Crazy World

I've found more evidence supporting my paper on the legitimacy crisis affecting nuclear deterrence strategy. Journalist and MIT Political Science PhD Fred Kaplan quoted William Kaufmann, a special assistant to every Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1981. This is from Kaufmann's obituary in The Washington Post, December 17, 2008:

Reflecting on his career in 1983, Dr. Kaufmann criticized the defense policy world, likening it to a deep pit. "It was easy to get caught up in the whole nuclear business," he told Kaplan. "You could eat and breathe the stuff. . . . Then you move away from it for a while, look at it from a distance and think, 'God that's a crazy world.'"

Kaplan quoted the same words in a piece for Time on September 27, 2010.

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Clinton: When to obliterate Iran

I have some security question fors Senator Clinton. First, what policy choices should the U.S. pursue so as to avoid "doing something that would be reckless, foolish, and tragic."

CLINTON: Well, the question was, if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, what would our response be? And I want the Iranians to know that if I am president, we will attack Iran. And I want them to understand that. Because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society. Because whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program, in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. That's a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that. Because that, perhaps, will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish, and tragic.

Certainly, Dick Cheney was wrong pretending that deterrence cannot work against Iran.

However, it is morally reprehensible to talk lightly of obliterating a society. Would the U.S. really punish millions of innocent people if their government acted reprehensively? How could this be consistent with just war theory? Just think about proportionality for one moment.

Do all the Catholics in Pennsylvania who apparently voted for Clinton know about this?


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Deterrence 101

Does President Bush understand deterrence theory -- and the implications of the so-called US "missile shield"?

The United States and Soviet Union long ago effectively banned missile defenses (or Anti-Ballistic Missiles) in the ABM Treaty of 1972. Defense analysts widely interpreted that agreement as a ratification of MAD (mutually assured destruction). Neither the US nor the Soviet Union could strike the other because of certain catastrophic retaliation.

However, a missile defense would undermine the effectiveness and thus the certainty of retaliation. Even Ronald Reagan acknowledged that defenses can be viewed as threatening in his famous 1983 "Star Wars" address:

I clearly recognize that defensive systems have limitations and raise certain problems and ambiguities. If paired with offensive systems, they can be viewed as fostering an aggressive policy, and no one wants that.

Nonetheless, George W. Bush unilaterally ended the ABM Treaty in 2001.

For some months now, Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have been making noises about a new cold war. Russia has been especially angry about America's announced plans to deploy a missile defense system in Europe. Putin views the system as a threat to Russia's nuclear deterrent, assuring it only a "ragged" retaliatory capability.

Could MAD be threatened by the missile shield?

Given recent changes in the arsenals of the two former superpowers, the US will, in the words of Keir Lieber and Daryl Press, "probably soon" have the ability "to destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike."

A missile defense looks kind of like a scary fail-safe mechanism in that context, eh?

In a roundtable event earlier today, in Germany, President Bush made a series of arguments that reveal a decent understanding of deterrence. However, I doubt they will dispel Russian fears.

Indeed, key clauses seem to be aimed more at reassuring his European hosts -- a journalist had just asked the about the importance of Russia again targeting Europe with its nuclear missiles -- rather than the Russian listeners:

Russia is not a threat. Nor is the missile defense we're proposing a threat to Russia...Russia is not going to attack Europe. The missile defense system is not aimed at Russia...

By the way, a missile defense system that is deployed in Europe can handle one or two rocket launchers. It can't handle a multiple launch regime. Russia has got an inventory that could overpower any missile defense system. The practicality is, is that this aimed at a country like Iran [sic], if they ended up with a nuclear weapon, so that they couldn't blackmail the free world.

I will continue to work with President Putin, Vladimir Putin, to explain to him that this is not aimed at him. And there's all kinds of ways you can do that. One is total transparency between our militaries and scientists -- military people and scientists, which I'm more than happy to do.

Hmmm. Maybe the President intends to have American "military people" and scientists assure Putin that the US defenses won't work?


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Iran: Deterrence vs. compellence

In regard to Iran, this story published in The Guardian on February 8 provides the most definitive denial of "war fever" that I've read yet from someone in the Bush administration:

president Bush has made it clear we have no intention of going to war with Iran," said Gordon Johndroe, the spokesman for the White House national security council.

Maybe Johndroe forgot what the President said when he was in Belgium two years ago.

The rest of the newspaper story is about Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's recent deterrent threats directed at the US:

"The enemies know any aggression will give way to a wide reaction from Iranian people toward them and their interests in all parts of the world," Iranian state television quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying...

"We believe that no one will make such an unwise and wrong move (to attack Iran) that would endanger their country and interests," Mr Khamenei said. "Some say that the US president is not the type who acts based on calculations or thinks about the consequences of his action. But even these people can be brought to their senses."

An Iranian naval commander apparently claimed that Iran has tested missiles that could sink big US warships in the Persian Gulf.

Would these kinds of threats be sufficient to deter the US from any kind of attack? Maybe. A nuclear weapon would work even better -- as North Korea would probably advise.

Note also that Khamenei said "enemies" because he's well aware of Israel's latest open efforts to beat the war drums. The LA Times, reported Israel's attempts to compel action on February 7:

Israeli officials have begun an unusually open campaign to muster international political and economic pressures against Iran. They warn that time is growing short and hint that they will resort to force if those pressures fail to prevent Iran's development of an atomic weapon.

Israeli leaders fear that an Iranian bomb would undermine their nation's security even if Tehran never detonated it. That Israel has its own nuclear arsenal would not counteract the psychological and strategic blow, they believe.

Israel began secretly preparing in the early 1990s for a possible air raid on Iran's then-nascent nuclear facilities and has been making oblique public statements about such planning for three years.

What is new is Israel's abandonment of quiet diplomacy to rally others to its side.

Israel has been making hostile threats against Iran fairly overtly since at least fall 2004.

As any student of Thomas Schelling would warn, it is much more difficult to compel than to deter.

Since there's some dispute about how much threat Iran is to Israel, they might want to rethink their strategy.


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