Ripples And Fallout

No event exists or can exist in a vacuum.  Certainly no event punctuated by the noise of bombs, missiles, and gunfire can be considered to have no implications, no ramifications, no ripples and fallout.  So it is with the Western Answer to the Libyan Question.

If there had ever been any chance of the Six Power Talks resuming, there is none now.  The US led campaign to abate the North Korean nuclear nuisance died with the first Tomahawk hitting some Libyan target.  The view adopted by the Hermits of Pyongyang is simple and direct.  When Gaddafi wimped out in 2003 and abandoned his nuclear and chemical weapons research and development efforts, he placed himself at the mercy of the West. How merciful the West is can be seen through the dust and flames of the incoming missiles.

This North Korean understanding echoes the earlier contention in Pyongyang that the instant the Soviet Union dropped out of the arms race, gasping and retching with exhaustion, it was lost.  The loss of the nuclear option assured that the Cold War would be ended to the advantage of the US.  The Hermits took a similar position regarding Saddam Hussein.  His decision to allow UN inspectors roam Iraq in search of prohibited nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, Pyongyang has animadverted, led inexorably to the American invasion and Saddam's fall.

The big QED is self-evident.  As long as North Korea has a nuclear capacity, even a very rudimentary one, it will be safe.  Lose that capacity and all is over.  The security of the North and its peculiar form of government can last only so long as it keeps stonewalling any and all attempts to end its nuclear program.  Or, to be accurate, all other programs oriented to obtaining and expanding the arsenal of weapons capable of mass destruction and associated delivery systems.

Anyone who believes that the logic tree in Tehran is different from that in Pyongyang is capable of buying the Golden Gate Bridge on EBay.  The mullahs have long pointed to Pakistan as the prime example of just how having a nuclear capability provided an impressive measure of both immunity and ability to extort.

So, the first major bit of fallout from Operation Odyssey Dawn is this: Nuclear weapons do make a country safe.  One must wonder if this easily foreseeable ramification was considered by The Nice Young Man From Chicago and the Three Weird Sisters who counseled him with such dramatic effect.

The partisans of consistency in American foreign policy have been wondering just when will the US and the rest of the "international community" do a Libya on Syria.  Senator Joe Leiberman has reportedly called for a no-fly zone over Syria if Bashir Assad employs the "same tactics" as did Gaddafi in Libya.  The senator invoked the Libyan "precedent" explicitly as he referenced the lethal means used already by Syrian security and military units.

Leiberman did not mention Hama.  He should have.  It would have made his case more convincing.  Bashir's father turned the Syrian army loose in that city back in 1982 after the Muslim Brotherhood raised the flag of rebellion.  At the least ten thousand people died under rocket, artillery, and air delivered fire.  The death toll might have been an order of magnitude greater.  In Syria, particularly among the aging "old guard" of the Syrian Baathist party, Hama constitutes precedent.  More than the omnipresent security services, the collective memory of Hama is the fear factor which has inhibited popular unrest until the past few days.

A couple of ground truths reinforce the trenchancy of the Hama precedent.  The first is the firm grip the old guard has on the military and security services of Syria as well as its demonstrated ability to inhibit the reformist tendencies of Bashir these past several years.  The second and more important governing reality is that Bashir and all the rest of the power elite in Syria are Alawites. The Alawites are a despised minority perceived by the majority Sunni population, particularly by hardliners such as the Muslim Brotherhood, as apostates deserving of death--death, not the power and preeminence they have enjoyed for more than sixty years now.  This means the current government and its adherents have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no safe haven should the levers of power slip from their grasp.

For Bashir and the rest, Syria is their Alamo.  They can neither expect nor give quarter.  Any internal dissent, any incipient rebellion, is existential from the perspective of the Alawite ruling structure.

With so much at stake, the Hama precedent must govern.  That is the essential starting point for any evaluation of US policy regarding the internal dynamics of Syria.  Bashir and the Baathists will do whatever is necessary to survive, to maintain power.  If that means piling corpses higher and higher, it will be done.

Hilary Clinton in a TV interview belabored the obvious with regard to Syria.  She averred that every country in the Mideast is different.  Duh?  Gosh, you don't say?

Syria certainly isn't Libya.  Syria is far from isolated.  While Gaddafi could count on the unstinting support of Hugo Chavez (so can Bashir, whom Hugo called a "brother" and a "humanitarian",) the Syrian leader can rely upon the support and assistance of Iran, Hezbollah, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and probably Saudi Arabia.  This means the current regime can gain access to money, diplomatic assistance, and even personnel from these countries.

Nor has Syria gone out of its way to alienate European and other states.  It has good to very good diplomatic and economic relations throughout most of the West.  It is not seen in other, lesser developed regions as a potential troublemaker, backer of coups, supporter of local terror groups, meddler in local politics.  This is quite unlike the situation in which Libya--or more properly, Gaddafi personally--placed itself.  This implies that even with a reenactment of Hama, the degree of official international condemnation would be lessened greatly.

Nor, in the event the balloon goes up in Syria is it at all probable that the mild mannered and soft-spoken Bashir would go on television ranting about how he would crush the rebels "without mercy" or go way over the line of sanity with wild accusations concerning drug use, or the involvement of al-Qaeda and the CIA.  The Syrian leader is constitutionally incapable of presenting himself as a Gaddafi style nutjob.  This coupled with the inevitable media (including Internet) blackout would make the task of overlooking any repetition of Hama relatively easy for any government so inclined.

Syria has a far more well equipped and trained military than did Libya.  It has a far more up to date air defense system.  In short, it would not be so easy a nut to hammer.  And, quite unlike Libya, any attack on Syria, even one approved of by the Arab League and UN Security Council (impossible as that hypothetical might be), would result in a response by Hezbollah and Hamas directed against Israel.  Any effort to impose a no-fly zone would touch off the next Arab-Israeli war.

Now, that, bucko, is a very unpleasant thought.  One which underscores just how far from Libya on the spectrum of doable targets one finds Syria.

Anyway the tofu is sliced, the result is the same: Libya is not a precedent as regards Syria.  If the current regime needs to kill a few score or a few thousand score of its citizens to maintain the political status quo, it will be done.  And, R2P to the contrary notwithstanding, the "international community" will do nothing beyond issue boiler plate denunciations and impose a few meaningless sanctions.  Well, if really motivated, there may be a move to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court, an action which would not simply be without meaning but would have the counterproductive effect of undercutting the notion of "accountability" for crimes against humanity.

There are other ripples sloshing around.  None are particularly positive as regards the international puissance of the West generally or the US in particular.  One of these is the highlighting of political divisions within the European states as well as between some of those and the US.  Another is a further underscoring of the adrift-at-the-policy-level approach to international affairs which characterizes the Obama administration.  Yet one more is the ease with which the Western public, and the American in particular, can delude itself about potential future developments in critical countries if the magic totem word, "democracy" is uttered often and loudly enough.

Bad as those might be, there is one ripple which is a tsunami in comparison.  The Libyan Question and the Wstern answer to it has demonstrated that the US and others have not learned a thing from the messes in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  What this means is simple.  We have not yet learned the crucial nature of answering the "what next?" question before taking the first action--a first action which will always, but always necessitate a second and a third and so on.

In the game of global chess, the US and the others have once more shown they are fine trumpet players--loud but irrelevant to the needs of reality.

Here A Bomb, There A Bomb, Everywhere A Bomb

No.  Not those pesky and ubiquitous roadside bombs, not even the upscale models now being imported by Taliban in Afghanistan from those friendly mullahs across the border in Iran.  No.  Not the personal type of bomb so beloved by wannabe seekers after martyrdom.

The bomb(s) in question are those of a nuclear nature.  It seems the latest growth industry in such stable, peace loving countries as North Korea and Pakistan is making more plutonium and, in the fullness of time, more fission or (drum roll) fusion weapons.

The situation in North Korea is somewhat ambiguous as is to be expected, but there are rather alarming indications that the Hermit Kingdom of the North is either cranking up the supposedly decommissioned plutonium production reactor at Yongbyon or is taking another pass at reprocessing the spent fuel rods so as to extract more plutonium.  The South Koreans, who have both a tendency to get nervous and a set of good reasons for doing so, also believe the Northerners are enriching more uranium.

Recent satellite imagery shows construction work in progress near the foundations of the cooling tower destroyed by the North three years ago as part of the now moribund denuclearization process.  The indications are minor and give no hint as to what is--or is going to be--constructed.  There is even the possibility that the Northerners, knowing that the site is constantly monitored by both national and commercial imaging satellites, are engaged in a bit of creative chain rattling.

However, the impending transition of power from Dear Leader to his Number Three Son brings a number of imponderables into play.  These include necessary genuflections before the hardest of the military hardliners or counters to the new, improved South Korean psyops program, which can be commenced at any moment for any reason.  Or, it may simply be one more of those, take-us-seriously-damnit! gestures of which Pyongyang is so fond.

The capacity for Pyongyang to make mischief cannot be overstated and must not be underestimated.  The impending succession does nothing to lessen either the intentional making of mischief or the potential for miscalculation.  While the North may only have sufficient plutonium for a half dozen bombs, the amount of highly enriched uranium cannot be estimated with rigor.  It is within the realm of conservative plausibility to estimate the Hermits have sufficient fissile material to double the number of potential warheads on the shelf.  In addition, the fact that the North does not yet have warheads small enough to mate with their current stock of missiles in no way lessens the degree of threat.

