Victor Cha of Georgetown University scores a rare two-fer on today's oped pages, landing a piece in the New York Times and another in the Financial Times, both on the implications of Kim Jong Il's death.  Victor's main argument is that new leader Kim Jong Un, (son of the deceased Kim Jong Il, grandson of Kim Il Sung) won't be up to the task of running an already-troubled regime. In his words: "Such a system simply cannot hold."  He suspects this situation will encourage China to get more actively involved in internal North Korea politics (and might go so far as to "adopt" it as a quasi-province). Cha doesn't think there's much that the United States can or should do at this juncture, but he recommends that the United States start more active contingency planning for the collapse of the regime or significant internal turbulence, and redouble its efforts to establish a channel of communication on this issue with Beijing.

Victor knows a heck of a lot more about North Korea than I do, so I'm reluctant to challenge either his forecast or his prescriptions.  But I can think of at least one reason why Kim Jong Un might -- repeat might -- fare somewhat better than Cha expects.  If North Korea's ruling elite understands their own fragility and recognizes the dangers that a serious power struggle might pose, then Kim Jong Un can survive by default.  Why? Because he's the one leader that all the potential contenders can agree on, if only to avoid the dangerous uncertainties that an open contest for power would entail.

Read on

Back in August 2010, I wrote a post warning about the possibility that war with Iran was being "mainstreamed." My concern was the likelihood that incessant talk of war would gradually accustom people to the idea and harden perceptions to the point that eventually even former skeptics would be convinced that war was inevitable and that we might as well get it over with.  As I put it back then:

If you talk about going to war often enough and for long enough, people get used to the idea and some will even begin to think if it is bound to happen sooner or later, than "'twere better to be done quickly." In an inside-the-Beltway culture where being "tough" is especially prized, it is easy for those who oppose "decisive" action to get worn down and marginalized. If war with Iran comes to be seen as a "default" condition, then it will be increasingly difficult for cooler heads (including President Obama himself) to say no.

I now wonder if my concerns were understated, and the danger a bit more subtle. It appears that we have gone beyond just talking about military action to actually engaging in it, albeit at a low level. In addition to waging cyberwar via Stuxnet, the United States and/or Israel appear to be engaged in covert efforts to blow up Iranian facilities and murder Iranian scientists. Earlier this week, the CIA lost a reconnaissance drone over Iranian territory (whether Iran shot it down or not is disputed). And just as I'd feared, this situation has led smart and normally sober people like Andrew Sullivan and Roger Cohen to endorse this shadowy campaign, on the grounds that it is preferable to all-out war.

I certainly agree that what the United States is doing is better than launching an all-out attack, but I question this approach on three grounds. First, as I've already argued elsewhere, our preoccupation with Iran vastly overstates its capabilities and the actual threat it poses to U.S. interests. Iran is a minor military power at present, and it has no meaningful power projection capabilities. It has been pursuing some sort of nuclear capability for decades without getting there, which makes one wonder whether Iran intends to ever cross the nuclear weapons threshold. Even if it did, it could not use a bomb against us or against Israel without triggering its own destruction, and there is no sign that Iran's leadership is suicidal. Quite the contrary, in fact: the clerics seem more concerned with staying alive and staying in power than anything else. Iran's "revolutionary" ideology is old and tired and inspires no one. The "Arab Spring" has underscored Iran's irrelevance as a political force, Iran's Syrian ally is under siege and may yet fall, and the ongoing U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will remove a key source of Iranian-Iraqi solidarity and encourage Arab-Persian differences to reemerge once again. Iran is a problem but a relatively minor one, and it is a sign of our collective strategic myopia that U.S. leaders either cannot figure this out or cannot say so openly.

Second, waging a covert, low-level war is not without risks, including the risk of undesirable escalation. No matter how carefully we try to control the level of force, there's always the danger that matters spiral out of control. Iran can't do much to us militarily, but it can cause trouble in limited ways and it could certainly take steps that would jack up oil prices and possibly derail the fragile global economic recovery. Moreover, if some U.S. operation misfired and a couple of hundred Iranians died, wouldn't the revolutionary government feel compelled to respond? If U.S. or Israeli operatives are captured on Iranian soil, will pressure mount on us to do more? (Just imagine what all the GOP candidates would start saying!) Such developments may not be likely, of course, but it would be foolhardy to ignore such possibilities entirely. Nor should we ignore the possibility that others will learn from this sort of "unconventional" campaign and one day use similar tactics against U.S. allies or the United States itself. 

Third, a semi-secret war of this kind raises the inevitable risk of "blowback." The late Chalmers Johnson defined blowback as the unintended consequences of U.S. action abroad, and especially those actions of which the public is largely unaware. When we conduct semi-secret, not-quite wars in other countries, the targets sometime try to hit us back. When they do, many people back home will see their actions as unjustified aggression, and as evidence that our enemies are irrevocably hostile and unremittingly evil. 

A case in point is the alleged Iranian plot to get Mexican drug lords to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. Americans immediately concluded that this scheme was a sign of dastardly Iranian perfidy, when it might just as easily have been a harebrained Iranian riposte to what we were already doing. This is not to say that Iran was justified in trying to blow up a building in our nation's capital, but by what logic is peace-loving America justified in doing something similar over in Iran? In short: If the American people don't quite know what their government is up to, they cannot understand or interpret what other states are doing either. We may have good reasons not to like what others are doing, but the bigger danger is that we simply won't understand it, and won't understand our own role in helping bring such actions about.

Lastly, ratcheting up military pressure -- even if done covertly and at a relatively low level -- can only reaffirm deeply rooted Iranian suspicions of the United States and prolong U.S.-Iranian animosity. (The same is true in reverse, of course).  I'm under no illusions about the depths of this animosity and the degree of skill, imagination, and patience it would take to unravel it, but doing more of the same is not going to make it any easier. Yes, many Iranians loathe the regime and would like it to go, but that doesn't mean they welcome U.S. or Israeli attacks on Iranian soil. And that is especially true of attacks on the nuclear program, which Iranians of many political persuasions view as an important symbol of national pride.

