Brookings: Topics - U.S. Defense Strategy

Bending History: : Barack Obama's Foreign Policy (Revised Edition)

Martin S. Indyk, Kenneth G. Lieberthal and Michael E. O'Hanlon — Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Brookings Institution Press 2013 342pp.

How well has Barack Obama carried out his duties as U.S. commander-in-chief, top diplomat, and grand strategist? He has been unable to change the climate of Washington, and economic difficulties have dominated the first two years of his presidency. But his larger success or failure will likely hinge as much on foreign policy. In this revised edition of Bending History (with a new preface), a trio of renowned foreign policy experts illuminates the grand promise and the great contradictions of a new president who has captured the attention and imagination of citizens around the world unlike few of his White House predecessors.

Conflicting caricatures of Obama miss the mark. The Right largely believes he is a naïve apologist trying to quash "American exceptionalism," or at best trying too hard to meet the demands of his Democratic Party. Conversely, while many on the Left still see him as a transformational political figure, the great antidote to George Bush's unilateralist militarism, others believe he is an accommodationist who lacks the nerve to end the excesses of Bush antiterror policies. Not surprisingly, Obama is substantially more complicated and nuanced than any of these images allows.

Bending History argues that Obama thus far has, above all, been a foreign policy pragmatist, tackling one issue at a time in a thoughtful way. On balance he has been competent and solid, choosing reasonable policies (or least-worst options, at least) with an approach typified by thoroughness, reasonably good teamwork, and flexibility when needed.

The seasoned authors aim to present the first serious book-length appraisal of Obama’s foreign policy. They are Martin Indyk, a diplomat with great experience in the volatile region that has seen almost unimaginable political change in 2011 (the Middle East); Kenneth Lieberthal, an oft-quoted authority on the historic rise and political economy of China; and Michael O'Hanlon, an accomplished analyst of national security policy, particularly the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With fairness and sophistication, the authors blend their own expertise with access to major military and diplomatic players at top levels of the administration. They find little strategic coherence in a foreign policy that is notable mostly for its individual initiatives rather than unifying themes, despite what the persona of Barack Obama himself represents symbolically and rhetorically.

Author Commentary and Media Appearances:

"Obama, Presidential Election, U.S.-China Ties," Kenneth Lieberthal appears on Bloomberg Television, March 20, 2012

"Afghanistan: what 'victory' looks like," by Michael O'Hanlon, The Baltimore Sun, March 20, 2012

"President Barack Obama: a reluctant realist," Michael O'Hanlon appears on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," March 19, 2012

"President Obama: Reluctant Realist," by Michael O'Hanlon, The Brookings Institution, March 16, 2012

"Obama as progressive pragmatist," by Martin Indyk, Kenneth Lieberthal, and Michael O'Hanlon, POLITICO, March 8, 2012

Praise for Bending History:

"This is an extremely thoughtful and intelligent analysis of the Obama administration's foreign policy—a model of serious research on contemporary foreign affairs. It is the best account of the Obama foreign policy that I have read."—Fareed Zakaria, CNN, host of "Fareed Zakaria GPS"

"This is the single best assessment to date of the Obama administration's foreign policy. Although praising the policy as competent and pragmatic, the authors seek to explain why it has generally failed to live up to the visionary goals of the Obama 2008 presidential campaign. A must read to understand the foreign policy challenges that will face whoever is sworn in as President in January 2013."—Stephen J. Hadley, former U.S. national security adviser

"A perceptive and incisive review of President Obama's foreign policy through the end of 2011, with the successes and failures clearly explained, explored, and exposed. The three authors bring to the volume deep and up-to-date expertise in the fields about which they write, sharing trenchant analysis and conclusions which readers will find new and interesting. An unusual 'group book' which hangs together and presents an integrated picture."—Thomas R. Pickering, former U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs

* A Brookings FOCUS Book

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Martin S. Indyk

Kenneth G. Lieberthal

Michael E. O'Hanlon

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Lessons and Context of the Navy’s First Carrier Drone Flight

Peter W. Singer — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:33:00 -0400

The U.S. Navy recently made history with its flight of the X-47B UCAS, the first unmanned carrier drone (unmanned systems) to launch from an aircraft carrier. In 2009 and 2011, the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at Brookings had the pleasure of hosting then Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Gary Roughead, to discuss the future of unmanned operations. The vision he laid out is well on its way to fruition, making it especially useful to place what happened today in the context of the larger U.S. defense strategy and to look at what lessons have been learned in the development of unmanned systems. As I explored in a look at the past and future of naval aviation after 100 years of flight, this success is only one part of a much bigger story.

What this history tells us is that, now that the Navy has crossed yet another step that the naysayers said could never be done, the challenges are as much organizational and political, as they are technical. For example, now that unmanned systems have shown they can fly off a carrier, what will be their exact role? Whether they will be delegated to take on tasks on their own or paired with manned planes, for a package that is greater than the sum of its parts, is a crucial question of naval air combat doctrine moving forward. It is akin to the questions that early warplanes faced as to whether they were to be tethered to the existing surface force of battleships as scouts or serve as their own, as a new form of a battle fleet.

We are only at the start of this robotic revolution at sea, just around the World War I stage of things, if manned airplanes are a parallel. Just as the first Navy planes started out doing only observation, but soon began to be used for everything from bombing runs to carrier onboard delivery (COD), so we are seeing a similar expansion in the roles of unmanned systems. UCAS originally started out being just in the observation ISR role, but clearly has a more lethal future, while the Marines are already using robotic helicopters for roles like cargo delivery in Afghanistan. But just like back then, we don’t yet have all the answers as to the optimal doctrine. Even the basic design of this technology remains to be learned and adopted.

A second lesson is that despite its relentless advancement, there are no signs that technology will end the central role of humans in war and at sea any time soon. However, not “ending”, isn’t the same thing as not “changing.” The specifics of the human roles will be altered, but again, this is nothing new. Most Navy warplanes today don’t have tail gunners or navigators. The skill sets and ranks of those who wear the wings of gold might be altered, which opens up the kind of internal identity and qualification questions in the Navy that have also recently challenged the Air Force. Does the remote operator (note: “operator,” not “pilot” is the terminology so far in the Navy, as opposed to how the Air Force views the requirement) of a plane that can take off and land on its own, who is sitting behind a computer screen, actually need 20/20 eyesight or the ability to do 50 sit-ups? Do they even need to be an officer (akin to how the Army has handled UAS versus the Air Force)? The next few decades will be an exciting time, with new paths being forged, much like they were by the first generation of naval aviation pioneers.

This leads to a third challenge that may be the most vexing to the Pentagon in the years ahead. In an article entitled U-Turn, I explored how there are a series of speed bumps that loom for unmanned systems, not so ironically just as they are making their mark. These range from internal cultural resistance to budgetary battles, in which the new is often disadvantaged against the old. We are seeing this play out here again. Few realize that (according to figures from the DoD UAs office), at the very same time the X-47 knocked down yet another technical barrier, the Navy’s planned UAS budget is being cut by 24%, several times greater than the rest of the budget cuts. Indeed, the tension that the successful UCAS test created for F35’s longer term buy numbers is much like Voldemort in the Harry Potter books, not to be spoken about, but palpable.

Bottom line: Congrats to the Navy and the team behind the X-47B on yet again making history, but this history tells us we have an array of questions to explore in the years ahead.

Authors

Peter W. Singer

Image Source: © Jason Reed / Reuters

How to Cut the Pentagon Budget Better Than Sequestration Does

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:16:00 -0400

A deeply flawed conventional wisdom is developing that despite warnings from former defense secretary Leon Panetta and others that the sky would fall if sequestration occurred, automatic spending cuts are not so bad after all. By this logic, not only should the cuts in defense as well as domestic “discretionary” accounts continue, but it would also be okay to implement automatic and across-the-board cuts in the next fiscal year, too, starting in October.

Yet the path we are on is far from acceptable.

While some of this year’s roughly $46 billion in defense cuts from sequestration reflect reasonable pruning, many of the reductions are not sustainable. Savings from policies such as dramatically reducing training for most military units this summer are not catastrophic if done once, but they cannot be continued without fundamentally jeopardizing military readiness.

