'We can still make at least 2 nukes.'

In the past couple days, the world’s great powers have been busy courting and challenging the Middle East’s prospective regional power, Iran. To most people’s surprise, the leaders of Turkey and Brazil reached an agreement with Tehran to transport and hold about half of Iran’s enriched uranium, but the details are still thin. In the deal, it is believed that there are no limits to how high Iran can continue to enrich their kept uranium and unlike the US/European/Russia led deal which Tehran reneged on last year, it would allow Iran to still keep enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon. This announcement has been followed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s proclamation that the UN Security Council 5 permanent members plus Germany have reached an agreement on a fourth round of sanctions on Iran. It is unknown how extensive the sanctions are as Russia and China have likely watered them down. In any case, it is hoped that if the sanctions are passed, they could be followed by additional individual pressure from the US and European states.

Are these two great power plays contradictory or compatible? The real fear about the Turkey-Brazil-Iran deal is that it will allow Iran to continue its nuclear weapon buildup while having the cover of international legitimacy bestowed on it by Rio and Ankara. Unfortunately, nearly the same thing can be said about the sanctions. The US/EU/Russia/China can look like they are ‘doing something’ to stop Tehran’s nuclear pursuit, but the bottom line is that the Islamic Republic is still in the drivers seat. From what I’ve read, the Turkey-Brazil-Iran deal does not do enough to really stop Iran’s nuclear efforts. As Greg Scoblete of Real Clear World stated: ‘this is the kind of deal that is okay to countries – like Brazil and Turkey – that aren’t terribly concerned with Iran’s nuclear program.’ If this is true, then the deal made could really cause problems for the US, Israel, Europe, Egypt, and all others who fear a nuclear Iran. Apparently, the Obama administration tacitly supported Brazil and Turkey’s rapprochement to Tehran on this issue, but they surely are backtracking now. Clinton has been timid in her remarks about the 3-way deal and stated that ‘the details matter’.

There is hope that the UNSC sanctions are indeed a strong step forward in this process and can lead to further steps that can push Iran into a deal that can keep Iran from weaponizing and a physical confrontation from occurring. Of note, both Turkey and Brazil are currently 2 of the 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council and along with the 5 permies, 5 more votes will be needed to pass the sanction resolution. Even if the resolution passes without Turkey and Brazilian support it will suffer some international legitimacy and the Islamic Republic leaders can yak and yak about being unfairly targeted after they already made a ‘fair deal’.

If Turkey and Brazil indeed push against the UNSC sanctions and actively promote their Iranian deal as the only way forward it will be quite the gamble. In effect, they will be choosing the side of Iran. Turkey’s government has been lurching towards south and east and away from the US, Europe, and Israel so this is not that surprising, but Brazil’s choice in the matter is a bit more puzzling. Brazil has a not insignificant amount of trade with Tehran and has butted heads with the US on several minor issues (Honduras election, Colombia basing rights), but this move could really put it on the opposite side of the US on a major foreign policy issue that could become a crisis.

Alas, these moves are still in their early stages and it would not be surprising to see Brazil and Turkey come back into the fold during the coming UNSC resolution debates. We shall see.

Is that Vladimir Putin, Marlon Brando, or Al Bundy? Either way I'm in impressed.

So who’s in charge of Russia? Dmitri Medvedev, whose position of President is officially in charge of all major foreign policy matters, or Prime Minister, ex-President, and all around tough guy Vladimir Putin? Putin sure behaves like he’s the man behind the Bear, and with this latest foray into Moscow’s foreign affairs, he is cementing this view in GPP’s eyes. On December 30th, Putin asserted that the START nuclear weapon deal being negotiated between Russia and the United States would go nowhere as long as the US continued to develop a defensive missile shield. Putin warned that unless Washington DC came clean on this issue, Moscow would have to ‘go ahead with a new class of offensive nuclear missiles’. In other words, Putin is not happy with the already sweet deal that is START (Russia’s nuclear would be reductions are for the most part already obsolete or downtrodden) and the Obama administration’s decision to cancel the missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. He wants even more concessions!

