear arsenals and capabilities. Anderson spointed to work being done in cooperation with NATO allies to increase missile defense through newer technologies such as boost-stage defense and lasers.
The biggest takeaway arose from discussion of Russia’s nuclear test sites and their interpretation of the 0-yield nuclear testing norm. Morrison said he would not conduct diplomacy in public but also commented “Russia has taken actions, not preparations, which run counter to its public statements.” Neither Ashley nor the panel members would directly state that Russia has tested nuclear weapons recently, but all confirmed it with their responses. Everyone agreed that now more than ever good faith negotiations and working multilateral treaties are needed to prevent further escalation and a renewed nuclear arms race.
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The last error
Pantelis Ikonomou, a former IAEA nuclear inspector, thinks out loud:
- Though nuclear proliferation is a paramount global threat, super powers fail to demonstrate sufficient competence in responding.
- World expectations based on the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that nuclear weapons states will preserve global peace in accordance with their responsibilities are plainly becoming wishful thinking.
- The authority and competence of the world’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has been downgraded by its founders and historical proponents, the nuclear weapons states.
- Denuclearization of North Korea is going nowhere. The pendulum-like rhetoric on both sides, Washington and Pyongyang, combined with the risk of miscalculation or a military error, enlarges the dangerous vicious cycle.
- Washington might seriously consider the mitigation of Pyongyang’s fears for its security, as Beijing suggests, rather than playing the military threat card. This was after all the prevailing approach in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal
- US withdrawal from JCPOA (2018) and Iran’s recent announcement of partial withdrawal from it lead to new risky situations. Tomorrow, no one should be surprised.
- At the same time, US National Security Strategy (2017) and the Pentagon’s Nuclear Posture Review (2018) both stated that American nuclear capability will be strengthened and its nuclear arsenal modernized. Reason given: deterrence of Russia.
- On a precisely equivalent level are President Putin’s repeated statements (2018-2019): Russia needs to maintain its super power status through advanced nuclear capabilities.
- The rest of the “legal” nuclear club – China, the UK, and France – follow suit. Why not? – they might ask.
- In parallel, the de facto non-NPT nuclear weapons states, India, Pakistan, most probably Israel and now North Korea, keep developing their nuclear arsenals and ballistic capabilities.
- Moreover, more nuclear candidates, are getting ready for their geopolitical nuclear race.
- Unfortunately, nuclear issues are complex, making a sound solution of nuclear crises difficult even for strong, authoritarian, and ambitious world leaders.
- Nuclear armaments are not a financial or political game. They are the leading global threat to human civilization.
- It is time to getting serious. The speed of developments makes derailing of constraints on nuclear weapons control likely. That would be the last human error.
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Confusion and distrust
The Trump Administration is in a remarkable period of serial failures. Denuclearization of North Korea is going nowhere. Displacement of Venezuelan President Maduro has stalled. The tariff contest with China is escalating. Even the President’s sudden shift to backing Libyan strongman Haftar’s assault on Tripoli seems to have fizzled.
The domestic front is no better: Trump is stonewalling the House of Representatives but must know that eventually the courts will order most of what the Democratic majority is requesting be done. Special Counsel Mueller himself will eventually testify and be asked whether his documentation of obstruction of justice by the President would have led to indictment for any other perpetrator. A dozen or so other investigations continue, both by prosecutors and the House. These will include counter-intelligence investigations, which Mueller did not pursue, with enormous potential to embarrass the President and his close advisers.
The result is utter confusion in US foreign policy. Secretary of State Pompeo today postponed a meeting with President Putin and is stopping instead in Brussels to crash a meeting the UK, Germany, and France had convened to talk about how to preserve the Iran nuclear deal. This is happening on the same day that President Trump is meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán, whose anti-democratic maneuvers have made him unwelcome in London, Berlin, and Paris.
Pompeo will be pitching hostility to Iran, based on the presumption that it is responsible for attacks on tankers over the weekend off the coast of Fujairah, one of the (United Arab) Emirates located outside the Gulf of Hormuz. Tehran has denounced the attacks, which may or may not indicate something. The perpetrators are unknown. While concerned about the attacks, the Europeans will want the US to tone down the hostility towards Iran, with which they want to maintain the nuclear deal from which the US has withdrawn.
