Arms Control Wonk

Banning Nuclear-Armed ABMs

By Jeffrey | 18 October 2012 | 19 Comments

I have my semi-weekly column up at Foreign Policy arguing that the impending demise of Nunn-Lugar is of a piece with the loss of monitoring at Votkinsk and obligatory telemetry exchanges with the expiration of the START treaty.  The Russians want us out as they modernize.

I worry that the bilateral arms control process is dying a slow death in large part because we’ve failed to expand it beyond reductions into a broader set of measures to strengthen strategic stability.  In particular, as I’ve been arguing for some time, I think the Russians are much more worried about decapitation — the prospect that they could not command their nuclear forces following an attack and would be unable to retaliate.  I’ve pestered my friends, enemies and people I don’t even know with the odd idea that this Russian fear might account for a series of weird things they’ve said and done, including expressing concern about nuclear-armed missile defense interceptors in Poland.

How do we start talking about command and control with Russia, especially if the Russians won’t address the matter directly?  I would propose that the US and Russian agree to a joint statement prohibiting the placing of nuclear weapons on missile defense interceptors.  It is a modest measure that begins, obliquely, to address Russian concerns while strengthening stability.

The full proposal is after the jump.

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SLCM Data Exchanges Revisited

By Jeffrey | 16 October 2012 | 8 Comments

Regular readers know that one of my hobby horses is that the US and Russia should revive the sea-launched cruise missile data exchanges that expired with START as a confidence-building measure because the next agreement will probably have to say something about SLCMs.

A short version of my proposal appears in a new Carnegie monograph, Beyond Treaties: Immediate Steps to Reduce Nuclear Dangers. (Beyond treaties isn’t quite right since, at least in my case, the confidence-building measure is designed to make possible a future treaty.)

You should check them all out, especially the proposal by Linton Brooks on “Joint Experiments and Studies.”

The full text of mine is after the jump.

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PSA: CTBT Advanced Science Course

By Jeffrey | 15 October 2012 | 5 Comments

One of the things I am terrible about is promising to post worthwhile public service announcements, then forgetting!  Anyway, I don’t want to forget this one.  Any chance to listen to Linton Brooks by day, and then hash it out afterward over beers with the big Swede, Andreas Persbo,  is not to be missed.  If I didn’t have two very small children in fussypants, I would register for this.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) is pleased to announce that it will be holding the Advanced Science Course, “Around the Globe and Around the Clock: The Science and Technology of the CTBT”, from 12 – 23 November in Vienna and online. The course offers the opportunity to achieve a certificate of successful completion and can be completed in full online as lectures will be live-streamed and archived. Registration for the course is now open here.

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Reclaiming Pakistan

By krepon | 15 October 2012 | 10 Comments

A hyphenated word has hung like a shroud over Pakistan ever since its founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, vocalized what Great Britain produced in its hasty retreat from empire: a moth-eaten state. In 1947, a British barrister, new to the subcontinent, drew artificial lines on a map that carved up the Punjab, Bengal and Kashmir, producing a hopelessly divided independent state of Pakistan.

Pakistan remains a moth-eaten country, only now, the spaces beyond the writ of the state are home to extremist groups. They can be found in Pakistan’s heartland as well as on its periphery. Pakistan’s military and intelligence services nurtured them with the expectation of gaining leverage against India and within Afghanistan. Now, these quasi-independent fiefdoms fill the spaces vacated by poor governance, economic stagnation, corruption, flimsy social services, and a deteriorating educational system.

Among these groups, the Lashkar-e-Taiba has focused primarily on Indian targets – so far. The Afghan Taliban fire primarily at U.S. and NATO forces – so far. Currently, the biggest threat to Pakistan’s military and intelligence services is the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella group of tribal fighters mobilized after President Pervez Musharraf ordered commando units to seize control of the “Red Mosque” in Islamabad, whose clerics were openly defying the state. A ten-day siege resulted in approximately 100 deaths, prompting a war of vengeance.

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RoK Missile Rationale Roulette

By Jeffrey | 9 October 2012 | 20 Comments

Just as expected, after a protracted negotiation, the U.S. and South Korea have agreed to relax the bilateral “guidelines” limiting the range and payload of South Korean missiles. It’s an election year in South Korea and — well, why mince words? The outcome makes the ruling party happy. And the more jingoistic quarters of ROK public opinion. Possibly some parts of the South Korean military. And pretty much nobody else on Earth. I’ve put my objections in electrons over at Foreign Policy.

It could have been worse, but this might not be the best showing for two years’ worth of institutionalized hand-holding of one form or another.

Media accounts of the press briefing at the Blue House agree that the cap on ballistic-missile range has been raised from 300 km to 800 km with a 500 kg payload. A “trade-off” rule allows ballistic missiles of up to just 550 km in range to carry payloads all the way up to one metric ton (1,000 kg). For UAVs, the maximum payload will rise from 500 kg to 2,500 kg, a big change that looks as if it’s meant to enable development of a UCAV. It’s not even mentioned, but in practice, no range limit has been enforced on cruise missiles, and it appears that the same understanding is in effect for UAVs.