I guess I shouldn’t be too worried about this Putin position, as it likely is just a negotiating gambit to get the best START deal possible for Moscow, but then I read this quote and started to believe that my fears of the Obama administration giving in to more Russian demands had merit. Alexandros Petersen, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said this about Putin’s government:

“They view Obama as somewhat of an anomaly in U.S. foreign policy, and START is for decades”

In other words, Obama is a true believer in getting rid of nuclear weapons anyway how and will be a tremendously pliable negotiating partner. Petersen went on to say: “You give them a finger and they take an arm. With this statement [from Putin], the debate has shifted completely.”

I still have confidence that the START deal won’t turn out to be too hurtful to US interests and that the Obama administration is a tougher negotiator than either Putin or Petersen believes, but this is still a bit disconcerting. One has to be glad that American Founding Fathers were prescient and wise enough to require all foreign treaties to get 2/3 majority Senate confirmation.

The Petersen quote above does indeed raise the larger question of whether or not Obama is really an ‘anomaly’ in US foreign policy history, present, and future. Many have argued that President George W. Bush was such a thing. In fact, I have a feeling that every president has been called something close to this during their tenure. It is still a provocative question worth thinking about though. Do you think President Obama is a foreign policy ‘anomaly’? In what ways exactly? Do you think that other world leaders view him as such? And if this is true, than wouldn’t that dramatically affect their positions and tactics toward the US during this time period?

After you’re done answering these questions, go and have yourself a Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from GPP!

(Side question: Because states like China and Iran will not be celebrating the new year tonight does that hurt their status in the GPP rankings? Yes, yes it does.)

Christmas, Hanukkah, the New Year would not be complete without a little GPP Great Power Rankings would it!?! The last rankings created quite a bit of discussion and I look forward to even more this time around. There have been a couple slight movements in the actual rankings, but many of these great powers have shown to either be trending upward or downward. As I stated before I released my first rankings; ‘Great powers have come to their position of power slowly and have generally left their esteemed place in international politics in a similar fashion, so how can one do a monthly Great Power – Power Ranking system, one may ask? Long term prognosticating will of course be an important aspect of GPP’s rankings, but short term moves, issues, and strategic successes and failures will also be considered. For instance, if I did a power ranking after Russia’s successful invasion of Georgia, which proved Moscow’s hard power was not only still capable, but willing to be used, Russia would have gotten a ‘bump up’ in my rankings.’ Let’s get to it!

Here are the criteria in which the great powers are measured:

• Power – Basically, how much total influence does your state have in the world. In what ways can your state make other states or actors do something that they don’t necessarily want to do?
• Economy – What is your GDP? Is your economy growing? Declining? How much can your economic power be easily translated into ways to influence other actors?
• Permanent/Near Permanent Resources – natural resources controlled, population size, geography
• Ideology/Cultural – How powerful is your state’s governing and lifestyle philosophy in the world? Do your beliefs and ideas translate to influence around the globe?
• Internal State Strength – How strong and legitimate is your domestic government? How stable?

It is time. Below are my Top Ten Great Power Rankings, followed by a Tier breakdown, with short explanations to follow:

1. United States of America 
   
2. China
3. Russia
4. Japan
5. Germany
6. India
7. Brazil
8. France
   
9. United Kingdom
   
10. Turkey

On the GP Bubble -  Iran,  Israel

Regarding some of President Obama’s recent foreign policy moves, I have on several occasions thought and written here on GPP, ‘what’s in it for us?’, or ‘How does this concretely help either side?’ Most of this comes from soft power moves of Obama apologizing or distancing himself from American ‘arrogance’ or mistakes. I know state leaders need to play a bit to their foreign audience, but I don’t quite buy the theory that this type of ‘rapprochement’ brings either truly better strategic relationships between allies or makes enemies into partners ready to deal. If the US president was going to disparage the country and let others agenda’s trump our own at times, I would at least like to see some hard results, such as Russia denouncing North Korea’s missile launch (they did the opposite) or truly help out on Iran or maybe some stronger NATO commitment in Afghanistan. Alas, after stating all of this I am willing to give President Obama time. Time to show that all of this is part of larger strategic plan that will pay off dividends for the US and international security.

