Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Ukraine War is Creating Entirely New Nuclear Strategy Risks

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Biden, biological weapons, chemical weapons, deterrence, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, red line, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine invasion, Ukraine-Russia war, Vladimir Putin

The increasingly blustery way leading American politicians and chattering class members (mainly conservatives) have been talking about nuclear weapons and the Ukraine war is getting scary enough for me, and should be for you. (See, e.g., here.) Unless it’s OK that a major American city (or ten) may wind up looking like besieged and decimated Mariupol because playing chicken more boldly (but so far mainly verbally) with Moscow pushes above zero the odds of them getting hit by Russian warheads?

But something that worries me even more about these cataclysmic possibilities: For two main sets of reasons, the war could well create possibilities for nuclear weapons use that differ markedly from the scenarios that have dominated American planning for decades – and all the evidence indicates still dominates it today.

The first entails both Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine itself and the Russian dictator’s apparent decision to react to Ukraine’s stunning success to date in fighting back by raining maximum destruction on that country’s population. The second entails expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) membership right up to Russia’s borders after the Cold War ended and the old Soviet Union’s satellites became truly independent states and sought to join.

Simply put, the longstanding and existing scenarios have gone something like this: The Soviet Union (and now Russia) thinks about invading a NATO member (almost always the former West Germany) with its vastly superior conventional forces, but is deterred paradoxically by the very weakness of NATO’s conventional forces. The likelihood of these NATO forces getting overwhelmed and destroyed (along with all the NATO civilian personnel located nearby), would supposedly leave an American President no choice but to try to repel the attackers with nuclear weapons. The prospect that this escalation would turn into an all-out, world-destroying conflagration would be enough to prevent Moscow from attacking in the first place.

Today, however, the situation and possible nuclear scenarios are vastly different. After all, Putin has invaded not a NATO member – that is, a country whose security has been guaranteed by the alliance – but a country that hasn’t been permitted to join NATO. On the one hand, that’s comforting (except for the Ukrainians) because President Biden and other NATO leaders have ruled out the idea of direct military intervention in the conflict – precisely for fear that Russia could respond by attacking NATO units in Ukraine with nukes, or by attacking NATO forces and bases in members bordering Ukraine, or elsewhere in NATO-Europe, or even by striking the United States.

On the other hand, the very fact of heavy fighting in a country right next door to NATO members raises the possibility of the conflict spreading into those countries. This spillover could occur either by accident, or because Putin decides to attack the alliance’s extensive efforts to supply Ukraine. In turn, either such Russian operations could kill or wound NATO personnel who might be accompanying the weapons and other aid shipments as they travel through Ukraine, or Putin could decide to take out the facilities in Poland and other NATO countries from which these supplies are being sent into the war zone.

And don’t forget the spillover possibilities even from Russian attacks on Ukrainian forces inside Ukraine. Because Ukrainian resistance has been so effective (an outcome that so far was not only totally unexpected to the U.S. national security apparatus, but that contrasts strikingly with the longstanding assumption of Russian conventional military superiority that still underlies the alliance’s deterrence strategy), Moscow might need chemical or biological or nuclear weapons to regain the initiative. If these threshholds are crossed, the effects could, as noted here, easily blow beyond Ukraine’s borders and into NATO territory. And if NATO territory is affected, wouldn’t that qualify as an attack on a NATO member, or members, that would activate the alliance’s Article Five obligation that members view such a development as “an attack on all” – the core of the NATO treaty and the ultimate key to whatever deterrence power it’s assumed to have created?

Much more than the violations of international agreements that would result from these Russian moves, that’s why Mr. Biden and other NATO leaders have been warning Putin about “red lines” that he mustn’t cross by using these weapons of mass destruction. Yet the vague terms NATO has used to describe its promised responses so far make clear that alliance leaders haven’t yet decided how they actually would respond, and how to convey that message convincingly to Moscow. And yes, a Russian cyber-attack on a NATO member would trigger the same kinds of questions, uncertainties, and outright dangers.

As I’ve written repeatedly (notably here), the U.S. military doctrine that resulted and still prevails never deserved high marks for prudence, common sense, or even the basic test of a healthy sense of self-preservation. So it’s not like there’s a compelling case that Washington’s strategists today will come up with anything more sensible to handle these radically different challenges. And that’s all the more reason to try to put much more energy into stopping the fighting ASAP by cutting a deal that will surely fail to satisfy either Ukraine or Russia, but that ends, at least for the time being, the kind of reckless nuclear weapons talk that could all too easily lead to catastrophic nuclear weapons use – even if neither the United States nor its allies are actually attacked.     

Im-Politic: The Best Way Forward in Ukraine

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Afghanistan, Baltic states, Biden, China, Cold War, deterrence, Eastern Europe, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Poland, Russia, Taiwan, tripwire, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin

This is by no means what I want to happen – in fact, I find the prospect pretty troubling (as should you), But I can’t help but wonder if the current Ukraine crisis will end peacefully with the United States putting tripwire forces permanently in many of the relatively new Eastern European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in order to protect them against possible Russian designs, along with throwing Russian leader Vladimir Putin some kind of a rhetorical bone concerning his opposition to Ukraine joining NATO.

As known by RealityChek readers, tripwire forces are relatively small numbers of U.S. troops stationed on the soil of a vulnerable ally whose purpose is to deter attack by an aggressive, heavily armed neighbor. The idea isn’t that these U.S. forces will be enough to defeat the enemy – Washington has never been willing to pay for the manpower and weaponry to accomplish that goal. The idea is that the fear of killing American soldiers will greatly reduce the odds of an attack in the first place. That’s because it would greatly increase the pressure on a U.S. President to respond with the only measure that could prevent their imminent, total defeat (and possibly many more U.S. casualties) – using nuclear weapons.

