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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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While Ukraine has refused to be cowed by Russia’s repeated nuclear threats, many in the West have allowed themselves to be intimidated. Indeed, widespread alarm over the potential use of nuclear weapons is believed to be a key factor fueling the fear of escalation that has consistently hampered the international response to Russia’s invasion.

Putin is well aware of the low risk tolerance in many Western capitals and has used it to his advantage. He has skillfully exploited the West’s escalation phobia to reduce the flow of military aid to Kyiv, and has even managed to convince Ukraine’s partners to impose absurd restrictions on how the embattled country can defend itself.

Russia’s readiness to employ nuclear threats could have grave implications for international security that would be felt far beyond the battlefields of Ukraine. If nuclear blackmail enables Putin to succeed in Ukraine, he will inevitably use the same tactics again elsewhere. Other countries will then draw the logical conclusion and decide that they, too, must also possess nuclear weapons, sparking a scramble for nukes that will undo decades of nonproliferation efforts. The entire world will be plunged into an era of insecurity marked by a dramatically heightened risk of nuclear war.

If Western leaders wish to avoid this bleak future, they must finally stand up to Russia’s nuclear bullying. At this point, Putin evidently regards his nuclear bluster as an effective foreign policy tool. Far from being deterred, he appears determined to raise the stakes further by involving Belarus.

Putin will continue to pursue policies of nuclear intimidation until the costs outweigh the benefits. This can be achieved by increasing Western military support for Ukraine and lifting all remaining restrictions on Kyiv’s ability to strike back against Russia. Unless that happens, there is a very real danger that the international security climate of the coming decades will be defined by nuclear-backed expansionism and further wars of imperial aggression.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Bagheri Kani has had a stormy first week on the job, holding phone conversations with many of his counterparts, including those from Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. In person, he hosted Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on his first-ever trip to Tehran, as well as Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas and other Palestinian armed factions, both of whom were in Iran to attend the state funeral.

But who is Bagheri Kani? And if he were to stay on the job, what kind of foreign minister would he be?

The school of Imam Sadeq

Born in Tehran in 1967, Bagheri Kani hails from an influential clerical family that firmly belongs to the conservative side of the Islamic Republic’s faction politics. His father spent years serving in the Assembly of Experts, an eighty-eight-member clerical body tasked with dismissing and choosing the supreme leader, before losing his seat in 2016 as a list of centrist challengers backed by Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani performed particularly well. Bagheri Kani’s brother, Mesbah al-Hoda, is married to the youngest daughter of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, making him one of many regime officials related to the head of state.

His uncle, Mohammadreza Mahdavi Kani, was among the Islamic Republic’s founding fathers, serving as interior minister and interim prime minister in the early days of the regime. Mahdavi Bagheri Kani’s landmark project was the founding of Imam Sadeq University, built after the regime expropriated a Harvard-affiliated institution. Named after a Shia imam, the university has long been the Islamic Republic’s main cadre-building factory.

Bagheri Kani studied economics at the university his uncle founded and, like several of his relatives, also taught there for a while. In the 1990s, Imam Sadeq graduates started filling up governmental bodies of the Islamic Republic, and Ali was among them.

For a short time, Bagheri Kani worked at the state broadcaster, already serving as the head of political news at national radio in 1994, a rapid rise that probably had something to do with his strong familial ties to the regime’s establishment. Bagheri Kani soon left for the foreign ministry, serving as a Middle East specialist. He married his first cousin once removed in 1997 and has two daughters.

In the foreign ministry, Bagheri Kani became close to hardliner Saeed Jalili, another Imam Sadeq graduate whose star was in the ascendency when reformist President Mohammad Khatami gave way to hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. In 2007, when the European-American department of the foreign ministry was split into two, Bagheri Kani headed the European department.

However, in 2008, Iran started a new round of nuclear negotiations with the West, which was then headed by the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC). Jalili led the talks as SNSC secretary. During negotiations, Bagheri Kani left the foreign ministry to serve as Jalili’s top deputy. The talks during the Jalili era were not really negotiations, as Jalili and his entourage often lectured their Western counterparts about imperialism and the “crimes” committed by the United States, without making meaningful progress.

The failure of these talks provided the background to the 2013 presidential elections, in which the centrist Hassan Rouhani was backed by reformists pitted against four conservative candidates, including Jalili. Rouhani ran explicitly on a platform of getting a nuclear deal with the West that could ease the sanctions on the Iranian economy. In contrast, Jalili championed his track record at the talks. Bagheri Kani led Jalili’s 2013 electoral campaign and held a debate on foreign policy with Mahmud Vaezi, Rouhani’s chief of staff, in which the latter accused Jalili of having a Taliban-like foreign policy. Rouhani won the election with 50.7 percent, while Jalili finished third with 11.4 percent.

When Rouhani and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, led the nuclear talks, Bagheri Kani was a major critic who often spoke against them in the parliament, both before and after the 2015 deal. He also wrote several op-eds against Rouhani’s pursuit of the agreement. Bagheri Kani went as far as claiming that Khamenei wasn’t truly in favor of the deal, although he publicly supported it. In 2023, Bagheri Kani wrote a foreword to the unauthorized Persian translation of Not for the Faint of Heart, a memoir by Wendy Sherman, a leading US diplomat and a key negotiator of the 2015 deal. Translated by one of Raisi’s top aides, the book is riddled with deliberate mistranslations, as first revealed by IranWire, that aim to portray Sherman in conspiratorial colors. In the foreword, Bagheri Kani clarified his position by calling Iran’s talks with the United States “a bitter historical experience.”

In 2020, in the final years of the Rouhani administration, Bagheri Kani went to the judiciary, which was then headed by Raisi. Bagheri Kani headed the judiciary’s High Council of Human Rights, which was founded in 2005 to overcome the massive international pressure on Iran over its dismal human rights situation. Its main job is denouncing United Nations human rights procedures, with which Iran doesn’t collaborate.

The new Bagheri Kani?

When Raisi became president in 2021 after an engineered presidential election, Bagheri Kani went back to the foreign ministry, heading the talks aimed at renewing the very deal he had so bitterly critiqued. Unlike his predecessor, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Bagheri Kani wasn’t that media friendly. But in a speech for the faculty of a teacher-training university in Tehran in 2023, he shocked some by criticizing “those who, under the cover of defending values, want to portray any negotiations as opposed to values.” In regime speak, this counted as a turnaround. The centrist and reformist press even started speaking of a “new Bagheri Kani” who now understood the importance of diplomatic talks with the West. On May 25, a former diplomat told reformist daily Etemad that Bagheri Kani’s position had changed when he saw the difficulties of engaging in the talks compared to safely critiquing them from the sidelines.

Bagheri Kani’s intense negotiations with the European Union—which was also acting on behalf of the United States—resulted in a text publicly defended in 2022 by European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. But Tehran rejected the text. A month later, the eruption of the Women, Life, Freedom anti-regime protests made any talks with Tehran radioactive for the West. With the movement in retreat and the region in turmoil following Hamas’s attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, the talks have been ongoing again, if often clandestinely, now covering regional issues as well as the nuclear file. Bagheri Kani has reportedly led many of these talks. Yet, some reports allege that the nuclear file is now led by Ali Shamkhani, Iran’s secretary of the SNSC until his dismissal last year. Bagheri Kani, however, has neither confirmed nor denied these reports. At the same time, Rouhani insiders such as Vaezi and Zarif have vociferously criticized Shamkhani, claiming that he was an obstacle to the nuclear talks. Whomever is Iran’s next president and foreign minister would need to navigate these difficult domestic and international dynamics in pursuit of any diplomatic talks with the West.

Bagheri Kani seems to be aware of the stakes. Speaking at the memorial of his boss, he highlighted how difficult the job of a top diplomat was and said, “It won’t be an easy job for whoever becomes the next foreign minister.” He was seen smiling, surely thinking that someone might very well be himself.

Arash Azizi is a writer and scholar. He is the author of The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the US and Iran’s Global Ambitions and What Iranians Want. Follow him on X: @arash_tehran.

The post A nuclear negotiator takes the helm of Iran’s foreign ministry. So what’s next? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ukraine’s Western allies should fear Russian victory not Russian defeat

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 21 May 2024 21:33:07 +0000

Since the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago, Western military support for Ukraine has been plagued by endless delays, restrictions, and half-measures. This underwhelming response has typically been blamed on concerns over possible Russian retaliation and the desire to avoid a wider war. In reality, however, some Western leaders may also be motivated by perceptions of Russian weakness rather than fear of Russian strength.

This was the argument set out by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week as he bemoaned the inadequate Western reaction to Russia’s invasion. Speaking to journalists in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said he believes Ukraine’s partners “are afraid of Russia losing the war” because this would lead to “unpredictable geopolitical consequences.”

Zelenskyy’s comments are not entirely new, of course. There have long been suggestions that the West’s hesitant approach to aiding Ukraine reflects worries that a Russian defeat could lead to the fall of the Putin regime. Some have even speculated that the Russian Federation itself would be unlikely to survive, and would instead break up into a number of new states, in a continuation of the process that began in 1991.

It is easy enough to imagine why Western policymakers might be alarmed by the prospect of a new Russian collapse. Indeed, the Western response to the disintegration of the USSR was equally cautious, with US President George H. W. Bush traveling to Ukraine on the eve of the country’s declaration of independence in August 1991 to deliver his infamous “Chicken Kiev speech” warning against “suicidal nationalism.”

President Bush was far from alone in prioritizing geopolitical stability over the statehood aspirations of Ukraine and the USSR’s other captive nations. One year earlier, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had visited Ukraine and offered a similarly skeptical view of the country’s independence struggle. Bush and Thatcher were primarily concerned with the fate of the Soviet Union’s colossal war machine and vast nuclear arsenal. Allowing this to be redistributed among a collection of newly independent states seemed the height of recklessness. So rather than hasten the fall of the Soviet Empire, they sought to prevent or at least manage the process.

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These same concerns are now hampering support for Ukraine as it fights against Vladimir Putin’s efforts to reverse the verdict of 1991. But is today’s Russia really at risk of collapse?

The Wagner mutiny of June 2023 would certainly suggest that Putin’s grip on the country is far more fragile than the Kremlin would like us to believe. While the mutiny was a short-lived affair, it was nevertheless revealing that rebellious troops were able to seize control of one of Russia’s largest cities without encountering opposition. Equally noteworthy was the absence of establishment figures rushing to rally around the throne. At the same time, the demands of the Wagner rebels did not amount to regime change, never mind anything that might constitute a threat to Russia’s territorial integrity. On the contrary, they sought a stronger Russia with more effective wartime leadership.

This is not to say that the break-up of the Russian Federation is impossible, of course. The invasion of Ukraine has underlined Russia’s status as the last of the great European empires, and has sparked a long overdue debate over the need for decolonization. However, talk of an impending collapse may be wishful thinking. While Russia has a history of unraveling in sudden and dramatic fashion, there is currently little evidence of serious independence movements in any of the country’s ethnic minority republics.

Rather than sparking the next stage in Russia’s long retreat from empire, defeat in Ukraine would be far more likely to bring about the fall of the Putin regime and usher in a period of national reflection and reform. This has been the case following numerous other notable Russian military defeats. After losing the Crimean War in the middle of the nineteenth century, Russia abandoned serfdom. Defeat to Japan in 1905 led to a brief flirtation with parliamentary democracy.

Meanwhile, the failed Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s fueled public demands for reform that helped end the Cold War. If the current invasion also ends in defeat, there is every reason to believe Russia will survive intact. After all, while a retreat from Ukraine would be deeply wounding for Russian national pride, it would hardly pose an existential threat to Russia itself.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

Rather than scaring themselves into self-deterrence with nightmare scenarios of future Russian collapse, Western leaders should be laser-focused on the far more immediate dangers posed by Russian victory. After a series of initial setbacks, the Russian army has now regained the initiative in Ukraine and is advancing. Putin is more confident than ever and is clearly preparing his entire country to wage a long war of attrition. Unless the West dramatically increases its military support for Ukraine, there is every chance he will succeed.

If Putin achieves victory in Ukraine, he will almost certainly go further. The Kremlin dictator is already boasting of his Ukrainian “conquests” and comparing himself to all-conquering eighteenth century Russian Czar Peter the Great. At the beginning the war, Putin had sought to frame the invasion as a defensive measure by blaming it on NATO expansion and imaginary “Ukrainian Nazis.” As his battlefield fortunes have improved, he has begun to talk openly of reclaiming “historically Russian lands.”

As anyone with a passing knowledge of Russian history will confirm, there are currently at least a dozen other countries beyond Ukraine that could also fit Putin’s definition of “historically Russian lands.” The list of potential targets includes Finland, Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the whole of Central Asia. None of these countries can feel safe. Putin’s entire reign has been defined by his desire to reestablish Russia as a Great Power and end the era of Western domination. If he achieves victory in Ukraine, it is ludicrous to suggest he will simply stop.

Some commentators are inclined to downplay the risk of further invasions by pointing to the poor performance of the Russian army in Ukraine and claiming that Russia is in no position to engage in further military adventures. Unfortunately, such arguments fail to take into account the impact of Russian success in Ukraine. A Russian victory would transform the geopolitical climate, leading to a surge in international support for the Kremlin and the demoralization of the West. Countries throughout the Global South would abandon neutrality and rush to foster closer ties with Moscow.

In material terms, the Russian conquest of Ukraine would have even more profound consequences for European security. Putin already commands Europe’s largest army. With Ukraine subjugated, he would also have control over Europe’s second-largest army, along with Ukraine’s long neglected but rapidly reviving military-industrial capabilities. Possession of Ukraine’s fabled black earth would make Russia the dominant power on global agricultural markets, providing Putin with a formidable tool to bribe and blackmail the international community.

Even if a victorious Russia did not immediately embark on new conquests, every government in Europe would be obliged to radically increase defense spending. Many are just starting to rearm now in reaction to the Russian war against Ukraine. Expenditures could soon rise far beyond the current cost of arming Ukraine. There would also be a very real danger of a new nuclear arms race. Given the evident effectiveness of Putin’s naked nuclear blackmail in deterring the West from aiding Ukraine, it would be entirely logical for other nations to conclude that they will only be truly safe with a nuclear deterrent of their own.