It is on that positive note that I turn to another topic, where I’m afraid I think Obama’s long-term plan is unfortunately not attainable and therefore his current moves might hurt more than help. I am talking about Obama’s Czech speech, where he laid out his policy towards nuclear weapons. He stated that the US would reduce their nuclear weapon collection, deemphasize their use in military affairs, and lastly that because the US was the only nation to use the weapon, we bare a ‘moral’ responsibility to work toward their elimination.

First off, about the ‘moral’ responsibility part. As horrible as the US use of nuclear weapons against Japan in WWII, I would disagree that it was immoral, in terms of state actions. The US and Japan were losing thousands of soldiers in the fighting around Japan, with Japan also losing thousands of civilians by Allied bombing of their cities on a daily basis, and the US calculated that they needed to end the war as soon as possible and utilized their most effective/destructive weapon to do so. This move caused untold human destruction, but it also saved thousands of other Japanese and American lives and ended the bloodiest war known to mankind. Since the wars end, the US and Japan have also had a strategic, friendly, and prosperous relationship. The US does indeed carry with it a burden of the weapons’ use, but I would argue against America still having any ‘moral responsibility’ for it use during what was an extraordinary moment in world history.

Alright, back to the speeches main points: A world without nukes sounds wonderful, but it is not realistic nor I think an area where Obama should be spending his global political capital. In his speech, Obama alluded that if the US showed it was willing to lessen its support of nuclear weapons, all other states, especially rogue ones, would feel less threatened and it would help the global norm against the weapon as a choice for states. In other words, if the US stopped being nuclear hypocrites other states and regimes would give up their nuclear ambitions. Unfortunately, history tells us otherwise. Did India, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, South Africa, France, Great Britain, Al Qaeda all pursue nuclear weapons because the US had them? No, they pursued them for their own national strategic interests and defense.

What about the idea of a nuclear free-world? Though it would be very difficult to reach, wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing? Not really. As I have discussed before on GPP, I feel that states would still not trust that the others did not have nuclear weapons and this would create a security dilemma, where states would inevitably try to circumvent or protect themselves from another by obtaining them again! Except we would have to relive the dangerous early part of ‘who has the weapon?’, ‘will they use it?’ This sounds like a scary, unpredictable world to me. I would rather have our current situation where only a few, mostly stable states, hold nuclear weapons and it is well-known who. To have a world with no nukes would require some form of strong world government to verify this outcome and that does not appear on the horizon.

'I thought your speech was very inspirational Mr. Obama'

So once again, I ask about a new US foreign policy stance or maneuver, what does the US or world get out of this policy? Will it cause Iran to come to the negotiating table and actually negotiate instead of buy time? Will it stop North Korea from launching another missile, which may one day carry a nuclear weapon, in six months? Will it end nukes forever in 30 years? How does this policy make the US and world safer?

Continuing yesterday’s thread on the Bush Administration’s ‘No’ to Israel regarding an air attack on Iran’s nuclear program, let’s look at why the the US government made the decision they did. First off, how threatening does the Bush administration believe a nuclear-armed Iran is? I think there is no doubt that Bush and his advisers view the Islamic Republic of Iran as a serious threat to regional stability and US regional dominance. Though I am not quite as concerned about an Iranian bomb, I think they would likely be rather rational and cautious, though more powerful and influential overall, I think Bush fears them to a much greater degree.

"Good job nuclear scientist guys!"

So therefore I believe Bush very much wants to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear capability, but why would he therefore give the Israeli’s the stop sign? I think the main reason has to be that it might create a situation of great instability in Iraq, where the US is trying to organize a withdrawal and the continued progress of a stable and somewhat democratic Iraqi state. If Israel attacked the Iranian nuclear system, using Iraqi airspace, there is a likely chance that the Iraqi government would put even more pressure on the US military to leave the country, arguing that they were undermining Iraqi sovereignty. Iran’s retaliatory measures might also destabilize the fragile Iraqi society and government as Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi militia have strong connections the Iranian government and could create havoc in Baghdad and countryside as well as remove their political parties in government, creating a crisis of legitimacy and stalemating further legislation. So I think Iraqi stability took precedence over militarily taking out/or slowing an Iranian Bomb in this case.