In short, the "silent campaign" against Iran is not without its own risks and costs. It is preferable to all-out attack, but a silent war and an all-out war are not the only options. The third option is a sustained and patient effort to reengage with Iran, in order to convince Iranian leaders that they are better off not going nuclear and that both sides will be better off if we can gradually work out some of our differences. Such an approach does not require the United States to sacrifice any core interests, nor would it preclude continuing to press Iran on its human rights record and on other matters that trouble us. And maybe it won't work. But as Trita Parsi shows in his new book A Single Roll of the Dice, that alternative approach has never really been tried.

In a thoughtful dissection of the seemingly endless debate on Iran's nuclear program (and the various proponents of military action), Andrew Sullivan says "For my part, I cannot see how we can prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb." Sullivan is no fan of military action, but I suspect his view is widespread. Some think the inevitability of Iran's getting the bomb is a reason to attack them now; for others, it is an argument for turning to robust containment.

I'm against the former and would favor the latter if necessary, but I do not think it is a foregone conclusion that Iran will actually go forward and acquire a nuclear weapons capability. In particular, I can think of two good reasons why a smart Iranian leader would not want to cross the nuclear threshold.

First, an Iranian nuclear weapons capability means that they will automatically be suspected if a nuclear detonation takes place anywhere in the world. Right now, Iran does not have to fear retaliation should an act of nuclear terrorism occur, because we know with high confidence that they have no weapons at present. But if the Islamic Republic were known to have a nuclear weapons capability, and a terrorist used a weapon somewhere, I'd bet that it would be pretty high up on the suspect list. Nuclear forensics could in theory rule them out, but these techniques are not perfectly reliable and it's not obvious how clearly anyone would be thinking at that awful moment. Powerful countries like the United States have a way of lashing out when they are attacked, and they might not be all that careful to make sure they had the right perpetrator. After all, Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, but the Bush administration used that attack as a pretext to gin up a campaign against him. So Iran might want to think twice about crossing the nuclear threshold and inviting retaliation, even for acts in which it was not involved.

Second, and equally important, Iran has by far the greatest power potential of any country in the Persian Gulf. It has more people, more economic potential, and plenty of oil and gas too. If it ever had competent political leadership it would easily be the strongest conventional power in its neighborhood. But if it gets an overt nuclear capability, that act would raise the likelihood that other states in the region (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, even Iraq) would follow suit. It is far from certain that they would, but it would certainly make it more likely. And if they do, this step would partially negate Iran's conventional advantages.

Accordingly, a farsighted Iranian strategist should want to acquire a "latent" nuclear capability (and thus the ability to get a bomb quickly if needed), while making it clear to others that it had not crossed the line. (If I had to guess, that is what I think they are trying to do.) This means that it may be possible to convince them not to weaponize, mostly by not creating a situation where they decide that having an overt deterrent is worth the costs and risks. Needless to say, U.S. and Israeli policy is the exact opposite today: we ramp up sanctions, talk openly of regime change, conduct various acts of sabotage and/or covert action against them (the STUXNET virus, assassinations of Iranian scientists, etc.), and basically behave in ways that we would regard as acts of war if anyone did them to us. And then we wonder why Iran's leaders are so reluctant to end their nuclear program.

There are valid reasons to be concerned about Iran, even though the actual threat is poses is vastly overblown. Iran is an increasingly brittle and sclerotic regime of old men, who are mostly desperate to preserve an aging "revolution," and it is no longer an inspiration for anyone. Its economy is presently troubled and its military budget is about 2 percent the size of our own. Those who now seek to portray it as some vast Islamic menace really do not deserve to be taken seriously.

But it is also too early to conclude that there is "no way to prevent Iran" from getting the bomb. Ten-plus years of pressure and rhetoric haven't gotten us anywhere, and a military strike would solidify support for the regime, give it even more incentive to get a nuclear deterrent, and unleash all sorts of unpredictable forces within the region.

The only approach that stands any chance of success is genuine diplomacy (as opposed to the Obama administration's half-hearted version of same). Sadly, we aren't going to see any serious diplomacy in an election year, and probably not afterwards. Sullivan may turn out to be right, but not because there was no way to prevent an Iranian bomb. If Tehran eventually joins the nuclear club, it will be at least in part because we never made serious, smart and sophisticated effort to persuade them not to.

I'm posting this from Talloires, France, on the shore of Lake Annecy, at a lovely conference center run by Tufts University. The conference is on the Middle East (broadly defined to include Afghanistan), with a specific focus on European and American interests, policies, and perspectives on these issues. So far the panels and side discussions have been quite interesting but also pretty depressing, an atmosphere reinforced by lots of clouds and rain. The latter problem is actually a good thing, as France has been experiencing a punishing drought and needs the rain.

One issue that struck me during the discussions was the inherent difficulty of doing accurate "policy assessment," due in part to basic selection effects. To be specific, if you look just at the specific cases where some policy instrument (call it "Policy X") gets applied, it's hard to know whether that policy is on balance a success or not. Policy X may only be chosen and implemented when dealing with really hard cases, for example, which are precisely the cases where it is least likely to work.  (Among other things, the target state may have already considered the impact of Policy X and decided it can take the heat).  But if adopting this policy in one case leads lots of other states to alter their behavior so that they don't face similar actions, then these "dogs that don't bark" are examples of the positive impact of Policy X that are unlikely to get factored into an assessment of its effectiveness.