As I say, it could have been worse. The Koreans’ opening demand for ballistic missiles was reported as 1,000 km range with 1,000 km payload. From South Korea, the difference between 800 and 1,000 km happens to be whether an object proceeding as the crow flies can reach Beijing or Tokyo. Sticking to the 800 km limit may help Seoul avoid embroilment in a multi-pronged regional missile race — provided no one notices that dropping the payload to 400 kilograms would probably bring both in range.  On the other hand, Seoul may not care what its neighbors think.  If Chosun Ilbo is any guide, conservative South Koreans are eager to join the “frantic arms buildup” in Northeast Asia.

Less clear is how South Korea’s security will be strengthened in the process. Just what was the point of this exercise? Even over the weekend, so many competing explanations have been deployed that you have to wonder if anybody really knows. Here’s a brief catalogue.

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Visiting Pakistan

By krepon | 7 October 2012 | 11 Comments

Twenty years of visiting Pakistan still doesn’t amount to much. My footprint is limited, especially lately, and I can only converse in English. Nonetheless, if you don’t learn something from repeated visits, you’re not paying attention.

There’s no shortage of bad news about Pakistan. Lots of trend lines are worrisome. That said, allow me to fuzz up your mental image of Pakistan with these thoughts, while they are still fresh from a trip in mid-September.

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Bibi’s Bomb: Guide for the Perplexed

By Jeffrey | 29 September 2012 | 76 Comments

UN Photo/J Carrier

Note from Jeffrey: I’m still on blog sabbatical in baby-land. Here’s another anonymous guest post.

Let’s be fair. It’s hard to simplify what’s not so simple. And it’s harder still to get your point across if few make the effort to understand. The Acme-brand bomb diagram brandished by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu before the UN General Assembly on Thursday has left the multitudes scratching their heads, but it didn’t have to be that way. The media have done an altogether poor job of interpreting the message. For the most part, they haven’t even tried, reporting instead on the ensuing confusion. Or the smirk-inducing graphic-design choice. You know what? That’s shoddy work.

Now, with just a bit of background information, it’s not hard to gather what Bibi was saying about Iran and The Bomb. Which isn’t to say that it’s wise, in wider perspective, to “draw a red line” where the Israeli PM literally has done. It isn’t.

Let’s see if we can’t break this down.

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Robert Jervis

By krepon | 28 September 2012 | 3 Comments

Aspiring wonks: your homework assignment this week is to read Robert Jervis. In my view, his best writing is about the impact of nuclear weapons on world politics and the psychology of nuclear deterrence. As the salience of nuclear weapons has been reduced for the United States, the security dilemmas Jervis writes about have become more applicable to conventional conflict.

Try The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon (1989). The timing of this book was off because Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan jumped ahead of Jervis (and everybody else), but its content is well worth another look.

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Return of the Safeguards Resolution

By andreas | 27 September 2012 | 1 Comment

Some of you know that I am a regular visitor in Vienna, and that I haven’t missed a General Conference since 2004. Most of you also know that I’m not a very diligent blogger anymore. Having said that, I thought it would be useful to give the ACW community my take on what’s been going on with the safeguards resolution this year. I will leave it to Jeffrey to put in a suitable illustration. He always does, and it often involves ABBA or Swedish chefs, or what have you.

[Editor's note: Not always. But see below.]

The safeguards resolution of the IAEA General Conference has, for many years, been one of the highlights and great dreads of the conference. Member states anxieties and excessive wrangling over its text tends to ensure that the final day of the conference ends around midnight. While this adds to the excitement of the conference, it is also a very costly undertaking. Sitting in the conference hall in the middle of the night surely raises questions as to whether it is all worth it.

For sure, the resolution is the one that receives a lot of attention from the media, and that may be one of the reasons that member states invest so heavily in it. But all this effort can also be explained by simple economics. The resolution addresses one of the central work areas of the organization, an area worth some 37 per cent of the regular budget. From that perspective, it is natural that member states are keen to have a say in how that money is spent.

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Options On and Off the Table

By krepon | 23 September 2012 | 38 Comments

All options are on the table. How many times have we heard this? The administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush directed such declarations to Saddam Hussein. North Korea is no stranger to this formulation. Then there’s Iran. Here’s what President Barack Obama had to say at the 2012 AIPAC Policy Conference on March 4, 2012:

I have said that when it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say. That includes all elements of American power: A political effort aimed at isolating Iran; a diplomatic effort to sustain our coalition and ensure that the Iranian program is monitored; an economic effort that imposes crippling sanctions; and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency.

President Obama then went on to say,

Iran’s leaders should understand that I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And as I have made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who would virtually outsource U.S. policy toward Iran to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, heartily agrees. So, all options are on the table – except one.

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