The international repercussions of a Russian victory in Ukraine would be equally disastrous. Autocrats around the world would view Putin’s triumph as a sign of unprecedented Western weakness and an open invitation to pursue their own expansionist agendas. The period of relative peace and progress that followed the end of the Cold War would be replaced by a new era of international instability and insecurity.

None of this is inevitable. Russia can still be defeated in Ukraine if the West takes the decisive step of committing itself to Ukrainian victory. This means supplying Ukraine with sufficient weapons to not only defend itself but to actually defeat Russia. Crucially, it means ending absurd restrictions on the use of Western weapons and allowing strikes on legitimate military targets inside Russia. And it means providing Ukraine with the kind of guaranteed long-term military support that will convince Putin his hopes of outlasting the West are futile.

Confronting the Kremlin effectively will require considerable political will and courage. Russia will inevitably respond to any hardening of Western resolve by escalating its nuclear intimidation tactics, but the usefulness of nuclear saber-rattling diminishes when Western governments don’t allow such threats to cloud their strategic calculus.

It is now painfully obvious that the hesitancy and indecisiveness of the past two years have not succeeded in appeasing Putin or reducing the challenge posed by a resurgent Russia. Instead, the West is now facing the very real prospect of a defeat that would have catastrophic consequences for the future of international security. In order to avert disaster, Putin must lose in Ukraine. Any worries about the future of the Russian Federation will have to wait until this far more urgent threat has been addressed.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

However, Khamenei’s “religious opinion” about nuclear arms has always been a carefully crafted message concocted and repeated by him—never in writing but only in speeches—in which he has exclusively called the “use” of nuclear arms “haram” (forbidden).

The campaign of deceit was initiated when the Islamic Republic saw its survival at imminent risk. In a speech the day after the March 20, 2003 US invasion of Iraq, Khamenei said, “We don’t want a nuclear bomb. We are even opposed to having chemical weapons…These things don’t agree with our principles.”

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Over the years, Khamenei and other high-ranking officials have repeated this line while Iranian scientists were busy developing “all necessary components” for the development of a nuclear weapon— and the supreme leader has consistently celebrated these scientists.

Tracking Khamenei’s comments over the past two decades demonstrates that he never issued a fatwa against building a nuclear weapon, and only tentatively and revocably spoke against the use of weapons of mass destruction.

The “fatwa”

What eventually became a staple talking point of Iranian diplomats was sold to world powers as the supreme leader’s “fatwa” prohibiting nuclear arms. In reality, it was the last paragraph of his message to the first iteration of the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, which Tehran hosted in 2010.

The segment of the message marketed by the Iranian diplomatic missions as a “fatwa” reads, “We believe that adding to nuclear weapons and other types of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical weapons and biological weapons, are a serious threat to humanity. The Iranian nation, which itself is a victim of the use of chemical weapons, feels more than other nations the danger of the production and accumulation of such weapons and is ready to put all its resources in the way of dealing with it. We consider the use of these weapons to be haram (forbidden), and the effort to protect mankind from this great disaster is everyone’s duty.”

The supreme leader’s official website includes several pages dedicated to explaining his stance on nuclear arms, with one listing all comments he has made about them. Among the eighty-five quotes, the word “haram” is used only three times and exclusively about the “use of nuclear weapons,” not their production or stockpiling. He has also twice called the “use” of weapons of mass destruction a “great sin.”

On the same page, the only quote that includes the term “fatwa” comes from a 2015 speech and reads, “We don’t want a nuclear weapon. Not because of what they say, but because of ourselves, because of our religion, because of our rational reasons. This is both our religious fatwa and our rational fatwa. Our rational fatwa is that we don’t need nuclear weapons today, tomorrow, or ever. Nuclear weapons are a source of trouble for a country like ours.”

In sharia law, all acts fall into five categories: wajib (obligatory), mustahab (recommended), mubah (neutral), makruh (disapproved), and haram (forbidden). In the case of nuclear weapons, the supreme leader clearly, and presumably intentionally, has avoided labeling the “production and storage” of nuclear arms with a religious label, leaving room for a nuclear weapons program.

In addition to beguiling world powers with a false narrative about the nonexistent fatwa, the double-speak commentary by the supreme leader gives powerful factions within the regime enough ammunition to pursue the development of a nuclear weapon.

Furthermore, a point of pride for Shia Muslims is that fatwas are not inherently permanent, and Islamic jurists can—and often do—reinterpret the scripture “in accord with the needs of time.” Throughout the history of political Islam, Shia ayatollahs have used fatwas as a political tool against adversaries. For example, in the 1890s, Ayatollah Mirza Shirazi issued a fatwa during nationwide protests after the ruling Qajar Dynasty granted a British merchant a monopoly on the growth, sale, and export of tobacco in Iran. This forced the king to revoke the monopoly; after it served its political purpose, the fatwa was also removed.

A “cornered cat”

Iranian officials have consistently warned that, if push comes to shove, they might openly seek nuclear weapons.

In 2021, then Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi told state television, “The Supreme Leader has explicitly said in his fatwa that nuclear weapons are against sharia law and the Islamic Republic sees them as religiously forbidden and does not pursue them. But a cornered cat may behave differently from when the cat is free. And if [Western states] push Iran in that direction, then it’s no longer Iran’s fault.”

In June 2023, Khamenei warned world powers that they “cannot stop” his regime if it desires to build nuclear weapons—a threat echoed by Iran’s former nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi. In February, Salehi boasted that the regime has “all components” necessary for building a bomb.

With heightened tensions in the Middle East, and amid the Islamic Republic’s four-decade war with Israel creeping out of the shadows and into the open, the clerical establishment has been testing the waters for openly announcing its nuclear aspirations.

In a March speech at a Quran exhibition, Hojatolislam Mohammad Fuker Meibodi said that the Muslim holy book orders believers to amass weapons that would “sow fear in the heart of the enemies.” He argued that weapons of the past—namely swords and cannons—will not achieve that aim and “therefore, maybe we should acquire nuclear weapons.”

Iranian nuclear scientist Mahmoud Reza Aghamiri—who has ties to the supreme leader’s office and currently serves as dean of Shahid Beheshti University—said on state television on April 7 that the supreme leader “can tomorrow change his stance” on building nuclear weapons and that his regime “has the capability” to make the leap because building the bomb is “not complicated.”

Aghamiri is among the top Iranian officials who have publicly endorsed the development of a nuclear bomb. In 2022, he said that Tehran can speed up uranium enrichment to 99 percent, build a nuclear warhead, and use it as both “deterrence” and a bargaining chip in interactions with the West “like North Korea,” which, according to him, gets away with “bullying” the world.

Such rhetoric has only intensified in Iran following the April 13 attack against Israel in retaliation for the April 1 killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commanders in Syria. Anticipating a response from Israel, which eventually arrived on April 19, Iranian officials warned against the targeting of nuclear facilities in the country.

On April 18, Ahmad Haghtalab, the IRGC commander in charge of nuclear security, said, “If the false Zionist regime decides to exploit the threat of attacking our country’s nuclear sites to pressure Iran, revision of Islamic Republic’s nuclear policies and doctrine and dropping of previously announced considerations in possible and perceivable.” Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting reported his comments, sharing a video of him pronouncing the nuclear threat.

Javan, an influential daily close to the IRGC, wrote on the same day that it was the “first time a senior IRGC official” issued such a threat, and noted that state media were forcefully highlighting the comments, signaling “coordination with top decision-making bodies.”

The daily argued that every state’s primary goal is “survival no matter the cost” and that, before launching the April 13 attack against the “nuclear armed” Israel, Tehran had “prepared itself for engagement at highest level or at least is seeking to establish a new equilibrium.”

Javan warned “Israel to take the warning serious” because “all technical hurdles have been removed and with a wave of the hand from Imam Khamenei” and the regime “can” build a nuclear bomb.

Pro-reform daily Hammihan wrote on April 20 that the Islamic Republic’s attack against Israel from Iranian soil has “created a new norm of confrontation” between the two nations. According to the daily, in this new context, proxy forces “cannot provide the deterrence Iran needs.” The daily argued that if “Iran is pushed towards acquiring a nuclear weapon or adopting nuclear ambiguity, it would benefit from increased deterrence.”

On April 22, a member of the National Security Commission of the parliament, Javad Karimi Ghodousi, wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “If [supreme leader] issues permission, we would be a week away from testing the first [nuclear bomb].”

As an officer of the IRGC, Ghodousi has high security clearance. Through his key position in the parliament, he is privy to military decisions made at the top of the food chain. This attracted much attention when, ahead of the April 13 strike against Israel, he tweeted that the attack was happening “in a matter of hours.”

In an apparent effort to soften heightened rhetoric, on April 22, the spokesperson of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Naser Kanani said, “Nuclear weapons have no place in Iran’s defense and military strategy.”

Iran-based security analyst Alireza Taghavinia, a frequent guest of state television, reacted to the mixed signals out of Tehran, writing on X, “General Haghtalab has fulfilled his assigned duty. [MP] Karimi Qudousi has sent the necessary pulse. The Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson has also fulfilled his inherent duty. Politics has complexities and subtleties that not everyone can understand.”

Ghodousi doubled down on the comments on April 23, in a video saying that the International Atomic Energy Agency is aware that the Islamic Republic “needs half a day or maximum a week to build a nuclear warhead.”

The nuclear threat has been echoed by people privy to the supreme leader’s thinking as well. On May 9, Khamenei’s top foreign policy advisor Kamal Kharrazi warned that if Israel threatens the existence of the Islamic Republic, Tehran will change its nuclear doctrine. “We have no decision to build a nuclear bomb but should Iran’s existence be threatened, there will have no choice but to change our military doctrine,” Kharrazi told Al Jazeera Mubasher.

A Persian proverb advises that, before shouting an insult, it is best to first murmur it to test the waters. The crescendoing chorus of Iranian officials, from IRGC generals to members of parliament to scientists advocating for the development of a nuclear weapon as “deterrent” is another sign of how a nuclear weapons program may emerge from the shadows. Unsurprisingly, all Iranian officials signaling this possible change in policy have pointed to the so-called “fatwa” and its impermanent nature—another sign of the move being orchestrated by the upper echelons of the clerical establishment.

Eyeing tectonic shifts in global power dynamics, the eighty-five-year-old Khamenei, who has unchecked powers and delusions about divine intervention on his behalf, is besieged by crises at every corner. In response, he appears to be shedding his decades-old habit of being a cautious gambler. Now a “cornered cat,” the ailing ayatollah, in a rush to solidify his legacy, is more likely than ever to embark on a path toward a nuclear weapon to ensure the survival of the Islamic Republic.

Khosro Sayeh Isfahani is an advocate, journalist, and Internet researcher with years of experience working in Iran, including work related to the LGBTQI community.

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This round of Iran-Israel escalation is over, but the next could be just around the corner

Raz Zimmt — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 13:34:40 +0000

Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel on April 14, in retaliation for an alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria, represented the most dangerous round of conflict between the two countries in decades. This attack involved more than 350 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones.

The killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi at the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus on April 1 was the final straw. Zahedi joined a long list of Iranian officers killed in Syria by Israel since December 2023, including Sayyed Razi Mousavi, a senior IRGC officer assassinated on December 25, 2023, in Damascus. Despite threats by senior Iranians that the Islamic Republic would respond harshly to Israel’s assassinations, Iran ultimately took limited action. On January 17, the IRGC-Navy launched an attack on two Israeli-owned ships in the Indian Ocean, and another attack targeted a building identified by Iran as the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad’s headquarters in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Following Mousavi’s assassination, voices in Iran calling for a rethinking of Iran’s “strategic patience” policy toward Israel grew louder in an effort to reestablish deterrence. The Tabnak news agency claimed that Israel’s recent actions represent an unprecedented surge in the “level of Zionist arrogance” and that Iran’s failure to respond to Israeli attacks may reveal its weakness. The conservative website Alef asserted that the concept of strategic patience had been misinterpreted as apathy and lack of response, resulting in the series of assassinations carried out by Israel. The website cautioned that continuing the existing policy will expose senior commanders to threats and undermine Iranian deterrence.

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The attack in Damascus does not necessarily signify a shift in Iran’s strategy geared at avoiding a full-fledged direct military confrontation with Israel, let alone the United States. Some claim that Iran’s April 14 strike on Israel conflicted with the perception that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was “cautious” and would never order an attack, suggesting that this perception now requires study and reevaluation. However, this is not necessarily the case. It seems more likely that Zahedi’s assassination at a building adjacent to the Iranian consulate in Damascus was deemed one step too far, altering the Iranian calculus. Despite the extensive messages sent to Tehran in the days preceding the attack, urging it to refrain from a direct response against Israel, the Iranian leadership chose to abandon its containment policy. Instead, it sought to restore its deterrence against Israel, even at the cost of a potential military escalation.

The first direct Iranian attack on Israel marks a new phase in the two countries’ strategic rivalry. For years, Iran has opted to act against Israel through its regional network of partners and proxies to retain deniability and minimize the risk of political or military consequences for its actions. However, the civil war in Syria that began in 2011 led to increased Iranian efforts to use its presence in Syria to militarily entrench itself in the country, eventually leading to Iran and Israel’s first direct military engagement on Syrian soil. Concurrently, starting in 2010, a shadow war emerged between Iran and Israel over Israel’s efforts to hinder Iran’s nuclear program and military buildup through espionage, targeted assassinations, sabotage, and cyberattacks.

Iran’s attack on Israel has shifted from the use of proxies and engagement with Israel in Syria to include direct military confrontation. For the first time since the 1991 Gulf War, Israel faced a state-launched missile attack, which Iran portrayed as a significant accomplishment despite Israel and its allies successfully intercepting the vast majority of the barrage. Following the attack on Israel, IRGC commander Hossein Salami said that Iran had formed a new approach toward the “Zionist regime” and would directly counterattack Israel henceforth. The Kayhan newspaper, affiliated with the supreme leader, described the attack as the most severe military reaction against Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, claiming that Iran was able to penetrate Israel’s multilayered defense envelope and inflict damage even though it was not a secret or surprise attack.

