An interview with Dukakis

Slate has an interview with Dukakis (h/t).  He criticizes HRC strongly on Syria and Libya and then proceeds to say he is supporting her for the nomination ("views change," he says).  Dukakis also has things to say about Scalia, who was a law school classmate of his.  And on NATO, Dukakis says:

I don’t understand why we are expanding NATO, do you? What the hell is this? NATO was designed to stop Russia or the Soviet Union from invading Western Europe. That is not going to happen for the next 300 years. 

The U.S.-Russia war chatter

The amount of chatter about the possibility of a war between the U.S./NATO and Russia increased over this summer.  For one thing, there was a cover piece in The National Interest on the topic; I bought the issue in hard copy, rather predictably I barely glanced at it, and now (even more predictably) I am not sure where the copy of the issue is (yes, I could find it, assuming I didn't throw it out, but it's apparently not in one of the piles on the floor any more).

Just now I glanced at a piece in Vox (h/t) from this past June by Max Fisher summarizing the alarm bells that various experts have been ringing.  The most telling point, based on my skim, appears to be that Putin has lowered the threshold for nuclear use in Russia's official nuclear doctrine.  The official position now is that Russia will use nuclear weapons if a conventional conflict poses an "existential" threat to it; that's what I took from the Vox piece.  The implication is that certain influential Russian strategists, and maybe Putin himself, now think a "limited" nuclear war is possible and "winnable."  As far as I'm aware, no serious strategist in the West has entertained this ludicrous notion since the mid-1950s.  

One can probably see (or at least this is my view) that maintenance of tactical or 'battlefield' nuclear weapons makes no sense for countries that don't see a limited nuclear war as a realistic possibility, i.e., that think any nuclear exchange will likely escalate.  That's one of the reasons why it's pointless and a waste of money for the U.S. to still have 200 'tactical' nuclear weapons (gravity bombs) deployed in Europe.  These weapons have no purpose, nor much of a deterrent effect, unless one thinks that a limited nuclear exchange will stay limited, which Western strategists, as far as I'm aware, don't.

However, recent official statements emanating from Russia suggest that Putin might have adopted the belief that a limited nuclear exchange could stay limited, or even that use of a 'tactical' nuclear weapon would not draw a nuclear response (or a conventional response of high intensity).  Or maybe Putin just wants people to think he believes this.  Yeah, that Putin.  Crazy like a fox.

Stent vs. Mearsheimer

Caught them on the radio last night. Although the conversation made it sound as if they disagreed about almost everything, I'm not sure they actually did. To the extent they did disagree, I think Stent had a somewhat more nuanced perspective on what's going on in Ukraine. (Which may be what happens when you put a regional expert up against an IR theorist, especially one who, like Mearsheimer, doesn't often "do" nuance; he could if he wanted, but my impression is he usually doesn't.)

Nuclear insanity to the nth degree

The U.S. is set to spend billions on refurbishing the B-61 gravity nuclear bomb, the kind of thing Slim Pickens rode in the closing frames of Dr. Strangelove. Would that this were only a movie. A WaPo editorial observes that about half of the refurbished B-61s would replace ones that are currently deployed as 'tactical' weapons in Europe. The U.S. nuclear arsenal as a whole has to be maintained, I suppose, in some reasonable state of non-decrepitude but the notion of spending billions of dollars to refurbish tactical nuclear weapons in Europe is insane.

(note: edited slightly after first posting)

Were the "trusters" right?

In an article published a year ago, Brian Rathbun looked at the views held by U.S. liberals and conservatives just after World War II about the institutional design of the UN and NATO.* Rathbun argued -- I'm simplifying for the sake of brevity -- that liberals (mostly though not exclusively Democrats) wanted a more co-operative, multilateral approach and strategy because they were more "trusting" of allies and less fearful that allies would take advantage of the U.S., whereas conservatives (mostly though not exclusively Republicans) were less "trusting." Thus on NATO, for example, the Truman administration, Rathbun writes, "was willing to provide a guarantee of European security before the Europeans could effectively contribute to the alliance because it expected future reciprocity." By contrast, conservative Republicans wanted a "unilateral declaration of American intent," a sort of Monroe Doctrine for western Europe, rather than NATO, "but even moderate Republicans wanted the Europeans to first demonstrate their commitment to continental defense before the conclusion of any pact...." The less "trusting" Republicans feared 'free-riding' (in the non-technical sense of that phrase), i.e. they feared that the European states in NATO would not contribute adequately to their own defense.

