Tag: Pakistan
Stevenson’s army, August 10
– WSJ report on emerging US-ISraeli-Saudi deal is disparaged by NSC’s Kirby.
– NYT explains Biden order on investing in China. Here’s the order.
– Intercept says US urged removal of Pakistan’s Khan.
– AIPAC strikes back, Jewish Insider reports.
– Poland sends more troops to Belarus border.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. 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).
Iran is already at the nuclear threshold
This video is more than a year old:
Iran, which is now enriching uranium to at least 60%, is already a nuclear threshold state. There are no difficult technical obstacles that remain before enriching to weapons-grade material. Moving beyond that to fabricating a nuclear device is more difficult, but certainly not beyond Iranian capability. The question is: what difference does this make? The answer to that question depends on who you are. Israel, other regional states, the European Union, and the United States have distinct answers.
Israel apparently doesn’t care
Iran is significantly closer to nuclear weapons than when President Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal (aka Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA). This is in part because Israel urged the US to back out of the JCPOA and has done its best to prevent the US from re-entering it. The Israelis have preferred their own approach, which involves assassinations and attacks on nuclear infrastructure. But given the outcome so far, it appears they don’t care how much weapons-grade uranium the Iranians accumulate.
Why are the Israelis behaving this way? Is it because they are supremely confident of their ability to prevent weaponization of enriched uranium? Is it because their second-strike capability (from submarines) is thought to be a sufficient deterrent to an Iranian nuclear attack? Or is it because the Israelis believe American guarantees that Iran will never get nuclear weapons?
Whatever the reason, it is clear that Israel doesn’t really care about Iran accumulating weapons-grade uranium.
The region does, but what are they doing about it?
Major states in the region do care. Both Turkish President Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have said, more or less explicitly, that they will not be left wanting if Iran gets nuclear weapons. This is not how they have reacted to Israeli nuclear weapons, about which they complain readily but apparently do little. Neither country has used the decades since Israel became a nuclear power to mount serious nuclear weapons programs of their own, so far as is known. Instead, they have pleaded for a regional nuclear-free zone, which they know the Israelis won’t agree to.
Their reaction to Iran is rhetorically different. Riyadh and Ankara appear to see Iranian nuclear weapons as a threat to the regional power balance, one they need to counter. There are however still big questions about intentions and capability. Were Erdogan and MBS serious, or just rhetorical? Turkey has American nuclear weapons on its territory. Would Ankara risk losing those if it decides to go nuclear on its own? Does Turkey have the nuclear and high-explosive expertise required to enrich uranium or extract plutonium, as well as design a working nuclear weapon? Does Saudi Arabia? Has either obtained the needed materials, technology, and even weapons from Pakistan?
Egypt has been more circumspect than Turkey and Saudi Arabia. It has lived with Israeli nuclear weapons on its border for decades, apparently confident they won’t be used against a neighbor who has made peace, even if a cold one. American influence in Cairo is far greater than in Riyadh and Ankara, which is likely another factor in Egyptian reluctance to move in the direction of nuclear weapons.
Europe cares, but not in the same way as the United States and Russia
The European Union has exhausted itself in nuclear negotiations with Iran. This is not because of any threat to Europe from Iranian nuclear weapons. Most European states would like to normalize relations with Tehran. The unresolved nuclear issue makes that impossible. Hence the diplomatic efforts, first to negotiate the 2015 JCPOA and, after Trump left office, to revive it.
For the United States and Russia, the concern is nuclear proliferation, or to put it another way maintenance of their exclusive status as global nuclear powers. Both were unhappy with India and Pakistan getting nuclear weapons, but neither Delhi nor Islamabad has challenged the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the Perm 5), all of which are nuclear states. Instead they have accepted the subcontinent nuclear balance and avoided nuclear contests beyond South Asia. This is true even though India views its nuclear weapons as necessary to balance China more than Pakistan. But nuclear balance has not been a factor in outstanding border disputes between New Delhi and Beijing.
The Middle East is not South Asia
It is harder to picture easy adjustment to Iranian nuclear weapons in the Middle East, especially if the Turks and Saudis follow suit. In a Middle East with four nuclear powers, or even five if Egypt joins the party and six if you count Pakistan, a stable balance will be far more difficult to achieve than between two parties like Pakistan and India. A nuclear arms race in a region with few stabilizing institutions and lots of destabilizing conflicts will be extraordinarily difficult to contain.
Geopolitics will take its revenge
One thing is clear this morning: Russian President Putin has chosen war as an instrument of national policy. He has been unequivocal: Ukraine is not a real state, it should not be allowed to choose its own allies, and Russian security interests require that it be under Moscow’s control. The blah-blah about genocide against Russian speakers is nonsense. There is no evidence for it. Putin is attacking Ukraine today because he wants to and can.
Fog of war means we need to await the outcome
Ukraine will be defending itself, without allies. Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, and other cities have been attacked. Civilians are streaming west to areas they hope will be relatively peaceful. It is hard to miss the analogy to Hitler’s March 1938 Anschluss against Austria, which Fiona Hill noted yesterday on NPR. Most Ukrainians will not welcome the Russians, but their army is far weaker than Russia’s. If the outcome the balance of forces decides the outcome, it will be in Moscow’s favor.