Then there are savings that appear real but are not, such as deferred overhauls of major weaponry and deferred maintenance at bases. We can put off some repairs, but most will have to be done eventually — and may be more expensive if deferred. Then there are savings made on the backs of those with limited ability to make their voices heard: furloughs of civilian government employees top this list. In addition to being highly disruptive to government operations, these furloughs suggest that federal workers are second-class citizens (even as members of Congress can keep their entire paychecks for the year). Graduating students at public policy schools and other worthy individuals are being denied opportunities to work for the federal government due to hiring freezes.

Together, these temporary savings, faux savings and unfair savings represent at least half the $46 billion in cutbacks that the Defense Department is experiencing.

The military budget can be cut beyond the initial reductions from the 2011 Budget Control Act. But continued sequestration or reductions of comparable magnitude such as those resulting from the Simpson-Bowles proposals go too far. Such plans tend to make sweeping claims that, because defense spending remains reasonably high by historic and international standards, it can be cut much further. This reasoning is too vague for a world in which crises continue throughout the broader Middle East, U.S. forces remain engaged in Afghanistan, North Korea continues to nuclearize, and China continues its rise. It is time to get specific about further defense cuts.

Read the full article »

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: The Washington Post

Image Source: © Romeo Ranoco / Reuters

The Road to War : Presidential Commitments Honored and Betrayed

Marvin Kalb — Fri, 10 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Brookings Institution Press 2013 280pp.

Not since Pearl Harbor in 1941 has an American president gone to Congress to request a declaration of war. Nevertheless, since then, one president after another, from Truman to Obama, has ordered American troops into wars all over the world. Why no declarations of war? Why has it become so comparatively easy for a president to commit the nation to war? What is Congress’s responsibility? Where is the press? In The Road to War, esteemed journalist and author Marvin Kalb explores these crucial and timely questions.

Rather than formally declaring war, presidents have justified their war-making powers by citing predecessors’ “commitments,” private and public. Many have been honored, but some have been betrayed. From Vietnam to Israel, presidential commitments have proven to be tricky and dangerous. For example, presidents pledged the United States to the defense of South Vietnam; yet none saw the need for a formal declaration of war, and few in Congress or the media chose to question the war’s provenance or legitimacy until it was too late. In the end, the U.S. lost 58,000 Americans—and the war.

Given the extraordinarily close U.S.-Israeli relationship, based on secret presidential assurances, it is remarkable but true that a number of Israeli leaders feel that at times they have been betrayed by American presidents. Kalb, while explaining the origin of this sense of betrayal, raises a profoundly important question: Isn’t it time for the United States and Israel to negotiate a mutual defense treaty? Wouldn’t such a treaty help facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian agreement and provide American reassurance for Israel in the nuclear standoff with Iran?

The word of a president can morph into a national commitment, the functional equivalent of a declaration of war. Therefore, whenever a president “commits” the United States to a policy or course of action, with or increasingly without congressional approval or national debate, it is time to raise the yellow flag--watch out!

Praise for The Road to War:

“Every road to war is ultimately also a tragedy. Kalb’s concluding chapter, however, offers a timely and important ray of hope: a defense treaty between the U.S. and Israel in the context of a fair peace settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians might avoid not just one but even two wars. President Obama should read this chapter.”
—Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. national security adviser

“Marvin Kalb has written a fine book that should be required reading for everyone who wants to be president because it underlines what every president seems not to know in the beginning—that it is much easier to get into war than to get out of it. Terrific insight, carefully researched and clearly written.”
—Bob Schieffer, CBS News

“Kalb raises important questions about the unchecked power of presidents to take the nation to war. His provocative proposal for a U.S.-Israeli defense treaty will certainly add to the debate about the future of U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East.”
—Graham Allison, Harvard University

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marvin Kalb

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NATO and the Costs of Star Wars

Clara M. O'Donnell — Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Over the last decade, the US has spent tens of billions of dollars constructing a shield to stop nuclear missiles from North Korea or Iran reaching its soil. So far, the shield does not work. Fortunately for the Americans, neither Pyongyang nor Tehran has nuclear missiles that could hit the US. Unfortunately, however, America's missile defence programme has upset China and Russia, two countries that do have nuclear arsenals that could reach its homeland. America's European partners in NATO should try to convince Washington to scale back its missile defence ambitions for the next few years. Not only would this allow the US government to spend its shrinking defence budget on more pressing military needs. It would also improve European security by reducing tensions between NATO and Russia.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has been increasingly worried about nuclear attacks by 'rogue' states. In 1998, a study group chaired by Donald Rumsfeld predicted that North Korea and Iran could field intercontinental ballistic missiles within five years. Today, however, Iran has neither intercontinental missiles nor a nuclear bomb. In March of this year, a report from the Pentagon's intelligence agency (erroneously declassified) assessed "with moderate confidence" that Pyongyang could build a nuclear device that fits on a missile. But there is still no evidence that North Korean missiles are sophisticated enough to reach the US.

Although the American mainland is not currently under threat, every president since George H.W. Bush has sought to deploy nation-wide defences against a limited attack by ballistic missiles. Reviving some of President Ronald Reagan's 'star wars' ambitions, the US has had missile interceptors deployed in Alaska and California since 2004. Both the George W Bush and Obama administrations have also had various plans to deploy interceptors against intercontinental missiles at bases in Europe. (The Obama administration, working with NATO, has also been deploying interceptors in Europe to protect Europeans and US troops in the region against shorter-range missiles from Iran – a threat which does exist.) In March, Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel announced that because of technical problems and budgetary constraints, the US is suspending its efforts to build Europe-based strategic interceptors. He also said that in response to the bellicose attitude of North Korea's new leader, the US will add 14 missile interceptors in on its West Coast, and perhaps deploy a few more on the East Coast, too.

The Obama administration has been wise to cancel the European leg of its strategic missile defence plans. Several recent studies had highlighted significant shortcomings in the programme. For example, a 2012 report by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the interceptors planned for Europe would have been too slow to stop an incoming missile. But the US would be ill advised to increase the number of interceptors on the West – and possibly East – Coast. Studies have shown that the interceptors in Alaska and California do not work well either. According to Congress' Government Accountability Office, ten out of the 30 interceptors rely on technology which has never intercepted a missile during tests. The GAO estimates that it will take several years to repair this technology, costing the US taxpayer an additional $700 million. Hagel has promised to fix these glitches before the new interceptors are deployed. But the Pentagon does not yet have a solution to another big problem. None of its interceptors can distinguish between an incoming warhead and debris or decoys. (Ballistic missiles can easily carry decoys in addition to warheads.)

America's strategic missile defence efforts have made the US taxpayer fund a weapon that does not work to tackle a threat that does not exist. They have also antagonised China and Russia. Both countries worry that US technological breakthroughs could undermine their strategic deterrents. Moscow has been most displeased. The Kremlin has been asking for legal guarantees that the US would not direct its missile defences against Russia's strategic nuclear weapons. To reassure Russia, the Obama administration has encouraged Moscow to co-operate with NATO's defence programme against Iranian short and long-range missiles. (Moscow is less worried about NATO's defences against Iranian short-range missiles because the interceptors used would be too slow to stop a Russian strategic missile.) Washington has also been willing to provide Moscow political guarantees that its nuclear deterrent is not under threat.

But so far, the Obama administration has refused to give Russia legal guarantees. The US has made such commitments in the past. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty established limits on what Moscow and Washington could do in this area from the 1970s until 2002. President George W Bush then withdrew from the agreement in order to pursue America’s missile defence ambitions unhindered. The Obama administration fears that Republican senators – who are keen on missile defence – would not ratify a treaty that would constrain the US. As a result, missile defence has become one of the most contentious issues in a troubled US-Russia relationship. Moscow has refused to negotiate further cuts in its nuclear arsenal until the issue is resolved. Last year, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces threatened to attack the European NATO countries hosting US missile defences. And according to press reports, Russian bombers have been simulating strikes against American missile defence installations.