These professions of satisfaction could indicate an assessment that the Islamic Republic is heading toward a strategic equilibrium with Israel despite Israel’s continued aerial, technological, and intelligence supremacy. The Iranian leadership appears to have concluded that the country’s geo-strategic situation is steadily improving thanks to better strategic military capabilities, a network of proxies, and the support of Russia and China, two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

During a memorial ceremony for Mahdavi, Yahya Rahim Safavi, the supreme leader’s senior military adviser, expressed confidence in the victory of the Resistance Axis led by Iran and declared that a new Middle East is emerging with Iran at its heart. According to Safavi, the victory of the Resistance Axis is certain because Israel has lost international support, faces domestic rivalries, and has lost the Gaza war. A few days later, IRGC-affiliated hardline daily Javan asserted that the Iranian attack on Israel marks a watershed moment and that a new order will be established in the region, with Iran as its architect. These might seem like empty phrases and expressions of the regime’s propaganda, but they may reflect an authentic—if slightly exaggerated—assessment on the part of the Iranian leadership, which is now totally dominated by conservative and extreme hawks after more pragmatic individuals have been excluded from positions of power over the years.

Israel’s measured response to Iran’s April 19 attack allowed the two countries to temporarily close their current round of conflict. Iranian officials have downplayed and ridiculed Israel’s response, demonstrating their willingness to avoid further escalation. However, the continuous campaign between the foes is unlikely to end, and the precedent set by their direct military engagement has become another option on the confrontation table. It is unclear whether Tehran received the message Israel intended to convey with its reaction attack, which indicated its refusal to comply with the new Iranian equation.

The transition of the Israeli-Iranian confrontation into a new phase is risky. The dramatic escalation between the two countries in recent weeks highlights the high potential for miscalculation in the lack of direct communication channels. This danger will get even more serious if Iran decides to abandon its status as a nuclear-threshold state and turns its policy toward attaining nuclear weapons. Ahmad Haghtalab, the IRGC commander in charge of nuclear security in Iran, was quoted as saying that the Israeli threats could push Iran to reconsider its nuclear doctrine and deviate from its previous considerations. The escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, the transition from indirect to direct conflict, and Iran’s nuclear-threshold status necessitate an ongoing and unrelenting exploration of the possibility of establishing future communication channels—even if covert and indirect—between the two countries to convey messages and de-escalate tensions.

These developments should also require Israel to review and adopt a comprehensive, updated policy for Iran, allowing it to respond more effectively to the threats the Islamic Republic poses to its national security, particularly Iran’s nuclear program, military buildup, and regional activities. Dealing with Iran will necessitate Israel working with both the United States and Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. In contrast to Iran’s New Middle East vision, it should pursue an alternative approach—one centered on establishing a new regional architecture, deepening connections with the United States, and pursuing normalization processes with the Arab world, particularly Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Raz Zimmt is a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University. He is also a veteran Iran watcher in the Israeli Defense Forces. Follow him on X: @RZimmt.

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Starling and Massa quoted in Air and Space Forces Magazine

Atlantic Council — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 17:03:41 +0000

Director, Forward Defense

On February 27, Forward Defense Director Clementine Starling and Deputy Director for Strategic Forces Policy Mark Massa were quoted in Air and Space Forces Magazine. They wrote about the effects that a nuclear detonation in space could have on satellites, stating that “A nuclear detonation in space would add significant radiation to orbits used by a number of U.S. military satellites, causing them to degrade in the weeks and months following the detonation unless they are specifically hardened against radiation.”

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Clementine G. Starling-Daniels

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Security & Defense NATO

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Mark J. Massa

Deputy Director

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy National Security

Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

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Braw quoted in TRT on Russia’s nuclear threat

Elisabeth Braw — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 13:31:50 +0000

Original source

On March 14, Transatlantic Security Initiative senior fellow Elisabeth Braw was featured in TRT on the nuclear threat posed by Putin’s Russia.

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Elisabeth Braw

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

NATO Resilience & Society

The Transatlantic Security Initiative, in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, shapes and influences the debate on the greatest security challenges facing the North Atlantic Alliance and its key partners.

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Bowing to Putin’s nuclear blackmail will make nuclear war more likely

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 22:01:18 +0000

Russia could respond with nuclear weapons if the West sends troops to Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has warned. In his annual State of the Nation address on February 29, the Russian dictator said any attempt to deploy Western troops in Ukraine “threatens a conflict with nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilization.”

This was the latest and most explicit in a series of nuclear threats made by Putin since he first ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine just over two years ago. When announcing the invasion, Putin warned against any Western intervention with promises of consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history.” Four days later, he ordered Russia’s nuclear forces to be put on high alert.

Following Russia’s defeat in the March 2022 Battle of Kyiv, Putin sought to deter the West from arming Ukraine by promising a “lightning-fast” response and strongly hinting that he was ready to use nuclear weapons. “We have all the tools for this that no one else can boast of having,” he declared. “We won’t boast about it: We will use them if needed and I want everyone to know that. We have already taken all the decisions on this.”

Prior to this week’s statement, Putin’s most notorious nuclear threats came during a televised September 2022 address to announce Russia’s first mobilization since World War II. With the Russian army retreating in disarray in Ukraine, Putin referenced his country’s nuclear arsenal and vowed to use “all means at our disposal” to defend Russia. “This is not a bluff,” he declared.

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Ukraine has repeatedly called Putin’s bluff, exposing the emptiness of the Russian dictator’s nuclear bluster. Just weeks after his September 2022 speech, the Ukrainian military liberated Kherson, the only regional capital captured by Russia since the start of the invasion and a city that Putin himself had just trumpeted as “forever Russian.” Rather than reaching for the nuclear button, Putin reacted to this embarrassing defeat by ordering his troops to quietly withdraw.

Russia has responded in similar fashion to setbacks in the Battle of the Black Sea. Kremlin officials have long sought to position Crimea as a red line for Russia, but this has not prevented Ukraine from damaging or sinking approximately one-third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This humiliation has not provoked a nuclear response from Putin. Instead, the bulk of his fleet has retreated from its traditional home port in occupied Crimea to the safety of Russia.

While Ukraine has refused to be intimidated by Putin’s nuclear blackmail, the same cannot be said for the West. Putin’s thinly veiled threats may appear crude and primitive, but there can be little doubt that they have been instrumental in fueling the crippling fear of escalation that has plagued Western decision-making ever since the first days of the invasion. This has led to the disastrously slow delivery of military aid to Ukraine and the outright denial of weapons systems that could have set the stage for a Ukrainian victory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has identified this Western fear of escalation as the single biggest obstacle to his country’s war effort. “Nothing has harmed our coalition more than this concept,” he commented in January 2024.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Unless this changes, the damage will not be limited to Ukraine. If the mere suggestion of a possible nuclear escalation is enough to deter the West from preventing Russia’s takeover of Ukraine, Putin will inevitably employ the same tactics against other countries. He is already openly portraying the current invasion as a sacred mission to reclaim “historically Russian lands.” With more than a dozen other countries also potentially qualifying as “historically Russian,” it is all too easy to image further invasions in the coming years accompanied by more of Putin’s thinly veiled nuclear threats.

Nor will the implications be restricted to Russia’s wars of aggression. On the contrary, fellow autocrats around the world will take note of Putin’s success in Ukraine and draw the logical conclusions for their own expansionist agendas. If nuclear intimidation works for Moscow, why not for Beijing or Pyongyang?

This has the potential to spark a dangerous arms race. If Russia manages to normalize nuclear intimidation as a foreign policy tool, numerous countries will soon be scrambling to acquire nuclear arsenals of their own. There are indications that this issue is already being discussed in some quarters. Speaking in February 2024, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski warned that if additional US support for Ukraine is not forthcoming, “some countries will start hedging, and others will be considering developing their own nuclear weapons programs.”

By allowing themselves to be intimidated by Putin’s nuclear threats, Western leaders risk plunging the whole world into a dark new era of insecurity and aggression. Russia’s successful use of nuclear blackmail in Ukraine will transform attitudes toward nuclear weapons and undermine decades of nonproliferation efforts. Nukes will become an essential tool for any country that wishes to avoid being bullied by their neighbors. The potential for nuclear war will increase dramatically, as will the possibility of stray nukes falling into the hands of non-state actors.

Vladimir Putin’s decision to use nuclear intimidation as part of his Ukraine invasion is a reckless gamble that reflects his firm belief in Western weakness. Unless the West proves him wrong, the consequences for global security will be catastrophic.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Markus Garlauskas

Director

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

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Zysk in thebulletin.org on nuclear threats and de-escalation

Katarzyna Zysk — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 21:50:00 +0000

Original source

On February 9, Transatlantic Security Initiative nonresident senior fellow Katarzyna Zysk was quoted in thebulletin.org discussing the Russian nuclear threats.

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Katarzyna Zysk

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

Arms Control English

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Global China Hub Nonresident Senior Fellow John Culver Quotes in New York Times

John Culver — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 21:12:34 +0000

On February 4, Global China Hub Nonresident Senior Fellow John Culver was quoted in a New York Times article on China’s rapid nuclear buildup.

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Soofer on Voice of America on North Korean missile threat

Atlantic Council — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 21:12:30 +0000

On December 30, 2023, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer appeared on Voice of America Korea to discuss how the United States’ strategy is evolving in response to North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. Soofer highlighted the United States’ multifaceted approach to missile defense including active defense measures, preemptive capabilities prior to missile launch, and nuclear deterrence through the threat of overwhelming retaliation. He stressed that the United States is well equipped to meet the ongoing threat and continues to develop its approach.

It’s making it clear to the North Koreans that any nuclear attack against the United States will not only be futile, because we will shoot down their missiles, but it will be fatal because they can expect a response.

Robert Soofer

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Robert Soofer

Arms Control Defense Policy

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Gilbert quoted in NK News on next steps for North Korea

kyusko — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 21:27:41 +0000

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On December 15, Lauren Gilbert was quoted in NK News assessing President Yoon Suk Yeol’s North Korea policy as part of a survey of over 100 experts. She explained that although there was room for improvement, Yoon’s “call to cease development of the DPRK’s nuclear weapons while being open to diplomacy and providing aid” was a step in the right direction.

On December 18, Gilbert was quoted in another survey-based NK News article, where she explained that Kim Jong Un would be likely to view future diplomacy with the United States skeptically, especially given the United States’ increased cooperation with South Korea and Japan.

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Lauren D. Gilbert

Deputy Director

East Asia Human Rights

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Our experts explain what US policymakers should know about deterring Russia’s and China’s nuclear threats

Katherine Walla — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 19:10:29 +0000

In June, the fellows from the Nuclear Strategy Project in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program met at a roundtable, supported by Atlantic Council Board Director Walter Slocombe, to discuss how to deter nuclear powers Russia and China from expanding their capabilities or incorporating them in their defense strategies. They narrowed in on Cold War deterrence methods, exploring whether those theories need to be completely changed for today’s strategic context. Below, edited for length and clarity, is their conversation moderated by Robert Soofer, senior fellow with Forward Defense.

Our expert analysts

Robert Soofer: Senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program and former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy
Keir Lieber: Nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program and professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies
Amy Woolf: Nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program and former specialist in nuclear weapons policy at the Congressional Research Service of the US Library of Congress
General Kevin Chilton: Distinguished fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program and former commander of US Strategic Command
Franklin D. Kramer: Distinguished fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and former US assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs
Hans Binnendijk: Distinguished fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Transatlantic Security Initiative and former National Security Council official
Daryl Press: Nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program and professor of government and director of the Institute for Global Security at Dartmouth University
Walter Slocombe: Board director, Atlantic Council
Rachel Whitlark: Nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program and associate professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology

Lessons learned for deterrence theory

ROBERT SOOFER: China’s nuclear buildup, combined with Russia’s increased reliance on nuclear weapons, means that the United States will now be facing a two-peer nuclear environment. When it comes to lessons of the Cold War, are they applicable to this new tripolar context?. . .

Let’s start with deterrence theory: Does the Cold War strategy suffice, or does the United States need a new strategy? How do we think about deterrence during the Cold War? And is there something unique about this new era that requires us to rethink?

KEIR LIEBER: I’m going to focus on three key Cold War deterrence theories that I think are most relevant.

The three main deterrence challenges facing the United States were 1) how to deter a nuclear attack against the US homeland, 2) how to extend deterrence to cover allies, and 3) how to manage the risk of nuclear escalation in any conflict. The United States grappled with all three of these challenges during the Cold War, mostly over the best way to make nuclear deterrence credible.

In terms of the first challenge, the United States sought to deter Soviet nuclear attack against the US homeland by deploying a robust nuclear triad of forces that could survive any Soviet first strike and still be able to carry out overwhelming nuclear retaliation.

For the second challenge, the United States sought to deter a Soviet conventional invasion of its NATO allies in Western Europe by threatening to use nuclear weapons first. That is, the United States planned to escalate to nuclear war in response to a Soviet conventional attack. The US built the forces for this, and the United States forward deployed these forces in Western Europe to make this threat as credible, real, and convincing as possible.

Third, the United States sought to avoid escalation to all-out nuclear war in any conflict with the Soviet Union by seeking superiority at every rung of the escalation ladder. That is, the United States sought to convince the Soviet Union that the United States could, and would, respond in kind to any additional escalation. In other words, the United States pursued dominance for the purpose of deterrence; and if deterrence failed, the United States planned to rely on its dominance to coerce a halt to the conflict before things got totally out of hand.

Only the third deterrence theory requires major theoretical rethinking by US policymakers and defense planners today. I don’t think the United States needs a fundamentally new theory to understand how to deter an attack on the US homeland. Of course, the United States may need to build up its nuclear forces in response to buildups by China and Russia. This is the tripolar context. But it’s still hard to imagine a surprise nuclear strike that wipes out or disables the entire US arsenal, leaving nothing with which Washington can retaliate.

Extended deterrence to allies is getting more difficult but not necessarily because of the new dynamics of tripolarity. I don’t think the United States needs a new theory of extended deterrence in the age of tripolarity. Yes, the United States needs to do more to make the nuclear umbrella over Japan and South Korea more credible, but the real challenge simply comes from the growth of North Korea’s nuclear forces, their ability to hit the US homeland, and expected challenges like that.