I don’t like the idea because, especially today, it exposes the American homeland to the risk of nuclear attack (by far the worst national security disaster that could befall it, and likely the most destructive event in the nation’s history) in order to protect countries less than vital to the United States, and which could easily defend themselves if they weren’t such defense skinflints and free-riders. (South Korea has been a prime example, although, as I’ve written, its semiconductor manufacturing prowess has made it more important lately.)

At the same time, the tripwire strategy arguably played some role in keeping the Soviet military on its side of the Iron Curtain for decades during the Cold War, and it’s certainly conceivable that the kinds of deployments that President Biden seems to be thinking about could produce the same results in places like the Baltic states (which used to be Soviet republics) and Poland.

Not that this course of action would be risk-free. Sending lots of troops and heavy weapons like tanks would amount to stuffing lots more soldiers and lethal hardware into a relatively small area, and very close to major Russian military forces. As I’ve written, the odds of an accidental conflict would inevitably rise.

That’s why it would be much better for the United States to come to an agreement with Putin recognizing the need for limits on Western military deployments on Russia’s borders, and on future NATO expansion.

But Mr. Biden doesn’t seem interested in serious negotiations. Maybe that’s because he honestly believes that geography shouldn’t matter in world affairs and that countries should be free to make any security arrangements they like regardless of what powerful neighbors think. Maybe that’s because he’s afraid of further charges of weakness from domestic critics and voters in the wake of his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Maybe it’s both. But at this point the reasons for his position matter much less than his position itself..

Boosting the U.S. military footprint in Eastern Europe, especially in a steady, methodical way, would project an image of strength that he so desperately seeks now, and in theory enough to offset the effects of his decision (for now) not to use force to save Ukraine (which in my view will at the very least increase Moscow’s dominance of the country, either through a military occupation, attacks that enable Putin to peel off regions of Ukraine’s east, or a coup or other machinations that install a puppet government in Kyiv).

And although Moscow will huff and puff, the presence of Americans in places like the Baltics in particular are likely to keep the Russians out – and in ways that the presence of, say, Danes and Spaniards won’t.

Some big questions would remain. For example, what if Putin tried to destabilize the Baltics by stirring unrest among their sizable Russian populations? And will Germany, which is actually blocking the efforts of NATO countries to strengthen Ukraine’s armed forces apparently and in part for fear of antagonizing Russia further, be OK with using the American bases on its soil to help maintain U.S. forces stationed on NATO’s easternmost front lines?

I don’t have the answers here. But worrisome as the tripwire strategy is, unless Washington is ready for some significant give-and-take on Eastern Europe’s future, it’s much better than some of the alternatives I can imagine:

>like a Russian takeover of Ukraine without any offsetting steps that really could create big doubts about American reliability in places unmistakably vital to the U.S. future – especially global semiconductor manufacturing leader Taiwan – and tempt more aggression by China (mainly against Taiwan);

>like so many foreign weapons flooding into Ukraine that they could either trigger a Russian preemptive attack on their own, or give Kyiv enough confidence to mount the kind of full-scale resistance that following an invasion that would produce fierce enough fighting to spill over into neighboring countries. Alternatively, such a conflict could push President Biden into more active U.S. military involvement that might become particularly dangerous because of its very haste.

After his summit with Putin in Geneva, Siwtzerland last June, the President said “I think that the last thing he wants now is a Cold War.“ Unfortunately, largely because he’s painted himself into such a tight diplomatic corner, for now, that may be the best of a series of bad outcomes for Americans. And for Europe East and West, it’s certainly better than the other kind of conflict.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Time for a Nuclear-Armed Taiwan?

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alliances, allies, Asia, China, East Asia, geopolitics, Indo-Pacific, Japan, national interests, national security, nuclear proliferation, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Porcupine Theory, semiconductors, South Korea, Taiwan, vital interests

Since early in the nuclear age, students of international relations scholar from time to time have advanced a dramatically heretical idea: that a world in which more than a few countries possessed nuclear weapons would be safer than a world in which such arms were limited to those countries that already had them. The  reasoning: Attacking nuclear-armed countries is a lot riskier for the aggressor than attacking non-nuclear countries, so the risk of wars breaking out would fall. If you think about the success of the little mammal with big quills, you can see why this notion has become known as the “Porcupine Theory”.

I bring up the subject because I increasingly find myself wondering whether encouraging Taiwan to build a nuclear arsenal would be the best way for the United States to safeguard interests in the island’s independence that have become vital recently because Taiwan has become the world leader in manufacturing advanced semiconductors – which are so crucial to the national security and prosperity of every country, including the now lagging United States.

There can’t be any doubt that the burgeoning importance of Taiwan’s independence and the apparently burgeoning determination of China to reestablish control over what it views as a renegade province, have produced a situation that’s increasingly dangerous for the United States. China, after all, is a power whose conventional military forces may now be strong enough to defeat America’s if it decides to help Taiwan fight off a Beijing attack.

In principle, Washington could resolve to turn the tide by using its own weapons of mass destruction in a battle for Taiwan. But China’s own arsenal is now so powerful that the result could be a full-scale nuclear exchange that brings disaster to the U.S. homeland. In other words, as I’ve written for years, America arguably has lost escalation dominance in Asia, and may have no choice but to acquiesce in China’s takeover of the island and its world class tech capabilities.