But will to fight and persistence are important factors as well. We just don’t know how strongly the Ukrainians will resist and how long that resistance will last. Putin has signaled that his forces will be brutal, but Ukrainians in the past have proven remarkably resilient, including against the Soviet-perpetrated Holodomor famine that Stalin imposed in the early 1930s. Some of the people fighting now will be descendants of Ukrainians who resisted collectivization then.
We are still in the fog of war and will need to wait to learn the outcome.
Western sanctions are vigorous but won’t have immediate effect
Europe, the UK, and the US are reacting with strong sanctions and in a far more unified way than many had expected just a few weeks ago. Russian banks, oligarchs, and the state will be cut off from Western funding. The Nordstream 2 pipeline to carry natural as from Russia to Germany is suspended if not defunct. The West will be blocking advanced technology from transfer to Moscow.
None of this will change Putin’s mind. He has already taken sanctions into account. Rarely do economic sanctions quickly change any autocrat’s mind about security issues. It is only when you negotiate relief from sanctions, not when you impose them, that you have any real hope of getting what you want. We are witnessing that in the Iran deal negotiations right now.
The world should be on alert
Russia’s irredentist war on Ukraine should alert everyone worldwide to the possibility other autocrats will seek to enlarge their borders, citing cultural affinity, historic claims, or humanitarian goals. In the post-Soviet space, that means all the former republics, but it also extends to the Balkans. There Kosovo as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina need worry about Serb revanchism.
Moscow could also be thinking about going beyond Ukraine, if this initial invasion is successful. The Baltic members of NATO understand this perfectly well and did their best to arm Ukraine against Russia. They are also welcoming additional American and other NATO forces.
Farther afield, Taiwan needs to worry about China, whose claim to sovereignty over the island is stronger than Russia’s claims against Ukraine. Pakistan should worry about its Durrand Line border with Afghanistan, which even the American-supported governments in Kabul contested. India needs to worry about its longstanding border dispute with China. There are dozens of other border disputes in Asia that could be aggravated if one country or another decides to settle them by force.
The revenge of geopolitics
A geopolitical world in which military power decides issues of territorial control may eventually reach some sort of equilibrium, but it could take a long time. If things go well for Russia, it may be decades before the world settles down. But if things go well for Ukraine, the Russian Federation will be in big trouble. Its people won’t appreciate defeat and will try to change their government. Its many minorities will seek their own territorial control.
Geopolitics will take its revenge, one way or the other.
PS: The criminal falsely citing law:
The voice of reason, to which Putin will not listen:
Stevenson’s army, January 24
Lots of leaks following the Camp David meeting to discuss Ukraine options. Most strike me as authorized, rather than an effort by those losing the interagency debate. NYT says US might send more troops to Baltics. WaPo says US plans heavy sanctions to prevent transfer to Russia of US semiconductors and aircraft parts.
– Meanwhile, US & UK have begun withdrawals of dependents and some staff from Ukraine.
– FT suggest all the publicity has undercut effectiveness of deterrent.
– WSJ sees Russia angle in US sale of F16s to Turkey.
– NYT writer says Pakistan army wants US back in region.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I 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).
Stevenson’s army, January 21
– WSJ says US allows Baltics to transfer arms to Ukraine.
– FT says Taliban threatens Pakistan.
– Oath Keepers were armed for insurrection.
– Fred Kaplan analyzes Biden’s Ukraine gaffe.
– NYT says US special forces bombed a dam in Syria on “no hit” list. Senior officials had denied attack.
– In FA, SAIS prof Hal Brands says US is overstretched militarily.
– More on CIA assessment of Havana Syndrome.
– China demands end to foreign FONOPs.
On the 80the anniversary of the Wannsee conference,NYT remembers. I’ve been to the place where the meeting occurred. Here are the minutes of the meeting.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I 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).
Stevenson’s army, October 25
– China competitiveness bill also stalled.
– Jim Fallows, who has analyzed presidential speeches for decades, does same for Biden’s CNN town hall.
– Military Times has a searchable guide to US military bases.
-CNN says Pakistan will allow US to use airspace for operations in Afghanistan.
– And news about Chilean elections: Right-winger on a roll in Chile: José Antonio Kast, an ultra-conservative politician who pines for the days of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, has ridden a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment to the top of the polls ahead of next month’s presidential election. He’s currently at 21 percent, one point ahead of leftist former student leader Gabriel Boric. Talk about political whiplash: it was just a few months ago that Chileans elected a broadly leftwing constituent assembly to rewrite the country’s Pinochet-era constitution in the wake of mass protests about inequality. But Kast, an avowed free-marketeer and social conservative, has tapped into rising resentment against the vast numbers of migrants – in particular from Venezuela and Haiti – who have arrived in the country in recent years. Last month, for example, saw an outbreak of violence against Venezuelan refugees in the northern city of Iquique. Kast has called for digging ditches along the borders and wants a special police force to root out illegal migrants. In the last presidential election, Kast got less than 8 percent of the vote. This time he’s making a race of it.
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).