However, when it comes to deterring and managing escalation in a conventional war against a nuclear power, I think Cold War theories, ideas, and explanations are hindering the US ability to think clearly and realistically about the threats. The key difference is that whereas in the Cold War it was the United States that sought to make nuclear escalation credible—that is, to make plausible in the mind of the United States’ key adversary that it would escalate to nuclear use—today, the shoe is on the other foot. Today it’s the United States’ potential adversaries—including China, Russia, North Korea, and someday Iran—that might need to threaten nuclear escalation to deter the United States in a conventional war.

Today the United States seeks to avoid nuclear escalation, not make it more likely. Yet, as seen in Ukraine and in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s credible threats to escalate with nuclear weapons, most of the policy and analytic community is falling back on Cold War ideas about deterrence. Many seem to have little grasp of the reasons why an adversary losing a conventional war will seek to escalate, and what should be done about it. That’s where new theories are needed to understand and prepare for nuclear escalation in the conventional conflicts of today and tomorrow.

US leaders and the US analytical community need to better understand the new risks, dangers, and challenges of nuclear deterrence today. That’s why I see it as a theoretical challenge as much as anything else.

AMY WOOLF: The theory of deterrence and where there is a problem is not with the actual theory, but with the way that people shorthand the theory.

So throughout the Cold War, the shorthand—we would say “deterrence” and people would hear or read “deterrence by the threat of offensive nuclear retaliation.” But the theory of deterrence is that you ensure that the adversary making the decision—and this is a mind game—recognizes that the costs of taking action will far exceed the benefits of taking action. So the United States operationalized that during the Cold War through the threat of offensive nuclear retaliation.

In the circumstance of escalation from a conventional conflict to a nuclear conflict, deterrence—ensuring that the costs exceed the benefits of being the first one to use nuclear weapons—means a lot more than just threatening nuclear retaliation. You need to emphasize costs all along the escalatory ladder. If there is a regional crisis and you don’t want it to escalate, you can walk the crisis through in the Russia-Ukraine context.

But at the theory level, the idea is that through some integrated response to an adversary, you make clear to them that, at all steps of the escalation ladder, if they keep moving forward, their benefits will be swamped by the costs and dampened by the United States’ reaction. So it’s the cost-benefit mind game—which it was during the Cold War, but many shorthand it to nuclear deterrence in the Cold War.

KEVIN CHILTON: Perhaps assurance and escalation control are more closely linked than we thought of in the past. When thinking about what to field and how to posture forces, perhaps the associated considerations should not just be about escalation control but also about the benefits to assurance. One may enhance assurance or one may not, depending on how you think through both of these elements.

FRANKLIN D. KRAMER: The United States went from an early Cold War doctrine of threatening heavy use early to a doctrine of flexible response. And that basically meant that the United States was going to do its best to succeed at the conventional level. It didn’t take first use off the table, that’s for sure. But it certainly didn’t make first use predominant either.

So it seems to me that the challenges are pretty much the same. That is to say the United States always had to think about, if it started to succeed at the conventional level, the possibility that the adversary would go nuclear. That’s certainly the United States’ significant problem. It’s a problem in Europe. It’s a problem in the Indo-Pacific. But it’s not different, in my opinion, than the problem that the United States had once it moved to the flexible response approach.

HANS BINNENDIJK: But there is a distinction between deterring a rational actor and deterring a decisionmaker who is more emotionally engaged. During the Cold War, the United States was dealing with a Kremlin that, despite everything else, was comprised of actors that were still rational. I’m not sure Putin today is a rational actor. I’m not sure the United States is dealing with a rational actor in North Korea. And so as the United States thinks about deterrence theory, it might want to shape that theory with those two kinds of decision makers in mind: a rational actor and an emotional actor—someone deciding based on his or her own personal survival, on history, on culture, and all the things seen coming out of Putin’s mind.

DARYL PRESS: During the Cold War, with respect to the intersection between conventional war and escalation, there was a theoretical question the United States was trying to solve and a theoretical question that the Soviets were trying to solve.

This theoretical question links directly back to Thomas Schelling: How does the United States make credible threats that it will use nuclear weapons if its conventional forces are failing, when nuclear escalation at its highest level would lead to mutual disaster? And that’s a difficult theoretical question that gave birth to Schelling’s Nobel Prize-winning work about managing risks in a world of mutual destruction. So it was a theoretical problem that the United States faced in the Cold War, and it made a lot of progress on that problem, both theoretically and operationally in terms of deterrence strategy.

The Soviets faced a different theoretical problem, which is how do you beat in conventional war an enemy who has the ability to escalate to the nuclear level to avoid defeat? And I think they never solved that problem. The reason that’s relevant now is that’s the problem the United States faces. If it faces war on the Korean Peninsula tomorrow, the problem is how does the United States convince the North Koreans to allow it to beat them without them employing stalemated weapons? How does the United States get Russia to allow it, with its allies, to impose a really bad defeat on Russia without incentivizing an escalation? And it’s the problem the United States might face in Taiwan.

So, yes, at the most abstract level, make sure that costs exceed benefits? Check. But the analytic community for thirty years was focused on one problem in the Cold War. It is focused on a different problem today. And the fact that it is not crystal clear about that is, itself, a problem.

Cold War nuclear strategy

ROBERT SOOFER: How did the United States operationalize deterrence during the Cold War? What are the implications for the current situation?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: It seems to me there are distinct phases. The first was in the immediate post-Cold War period, where the United States had actually very few weapons, only fifty Hiroshima-size weapons, and the targets were all cities. This was a holdover from the Army/Air Force fascination with strategic bombing. And its problem is demonstrated by the question an Army guy at one of these briefings supposedly asked: I know you can destroy the fifty biggest cities in Russia, the Soviet Union. But how will that stop the Red Army? In some sense, that’s a question we’ve never answered.

The second phase is 1950 to 1955, roughly. The United States had a lot more weapons, a very big, stacked plan summarized by a naval officer at this time who said that it is a plan for reducing the Soviet Union to a smoldering, radiating ruin in about two hours. Holding back the Soviet military was added as an objective, but there was still a very heavy emphasis on urban-industrial targets. Next phase—and I’m sticking strictly to the strategic part of this problem, leaving aside the tactical—was the period as the Soviets began to develop significant forces of their own. Meanwhile, the US concept had not changed, but the target list was growing.

And just as a sideline, this was the period when the Air Force was finally coerced into fighting on the same side as the Navy—or, more accurately, letting the Navy fight on the same side as they did. Then the Kennedy administration, perhaps the most important development there was when former US President John F. Kennedy and then US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara were briefed on the Single Integrated Operational Plan, their immediate answer was it was too big. And when they heard General Lyman Lemnitzer say, quite candidly to his credit, under any circumstances, even during a preemptive attack by the United States, it would be expected that some portion of the Soviet long-range nuclear force would strike the United States—this was a period of very large increases in both sides’ forces.

The next phase, roughly the Nixon years, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger—who had, after all, made his name by a book that was substantially about limited nuclear war—made the point that the president needed to have options other than Armageddon or inaction, some way to be effective but also to constrain escalation. And the directives were to create smaller options. Some options were developed—that was a period, at least part of it, when I was on the National Security Council staff. There were lots more numbers on the briefing slides, but they were all pretty big, unless they were extremely little.

Then the Carter administration is, of course, most famous for Presidential Directive 59 (PD-59), which, partly because I was involved, I think was the first serious effort to ask what would deter the Soviets. And the conclusion was that the risk of losing the things the leader managed most (Communist Party control, conventional military power, and, importantly, ethnic Russian hegemony in the Soviet Union) would deter the Soviets. And this was the theory of articulation of the point that Amy made, that the objective is to make sure the enemy thinks that the costs and risks are graded in turn.

Over this history, I think there are a number of common themes. One, and I think it’s very important, is what I call presidential revulsion. I would assert that every US president, including Harry Truman, and even Donald Trump too, has just been appalled when they learn about nuclear weapons and wants to figure out some way out of this bomb. And so the search is to have credibility for meaningful attacks, but ones that also don’t force escalation.

The second common theme is the very weak link between theory and practice. It is remarkable the degree to which different doctrines, written up very elegantly, had essentially minimal impact on the actual planning. Now, this was partly due to massive nontransparency in the process. The most extreme version was the early days, when the Navy and the Air Force literally didn’t know each other’s target. Thus, the search for options with limited results, partly due to military resistance was, to quote Kissinger, “always short of being insubordinate but also short of being useful.”

Another theme is rapid early response. That is to avoid preemption. But it also requires preplanned options, which are very inflexible. And it is a capabilities-based approach to cover targets that are identified only in the most general terms and that the military-urban distinction is quite artificial.

Not totally artificial, but even the military can see that the co-location of facilities, particularly industrial facilities, is such that it is hard to distinguish an attack on military and industrial targets from an attack on cities as such. One important point was the absolute assertion of the proposition that only the president can reduce and authorize the use of nuclear weapons. And pretty firm pushing back at any effort to change that.

There’s a short epilogue post-1990. Very different. End of the Cold War. But it was the time when for the first time, under Franklin C. Miller’s leadership, there was real civilian access and detailed review, drastic cuts in the weapons allocation, and drastic cuts in the number of weapons.

On the United States’ nuclear strategy, mutually assured destruction (MAD) was accepted as a test of sufficiency. It was not used—to put it mildly—either for planning purposes or procurement. There is a mark of continued aspiration, fascination with the idea of going first. So if you’re going first, you’re going very quickly, so that you can reduce damage. None of the schemes, I think, had a whole lot of value.

On the United States’ current problem with tripolarity, I think there is an interesting analogy to something that runs all the way through the history. That is to have what was called in PD-59 a secure reserve force. And in many ways, a secure reserve force as a way of deterring, still by the threat of retaliation, but hoping that the enemy will avoid further escalation because of the prospect that we can still trump his ace. And I think that is in some sense simply a general case of what the United States has faced now in terms of deterring either Russia or China, if the United States is engaged in a war.

KEIR LIEBER: I would just dissent from the view that one strategic approach characterized US planning in the Cold War. In the first phase of the Cold War, US strategy entailed massive nuclear use at the outset of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. And that persisted for quite a while. It was only until the early 1960s that the United States really got serious about a more flexible response, even though it’s still not clear whether a more flexible path would have been possible.

And then later in the Cold War there was a major effort to develop counterforce capabilities to target Soviet nuclear delivery systems, and an interest in first strike: that’s a reality. Diving deeper into the Cold War, it is becoming increasingly clear that counterforce efforts pervaded many different parts of the US government and military. It’s important to understand that US goals, doctrines, and postures were variable, not constant.

DARYL PRESS: The United States may be making kind of an analytic and theoretical mistake, which is, if the United States’ principal wartime task toady was the same as it was during the Cold War—meaning stopping somebody with conventional superiority from defeating us—then the question worth asking is does the United States still have the ability to employ nuclear weapons in some sort of limited, managed way, to try to reestablish deterrence, the Cold War objective? But if the objective now is to be able to impose a defeat of some fashion on nuclear-armed adversaries—whether that’s Russia in Ukraine, or China in Taiwan, or North Korea in some war—then simply being able to continue to impose costs upon them as they’re escalating might not be enough, from a theoretical standpoint, because the costs to them of accepting defeat are so very high.

So that’s why at least it raises the possibility that the questions the United States should be asking today are different from the ones it was asking in the 1970s and 1980s. Whereas then it was about can the United States use and manage, now it’s what can the United States do to stop them from using as the United States is winning the conventional war?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: The right question to ask is how does the United States make them believe that they have more to lose in the first place by starting at all? And that’s very important. But in the second place, that they have more to lose after they use nuclear weapons? One place that I think it would be interesting to do more research is tactical nuclear weapons. For various reasons, maybe it’s just the National Security Archive hasn’t gotten around to doing it, I was able to find a great deal less information about doctrine in theater in the Cold War period than strategic.

AMY WOOLF: Nuclear strategy and employment policy are very, very, very different things. Ninety percent of this conversation is about what the United States says about how it would employ nuclear weapons, and what it would seek to achieve by employing them. But what came out of Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff (JSTPS) and STRATCOM and the actual planning had very little variation to it over time.

Where anytime you go and talk to JSTPS, even now probably going out to STRATCOM, they do their job systematically and systemically, but the doctrinal reports and papers that are sent out don’t always match. So in the two-peer environment what the United States says about what its goals are may be extraordinarily unlikely to change, because its goals are general enough.

The United States wants to restore deterrence at the minimal level of damage and keep the adversary from controlling escalation. There should be no newness to those goals. But how the United States would actually plan and employ the use of nuclear weapons may change. And that gets to the question of whether you’d see those changes if you went to the Targeteers and saw how they implemented change. Because I once asked General Lee Butler why he became an abolitionist. And he said it was because nothing ever changes. The Targeteers will go straight to all-out nuclear war no matter where you go. So it’s two separate questions.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: I think the idea in PD-59 was to have some options for use that were clearly less than all-out. My favorite was always attack the Soviet forces defending the Chinese border. Something that they would really not like very much. It wouldn’t be fatal, but it would divert their attention. And at least conceptually, that’s the sort of thing that it seems to me what the United States should be looking for.

It’s a very hard problem, in the case of Ukraine. I’m not sure it’s a harder problem in the case of having a post-exchange or a post-crisis, which doesn’t have to use nuclear weapons, with a peer when you’re still concerned with deterring the other peer. And, of course, they’re not independent variables.

Today’s nuclear force posture

ROBERT SOOFER: Today the United States has options that are extremely flexible. And whatever is not on the books, the president can order up, and the country can make happen. So the United States can use nuclear weapons in the most limited and flexible manner possible. So I would suggest that US operational policy, engagement policy, and capabilities are very much in concert now with a strategy of limited controlled use of nuclear weapons.