Pending miniaturization--an accomplishment not likely to be in the distant offing--the North can wreak a sufficient degree of havoc simply by getting one or two truck borne devices across the DMZ.  Even a couple of small (Hiroshima sized) nudets in or near the Seoul metroplex would all but fatally cripple South Korea.  In short, the war could be over almost before anyone knows it had begun.

In this context it might be recalled that the Northerners are the tunnel rats from hell.  Their subterranean earth moving skills have provided a number of tunnels easily capable of passing five ton trucks under the Z.  Sure, the North would (to quote a line in Dr Strangelove) "get their hair mussed," but the costs to the South would be much greater, potentially quite unbearable.

That's enough for one depressing subject.  Time to go to the next, even more depressing one.

Pakistan.  That's right, our "ally" and "close friend," the always stable, ever reliable, constantly honest, and aboveboard "partner" in the Grand Campaign Against Violent Political Islam.

The context first.  Pakistan is broke.  It depends upon the success of its extortion program to keep the international (primarily US) money flowing.  The floods have made the basket case even more supine.  The army is allegedly engaged in both flood relief and fighting the Taliban in the FATA while actually standing ever vigilant on the Indian border facing a threat which will not come--no matter how much Islamabad may wish otherwise.  The government is an excellent definition of the term, "non functional."  At the same time the perceived existential and functional legitimacy of the government has sunk to levels which make President Obama's approval ratings seem stratospheric in comparison.

With this as background consider that Pakistan is plunging on at flank speed in the construction of a third reactor in its Kushab plutonium production facility.  Satellite imagery shows that the second reactor has been finished, tested, and may be in full scale production while the construction work on the third unit is proceeding at a rate faster than that of the second.

The Kushab complex exists for one primary purpose, the production of plutonium.  Plutonium for weapons.  The increase in production indicates that Pakistan is pushing for a thermonuclear capability as well as boosting the number of deployable weapons.  As the details of the reactor as well as its predecessors are not available in the open literature, the secondary purposes of the reactors cannot be determined.  However, it is fair to assume that at least one of the reactors is configured for the production of tritium, the form of hydrogen central to initiating fusion reactions.

There is undoubtedly a direct linkage between the forced draft expansion of the Kushab complex and the Pakistani resistance to the fissile materials limitation treaty which has been languishing for years now.  This makes the unopposed election of Pakistan to chair the IAEA all the more ironic.

Pakistan is not only a member of the nuclear club, it is a particularly ambitious one.  The Islamabad government and the army both justify the investment in nuclear weapons production as defensive, a necessary deterrent to any Indian employment of its arsenal.

That position is, to be polite, a mess of caca.  Pakistan already has a sufficient number of weapons to serve as a credible finite deterrent.  Considering the distances involved and the flight time of either missiles or manned aircraft, the Pakistanis must use a launch-under-warning approach.  This doctrine is most effective if the targeting philosophy is counter-value not counter-force.

Given the size of India and, thus, the number of alternative launch points as well as the near term potential of an Indian submarine launched cruise missile capacity, the notion of counter-force targeting in a second strike configuration makes no sense.  Only a form of mutually-assured-destruction predicated on counter-value targeting operates as a sufficient deterrent.

For this approach there is neither need nor justification for a large number of warheads and launchers.  A modest--less than one hundred deliverable warheads--is sufficient.  The enormous expense of expanding the Kushab complex cannot be justified on legitimate defense needs.  Complicating the situation for the government is that the expansion of the physical plant and concomitant work force enhances the problems of security.  The same applies to any proliferation of warheads or fissile materials stockpiles.

Other than a sort of military elephantiasis, there is no excuse for what the Pakistanis are doing at Kushab.  There is certainly no rational explanation.  But, considering the propensity for the grandiose often exhibited by Pakistani senior military personnel, the elephantiasis diagnosis may be correct.

The US has cause for enhanced anxiety with the expansion of Kushab.  The civilian government of Pakistan is, to be kind, not overly stable.  The military forces of Pakistan are riddled at all levels with adherents of violent political Islam.  The strategic ambitions of members of the armed forces, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and the bureaucracies are no less than grandiose as all hands focus with an irrational but deeply historically rooted hostility on India.

For the US and other civilized states, the problem of securing the Pakistani nuclear facilities, arsenal, and fissile stockpile are real and pressing.  Bluntly, the possibility of violent political Islamists gaining a nuclear capability via Pakistan is greater than the nuclear threat presented by Iran.

Pakistani officials have proclaimed loud and long that their country is both stable and responsible.  These protestations ring hollow when considered in conjunction with the irresponsible action of expanding the Kushab complex at a time of very real, very great national peril.

There is an upside to the Pakistani nuclear dilemma.  The US and its Western European allies are not alone in this contretemps.  The prevailing winds--both those geographic in nature and those of armed political Islam--assure that both Russia and China have a dog in the fight, whether they either recognize or like the idea.  Any nudet in the sub-continent will have impact in both countries.  Similarly, any access via Pakistan to nuclear materials or weapons by advocates of violent political Islam will have effects deleterious to both.

The takeaway?  Simple.  To date the nuclear club has been able to exercise self-control.  Today, that reassuring state of affairs is under direct threat from both North Korea and Pakistan to a degree surpassing the danger represented by Iran.  And, it is up to the initial members of the club to keep matters from getting worse.

Neck Deep In Nukes

Life is becoming one big Xanax moment. First, there was the Pakistani bomb--and its twin, the Indian bomb. The came the North Korean bomb. And, one must never forget the Iranians and their quest for a Mahdi Bomb. That is a whole bunch of atoms waiting to fission.

Making life more anxiety producing is the basic consideration that all these actual or short-term potential atomic weapons--with one exception--are possessed by governments with a past history of less than responsible conduct. The prospect of "physics packages" in the hands of North Koreans, Iranians, or Pakistanis is one which is not conducive to sound sleep.

Comes now disturbing indications that another country headed by individuals whose commitment to peace, security, human rights, and other good things is at best debatable. The country in question is Burma--or, if you insist, Myanmar. Since the Australian defense analyst and scholar Desmond Ball first mooted the matter a bit over a year ago, more information has come out of the reclusive dictatorship. The skinny has come the usual way, from defectors and other malcontents finally fed up with the repressive regime and its evil effects upon the Burmese population.

As the information has fallen into an ever more complete mosaic, one cannot escape the conclusion that there is a good or better probability that Burma is pursuing an atomic weapons capacity with the assistance of North Korea and the (likely) knowledge and tacit agreement of China. The junta which has been running the Burmese show for over twenty years believes that a nuclear capability would insulate it from further Western meddling as well as provide a sovereign anodyne against any hypothetical future adventure in regime change.

While this view may be considered charitably as paranoid, there is little reason to reject the contention that the junta sees itself as under threat and facing the real possibility of an American led invasion of the Iraq 2003 style. An additional consideration which may be weighing on the minds of the junta members is the possession of an "ambiguous" nuclear capability of the Israeli model would confer real diplomatic advantages in the Southeast Asia Game of Nations.

At first sight the notion of Burma going after the Big Bomb seems more than a tad risible. Where is the complex of industry, research, and development facilities, universities that seem to be a necessary component of getting the bomb? Isn't Burma a backward, primarily agricultural place with little advanced technology, or, at least, very little technology of an indigenous nature?

Yes. Burma is all of that--and less. It has no industrial base worthy of note. It is agricultural. No first rank (or even fourth rank) universities blot its landscape. It isn't even filled with uranium ore.

However, getting your very own atomic bomb is not as difficult as many crack it up to be. For sure, the details can be difficult to master as the North Korean fizzle yield tests show, but, really all that is needed to acquire a personal capacity to plant mushroom clouds is found in three categories.

The first requirement is political will. The regime must be willing and able to run great risks, pay heavy prices in sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and a general bad rep. It must be willing to sacrifice the better interests of its citizens along the way. Even face the prospect of both covert and overt actions aimed at stopping the quest.

The Burmese regime has shown repeatedly over the past decades that it possesses the necessary political will. The members of the junta may be brutal, corrupt, inefficient, and generally incapable of living up to the Boy Scout Oath, but they have political will out the ying-yang.

The second requisite is money. Bombs do not come cheap. Neither does the technology necessary to produce a working nuclear weapon. The fact that Burma would be pursuing the bomb against the restrictions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, that is, "illegally," increases the expense.

Fortunately, the junta has massive amounts of money at its disposal. The exploitation of the country's hydrocarbon reserves and the assorted pipelines running across Burma have provided heaps and gobs of the money to the companies responsible as well as to the regime. The exact amount accruing to the junta can not be stated with precision but is in the billions. There have been more than enough billions to date (with more quite literally in the pipeline) to fund an ambitious nuclear acquisition program.

The third necessity is technical assistance from a state having reasonable competence in nuclear activities. Pakistan had help from China. Iran got aid from both Pakistan and North Korea. The North Koreans have been forced to take a more go-it-alone route, but they are good at the long, hard march sort of thing.