Nonetheless, this dire threat so far hasn’t deterred U.S. leaders from moving closer to declaring their intent to defend Taiwan militarily (notably, e.g., as reported here), and ending the posture of “strategic ambiguity” that has so far helped keep the peace in the region. So no one can responsibly rule out push coming to shove in this intensifying crisis.

To date, the United States has opposed countries like Taiwan from crossing the nuclear weapons threshhold mainly because Washington has rejected the Porcupine Theory. In addition, however, this anti-proliferation stance, especially toward allies and quasi-allies like Taiwan, has stemmed from the nuclear weapons parity that the United States enjoyed vis-a-vis the old Soviet Union and today toward Russia, and the overwhelming superiority of its nuclear forces versus those of China and North Korea in Asia. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, the Asian nuclear balance has deteriorated from the U.S. standpoint.

The United States has also always viewed its security alliances with Germany and Japan in particular to be essential to preventing their reversion to the disastrously militaristic ways of the 1930s and 1940s. Nuclear weapons controlled by these two countries were therefore completely out of the question. (Interestingly, a revealing difference of opinion between then President Barack Obama and then presidential candidate Donald Trump was sparked by these issues in 2016.)    

Reliability concerns, however, have also dominated Washington’s position on nuclear weapons spread outside the U.S. alliance network. Specifically, American leaders have always worried about these devices being acquired by unstable governments (which supposedly are less capable of securing them against terrorists and other extremists) and so-called rogue states (which supposedly would be more likely to use them or threaten their use).

A nuclear-armed Taiwan could resolve the prime dilemma for the United States by letting it off the hook for the island’s defense. After all, if China hasn’t yet pulled the trigger on a Taiwan without nukes, it makes sense to believe that it would be much less likely to attack the island if a conflict could bring Taiwanese nuclear warheads falling on Chinese soil.

It’s true that, as I’ve heard various observers argue, that the semiconductor problem may be exaggerated – because, for example, the United States could keep the relevant technology out of Chinese hands by bombing the factories and labs. In theory, the Taiwanese may have plans to blow up these facilities themselves. But it’s also true that these speculations could be way too optimistic – especially since the most crucial knowhow resides in the heads of Taiwanese scientists and engineers, who would need to be protected somehow against a Chinese roundup.

An American endorsement of a nuclear Taiwan could also bring benefits throughout Asia, signaling to Beijing that continuing its bellicose behavior could convince the United States to give a nuclear green light to Japan and South Korea.

Moreover, the longstanding main U.S. anti-proliferation rationales look a lot weaker today. Taiwan is clearly neither a rogue state nor a country with an unstable government. Ditto for Japan and South Korea, for that matter. Besides, precisely because of the weakening U.S. military position in East Asia, and consequently growing worries about Washington’s willingness to make good on its nuclear commitments, many observers believe that all three countries are already latent nuclear powers. (See, e.g., here.) That is, they could build nuclear weapons quickly whenever they wished.

Yet encouraging Taiwan to go nuclear would hardly be risk-free. If and when openly announced, it could spur the Chinese to attack – to enable them to capture the island before its nuclear-ization was completed. A nuclear Taiwan would also be less deferential to American wishes. In fact, its semiconductor superiority has already enabled it to resist some U.S. demands related to plans for increasing microchip production and supply chain security cooperation between the two countries. (The same has held for South Korea, as reported in the linked article immediately above.)

More broadly, nuclear weapons acquisition by Japan and South Korea would certainly undermine America’s post-World War II status as kingpin of East Asia, and all the benefits it ostensibly creates for Americans in one of the world’s most economically important regions.

But even if those benefits were nearly as great as widely believed (and continuing U.S. difficulty opening Asian markets to American exports makes clear that they haven’t been), a nuclear-armed Taiwan would create much bigger benefits: dramatically reducing the odds that China acquires some of the world’s most important technology, and that the risk of a Chinese nuclear attack on the United States if Beijing resulting from a conflict over Taiwan.

The key, as suggested above, would be supporting nuclearization without provoking all-out Chinese aggression – suggesting that this goal deserves more attention in Washington than it’s receiving these days.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Will the U.S. Finally Get Real on Ukraine?

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Baltic states, Biden, China, Cold War, deterrence, Jens Stoltenbeg, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, spheres of influence, Ukraine, vital interests, Vladimir Putin

With President Biden scheduled to speak tomorrow on a Zoom-like call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin over the intensifying crisis in Ukraine, I’m worried that the President, along with his counterpart at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), could stumble into a genuinely scary situation with only two bad ways out. The first is a wholly unnecessary conflict that could all too easily go nuclear. The second (and, thankfully, far likelier) is a humiliating climb-down by the United States and the rest of the NATO. For good measure, chances that Russia and China would be driven much closer together would go way up in either case.

The specific causes of these concerns are Mr. Biden’s warning to Russian leader Vladimir Putin that he won’t “accept anybody’s red lines” and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s declaration that “Russia has no veto. Russia has no say. And Russia has no right to establish a sphere of influence, trying to control their neighbours.”

And they’re worrisome because Russia’s red line – Putin’s insistence that NATO agree not to expand eastward by granting membership to Ukraine and other countries on Russia’s borders, or to deploy “weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to the Russian territory” – is supremely credible due both to geography and to Moscow’s big nuclear arsenal, and because these assets are precisely what give the west absolutely no choice but to accept Russia’s domination of its neighbors.

In an ideal world, countries could conduct whatever (peaceful) foreign policies they wanted, including entering into whatever alliances or other international arrangements they pleased, no matter what their neighbors – however powerful – thought. But in this world, Ukraine is located right next door to Russia. As a result, its external relationships will inevitably and understandably concern Moscow – just as the external relationships of Western Hemisphere countries have always concerned the United States and resulted in the Monroe Doctrine.