A possible case in point is the attempt to alter Iran's nuclear policy by imposing various economic sanctions on Tehran. If we look solely at Iran's behavior, it's clear that it hasn't stopped nuclear enrichment and shows no sign of doing so. In short, the policy has failed. External sanctions have probably had a modest economic effect on Iran's economic growth, but have clearly failed to achieve their main objective. But this failure is partly due to the fact that Iran was highly motivated to start with, which is in part why it rejected initial complaints about its nuclear program and eventually faced a series of escalating pressures.  And it seems clear that Iran's leadership decided ex ante that the sanctions would be bearable, or they would have backed down before they actually got applied.  In short, sanctions got applied in precisely the circumstances where they were unlikely to work, and we shouldn't be surprised that they failed.

But if a few other states were thinking a bit about acquiring nuclear weapons and took a look at Iran's experience, and then concluded that pursuing the bomb just wasn't worth all the aggravation, then Iran's experience might have broader positive effects.  It teaches that if you try to get a bomb, you'll face censure, demands for inspections, lots of diplomatic hassle, and maybe even mildly inconvenient economic sanctions. Unless you really think you need a nuclear deterrent, who needs all these headaches? So while sanctions may have failed in dealing with a hard case like Iran, they may have helped reinforce global nonproliferation norms and thus persuaded a few other states not to start down that road themselves. And if that is indeed the case, then "Policy X" (in this case economic sanctions) may have a more positive "net effect" than a simple focus on Iran might suggest.

Of course, there's a danger in this sort of reasoning: one can justify almost any confrontational policy by arguing that it is having far-reaching positive effects that extend well beyond a particular dispute. And that's one reason that debates about foreign policy are so hard to resolve: it is too easy for all participants to make self-serving claims about the positive impact of the policy positions that they happen to prefer, and too hard to come up with a definitive answer. And dare I add that this is one of those places where academics can make a real contribution, by performing more sophisticated policy assessments that take base-line conditions and selection effects into account, so that we have a clearer assessment of the net effect of different policy tools.

All that said, I should probably add that I still think our confrontational approach toward Iran has been mistaken, insofar as it rests on inflated fears about Iranian capabilities and the implications of nuclear acquisition. But I'll concede that making an example of Iran may--repeat, may--have helped discourage a few others from going down a similar route, and it would be interesting to know whether there's any direct evidence of that effect on the calculations of other potential proliferators.

If you want to see just how ill informed and morally bankrupt an "establishment" political voice can be, check out David Broder's op-ed column in this Sunday's Washington Post. Broder argues that President Obama's prospects will remain bleak if the economy doesn't improve, and that the President cannot count on the business cycle to do that for him. So after reminding his readers that World War II helped end the Great Depression, Broder offers Obama the following advice:

With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran's ambition to become a nuclear power, he can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs. This will help him politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve.

I am not suggesting, of course, that the president incite a war to get reelected. But the nation will rally around Obama because Iran is the greatest threat to the world in the young century. If he can confront this threat and contain Iran's nuclear ambitions, he will have made the world safer and may be regarded as one of the most successful presidents in history."

I haven't read such an ill informed and morally bankrupt piece of "analysis" in quite some time (which is saying something). For starters, on what basis does Broder believe that "Iran is the greatest threat to the world?" The United States spends over $700 billion on defense each year; Iran spends a mere $10 billion. That amount is less than Greece, the Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, or Taiwan. As I've noted previously, Iran has no meaningful power-projection capabilities, and its main "weapon" is the ability to modest amounts of money and arms to groups like Hezbollah. This behavior is clearly a problem, but Iran is not an existential threat to anyone. And if Iran were to get a few nuclear weapons at some point in the future -- which is by no means a certainty -- it could neither use them nor give them to terrorists without inviting devastating U.S. or Israeli retaliation.

Read on

Today's New York Times has an interesting article on a diplomatic dispute between the United States and South Korea, arising from South Korea's desire to begin reprocessing some of the spent fuel from its large nuclear power program. South Korea gets about forty percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants, and is reportedly running out of space to store the spent fuel. It is barred from reprocessing by a 1974 agreement with the United States, and the Koreans are now pushing for a revision when the treaty expires in 2014.

U.S. officials oppose this step, fearing it will set a precedent for other states and could make it harder to push North Korea to give up its own nuclear program. (The problem with reprocessing spent fuel is that it yields plutonium, which can be used to make a nuclear bomb). There are also lingering concerns about South Korea's intentions, given that the country flirted with getting nuclear weapons back in the 1970s.

Three quick thoughts. First, as the Times article makes clear, critics who warned that the lax U.S.-India nuclear deal negotiated by the Bush administration would come back to haunt us should be feeling vindicated, as South Korea has rightly complained about the obvious double-standard here. South Korea is a long-time U.S. ally and an NPT signatory, while India is a nuclear weapons state that has yet to sign the NPT). Yet the Indians got advance U.S. consent for reprocessing in its nuclear deal with the United States, while South Korea is getting stiffed. 

Second, the dispute also illustrates important aspect of intra-alliance bargaining, especially when nuclear weapons are involved.  The Times story quotes Cheon Seong-whun, a senior analyst at a government-run research institute, saying that "We will never build nuclear weapons as long as the United States keeps its alliance with us." Probably true, but notice that this is both a reassuring pledge and an implicit threat. What Mr. Cheon is saying -- and I'm not criticizing him for it -- is that South Korea doesn't need a nuclear deterrent as long as it is under the United States continues to protect it. But one reason why South Korea might want to reprocess -- and again, I'm not saying they shouldn't -- is so that they can go nuclear at some point in the future, should confidence in the U.S. commitment erode. And notice that the closer they are to an actual weapons capability, the more potential leverage they might have over the United States. 