Now that Hagel has cancelled the European leg of US strategic missile defences, there is a chance that NATO and Russia could end their dispute. Senior American and Russian officials have resumed talks about Russia co-operating with NATO's missile defence efforts. US policy-makers have also been encouraging Moscow to negotiate new bilateral nuclear reductions – a top priority for President Barack Obama. According to some Russian officials, President Vladimir Putin may be open to an agreement when he meets President Obama at the G8 in June or at their bilateral summit in September. But the Russians still want legal guarantees on strategic missile defences.

Europeans welcome the possibility of improved NATO-Russia ties. Most of them have never been convinced of the need for, or feasibility of, strategic missile defences and many disliked Washington's decision to leave the ABM treaty. Germany and others have been keen for Russia to co-operate with NATO's missile defence programme as a way to alleviate tensions. To maximise the chances of a deal between Washington and Moscow, Europeans should now encourage their American allies to include legal guarantees on missile defence in a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. Steven Pifer and Michael O'Hanlon from the Brookings Institution point out in their book 'The opportunity' that treaty limits could still allow the US to deploy all its planned defences against North Korea and Iran: the US and Russia could for example agree to each having a maximum of 125 interceptors capable of engaging intercontinental missiles. (The ABM treaty initially allowed for 200.) The treaty could also be limited to ten years, so that both sides could reconsider its ceilings in light of how the threats from North Korea and Iran evolve.

The White House, and Europeans, would struggle to convince some Republican senators to ratify such a treaty. But without it, Russia is unlikely to reduce its numerous tactical nuclear weapons – an arsenal that worries both Democrats and Republicans. Europeans should also discourage their US counterparts from deploying additional interceptors against strategic missiles until tests have shown them to be effective. The risk of wasting large sums of money at a time of savage defence cuts should help senators to reassess their views on missile defence.

As Greg Thielmann, a former senior US state department intelligence official, remarks, Europeans have "tamed ill-considered American instincts" in the past: in the 1980s, Europeans encouraged a reluctant Reagan administration to negotiate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. For the benefit of NATO-Russia relations and global arms control, the Europeans should encourage their ally to reassess its stance again.

Authors

Clara M. O'Donnell

Publication: Centre for European Reform

Image Source: © Yves Herman / Reuters

A Discussion About Drones

Peter W. Singer — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: In an interview with Charlie Rose, Peter W. Singer joins Michael Boyle of LaSalle University, Rosa Brooks of Georgetown University, and Scott Shane of The New York Times to discuss the revolutionary nature of drone technology as well as the dilemmas—strategic, ethical, political—that they present. Read an excerpt below.

Charlie Rose: Peter Singer, put this in the context of warfare overall.

Peter Singer: Well you have a revolutionary change that’s happening in the technology of war. Now, the question here is, are we talking about war or counterterrorism—we’ve got things conflated. But when you look at the technology of drones, it’s a gamechanger in war. It’s something along the level of the introduction of gunpowder or the steam engine or the airplane. By that I mean it gives you a series of capabilities that we didn’t imagine we’d have a generation ago, but also it’s giving us a series of dilemmas that we also didn’t imagine we’d be having a generation ago. And they’re dilemmas that are political, strategic, tactical, all the way down to ethical and legal.

Now one thing that’s happening here I think that’s a challenge is that we’re seeing things conflated. So, just as the example that Scott gave of the conflation between the JSOC kill list and process—the Joint Special Operations Command on the military side—and the one that the CIA is doing, both of which are taking place in the shadow wars that are out there.

Peter Singer: Signature strikes is an illustration of this, where on one hand we’ve seen administration officials say either “we don’t do that,” and other times we’ve heard them say “we do do that, but this is why.” But then we also have a variety of tactics beyond signature strikes that, for example, in an overt military operation you would never utilize.

One’s called a 'double tap strike,' which is where you strike at a target and then you wait for the rescuers to come about and you strike again. Now that’s been something that we’ve pointed out that if adversaries did that in Afghanistan or Iraq we would say “how dare you, this is evidence of how bad they are.” Yet there have been reports that we may have conducted strikes in a similar manner. Don’t know whether they’re confirmed or not.

But what I’m getting at here is that a civilian, political appointee lawyer, operating under a very different set of laws and priorities, looks at that issue and the question of what tactics you might bring, what rules of engagement you operate under, very differently from how a military lawyer would. And that’s part of the importance of whether these do shift from intelligence agency to military, but also whether they stay in the complete black ops world or whether we own up to the fact that these are not covert operations anymore, they’re frankly not so covert, and we need to stop running away from them and embrace the fact that we are doing them and these are the rules we’re going to operate under and actually stick and follow those rules.

Authors

Peter W. Singer

Publication: Charlie Rose

Image Source: © KCNA KCNA / Reuters

Will Russia Take "Yes" for an Answer on Missile Defense?

Steven Pifer — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 11:47:00 -0400

When Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced this month that the Pentagon would increase the number of missile interceptors in Alaska, he noted that the U.S. missile defense program in Europe would be restructured. This means cancellation of Phase 4 of the plan, which called for the deployment of upgraded interceptors in Eastern Europe.

The decision could open the way for resolving U.S.-Russian differences over missile defense, one of the thorniest problems on the bilateral agenda, and remove an obstacle to further nuclear arms reductions — if Moscow can say something other than “nyet.”

The initial Russian reaction gave little ground for optimism. But Russian officials often react slowly to new ideas, so we may not yet have the final word.

The Obama administration unveiled its “European Phased Adaptive Approach” in 2009 with the goal of deploying increasingly capable SM-3 missile interceptors in anticipation that Iran would develop missiles with increasingly longer ranges. Moscow initially appeared to welcome the approach.

In November 2010, NATO and Russia agreed to explore a cooperative missile defense for Europe. Talks between U.S. and Russian officials in early 2011 yielded significant convergence on questions such as transparency, joint exercises and jointly manned NATO-Russia centers to share early warning data and plan how NATO and Russia missile defense systems would work together.

The dialogue stalled, however, as Russian officials began to complain more vociferously about Phase 4 of the plan, originally scheduled for 2020, when the SM-3 IIB interceptor would achieve the capability to engage intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Moscow asserted that Iran stood many years, if not decades, from developing an ICBM, and claimed that the United States instead planned to target SM-3 IIBs against Russian ICBMs. U.S. officials countered that SM-3 IIBs in Europe would be ill-placed to engage Russian strategic missiles.

Hagel’s announcement renders that argument moot.

Now if the Russians do not want to move forward on resolving their differences with Washington over missile defense, they have to find other reasons to object. And they may.

A Russian official has expressed opposition to the fact that Phases 2 and 3 of the missile defense plan will go forward in Romania and Poland. SM-3 interceptors in those phases, however, will only be able to engage intermediate-range missiles. That presumably poses no problem for Moscow, as a 1987 treaty bans Russia (and the United States) from having intermediate-range missiles.

Russian recalcitrance may reflect simmering resentment about NATO enlargement, and the prospective deployment of SM-3 missile interceptors in Eastern Europe could add to the unhappiness. But how will small U.S. military detachments with interceptors to defend against missiles that Russia does not have pose a threat to Russia?

Moscow has sought a “legal guarantee” that U.S. missile defenses would not be directed against Russian strategic missiles, even though they know full well that Senate Republicans would block such a treaty. Russian officials assert that the absence of legally binding limits creates uncertainty about the offense-defense relationship.

Moscow is correct that increasing missile defense capabilities could undermine the balance in strategic offensive forces, but that problem will not arise for 15 or 20 years, if then. The United States plans to deploy only 44 interceptors capable of engaging ICBMs in 2017.

Russia could cut its strategic missile force by 50 percent or even 75 percent and still easily overwhelm those interceptors. Until the gap between strategic offense and defense narrows considerably, a U.S. political commitment not to target Russian missiles, coupled with transparency on missile defense plans, should suffice.

Domestic motives may lie behind the Russian position. President Vladimir Putin may see political value in scratchy relations with the United States. Similarly, the Russian Ministry of Defense may hope that keeping alive tensions over missile defense will produce greater resources for military modernization.