As I’ve written repeatedly, (see, e.g., here), Ukraine is completely indefensible with conventional weapons and boasts no geopolitical or economic assets of significant interest to America or the rest of Europe. (The country sits on huge natural gas reserves of value to Europe, but as the Nordstream 2 pipeline controversy makes clear, Germany and much of the rest of western Europe are happy to increase its gas dependence on, of all countries, Russia.)

In principle, America’s own nuclear strength could enable it to deter Russian aggression against Ukraine. But due to its combination of acute military vulnerability and economic insignificance, Ukraine was never viewed as a vital interest by the United States even during the Cold War, when changing its then status as a Soviet republic arguably could have created some benefits to the West in a global East-West struggle with an ideological dimension. So Washington never even considered trying to use nuclear threats to influence Moscow’s policies toward the region – or, for similar reasons, anywhere else in the Soviet bloc.

Because Ukraine’s independence and well-being are even less important to the West these days, but the former is just as important to Russia, any Western talk of responding militarily to a Russian invasion or incursion or continuation of the hybrid war against Ukraine (and other countries) Moscow is apparently waging, will ring completely hollow.

Yet it’s anything but difficult to imagine how major power conflict could still break out, especially if NATO decides to beef up its military forces in Ukraine’s vicinity still further, and if any fighting that breaks out in Ukraine spills over its borders. Chances are the West would have little choice to back off (the humiliating climb-down). But what if U.S. or European units were somehow quickly engulfed in combat? Is the possibility that American leaders would use nuclear weapons to save them zero? In my view, it’s practically zero because of Russia’s retaliatory capabilities. But I find the fact that the possibility is anywhere above zero completely terrifying and just as completely unacceptable – the more so because of Ukraine’s irrelevance to American security.

And this is where those “red lines” and “spheres of influence” come in. It’s high time that Mr. Biden and his NATO counterparts recognize that the Russian version of the former can’t responsibly be ignored, and that the latter offers far and away the best guarantee of preserving peace in Europe on terms eminently satisfactory to the greatest number of parties and populations involved.

In a 2014 article following that year’s conflict between Russia and Ukraine (it’s off-line now, but you’ll find a reference to it at this link), I actually urged the United States to go farther – to offer Russia neutralization of the three Baltic countries that also used to be former Soviet republics in return for Moscow’s pledge to respect their sovereignty fully. I know it sounds craven, but these states have much the same kinds of Russian minority populations that have given Putin one of his main pretexts for interfering in Ukraine’s affairs, and they’re just as militarily indefensible without threatening to go nuclear.

The Russian leader hasn’t put the Baltics on the table yet, so for now this step might not be necessary (although his aim of preventing “deployment of weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to the Russian territory” could easily turn out to cover the Baltics). But Washington shouldn’t consider it off the table, either, since outside-the-box diplomacy like this might also help defuse an actual threat to U.S. interests – a new Sino-Russia quasi- or even formal alliance that would emerge just as China continues threatening Taiwan, whose semiconductor manufacturing prowess is indeed vital to American security. Indeed, such a gambit could set the stage for turning the tables on Beijing – which clearly poses a much greater danger to America now and for the foreseeable future.

President Biden ran for the White House in part on his reputation for reaching across the aisle while in Congress and as Vice President, and finding compromise solutions to thorny and often emotionally charged problems. Those kinds of instincts, rather than reckless bluffing with a transparently weak hand, would serve him and the country best when dealing with Putin on Ukraine – and beyond.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Dangerously Loose Lips on Nuclear Weapons Policy

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alliances, allies, Baltics, Biden, Biden administration, China, deterrence, globalism, no first use, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, semiconductors, South Korea, Soviet Union, Taiwan, Trump, Ukraine

As usual, headline news is coming so fast and furiously from so many different direections that lots of major developments get neglected (including by me). One of the most important pretty stunningly shows once again that those American leaders who most loudly proclaim themselves to be champions of the globalist approach to foreign policy, and of the U.S. security alliances they view as one of its greatest achievements (both for the United States and the globe at large) have once more been flirting seriously with ideas certain to destroy those alliances.

Specifically, I’m referring to recent reports (e.g., here) that the President Biden is considering endorsing a “no first use” (NFU) policy for America’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

The shift hasn’t yet been approved. A rethink hasn’t even been officially announced. And some of the anonymous sources who leaked this news to reporters (no doubt from inside the Biden administration, and no doubt as a trial balloon) claim that what’s being contemplated is changing to something similar to NFU but not identical to it.

But of course, trial balloons are floated precisely to evoke reactions to something that someone awfully high up in government (or whatever organization is doing the floating) thinks is a swell idea, and who’s confident that his or her boss thinks or would think so, too. Moreover, the difference between NFU and the variant being considered seems pretty academic at best.

Most important about this possible new Biden approach to national security is that it reveals this administration to be every bit as cynical and therefore unserious about the globalism and alliances it pretends to prioritize – and about its indignant and sanctimonious portrayals of the more skeptical views of critics like former President Trump as proof of their dangerous ignorance – as the Obama administration.

For as I explained five years ago when Obama entertained NFU right after slamming Trump literally as a foreign policy and specifically nuclear weapons know-nothing, even mulling such a new nuclear doctrine could undermine the very alliances that globalists like him exalted.

And the reason is simple: First use of nuclear weapons is the policy that for decades has enabled the United States to deter attacks on the allies credibly in the first place – and that has held these arrangements together. For long ago, Washington dismissed as impractical trying to match adversaries like the old Soviet Union, China, and North Korea in conventional forces. The first two could draw on populations that would always exceed America’s, and even when it came to relatively small antagonists like the latter, fielding such forces was considered too expensive to be sustained financially and politically.