Third, it's hard not to be struck by the basic hypocrisy of the U.S. position, which it shares with other existing nuclear powers. Washington has no intention of giving up its own nuclear weapons stockpile or its access to all forms of nuclear technology. The recent  New START treaty notwithstanding, U.S. government still believes it needs thousands of nuclear weapons deployed or in reserve, even though the United States has the most powerful conventional military forces on the planet, has no great powers nearby, and faces zero-risk of a hostile invasion. Yet we don't think a close ally like South Korea should be allowed to reprocess spent fuel, take any other measures that might under some circumstances move them closer to a nuclear capability of their own.

In my view, there's nothing reprehensible or even surprising about this situation; it merely reminds us that no two states have the same interests and that hypocritical (or more politely, 'inconsistent') behavior is common-place in international politics. But the U.S. ability to persuade others not to flirt with their own nuclear capabilities might be a lot stronger if we didn't place so much value on them ourselves.

I have only one thing to say about Gary Schaub Jr. and James Forsythe Jr.'s op-ed in today's New York Times, published under the title "An Arsenal We Can All Live With."  

Amen.

Schaub and Forsythe argue that the United States could satisfy all its legitimate security requirements with an arsenal of 311 nuclear warheads, dispersed among bombers, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and ICBM's. Not a thousand. Not 1,550 plus a few thousand more in reserve. Only 311. That's all.

Actually, I think that number might still be too large, because you only need a very small handful of nuclear weapons (e.g., maybe a dozen?) to inflict a level of damage that no political leader could tolerate. As former National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy famously wrote:

A decision that would bring even one hydrogen bomb on one city of one's own country would be recognized in advance as a catastrophic blunder; ten bombs on ten cities would be a disaster beyond history; and a hundred bombs on a hundred cities are unthinkable."

American policymakers clearly understand the compelling logic of minimum deterrence, or else they wouldn't be so worried when states like North Korea or (maybe) Iran seek to join the nuclear club. U.S. leaders recognize that even a handful of nuclear weapons in the hands of a hostile country constrains what we can do to that country (which is of course why some states want to get them in the first place). But if a very small number of weapons can induce such sobriety on our part, why exactly do we need thousands, especially when our conventional forces are already far stronger than any other country on the planet?

Of course, the fact that deterrence isn't sensitive to the actual number of weapons also implies that having more weapons than we need isn't that dangerous, provided that you are very, very certain that you won't lose one, that your large arsenal won't encourage others with less reliable security arrangements to build up, and provided you have lots of money to pay for an arsenal you don't really need. But since I like saving money, would prefer that other states either didn't get nuclear weapons or kept their own arsenals small (and therefore easy to guard), and believe that decreasing the number of warheads in the world is an important step in improving overall nuclear security, I think Schaub and Forsythe's article should be taken seriously.   

But I doubt it will. Schaub and Forsythe's analysis is based on careful strategic reasoning, and their conclusions challenge both the bureacratic interests of the professional military and the more atavistic instincts of the body politic. A serious attempt to implement their recommendations would elicit howls of protest from hawkish politicos and pundits, who will maintain that the world's only superpower also needs the biggest pile of (unusable) bombs in order to preserve its capacity to swagger, even if they can't actually explain how we would ever use that many weapons or how we derive any practical political benefits from this alleged "superiority." In the hothouse world of political commentary, insisting that "size doesn't matter" isn't a winning argument, even when logic and evidence are overwhelmingly on its side.

Over at the NPT Review Conference, the United States is supporting the idea of a "nuclear weapons free zone" in the Middle East. This position actually goes all the way back to a resolution adopted at the 1995 review, but it's a goal that the United States has soft-pedaled in the past. Even now, U.S. officials have made it clear this goal depends on first achieving a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and its neighbors.

Makes sense to me. As a practical matter, Israel isn't going to give up its existing nuclear arsenal until its security concerns are met. That would be my position too if I were an Israeli official, because a nuclear deterrent is the ultimate guarantee against military conquest or a WMD attack.

So here’s the puzzle: If Washington clearly understands that Israel won't give up its nuclear weapons until its broader security concerns are resolved (and maybe not even then), why does it simultaneously think that Iran can be convinced to suspend nuclear enrichment without its own security concerns being addressed? Like their predecessors in the Bush adminstration, the Obama administration is still demanding that Iran first abandon its nuclear program and is back to the familiar game of trying to ramp up sanctions in order to compel compliance. The United States says it is willing to talk about Iran’s own security concerns after Tehran plays ball with us, but with no guarantee that we will actually do anything about the issues that bother them. 

In other words, in one case the United States recognizes that comprehensive peace and reliable security guarantees are a prerequisite for disarmament; in the other case, we think disarmament must come first and that security guarantees are secondary if not irrelevant. I don’t have any trouble understanding why U.S. policy differs in the two cases, but why supposedly serious people think our approach to Tehran will succeed is beyond me.

I'm still digesting the results of the Nuclear Security Summit meeting, but I'll give the Obama administration a pretty high mark on two grounds. 

First, it's clear that somebody in the administration did a lot of useful pre-summit diplomacy, to make sure that there some tangible results to report at the summit itself. (This is like making sure you have a few major gifts in the bag in advance before you launch a major fundraising campaign). Cases in point: Ukraine's announcement that it would surrender all of its remaining highly enriched uranium, and the joint Canadian-Mexican project to modify a Mexican research reactor so that it no longer produces weapons-grade material. These and other steps are hardly transformative, of course, but they kept the summit from being solely an exercise in public relations.

Second, Obama acknowledged that the effort to promote greater nuclear security is primarily a political-diplomatic campaign, and one that will require sustained energy and attention.  As he noted in response to one questioner: "If you are asking, 'Do we have an international, one-world law enforcement,' we don't, and we never have." In other words, Obama recognizes that there are no binding legal mechanisms or coercive power to impose greater nuclear security measures on other states, and the only way to make serious progress is to a) convince other governments that this is in their interest, b) use various carrots and sticks to persuade them to make a serious effort, and c) provide resources and technical expertise where needed.