KEVIN CHILTON: First, I’m not sure our options are as flexible as they need to be in the current or pending environment. They certainly aren’t as flexible as they were in the European theater in the 1970s and 1980s. As we look forward, suicide cannot be the president’s only deterrent option. By that I mean it would likely be intolerable (or just as bad, unbelievable) to attempt to deter a regional conflict with threats of a strike on the homeland of a near-peer adversary who would likely respond in a similar, if not an escalated, fashion. And so not enough time, in my view, is being spent on examining the role of theater weapons, designed to be employed on targets other than those on an adversary’s mainland, in deterring a conventional conflict that the United States thinks it may otherwise lose. If, for example, the US combatant commander in the Indo-Pacific region assesses that US conventional capabilities cannot deter or defeat an invasion of Taiwan, then the United States should consider what theater nuclear threat might sow doubt in a Chinese assessment of their ability to achieve unification by force without provoking a strike on the US homeland. Additionally, we should consider what role theater nuclear weapons might have in deterring the first use of nuclear weapons by China in a case where China begins to lose a conventional conflict it initiates against Taiwan. Also, theater-based nuclear weapons are not just escalation control weapons and deterrent weapons; they can also be meaningful assurance weapons.

Secondly, the United States strategic deterrent force is essentially a dyad today. The bomber force remains flexible but difficult to put on alert. Indeed, we should take a serious look at what it would take to put bombers on alert in adequate numbers to credibly signal resolve or, in the more stressing case, backfill the loss of one of the other legs of the triad, whether it be for technical reasons in their warheads or delivery vehicles. This should include examining tanker requirements as well as security force, maintenance, and alert accommodations for crews and weapon storage area requirements.

Today, our nuclear weapon enterprise cannot manufacture our way out of a geopolitical surprise like the rise of a second near-peer competitor, which I would argue is no longer a surprise. It’s a reality, as we see China growing its strategic forces. There are those who say that there is no need to change the declaratory policies, force structure, and posture of US nuclear forces as China becomes a near peer. I think that is a sign that the United States hasn’t thoughtfully considered the potential impacts of this important change. We likely will need more flexible capabilities and employment options than what we have today. Examining what it would take to reinvigorate the readiness of the bomber leg is one thing I think the United States should be considering in this regard.

ROBERT SOOFER: But with respect to US strategy, is there any reason to change from this notion that the United States should have controlled, limited, flexible use of nuclear weapons with the purpose of limiting escalation short of strategic nuclear exchange? Is there any reason to change that strategy?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: There really is a formula for making any nonsuicidal adversary realize that the costs to them will be greater than the gains. But I’m in favor of what you call a more tailored, more limited response. Also, it’s important to remember on the tactical front, where I think some of the answers will lie, many tend to think of tactical nuclear weapons as platform-based. The issue really is not where the weapons come from, but where they go. And I would have thought one of the arguments for keeping the bombers, even if they’re limited use, in a large-scale option is that they have some very clear advantages.

DARYL PRESS: I’d just say again, in a different version, if the United States is trying to deter an adversary for reaching for nuclear weapons while the United States inflicts devastating defeats on them in a war, then I think the ability merely to respond in kind and inflict additional pain on them doesn’t make sense analytically. If you’re the North Korean government and the consequence you see coming down the path from this war is that South Korean forces are going to end up in Pyongyang, and you’re either going to get hung in Pyongyang or across the border in Beijing, the fact that United States might respond with nuclear weapons if you escalate shouldn’t, logically, give you any additional fear.

At least for the nonpeer competitor cases, if you want a coercive ability to try to convince them to keep their nuclear forces on the table while they’re suffering terrible defeat, you should have response options that do more than punish, but probably disarm. And that’s the argument for having at least good counterforce capabilities in those cases. Whether that’s feasible or desirable against China or feasible or desirable against Russia is a different can of worms.

The United States might lose a conventional war over Taiwan. It might. But it also might win overwhelmingly. It might. And if the Chinese Communist Party is faced with a catastrophic, embarrassing, humiliating defeat, leading to the loss of a big portion of their territory, China might have incentives to escalate. And simply the ability to inflict suffering in response might not be the right coercive mechanism.

To me, the case is clear, with regard to little countries, like North Korea and, in the future, Iran. It’s less clear, but the United States just can’t fall into these same ways of thinking that says coercing them from escalating is the same thing we were doing in the Cold War, because it’s not.

I think China sees the nuclear balance very differently than a lot of people in the United States do. There is a reason why China is adapting its nuclear forces in a hurry, the way they are. And I believe they perceive serious threats to their nuclear arsenal. So there is a tradeoff here. Building additional disarming capabilities against China solves one problem and leans into a different one. And the different problem it leans into is it generates the kind of responses being seen from them right now. And it’s true.

On the other hand, accepting a condition of MAD—not a policy of MAD, a condition of MAD with China—leans into a situation where they do have escalatory options to avert the worst sorts of conventional defeats. At the end of the day, at some point the United States has to give up the ability to have, I think, superior options over countries when they’re powerful, rich, and technically capable enough. But how far up that adversary continuum do you want to go in terms of building disarming capabilities, such that you can not only deter conventional war but you have a chance to deter adversary escalation in such a war and to mitigate costs to US allies and forces if that happens?

And simply saying it’s all one thing, imposing costs, it mixes all the nuance and it leads you into this situation which is giving leaders options that are no greater than different forms of defeat and disaster. And that would be a failure.

KEIR LIEBER: Can the United States do a counterforce disarming strike? That’s a calculation it needs to think about for a country like North Korea. But for Russia and China, even if that’s not possible, which is worth debating, that’s going to be an ongoing conversation. But is a limited nuclear response to, say, Russian nuclear escalation in Ukraine the right doctrine, the right approach, the right policy?

Even a limited nuclear response—what does that accomplish? If you believe that you are not willing to go up the escalation ladder all the way to all-out nuclear war, and if you believe that Russia has a more vital stake in the conflict in Ukraine than the United States does, then I’m not sure whether even a limited response makes any sense in that case.

KEVIN CHILTON: I think there is value in being able to respond in kind, and perhaps even a little bit larger than in kind, in such a circumstance. And at least, if nothing else, having the ability to do that, and threaten that, I think serves a purpose for not only escalation control, but for fundamental deterrence.

And if all you have in your response options are “sledgehammers,” then the credibility of your deterrent is reduced. Because oftentimes a bully will think, surely they’re not going to pull the sledgehammer out if I just kick them in the shins. But, surely the bully may be wrong, which is dangerous for all sides. So I think there is value both in deterring first use, but in also escalation control, by fielding those capabilities.

In the Korean scenario, I agree if Kim Jong-Un thinks he’s going to die no matter what, then he’s probably more likely to do something radical. But there’s an assumption there that the United States would drive all the way to Pyongyang and drag him to the gallows to stop an invasion of South Korea. I think that’s a bad assumption.

If what the United States is trying to do is preserve South Korea, there are choices that can be made in a conventional conflict that perhaps do not put him in that corner. And the United States needs to think about that when it considers how to posture, structure, and consider its policies with regard to nuclear use.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: It would be a mistake to assume that all wars, even all serious wars, are wars about literally national existence. I mean, for Ukraine it is, but it’s not for Russia. Taiwan is important to China, but the Chinese Communist Party has been ruling China quite successfully since 1949 with no control over Taiwan. It’s not that it’s impossible to create a situation in which the Chinese, however reluctantly, come to the conclusion that pressing an attack on Taiwan—or even starting down that path—is not very much in their interest.

Extended deterrence and assurance

ROBERT SOOFER: Making extended deterrence and assurance credible was the toughest job during the Cold War. So how did the United States do this during the Cold War? How should the United States use this moving forward?

HANS BINNENDIJK: Extended deterrence is harder than trying to deter an adversary from attacking your own territory; not just because it’s someone else’s territory, but you are also trying to deter both conventional and nuclear attacks. Having said that, it worked. It worked really quite well during the Cold War—no attack on a NATO ally or other US allies in Asia, no proliferation on the part of US allies, which would be a demonstration of lack of assurance. Contrast this with the Israeli case where the United States did not provide extended deterrence, and Israel proliferated to defend themselves and deter.

What were the characteristics of what I think was a very successful policy during the Cold War of extended deterrence? I would say there are four Ts. The United States had treaty arrangements with all of these nations. It had troops in the region, both to defend conventionally but also as—call them nuclear hostages. The United States had theater nuclear weapons there, so thinking back to the 1980 debate over Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) deployments. But the United States had the nuclear weapons there, and it had trust. It had trust with the allies. And it worked hard on building that trust. It had all sorts of consultative mechanisms. It shared plans, policies, etc. So these four Ts together allowed the United States to get through the Cold War with extended deterrence working.

Then you had the next thirty years after the end of the Cold War, and what happened to extended deterrence there? It continued to be successful. There was a dramatic change in the threat from the Soviet Union to a greater focus on the Korean Peninsula. The United States had treaties remaining in place, by and large, troop deployments there—declining numbers, but still there. Trust became a little more difficult, especially during the Trump years, and the theater nuclear weapons were largely removed except for those delivered by dual-capable aircraft in Europe. So you had a shift there in that next thirty-year period, but extended deterrence continued to work.

And now there’s a new era where both the Russians and the North Koreans are threatening use of nuclear weapons, and there is a growing INF gap, both in Europe and in Asia. So we’re beginning to lose some of those four Ts, as I call them.

I’d say there are two questions. One is extended deterrence for treaty allies—does the United States need to make changes there to continue the successful extended deterrence as seen over the last seven or eight decades? I would say the United States doesn’t need a change of theory there. But it does need, perhaps, to implement things a bit differently and strengthen several of those four Ts, and maybe look at missile defense as another element.

And the second question is, what about extended deterrence for nontreaty allies? Ukraine, Taiwan, the obvious two. The United States doesn’t really have policies there. All of the Ts, if you will, are missing. And can you have any degree of extended deterrence without treaty arrangements, without troops, without trust, and without weapons in theater?

FRANKLIN D. KRAMER: I’m not sure that I would agree that extended deterrence worked. I would say it didn’t fail. And the reason I make that point is that there are a lot of things that come into play to determine whether or not a war starts, and it’s not just the nuclear weapons, so the United States’ conventional capabilities, the geostrategic set of arrangements, etc. etc. And so that may affect how we think about things.

The second thing I think is also important to say is when we talk about so-called theater nuclear weapons, whether a weapon is strategic or not I think depends on where it lands. So if we have a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile, for example, that hits the Chinese mainland, from their perspective, that’s a strategic weapon. That doesn’t mean we should or should not have it. It just means that we need to understand that calling something theater doesn’t necessarily reduce the risk of escalation. It really depends on what you do with it.

So with respect to hitting their fleet in the water might be significantly less escalatory than hitting some appropriate—from our perspective—military target on land, and I would think, pretty certainly in my opinion, if we hit the Chinese mainland, they’re going to hit the US mainland.

On the issues of assurance and extended deterrence, I think it’s useful to outline a few things. One, what we did during the Cold War didn’t necessarily assure the allies. The ROKs and the Taiwans each had so-called secret nuclear programs. We eventually stopped them, but they certainly weren’t assured for a considerable period of time. There were some people down in Australia who would have liked to have moved—even a few people in Japan—not their government. So assurance was not ironclad—let’s put it that way. And certainly, that was not the case in Europe when Schmidt—I think it was 1977 if I remember right—raised the issue of the then-Soviet weapons—the SS-20 intermediate-range nuclear missiles in particular which led to the dual-track kind of approach, deploying ground-launched cruise missiles and Pershings, but also the INF talks. And then those eventually did succeed until, of course, the Russians decided to violate it.

So the lesson I think that one wants to take is that it’s a really bad idea to think about extended deterrence in and of itself. It’s part of overall deterrence; that is to say both conventional and nuclear. There is a high degree of importance in consultations and engaging the allies so that—the dual-capable aircraft I don’t think are very important weapons from an employment approach, but they are very important weapons in terms of maintaining the alliance’s working together. The Nuclear Planning Group is sort of a talking shop, but then the same thing—it is importance for alliance management, and it’s important, I think, to modernize in a way that the allies feel most comfortable.

And one example of things changing where that’s important, of course, is the German decision late last year to go with the F-35s, which I think was not a foregone decision until the Russians decided to invade Ukraine, and then Germany’s policy very substantially changed.

In Asia, we’ve got the Japanese, the Australians, the Group of Seven for that matter, the ROKs all talking about the importance of stability in the Taiwan Strait. And so, again, they have a high degree of interest in what the United States does in this regard including nuclear weapons, but not only nuclear weapons.

And I haven’t figured out really what to do about the DPRK. I don’t think it’s accurate to say that [Kim Jong Un is] not a rational actor; it’s just that the way he analyzes things is just different. And it’s the same with Putin. Putin is rational but he’s got an entirely different set of motivations and factors that he considers.

So to go forward, I think we should do some of the things that we are doing, which is to say modernize, have an adequate amount of weapons. I think we need to look hard at, with at least three—and maybe with Iran coming—four potential nuclear adversaries. Just do some of the analysis that is done out in Omaha, main points, survivability, those kinds of issues.

We need to think through missile defense as part of that. I think we need to step up the set of consultations. The administration says it is doing that. I think that’s the right way to go. And then, we need to think through hard where we stand on Taiwan. The lesson that a lot of people have taken from Ukraine—and the administration is concerned about escalation with respect to Ukraine—is that it’s not so necessarily likely that we would utilize weapons to defend Taiwan, and does that make it more likely or not that the Chinese would attack?

ROBERT SOOFER: Is there anything else that changes in the two nuclear peer environment—two nuclear peer plus because we’ll include North Korea—and is there anything else that the United States should consider to shore up extended deterrence/assurance?

KEIR LIEBER: Two things come to mind: The first is about the issue of characterizing leaders as rational versus delusional. I think this is a red herring. It’s a distraction from the real issue and about how we should go about analyzing it.

What I always say is let’s just assume they’re a rational actor—just make that assumption, then figure out what we would do, and what he or she would do, and then we can adjust things based on whether one thinks they are crazy, recklessly aggressive, emotional, etc. When I think about Putin’s potential nuclear use, China’s potential nuclear use, North Korea’s potential nuclear use, I don’t have to go to the “they’re crazy or delusional” argument to get to nuclear use. I mean, I completely understand what the incentives would be for Putin to do this. And I don’t think we’re doing ourselves any favors by writing someone off as just a crazy actor who does or does not operate according to rational deterrence theory. Let’s first figure out what a rational actor might do and then take it from there. That might be worrisome enough.

