Noted

by Charles Knight

In his New York Times essay of 02 January 2023, “Putin Has No Red Lines,” Nigel Gould-Davies calls the use of the figure of speech “Red Lines” a “lazy metaphor.” He then counters by saying, “Strategy needs rigorous thought.”

Unfortunately, he skips the rigor of discussing the crucial difference between publicly declared ‘red lines’ and those ‘privately’ delivered to other national leaders by a President or by way of ambassadors.

Gould-Davies probably winced, as I remember doing when Barack Obama spoke his ‘red line’ warning concerning Assad’s possible use of chemical weaponry in Syria. The President should have refrained from a public posture and sent that message through diplomatic channels.

By going public, Barack Obama set himself up to pay a domestic and international political price when later he appeared to avoid carrying through with the response he had promised in his public declaration.

Diplomats do not need to use the imprecise language of ‘red lines’ when pointing out that “if you do X, there will be grave consequences.” And they can get quite specific if they need to drive home the message.

Nigel Gould-Davies advocates for rigorous strategic thought. Again, he fails this standard when he discusses the dangers of escalation in Ukraine.  He discusses the matter as though it is an ordinary case of diplomatic bargaining.  It is not.

A wrong step in this war will kill millions, perhaps billions, worldwide.  He suggests that the essential care required in this fraught situation is the equivalent of a “bargaining concession.”   Care and restraint in a war in Europe are not concessions, especially regarding the risks of nuclear war.  They are an essential aspect of the support the U.S. is providing Ukraine.

A lazy metaphor frequently used about this war is the one about ‘calling bluffs’ as in a Poker game. Once in a while, Poker games end with the death of a player but never lead to the mass deaths of a nuclear war.

Calling bluffs on nuclear escalation is extremely hazardous moral ground. 

There can be no justification for anyone calling a nuclear bluff and inadvertently setting the war in Ukraine on an escalator to a global nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia. It will not matter in the least who is to blame if the result is nuclear war.

Avoiding the escalator to nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia requires the U.S. to practice disciplined self-restraint.

Most importantly, The U.S. must not take the risk of uniformed U.S. soldiers fighting Russian soldiers in Ukraine. This is a critical “bottom line,” if not a red line, for U.S. policy.

Luckily, President Biden understands this. Perhaps this is because he is old enough to remember the unwritten rules of the Cold War, a time when the Soviets and the U.S. sought to avoid direct warfare, even in places far from their respective borders. They did this because they had a realistic appreciation of the existential danger of escalation of conventional war, especially in Europe, to the uncontrollable use of nuclear weapons.

The present war in Ukraine is on Russia’s border! That fundamental fact of geography must give all supporters of Ukraine pause. Geography and the large arsenals of nuclear weapons that Russia and the U.S. possess make this war extraordinarily dangerous for the world.

~~

Of related interest:

“Putin is not bluffing with his nuclear threats; What do President Biden and his national security team know that makes them take Russian President Putin’s nuclear threat so seriously? Seven inconvenient facts,” by Graham Allison, Boston Globe, October 3, 2022

“We are On a Path to Nuclear War,” by Jeremy Shapiro, War on the Rocks, October 12, 2022

“The ‘Stable Nuclear Deterrent’ collapses in the Ukraine War,” by Charles Knight, October 17, 2022

“World War III Begins With Forgetting,” by Stephen Wertheim, New York Times, 03 December 2022

 

An excerpt from “NATO Expansion: Costs and Implications” a presentation by Carl Conetta, Project on Defense Alternatives, to the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility, July 23, 1998.

Also affecting the American decision to press for expansion were developments in Russia during and after 1993: the attempted “second coup” and assault on parliament, the electoral victories by Communists and nationalists, the war in Chechnya, and US-Russian disputes over Bosnia. These left few American officials confident that Russia would evolve into a truly reliable and stable ally — at least, not on its own. And if one thread has linked both the Bush and Clinton policies toward Russia it has been the decision to leave Russia “on its own,” twisting in the wind. Both administrations voiced high hopes for post-Communist Russia, while doing very little materially to aid Russian stability and democratic transition.

Nonetheless, the Clinton team did not conceive and pursue NATO expansion as an anti-Russian maneuver. It was not fear of Russia’s potential strength that gripped them, but recognition of Russia’s current weakness. Put simply: The Clinton administration knew that there was little Russia could do about expansion. Yes, that condition may change — given 15 or 20 years — but by then, the Administration hopes, Russia will have accepted the new strategic landscape. And if it has not, and a new cold war ensues, at least the West will be in a much better position strategically than it was during the first go around.