Nuclear weapons, however, were relatively cheap, and American leaders judged that declaring their intent to respond to purely conventional attacks on allies by these countries by launching the nukes if non-nuclear forces proved inadequate would put the fear of God even in a nuclear superpower like the Soviet Union. And first use would even more effectively deter countries with tiny or non-existen nuclear forces of their own, like China and North Korea for decades.

Even when Beijing and Pyongyang built nuclear forces big and capable enough to call this U.S. bluff successfully at least in theory (because they could now wreak impressive nuclear destruction on the American homeland, too), American leaders put their trust in NFU. And if indeed protecting allies was the overriding priority of U.S. foreign policy, this judgement was at least defensible.

A NFU policy, though, or even trial balloons, could bring disastrous consequences. Either would risk emboldening the enemies of the United States and its allies by signaling that Washington would at the least hesitate to play its most formidable military card. Just as important, it’s hard to imagine a worst recent time than the present for indulging in such speculation. After all, not only does the United States no longer enjoy overwhelming nuclear edges over China and North Korea. But China and Russia have displayed ever greater interest in establishing or reestablishing effective control over small neighbors like Ukraine and the Baltic states and of course Taiwan.

In addition, a NFU policy or talk thereof could frighten allies into bailing on the United States and cutting the best deals they could with Moscow or Pyongyang or Beijing while they still had the chance. Alternatively, because sizable American forces remain right at or near the front lines at all three of these flashpoints, the absence of a first use policy could result in them getting caught up in unwinnable battles even if a U.S. President wanted to stay on the sidelines.

Finally, when we’re talking about Taiwan, of course, we’re talking about the place that now makes the world’s most advanced semiconductors – products that are central to both future American prosperity and national security. So as is not the case with Russia’s neighbors or even South Korea (an impressive semiconductor manufacturer in its own right), adopting NFU could result in the loss of a genuinely vital U.S. interest.

I’ve long favored fundamental changes in U.S. alliance and overall foreign policy and national security strategy. But that’s not the point here. If you like alliances, it’s really pretty simple: At a minimum, you either keep first use, or you greatly beef up U.S. conventional forces, or you convince the allies to fill whatever non-nuclear military force gaps you face, or you do all three or some combination of them. If you adopt NFU and fail to take offsetting steps on the conventional force front, be ready to kiss these arrangements goodbye.

From all accounts (see, e.g., here) the allies themselves recognize this. So does China. What’s scary is that even if the supposed adults-in-the-room and master strategists in the Biden administration eventually realize the stakes involved (as their Obama predecessors eventually did), they may have greatly undermined the nation’s safety – along with boosting the risks of conflict the world over.

Glad I Didn’t Say That! Biden’s Losing North Korea Bet

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Antony J. Blinken, Asia-Pacific, Biden, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Glad I Didn't Say That!, Indo-Pacific, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, nuclear weapons, sanctions, Wuhan virus

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken “suggested China was also concerned about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. ‘China has a real interest in helping to deal with this,’ [he] said. ‘So we look to Beijing to play a role in advancing what is in, I think, everyone’s interest.’”

– The New York Times, March 18, 2021

 

“North Korean trade with China is springing back to life, easing pressure on Kim Jong Un whose economy has been battered by sanctions and border closures owing to the coronavirus pandemic.”

– Financial Times, May 26, 2021

 

(Sources: “North Korean Threat Forces Biden Into Balancing Act With China,” by Lara Jakes and Choe Sang-Hun, The New York Times, March 18, 2021, North Korean Threat Forces Biden Into Balancing Act With China – The New York Times (nytimes.com) and “Chinese trade provides boost to North Korea’s battered economy,” by Edward White, Financial Times, May 26, 2021, Chinese trade provides boost to North Korea’s battered economy | Financial Times (ft.com))

Glad I Didn’t Say That! Biden Going Trump-y on North Korea, Too

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Biden, Donal d Trump, East Asia, foreign policy, geopolitics, Glad I Didn't Say That!, Kim Jong Un, national security, North Korea, nuclear weapons

“What has [President Trump] done? He’s legitimized North Korea. He’s talked about his good buddy, who’s a thug, a thug. And he talks about how we’re better off. And they have much more capable missiles, able to reach us territory much more easily than they ever did before.

– Presidential candidate Joe Biden, October 22, 2020

 

“The U.S. administration of President Joe Biden will build on a 2018 summit agreement with North Korea, White House Asia czar Kurt Campbell said Tuesday, extending overtures to Pyongyang after completing a months long policy review on the North.”

– Yonhap News Agency, May 19, 2021

 

(Sources: “Donald Trump & Joe Biden Final Presidential Debate Transcript 2020,” October 22, 2020 , Rev.com, Donald Trump & Joe Biden Final Presidential Debate Transcript 2020 – Rev & “U.S. will build on Singapore agreement with N. Korea: Campbell,” by Byun Duk-Kun, Yonhap News Agency, May 19, 2021, (LEAD) U.S. will build on Singapore agreement with N. Korea: Campbell | Yonhap News Agency (yna.co.kr) )

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Incoherent Iran Nuclear Policy

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Antony Blinken, Biden, Donald Trump, Iran, Iran nuclear deal, Israel, Jake Sullivan, JCPOA, Middle East, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Persian Gulf, Sunnis

In case you dismiss most or all statements during campaigns by office-seekers and their aides as complete baloney, you should take a look at some transcripts recently released by the Hudson Institute of interviews last year with then Joe Biden foreign policy advisers Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan – who have gone on to become President Biden’s Secretary of State and national security adviser, respectively.