The second thing is that there is a tendency to delink the capabilities that the US thinks it needs for actual deterrence from the capabilities it thinks it needs for assurance. I’ve always said that what US allies want it to deploy is what they think will deter the common adversary—not anything different than that. And so it’s not like when the Tomahawk land attack missile was retired, when everybody described a favorite ally as saying that they really care about, or don’t care about, this one capability—at the end of the day, I think all they care about is what are the capabilities that are going to be most likely to deter. Are the dual-capable aircraft armed with B61-12s, is that the key thing to deter a Russian nuclear escalation? I think not. I’d much rather have a new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile or the low-yield ballistic missile around if deterrence is the goal.

But my point is that’s a discussion about what we think will deter. And the thing that will deter is the thing that’s going to assure the best. We should be careful not to delink these concepts as if assurance is a separate thing from deterrence—that is, just some other psychological thing or calculation.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: I think in many ways the platform issue is much less about the Russians than it is about the allies and partners. The British minister of defence, Denis Healey, said the problem with assurance is it’s a 5 percent chance that it will work—may well be enough to deter the Russians, but a 95 percent chance that it may not be enough to reassure the allies.

The dual-capable aircraft had some unique capabilities—they’re not a waste—but they are primarily there because they are a symbol of nuclear sharing, they’re a symbol of our commitment. They are—this can cut both ways—they are physically in Europe, in country, and there are a number of things that I think come in that category.

ROBERT SOOFER: But what does that mean—except for the fact that we may need additional capabilities, but we need to be able to convince our allies that we are willing to use nuclear weapons on their behalf. We have to have those capabilities. That was the case during the Cold War, and that’s the case today. So we need to think of those types of capabilities that will deter the adversaries, and by doing so, now we will reassure the allies. That’s what we did in the Cold War, and that’s what we’re doing today. So what’s different?

HANS BINNENDIJK: Well, one of the things that’s different is that the four Ts that worked during the Cold War and weren’t needed during the next thirty years are going to be more needed in the future. And getting to them is going to be difficult. For example, in the European context, I think we would probably strengthen deterrence if we had some more theater nuclear capability in Europe. Getting there would be politically very dangerous. We do not want to have another dual-track debate—not at this particular point in Europe, given the unity we’ve been able to craft around Ukraine.

So I think the best we can do in the NATO context is to call for a review of nuclear deterrence, and do that quietly on the side with our allies. The worst thing we could do is tell them that extended deterrence is no longer as credible as it used to be. So I think that has to be done very carefully.

Asia is probably different politically. We can probably introduce theater weapons there with less political baggage. So that’s the first thing—getting back to the four Ts, if you will, and how to do that carefully.

And then the second thing I would say, there really is a difference in trying to deter attacks on non-allies. There is no theory for that, and if we’re thinking about new theory, that’s where we need it.

FRANKLIN D. KRAMER: It seems to me that some of the discussion implies that the way the Chinese—to just use one example—think about deterrence, and the use of nuclear weapons, and the like, is the same as the way we do. I don’t think we should take that as a given. I think that we need to think—we need to do our best to try and have a much better understanding of what the Chinese value, what they see as most important, how they would act.

There’s been a big difference in general since Chinese leader Xi Jinping took over with respect to the way the Chinese go at a lot of things, so the Xi approach is quite different than the approaches taken by former leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. That may or may not make a difference with respect to how they would decide whether to go into a fight or what they would do once they were in a fight. But it’s certainly something that requires a lot of thinking—in my opinion—and not simply saying that we understand what would deter the Chinese, and I don’t think that’s right.

They are human beings, they are smart—they are really smart—but how they sort out what would make a difference I think requires a lot of thought.

It certainly seems to me to be a very important approach. And the same thing actually applies to Putin in a difference as I said earlier—that his calculations are, from his point of view, quite rational. He thinks that Ukraine is and should be part of Russia—we can go into a long rap about that—what risks he’s willing to take given that analysis, that starting point needs to be thought through, and what would make a difference.

I simply do not think that calling something theater makes it less strategic from the point of view of the adversary, whose country it lands in.

DARYL PRESS: I see changes, dramatic and potentially very significant changes, across the nuclear deterrence landscape. One is that we’re trying to deter nuclear use by adversaries who, in many cases, may feel they have regime threat levels of incentives to employ, even if they are rational. And that’s a different deterrence challenge. But that’s one that we’ve talked about considerably.

The second one is we’re trying to do deterrence in an era in which it’s not an exaggeration to say it is just unprecedented rates of technological change, and it’s technological change across the board in fashions that challenge the nitty-gritty of the nuclear mission. Obviously, accuracy revolution has gone through the roof, but the other shoe has yet to fall on the accuracy revolution, which is a world in which adversaries—countries with nuclear weapons also have substantial numbers of deliverable conventional weapons that pose major threats to their enemies’ nuclear forces. When that shoe falls, everybody from the United States rethinking land-based ballistic missiles to other countries around the world, and that’s the accuracy revolution.

The sensing revolution—it’s hard to talk about it in unclassified spaces, but it just changes everything. And even while people can say, oh, open ocean submarine operations will always—God has told me they’ll always be secure, let me say we’re arming ballistic missile submarines in fashions that make me think we imagine using them in limited war situations, and that’s going to be really hard in a world of really new sensing.

So number one was these new escalatory environments. Number two is technology change. Number three is the one you keep asking us to engage with, and we’re barely doing it, which is tripolarity.

But then there is number four, which is there is an era of—we’re used to deterrence in an era of nuclear plenty. We’re not in an era of nuclear plenty anymore. We’re in an era of 1,500 weapons. We’re in an era of fewer ballistic missile submarines going to sea with smaller numbers of tubes. And you’re in an era in which—although we have an air-delivered deterrent—I was in a meeting just a couple of days ago, and I was talking about the lack of tankers that will be available in US conventional operations against China because of the STRATCOM requirements, and they laughed me out of the room and said STRATCOM won’t have any nuclear requirements for tankers in a major conventional war against China. And I think that’s crazy, and I think it’s a big hole in our thinking. And I would agree with General Kevin Chilton, which is there will be a lot of STRATCOM requirements for tankers if you are fighting a conventional war.

So I think it’s away from an era of nuclear plenty; there are real constraints in the nuclear force. Tripolarity creates new problems. It’s a whole world of technology, and the interaction between conventional, and nuclear, and sensing, as well.

And then lastly is we’re in a world where, for the first time, sensible, rational, shrewd people have rational interests in using nuclear weapons in a conventional war against us as a way of keeping themselves off the noose. And you put all those things together, and I think—I think the environment’s changing.

KEVIN CHILTON: Just a few points I wanted to bring up that I think may be important in the broader discussion. One is we should always be careful not to mirror image our adversaries, that is, we should not assume that they are deterred by the same things that we would be deterred by.

The other is a caution not to assume China and Russia can be deterred in the same manner—or North Korea or anybody else. One of the fundamental things in talking about deterrence theory—which I do not think has changed—is that the key questions remain: Who (that is, what decision maker) do you want to deter? From doing what? And in what circumstances? Are you already in a conventional war? Is one looming? What are the circumstances that an adversary may be weighing? I don’t think the need for this type of analysis has fundamentally changed.

On the assurance side, we must remind ourselves that we don’t get to decide if someone else is assured. No. They decide if they are assured or not, and if they are not, then we end up with the undesirable effect of an increased risk of proliferation

And the last point I’d make is that I don’t think we’ve adequately thought through what is motivating China to building up its nuclear arsenal. I think one option that I haven’t heard brought up today is they may want to put themselves in a position to coerce us into not intervening conventionally in a Taiwan Straits or South China Sea crisis. Their previous posture, which was more of a retaliatory posture, appears to be growing into a first-strike capability and the threat of that capability maturing gives a different set of considerations to a future president as to whether or not he or she will come to the aid of our friends and allies in a conventional fight in the Western Pacific. Again, I think it is important for the United States to consider what roles theater nuclear weapons might play in deterring or countering that type of strategy.

And to Frank’s point that where the weapon lands matters, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve always found it rather cavalier on our part to assume that we would strike the Chinese mainland with conventional weapons in a Taiwan Straits scenario as a going-in assumption because I kind of have a sense how we might respond should our homeland be attacked with conventional weapons in this scenario.

Arms control and nonproliferation

ROBERT SOOFER: The United States has tried to reduce nuclear risks during the Cold War through a combination of nuclear deterrence, arms control, and nonproliferation. How successful were we during the Cold War and how might we use these tools going forward, if at all?

AMY WOOLF: So I do this spiel on how we should stop calling arms control arms control because when you do, everybody hears sign legally binding treaties that limit and reduce nuclear weapons. Please, may I talk you out of thinking those two phrases are the same thing, arms control and legally binding limits?

We, during the Cold War, did sign eight treaties and agreements with the Soviet Union and Russia that limited or reduced deployed numbers of nuclear weapons. But that’s not the fulsome nature of our arms control engagement and it’s not even a cause-and-effect relationship.

Most of the treaties that we signed that did require reductions in nuclear weapons were signed after we’d already decided to reduce requirements for nuclear weapons. So they codified those numbers.

Arms control does not force us to reduce nuclear weapons, nor can we expect it to force adversaries to accept reductions in their nuclear weapons unless they’ve already decided that they can get by with fewer.

So I’d like to disabuse you at the get-go from using that definition of arms control to answer Rob’s questions because I won’t.

What did we use arms control for during the Cold War? I have this nice fancy definition but mostly the core of it is to manage nuclear competition, encourage restraint in the numbers of nuclear weapons, and mitigate the risk of nuclear war, and we did it using a process of thirty out of fifty or forty out of fifty years of ongoing discussions, negotiations, consultations, things we called arms control negotiations that occasionally produced legally binding treaties.

But it was the process of engagement that is the sort of concept of arms control that we’re going to want to take forward in the current security environment where we have more than one peer with whom we would want to hold those discussions.

So what am I getting at here? When we sat down with the Soviet Union in the mid-1960s, we had very different concepts of what we would do with nuclear weapons, what we meant by strategic stability, and what our goals and roles were; and we’ve heard about that already today, that our deterrence problem was different from their deterrence problem, and even if we didn’t change each other’s minds over the years of pursuing these negotiations, these discussions, these engagements, this cooperation, we got a better understanding of what each other was talking about.

And that may not sound like a lot but it actually is because deterrence is a mind game and if you don’t know what levers to pull to affect the mind game then you’re not getting anywhere.

So if you think of arms control as a process of managing the nuclear competition by communicating, transparency, predictability, rather than the exact numbers of weapons that are deployed, you can see that it was quite successful during the Cold War to have those engagements with the Soviet Union and then with Russia.

If you measure it by limits on nuclear weapons, you would be far less sanguine about its success. For a period of time, we all agreed to limit our numbers of nuclear weapons. But when requirements change, as they are doing now, the willingness to limit numbers is going away.

So what does that mean for arms control, going forward? First off, do not consider arms control something you would do at a table with Russia and China at the same time. We have gotten to a place with Russia and the Soviet Union of having done this for fifty years we have a toolkit of things that we do and things that we accept to manage our nuclear competition and mitigate the risk of nuclear war.

We can’t expect our relationship with China to be in the same place. That toolkit that we’ve developed over fifty years with Russia isn’t going to be the same toolkit that we would use if and when we sit down at the table with China in an effort to manage our nuclear competition and encourage restraint.

We are not going to sit down at the table with China and start with legally binding treaties that limit and reduce nuclear weapons. We’re just not going to be there. The Chinese have said they are unwilling to do that.

We wouldn’t even know what to put in the treaty, and as General Chilton said, we don’t even know where they’re going with this modernization or why they’re getting there.

The first question we would want to ask them is not how many silos they are building now but how long they are going to keep at this and how many they are going to get to in the long run and why. The why is a really big question.

Now, knowing why may not affect anything about what we do next with them, but it will help us understand what our deterrence job is and what our nuclear requirements are. So the first step in arms control with China now is the same as what the first few steps with arms control with the Soviet Union were fifty years ago.

Figure out what language we’re speaking—and I don’t mean English and Chinese, obviously; I mean, in deterrence theory what language we’re speaking—what issues are of concern, what the roles and requirements of nuclear weapons are, and see if we can somehow manage this next phase of adjusting our requirements so that we don’t have misperceptions, misunderstandings, and inadvertent escalation.

So the role of arms control as a tool to manage competition in the 1960s and 1970s is the same role of arms control to manage nuclear competition today. We now have to do it at two different tables. But if you’re starting with that level of what is the role of arms control, that’s the same role.

RACHEL WHITLARK: One key takeaway from thinking about the history of the Cold War is that over time, two enemies, two competitors, managed to figure out how to cooperate or at least discuss areas of mutual interest despite the ongoing competition and contestation. That discussion was especially important in the areas where we were able to come up with standard-setting rules of the road to help us mitigate some of the most dangerous possibilities or at least work to improve those areas where there was ample opportunity for miscalculation. This type of behavior is going to be even more important in this more complex realm of the tripolar problem, especially since we’re not in a world at the present where we can expect formal treaties to be forthcoming with Russia or China.

Especially important is keeping areas of communication open and we’ve seen the US leadership recently move to try to keep areas of communication open with the Chinese, and I think there was some important news this week about the Biden administration working or taking steps to foster an agreement on the role of artificial intelligence in launching nuclear weapons.

So I think this is a good sign that we are moving in the right direction to at least try to keep conversation open despite what’s going on in Ukraine or other areas of friction in the dyadic relationships.

Of course, there’s more to do in thinking about the need to focus on the possibility of having US and Chinese agreement to alert one another if there’s going to be an ICBM test or have something akin to the hotline that we eventually stood up between the United States and the Soviet Union.

There are many things that we could do in this kind of vein to help improve the environment overall, to help cut down on some of the worst risks that exist.

The other item I would note is that it’s important to remember that arms control, however you want to define it, worked in conjunction with both nonproliferation and counterproliferation tools, including extended deterrence tools that Hans and Frank put on the table for us earlier. So there’s this broader toolkit to keep in mind.

The United States worked diligently, and especially with friends, to bring states into the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons framework or to keep states already adhering to the treaty adhering to their commitments.

But we also worked to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries, thinking about the broad tools of counter proliferation to roll back programs that were in development.