For other pro-expansion advocates, represented by the Republican leadership in Congress, anti-Russian sentiments are central. In this there may be an element of “settling scores” and also the notion, espoused by Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, that Russia is somehow culturally programmed for expansion. At any rate, this part of the policy bloc tends to favor accelerating NATO outreach to the Baltic states and possibly the Ukraine. But they will not pay even lip-service to the idea of eventually including Russia too.

One sentiment shared across the spectrum of expansion advocates is that Russia has no legitimate reason to be concerned about NATO expansion. Strobe Talbot, who should know better, says Russian opposition to NATO “will only intensify the darkest suspicions about Russia’s intentions and future.” Senate Republican leader Trent Lott echoes these sentiments: “Whether Russia is ready to accept an enlarged NATO will be an important sign of Russia’s departure from its imperial past.” For them, Russian opposition to NATO is itself an argument for expansion. From this perspective there are no legitimate Russian concerns.

This remarkable assertion asks us to set aside all that history teaches about the behavior of states and the workings of power. We might begin to understand Russia’s concerns by asking “What is NATO?” Edward Luttwak, an American strategic analyst, answers that “NATO is not a security-talking shop but a veritable military force…temporarily at peace.” NATO offers its members participation in not only an alliance but a unified military command whose primary mission is to prepare for war on a continental scale. Even today, after significant reductions, NATO’s members together boast military power several times as great as that demonstrated (but underutilized) in the Gulf War.

It is the stock in trade of military professionals to look first at strategic capabilities and trends, rather than declarations of intent. So it should not surprise anyone that the creep of a great and exclusive military organization toward Russia’s borders is of concern to the Russian military. It would also seem unavoidable that any Russian politician hoping to keep his or her position would express concern. This concern need not focus principally on the unlikely prospect that NATO might someday take an aggressive turn. More to the point is the effect military power has on politics every day. Nations routinely have differences of interest and perspective. The settlement of these differences need not involve conflict but they always involve calculations of power and position. NATO expansion diminishes Russia politically and does so at a time when Russia is already weakened, fairly accommodating, and facing great instability at home and on its southern borders. Moreover, third parties are watching, and some of these directly and immediately engage important Russian interests.

Russia is naturally concerned about the tens of millions of Russians living outside Russia as minorities in other former-Soviet republics. These republics are sensitive to Russia’s concern — but how will the image and reality of an expanding NATO affect their behavior? For that matter, how will the march of NATO affect the calculations of separatist forces within Russia?

Another concern: The former-Soviet republics seemed able to divide the assets and resources of the Soviet Union with relatively little acrimony — partly because they have continued to function cooperatively in the economic realm. This division — the question of who should get what — takes on an entirely different valence if some republics, but not others, move into an exclusive economic and military bloc.

To limit these concerns Russia has and will continue to take steps to improve its European military posture — but these steps can only take away from defense efforts on its southern flank, where even border control poses a daunting challenge. So NATO expansion effectively squeezes Russia between a rock and a hard place. Most damaging to relations between Russia and NATO is the fact that what has inspired NATO expansion is not necessity, but opportunity. NATO is expanding not because it must, but because it can.

Pentagon Fact Sheet: Posture Update in Support of Allies in Europe (PDF), 02 Feb 2022. Noted by Carl Conetta.

noted by Charles Knight, 31 January 2022.

Below is the US Army map (from the US National Archives) that designated conceptually the division of Korea after WWII. The division was intended as temporary occupation zones by the armies of the then-allied USSR & USA following the departure of the Japanese colonist army and administration.

The politics of Korean reunification and self-rule were not successfully negotiated in the 1940s or the 1950s and remain unresolved to this day.  Today, there are strongly opposed ideological nationalists on both sides of the 38th parallel who refuse to settle political differences. However, it may well be China and the USA who have the greatest interest in Korea remaining divided because the peninsula’s division is thought to serve their geostrategic preferences.

by Charles Knight, 09 January 2022

Iran – Israel/USA

 

It is thought that Israel built its first deliverable nuclear weapon in 1967. Israel has never acknowledged possession of nuclear weapons. Although U.S. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson vigorously objected to Israel’s development of nukes, by 1969, the U.S. had joined Israel in a policy of deflective silence (“deliberate ambiguity“). Because of this official silence, it is difficult to estimate how many nuclear weapons Israel has today. A careful review of available sources in 2014 found that Israel “has a stockpile of approximately 80 nuclear warheads.”  It is likely somewhat larger today.