Burma has North Korea. A hermit-to-hermit or pariah-to-pariah program. The North Koreans constitute a not inconsiderable resource. They have a demonstrated competence in most of the stages of the nuclear fuel cycle as well as a very high skill level in building hardened facilities far removed from prying eyes (even those of the overhead variety.) Since the North Koreans do not run on an eleemosynary philosophy, their help has not come cheap. Fortunately, the petrodollars provide the junta with the necessary ways and means.

To get from North Korea to Burma requires crossing China. Not that this presents a significant obstacle. The Trolls of Beijing will abide by any UN sanction regime provided it does not hinder their political, diplomatic, or economic interests. Turning a Nelsonian eye to shipments of material and people between Burma and North Korea in no way hurts the interests of China either short- or long-term. Best of all, the well neigh onto impenetrable Chinese cloak of secrecy will do much to assure that no prying outsiders will gain verifiable knowledge of what and whom is going from where to where.

Probably the Burmese regime has to pay handsomely for an understanding Chinese attitude, but, what is money for? It is not beyond the realm of plausibility that the Trolls of Beijing would welcome a UN sanction effort directed against the foreign companies involved in exploiting Burmese hydrocarbon resources, as the forced withdrawal of the French and American companies would be to the benefit of China.

The proliferation of relatively inexpensive and efficient uranium enrichment methods as well as the availability of proven designs of plutonium production reactors go a very long way to easing the task of the Burmese. It is a simple algorithm: The more countries that develop means of making fissionable materials and fabricating even 1950s style bombs of Hiroshima or Nagasaki level yield, the easier it becomes to join the nuclear club.

There is another fact to keep in mind. Not every country, not every public, not every leader of state or opinion has the visceral fear and loathing of nuclear weapons as afflicts most people in the West. The Trolls of Beijing, for example, or the Men of the Kremlin, take a far more measured view of nuclear weapons even in the hands of governments given to acting on ideological True Belief then is the case in most of the West. As a consequence, there is not likely to be a great hue and cry over the possibility of Burma getting the bomb.

Given that both Beijing and Moscow are not all that het up over the looming probability of the Iranians gaining their Mahdi Bomb. this certainly is no surprise. There is another consideration which bears mention.

That consideration is the demonstrable impotence of the US. Even though President Obama swears up and down that he personally is committed to the dream of a world free of nuclear weapons, there is little in practice that the US can do to inhibit proliferation. Iran and North Korea have shown clearly that one can pursue the bomb with impunity regardless of the huffing and puffing emanating from Washington, or London, or Paris. Even a country as small and remote as Burma has found out that sanctions are made to be broken or evaded, and the US is today what Mao said it to have been over forty years ago--a paper tiger.

Israel, The Bomb, And South Africa

According to the Guardian, the South African government has declassified documents which purport to prove that Israel offered to sell nuclear weapons to the Whites Only regime of South Africa in 1975. The deal was linked to the South African request that Israel sell Jericho missiles to Pretoria. As the Jericho was capable of delivering conventional, chemical, and nuclear payloads, the Israeli defense minister of the day, Shimon Peres offered the nuclear option.

The lightly redacted documents were released as the result of a request by an American researcher, Sasha Polakow-Suransky. The "incriminating" papers were supposed to be kept in the strictest of confidence by both governments, but the ANC offspring which currently runs the country had no problem taking an action which might discredit both its White dominated predecessor and Israel. This does raise the interesting question of the degree to which successor governments are bound by the commitments of those gone before, a question which has implications far beyond those of political and diplomatic embarrassment.

Not surprisingly the office of Shimon Peres, who is now President of Israel was quick to deny the allegations. What else is to be expected? The Israelis are most unlikely to admit, "Gosh, guys, you caught us. So much for nuclear ambiguity."

There is no shock contained in the offer to sell "all three sizes." Way back in the mid-Seventies, at least in certain circles located in a suburb of Washington, D.C., the buzz regarding nuclear cooperation between the pariah states of Israel and South Africa (on occasion Taiwan was mentioned as well) focused not only on mutual development schemes but the possibility of a direct sale. The buzz was pervasive enough that it was (and is) not credible that the US government at the highest levels was not aware of the the potentials involved.

In the immediate aftermath of the American debacle in Vietnam there was very real anxiety in the US government regarding Soviet "adventurism" in Africa among other areas. The realities of the day favored the Kissinger invention of regional hegemons acting as American proxies-for-stability in threatened areas. To this end the US offered increased assistance to, among others, the Shah of Iran, and countenanced the "two track" strategy and its aftermath in Chile.

Internal political pressures prevented any form of wide open support for the apartheid government of South Africa. Lower visibility efforts were permissible. The range of options would have included an absence of commentary regarding a joint nuclear development effort between Israel and South Africa or even a suitably sub rosa transfer of a limited number of nuclear weapons.

Not to sharpen the point too much, the US under different administrations of both parties had a real affection for the Israeli policy of nuclear ambiguity. It was seen with justice as having a desired inhibitory effect upon surrounding states. (This affection survived even the successful effort in nuclear blackmail practiced by the Israelis during the Yom Kippur War.)

It could be posited more (think Reagan) or less (think Carter) openly that a South African gambit in nuclear ambiguity would serve the same ends of stability enhancement in the south of Africa that it had in the Mideast. Not even the (in)famous "double flash" reports in 1990 served to push the US to a more open opposition of any nascent South African nuclear weapons program.

The overarching dictates of the Cold War assured that the US would limit its pressure on the much disliked apartheid regime. We needed not only stability in the region but also the direct assistance of the regime in our efforts to keep the sealanes of the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean unimpeded by any Soviet threat. Down until the collapse of the Soviet empires both outer and inner, the cooperation of South Africa was vital to the protection of our national and strategic interests.

The proximity in time between the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Whites Only government serves to underscore not only the importance of American "understanding" but also the vital nature of South Africa to the prosecution of the Cold War. The turning of a Nelsonian eye to the nuclear ambitions of South Africa by Uncle Sam, which would have included any direct Israel-to-South Africa sale of nukes, was both expectable and justifiable in the dynamics of the day.

The release of the documents by the Zuma government is of use and benefit only to those who currently wish Israel ill. Of course, that crowd is both numerous and diverse, ranging as it does from the politically articulate elites of Europe and the US to the many Islamic governments around the world.

The release does, however, harm the efforts by civilized states to deny nuclear weapons to the mullahs of Iran. The harm may prove in the next few weeks to be of a major sort. This reality and its potential implications are what give the release interest.

In the real world where Iran either will or will not acquire nuclear weapons and all that goes with that, the South African government by this action has joined with the uncivilized states. It has linked with those who are either too naive or too ideologically prejudiced to see just what can result from a failure to ban the bomb for Iran.

South Africa's government does not deserve congratulations for its commitment to honesty and transparency. Rather it deserves rigorous condemnation for hurting the cause of preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.

It is regrettable in the extreme that the Guardian among others so despises Israel that is is eager to celebrate a victory for Iran.

Is Uncle Sam Now A Nuclear Wimp?

The Obama administration released the long discussed, long speculated upon Nuclear Posture Review in a blare of public relations speechifying suitable for a political campaign rally. Not only did the president hail his accomplishment in approving a revision of the intentionally ambiguous and thus controversial product of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld years, Secretary of Defense Gates, Secretary of State Clinton, and assorted other heavies broke their collective arms in an orgy of back patting.

Almost before the press releases hit in-boxes around the virtual world, the voices of criticism bayed long and loud. From the Right came the expectable viewing-with-alarm. On the Left heads wagged over one-more-opportunity-missed.

Both Left and Right practiced the fine art of reductionism with exuberance, which assured that each reduced matters to the point of absurdity. The Right was apparently of the view that by not promising the possibility of nuclear retaliation for any attack on the US employing a weapon more deadly than a .18 caliber airgun, Obama has opened us to any number of vile assaults by any number of evil actors. The Left evidently convinced itself that by not renouncing any first use--or perhaps, any use--of nuclear weapons the president has not only abandoned his quest for the unicorn inhabited world-without-nuclear-arms but has left the door to proliferation wide open.

The Earth shaking imaginings of both Left and Right are not borne out by the text of the NPR. A more or less close reading of this document along with its predecessor shows that little of substance has been altered. Arguably those features which constitute a change from the Bush era Review represent a change for the better.

Perhaps more importantly the changes show an understanding of the potency of the latest generation of conventional munitions along with their delivery systems. It also demonstrates a conservative estimate as to the direction and magnitude of projected future improvements in this genera of weapons.

The new NPR also reflects a realistic appreciation of the limits of nuclear utility. It is refreshing to see an explicit recognition that the nuclear arsenal has a very narrowly circumscribed area of efficacy. Other than mutual deterrence among nuclear opponents these very expensive devices and their means of delivery are fundamentally useless.

This is not to say nukes can't kill people and break things in horridly large lots but rather to acknowledge that this quality represents the basis of their uselessness. There is a point where retaliation has effects far worse than those of the initial attack. This point can be marked by a nuclear strike in response to a limited impact attack by, say, chemical or radiological means.