Given the nature of the problem, one can make substantial progress even if the effort to secure all loose nuclear material is less than 100 percent successful, because every kilogram of plutonium or HEU that gets secured makes it harder for bad guys to get their hands on any. As some readers probably know, I'm less concerned about the threat of "nuclear terrorism" than some of my colleagues are. But I don't dismiss it entirely, and it is one of those (rare?) policy problems that we actually do know how to address. Securing loose nuclear materials is a lot easier and cheaper to do than addressing climate change, for example, and there are hardly any counter-arguments against it. I mean, does anybody really think poorly guarded bombs or inadequately secured weapons-grade uranium is a good thing?

So Obama's team deserves credit for this initial effort, and for managing to pull off a meeting of 47 presidents, prime ministers, and other world leaders with virtually no visible rifts, fireworks, or gaffes. On a first reading, I'd give 'em an A-.

The Obama administration is now rolling out the results of its "Nuclear Posture Review," and presenting it as a significant if not quite revolutionary rethinking of U.S. nuclear strategy. I haven't seen the full text of the document and have only excerpts and press reports to go by, but the basic idea is to narrow the range of scenarios in which the United States would threaten a nuclear response. 

To be a bit more specific, instead of reserving the option of nuclear strikes in response to a nuclear attack, an attack by other forms of WMD (such as biological weapons) or even a large-scale conventional invasion, the review declares that the "fundamental role" of the U.S. arsenal is to deter nuclear attacks on the U.S., its allies, or partners." Accordingly, as a matter of declaratory policy, the Review declares that "the United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations."

The exceptions to this narrower focus would be non-nuclear attacks by any nuclear-armed state, or states that the United States deems to be in violation of the NPT. Translation: We still reserve the option of first nuclear use against Iran and North Korea.

Lots of ink will no doubt be spilled analyzing this shift in declaratory policy, and nuclear theologians will spend time at conferences and workshops parsing the fine-grained implications of the change. And stay tuned for assorted hawkish windbags and right-wing think-tankers declaring that this new language has somehow imperiled U.S. security, even though we still have thousands of nuclear weaspons in our arsenal and the strongest conventional forces in the world.   

I'll concede that this new statement may have some public relations value -- i.e, it lowers the priority given to nuclear weapons in U.S. strategic thinking, consistent with Obama's commitment to eventually reduce global nuclear arsenals. But from a purely strategic perspective, this new statement is largely meaningless. To the extent that it does matter, it may even be counter-productive.

Here's why. No matter what the U.S. government says about its nuclear strategy, no potential adversary can confidently assume that the U.S. would stick to its declared policy in the event of a crisis or war. If you were a world leader thinking about launching a major conventional attack on an important U.S. ally or interest, or contemplating the use of chemical or biological weapons in a situation where the United States was involved, would you conclude that it was safe to do so simply because Barack Obama said back in 2010 that the U.S. wasn't going to use nuclear weapons in that situation?  

Of course you wouldn't, because there is absolutely nothing to stop the United States from changing its mind. You'd worry that the United States might conclude that the interests at stake were worth issuing a nuclear threat, and maybe even using a nuclear weapon, and that it really didn't matter what anyone had said in a posture review or an interview with a few journalists. And you'd also have to worry that the situation might escalate in unpredictable or unintended ways -- what Thomas Schelling famously termed the "threat that leaves something to chance -- and thereby ruin your whole day.

To the extent that nuclear weapons deter -- and I happen to think they do -- it is the mere fact of their existence and not the specific words we use when we speak about them.  In short, nobody can know for certain if, when or how a nuclear state might actually use its arsenal to protect its interests, and that goes for any potential aggressor too. Because the prospect of nuclear use is so awful, no minimally rational aggressor is going to run that risk solely because of some words typed in a posture statement.

Furthermore, the decision to exclude nuclear weapons states, non-signatories of the NPT, or states we deem in violation of it (e.g., Iran) strikes me as both too clever by half and maybe counterproductive. The purpose seems to be to give these states an additional incentive to sign the NPT or to conform to it, but it's hard to believe that this statement will have that effect on anyone.  India, Pakistan and Israel are all non-signatories, but surely they aren't worried about U.S. "first use" against them and so this statement will be irrelevant to their nuclear calculations.

The real target of this exception is Iran (and conceivably North Korea and Syria). At best, this new statement will have little or no effect, for the reasons noted above (i.e., no one know what we might do in a crisis or war, so pledges of no-first-use are essentially meaningless). At worst, however, excluding Iran in this fashion -- which amounts to saying that Iran is still a nuclear target even when it has no weapons its own -- merely gives them additional incentives to pursue a nuclear weapons option.  In particular, declaring that we reserve the right of "first use" against Iran now (when it has no weapons at all), sounds like a good way to convince them that their own deterrent might be a pretty nice  thing to have.

Remarkably, U.S. policymakers never seem to realize that the same arguments they use to justify our own nuclear arsenal apply even more powerfully to states whose security is a lot more precarious than America's. If the U.S. government believes that "the fundamental role" of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attacks on the United States, and the United States is now proclaiming that it still reserves the option of using nuclear weapons first against non-nuclear Iran (under some admittedly extreme circumstances), then wouldn't a sensible Iranian leadership conclude that it could use a nuclear arsenal of its own, whose "fundamental role" would be to deter us from doing just that? 

A quick look back at some recent posts, in light of subsequent events:

1. Regarding Hillary’s trip to Moscow to clinch the arms control deal. It’s not over till it’s over, but it looks like her team did read the tea leaves properly. If so, then props to the negotiators. If Obama gets to sign it on the one-year anniversary of his Prague speech, that will heighten its symbolic value.