If the Russians want to continue the argument over missile defense, they can offer various pretexts. But that should not obscure the main point: their assertion that missile defenses, specifically SM-3 IIB interceptors, will threaten Russian ICBMs and thereby undermine the strategic balance now has no substantive basis.

So is Moscow prepared to engage in a serious way with Washington and NATO to settle the missile defense question and pursue a cooperative approach?

Russian officials have begun to offer a more nuanced reaction to Hagel’s announcement and, on Monday, he and the Russian defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, agreed to resume consultations on missile defense. This is good news.

The question now is whether Moscow can find a way to say yes. Or will it instead seek an excuse to keep the fight going? President Putin, over to you.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Publication: The New York Times

Intelligence and Public Perceptions of It

Paul R. Pillar — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: This article was originally published by The National Interest.

A common current piece of advice to U.S. intelligence agencies, coming from many places including reportedly from official advisory panels, is that those agencies ought to de-emphasize whacking terrorists and redirect some of that effort to traditional functions of collecting and analyzing intelligence, lest the United States be blind-sided by something in China or the Middle East or elsewhere. Just about everyone who comments on what U.S. intelligence agencies ought to be doing seems to be saying something along that line; we don't need to turn to any official panels with privileged access to hear that. The message has an appealing, back-to-basics ring to it, as well as having the appeal of sounding forward-looking. And the message is substantively sound; intelligence agencies ought indeed to focus on the core missions of collecting and analyzing information about the world outside the United States.

Sound though this particular message is, it is another illustration of publicly expressed conventional wisdom about intelligence that exists as a sort of parallel universe, separate from what the intelligence agencies are actually doing—of which, given the classified nature of that activity, the public commentators know little. Without access to the real thing, purveyors of conventional wisdom feed on each other's output until the conventional wisdom gets treated as if it were hard fact. When the conventional wisdom says something about how the intelligence community has been devoting too much attention to one topic and ought to shift attention to something else, this is really much more a reflection of where the public commentary itself has been devoting attention. The same is true of what counts as a “surprise”; this often has less to do with what intelligence agencies were or were not telling their official customers behind closed doors than with what the public had or had not been conditioned to expect, based on public statements and discussion.

Amid pronouncements coming from the parallel universe, several realities about the actual world of intelligence ought to be noted.

One is that disproportionate public attention to certain subjects or activities does not reflect the actual allocation within the agencies of resources and priorities. What is controversial or receives much public attention does necessarily seize the attention of senior managers who have to deal with Congress. But that is not true of the large majority of the work force, most of which has always been focused on the core missions of collecting and analyzing intelligence, or directly supporting those who do.

Another reality is that the swing of the pendulum of attention from one topic to another in the actual world of intelligence is not nearly as exaggerated as swings in the parallel universe. This gives rise to myths, such as that during the Cold War the intelligence community devoted nearly all of its attention to matters involving the Soviet Union.

Yet another reality is that the intelligence community devotes much effort on its own to keeping its priorities well-grounded and up-to-date, applying the dual criteria of what is of long-term importance to the country and what the policy-makers of the day most want to hear about. Here the mistaken myth is that it takes kicks in the pants from outsiders such as advisory panels to make priorities up to date.

It is true—and here is where the two otherwise parallel universes intersect—that some of what the intelligence agencies do in reallocating resources is in response to shifting public demands. The agencies certainly expanded work on terrorism greatly after 9/11. This was not because the nature of the terrorist threat had suddenly changed (it didn't) or because before 9/11 the intelligence community did not understand that threat (it did). It was because with the sudden and enormous change in the public mood and public concerns, intelligence managers had to show Congress and others on the outside that they were beefing up work in this area.

What does not get nearly as much public attention in such circumstances is what trade-offs are involved in any such reallocation. With resources always limited, responding to public demands on one thing may increase the chance of genuine surprise in the future on something else—something that inhabitants of the parallel universe probably are paying scant attention to today.

Authors

Paul R. Pillar

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Handout . / Reuters

The Future of the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

Steven Pifer — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: In an interview with WKAR on the future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, Steven Pifer, co-author of The Opportunity, discusses prospects for future international arms negotiations as well as the stability of the U.S. and Russian bombs, submarines and planes. Read an excerpt below.

WKAR: Before we get into the details, can you give us a sense of the scale we’re talking about here? I’m sure the exact number is a guarded secret but about how many nuclear warheads does the U.S. maintain?

Steve Pifer: Well actually it’s not a secret. In 2010 the United States released a number and said that as of September 2009 the total American stockpile was 5,113 weapons.

WKAR: Okay

Pifer: Which is a huge decrease from the Cold War, at the height of the Cold War there were 25,000- 30,000 weapons. But you still have to ask the question; does that number make sense twenty years after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union?

WKAR: What about the dollar cost of maintaining that arsenal?

Pifer: The dollar cost in terms of maintaining them, on a day to day status, is estimated at say thirty to forty billion dollars a year. So it’s a part of the defense budget…

WKAR: Wow

Pifer: But where the costs get really big is if you look, say five or seven years down the road, where the Navy’s going to have to start building a new ballistic missile submarine to replace the Ohio class submarines which have to be retired in about 15 years and then you’re talking about an estimate of $6 to $7 billion dollars, per boat, not counting the missiles or torpedoes.

Listen to the audio »

Authors

Steven Pifer

Publication: WKAR

Image Source: © Shamil Zhumatov / Reuters

SORT vs. New START: Why the Administration is Leery of a Treaty

Steven Pifer — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 10:49:00 -0400

Yesterday’s blog—“Presidents, Nuclear Reductions and the Senate”—described how presidents over the past 40 years have sought to limit or reduce nuclear weapons by means other than a treaty requiring two-thirds majority approval in the Senate. Why would the Obama administration consider something other than a treaty? Because it fears that Republicans in the Senate would not consider a treaty on its merits. A comparison of the ratification experiences of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) signed by President George W. Bush in 2002 and the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) signed by Mr. Obama in 2010 provides Exhibit A for those fears.

SORT limited the United States and Russia each to no more than 1,700-2,200 “strategic nuclear warheads,” the level of nuclear weapons that the Bush administration’s 2001 nuclear posture review concluded was necessary for the United States—regardless of what levels of nuclear arms other countries had. Mr. Bush originally proposed that he and President Vladimir Putin merely make statements of national policy setting out their intended strategic force levels, but he later agreed to do a treaty at Mr. Putin’s insistence.

SORT was not much of a treaty. While START I and New START each made a good-sized book, SORT barely filled two pages. Curiously, it did not define a “strategic nuclear warhead” … or any other term for that matter. Lacking any monitoring provisions, SORT was unverifiable.

It appears, moreover, that Washington and Moscow did not even count the same weapons. The Bush administration defined “strategic nuclear warheads” as the same as “operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads”—that is, nuclear warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) plus nuclear bombs and air-launched cruise missiles stored at air bases for B-2 and B-52 bombers (as a normal practice, neither side’s air force keeps weapons on bombers). The Russians, however, apparently tallied only warheads on ICBMs and SLBMs. They did not count bombs or air-launched cruise missiles at air bases for their bombers; those weapons were not on the aircraft and thus not “deployed.”

On March 6, 2003, 48 Republican senators voted to consent to ratify SORT, which won approval by a tally of 95-0.

Given how SORT sailed through the Senate, the Obama administration in 2010 expected the New START Treaty to receive easy approval as well. After all, the treaties imposed similar limits on deployed strategic warheads. New START specified a limit of 1,550, but it treated each bomber as only one deployed warhead (bombers can carry more). The United States and Russia each likely have 200-300 additional weapons to put on their bombers, so New START’s 1,550 limit amounts to about 1,800 or so total weapons, equivalent to SORT’s 1,700-2,200. In contrast to SORT, the sides use agreed counting rules under New START, so they count the same things. Moreover, New START has substantial monitoring provisions and is verifiable.

What happened to New START in the Senate? It faced a tortuous ratification debate: myriad claims of alleged flaws and weaknesses, 1,000 questions for the record, and several efforts to delay a vote. On December 22, 2010, the Senate finally approved New START by a count of 71-26. Seventy-one votes meant four more than needed, but it was a far cry from the 95 votes that approved SORT.