While nuclear munitions have been made in relatively small yields and the delivery systems tweaked greatly in their accuracy, the collateral damage from even a very small, very carefully targeted retaliatory strike would cause such massive deaths and destruction downrange as to cause diplomatic and political consequences of major dimension and nearly infinite duration.

The ruling out of a nuclear usage against a non-nuclear state which was in full compliance with its non-proliferation obligations even if that state launched or facilitated a chemical, radiological, or cybersystem attack is, to use one of George H.W. Bush's favorite words, "prudent." It is equally prudent to give ourselves an exception should the attack be of a biological nature.

BW may be a "weapon of mass destruction" by legal definition but this category of munitions has not yet reached a level of development likely to produce casualties on a scale equivalent to those inflicted by a nuclear weapon. The future of BW is impossible to predict with detailed accuracy, but it is safe to assume the field is open to development, probably rapid development. A declaratory policy which did not explicitly recognize the duty of the US government to evaluate the non-use of nuclear retaliation would be unconscionably vapid.

The new NPR gives the Obama administration at least some of the moral authority it needs coming into the Monster Rally For Non-Proliferation which goes down in a few weeks. In this context it is important to note that the NPR does put an emphasis upon the dangers of proliferation and the necessity for stronger measures to buck up proliferation inhibiting policies and systems as well as better control of all fissionable materials.

When the four dozen or so heads of state or government meet in Washington, the new NPR particularly when linked to the ReSTART with Russia, will position the US well to achieve real agreement on specific, real-world methods to enhance the physical security of nuclear materials and buff up the still too weak systems controlling the movement of dual use technology, particularly to rogue or failing states. The presence of more robust systems monitoring and, when necessary, interdicting the sale of sensitive nuclear related technology a few years ago would have gone a very long way to strangling the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs in the cradle.

These two rogue states have not been given a Get Out Of Jail Free card by the new NPR as has been made abundantly clear by SecDef Gates. While not specifically referenced by Gates, the same applies to India, Pakistan--and Israel. This is a wrinkle of the NPR which deserves close attention as to its implications, particularly as applied to a hypothetical future, Islamist Pakistani government.

No NPR is perfect. This one is most assuredly imperfect in its apparent rejection of any improvement in the aging American nuclear stockpile. Any explicit or implicit renouncing of upgrading nuclear weapons particularly as regards yield, explosive effect focusing, or reliability and security does not serve our national and strategic interests. This is all the more true when both China and Russia are expending significant efforts to improve and modernize their weapons. While the risk of nuclear exchange with either country is and is likely to remain small, the erosion of our capacities which would result necessarily from not seeking improvements in our own serves to weaken the deterrent effect of both our policy and the systems on which it depends.

To answer the question which topped this post: Uncle Sam is not a nuclear wimp--yet. But, any refraining from continued questing for small, more focused, more survivable, more accurate, better secured, enhanced reliability weapons will make sure that the old guy in practice will become just that in a very few years.

Nukes Have Made The World Safe For War

As the new nuclear posture document makes it way to the Oval, there is a bit of historical context which is important in considering the two major options contained in the draft.

First, the options.

One is predicated on the oft-repeated Obama vision of a nuclear free world. It would limit the US nuclear mission to that of deterring nuclear attack upon the US and those countries over which it has extended its "nuclear umbrella"--a group which is likely to grow with the impending Iranian development of a credible nuclear capacity.

The other major alternative contained in the draft sees a larger role for the US nuclear arsenal. It would provide for a declaratory policy which pledges nuclear retaliation for biological or chemical attack on the US, and, perhaps, other nations. It would also continence nuclear usage in certain, select tactical settings such as taking out deep, hardened, high-threat or high-value point targets and thwarting mass ground attacks on US forces. The second option is not far removed from the traditional gamut of nuclear missions.

Either option, but the first in particular, would allow for a continued reduction in American warheads from their current level of five thousand. In the case of the nuclear deterrence only approach the level could drop realistically to less than a thousand. Considering either Russia or China, proponents of what is called "finite deterrence" have held the magic number resides somewhere between five hundred and a thousand (to use the old Soviet formulation) "nuclear charges."

Now the history:

During the Cold War and beyond, the main actors in nuclear diplomacy--including its robust extension, war--have been rational actors. The decision makers in Washington, Moscow, and, even during Mao's sometimes quite nutty reign, Beijing, have shared one overwhelming national interest. None saw national suicide as a viable alternative.

This meant that all, particularly the Americans and the Russians, sought to decouple all international competition from even the most remote possibility of vertical escalation across the nuclear threshold. Remote, proxy, and facilitated insurgencies provided a way to wage policy without great risk of going nuclear.

Not to put too fine a point on the matter, the nuclear balance of terror (or, if you prefer, the doctrine of mutually assured destruction) made the world safe for war. Wars were waged. The wars waged were small, relatively low in body count, and, ultimately, inconclusive in effect on the global balance of power.

And, now, the conclusion.

Considering the two options, the first seems the more justifiable. The continued technical improvement of munitions and their delivery systems renders nugatory many, if not all, the proposed utilities falling under the second option. Precision guided munitions, hyperbaryic explosives, stealth delivery systems, better targeting intelligence all combine to provide a highly flexible, efficient, and diplomatically less fatal way of degrading a threat or retaliating to another's attack.

A significant benefit of adopting the first option would be the strengthening of the American hand in pursuing non-proliferation goals. It would even go a good way in gaining more support from countries such as Brazil and Argentina, which voluntarily renounced their in-process nuclear weapons acquisition programs, regarding such challenges as the ones presented by Iran and North Korea.

Importantly, the maintenance of a finite deterrent would continue to make the world safe for war. There is little probability that China, Russia, the US, the UK, or France would suddenly become suicidal. India is similarly situated. So is Israel, even though the so-called "Samson option" may seem self-destructive.

Only Pakistan cannot be placed categorically in the rational actor club. That is not because the current government has shown a tilt to the irrational, the suicidal. Rather it is due to uncertainty as to whether future governments may be less inclined to keep on the straight and narrow of self-interested self-preservation.

The uncertainties of rationality existing in Pakistan or Iran as well as the necessity of keeping rational actors rational demands the existence of a finite deterrent. Thus the best (or least-worst) choice for Mr Obama is the first option. US declaratory policy must be no-first-use and nuclear-deterrence-only in its basis.

Following such a declaration, the US could move to another round of nuclear force reduction negotiations with Russia. If both, and, ultimately, China, agree in principle to maintaining finite deterrence, the result would be stability. This stability would be enhanced if all three, along with the UK and France adopted a no-first-use and nuclear-deterrence/retaliation-only approach. A major consequence of this sort of understanding would be a clear warning to all other present and future members of the nuclear club what the limits are.

The nuclear-free world is and will remain a chimera for decades, even generations to come. This is acceptable, even praiseworthy given history to date. The greatest irony to come from the boffins of the Manhattan Project and its many descendants around the globe is simply that the development and perfections of weapons of demonstrably limited utility makes the world both more stable and safer for nasty little wars.

Talking With A Criminal State

Unless a person is a member of the North Korean Communist Party cadre, the North Korean Peoples Army (NKPA), or the internal security police, a citizen of the Hermit Kingdom of the North must see the place as the prototypical "failed state." The state and its command economy cannot--or, more accurately, will not--provide the necessities of life. You know, those small things like food, shelter, education, health care which make not only life but mere biological existence possible.

North Korea from an external perspective is not a failed state because it does very well at whatever the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, and his coterie from the military and party decide to do. It is in fact a criminal state. Not only does the state exploit the land and the people for its own advantage, its actions in the international arena are much more those of the criminal than, as Joe Biden and others have alleged, a temper tantrum given two year old with a national anthem.

The WaPo has an interesting article which advertently or otherwise provides a clear indictment of the North Korean regime as a criminal state. Along the way it identifies the usual suspect, China, as the number one accessory.

The linkage between the two countries is firm. It should be as it is based not only on the thin tissue of ideology or the almost as tenuous platform of diplomacy but upon the rock hard foundation of minerals.

North Korea has a lot of valuable minerals for which China has an insatiable need. The NKPA is an efficient miner and seller of these minerals. The value of the merchandise has risen from fifteen million dollars in 2003 to over two hundred megabucks five years later. For the North Korean state and its military, this is a nice piece of change.

And, the value may go much, much higher as the North is estimated to hold total extractable mineral reserves aggregating something on the order of six trillion dollars. Given that the North can effectively dragoon any number of shovel bums into action at the wave of Dear Leader's hand and the simple reality that China's appetite will grow rather than lessen, the probability of greatly increased commerce in the minerals market is very, very high.

The money which flows from the trade like that which comes from the sale of missiles, conventional weapons, and nuclear technology will not accrue to the benefit of North Korea's "toiling masses," (Don't you just love that Communist rhetorical term?) No. It will go to the NKPA and those who rely upon it for power.

Al Capone and the boys of the Chicago Outfit did not pass out food to the poor. Neither did they take the swag and endow hospitals or schools. No. The money which was not wasted on purely personal pleasures was spent on the boys and their necessary toys.

So it is with Dear Leader. Yes, he likes the high life as any number of anecdotes indicate. But far more than simple (and not so simple) pleasures, Dear Leader and the boys at the top want to both stay in power and, if (in)humanly possible, extend its sway.