Germany is likely to be particularly annoyed with the Americans, not least because Pompeo last week canceled at the last minute a scheduled meeting with Chancellor Merkel in order to go to Iraq, where he failed to convince Baghdad to join the sanctions against Iran. She has become the strongest defender of liberal democracy and the rules-based international order that President Trump has so noisily and carelessly abandoned, while at the same time displeasing the US Administration by continuing the Nord Stream 2 natural gas deal with Russia.
In diplomacy, holding on to your friends is important. Washington under Trump has elected not to accommodate the more powerful Europeans and Iraq but rather to support the would-be autocrats in Hungary and Poland, as well as the Brexiteers in the UK and the Greater Israel campaigners who also advocate war with Iran. All of this was completely unnecessary, since it would have been possible to pursue additional agreements with Iran on regional and other issues without exiting the nuclear deal.
The Administration has thrown away the friends it needs and acquired a few it does not. It has lost the key Europeans and has nothing whatsoever to show for it. It has gotten nowhere with Putin, despite the President’s obsequious fawning. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are both crying foul about the tanker attacks, are unreliable. They have been known to purvey fake news in the past (especially in initiating their conflict with Qatar), so might they be doing so again?
The result is monumental confusion and distrust. America’s friends are offended. Her enemies are encouraged. Elections have consequences.
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Advantage Iran
President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo are both begging for talks with Iran and have been for months. Now they are ratcheting up the pressure by deploying a carrier battle group (which had been slated to head for the Gulf a bit later) and toughening sanctions against Iran’s oil and metals industries. Washington’s theory of the case is that more pain will bring Tehran to its senses, maybe even to its knees.
Meanwhile Iran is heading in the opposite direction. It is planning to begin a phased withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that the US left a year ago. Without the economic benefits of the deal, there is little reason for Tehran to stick with it. The harder-line voices there never liked the constraints on the nuclear program and view the US withdrawal from the agreement as an opportunity, not a disincentive. It proves the hardliners correct in their assertion that the Americans can’t be trusted and gives them momentum in seeking to restart the nuclear weapons program that the JCPOA rolled back and suspended.
Washington and Tehran are engaged in a classic turn toward what conflict management folks call their “Best Alternatives to a Negotiated Solution” (BATNAs). Each is trying to demonstrate that it has a better one. The escalation is of course dangerous, but it could eventually lead towards a mutual recognition that the situation is ripe for a negotiation. If, as both assert, neither wants to go to war, which could have catastrophic outcomes, the escalation might generate the incentive each side needs to negotiate.
It is not clear however that both sides do in fact want to avoid war. The Americans are simply unpredictable: National Security Advisor Bolton has long advocated war to end Iran’s nuclear program, but President Trump seems reluctant and in any event is unreliable. The Iranians also have a divided command structure, but in the end it will be the Supreme Leader who decides whether to go to war, likely by attacking Americans in Iraq or Syria and possibly even using terrorist sleeper cells in the US. Pompeo and other American officials have warned as much and claimed that is why they are accelerating the deployment of the carrier battle group. Quid pro quo strikes could escalate quickly.
If I had to guess, Trump will flinch before the Supreme Leader does. A new war in the Middle East isn’t what he should want to try to sell to the American people. It would disrupt a growing economy and belie the President’s many declarations of intent to leave fighting in the Middle East to others. Even a flim-flam man knows his limits. Iran is a country of 81 million people long hardened by war (with Iraq) and sanctions. While discontent is rife, the Supreme Leader can be certain that the Americans won’t invade. A carrier battle group, plus some bombers, does not an invasion make. A cruise missile strike on elements of the nuclear program would set it back but free Iran from any JCPOA constraints.
The Americans served first by withdrawing from the JCPOA and reimposing sanctions without lining up multilateral support. The Iranians are responding with their own phased drawdown from their commitments under the agreement, while trying not to drive either the Europeans or the Chinese into the arms of the Americans. Some sort of mutual accommodation could still be possible, but if this were a tennis match, the score would be “ad out.”
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