The precise details of Israel’s nuclear arsenal are less important than the simple fact that the Iranian government is well aware of Israel’s nuclear arsenal.  Their intelligence services have certainly supplemented the open-source information summarized above. They also know that they are the primary target of these weapons.

North Korea – South Korea/USA

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/1958-02-06_Atomic_Weapons_come_to_Korea.ogv
Several years after the signing of the Korean War Armistice in 1953, the Joint Chiefs informed President Eisenhower of an intelligence finding that North Korea was building up its armed forces beyond the limits stipulated in the armistice agreement.  Eisenhower believed that newly developed tactical nuclear weapons could dissuade the North Koreans from any inclination they might have to renew fighting on the peninsula.  Despite opposition from his State Department, the President ordered tactical nukes sent to Korea. The above video celebrated their arrival in 1958.

Thus it was that the U.S. introduced nuclear weaponry onto the Korean Peninsula. The number of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons increased after 1958, reaching a peak of approximately 950 warheads in 1967. As the Cold War ended in 1991, the deployment of tactical nukes to Korea ended. Presently, South Korea is explicitly included under the U.S. doctrine of extended deterrence.
The North Koreans are, of course, aware of this history and at whom the weapons are targeted.

Discussion

 

As 2022 begins, North Korea is a de facto nuclear state with a minimum deterrent arsenal in ongoing development.  Iran is said to be refining fissile materials and on the cusp of constructing its first nuclear weapon.  Both states are currently subject to severe economic sanctions.  Negotiations or diplomatic discussions, whether formal or behind the scene, continue.  In the case of Iran, there have been speculative forecasts of imminent counter-proliferation strikes by Israel.

I have included two particular sets of facts in this history note.  Both are relevant to present instances of actual or potential nuclear proliferation. I have edited each to make them as “simply factual” as I am able. Nonetheless, I would not fault a reader’s suspicion that I have selected them to build a partisan narrative, as is often done with selective facts.

My intent is quite different. The instances of history I have presented are illustrative of the kind of history that will strongly affect the “other side” in a negotiation.  In each case, they are examples of vital interests involving existential threats that are ever-present at the negotiating table, even if they are not on the immediate agenda.

Attempts to compel the other side to surrender its vital interests in negotiations usually fail.  For diplomacy to succeed it is necessary to attend to the historical perspective of the other side. Without that consciousness, two sides to a dispute cannot hope to negotiate an agreement on how to meet the vital security needs of both parties.

By Carl Conetta, 14 March 2021

Between 1945 and 1962, the United States conducted 210 atmospheric nuclear tests. Many of these can viewed online in the nuclear test video archive maintained by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. (A fuller assessment of the films and their use is found here: “LLNL releases newly declassified test videos.“)

By some estimates, the US and other (mostly Soviet) tests produced in excess of 400,000 additional cancer deaths worldwide (Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, “General overview of the effects of nuclear testing“). But this represents only part of the risks and costs of premising security on these weapons. The cost of actually using them, intentionally or by accident, would be much much greater.

In 2019, Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security simulated the impact of a full-scale nuclear war between Russia and USA/NATO based on the 2019 US nuclear war planning  guidance, Joint Publication 3-72: Nuclear Operations. The analysts estimated that the immediate impact of the exchanges would be 34 million dead and 57.5 million injured. Of course, the longer-term impact would be much greater due to terminal injuries, radiation effects, pandemic disease, climate effects, and the failure of medical systems and other essential services and infrastructure.

(One tool used in the study was the  “Nuke Map” produced by Alex Wellerstein, Director of Science and Technology Studies at the Stevens Institute of Technology. The map is an interactive tool allowing estimates of the destructive effects of different types and yields of nuclear blasts.)

Our present circumstance: Today the USA and Russia still each hold more than 6,000 nuclear warheads. Other nations hold 1,200 cumulatively: China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and the UK. (Arms Control Association, “Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What at a Glance“).

Most weapons in the US arsenal currently range in yield between 150-kilotons (thousands of tons of TNT equivalent) and 600-kilotons, although some can dial up to 1.2 megatons. The US bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 are estimated to have had 15-kiloton and 21-kiloton yields respectively. The largest test ever conducted by the USA was Castle Bravo in 1954, yielding approximately 15 megatons. The largest test yield ever resulted from the Soviet “Tsar Bomba” test: 50 megatons.

Today, while most efforts at nuclear arms control and reduction have stalled or been rescinded, nuclear weapon modernization programs are surging.  While Barack Obama began his presidency pledging progress toward a world without nuclear weapons, and did win congressional support for the New Start treaty, this came at the price of a nuclear weapon sustainment and modernization program now estimated to cost more than $1.5 trillion over the next 30 years.