North Korea talks defense incessantly. The Pyongyang noise machine constantly reiterates a single theme: The Capitalists Are Coming! But, the disposition of their armed forces and the rather impressive firepower it disposes show it is poised for offense.

It is true that much of North Korea's most critical military and security infrastructure is well dug in, hardened. So too are the offensive positions where some seventy percent of the NKPA is stationed within one hundred klicks of the ancient truce line--the Big Z. These fortified positions are not intended as defensive but rather as the secure launching point of an offensive of overwhelming proportions.

The South Korean capital and largest city, Seoul, as well as a very large chunk of the country's industrial base is in easy range of both tube artillery and rockets on the other side of the DMZ. The basic military doctrine of the NKPA is so offensively oriented it makes the US Marine equivalent appear rigidly defensive in comparison.

Again Al Capone and the Chicago Outfit are a decent paradigm. Like Dear Leader, Big Al believed that life was "get or get got" in nature, and the only reasonable way to deal with that reality was "the best defense is a very good offense."

Unlike President Theodore Roosevelt, the Lads in Pyongyang believe in talking loudly while waving a big stick. The waving went on as the North announced it was finished extracting the plutonium from the spent fuel rods of Yongbyong and was proceeding to weaponize the stuff.

At the same time the loud talk continued as the Hermit Kingdom of the North demanded once again that the US enter into bi-lateral talks as a precondition to reviving the moribund Six Power Talks. This attitude is a punch in the diplomatic chops for China whose jefes grandes have been urging Dear Leader et al to come back to the Six Power Table.

The goal of the North is to lever the US into slackening its commitment to South Korea, for it is only that commitment which stiffens the spine of the South against the looming intimidation coming from the big stick of the NKPA. Yes, the South Korean armed forces are impressive both in size and technology, but the capacity resident in the North for an overwhelming and highly destructive barrage gives Seoul much pause for thought.

The disposition of the Northern batteries is such that the first few minutes in an unannounced war would see damage inflicted on the highly developed and densely populated northwest of South Korea which beggars the imagination. Even without the use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, the number of prompt casualties would be in the high six figures.

While the South could strike back and strike back very hard, the costs to the North would be acceptable given the potential gain of sway. The critical facilities and personnel of the North are well protected and Dear Leader and Company don't care what happens to those many, many poor schmucks who are left in the open.

All of this conspires to present the Obama administration with a pretty conundrum. Public support for our ongoing presence in Korea is mild at best. Budget constraints are great and growing greater. The US sees itself (at least at the highest levels of government) as being less and less of a unilateral actor in foreign affairs preferring to rely on the "international community."

Getting "tough" with North Korea would mean getting even more so with its protector, China, and quite possibly Russia as well. To the Obama folks this would be (to steal a word from one of the Geek's favorite TV series, The Prisoner) "unmutual." It would make for hard feelings and nasty words, and, heavens to Betsy, we can't have that, can we?

Once more it is time to invoke that old Chinese toast (and curse), "May you live in interesting times."

And, so we are.

The Rush To Come (Sort Of) Clean By Iran

The Iranian government, after having determined that the jig was up, finally came clean to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding their long suspected second centrifuge facility. Of course, the mullahocracy only spilled the beans because they hoped to benefit from this exercise in preemptive honesty.

Lost in the brouhaha which has surrounded both the Iranian effort at long delayed honesty and the Presidential statement accusing Iran of having suffered a deficiency in candor is the underlying fact that Islam, particularly that of the Shia flavor, is unique among monotheistic faiths by endorsing the practice of lying in order to advance the interests of the belief or protect the believer. More than most states, the semi-theocracy of Iran has a firm justification for lying. And, they act on that justification with both skill and inventiveness.

The Iranians have also shown an unexpected bit of creativity in their request that the US (or presumably some other member of the P5+1) sell them a bit of moderately enriched uranium for their elderly US furnished research reactor. The aging machine has used all the stockpile of twenty percent enriched uranium and needs a refill.

This request presents the Obama administration with a pretty conundrum. Providing the moderately enriched uranium would, of course, violate the current sanction regime--all the more so given the Security Council passage the other day of the tougher add-on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT.) But not providing the stuff justifies the Iranians taking some of their current stockpile of low enriched uranium and spinning it up to the higher concentration--or beyond.

The impasse over the twenty percent solution will give the P5+1 little, if any additional leverage in the upcoming talks with Iran. Whatever additional leverage is provided to the anti-nuclear group comes from the acknowledgement by Iran of its second enrichment plant.

This pleasant fact has already manifested itself with Russia. The long-time diplomatic protector of Iran and its ambitions has been sidling a bit closer to the additional sanction position espoused by the US, Britain, and France. The Kremlin now proclaims itself, in the manner of the French police commander in the movie Casablanca, to be "shocked, shocked," at the revelations.

This development implies that China might sit on its hands and abstain in the Security Council if and when a vote on additional sanctions is taken. An abstention would make Beijing appear to be somewhat on the side of the anti-Iran nuclear forces while not actually requiring it to abide by the sanctions.

The Russian position is that while sanctions don't work, they might be necessary in the present case. This finely nuanced view takes proper account of reality. The present triple whammy of sanctions would have put excruciating pressure on Iran had the countries of the European Union actually enforced them.

Even France, whose president, Nicholas Sarkozy has become famous for lambasting the Iranians and their newly "re-elected" Orator-in-Chief, has viewed sanctions so dimly that the businesses of the country do well over a billion bucks a year in sales to the mullahs and their henchmen. The same is true with Germany--which pronounced itself "disturbed" by the Iranian revelations but is the charter member and biggest profiteer in the "Billion Dollar Club" of those trading with Iran.

It can be argued effortlessly that should the members of the EU cease all investment in Iran, this would place crippling pressure on the regime and its industrial base--including the local version of the "military-industrial complex." However, the hoary Lenin Doctrine--"The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we hang them"--continues to apply without exception.

Beyond even the barest hint of a shadow of doubt, the Iranians will continue their so far successful approach of very limited concessions, endless palaver, and boasts of "cutting off the hands of any who would attack," while the centrifuges spin first to five percent and then, who knows, to twenty percent and far beyond. Absent truly crushing sanctions including the total cessation of investment and trade by the West, there will be no realistic probability of diplomatic engagement bearing useful results.

The pervasive fear in the Obama administration--and elsewhere in the West--is that actual, painful, long-term sanctions will rally the Iranian people behind the mullahs and their "democratically" elected stooges. There is a real ground historically for this fear.

This fear has been attenuated at least somewhat by the continuing internal dissent ignited by the blatantly hijacked presidential election. The pain of genuine sanctions, perhaps even including foodstuffs (from which the US benefited last year to the tune of more than eight hundred million dollars) would have just as much likelihood of strengthening the dissidents as solidifying the public behind Ahmedinejad and Khamenei. It is a fact that nuclear weapons are not edible--nor do they serve as motor vehicle fuel, and national pride does not compensate for the lack of jobs.

Iran has given the rest of the world--or at least that part which agrees with President Obama's statement that "a nuclear armed Iran is unacceptable"--very little in the option department. The imposition of an end of the year deadline means that the time when push comes to shove is very, very close. This means that the US, France, Britain, and other nations must reach a consensus soon on the choice between what would amount to a full blockade of Iran and what is euphemistically termed "the military option."

Of course, recent history shows that resorting to the former does not obviate the latter. The US imposed the financial equivalent of a physical blockade of Imperial Japan in the early Fall of 1941. Roughly three months later the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor.

No one in the US sought war with Japan on that long ago day. It came uninvited but clearly foreseeably as a direct result of the choice our sanctions placed before the Imperial Japanese government--a humiliating capitulation to American policy demands or war with a superior power. The Japanese hoped that the US was so preoccupied with affairs in Europe that it would accept an accomplished feat in the Pacific. They were wrong.

Really tough sanctions, the equivalent of a physical blockade, would provide Tehran with the same set of choices. Quite possibly the mullahs and their frontmen would conclude that the US and others were so preoccupied with affairs in the Mideast, Afghanistan, and in the recovery from the Great Recession that even relatively minor responses to the "blockade" such as a cranking up of the assorted terror specialists would preclude a genuine military effort by the US and others.

Sometimes a appeal to the gods of war is preferable to the appearance and consequences of a humiliating surrender to the dictates of outsiders.

Maybe this is the foreign policy challenge, Joe Biden warned us about.

Real Nice--If They Can Be Trusted

On the surface it appears as if the Obama administration has achieved a pair of diplomatic successes. The first is the response made by the Kremlin leadership to Obama's "brave move" (to quote Vladimir Putin) in cancelling the land-based ABM system in Central Europe planned by the Bush/Cheney team. The second is the new receptivity on the part of Kim Jong-il to multilateral efforts to end the Hermit Kingdom of the North's nuclear weapons program.

The Dear Leader has indicated that North Korea will re-enter the Six Power Talks following a chat with Wen Jiabao, the Chinese PM, who also delivered a personal letter from the Chinese president, Hu Jintao. The new Chinese demarche is critical as only the Peoples Republic can put credible pressure on the Hermit Kingdom of the North.