So this toolkit includes the diplomatic portfolio, formal and informal naming and shaming in international organizations or otherwise; economic sanctions, offering economic goodies or threatening to take them away, working unilaterally or multilaterally with the economic tools in the toolkit; threatening or using military force, using force alone or with other partners, against third parties that were seeking nuclear weapons.

And in the modern era, we’ve also introduced cyber tools into the counterproliferation toolkit to infiltrate states’ nuclear development in order to delay or forestall someone’s successful nuclear acquisition.

The United States has used all of these tools individually and in tandem over time, and I think it’s helpful to think about how they are relevant today; perhaps potentially in need of modification, but still relevant to our new environment.

That said, it is worth noting that these tools worked in some cases and others not. For example, in the North Korean context, we’re still dealing with the fact that some of our negotiations didn’t turn out the way that we had hoped.

But I guess in the end I would note that there were famous expectations, including by Kennedy in 1962, envisioning a world where we would have twenty or twenty-five or thirty states armed with nuclear weapons.

And we didn’t just get lucky, as I don’t need to remind people in the room, that Kennedy’s prediction wasn’t borne out. But, in fact, it was the significant story of US leadership, diverse leadership on arms control, nonproliferation, and counter proliferation. So today it is critically important to have thoughtful people leaning in to think about the complexity of this new environment. It is equally important for US leadership to continue in this more complex environment, moving forward, thinking through the totality of the arms control, nonproliferation, and counterproliferation tool kit.

HANS BINNENDIJK: I really think you’re right. It’s a question of engagement, of process, of trying to find the points that could lead to real instability such as lack of knowledge about tests, or their inability to distinguish tests that we’re doing.

But I have a question for you. It took several decades of work by Walter Slocombe and others to come to an understanding with the Soviet Union about the nature of and the theory of nuclear stability, and once that theory was agreed to, out of it came a whole array of arms control proposals—SALT, START, the ABM treaties, etc. It all flowed from this kind of common approach, which actually now we are losing with the Russians. My question, though, is what would you envision that theory of stability might be with the Chinese? What is the theory of stability with China that the United States might be working towards as it engages?

AMY WOOLF: First, I want to dispute your premise. I agree we spent years, decades, trying to come to an agreed definition of strategic stability with Russia—with the Soviet Union.

There’s even a joint statement from 1990 between then US President George H. W. Bush and then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev which defined strategic stability as the circumstance where both sides have a secure second strike and no incentive to launch first with lucrative targets.

I’m not sure the Soviet Union or Russia ever agreed to that definition of strategic stability. Even inside the United States, you can find different policy elites who don’t buy that definition of strategic stability.

It was the operational definition that got us to START and START II. But calling it an agreed-on definition is a bit of a stretch. Also, you can look back over the arms control history and see that definition in operation in the treaties, obviously.

The ABM Treaty limited the numbers of defensive interceptors and, therefore, you could come to a limit on the number of offenses. You can see it in the treaties. But if you think about arms control, going forward, start at the beginning and don’t look back in time. Put stability on it.

What arms control really did was it brought about limits and restraint in areas where the two sides didn’t think they needed the weapons anymore. Either they weren’t cost effective or they weren’t militarily effective.

Missile defenses, even with limits on the interceptors, were going to be totally ineffective in a world of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles. So you’ve got something that’s not cost effective and the scientists were testifying to Congress that they weren’t going to be technologically effective. We continued to buy them for leverage but giving them up was really not that difficult.

And I can go treaty by treaty by treaty and do that and I actually have done it in a few things I’ve written in the last couple years. But the point remains that the operational definition of strategic stability—and I’m going to be a little cynical—is our stuff is stabilizing, your stuff is destabilizing. We want to keep ours and get rid of yours, and you can see that in the arms control history, too.

But mostly what we’ve done in arms control is cleaned out the attic and the basement. We’ve agreed to limit those weapons that aren’t central to our requirements, and we’ve done so to great effect.

We’ve had lots of weapons limited and lots of weapons eliminated but only after we already decided we didn’t really need them. So if you want to extend that to how do we talk to China about this, they don’t have anything in the attic and the basement yet. They’re still filling the living room.

So our job right now is to figure out what they consider necessary—not how they would define strategic stability but what they consider necessary to their national security goals to put in the living room, and once we know what that is, then we can start talking to them about restraint and excess.

And you may want to define strategic stability as a way to figure out what restraint and excess would be but I’m not sure that’s really necessary if we can get to an understanding of what their deterrence problem is. I mean, what’s the problem and then how do you solve it rather than what’s the definition of the problem and how do you solve it.

I know that’s a little wonky and I’m a lot cynical, but I’ve been thinking about this a while.

ROBERT SOOFER: Let me just try to focus us on the near future. So we have a New START treaty that’s about to expire in February of 2026. What should be our objective with Russia when New START expires?

So, for instance, one example that I’ve heard and I support is a new treaty—maybe it’s not a formal treaty. Maybe it’s a political framework. I don’t know what it is. But a new set of limits that are higher than what we have today, right, so it accommodates the additional forces that we need to address China in the future and our regional deterrence gap but still limits, nevertheless, and you now capture all nuclear weapons, tactical as well as strategic.

So I’ll put that as a marker and see what people think the next step needs to be in anticipation of the expiration of the New START treaty. Yes, Walt?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: First of all, I totally agree with Amy that the main impulse for Cold War arms control was not doing things the country had already pretty much decided they didn’t want to do unless the other side did something. And that element is critical to be able to get agreement.

I think if we’re going to talk about what we’re going to do in future arms control with the Russians, there is this little matter of the war in Ukraine, and if we could somehow just persuade them that it was in both of our interests to hold the status quo—that is, to comply maybe without even at least all of the verification and transparency measures—that’s a good thing.

I’m perfectly willing to hear arguments. I don’t think the China-Russia problem requires more numbers. It requires other things. Notably, it requires very secure command and control.

The second is we’re kidding ourselves if we say we’re going to count all nuclear weapons and not do anything about defense. The Russians are crazy paranoid about defense and the Chinese are worse.

And I’m not saying we shouldn’t have defenses. I am saying that to have a negotiation in which the Chinese and the Russians believe we’d go hell for leather for missile defense even if we don’t want to and they’re going to agree on limits. . . here might be a deal but it didn’t do a whole lot more than just kind of maintain compliance. . .

But if we’re going to go beyond that, we got to be more realistic about what the other side might propose, and particularly if you want to say anything meaningful to the Chinese.

RACHEL WHITLARK: I think it’s worth keeping in mind the interconnectedness of all of these issues.

If we are in a world where we’re talking about raising the New START limits our allies are going to have views on that, right. So it may affect other nonproliferation considerations outside of the New START framework.

Similarly, if we’re going to be talking about defenses with the Russians and the Chinese, those conversations have implications for our extended deterrence commitments. Thus circling us back to some of those other challenges that we’re discussing.

I note this fact simply as a call for eyes wide open if we’re going to pursue those kinds of conversations.

AMY WOOLF: I would strongly advise thinking in terms of what do we do after New START as something that has to involve numbers and the reason for that is yes, if we want to count things, we should count everything.

Well, before you can do that, you have to define what the everything is, and then after you define what the everything is, you have to figure out how you’re going to keep track of that everything—what’s your monitoring concept.

Once you say it’s about a specific number, you have to be able to follow on with all that other formal stuff. So I would strongly argue against proposing that the future is a next round of keeping to a specific number.

There are a number of proposals in the literature right now about what next looks like, and just in response to Jake Sullivan’s speech on Friday—I was there—he said, we will talk to the Russians about two things: first, risk reduction now before 2026 and a follow-on to New START after 2026.

He talked about transparency in that follow-on and he talked about risk reduction, and the reaction out of some of the people in the room was, I heard good things about transparency and risk reduction but he didn’t say anything about reducing numbers or moving towards a world free of nuclear weapons.

No one in the Biden administration in any speech in the last two and a half years has talked about the follow-on to New START bringing about deeper reductions or keeping numbers. So they recognize that that whole package of a future of arms control isn’t really on the table.

But the thinking in the analytic community has a lot of different options about the United States and Russia just agreeing without any framework or monitoring or verification to stay within the restraint environment that they are in now, however you define that. Is it only on strategic? Is it on everything?

But it’s a stay restrained or—and once they stay restrained stay transparent, and all of those words are undefined but they all come from a point of view that we are not getting a next round of limits under a numerical ceiling because, as Rachel said, if that numerical ceiling is higher than the one you have now, even that’s because you’re counting more things, it’s going to be politically untenable amongst some of our allies.

If it’s lower than the number you have now, even if it depends on what you’re counting, it’s going to be politically untenable in the United States. So starting from the perspective that what comes next has to be a number that you define and then you monitor is just a nonstarter.

So you have to think about what comes next in more generic terms. Restraint, transparency. What do you mean? I don’t know yet. I’ll know it when I see it. But it’s not going to have a number in it, and if it does have a number the number is not going to be meaningfully defined or monitored.

ROBERT SOOFER: Amy, I think I agree with you in principle but the politics of the situation is going to drive us to a number. There are forces that want to maintain the current New START force limits. There are others that want to go beyond it, right. It’s going to happen whether we think it’s a good idea or not.

Look, arms control, essentially, is very much a political exercise, right. The Trump administration proposed a nuclear freeze on all capabilities with very little verification. So there are Republican administrations that have agreed to reduce from START levels to the Moscow treaty level without even a treaty, without verification per se.

So anything, I think, is possible but I think things are going to be driven in that direction to come up with some sort of an agreement about what happens.

The arms control community will want to see limits. The hard-line Republicans will want to see additional nuclear forces. And the only way you’re going to get both of those together is the traditional approach where you have an arms control track and a nuclear modernization track.

AMY WOOLF: I’m going to beg to differ.

First, the Moscow treaty didn’t limit or reduce anything. It didn’t have any definitions in it. You can do whatever you want. You don’t have to report on what you’re doing. There’s no monitoring. There’s no verification. On the day the treaty is due to expire, you tell us what number you count for yourself and then a minute after you do that it doesn’t count anymore.

So. . . that’s not a treaty based on numbers. That’s a treaty based on do whatever we want.

Besides, to go to my original point, the number we put in that treaty even undefined was the number we already decided we’d be happy with. So we didn’t do numbers, and the Trump administration stuff was we’re going to have a one-year freeze on the size of total stockpiles when in one year that number is not going to vary very much anyway. So, again, you’re using your numerical agreement to ratify reality, which is different from saying we’re going to have a number that is going to change our reality.

Also, you like to say that the people on the arms control side are going to force us to have a numerical treaty. In the current political environment that is a striking minority of people.

Even in Congress amongst people who prefer arms control they recognize that in the current political environment, we are not going to numerically limit or reduce our numbers of nuclear weapons.

So unless you tell me in 2026 we’re not going to be mad at the Russians anymore and everybody’s going to be good friends again, which is usually not required for arms control, but unless you tell me the political environment is going to change by 2026, I’m going to tell you that the pressure for numerical arms control is not going to be sufficient to force us to have a numerical treaty.

I agree that the pressure is there but relatively speaking, in the current political environment, it isn’t going to drive the day.

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Hinata-Yamaguchi quoted in South China Morning Post on Japan-Russia relations

kyusko — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 19:43:50 +0000

Nonresident Senior Fellow

On November 13, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi was quoted in South China Morning Post article on the end of a thirty-year-old nuclear decommissioning pact between Japan and Russia, suggesting that “the agreement in itself is less important” than the overall decline in relations.

Fellow

Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy Indo-Pacific

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The Gaza war probably won’t change Iran’s nuclear strategy. It’ll make it difficult to reach a long-term agreement, though.

Danny Citrinowicz — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 16:40:53 +0000

Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, which followed the vicious attack by Hamas against Israeli military outposts and civilian villages near the Gaza Strip on October 7, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s position regarding the terrorist attack has become apparent.

Iran, which views Hamas as a Palestinian proxy and supports it militarily and economically, is working to achieve two primary goals. First, for the international community to reach a ceasefire that preserves Hamas’s rule in the Gaza Strip and, thus, prevents Israel from achieving its goal in the war: eliminating Hamas’s military and political capabilities. Second, to “encourage” its proxies (led by Lebanese Hezbollah) to attack Israel just below a threshold of escalation to stop Israeli military efforts and prevent it from eradicating Hamas.

Iran is currently refraining from attacking the United States—with the exception of its militias attacking US forces in Iraq and Syria—to avoid an escalation, and has been careful not to be directly involved and threatens to respond only if attacked. With that in mind, one of the main questions is whether and how Israel’s conflict in Gaza will impact Tehran’s nuclear strategy.

As of today, Iran is enriching to 60 percent and has been careful not to cross the 90 percent military-grade enrichment threshold. In August, just weeks before the Gaza war, it also reached an understanding for broader talks with the United States—the result of which was Iran’s willingness to decrease enriched uranium in exchange for economic relief in the form of unfreezing Iranian funds around the world. Furthermore, these developments led to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly giving his blessing in September to the Iranian nuclear negotiation team to meet directly with their US counterparts in Oman.

Nevertheless, the campaign in Gaza should not change Iran’s nuclear strategy. For now, Iranian deterrence is working, since Tehran is not paying any price for its proxy activity with the Houthis in Yemen, Shia militias in Iraq, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, given the fact that the United States is careful not to attack Iran for fear of escalation (despite being attacked by these proxies in Iraq and Syria). In many ways, Iran may even think that its conventional deterrence—together with a robust nuclear program—is enough, and that there is no point in crossing the nuclear Rubicon.

The fact that the United States is making minor responses against attacks in Syria and Iraq can only strengthen this understanding in Tehran, as does the fact that the United States military no longer surrounds Iran in Afghanistan and Iraq (except for a limited presence that mainly serves the campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and el-Sham and the training of local Iraqi forces).

On the other hand, despite the profound erosion of Israel’s deterrence after the tragic events of October 7, the US’s willingness to stand by Israel’s side—including its willingness to deploy troops and capabilities in the Middle East—is demonstrating to Iran that, in extreme cases, such as an Iranian nuclear breakout, the United States will not hesitate to exercise force against Iran.