Rathbun is interested in making a theoretical argument about social psychology, trust, and dispositions to co-operate, so he doesn't, at least from what I gather based on a perusal of the article, ask which side turned out to be right. Were Republicans correct to fear that allies would take advantage of a U.S. commitment to their security and not contribute to their own defense? It depends, I suppose, on how strong a version of the argument one takes. NATO members certainly have maintained their own defense budgets and militaries, but the question of relative contributions has been a sore point in recent years and probably throughout much of the alliance's history. And when it comes to U.S. security commitments to allies in Asia, the situation is probably etched in sharper relief. Robert Kelly (who, like Rathbun, blogs at Duck of Minerva) has pointed out that the level of defense spending by South Korea is "irresponsibly low," i.e., South Korea is taking advantage of the U.S. security umbrella to avoid spending very much on its own defense. Trust is all well and good, but in these contexts it does seem to have led to what IR scholars loosely (because it's not really the technical definition) call free-riding. I never, ever thought I'd quote Reagan with approval about anything, but here one can't help recall the slogan -- admittedly taken out of context -- "trust but verify."
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*B. Rathbun, "The 'Magnificent Fraud': Trust, International Cooperation, and the Hidden Domestic Politics of American Multilateralism after World War II," Int'l Studies Quarterly v.55 (2011):1-21.

NATO and "free markets"

I just heard a broadcast (on C-Span radio) of part of a discussion held last week by the Atlantic Council on "Libya and the Future of the Atlantic Alliance" (that may not have been the exact title of the meeting, but it's close). Several aspects of this discussion I found somewhat jarring. One was the use by speakers of the phrase "free markets" when referring to the values shared by NATO members, as in "democracy and free markets."

I dislike the phrase 'free markets' for a number of reasons and I was a bit surprised, though I probably shouldn't have been, to find it being used, apparently as a piece of boilerplate, in this context. If it is meant as a synonym for "capitalism" (the similar phrase "free enterprise" is sometimes used in this way), why not just say "capitalism"? But especially given the different varieties of capitalist economic systems represented by the member states of NATO, one could argue that an alliance commitment to spreading and/or defending capitalism would be odd, an argument that would apply to "free markets" as well.

One of the speakers at the Atlantic Council session, responding to a question about how to answer criticisms that NATO had strayed quite far from its original purpose, said that the alliance is a "living, breathing entity" that has adapted itself to new challenges etc., and he referred to the Strategic Concept adopted at the NATO summit in Lisbon last November. I just downloaded this document, and glancing at the opening paragraphs I see a reference to the shared commitment of member states to "individual liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law." Nothing about "free markets."

'Demonstrative compellence' is a bust (again)

Back in Jan. '09 I blogged about an article that discussed the notion of 'demonstrative compellence' (as the author termed it) in connection with the G.W. Bush policy toward Iraq. The argument in a nutshell was that the invasion of Iraq was meant to signal to Iran and N. Korea that if they didn't straighten up and fly right they might be next. The strategy was, in essence, a complete failure, at least with respect to its intended targets. Iran continued its less-than-transparent nuclear program and N. Korea showed, on occasion, some apparent willingness to negotiate but basically continued on its path toward acquiring nuclear weapons.

Why bring this up now? Because some might think, not unreasonably, that one motive for the NATO intervention in Libya was to send a signal to possible emulators of Gaddafi that they had better not contemplate atrocities. The trouble is that the signal, if one was intended, has had little effect: the Assad regime in Syria has killed lots of protesters (though recent events in Syria, with some soldiers perhaps having mutinied and killed other members of the security forces -- it's still not entirely clear what happened -- point to the possibility of a split in the armed forces); the Saleh regime in Yemen killed lots of civilians before Saleh's departure; and the Bahraini regime used violence against protesters before (and after) calling in Saudi troops to shore itself up.

The case for the NATO intervention in Libya thus has to be made mostly on humanitarian grounds and in terms of Libya alone, it would seem, since from the standpoint of demonstrative compellence it's been a washout.