Ever since 6 October 1949 when the Peoples Republic extended diplomatic and fraternal relations to North Korea, it has been the primary supporter of the Hermit Kingdom. Without Chinese assistance the North Korean state would have ceased to exist back in the Fall of 1950. Subsequently, the Chinese have assured that the North Koreans have been fed, given military and economic development aid, and generally been protected against the worst effects of their rambunctious behavior.

When the Hermit Kingdom detonated its second nuclear test shot, it went over the line as far as Beijing was concerned. The Chinese government is (perhaps unrealistically) concerned that a nuclear armed North Korea would trigger an arms race in the region. There is little doubt that both South Korea and Japan could produce nuclear weapons in very short order, and this is an eventuality which Beijing wants to avoid at almost any cost.

At the same time Beijing has been concerned that pushing the Hermits too hard or too fast would result in a destabilization of the country. Any fracturing of the regime in Pyongyang would result in a flood of refugees across the Yalu and Tuman rivers. A flow of refugees would have an echo effect on the stability in northeast China, which has already experienced internal unrest as the aging rust belt industries of the area have been closed.

Apparently, Beijing has concluded that Kim Jong-il is in sufficient command of the situation and further that the succession "crisis" has been averted or sufficiently postponed that it can now put the screws to Dear Leader. As a result, the Chinese leadership has taken advantage of the sixtieth anniversary of the diplomatic relations and fraternal friendship to "suggest" that Pyongyang should return to the Six Power Talks.

If the Hermits follow through on the initial indications and come back to the multi-lateral talks, not only will this be a complete reversal of previous policy, but, more importantly from the perspective of Beijing, it will be a major diplomatic coup for their team. China has more to gain from bringing the long running in fits and starts Six Power talks to a successful conclusion than merely the avoidance of a nuclear arms race in their backyard.

In case no one has noticed, China is in the midst of a major multi-year effort to become a significant international actor not only in economic affairs but in global politics. The Six Power talks have been a prime component of this campaign, so the ultimate success of the talks is a matter of global importance to Beijing. If the talks resume and come to a conclusion agreeable to the US, then China will have established itself as the ultimate regional power and have a good shot at rivaling the US and eclipsing Russia globally.

With a goal of this magnitude in play, the Beijing government has decided it is worth the slight risk of the Hermit Kingdom being either intransigent or tottering toward the abyss of internal rupture. At the very least, the resumption of the Six Power Talks will place the US and the (new) Japanese government in Beijing's debt.

More, a successful resolution of the North Korean nuclear question will make Beijing's light of leadership all the more attractive to the (new) Japanese government in its quest to chart a course more independent of the US. The same light will beckon to the South Koreans, giving their present and future governments an alternative to the US.

While not constituting a shift in the seismic plates of Pacific Rim relations, the Chinese role in a (still hypothetical of course) success in the Six Power Talks will add leverage to the goal of Beijing of reabsorbing Taiwan into the homeland. As the center of diplomatic gravity shifts closer to Beijing and further from Washington, the opposition to the reclamation of Taiwan is automatically attenuated--significantly.

A Chinese guided success in the Six Power Talks will also put Washington somewhat in Beijing's debt with ramifications of importance to other looming problems. Like Iran. The success of the Six Power Talks--or merely their resumption--will assure that Beijing has a greater freedom of action with respect to Iran. That it can ignore calls for enhanced sanctions with impunity--an even greater impunity than currently exists.

The Obama administration and its State Department would be well advised to view the new Chinese efforts with a careful eye--even a jaundiced one. The Boys In Beijing are not running a global eleemosynary institution. Beijing is pursuing self-defined national and strategic interests with a view to enhancing its global authority while necessarily reducing that of the US.

The same degree of skepticism should be employed by the Deep Thinkers of the Obama crew with respect to the impact of the scuttling of the land-based Central European ABM system. To no great surprise the move has been hailed in Moscow. Not only has PM Putin greeted it as a "brave move;" Dmitry Medvedev has promised that American concerns will be listened to "more closely."

WOW! How shocking! So what?

At the same time the Obama reversal has lowered the credibility of the US as the ultimate guarantor of national self-determination and independence of countries uncomfortably close to the Russian frontier. In the estimate of realpolickers in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungry, the Ukraine, Georgia and the Baltic States, the center of diplomatic gravity shifted overnight from the far reaches of the Atlantic Ocean to the walls of the Kremlin. The apparent capitulation of the Obama administration to long standing Russian demands hints (or more) at a lack of political will in Washington and a willingness to sacrifice the countries of Central Europe to the political and historical paranoia of the Russians.

Regardless of the intrinsic merits of the Obama administration's decision (and there are many including a rejection of the insultingly high-handed way in which the Bush/Cheney bunch rammed the ABM policy down the Kremlin's throat), the action was taken without any immediately evident quid pro quo. The absence of a "quo" from Moscow in return for the Obama "quid" in and of itself gives the appearance of surrender, of weakening political will, of a withdrawal from Central Europe.

Quid pro quo is the basic reserve currency of diplomacy. Mood music and honeyed words from Putin, Medvedev, and Company do not constitute a quid pro quo. Perhaps one will be forthcoming. Perhaps Moscow will reverse its course and join in the (proposed) next round of sanctions against Iran following the failure of the upcoming talks in Turkey. Perhaps whales will sprout wings and fly.

The Russians were the first to jump in bed with Ahmedinejad. They have consistently opposed sanctions as an unworkable approach--and continued to do so immediately after the Obama concession on the ABM matter. Moscow wants increased rights in the Caspian. It believes that the road to peace in the North Caucasus runs through Tehran. And, Iran is a good customer for Russia's major industrial exports--arms and nuclear reactors.

In short, what would Russia gain--and lose--if it were to listen more "closely" to US "concerns" regarding Iran? The quick answer is it would gain nothing and lose much.

The Obama administration gave a tasty morsel to the Russian Bear with the cancelling of the ABM project. Now the Bear is smiling. Who wouldn't after a free lunch?

"Engagement" Or Sanctions? The No Choice Choice

The European Union is finally ready to back stronger sanctions against Iran. Presented by a choice between more, tougher sanctions and the "military option," the EU is all for sanctions.

Wow! What a shock! Also why bother?

The nature of diplomacy is simple. The goal of all diplomacy is to gain advantage for a country and its national interests as subjectively defined. Like all political operations diplomacy is a search for power, its maintenance, expansion, or, at the very least, protection. The practice of diplomacy comes in two forms: The use of coinciding national interests as a base for furthering mutual self-interest or the employment of coercion.

Most of the time diplomacy proceeds by the embellishment and expansion of mutual self-interest. Even bitter rivals such as the US and the Soviet Union could find and expand upon mutual self-interest. During the most frigid periods of the Cold War both governments shared the self-interest of survival, so conflicts were tacitly limited well below the nuclear threshold. From that minimum basis engagement, seeking an expansion of mutual interest was often profitable--even if getting there was frustrating to say the least.

Coercion has often been counterproductive. An excellent example of this nasty reality is found in the record of US-Cuban relations particularly during the immediate aftermath of the Castroite takeover. For a series of reasons which no doubt seemed rational at the time, the US embarked on a series of escalating coercive measures.

The result was Cuba ran to the Russian Bear. Another consequence was the ability of the Castro regime to use the US hostility as an excuse for every economic failure which afflicted the nation. Still another easily foreseen outcome was the Castroite exportation of its ideology to other parts of Latin America. The list could go on almost without end. Suffice to say that the American efforts at coercing Castro into compliance with our policy demands led to such critical events as the Bay of Pigs and, far more importantly, the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Further back in our history, coercive diplomacy directed against Imperial Japan resulted in a rather important consequence: Pearl Harbor and the war in the Pacific. Coercion, even the relatively mild sort of economic sanctions, can lead to foreseeable and unfortunate results such as World War II.

On many other occasions coercion has simply been ineffective. Cast your memory back to the use of the US military as the globe's largest SWAT force in Operation Just Cause. The run up to that adventure in regime change was marked by escalating economic sanctions. The H.W. Bush administration was certain that economic pressure would have to work given that Panama used the Yankee dollar as its circulating medium. It didn't. The only alternative to a humiliating admission of failure was the "military option."

This brings us to Iran.

Non-coercive diplomatic engagement depends upon the pre-existence of coinciding national interests. Without some matrix of prior mutual national interests there is little, if any, cause to believe that engagement will have a positive result.

To put it bluntly: There is no coinciding national interest between the US and Iran. This is not the case with regard to many of the EU countries. Germany, France and Italy all have substantial trade interests with Iran. But, the trade is arguably more important to the entrepreneurs of these countries than it is to Iran.

The Iranians, particularly that state within a state, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, have shown both creativity and persistence in evading the impact of the sanctions already in place. Further sanctions would bring more creativity and more persistence in its wake. Given the willingness of China and Russia to turn the Nelsonian Eye on the sanctions as well as the new avenue opened by the close relationship between Iran and Venezuela, there is no doubt that Iran will not be fatally injured by any conceivable set of additional sanctions.

Absent a base of coinciding national interests and given a relative immunity to economic pressures, there is little reason to conclude that either engagement or another round of sanctions will produce any movement on the key issue of Iran's nuclear program. That is a critical predicate.