The trouble is that these transcripts make plain as day, among other points, that the Biden view of handling Iran and its nuclear weapons ambitions makes little sense from a standpoint of simple common sense.

The Sullivan transcript – recorded last May – is by far the more thoughtful and serious of the two, but mainly in terms of revealing the fundamental confusion of the Biden outlook.

The central questions surrounding the Iran nuclear issue stem from the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA) signed during the Obama years by the United States, Tehran, China, Germany, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom, which obliged Iran to accept limits on its nuclear research program in return for relief from longstanding international economic sanctions. The Obama administration insisted that even though the Iran nuclear limits would end in 2025, the agreement valuably put off the day when Tehran could produce a bomb on very short notice, and therefore in theory until then defused the greatest potential Iranian threat to American and Middle Eastern security; that a calmer atmosphere could help diplomatic efforts to deal with Iran’s other belligerent behavior; and that the deal represented the best outcome Washington could achieve jointly with other great powers – which were always capable of frustrating unilateral U.S. Iran strategies they considered too confrontational.

Critics (like, eventually, me) countered that the deal left open too many loopholes that could enable Iran to keep making substantial progress toward nuclear weapons capability; that the sanctions relief would give Iran the economic wherewithal to intensify its efforts to gain hegemony over much of the Middle East and Persian Gulf; and that the United States on its own had ample power to cripple Iran’s economic ability to wage proxy wars and sponsor terrorism. And because he basically agreed with the critics, Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018.

The results have been mixed. Unilateral U.S. sanctions have indeed ravaged Iran’s economy – and possibly put at least some constraints on its aggression and subversion, along with other dangerous weapons programs like its drive to create ever more effective, longer-range ballistic missiles. But this behavior has by no means stopped, and the Trump administration’s belief that the pain would foster regime change has been totally far-fetched so far. Further, to protest these sanctions – which Iran calls a violation of the JCPOA – Tehran has said that its own commitments are now null and void, and has taken a series of steps that JCPOA supporters charge demonstrate the failure of the Trump approach, and that deal opponents say Iran was taking clandestinely anyway – or was bound to.

Like his boss (who of course served as Barack Obama’s Vice President), Sullivan is a JCPOA supporter, and the new President has made clear his determination to return to the deal in the belief that Iran will slow down its nuclear research once again. But Sullivan’s remarks also reinforced the case against the deal by unwittingly acknowledging that the Obama-Biden hopes for the kind of changed Iranian behavior that would bring lasting benefits to the region are thoroughly in vain.

Here’s one of two key passages:

“[T]o me, the real issue with Iran, the real limitation on Iran in the region, has not been the availability of cash [i.e., the effectiveness of sanctions]. It’s been the availability of opportunity. And where opportunities have arisen, they’ve taken them. And that was true in the ’80s. It was true in the ’90s. It was true in the 2000s. It was during the 2010s. It remains true today. And even under massive sanction, the Iranians have gotten more aggressive in the Gulf, have remained just as aggressive in Syria and Lebanon, have increased their activities in respect to the Houthis in Yemen, and all of that while under massive economic sanction from the United States.”

I agree with Sullivan’s observation that Iran is so determined to achieve in the Middle East objectives considered dangerous by a broad bipartisan U.S. consensus that it’s pursued this agenda despite paying a major economic price. But does this kind of Iran sound like a country likely to reform in the slightest by the time the JCPOA runs out? Worse, the failure of sanctions to bring Iran to heel, by no means renders inconsequential the resources they’ve denied the country. It’s all too reasonable to conclude that permitting Iran to do business normally with the rest of the world will simply make an aggressive regime much wealthier, and thus able to act more aggressively. As political scientists would say, the result would be a country whose malign intentions haven’t changed but whose malign capabilities are have greatly increased.

The second key passage:

“[M]y view is, if you can take one of the big threats off the board, the Iranian nuclear program, take it off the board, and then use the tools available at your disposal, none of which were stripped from us by the JCPOA, to go after Iran in the region. And to the extent you want to make diplomacy, the central feature of stopping Iran’s malign activities, get the regional actors at the table with the Iranians and stand behind them with some pressure to try to produce a deescalation, say between Iran and Saudi Arabia.”

Here the problem is Sullivan’s apparent belief that, faced with the prospect of being “gone after” by the United States and its other bitterest rivals, Iran will dutifully comply with the JCPOA for the entire length of its duration – which will leave it highly vulnerable to “pressure” to abandon goals that the previous Sullivan passage identified as positively foundational.

It’s far more likely – and I’d call it a virtual certainty – that Iran will do everything possible to prevent this kind of vulnerability/ As a result it can be expected to take every opportunity in the foreseeable future to make the fastest possible progress toward the nuclear weapons threshhold whether the nuclear deal is resumed or not, devoting many of resources made available by sanctions removal to that effort, and continuing even faster (and eventually building a nice sized stockpile) once the JCPOA expires.

Not that there’s no reason for optimism from an American standpoint. For the above scenario makes a U.S. military pullout from the terminally dysfunctional Middle East/Persian Gulf region more appealing than ever. Another reason for optimism for those still worried about Iran despite decisive recent reasons to disengage, like substantial American energy independence:  Trump’s oft-voiced (but only partly-at-best fulfilled) desire to exit had clearly prompted Iran’s Sunni Arab and (nuclear armed) Israeli foes to kick into the next gear their own tacit alliance, which seems more than capable of countering Iranian threats.

Unfortunately, even though in his interview, Blinken stated that a Biden administration would seek to deemphasize the region in U.S. grand strategy in order to focus more on East Asia, President Biden seems bent on keeping the U.S.’ armed regional presence impressively sized.  Can anyone say “Tar Baby” – again?