Fisk on Israel, the EU, and NATO

With a sarcasm that may not be entirely unjustified, Robert Fisk blasts Israel's close political-military ties to NATO and the EU. It's no doubt the case, as Fisk writes, that Britain spends millions of pounds annually on weapons licenses for Israel and that NATO conducts military exercises with Israeli soldiers (as indicated by the recent helicopter crash in Romania in which several IDF members were killed).

Let's suppose, however, that NATO and the EU were to hold Israel more at arm's length. Would that affect its military capabilities? Almost certainly not, not as long as the U.S. is committed to $3-billion-plus in annual military aid to Israel aimed at ensuring that Israel maintains what is called in Washington policy circles its "qualitative military edge," or QME. The U.S.-Israel military relationship, and its untouchability in U.S. politics, makes the EU and NATO angles a sideshow. The problem is not so much that the U.S. gives Israel a huge amount of military hardware as that this connection is treated as effectively separate from U.S. diplomatic efforts in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In attempts to put pressure on Israel to stop settlement construction, for instance, the U.S. begins with one hand tied behind its back, since Israel knows that the U.S. would never threaten to cut down assistance or do anything else that would jeopardize Israel's QME. (Occasionally in the past the U.S. has withheld loan guarantees, but this sort of action has been very rare.) If you deprive yourself ab initio of your main source of leverage, you aren't going to be able to exercise much leverage: that's pretty obvious.

"Choice" vs. "necessity" is no way to think about war

Pres. Obama called the Afghanistan campaign a "war of necessity," and the NATO Secretary-General has now echoed this formulation.

If "necessity" is set in opposition to "choice," as it was in Obama's original statement, the dichotomy is misleading. As others have pointed out, every war involves a choice. Even World War II -- properly held up as a model of a justified, inescapable war and one in which the definition of victory and defeat was far clearer and more obvious than it is today in Afghanistan -- was a war of choice. We can all be grateful that Britain in 1940 acted as she did, but it was still a matter of choice. There is, strictly speaking, no such thing as "a war of necessity." The phrase is not helpful.

Afghanistan: Can "a disastrous situation" be salvaged?

I've just finished watching the excellent Frontline (PBS) program "The War Briefing" about the situation in Afghanistan. (That is, I was watching when I wasn't twisting the antenna and cursing the picture on my non-cable TV.)

The quotation in the title of this post is from former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who declared in an interview in the program that Afghanistan is "a disastrous situation for the U.S." It's hard to disagree with him on the basis of the evidence summarized by Frontline. Here are some of the essentials: 1) a weak central government widely perceived as corrupt, opposed by 2) a resurgent insurgency taking advantage of sanctuaries in Pakistan and benefiting from support by the growing Pakistani Taliban movement, with 3) a grossly insufficient number of U.S. troops on the ground (33,000) given the size of the territory (larger than Iraq), leading to 4) an over-reliance on airstrikes that have produced significant civilian casualties (civilian deaths generally have doubled in the past two years), which in turn 5) increases support for the insurgents. There's a lot more going on, but that boils it down to a few of the basics.

You don't need to be a strategic studies or counterinsurgency expert to realize that the current U.S./NATO policy is failing and that one or two more brigades, as Scheuer said, are unlikely to solve the problem. Nor, probably, will getting rid of the so-called 70 caveats -- the current restrictions on rules of engagement (see earlier post and comments). Nor will more monetary support from non-fighting NATO countries, though I'm sure it would be welcome.

Someone should be, and perhaps is, asking: What will be the security consequences for the U.S. of a re-takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban? Maybe the consequences will not be as dire as some suppose. In that case maybe the best course is to try to negotiate with the Taliban, with a view perhaps to either some power-sharing arrangement with Karzai or even a de jure division of the country into separate spheres of control. That might allow the U.S. and NATO to cut their losses in Afghanistan and focus more attention on the situation in Pakistan which, as Colin Kahl says in the program, is potentially a much more serious situation for the U.S., given the recent increase in strength of the Pakistani Taliban and the fragility of the current Pakistan government. That this is not a totally crazy thought is indicated by very recent reports that the U.S. is considering the possibility of negotiating with at least elements of the Taliban. Moreover, as David Ignatius discussed in a recent Wash Post column, Saudi Arabia has begun to host a mediation effort involving the Karzai government and the main Afghan insurgent groups. Obviously it's too early to say whether anything will come of these developments.