Another rather obvious reason for Bush’s ‘No’ was the lack of evidence that the Israelis could really halt the Iranian nuclear weapon project by more than a year or so. According to the New York Times, Israel was planning on hitting the Natanz site, the most well-known Iranian nuclear facility, and other targets were also chosen, but there was not much information about them. The Bush administration probably reasoned that the probability of the strike doing major damage to the Iranian program was not worth the risk of the attack’s retaliatory consequences.

Looking at the Israeli-led strike occurring in today’s strategic environment, with Israel knee-deep in Gaza, seems even less likely. Though I do not think Israel’s air force is tied down enough to make this impossible. Lastly, I think another reason for Bush’s ‘No’ to Israel and apparent ‘No’ to a US-led operation also has to do with a sense that the incoming Obama administration may be tougher on Iran than previously thought. As Hirsch and others have predicted, Bush would military act on Iran because he felt an incoming administration would not have his will or political protection to do so.

I couldn't resist!

Why do you think Bush said ‘No’?  And should he have said ‘Yes‘?

Just as we were discussing the challenges of running an intelligence agency in a democracy, a story breaks showcasing exactly how complicated it can be. The New York Times has broken a story that the Bush administration flat out stopped an attack on Iran’s nuclear program by Israel earlier this year. Israel did not even request full participation, just bunker busting bombs, Iraq overflight rights, and refueling. The Bush administration would not go along with it, for reasons that I want to discuss in post tomorrow when I have more time. In any case, this is an interesting storyline to read, ‘Bush stops attack on Iran’, as in the past three years I have read many ‘reports‘ that claimed Bush was going to launch a massive attack. Seymour Hirsch of the New Yorker was especially loud about this prediction.

Another part of this story, the one involving the CIA directly, is that it appears that the US tried to assuage the Israelis, though this was definitely not the only reason, by stating that it had launched a major covert operation, which hopefully combined with tough financial sanctions, would stop the Iran’s nuclear program.  Reading about this ‘covert’ plan to disable Iran’s nuclear plants, specifically at Natanz, in the New York Freaking Times, made me think ‘how is this covert? and should the NYTimes be printing this?’  The job of the media is to be a watchdog and make sure our government is responsibly led, but is reporting American secret intelligence and spy tactics in an ongoing process going over the line?

Anyway, there’s a lot to this story and this is all I can write about right now, but there is always tomorrow.  I’ll be back tomorrow, but please let me know what you think about this whole mess.

Anyone following the North Korean diplomatic situation over the last ten years or so can’t help but throw their hands up in the air. Perhaps the consistent theme in all of the agreements and compromises that have been reached over the years is that North Korea always wins. At no point does this seem more true than today.

Two months after convincing the U.S. to remove North Korea from the State Department’s list of terror sponsoring countries in exchange for written verification of its nuclear disarmament process, North Korea has reneged. In what seems to be an almost comical series of rebukes on U.S. led diplomacy, the North Korean regime has refused to provide written verification that it is in fact, actually disarming its nuclear capabilities. Anyone counting on a nuclear free Korean peninsula, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Even worse is that the North Koreans have already begun reaping the ‘rewards’ of the fuel oil agreement reached under the six party talks with China, S. Korea, Japan and Russia. Supposedly the remainder is going to be halted upon receiving this verification, but this is basically just kicking the can farther down the road until the Obama Administration takes office in January.

What do we have to look forward to? Obama has denounced the hardline stance of the early Bush Administration and the six-party talks and instead called for bilateral negotiations, saying “more diplomatic engagement is necessary.” Perhaps Obama was referring to the good ole days of bilateral negotiations in the 1990′s under President Clinton. Leading up to the 1994 Agreed Framework, North Korea threatened to pull out of the non-proliferation treaty and develop a nuclear weapons program. This was met by negotiations that allowed the North Koreans to give up their nuclear ambitions in exchange for the equivalent energy in fuel oil and two 1,000 MW light water reactors to be primarily subsidized by the U.S., South Korea and Japan.  Unsurprisingly, the fuel oil began to flow but the attempts by North Korea to enrich uranium, disallow IAEA inspectors free access, and bait its neighbors continued.