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Trumply Deranged Coverage of a Trump Security Policy Win

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alliances, allies, America First, burden sharing, deterrence, Financial Times, globalism, James White, Joe Biden, military spending, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, South Korea, tripwire, Trump

I know that there’s lots more to say about last week’s outrageous Capitol Hill riot and its political and even broader fallout, but sometimes a news development comes along that’s so underappreciated and at the same time so poorly reported that I just couldn’t resist weighing in right away.

I’m talking about decisions being made in South Korea to become more militarily self-reliant, and the way they were reported in the Financial Times a week ago. The article, by Edward White, had it all as far as my Trump-y, America First-type worldview is concerned: an (apparently unwitting account) of signs of a clearly emerging potential triumph for this approach to U.S. foreign policy; a comparably stinging (and unwitting) rebuke of its globalist counterpart; a complete failure to mention the benefits for the United States (as opposed to the impact elsewhere) coupled with  attempts by globalist supposed experts focusinf singlemindedly on the downsides and ignoring the consequences for Americans; and just plain sloppy journalism.

As known by RealityChek regulars, the news that long-time military ally (or protectorate, depending on your point of view) South Korea is revving up its defense spending is an unalloyed good for Americans. For decades, Seoul’s skimpy military budgets, which remained modest despite the country’s phenomenal economic progress, required the United States to supply the conventional forces needed to defend it against a North Korean attack.

The large American troop contingent stationed right at the Demilitarized Zone, directly in the North Koreans’ invasion path, might have made sense when Washington had no reason to fear any conflict going nuclear, and indeed viewed its possession of these arms as a pillar of its strategy of protecting South Korea by deterring aggression (because North Korea had no nukes of its own that could hit the U.S. homeland in retalition). But since North Korea is at the least so close to possessing this capability, the American units have turned into a tripwire all too likely to expose Americans to these risks, thereby rendering the U.S. nuclear guarantee a prime example of policy masochism. (This post described the changing Korean peninsula and overall Asian security environment, and its implications for U.S. strategy, back in 2014.) 

As also known by RealityChek regulars, President Trump has displayed some awareness of this situation, and, as White has reported, has pressed the South Koreans to get their self-defense act together – though in his often typically incoherent way, focusing almost entirely during his term on securing more South Korean financing of the expenses of deploying the U.S. forces on the peninsula than on planning to withdraw, and thereby eliminate the nuclear risk to America that their presence creates.

But White’s article cites evidence that Seoul has interpreted Mr. Trump’s harangues about rip off-obsessed allies as a clear sign that the United States is no longer a reliable ally, and that South Korea needs to build the manpower and especially weaponry it will need if the United States flies the coop. Especially interesting is the apparent South Korean conviction that these preparations must be made even though alliance fetishizer Joe Biden will become President on January 20.

Clearly, nothing could be better for the United States, and just as clearly, Trumpian impatience – following decades of coddling free-riding by globalist American leaders – deserves most of the credit. Even if Biden has no intention of withdrawing the American troops and bolstering his own country’s security, at least one major argument against such a step would be eliminated if South Korea became self-reliant.

But none of this side of the equation will be found in the article. Instead, South Korea’s stated new strategy is depicted as an regrettably inevitable result of “Mr Trump’s treatment of long-term allies.” And of course, grave risks abound, including the chance that “The build-up could send unintended signals of aggression or weakness, inviting miscalculations or adventurism from countries including North Korea, China and Russia.”

Typically, however, these experts ignore the screamingly obvious: If the U.S. troops leave, any miscalculations or adventurism would be problems for South Korea and its neighbors, not for the United States.

As for the sloppy journalism, that comes in when White tries to show that South Korea has already been an impressive military spender:

“South Korea’s annual defence bill is already high compared with those of many countries of a similar size and wealth. Military spending as a percentage of government expenditure was 12.7 last year, according to Stockholm Peace Research Institute data, ahead of 9.2 per cent in the US and the UK’s 4.5 per cent.”

To which the only serious response is, “Seriously?” Because why should anyone except an apologist care how Seoul’s defense spending compares with similarly sized or wealthy countries, much less with the United States’? After all, almost none of these countries lives in what’s probably the world’s most dangerous neighborhood, with an utterly deranged, nuclear-armed regime right next door for starters? Given South Korea’s (great) wealth, and North Korea’s impoverishment, the only important gauge of the adequacy of Seoul’s military budget is whether it can meet South Korea’s needs. And obviously, there’s a long way to go in this respect.

Moreover, even anyone who puts any stock in the numbers mentioned by White needs to ask themselves why the emphasis is on percentages of government spending? What actually counts is percentage of gross domestic product (GDP, or the entire economy). Because it’s the share of total national resources devoted to defense that genuinely makes clear the priority it enjoys. And with 2.7 percent the figure for highly insecure South Korea, according to the latest available data, and 3.4 percent that for the highly secure US of A, the only accurate way to describe defense as a South Korean priority is “not real high.”