In the meantime, it seems unfair to the 33,000 U.S. troops, and British, Dutch, Canadian, and other NATO soldiers in Afghanistan, to continue under-resourcing their operations. Of the roughly 15,000 additional U.S. troops slated for (or requested by generals for) Afghanistan, only 4,500 are currently available, according to the Frontline program. This at a time when 28,500 U.S. troops are sitting in South Korea, and thousands more are in Japan and Germany. It creates at the very least a perception of skewed priorities. I'm sure someone at the Pentagon might have a reasonable-sounding explanation for this, but few members of the public have heard it because no reporters, as far as I'm aware, have bothered to ask the question. And as I've indicated before, I do not think "reasonable-sounding" means a simple appeal to our alliance with South Korea. There is no reason the alliance cannot survive a reduced U.S. troop presence there.

Update: The exchange in the comments has got me re-thinking this last paragraph.

Daniel Benjamin on U.S./Russia/Georgia

A pretty good column, on target in its criticisms of Bush's policy of trying to rush through NATO membership action plans (MAPs) for Georgia and Ukraine at the Bucharest summit. My only criticism is that he is too lenient on Clinton re NATO expansion (but then, he did serve on the Clinton Natl. Security Council).

Miliband on EU security policy

The Guardian is reporting that in a speech scheduled for delivery July 2, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband will indicate support for French president Sarkozy's proposals for stronger European military, "conflict prevention," and "crisis management" capabilities.

Pertinent brief excerpts from the article:

[Miliband] will...praise the French for saying they are willing to reintegrate into Nato's command structure, and will insist that a stronger European defence policy does not mean Nato stops being the cornerstone of European defence.

But he will add: "As the Balkans wars in the 1990s demonstrated, unless Europe can develop its own capabilities, it will be consigned always to wait impotently until the US and Nato are ready and able to intervene." ...

He will highlight the role of EU troops in training Palestinian police in the West Bank, adding "the countries of Europe need to be better at using their hard power."

Miliband will point out that Victoria Nuland, the US ambassador to Nato, welcomed a stronger European defence policy in a speech in February, reversing a decade of American fears that strong European defence would undermine Nato. The US position has been changed by Sarkozy's election because he has agreed to reintegrate France into Nato's command structure as well as send more French troops to Nato's operation in Afghanistan.

Perhaps those analysts who have been predicting for some time a more assertive European geopolitical and military policy are finally going to see their predictions start to be vindicated. The full text of the Guardian article is here.

Sarkozy on defense policy

France will rejoin NATO's integrated command, which it left in 1966, Pres. Sarkozy said in a speech following release of a white paper on defense strategy. The paper calls for some 50,000 defense jobs to be cut and 50 facilities to be closed, while increases in spending are proposed for intelligence items such as drones and satellites. The white paper says that from 2009 to 2020 French defense spending will be 377 billion euros or 584 billion dollars, i.e., roughly the size of the U.S. military budget for one year.

Afghan-Pak border: the mess goes on

Ahmed Rashid and Xenia Dormandy, talking with Ray Suarez on the PBS NewsHour tonight, painted a bleak picture, especially in Rashid's case, of recent developments in the northwest of Pakistan and in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where the Pakistan army has been trying to co-opt certain militant groups. Those militants who seem more amenable to renouncing violence, at least within Pakistan, are promised in return (presumably) a cessation of operations against them by the military. The result, however, is a "creeping Talibanization" (Rashid's phrase) as these groups extend their political influence, and a rise in the number of Pakistani Taliban and Taliban sympathizers who are crossing the Afghan-Pakistan border and contributing to an increase in violent actions against NATO troops in Afghanistan. Rashid also criticized the Pakistani army for not sharing information and foreign policy decison-making power with the relatively new civilian government, which is itself in some disarray since Nawaz Sharif's party withdrew from the governing coalition.

Dormandy argued that the strategy of reaching deals with militants has to be given time to see if it works, but Rashid was skeptical, saying that in a recent visit he found the security situation in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar to be worse than that in Kabul. Rashid also spoke of a new summer offensive by the Taliban in Afghanistan. In short: the mess goes on.