The 26 senators who voted against New START in 2010 were all Republicans. Sixteen of them held seats in the Senate in 2003; 15 voted to approve SORT while one abstained. Moreover, three other Republican senators who voted to approve SORT chose to abstain on New START.

So 18 Republican senators who voted “yea” on SORT in 2003 just seven years later found New START—a verifiable treaty with agreed counting rules and a warhead limit comparable to SORT—an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security. One can be forgiven for thinking that factors other than New START’s merits and the national interest figured in their votes. Indeed, one senator attributed his “nay” vote against New START to unhappiness with the Obama administration’s decision to do away with the military’s “don’t ask/don’t tell” policy.

It thus should come as little surprise that the Obama administration thinks about arrangements other than a treaty. And the administration need only look back to its predecessor for a ready model: the Bush administration’s original proposal in 2001 that Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin simply make parallel statements of the number of strategic warheads that each country would deploy.

Say that Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin now agree that they could reduce the number of each country’s deployed strategic warheads from New START’s limit of 1,550 to 1,000 (still well more than enough to devastate the other). The two presidents could announce, perhaps in a joint statement, that each had decided as a matter of national policy to limit his country’s strategic forces to no more than 1,000 deployed strategic warheads.

The 1,000 limit would be politically binding, while the 1,550 limit would remain a legally binding constraint. U.S. and Russian officials could use the detailed monitoring provisions of New START to verify compliance with both limits.

This would be a relatively fast and simple way to achieve further nuclear reductions—not requiring a new treaty, not requiring a treaty amendment, and not requiring a vote in the Senate.

To be clear, the preferable way for such an arms control agreement would be a legally binding treaty, ideally one that limited all U.S. and Russia nuclear weapons, not just deployed strategic warheads. But a treaty is not the only option the Obama administration has. Nor, given attitudes of some in the Republican Senate ranks, is it the only option the administration should consider.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Still Peddling Iraq War Myths, Ten Years Later

Paul R. Pillar — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: This article was originally published by The National Interest.

Documentaries, commentaries and forums marking the ten-year anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War have been so numerous that they already have become tiresome, even though the actual anniversary of the invasion is not until next Tuesday. The repetition would nonetheless be worthwhile if it helped to inculcate and to reinforce lessons that might reduce the chance that a debacle comparable to the Iraq War will itself be repeated. Maybe some such positive reinforcement will occur, but a problem is that the anniversary retrospectives also give renewed exposure to those who promoted the war and have a large stake in still promoting the idea that they were not responsible for foisting on the nation an expedition that was so hugely damaging to American interests.

I participated in one anniversary event earlier this week: a loosely structured on-the-record discussion, organized by the Rand Corporation and the publishers of Foreign Policy, involving about twenty people who had something to do with the Iraq War, whether it was starting it, fighting it, or writing about it. The session had the admirable stated purpose of extracting lessons for the future rather than merely repeating old debates from the past. But a clear pattern throughout the event was that ten years have not diluted the house line of those most directly involved in promoting the war, including among others then-deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley and Douglas Feith, who as an undersecretary of defense was one of the most rabid of the war promoters. Not only did they give no hint of acknowledgment that this war of choice (and Hadley refused to accept even that characterization) was one of the worst and most inexcusable blunders in the history of U.S. foreign policy. They also stuck to the line that if there was any mistake in the origin of the war it was solely a matter of “bad intelligence” and that the only “lessons” to be learned were to distrust intelligence more or ask tougher questions about it.

Intelligence did not drive or guide the decision to invade Iraq—not by a long shot, despite the aggressive use by the Bush administration of cherry-picked fragments of intelligence reporting in its public sales campaign for the war. Multiple realities confirm this observation. I have addressed them in detail elsewhere, but it would be useful to mention briefly the main ones.

The neoconservative champions of the war were publicly pushing for the use of military force to overthrow Saddam Hussein even in the 1990s, when they were out of power. One they were in power in the Bush administration, the intelligence community was not saying to them anything about Iraqi weapons programs that was remotely close to an expression of alarm about such programs, much less a reason to go to war. In its public assessments and (as investigative journalists such as Bob Woodward have reported) in closed ones as well, George Tenet and the community barely even mentioned the subject as being worthy of the policy-makers' attention. Consistent with such assessments, Secretary of State Colin Powell was saying publicly in the first year of the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein was well contained and that whatever he might be trying to do with unconventional weapons, he wasn't having much success. It was only after the 9/11 terrorist attack drastically changed the mood of the American public and thereby created for the first time the domestic political base for the neocons to realize their regime-changing dream that the administration turned Iraqi weapons programs into a war-justifying rationale.

In rare unguarded comments, some promoters of the war let slip that this is how they were using the issue. Feith and Paul Wolfowitz each later admitted that the weapons of mass destruction issue was a convenient public selling point, not the reason the war was being launched in the first place.

Policy-makers in the administration showed no interest at all in the intelligence community's judgments about Iraq, regarding weapons programs or anything else, despite the assiduousness with which they exploited the fragments of reporting that could be woven into their public sales campaign. The administration did not ask for the infamously flawed intelligence estimate about Iraqi unconventional weapons programs—Democrats in Congress did.

Even that estimate did not support the war-making case. Among other things it contained the judgment that if Saddam did have any of those feared weapons of mass destruction he was unlikely to use them against U.S. interests or to give them to terrorists—except in the extreme case in which his country was invaded and his regime about to be overthrown. If this judgment had a policy implication it was not to launch the war. The judgment directly contradicted—but did nothing to slow down—the administration's steady stream of scary rhetoric about how in the absence of a war Saddam could give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.

Even if everything in the intelligence assessments about Iraqi weapons were true, this would not have constituted a case for launching an offensive war any more than it would have with China, North Korea, Pakistan, the Soviet Union or any other country which has developed nuclear weapons. This is indicated by the fact that even many people, both in the United States and abroad, who accepted the belief about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction nonetheless opposed the war.

Intelligence assessments on other aspects of Iraq constituted even less of a case for the war. In fact, some of the most important intelligence judgments were so contrary to the administration's pro-war case that the war promoters, far from being guided by those judgments, put considerable effort into trying to discredit them. (That's what the effort in the vice president's office that led to the criminal case against Lewis Libby was all about.) This was especially true of the intelligence community's judgments about terrorist connections, which contradicted the administration's phantasmagorical assertions about an “alliance” between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda. It was also true of the community's judgments—which turned out to be much more relevant to the painful experience that the Iraq War became than were any judgments about weapons of mass destruction—about the political, security and economic mess in Iraq that was likely to follow overthrow of the regime.

The story of the United States getting into the Iraq War was, of course, not just one of what led the war's promoters to seek a war but also of how they were able to get enough other Americans to go along for the ride. But despite how much many of those other Americans, including ones in Congress who voted in favor of the war, said they hinged their position on judgments about Iraqi weapons, intelligence did not drive or guide that part of the process either. Only a very few members of Congress bothered even to look at the infamous intelligence estimate on the subject. One of the few who did—Bob Graham, then chairman of the Senate intelligence committee—later said his reading showed to him that the intelligence judgments were not at all the same as what the administration was saying in its sales campaign. That inconsistency was one of the reasons he voted against the war resolution.

One can also do a thought experiment by imagining how events might or might not have been different if the intelligence work on this subject had been absolutely perfect. (That is well beyond the reach of even the most magnificent intelligence service, but it can serve as an imaginary reference point.) “Perfect” in this case could be equated with what was in the exhaustive post-invasion report later compiled based on exploiting all the on-the-ground evidence that had been unavailable to analysts before the war. That product, known as the Duelfer report after the officer who was in charge of most of its preparation, concluded that Saddam intended to reactivate his nuclear and other unconventional weapons programs once he got out from under the already-weakening international sanctions. If prewar intelligence assessments had said the same things as the Duelfer report, the administration would have had to change a few lines in its rhetoric and maybe would have lost a few member's votes in Congress, but otherwise the sales campaign—which was much more about Saddam's intentions and what he “could” do than about extant weapons systems—would have been unchanged. The administration still would have gotten its war. Even Dick Cheney later cited the actual Duelfer report as support for the administration's pro-war case.