Don’t get me wrong: As a sovereign country, Seoul has every right to skimp on defense spending. It also has every right to try to make another country bear an outsized measure of cost and risk for this decision. But the equally sovereign United States has every right to refuse to keep playing Uncle Sucker, especially when North Korea’s nuclear weapons make the stakes so potentially catastrophic. America’s outgoing President understood this, however imperfectly. Anyone believing that America’s security (especially from nuclear attack) needs to come first for Americans should be hoping that the nation’s incoming President quickly gets on this wavelength.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why America’s Stakes in East Asia’s Security are Looking Vital Again

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allies, America First, China, East Asia, East Asia-Pacific, extended deterrence, free-riding, globalism, Intel, Japan, Joe Biden, manufacturing, Michele Flournoy, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, protectionism, Samsung, semiconductors, South Korea, Taiwan, Trump, TSMC

News flash! This past week I read a newspaper column by George F. Will that didn’t prompt me to say “What an ignoramus!’ In fact, not only did I learn something. I learned something so important that, in conjunction with some other recent developments, is causing me to rethink some long and deeply held ideas I’ve had about America’s grand security strategy in the East Asia-Pacific region.

Specifically, although Will’s own focus in the September 8 piece was who Joe Biden would pick as Secretary of Defense, the piece itself described some ominous changes in the U.S.-China military balance in Asia that call into question my main concerns about America’s approach to region, and especially what I’ve depicted as an increasingly dangerous reliance on nuclear weapons to deter Chinese aggression. Meanwhile, as I’ll detail in a forthcoming freelance article, two U.S. Asian allies – Taiwan and South Korea – whose value to the United States I’ve long insisted doesn’t remotely justify running such risks, are looking for now like critical assets.

To review, since the Cold War began, the United States has resolved to defend its East Asian allies in large part by using the threat of nuclear weapons use to persuade potential attackers to lay off. Presidents from both parties agreed that the conventional military forces needed to fight off China and North Korea (and early on, the Soviet Union) were far too expensive for America to field. Moreover, the Korean War convinced the nation that fighting land wars in Asia was folly.

Before China and North Korea developed nuclear weapons able to reach the U.S. homeland, or approached the verge (the case, it seems, with the latter), this globalist policy of extended deterrence made sense whatever the importance to America of Asian allies. For the United States could threaten to respond to any aggression by literally destroying the aggressors, and they couldn’t respond in kind.

As I noted, however, once China and North Korea became capable of striking the continental United States with nuclear warheads, or seemed close to that capability, this U.S. policy not only made no sense. It was utterly perverse. For nothing about the independence of South Korea and Taiwan, in particular, made them worth the incineration of a major American city – or two, or three. The security of much larger and wealthier Japan didn’t seem to warrant paying this fearsome price, either.

Greatly fueling my opposition to U.S. policy and my support for a switch to an America First-type policy of military disengagement from the region was the refusal of any of these countries to spend adequately on their own defense (which, in combination with U.S. conventional forces, could deter and indeed defeat adversaries without forcing Washington to invoke the nuclear threat), and their long records of carrying out protectionist trade policies that harmed the American economy.

As Will’s column indicated, though, the threat, much less the use, of nuclear weapons is becoming less central to American strategy. Excerpts he quotes from recent (separate) writings by a leading Republican and a leading Democratic defense authority both emphasize dealing with the Chinese threat to Taiwan in particular with conventional weapons. The nukes aren’t even mentioned. Especially interesting: The Democrat (Michele Flournoy) is his recommended choice to head a Biden Pentagon – and she’s amassed enough experience and is well regarded enough among military and national security types to be a front-runner. I also checked out the journal article of hers referenced by Will, and nuclear weapons don’t come up there, either.

Moreover, neither Flournoy nor her Republican counterpart (a former aide the late Senator John McCain) shies away from the obvious implication – accomplishing their aim will require a major U.S. buildup of conventional forces in East Asia (including the development of higher tech weapons). In fact, they enthusiastically support it.

Any direct conflict involving two major powers has the potential to escalate beyond the expectations of the belligerents. But certainly bigger and more capable American forces in East Asia would reduce the chances that war with China will go nuclear. So in theory, anyway, the nuclear dimensions of my concerns could be reduced.

Moreover, my willingness to run greater risks to safeguard Taiwan and South Korea in particular, and pay the needed economic price – even if they keep free-riding on defense spending – is growing, too. That’s because of the theme of that forthcoming article I mentioned: Intel, the only major U.S.-owned company left that both designs and manufactures the most advanced kinds of semiconductors, has run into major problems producing the last two generations of microchips. In fact, the problems have been so great that the company has lost the technological lead to South Korea’s Samsung and in particular to Taiwan’s TSMC, and their most advanced facilities are in South Korea and Taiwan, right on China’s rim.

Given the importance of cutting edge semiconductors to developing cutting edge tech products in general, and ultimately cutting-edge weapons (including advanced non-weapons electronic gear and cyber warfare capabilities), acquiring the knowhow to produce these microchips by whatever means – outright conquest, or various forms of pressure – would make China an even more formidable, and even unbeatable challenge for the U.S. military, at least over time.

So until Intel, whose most advanced factories remain in the United States, figures out how to regain its manufacturing chops, or some other U.S.-owned entrant rides to the rescue, there will be a strong argument on behalf of protecting South Korea and Taiwan against Chinese designs at very high risk and cost. And as noted above, Americans may even have to tolerate some more military free-riding along with, in the case of South Korea, fence-sitting in the overall U.S.-China competition for influence in East Asia.

At the same time, because of the military (including nuclear) risks still involved, seizing back control of the semiconductor manufacturing heights ultimately is the best way out of this bind for Americans. So shame on generations of U.S. leaders for helping this vulnerability develop by swallowing the kool-aid about even advanced manufacturing’s obsolescence and replacement by services. But this grave mistake can’t be wished away, or overcome instantly, either – though efforts to regain this lost tech superiority need to be stepped up dramatically. So shame on current leaders, their advisers, and wannabe advisers – whatever their favored foreign policy strategy – if they fail to acknowledge that dangerous new circumstances may be upon the nation, and the sharp imperatives they logically create. And that includes yours truly.