A second critical predicate that reinforces the first is the power of nationalism in the Iranian collective mind. In so far as the regime can place responsibility for internal pain on the external actors led by the mullahs' two main enemies--the US and Israel--it plays to nationalism and thus furthers regime consolidation and support. As the historical record shows clearly (again think Cuba), external pressure is the best friend a government can have.

Remember the key rule of international politics including war--pressure consolidates long before it fragments.

Admittedly, the Obama administration must go through the motions of seeking to resolve the challenge presented by the Iranian nuclear program through the mechanisms of engagement and non-violent coercion. The administration--and the rest of us--should have no expectations of success emerging from this process. Anything else is pure delusion.

This implies that there are only two options available in the real world. One is accepting the Iranian nuclear capacity. The other is war. (Let's call it what it is.)

To say the least, neither option is palatable. Accepting Iran as a de facto nuclear power implies that non-proliferation is a dead duck. If Iran can get the bomb--or at a minimum--a breakout capacity, why not other countries? It is necessary to consider a world in which Burma, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and a host of other countries with ambitions and fears have the ability to plant radioactive mushrooms.

Not pleasant is it?

(Of course, it is always possible to entertain delusions of a nuclear weapons free world, but the more countries that have the Big Bomb the more will think they must have one too simply for survival if no other reason.)

Air and missile strikes carried out on the Iranian nuclear complex as well as necessary associated targets ranging from air defense installations to government facilities could, probably would, halt the nuclear program for at least some years. However, the cost could outweigh the benefits. Since it is never possible to calculate the cost-benefit ratio until long after the war has ended, the prudent government must base its pre-war appraisal on the worst realistic case.

Anyway the question is examined, the costs of a strike or strikes against Iran are greater than the benefits. While the US (or in high probability the Israelis) have the physical capacity to abate the Iranian nuclear nuisance, the metaphorical fallout would be quite significant.

If there is no base for engagement from the existence of coinciding national interest and no real potential for coercive diplomacy (including the war option) having a good outcome, where does that leave the US and the rest of the world?

Well, if one is of the High Minded persuasion, that is if one really, really believes that we exist in a post-nationalist world, it is possible to dream of a UN sponsored removal of nuclear weapons from the globe. Outside of academic and similar elite circles in the US and Western Europe, the notion of a post-nationalistic international political dynamic is without traction, or even the least appeal.

The alternative is to accept the existence of a nuclear armed Iran and all that implies. Regional political dynamics will be altered--profoundly. The potential of nuclear proliferation will be augmented, perhaps exponentially.

If the reality of a nuclear capable Iran is accepted, the time has come to contemplate how the US can conduct its international relations in order to minimize the damage to its national and strategic interests. The time has come to look for ways in which the US can employ the new reality to its advantage--difficult or even impossible as that may seem.

Certainly, the US and the other parties of the P5+1 must go through the motions. They must do the diplomatic yada-yada which will ensue in Turkey and elsewhere. If the expectations are low enough, it might be a useful exercise--at least as far as clearing the decks is concerned.

But, there can be no doubt that as the palaver spins so do the centrifuges. Iran will not be deterred nor diverted this late in the game. Whether any nation likes it or not, Iran will join the nuclear club shortly.

The conclusion?

Simple, but unpleasant. The real foreign policy challenge for President Obama and Company is crafting a way to exploit to our advantage the altered balance in the region--and the world. This will require a degree of thought and realpolitik orientation not seen since George Kennan, Dean Acheson, and Harry Truman developed and implemented the ultimately successful Doctrine of Containment over a half century ago.

Can the current administration match the brain power and realism demonstrated by these long dead giants? That is the key question.

The Geek has his doubts. Lots of them.

President Obama's Looming Losing Streak

No doubt about it. Being president has to be a lot more fun when your winning than when the losses mount. Now, the Geek isn't talking health care here. No, he is simply taking a look at what is happening in the soon-to-come loss column for foreign policy.

More specifically, the Geek is considering Afghanistan and Iran.

The Iranians have made it abundantly clear that the open-handed approach of the Nice Young Man From Chicago is a non-starter. The mullahs and their frontmen have brought forth their latest proposal for Making The World A Better Place. The Iranians have presented the West with a collection of soft, warm fuzzies dealing with high-minded and lofty sounding banalities. The Geek would love to quote them at length, but given the demonstrable Iranian record in sponsoring terrorism, bloody suppression of internal dissent, and rabid pursuit of strategic weapons, to do so would force him to engage in projectile vomit.

A proper comparison would be that of Stalin's government issuing a call for world reconciliation right after the NKVD had imposed collectivization on the peasants of the Ukraine or Hitler's regime calling for world peace on 3 September 1939. Suffice it to note that the Iranian five page proposal for nuclear disarmament, "Palestinian" rights, and expanding the UN Security Council are in that league when it comes to base hypocrisy and utter cynicism.

No sooner had the Iranian exercise in ignoring the issue at hand--the mullahs' pursuit of nuclear weapons--hit the desks of the Security Council permanent members foreign ministries than the Russian ForMin, Sergey Lavrov, opined that there was no need for further sanctions, let alone the use of force, as the Iranian proposal gave much reason for hope and grounds for discussion.

Lavrov helpfully pointed out that Iran and Russia were "partners" and that Iran had never done Russia any harm. The two states are partners in that Russia has not only sold arms--and a heavy water reactor suitable for producing plutonium--to the mullahs but has run diplomatic interference for them in every conceivable international forum. While the Chinese have been silent to date, there is no doubt but that Beijing will follow Moscow this time as it done previously.

In a move that is not surprising, the US State Department immediately branded the Iranian letter as being "not really responsive." You have to love diplomatic speech. "Not really responsive" is a lot nicer than simply dismissing the five pages of softly sentimental claptrap as a "mess of caca."

Of course the Russians are hoping for a little bit of the old quid pro quo from Tehran. The nature of the exchange desired by the Kremlin was buried in ForMin Lavrov's statement. He noted with pleasure that Iran was interested in "what positive role it could play in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the region." By "region" Mr Lavrov was thinking of some places far closer to the hearts of the Russian leadership than Iraq or Afghanistan. Places which fall under the general rubric of North Caucasus. The Kremlin hopes without any basis in fact that Tehran can exercise some moderating influence on the Islamist jihadist leaning nationalist insurgents in Chechnya and surrounding territories.

The mere reality that the Iranians have no more influence upon the insurgents of the North Caucasus than Obama has on Tehran is no reason for the Russians not to hope to the contrary. Hope is a lot easier to hold than effective operational dominance oriented counterinsurgency is to develop.

Of course the combination of the Iranian demarche and the Russian response does kick the can back to the Americans. President Obama set what seemed to be a deadline for a constructive and realistic stance by the Iranians as occurring some time this month. Depending upon the interpretation the deadline can be either the opening of the UN General Assembly or the meeting of the G-20 in Pittsburgh. Both are coming down the pike in the next couple of weeks. And, no matter how one parses the Iranian letter, it is neither constructive nor realistic.

Israel is getting nervous. Reports out of the country indicate some real fear that Obama is going to move the goalposts further down field. Say until the end of December. Or, even more alarming, that President Obama will concede that the Iranians can continue enriching uranium as long as they promise, really, really promise that they will not make a bomb out of the stuff. This sort of policy shift would allow the president to claim that he had not backed down, that he was not acceding to an Iranian bomb, but was acknowledging the country's right to possess peaceful nuclear technology.

Of course, such a distinction does not constitute a meaningful difference--regardless of international inspections or mullah promises. Once enough low enriched uranium is on hand, the time and effort needed to upgrade the stuff to weapons grade is marginal. And, there is little if any doubt that Iran now has sufficient low enriched uranium on hand for the rapid production of anywhere between one and three weapons of modest yield.

Worse, give sufficient time (say somewhere between three and six months), the Iranians would not only be able to distribute their low enrichment stockpile to several hardened sites but also divert centrifuge production to the making of high enriched uranium. Time is on their side. Period.

The rubber will hit the road for the Israelis before the Spring Equinox. Assuming no improvement to the Iranian air defense capacity, the Israeli Air Force with some assistance from the navy can hit successfully the majority of the critical, identified Iranian nuclear facilities. But, the time frame available for this is limited--quite limited. To have a good chance at success, the attack(s) will have to take place during the next 120 to 180 days.

This means that the rubber will hit the road for the Obama administration as well. While it is in keeping with Israeli history for them not to seek American permission before launching an attack as in the case with the Iraqi nuclear reactor nearly thirty years ago, it is not likely that this would be the case with an attack on Iran. The stakes for both Israel and the US (to say nothing of the rest of the world) are simply too high for a launch-now-tell-later approach.

The same time frame applies for the situation in Afghanistan. To accomplish the goal stated by President Obama last month--the defeat of al-Qaeda (and by implication, Taliban)--will need more American trigger pullers. Not trainers and advisors. Not rear echelon wallahs. Trigger pullers. Men who kill up close and personal. Men who take risks. Men who die.

At a minimum the US must put another twenty thousand right index fingers on an equal number of triggers. Obama's fellow "progressives" are against this idea. Senator Reid is against the notion. So is Speaker Pelosi. So is an increasing number of We the People.