And yet, despite the voluminous record that bad intelligence was not why the United States went to war in Iraq, the myth that it was persists partly because the war promoters also keep promoting the myth. The event in which I participated this week demonstrates this hazard of the ten-year anniversary happenings. An early write-up of the event correctly notes that there were “sharp exchanges” on this and other questions, but on this question only quotes the side of the exchange that came from Hadley and Feith.

If one wants to learn valid lessons from what happened ten years ago, the process back then was so pathological that many specific lessons about what to avoid in the future could be extracted. Many of those lessons could be subsumed into one observation: extraordinary as it may seem, there was no policy process at all—no options paper, no meeting in the White House situation room or anything else—that addressed whether going to war against Iraq was a good idea. So it was not only the intelligence community but also other sources of information and insight, inside and outside government, that were shut out from having any impact on the decision to launch the war.

Hadley denied this observation, too, muttering something about needing to keep things close-hold so as not to jeopardize the “diplomatic process.” That just raises another myth—that the administration was trying to solve a problem through diplomacy before resorting to force—that also is belied by a substantial record, leading up to the final days in which the United States kicked international arms inspectors out of Iraq and in effect said “never mind that we didn't get another UN resolution, we're going to war anyway.” What pretended to be interest in diplomacy was a charade intended mainly to placate Powell and the British.

Authors

Paul R. Pillar

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Mohammed Ameen / Reuters

The Global Swarm: An International Drone Market

Peter W. Singer — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

"One plan was to use an unmanned aerial vehicle to carry 20kg of TNT to bomb the area, but the plan was rejected because we were ordered to catch him alive." This is what Liu Yuejin, director of China's public security ministry's anti-drug bureau, described of the manhunt for Naw Kham, the ringleader of a large drug trafficking outfit based in the Golden Triangle, who was suspected of killing 13 Chinese sailors. Ultimately, they got him via a cross-border nighttime ambush, the Chinese version of the Abbottabad raid.

This case, however, is useful to think about when talking about the global market for unmanned aerial systems (aka "drones") and where it is headed, a topic that got new energy last week with a New York Times report on the confusion as to whether it was American or Pakistani drones that carried out a controversial airstrike.

Too often in policy and media circles, we discuss a supposed American monopoly on drones that is potentially ending. Or, as Time magazine entitled a story, "Drone Monopoly: Hope You Enjoyed It While It Lasted." The article goes on to say,"It is going to happen; the only question is when."

The answer is: several years ago.

Read the full article »

Authors

Peter W. Singer

Publication: Foreign Policy

Image Source: © Handout . / Reuters

Why The U.S. Is Not in a Cyber War

Ian Wallace — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500

For several weeks, it has been difficult to open a newspaper or watch a Sunday talk show without hearing about the advent of “cyber war.” The media has been filled with an avalanche of cyber threat-related stories: the hacking of leading newspapers, evidence of Chinese government involvement in intellectual property theft, and now, further distributed denial of service attacks against U.S. banks. All these events present real and serious national security challenges. But cyber-espionage, cyber-crime and the malicious disruption of critical infrastructure are not the same as war, and the distinction is important.

The idea that America is in the middle of a “cyber war” isn't just lazy and wrong. It's dangerous. The war analogy implies the requirement for military response to cyber intrusions. America genuinely needs effective civilian government cyber defense organizations with strong relationships with the private sector and the active engagement of an informed general public. Creating and even promoting the fear of “cyber war” makes that more difficult. Here’s why:

First, while the U.S fights its wars using the highly-trained professional within the U.S. Armed Forces, defending against cyber threats does not necessary require military expertise or prowess. True, most private individuals and corporations lack the knowledge and training needed to fight off attacks from elite Chinese, Iranian and Russian cyber “warriors.” As a result, there is and will continue to be a pressing need for highly qualified information security experts to help defend the larger U.S. cyber landscape. Nonetheless, there are relatively simple ways to make it more difficult for the bad guys without escalating to a “war” standing. In 2011, the Australian Defence Signals Directorate (their equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency) showed that by taking just four key measures--“whitelisting” (i.e., allowing only authorized software to run on a computer or network), very rapid patching of applications and of operating system vulnerabilities, and restricting the number of people with administrator access to a system--85 percent of targeted intrusions can be prevented. These might appear more like prophylactic public health measures than warfare--and that’s the point. The United States does not need to declare “war” and call up the military to fend off cyber threats.

Read the full article »

Authors

Ian Wallace

Publication: The Daily Beast

Image Source: © Samantha Sais / Reuters

The Army of the Future: A Discussion with General Raymond T. Odierno, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 11:00:00 -0500

Event Information

February 15, 2013
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EST

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

This event was broadcast live on CSPAN.org.

As the Pentagon adapts to budget cuts, new strategic priorities, and continued fighting in Afghanistan, the U.S. Army must still look ahead in order to respond to future challenges. In wrestling with the transforming international security environment as well as new budget realities, the institution and its leadership must be ready to ask the right questions about what lies past the horizon and then develop responses that reflect its innovative and adaptive character.

On February 15, the 21st Century Defense Initiative at Brookings hosted General Raymond T. Odierno, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, for an important discussion on the future of America’s Army.

Following his address, General Odierno took questions from the audience. Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon, director of research for Foreign Policy at Brookings, moderated the discussion.

Video

Getting it Wrong on North Korea and Nuclear Reductions

Steven Pifer and Jonathan D. Pollack — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:13:00 -0500

Arms control critics wasted no time citing North Korea’s nuclear test as a principal reason why the United States should avoid further nuclear arms reductions. On February 12, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon stated: “It is also unfortunate that on the same day the president of the United States plans to announce further reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons, we see another hostile regime unimpressed by his example. U.S. security cannot … afford even more cuts to U.S. defense capabilities, such as our nuclear deterrent.”

It may make for a nice sound bite, but the argument does not stand up to serious scrutiny. The current U.S. arsenal numbers between 4,600 and 5,000 nuclear weapons, many of which sit atop intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles capable of launching within minutes. The North Korean stockpile, by contrast, is estimated at eight to ten weapons, though it seems intent on increasing these numbers.

If the president tomorrow chose to cut the U.S. nuclear arsenal by 50 percent, it would still be 200-300 times larger than North Korea’s. The United States also possesses a wide array of conventional deep strike weapons that could inflict devastating damage on North Korea should it contemplate an attack on South Korea, Japan or U.S. regionally deployed forces. And, despite its claims, North Korea lacks a demonstrated capability to strike the United States with a nuclear warhead.

North Korea’s nuclear defiance is deeply troubling, and its latest test warrants heightened multilateral measures to inhibit Pyongyang’s efforts to increase its arsenal both quantitatively and qualitatively. The leaders in the North appear to believe that their nuclear weapons can legitimate the country’s power and entitle it to enhanced international status. These claims are rooted in a deeply adversarial nationalism that has defined North Korea since the earliest years of the state. By claiming undiminished U.S. hostility, it seeks to rationalize the country’s acute isolation and economic dysfunction to its beleaguered citizens.

North Korea is well practiced at identifying the United States as its “sworn enemy.” If anything, additional reductions in the number of warheads in the U.S. inventory would weaken the case Pyongyang seeks to make to justify its nuclear pursuits. But the driving imperatives of its nuclear program reflect its domestic needs and vulnerabilities, not the aggregate numbers of U.S. nuclear weapons.

The nuclear cuts reportedly under consideration by the administration—such as reducing the New START limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads to 1,000-1,100—would hardly embolden North Korea or any other state to challenge the United States in a manner different than it does now. Moreover, Pyongyang is undoubtedly aware that the remaining inventory of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons was unilaterally withdrawn from the Korean peninsula more than two decades ago.