2. Does the health care win enhance Obama's foreign policy clout? Andrew Sullivan has raised some good points on this issue, see here and here. I'll concede that getting health care done will free up more of Obama's time and energy to devote to foreign policy. It may also make the White House a bit more Bolshie about taking on domestic opposition to its foreign policy agenda. But even if that’s the case, I still think prospects for major foreign policy achievements are slim. Why? Because even if Obama has more free time, he’s gotta worry most about the economy over the next year or two. And as I said in my original post, none of the big foreign policy issues are easy to resolve, and the foreign opposition he must win over isn't likely to be swayed by the fact that the adminstration managed to get 220 members of the president's own party to support a bill that was heavily laden with political compromises. I'm not dissing the domestic achievement, mind you, just skeptical that it gives you that much more leverage abroad.

3. Did General Petraeus say that there was a link between U.S. support for Israel, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and our standing elsewhere in the region? Phil Klein at The American Spectator claims that Petraeus is denying he said any of the things previously attributed to him in recent weeks, and is walking back from his own testimony (i.e., prepared statement) to the Senate Armed Services Committee. But if you look carefully at what Petraeus told the Senators, it’s clear that he recognizes that there is a link (which is what his prepared statement said, in rather uncontroversial language. Consider his response to a question by Sen. John McCain:

We keep a very close eye on what goes on there [in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip], because of the impact that it has, obviously, on that part of CENTCOM that is the Arab world, if you will. And in fact, we’ve urged at various times that this is a critical component. ... Again, clearly, the tensions, the issues and so forth have an enormous effect. They set the strategic context within which we operate in the Central Command area of responsibility. My thrust has generally been, literally, just to say -- to encourage that process that can indeed get that recognition that you talked about, and indeed get a sense of progress moving forward in the overall peace process, because of the effect that it has on particularly what I think you would term the moderate governments in our area."

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said something similar today too (HT Spencer Ackerman). Of course, what they are saying is pretty mild, unsurprising stuff; it's just the sort of thing that didn't used to get uttered by senior officials. 

Matt Duss at the Center for American Progress pokes holes in Klein's revisionism, see here.

I see that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Moscow to clinch a new arms control agreement with Russia. I hope she succeeds, although the details of the treaty are probably less significant than people think. Both sides will be left with plenty of nuclear warheads, so the core strategic situation between the two countries won’t be affected very much. An agreement might help both sides save some money and will make each look like it at least trying to fulfill its long-standing obligations in the Non-Proliferation Treaty. (Non-nuclear signatories agreed not to get nukes, but Article VI commits signatories -- including the United States and USSR -- to make good faith efforts at nuclear disarmament).

What I’ll be watching is whether Hillary can close the deal. In general, you shouldn’t send the secretary of state or the president to a big-time negotiation unless you’re pretty confident that the deal is ready and all that’s left are some minor details that will be easy to work out. You might also send the secretary if you needed someone with real status to make a final push, but you’ve got to be ready to walk away if the other side won’t play ball.  Otherwise, your top people look ineffective, or even worse, they look desperate for a deal.  

What worries me is the Obama team’s track record on this front. It was a mistake to send Obama off to shill for Chicago’s bid to host the Olympic games, for example, partly because he’s got better things to do, but mostly because the gambit failed and made him look ineffectual. Ditto his attendance at the Copenhagen summit on climate change. Attending the summit was a nice way to signal his commitment to the issue, but it was obvious beforehand that no deal was going to be reached and his time could have been better spent elsewhere. 

So I’m hoping that Secretary Clinton’s subordinates have done their homework, and that the trip to Moscow won't increase her carbon footprint to no good purpose.

In the run-up to the war in Iraq, a critical moment came when moderates and liberals joined forces with the neoconservatives who had been pushing for war since the late 1990s. The poster child for this process was Kenneth Pollack, whose pro-war book The Threatening Storm (written under the auspices of the Council on Foreign Relations) gave reluctant hawks a respectable fig-leaf for backing the invasion.

Is a similar process occurring today with respect to Iran? A possible sign of slippage is a recent Foreign Affairs article (and accompanying Washington Post op-ed) by James Lindsay and Ray Takeyh (also of the CFR). Lindsay and Takeyh are well-known centrists who now seem at least partly infected by some of the alarmism about Iran that the neoconservatives have been trumpeting for years. Although their two articles sound a somewhat skeptical note about preventive war-they admit that "a preventive attack might not end Iran's nuclear ambitions"-they recommend keeping all options "on the table" and in general depict the Islamic Republic as a looming threat to all that is Right and Proper. Their central lesson: the United States had better get serious about preparing for a military response to a wide array of possible Iranian actions.

Lindsay and Takeyh reach this conclusion by incorporating a series of worst-case assumptions and by employing the familiar alarmist rhetoric that has been a staple of hawkish commentary for decades. Despite some significant qualifications (some of which contradict their central point), the overall impression is ominous, and likely to strengthen the hand of those who are in favor of an ever-tougher approach to Tehran.

For starters, the very first line of their WaPo op-ed describes Iran as "relentlessly moving toward acquiring a nuclear weapons capability." They offer no concrete evidence that this is the case, however, and it is worth remembering that the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate which concluded Iran had no active nuclear weapons program has yet to be rescinded. Iran may be trying to build a working nuclear weapon, but there is as yet no clear sign that a definitive decision to go nuclear has been made. Of course, so long as Iran has the capacity to enrich uranium, it is by definition "moving toward" having the potential to build a weapon at some point in the future. Insofar as its nuclear program goes back decades, however, it doesn't seem to be moving very fast. Unfortunately, using words like "relentlessly" and portraying the decision to get a bomb as a done deal makes Tehran sound especially dangerous and further devalues any possibility of a diplomatic deal that might head off weaponization.