Currently a new qualitative arms race is underway, commensurate with “big power competition,” as both the United States and Russia seek to neutralize or surmount the advantages each perceives in the other’s global position and posture. In this sense, we have turned the clock back 30 years to a period when international competition involved existential threats.

If one believes that the awful power of nuclear weapons can reliably deter their use while also serving to limit war generally, then it might seem reasonable to accept the moral and financial burden they impose. However, these weapons incur additional costs that serve to countervail their deterrence effects.

Framing the world in terms of nations that permanently hold each other at threat of near-instantaneous extinction gravely distorts all international relations, shrouding them in persistent fear and distrust. This undermines global cooperation and provides no sure foundation for stability, much less security and peace. Indeed, fear and distrust are principal drivers of contention and war. In this sense, nuclear arsenals contribute to the conflict potentials that they are supposed to contain.

Whether one believes in the deterrent power of these weapons or not, their other longer-term risks and negative effects makes essential a determined commitment to increase international cooperation, confidence-building measures, and progress in nuclear arms reduction. Looking forward, the hope for a reliable peace depends not on the bulwark of mutual assured destruction, but on lowering levels of international threat and building accord among nations, whenever and however we can.

* The title of this post derives from J. Robert Oppenheimer’s reflection on witnessing the first atomic bomb explosion in July 1945. He shared this brief reflection on a TV broadcast in 1965: https://youtu.be/ZardNuQ_fE0

“The idea of international law presupposes the separate existence of many independent but neighboring states. Although this condition is itself a state of war (unless a united federation of these states prevents the outbreak of hostilities), this is preferable to the amalgamation of states under one superior power, as this would end in one universal monarchy, and laws always lose in vigor what government gains in extent; hence a soulless despotism falls into anarchy after stifling the seeds of the good. Nevertheless, every state (or its ruling power) desires to establish a lasting condition of peace in this way, aspiring if possible to rule the whole world. But nature wills otherwise.”

– Immanuel Kant, Concerning the Guarantee of Perpetual Peace (1795)

Excerpt from George F. Kennan, “A Fateful Error,” New York Times, 05 Feb 1997

“Why, with all the hopeful possibilities engendered by the end of the Cold War, should East-West relations become centered on the question of who would be allied with whom and, by implication, against whom in some fanciful, totally unforeseeable and most improbable future military conflict?”

“[B]luntly stated…expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking … ”

by Charles Knight

Following is a comment to an article by Duyeon Kim, “How to tell if North Korea is serious about denuclearization,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 29 October 2018, midway between the Singapore Summit and the Hanoi Summit.

This comment makes one key point that many American analysts ignore:

North Korea has in the past and will now insist that negotiations about Korean nuclear disarmament include any regional nuclear capabilities which it considers to be threats to its security.  In this comment, I am not taking a position on what the particular outcome of nuclear disarmament negotiations should be.  Rather, I am saying that productive negotiations must take account of North Korea’s de-facto status as a nuclear weapon state and its core security interests.

Ms. Kim’s analysis of what might constitute serious “denuclearization” steps by North Korea would be quite useful if the issue was unilateral disarmament of the North. Quite clearly though, the context of negotiations is “denuclearization of the peninsula” which includes changes in the military postures of South Korea and the United States.

At this early stage of negotiations North Korea, South Korea, and the U.S. are assiduously avoiding discussing these important complicating factors, yet productive discussions about “peninsular disarmament” will determine whether there will eventually be denuclearization of North Korea.

We can not expect North Korea to give up nuclear weaponry (and certainly not irreversibly) unless it no longer faces a threat of nuclear weapons in and about the Korean Peninsula. The North Koreans appear to be realists in this regard. No paper treaty or written assurances will substitute for changes in hardware available to potential enemies.

It is time for analysts in the U.S. to face the reality of a nuclear-armed North Korea unlikely to disarm itself until there are decades of peace and good relations with its neighbors, including South Korea, China, Russia, Japan, and the US Navy and Air Force.

Here are some things that North Korea logically will ask for along the way to disarmament: equivalent international inspections and fissile material controls in South Korea (and even Japan); no nuclear-capable aircraft or ships visiting South Korea; no nuclear sea-launched cruise missiles deployed on US ships within range of North Korea; no intermediate-range nuclear missiles in the region… These are a few of the things North Korean negotiators are likely to get around to mentioning in terms of their judging whether the U.S. and South Korea are “serious about denuclearization.”