All of this implies that President Obama will have to demonstrate an amount of intellectual and moral courage which he so far seems to lack. He has to be what he pronounced on the campaign trail that he did not want to be--a wartime president. He has to show leadership, real, honest to gosh leadership. Not the milksop sort he has been addicted to over the past year and more, a pose of nice words, lofty phrases, fine sentiments.

President Obama has to convince the American people--and more importantly his soulmates within the Democratic Party's "progressive" element that the US effort in Afghanistan is not only a task of world historical importance, but that our goal of obliterating the Islamist jihadist entities there is achievable. The president must articulate what is at stake in that hell hole of mountains and deserts, Islamism and tribal loyalites.

What is at stake is not the building of a modern nation-state in Afghanistan. That is both irrelevant and potentially counterproductive. The stake is far more important and far closer to home. On this eighth anniversary of the most deadly attack ever delivered to the continental United States by a foreign enemy, it is critical to remember that Islamist jihadism can only be countered, defeated, removed as an ever looming threat by the obliteration of the Islamist jihadists in Afghanistan and along the Pakistani border. And, by so doing, provide an object lesson to all future governments everywhere what the consequences of harboring a hostile group will be.

Only by the infliction of condign and salutary punishment on al-Qaeda and Taliban can future Islamist jihadist groups and governments which sponsor, support, or offer "Islamic hospitality" to these bad actors be deterred. Only by this exercise in punitive military operations can future American national security be protected.

This is what is at stake in Afghanistan. Not the Karzai government. Not "full and fair elections." Not women's rights. Not the notion of creating a Western style bureaucratic state with all the paraphernalia of post-modern statehood. None of these.

President Obama must make it clear to all of We the People--and members of his own party in particular--that it is future American lives and national security which is being fought for by the trigger pullers on the ground. He must do what Bush and Cheney never did--make the goal clear, the cost honestly appraised, and the consequences of failure apparent to even the most ideologically blinded "progressive."

Unlike the war in Vietnam, the American war in Afghanistan is one we cannot afford to lose. The consequences would be too great, too long lasting for us to shrug off defeat along with the lives of those Americans killed in Afghanistan.

Death is a terrible price to pay. But, a much, much worse price would be a future lived in fear. A future filled with terror both actual and potential. The only way to have the chance to prevent future 9/11's is to fight it out now in Afghanistan. Fight and win.

Obama faces two possible defeats in the next few months. If he is defeated by either the mullahs or the Islamist jihadists, his loss will be shared not only by all of us alive today, but by those Americans yet to be born.

Sometimes being president just isn't any fun. And, it will get even less fun before the first flowers of spring pop thorough the snow next Spring.

Really, Really Stupid Policy Choices Of The Day

Some days you gotta wonder just how it is that humanity is still around rather than having expired from a surfeit of bad thinking, short-sighted blundering in its collective version of inter-personal relations AKA foreign policy. This is one of those days when flat-out silliness seems to be ruling not only in Washington but around the world. A few items which demonstrate this contention follow.

As usual the US, or, more properly, the Obama administration leads off. The issue this time is the ongoing imbroglio over the non-coup "military coup" in Honduras. Not only does the Deep Thinking Brain Trust In Charge Of Foreign Policy not yet get the fact that the removal of Manuel (Lefty) Zelaya was mandated by the Honduran Supreme Court and merely executed by the military but that the majority of the country's institutions support the continued ouster of the wannabe President For Life.

Another basic reality of human affairs which eludes the Deep Thinkers is that pressure consolidates long before it fractures political will. The addition of yet more pressure, in this case the restriction of visa services, will further the will and ability of the de facto government and its supporters to hang tough. The people in charge of such matters as this might be aggrieved that the Organisation of American States delegation was unable to achieve an acceptance of the compromise plan brokered by Oscar Arias, but they have neither asked why this is the case nor considered the impact of their attempt at applying more pressure.

Quite possibly had Sr Zelayas refrained from some of his more belligerent rhetoric and bellicose demands during his sojourn in the friendly and fraternal land of the Ortega regime, the de facto government would have gone along with the idea of letting Zelaya back in to fill the last few months of his term--provided he didn't seek some new electoral ploy. But, Zelaya and his supporters, headed by Hugo (Mouth of the South) Chavez couldn't be bothered by taking a time out from berating not only the "Great Military Coup and Death Of Democracy As We Knew It in Honduras but also the supposed sponsorship of the coup by the US. (Of course, they also sought with success the diplomatic support of the US while lambasting the Yankees.)

Now, bucko, all policy choices cause reactions. The reactions are, in the terms of mathematics, emergent systems. That means there is no linear relationship between the magnitude of the input--the decision--and the output--the reaction on the part of the target government, state, or people. History shows rather conclusively that policy choices which are meant to coerce, to force the target to bend to our policy, will cause a greater, much greater firmness on the part of the target to resist. The direction of the target's response--resistance--can be predicted correctly but, and it's a big but, the magnitude cannot. It is often disproportionate to the input stimulus.

So, pace, all you Brilliant Minds in Foggy Bottom and littering the White House landscape, your most recent essay in coercive diplomacy is not likely to pay off. It is, however, not unlikely that it will result in both short and longer term resistance and hostility from Honduras. And, guess what, guys and gals, it won't buy you any warm fuzzies with Hugo, Daniel, and Raul. Not even with Ewo and Rafael for that matter.

In second place--no--strike that--in a tie for first place in policy debacles du jour comes Russia. In a move which seems almost carefully crafted to assure that the Islamist jihadist plus nationalist insurgency in the North Caucasus continues, Vladimir Putin has gone on down to warmly embrace (at least metaphorically) the Kremlin appointed regional strongman, a man capable of creating a desert and calling it peace but failing to quell insurgency, named Ramzan Kadyrov.

Kadyrov is both corrupt and inefficiently repressive. The latter characteristic is the more important. Under his sway a simulacrum of peace emerged in Chechnya. The insurgency was not defeated despite Putin's claims to the opposite. It went underground. Became stronger. Took on far more of an Islamist jihadist tinge. And, came back. First in Ingushtia and then in Chechnya.

The insurgents are back, bigger, badder and better than ever. It will be far harder to defeat them now then it was during the desperately mis-handled First and Second Chechnya Wars. The Third Chechnya War started even before the bodies of the Second had been counted--but no one was willing or able to realize this unpleasant, brutal reality.

There is a way which has the potential to defeat the insurgents. The Geek even took the time to outline it. The historically derived way to win definitely did not have a role for people such as Ramzan Kadyrov, who, by the way, has already been repeatedly and severely castigated in elements of the Russian media for his repeated boorish acts which rival those of previous Soviet era failures.

The decision to continue more of the same old same old is another example of the tenacity and universality of decisions resulting in emergent systems. Again the direction of the response by the insurgents and uncommitted majority in the North Caucasus can be predicted--resistance--but the magnitude cannot be accurately estimated other than to say more, a lot more, blood will flow without positive, long-lasting result.

Vladimir Putin has demonstrated that he is sufficiently ideologically blinded and short-sighted to get a job in the current US administration or State Department should he find himself unemployed back at home. No greater insult is possible in the Geek's estimate.

In distant third place in the derby of asininity in foreign policy comes the Nonaligned Movement. Reportedly one hundred of the one hundred eighteen members of the NAM have signed on to The Protect Iran's Nuke Plants From Israel (and the US.) Over the years the NAM has been a source of much amusement given their collective propensity for loud sounds, posturing, and generally overly boisterous behavior at the UN and other global fora.

Does this unwieldy congeries of nations ranging from the important to the utterly inconsequential really, really believe that by running the Iranian proposal through the UN to protect Iran's nuke facilities from attack would be worth the paper it is written on? Even if the nuclear powers of the Security Council would be willing to restrict their nuclear counter-force targeting to be restricted by the UN in principle, in practice it would be ignored utterly.

The same is true for other countries including NAM leader India which would hit Pakistan's nuclear plants in a New York second if there was good (read "existential") reason. Why should Israel be any more constrained by the Iranian proposal should it be passed by the UN?

The subtext of the NAM support for Iran is that the member states harbor a number of unrealized (and perhaps, unrealizable) nuclear dreams of their own. And, many face regional rivals with which relations are less than peace, love, and flower-power.

The subtext of the support also bespeaks of animus toward the US and its presumed desire and need to constrict access to nuclear power in all its forms. The American policy toward the spread of both military and peaceful uses of the uranium atom has been mixed. Uncle Sam has shown a real ability to turn the Nelsonian eye on nuclear developments in some countries but not others.

This admitted and (perhaps) regrettable inconsistency has given rise to a degree of paranoia on the part of some members of NAM, but this is scarcely justification for siding with a dangerous, destabilizing, and relentlessly hegemonic power such as Iran. Perhaps these countries have swallowed the preposterous Iranian line that it simply wants electrical power. In that case, the words of Nicholas Sarkozy are relevant. "Frankly, who can believe them?"

Iran is not some poor little hounded victim of Israeli and American persecution. The member states of NAM have to get a grip on this. Otherwise they are condemning NAM to even more irrelevance in the international game. Numbers aren't everything--even at the UN, and the NAM has to understand that as well.

To be sure there are other examples of human idiocy in the foreign affairs arena today. But, three are enough. The Geek is getting old. His stomach churns too easily at sheer unadultrated stupidity these days.