Next, they argue that Iran "views nuclear weapons as the means to regional preeminence" and warn that a nuclear shield "would give Iran freedom to project its power in the Middle East." They believe Iran "would not be subtle about brandishing the nuclear card" and predict it "would probably test U.S. resolve early." Indeed, they think America will face a "momentous credibility crisis" if it fails to stop Iran from getting the bomb, warning that "even close US allies would doubt Washington's security guarantees."

Are you scared yet? All these ominous claims might be true, but neither the Foreign Affairs article or the WaPo op-ed contain any evidence to back them up. But Lindsay and Takeyh are just getting started. They also think Iran might increase its support for Hezbollah and Hamas, do more to subvert the Gulf sheikhdoms, demand that these states evict U.S. troops, and maybe even give nuclear technology to other countries. And if that isn't enough, they invoke the old nightmare that Iran might "give fissile material to a terrorist group."

Of course, alert readers with good memories will notice that these are the same arguments that pro-war hawks made about Iraq. And though each of the warnings is hedged in various ways-i.e., they don't say Iran will do these things, only that it might-the cumulative effect of all these scary scenarios is to suggest that an Iranian bomb would be major turning point in world history (and not in a good way).

So what should the U.S. do in response? According to Lindsay and Takeyh, the United States needs to draw several lines in the sand: 1) no initiation of conventional warfare, 2) no use or transfer of nuclear weapons, material, or technologies, and 3) no stepped-up support for terrorist or subversive activities. If Iran does any of these things, the United States should be ready to respond "by any and all means necessary." If we aren't ready to retaliate, they write, "the damage created by Iran's going nuclear could become catastrophic.

Time to chill, guys. Iran is an important security issue, and the United States should take appropriate steps to maintain a balance of power in the region. Unfortunately, the drum-beat of alarmism that pervades their article-and even more in the op-ed version-is both misleading and possibly counterproductive.

First, their depiction of a swaggering Iran armed with nuclear weapons grossly overstates Iran's actual capabilities. According to the IISS Military Balance, Iran's military budget in 2008 was around $9.5 billion dollars (less than 2 percent of U.S. defense outlays) and Iran's actual capabilities reflects this paltry investment. It has no conventional power-projection capabilities, outdated air, naval and armored forces, and primitive electronic warfare capabilities. Iran's population and economic potential raise the possibility that it might one day be the dominant power in the Gulf, but it is nowhere near that capacity now. Getting a nuclear weapon won't change that fact, because nuclear weapons are only useful for deterrence and confer little positive leverage over others. (Lindsay and Takeyh acknowledge this latter point in the Foreign Affairs version, but if they genuinely believe this, then many of their other arguments are irrelevant).

Second, Lindsey and Takeyh misunderstand the sources of U.S. credibility. The United States has been actively engaged in Persian Gulf security for decades, because Persian Gulf oil is a vital U.S. national interest. That vital interest won't change no matter what happens in Iran, which is why our local allies can count on us to back them up. The reason is simple: it is in our own self-interest. And the good news is that Iran almost certainly knows this too.

Third, they overstate Iran's capacity to subvert or blackmail its neighbors. Iran's capacity to export its version of Islamic fundamentalism has declined steadily since the 1979 revolution (and it wasn't very great back then), and the regime is a far less attractive model today than it was under the more charismatic Ayatollah Khomeini. The brutal crackdown following the elections last summer has undoubtedly tarnished Tehran's appeal even more. Lindsay and Takeyh acknowledge this point as well in the long version of their article, but they fail to draw the obvious conclusion: if Iran cannot subvert its neighbors, then the danger it poses is modest and their article didn't need to be written.

Furthermore, a nuclear Iran could not blackmail its neighbors (or compel them to expel U.S. forces), because it could not carry out a nuclear threat without facing devastating U.S. or Israeli retaliation. The mighty Soviet Union could not blackmail any US allies during in the Cold War; indeed, it wasn't even able to blackmail weak and neutral countries. American leaders have found it equally difficult to translate our vast nuclear arsenal into meaningful political leverage. Yet Lindsay and Takeyh imply that Iran could perform this miracle today, even though it is far weaker. They never explain why or how, however; it's just another convenient bogeyman.

Fourth, fears that Iran will give weapons or technology to terrorists are even more far-fetched. One cannot rule out the possibility that Iran might share nuclear technology with a few other governments (much as Pakistan did), but there are good reasons to doubt it. Among other things, it is hard to believe that Iran would want to see more countries get nuclear weapons, especially in its own region.

More importantly, Iran is not going to give fissile material to terrorists. Having labored long and hard to acquire an enrichment capability, would any regime just hand weapons-grade uranium over to extremists over whom it had no control? Giving fissile material to terrorists is a potentially suicidal act, and Iran's leaders show every sign of wanting to retain power permanently and to live as long as they can. They could never be sure the hand-off would not be detected and that they would not be blamed (and punished) for whatever the terrorists did. There's no sign that any of Iran's leaders has a death wish, which is why they won't be giving any bombs away.

Fifth, Lindsay and Takeyh's redlines are too vague and elastic. The United States is already committed to opposing conventional aggression in the Gulf region (unless we're the ones doing it, of course), and U.S. leaders have already made it clear that they will respond to blackmail or nuclear use as well. As Lindsay and Takeyh acknowledge, the United State remains a powerful presence in the Gulf region today and will stay there long after the withdrawal from Iraq is completed. In short, the essential ingredients of containment are already in place.

In particular, threatening retaliation against "subversive activities" risks either an unnecessary war or a further challenge to US credibility. For example, many well-informed observers believe Iran has substantial influence in Iraq today, and may be actively trying to affect the outcome of the March 7 elections. Is this the sort of "subversive activity" that should trigger a US response? How about a single shipment of mortars to Hezbollah, or the capture of an Iranian intelligence agent operating in Bahrain or Dubai? In a world where the United States, Israel, and plenty of other states are conducting covert, "subversive" operations in assorted foreign countries-including targeted killings and assassinations-this item hardly seems like a redline we can or should try to enforce.