If the United States, with a nuclear arsenal 15 times larger than that of any country other than Russia, is not prepared to reduce further, can it credibly argue that other nuclear weapons states should not build up or that other countries should not acquire nuclear arms? Further reductions, on the other hand, would bolster the ability of U.S. diplomacy to persuade third countries to increase pressure and sanctions on nuclear outliers such as Iran and North Korea. In the three years since New START was signed, American diplomats have had ample success in getting other countries to increase sanctions on Iran.

A nuclear-armed North Korea undoubtedly represents a serious threat to stability and security in Northeast Asia. But that is no reason to argue that Washington should not pursue the next stage of nuclear arms reductions with Russia.

Authors

From SEAL Team Six To Retiring Without Health Insurance

Michael E. O'Hanlon and Lt. Col. John Barnett (USMC) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Esquire magazine's report this week that a retired 16-year veteran of the United States military—a Navy SEAL who played a key role in the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden—now struggles without health care has become a mini cause célèbre. The story is an opportune time to review how the U.S. takes care of the men and women who do so much to protect it.

America's military compensation system is at once generous and stingy. It needs improvement, but the right answer at a time of national fiscal duress cannot simply be to increase benefits wherever there seems an argument for doing so. Reforms and efficiencies are needed too.

Whatever the specifics of the SEAL's case, a person who leaves the military after 16 years doesn't fare very well in postservice compensation systems. Pensions kick in after 20 years of service, typically at 50% of previous basic pay, as does access to the military's "Tricare for life" health-care program that provides excellent benefits to veterans and their families at very modest costs.

Anyone retiring before 20 years of military service isn't eligible for these benefits, even in part, and virtually everyone in the military is well aware of this fact—which is why very few people voluntarily leave the service after 15-19 years.

Read the full article »

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon
Lt. Col. John Barnett (USMC)

Publication: Wall Street Journal

The Next Step on Nuclear Arms Reduction

Steven Pifer — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's note: This article was originally published by The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs.

The United States and Russia have just begun the third year of implementing the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). When the treaty takes full effect in February 2018, each country will be limited to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads on 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers. That represents progress, but more can and should be done.

For instance, New START does nothing to constrain non-deployed (reserve) strategic warheads or any non-strategic (tactical) weapons; it covers only about thirty percent of the total U.S. nuclear arsenal. It’s time to bring these weapons to the table. Additionally, twenty years after the end of the Cold War, do the United States and Russia require such large deployed strategic forces?

Recent press reports suggest the Obama administration is ready to answer this question and also bring the “off the table” weapons into the equation. The reports said the administration has concluded that it would be able to reduce the U.S. arsenal to 1,000-1,100 deployed strategic warheads and 2,500-3,500 total nuclear weapons, “without harming national security.” This would be an important step forward. An agreement along these lines could mean a thirty percent cut in deployed strategic warheads from the New START level and could require up to a fifty percent reduction in total U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.

Such a treaty would be in the U.S. interest for several reasons. First, it would reduce the nuclear threat to the United States. It would also promote a more stable nuclear balance with Russia, that is, a balance in which neither side has incentives to use nuclear weapons first in a crisis. The lower limit could lead the Russians to conclude that they do not need their proposed new heavy intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which would threaten U.S. ICBMs in their underground silos. At the same, a new heavy ICBM would itself present a lucrative target for preemptive attack in a crisis—a problem noted by a number of Russian experts critical of the planned missile.

Second, by bringing all nuclear arms into the negotiation, a new U.S.-Russia treaty would cover non-strategic nuclear weapons, which would be welcomed by U.S. allies in Europe and Asia who feel threatened by Russian tactical weapons. Moreover, by submitting all of their arsenals to limits, Washington and Moscow would be better positioned to then expand the arms control process to include other nuclear weapons states. That is because the arsenals of Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea contain many non-strategic nuclear arms.

Third, a new treaty that reduced U.S. and Russian nuclear forces could mean cost savings for a strained defense budget. The savings in operating costs in the near term might not be that large, but lower limits could mean substantial savings in the longer term, as the United States recapitalizes its strategic forces. For example, the U.S. Navy estimates that the replacement submarines for the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine will cost $6-7 billion each. The Navy hopes to cut that cost, but the recent history of naval shipbuilding suggests the ultimate price tag of new vessels is often higher than initial estimates. A treaty that reduced the need for even two submarines would eliminate the cost of building and then operating them for up to forty years.

Fourth, further U.S. and Russian reductions would bolster those countries’ credentials in raising the bar against nuclear proliferation. A new treaty would not cause North Korea or Iran to change course. It could, however, empower American diplomacy to persuade third countries to up the pressure, including sanctions, on nuclear proliferators.

Finally, a new U.S.-Russian treaty could contribute to an improved broader relationship between the two countries. It could also contribute to better relations with China.

Negotiating and concluding such a treaty would by no means be easy. It is not clear that the Russians are prepared to deal. New tensions have afflicted the bilateral relationship over the past year, and President Putin seems in a cantankerous mood. But Moscow may have incentives to engage. The United States is better placed to sustain its strategic forces at New START levels, while the Russians will have to build new missiles to maintain their forces at the negotiated limits—and they may face tough budget decisions of their own.

There should be a better idea of whether the Russians want to engage after National Security Advisor Donilon’s visit to Moscow later this month, during which arms control undoubtedly will rank near the top of the agenda. The odds of getting a new agreement may not be all that high, but the pay-off in terms of a safer America and enhanced global security makes it a proposition worth testing.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Publication: The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs

Obama’s Aims to Reduce Nuclear Threat

Michael E. O'Hanlon and Steven Pifer — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Barack Obama will reportedly reiterate his interest in reducing the threat of nuclear weapons, though unlikely to announce specifics. The administration is interested in seeking an agreement with Russia, building on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) of 2010 and cutting U.S. strategic nuclear forces by another third in the expectation that Moscow will do the same with its nuclear arsenal.

This would leave each country with roughly 1,000 deployed long-range warheads, plus several thousand more in reserve and in tactical arsenals.

It would be an appropriately modest step toward serious pursuit of Obama’s (and President Ronald Reagan’s) goal of a nuclear-free world. With 1,000 warheads, the U.S. nuclear arsenal would remain more than capable of targeting any reasonable set of military sites abroad. Washington and Moscow would also avoid tempting any medium-size nuclear powers, most notably China, with its 250 or so warheads, to pursue nuclear superpower ranks.

It is sound policy. Dramatic enough to make a major difference in Obama’s foreign policy legacy yet measured enough to sustain U.S. deterrence for Washington and its allies abroad. Still, it will work best if several additional steps are included:

Modest U.S. unilateral cuts are a reasonable way to jump-start the process if Moscow is not immediately amenable to reciprocative measures. But they should be modest and reversible ‑ until we see how Russia reacts. This is not about fear of a U.S.-Russian nuclear exchange, but rather about avoiding the possibility that Moscow would become more assertive if it somehow felt empowered by a new position atop the nuclear hierarchy.

Tactical and surplus warheads should be constrained. As a first step, data exchanges and some informal monitoring provisions should be explored. U.S.-Russian arms-control treaties have not previously limited warheads in these inventories. Since they are not normally affixed to big missiles or bombers, they are harder to track. But that is why they must be limited in some way. We will need to improve monitoring methods for these warheads if other countries are to be brought into the nuclear arms-control process in future rounds, since most other nations’ arsenals are dominated by these shorter-range weapons.

Missile defenses need to be part of the process. Since the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty during the George W. Bush administration, there have been no ceilings on any type of missile defenses. There is little point here in trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together. Not only do congressional Republicans strongly oppose any limits on U.S. missile defenses but the technologies are evolving too fast (and are still too immature) for restraints to make much sense. Especially since some missile defense capability is a reasonable desire for those worried about North Korean and Iranian threats. But greater transparency, some degree of actual collaboration between the United States and Russia and, depending on the evolution of not just the technology but also the threat, some greater flexibility regarding U.S. plans to put advanced missile defenses into Europe in the future makes sense. The flexibility should not go so far as to weaken Washi! ngton’s bonds with allies and should not prevent the United States and its allies from protecting themselves. This point needs to be made plainly to Moscow.