"I will make you an offer you can't refuse. I'll even throw in a nuke. Let's Deal!"

The type of diplomacy used by the Bush Administration under Christoper Hill and Condi Rice has consistently failed to move the ball forward and it is unlikely more talking by an Obama Administration will do any better. Kim Jong-Il has consistently gotten the upper hand in his dealings with the US/West because he realizes that no matter how many North Koreans he starves or nuclear weapons he chases, the limits of diplomacy will save him.

We need a new strategy for N. Korea, one that can actually move/force them to discontinue their nuclear weapons program.  

Deter This!

In the final few months of the administration, the Bush team is making a strong stand on strengthening and expanding American nuclear deterrence, mainly in terms of non-state actors and terrorists.  In 2006, right after N. Korea detonated its first successful nuclear test, Bush stated the rogue state would be held “fully accountable” for the transfer of nuclear weapons or materials to any nation or terrorist organization.  And in late October, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (who will be Obama’s Def Sec as well) made a major speech with this emphatic statement:

“[T]he United States will hold any state, terrorist group, or other non-state actor or individual fully accountable for supporting or enabling terrorist efforts to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction – whether by facilitating, financing, or providing expertise or safe haven for such efforts.”

So anyone, I mean anyone, ‘supporting’ or ‘enabling’ terrorist efforts to get and then use WMDs will be held responsible.  The way they will be held responsible is still cloudy, but one can assume Gates and the United States are warning of a cloud that is very clear.  President-elect Obama has stated that he views the detonation of a WMD in US territory as the greatest threat to American national security and I imagine he will be rather supportive of this policy.  

This newly defined deterrence doctrine still has a lot to be worked out.  How will the U.S. expanded deterrence policy work with its NATO or U.S.-Japan alliance commitments?  How will the deterrence policy work in a complicated world of allies, partners, neutrals, great powers, and hostile states?

There are many ways that the US can use such a policy to bring together a multilateral grouping that can tackle this problem, which nearly all can agree is a serious threat to international security.  The Obama administration could lead a charge for first NATO, followed by other allies like Japan and Australia, to wed their deterrent policy to the United States and further the work of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism and the Proliferation Security Initiative in curtailing the growth of WMDs.  One can also see Great Powers like Russia and China wanting to work together in making sure that terrorist and other unstable states or groups gain WMD capabilities.  Elbridge Colby of Real Clear Politics also asserts that the initiative would reduce friction and even conflict in the aftermath of a catastrophic strike, given that, currently, there is no clear set of rules of the road for countries either suffering or inadvertently serving as a launch pad for an attack.

What do you think of this ‘expanded deterrence’?  Will Obama augment the policy or follow it forcefully? Will the US be a leader in promoting a similar form of deterrence with its allies and around the globe or are state’s interests too diffuse and protected to join together in such an important security matter?

I would like to share with you two videos that bring interesting views and ideas about many important issues facing the world and more specifically the Obama administration.  The first video is more all encompassing and features Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haas and Brookings Institution Saban Center’s Martin Indyk being interviewed by The Man, aka Charlie Rose.  The video covers many issues (listed below) and is centered around the new book ‘Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President.’  The book features many worthy and proven IR scholars, but how many times must we here that America has been off-balance and needs a new direction, are we really that off our historic trajectory?  

Issues covered:

• Assigning a US envoy each for Israel-Palestinian and Pakistan
• US rapproachment with Syria
• Unconditional negotiations with Iran
• Iraq falling off in its centrality to US foreign policy
• Obama’s likely slower moving democracy promotion
• Balancing with and against Russia

The second video is a short clip featuring research fellow Neil Joeck from Lawrence Livermore National Labs speaking about Obama, Pakistan, and the use of nuclear weapons.  Joeck outlines:

a possible Obama nuclear policy, which may include reducing the U.S. nuclear stockpile and acknowledging weapons only be used as a deterrence.

However, Joeck says America’s stance will have little affect on Pakistan because the country does not need to use nukes as a deterrence, but rather to prevent a conventional war with India.

He also said, “From Pakistan’s point of view nuclear weapons are not ethically bad or morally bad.”