It is also worth remembering that the U.S. and its allies didn't threaten to retaliate against the USSR for the "subversive activities" that were a central part of Soviet communism's international agenda from 1917 to 1986. The United States and NATO made it clear they'd respond to traditional acts of aggression, but we knew better than to make "subversion" a key "redline" in our overall strategy of containment. The goal was prevent Soviet expansion and to out-perform the USSR over time, so that communist subversion failed to find root in any countries that mattered. As 1989 proved, that strategy was a smashing success.

Sixth, a hair-trigger, forward-leaning approach to containment will give Iran an obvious incentive to acquire a deterrent of its own. No matter how much they hedge, Lindsay and Takeyh are announcing to the world that Iran's acquisition of a small nuclear capability at some point in the future would have significant positive effects on its regional position. I certainly hope Iran isn't listening to them, because it's hard to think of a better way to convince its leaders to go ahead. Moreover, overheated talk about the need for a more robust containment strategy is likely to reinforce Iran's desire for a deterrent shield that can take the threat of regime change (an option Washington has never renounced) "off the table." But if we don't much like the idea of an Iranian bomb (and I don't), shouldn't we doing everything we can to convince Tehran that a bomb would be of little value? Perhaps unintentionally, Lindsay and Takeyh are sending precisely the opposite message.

Seventh, like most Americans writing about Iran these days, Lindsay and Takeyh never consider the one approach that might actually have some small chance of heading off an Iranian bomb. That approach would be to take the threat of regime change and preventive war off the table and accept Iran's enrichment program-on the strict condition that it ratifies and implements all elements of the NPT Additional Protocol. At the same time, the United States would engage in serious and sincere discussions about a range of regional security matters, including a public U.S. guarantee to forego regime change.

This is the sort of "grand bargain" that others have proposed in the past, and there is of course no guarantee that it will work. Moreover, many people would find any dealings with the current regime objectionable, for understandable reasons. But if an Iranian bomb is such a scary prospect, shouldn't we be pulling out all the stops to see if an acceptable diplomatic solution is possible? As near as I can tell, the sort of grand bargain sketched in the previous paragraph has never been tried; instead, we've made rhetorical gestures and incremental take-it-or-leave-it offers-all of which predictably fail-and we falsely conclude from these half-hearted efforts that more ambitious diplomacy is unworkable.

Finally, it's possible that I'm being too hard on Lindsay and Takeyh. Perhaps they are sheep in wolves' clothing, and their article is in fact a plea for a moderate and sensible strategy of containment dressed up in a lot of tough rhetoric intended to make it more convincing. If so, I fear their approach is too clever by half. Despite their apparent rejection of preventive war and assorted other qualifications, the Lindsay/Takeyh articles unintentionally reinforce an alarmist view of Iran that has been the neoconservatives' bread-and-butter for many years.

Don't forget: between 1998 and 2003, the pro-war party took an extreme position on Iraq and stuck to its guns (literally), looking for every opportunity to advance its program. 9/11 opened the door, and they were quick to seize the moment. Over time, both liberals and moderates were dragged rightward, adopting hawkish rhetoric and tortured rationales in order to show how "serious" they were. Former doves jumped on the bandwagon, the center of gravity swung inexorably to the hard-line position, and the results were disastrous. Something similar seems to be happening again; to paraphrase Yeats, "the centre cannot hold."

Why? Yeats also gives us the answer: because "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens adds his voice to the growing chorus eager for a heightened confrontation with Iran. Right now they just want more sanctions -- though he seems to think airstrikes would be just dandy too -- and he quotes a few like-minded pundits claiming that the government is really fragile and that sanctions or airstrikes might tip it over the edge. Never mind that there is a wealth of scholarly literature suggesting that airstrikes don’t have that effect (especially when the regime in question didn’t start the war) and that economic sanctions are not a very powerful coercive tool against most adversaries, unless one is very, very patient. (And remember that we aren't going to get tougher multilateral sanctions at this point, especially after the decision to sell more arms to Taiwan.) Stephens also assumes that Iran is dead-set on getting an actual nuclear weapon (it might be, but it might also just want to get close), and that if it does, its neighbors will inevitably follow (they might, but there are also good reasons why they might not).

But rest assured that if sanctions don’t work, Stephens will be calling for military action. Stephens is the former editor of the Jerusalem Post, a well-connected neo-conservative, and one of the many pundits who helped cheerlead us into the disastrous war in Iraq. Is he really someone whose advice we ought to be paying attention to now? It would be one thing if he were offering a new set of prescriptions, but learning from past mistakes doesn’t seem to be part of the neocon playbook.

But for now, his piece is really just one more data point we should put in our files and remember. As somebody wrote a few years ago (see page 305):

The [Israel] lobby is also likely to make sure that the United States continues to threaten Iran with military strikes unless it abandons its nuclear enrichment program.  Given that this threat has not worked in the past and is unlikely to work in the future, some of Israel’s American backers, especially the neoconservatives, will continue to call for the United States to carry out the threat.  ... There is also some possibility ... that [Bush’s successor] will do so, particularly if Iran gets closer to developing weapons and if hardliners there continue to predominate.  If the United States does launch an attack, it will be doing so in part on Israel’s behalf, and the lobby would bear significant responsibility for having pushed this dangerous policy.”

Caveat: Because no lobby "controls" U.S. foreign policy (a point we've made repeatedly and that critics routinely ignore), military action of the sort that Stephens & Co. are pushing isn't inevitable. But if it does happen, you'll know who played a key role in bringing it about.