Third parties should be asked to promise restraint, too. The other U.N. Security Council Permanent Five nuclear powers ‑ Britain, France and China ‑ as well as Israel, India and Pakistan should promise not to exceed current arsenal sizes, or at least not by much. This need not be a deal breaker if they refuse. But it would be a useful complement that would help ensure that no new nuclear competition is triggered by U.S. and Russian cutbacks, and would help pave the way for future multilateral treaties. To help persuade the other nuclear powers to agree, all countries could be asked to promise not to develop or augment existing nuclear weapons inventories. In other words, language could be proposed that would allow non-nuclear states to make the same pledge, and that would not require countries such as Israel to acknowledge officially that they have nuclear weapons. (Since right now they might not.)

Other arms-control measures could be considered. Top of the list is ratification of the 1990s-era Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the United States and China, among the world’s declared nuclear powers, have not yet ratified. (The Senate voted it down in 1999.) Another ratification debate is not prudent if it leads to a formal Senate defeat. But this is an opportune moment to remind Americans that our current arsenal is holding up extremely well without testing, and to make the case for formalizing our testing restraint. The last U.S. test was in 1992; no state other than North Korea has tested in the last dozen years.

Obama has rightly seized this nuclear arms-control opportunity. It may or may not make him the president who started the real march toward a nuclear-free planet. Indeed, that may not even be a realistic or desirable goal at this stage.

But his plan should help future presidents and Congresses evaluate the wisdom of such a possible step. Meanwhile, it saves a little money and, more important, helps keeps America and her allies safe.

Authors

Publication: Reuters

The Implications of North Korea's Third Nuclear Test

Richard C. Bush III and Jonathan D. Pollack — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 09:37:00 -0500

We do not yet know how much North Korea has advanced its nuclear weapons program as a result of today’s test. Specialists are intensely curious about the fissile material used (plutonium or enriched uranium) and the design of device. Pyongyang claims that the latest test was of a smaller, lighter weapon, and the available seismic data indicates an appreciably greater explosive yield than either of the prior tests. The North is undoubtedly making progress, and it is not too early to assess the implications of this test – and the successful ballistic missile launch in December – for the interests of all countries immediately affected by the detonation.

Kim Jong Un very likely sees himself as the big winner from today’s test. Kim became North Korea’s top leader following the death of his father Kim Jong Il fourteen months ago. His principal goal since then has been to establish his own personal legitimacy and preserve that of the Kim Royal Family. In that regard, securing progress on the missile and nuclear programs is the coin of the realm.

For the United States and Japan, the two tests confirm past judgments about Pyongyang’s long-term intentions. That is, the DPRK is intent on acquiring the ability to strike the continental United States as well as Japan with nuclear weapons, an objective that no package of outside incentives is likely to prevent. The stakes are high. Should North Korea succeed in its quest, it will significantly destabilize the security of Northeast Asia and increase the dangers of proliferation to other regions.

Some will fault Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul for not having engaged Pyongyang to head off the tests of recent months, but there is little or no evidence that Kim Jong Un would have been any more responsive to engagement than his father. Instead, the U.S., Japan, and South Korea have sought in recent years to “sharpen North Korea’s choices,” between sustaining its nuclear and missile programs, in contrast to heightened economic and political benefits with the international community. All three states will likely respond to today’s test by seeking to tighten sanctions. There is ample room to improve the implementation of existing measures, and new financial sanctions are available (see the current Iran menu). But a question lingers, are we indeed shaping North Korea’s choices or is it shaping ours?

The third nuclear test puts China’s new leadership on the hot seat. Under its previous leader Hu Jintao Beijing had multiple objectives in its North Korea strategy: restrain DPRK provocations; limit the impact of multilateral sanctions so that they do not stabilize the North Korean regime; provide economic support to Pyongyang to enhance stability and encourage better behavior; and facilitate a diplomatic approach for managing the problem, if not solving it. By testing in defiance of China’s wishes, Pyongyang has once again demonstrated that it has a very different agenda. It is betting that Beijing’s threats of punishment (as under Hu Jintao) are all bark and no bite. In effect, it is testing China’s new paramount leader, Xi Jinping. Will he cooperate with Washington in tightening sanctions and withdraw material and political benefits to Kim Jong Un? Or will Xi accommodate to a new status quo? Those questions will occupy the Beijing leadership during the Chinese New Year holiday.

The DPRK’s action probably has the greatest impact on South Korea’s president-elect, Park Geun-hye, who will be inaugurated on February 25^th. Madame Park had campaigned on the premise that the North Korea policies of the current president, Lee Myung Bak, had been too tough and one-sided. She had proposed the creation of a “trust-building” process with Pyongyang and a focus on areas of potential mutual benefit. Much of the South Korean public supported that stance when they cast their votes. With today’s nuclear test, Kim Jong Un has signaled that any acts of accommodation must come solely from the South Korean side, thus putting Madame Park on the defensive. Her initiative is now very unlikely to get off the ground. Any claims that the test was directed against outgoing President Lee will ring hollow to the new president, compelling her to rethink her approach to future dealings with the North.

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A Killing Court

Paul R. Pillar — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's note: This article was originally published by The National Interest.

In John Brennan's confirmation hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, committee chair Diane Feinstein (D-CA) said she would explore with Congressional colleagues the possible creation of a special court to review candidates for assassination by armed drones. The idea is worth exploring. Such a judicial mechanism could be a way of meeting the well-justified concerns of many that the drone program is too much a matter of executive discretion. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court can serve as a successful model of how such a court might work. If we are to involve the judiciary before tapping a person's telephone (even when the target of the tap is a foreigner), why shouldn't we involve courts before killing the person?

Even if a drone court does not materialize, Congressional consideration of one would give a healthy boost to the hitherto insufficient discussion and debate about applying the rule of law to aerial assassination. Before establishing any such court, however, Congress should carefully weigh one other thing such a court would do and some things it would not do.

Creating the court would further institutionalize—in an even more prominent way than “playbooks” used within the executive branch—assassination of individuals overseas as a continuing function of the United States government. Is that something Americans really want to do, and is it consistent with what Americans think they stand for?

A court would not weigh the pros and cons of either individual killings or the entire program on any criteria other than those that could be made justiciable. Presumably the court would make judgments regarding whether evidence presented to it shows that a given individual is willing and able to participate in anti-U.S. terrorist attacks. One could not expect a court to weigh whether on balance the killing program is reducing the terrorist threat to the United States more than it is increasing it by stimulating more angry individuals to resort to terrorism. That troubling question has been hanging around now for years, going back to before armed drones were the heavily relied upon tool they have become and to when Donald Rumsfeld ruminated aloud about whether we were creating more terrorists than we were eliminating. We still lack a satisfactory answer to that question that would constitute a justification for the drone program. (It is presumably this lack that leads David Brooks to suggest creating, in addition to a court, “an independent panel of former military and intelligence officers issuing reports on the program’s efficacy.”)

A court also would not consider other damage (or conceivably benefits) to U.S. policy and interests that goes beyond terrorism and the creation of more terrorists. We were reminded of the broader consequences when the Pakistani ambassador complained publicly this week that drone strikes were a clear violation of international law and her nation's sovereignty and threatened U.S.-Pakistani relations. Of course, we need to apply many grains of salt to such a complaint from the envoy of the country where Osama bin Laden was living under official noses and where other reporting suggests that at least some of the drone strikes have been privately welcomed by Pakistani leaders even though they publicly complain about all of them. Nonetheless, widespread negative reactions to the strikes and their collateral damage affect popular attitudes, in Pakistan and elsewhere, toward the United States and ipso facto affect the posture of governments toward the United States.

A couple of years ago I gave testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in which I mentioned the two-faced Pakistani approach on this subject, with private attitudes not always matching the public rhetoric. The one point on which the committee chairman, John Kerry, differed with my testimony was that he believed, based on his own conversations with Pakistani officials, that genuine attitudes toward the drone strikes were more strongly negative than I may have suggested. I take his comment then as a good sign that the new secretary of state will give proper attention to the broader consequences of the aerial assassinations.

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Paul R. Pillar

Publication: The National Interest

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