The main problem in this context concerns the ability of the international community—especially the United States—to reach an agreement that would limit Iran’s nuclear activities. This was also evident in October when snapback sanctions were not imposed in response to the expiration of the United Nations ban on Iran’s ballistic missile program per UN Security Council Resolution 2231. The tension between Iran and the United States—influenced by Iran’s proxies attacking US forces, support for Hamas, and strengthening relationship with Moscow—is making it almost impossible for Washington to preserve a line of diplomacy with Tehran.

On top of that, the 2024 US presidential election and disapproving voices in Congress regarding the Joe Biden administration’s policy towards Iran will make it very difficult to approve any agreement with Tehran, assuming one is even reached. Moreover, Khamenei lost his limited trust in the United States after President Donald Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018. In light of this fact, the Biden administration’s attempt to go back on its hostage swap agreement, which allowed Iran to receive $6 billion in frozen assets in South Korean banks via Qatar to be used for a humanitarian trade channel, sharpens the futility of Tehran achieving long-term agreements with Washington.

Even if Iran does not make significant progress in its nuclear program, the political and economic pressure that is expected as a result of Tehran’s support for Hamas and the weakening relationship between Iran and the United States will increase the likelihood that the country will deepen and expand its nuclear program without crossing the 90 percent Rubicon. Iran will have no incentive to limit its nuclear program, given the pressure exerted on it from the West and the United States and the low probability of an agreement that will lift sanctions.

If pressure exerted on Iran is added via other means—sanctions on ballistic missiles and actions against Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors—Tehran will not hesitate to take steps related to its nuclear program, such as limiting nuclear inspections as it has done in the past. Considering this option, the coming year may be characterized by an increase in tensions between the West and Iran over the latter’s advanced nuclear program, which may push Tehran towards 90 percent enrichment—not as a benchmark on its way to building a nuclear bomb, but as a move designed to discourage the international community from continuing to exert pressure.

The bottom line is that the Gaza war undermined the delicate relationship built between the United States and Iran in the last few months to probably an irreversible degree. This fact will have a significant impact on the prospect of an agreement regarding the Iranian nuclear file and introduces a severe instability dimension regarding Tehran’s nuclear program.

It is likely that Tehran still understands the serious price it may pay if it moves towards a nuclear bomb, and the increased presence of the United States in the Middle East is terrible news for it. However, the immunity that Iran enjoys will only strengthen its assessment that, at present, there is no tangible threat to the regime and, thus, its nuclear program.
Danny Citrinowicz is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He previously served for twenty-five years in a variety of command positions units in Israel Defense Intelligence.

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Soofer speaks at Project Atom report launch

Atlantic Council — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 16:44:47 +0000

On November 7, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer attended the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ launch event of their Project Atom report, a piece which he coauthored along with eight other nuclear experts. In Soofer’s contribution, written alongside Tom Karako, he addresses the changing international security environment and its impact on arms control and extended deterrence. Soofer and Karako describe possible changes to US posture and strategy as the United States works to deter two nuclear powers, Russia and China, simultaneously. Soofer served as a panelist at this launch event, discussing nuclear flexibility and credibility with adversaries and allies.

In summary, potential Russian and Chinese cooperation poses a challenge to U.S. interests in peacetime,
crisis, and war.

Robert Soofer

Fellow

Robert Soofer

Arms Control Defense Policy

Read the full Op-Ed here.

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Lipsky published in Politico on economic statecraft.

Josh Lipsky — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 16:50:11 +0000

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Lipsky quoted in New York Times’ DealBook on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

sbakhtiyar — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 19:11:49 +0000

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Bauerle Danzman quoted in Bloomberg on political risk and elections.

sbakhtiyar — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 13:29:55 +0000

Read the full article here.

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Global Sanctions Dashboard: How Iran evades sanctions and finances terrorist organizations like Hamas included in the Illicit Edge Newsletter

ybychkovska — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 17:25:57 +0000

Read the full newsletter her e.

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Mohseni-Cheraghlou cited in Semafor on trade in the African continent.

sbakhtiyar — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 16:24:04 +0000

Read the full newsletter here.

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Donovan and event “The Third Party Problem” mentioned in Energy Intelligence on Iran oil sanctions.

sbakhtiyar — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 16:49:03 +0000

Read the full article here.

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Soofer in The National Interest on missile defense

Atlantic Council — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 18:15:16 +0000

On October 24, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer published an op-ed in The National Interest arguing that the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) should consider developing an “underlayer” to the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System using US capabilities that previously had only been deployed to defend allies such as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD) and Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System.

The MDA should explore the utility of Aegis ashore and THAAD against North Korean ICBM threats. A full exploration of the utility of the underlayer, including deep technical analysis, is required if the United States wants to strengthen its defenses.

Robert Soofer

Fellow

Robert Soofer

Arms Control Defense Policy

Read the full article here.

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Our CBDC tracker was cited by SMU City Perspectives on the future of digital money.

sbakhtiyar — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 16:45:00 +0000

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Soofer contributes to Project Atom on US nuclear strategy

slad — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 15:41:06 +0000

On September 28, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer co-authored a paper in a recent publication by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Project on Nuclear Issues, titled Project Atom: Defining U.S. Nuclear Strategy, 2030–2050. The authors discussed the nuclear concepts, policies, strategies, forces, and posture necessary to deter and prevent nuclear use as China emerges as a nuclear peer competitor to the United States alongside Russia.

The United States must persuade Beijing and Moscow through words and deeds that nuclear
competition is a failing proposition that will provide no strategic advantage.

Robert Soofer and Tom Karako

Fellow

Robert Soofer

Arms Control Defense Policy

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Kroenig, Garlauskas, and Taylor appear as featured panelists at the Korea Society

kyusko — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 18:52:43 +0000

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On September 21, the Scowcroft Center and the Korea Society hosted a joint panel event on “New Nuclear Dynamics of Northeast Asia” in New York City featuring Matthew Kroenig, Markus Garlauskas, and IPSI nonresident fellow Jessica Taylor, alongside Dr. Sue Mi Terry and moderator Jonathan Corrado. The conversation explored issues such as growing PRC and North Korean nuclear capabilities, the potential for simultaneous conflicts in the Indo-Pacific, and the need for a paradigm shift in thinking about US deterrence posture in the region.

Staff

Markus Garlauskas

Director

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

China Defense Policy

Fellow

Jessica Taylor

Nonresident Fellow

Crisis Management East Asia

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Cynkin interviewed by Yonhap News on intelligence approaches to Russia-North Korea partnership

kyusko — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 17:32:00 +0000

Nonresident Senior Fellow

On September 17, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Thomas Cynkin was quoted in Yonhap News. Cynkin suggested that the United States may benefit from declassifying and disclosing more information related to trade activity between North Korea and Russia, as it did with intelligence on Russian military action prior to the invasion of Ukraine. He explained that this approach could help prevent North Korea from acquiring Russian military technology by creating international pressure on Russia to uphold international nonproliferation laws.

Fellow

Thomas Cynkin

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Indo-Pacific Japan

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Kroenig quoted in Haaretz on a potential US-Saudi-Israeli deal

Atlantic Council — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 15:05:58 +0000

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On September 8, Dr. Matthew Kroenig, Atlantic Council vice president and senior director of the Scowcroft Center, was quoted by Haaretz on a possible new agreement between the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. He argues that President Biden should not let Saudi Arabia enrich uranium.

Washington prohibits Seoul—a democratic formal treaty ally—from conducting sensitive nuclear activity. Why allow it for Riyadh?

Matthew Kroenig

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

China Defense Policy

The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world.

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Putin’s Russia must not be allowed to normalize nuclear blackmail

Olivia Yanchik — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 20:05:48 +0000

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Kremlin has repeatedly employed nuclear threats to deter countries from arming Ukraine. This extreme tactic has proven highly effective against risk-averse Western leaders, who have deliberately slow-walked the flow of weapons to Ukraine for fear of provoking a nuclear response.

Such caution could have grave implications for the future of international security. Unless the West confronts Vladimir Putin’s nuclear intimidation, there is a very real chance that he will continue with such tactics. Inevitably, others will seek to emulate him. This could plunge the entire world into a new era of international instability as countries scramble to secure a nuclear deterrent of their own.

Much of Russia’s nuclear saber-rattling has been deliberately ambiguous in nature and highly choreographed for maximum impact. In the first days of the war, Putin very publicly announced that he was placing his country’s nuclear forces on special alert, while warning that anyone who attempted to interfere with the Russian invasion of Ukraine would face consequences on a scale “you have never seen in your history.”

Seven months later in September 2022, Putin once again indicated that he was prepared to use nuclear weapons to protect the Russian people and defend the country’s borders. “We will certainly use all the means available to us, and I’m not bluffing,” he warned. This was a particularly menacing threat as it came at a time when Russia was preparing to “annex” four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces, therefore making any attempt to liberate these regions an attack on Russia itself.

Other senior figures within the Russian establishment have been even more explicit. Former Russian president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, is particularly notorious for issuing nuclear threats. In a July 2023 social media post, he warned that if Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive succeeded in liberating Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia, “we would have to use nuclear weapons by virtue of the stipulations of the Russian presidential decree.” Russia’s enemies “should pray to our fighters that they do not allow the world to go up in nuclear flames,” he added.

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Although such threats violate norms of responsible state behavior, they align with what we understand about existing nuclear doctrine. “Ambiguity plays a crucial role in deterrence,” explains Marion Messmer, a senior research fellow in the International Security Program at Chatham House. “States worry about adversaries aiming for a strike just below the red line if they are too clear about what that red line is.”

Russia’s nuclear threats appear designed to maintain a high degree of uncertainty while focusing Western minds on the potential risks of miscalculation. Russia has threatened or hinted at nuclear use over a wide range of issues, but has remained intentionally vague about potential triggers in order to create the illusion that Putin has a low threshold for nuclear deployment. However, as each of the Kremlin’s red lines has been crossed, Putin’s nuclear posture has not changed. Most notably, in late 2022, Ukraine liberated a number of occupied cities that Putin himself had earlier declared to be Russian “forever,” but this did not result in the threatened nuclear response.

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Although Russia’s nuclear threats suffer from obvious credibility problems, the extreme reluctance of many in the West to test Moscow’s resolve means that these tactics have nevertheless been highly effective in restricting or delaying the delivery of military aid to Ukraine. While the quantity and quality of weapons supplied to Ukraine has steadily increased throughout the past eighteen months, every stage in this process has been marked by hesitation and procrastination.

At present, the US has still not agreed to provide long-range ATACM long-range missile systems, with many commentators attributing this reluctance to fears of escalation. “Our administration does not want to see Ukraine succeed wildly, because we are deterred, we are intimidated, and we don’t want Mr. Putin to widen or deepen the war,” retired US Air Force General Philip Breedlove commented recently.

Western timidity in the face of Russian nuclear saber-rattling is extremely short-sighted and could have disastrous consequences in Ukraine and beyond. While the risks of confronting Russia’s nuclear threats are immediately apparent, the dangers of inaction may actually be far greater. Since the full-scale invasion began eighteen months ago, Russia has been able to leverage its status as a nuclear-armed state to occupy entire regions of its neighbor’s land while deterring the international community from coming to Ukraine’s aid.

The more time passes without a decisive response from Ukraine’s partners, the more likely Russia’s aggressive use of nuclear intimidation will become a normalized element of international relations. Countries around the world will change their own nuclear postures to achieve their expansionist aims or defend themselves against their neighbors. If Putin is allowed to normalize nuclear blackmail as a foreign policy tool, longstanding nonproliferation initiatives will collapse and the world will enter a dangerous new era of nuclear-armed instability.

Olivia Yanchik is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Follow her on Twitter at @oliviayanchik.

Whoever will be elected Supreme Leader must work hard to consolidate his position. The possible candidate will have to focus not only on the relevant religious institutions—hoping to upgrade his religious title to ayatollah to accept the religious justification for ruling—but also gain the support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

In addition to these facts, there is an understanding that Khamenei will work to prevent someone he perceives as a moderate (which he sees as posing a danger to the regime’s future), such as former President Hassan Rouhani or former Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, from being chosen as his replacement. This guarantees the election of a conservative leader from a more hardline school of thought.

Assuming this is the case, and considering the new leader’s need to accede to IRGC demands to please them, it seems that the initial moves of Iran’s future Supreme Leader won’t be able to satisfy the West.

It should be emphasized that Iran’s nuclear program has been in the most advanced states since its establishment. Iran has two protected enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow, where it enriches uranium to 60 percent while using advanced IR6 centrifuges. Iran is now a step away from enrichment to a military-grade level (90 percent). It has not yet gone that far, apparently out of fear of the international community’s reaction—not because it is technologically incapable of reaching this level of enrichment. In other words, if Iran’s future leader wishes to demonstrate leadership in the nuclear context, he will only have a few steps left to graduate to military-grade enrichment.

In order to prevent Iran’s future Supreme Leader from making dramatic progress in the country’s nuclear program to appease its conservative wing, it is right to take advantage of Khamenei’s tenure to reach a series of understandings that will not allow any future leader to cross the Rubicon in the nuclear context. This claim may be a surprise because Khamenei sought to build a nuclear bomb known as the Amad plan to ensure Iran’s future in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, given the fact that Khamenei gave up his desire to obtain a nuclear weapon due to his fear of the price Iran would pay—especially the fear of an American invasion of Iran—it is possible that Tehran will not seek to obtain one during his tenure.

Moreover, over the past decade, and even more so between 2012 and 2013, Khamenei applied the term “heroic flexibility” to justify a direct dialogue between Iran and the United States that led to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which required Iran to roll back its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. From its implementation in 2016, Iran under Khamenei fully complied with the terms of the agreement until the US withdrew from it in 2018. Even after the “great betrayal” of the US in Iranian eyes, under Khamenei’s leadership, Tehran has not stopped looking for ways to return to the original nuclear agreement. Recently, it seems that Iran is also willing to settle for a temporary understanding in exchange for some economic relief.

Moreover, despite its proximity to 90 percent enrichment, Iran has been careful not to cross the Rubicon in the current context. It has even increased its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Additionally, the world’s leading intelligence agencies assess that Iran under Khamenei is not carrying out any actions that indicate that it seeks to produce nuclear weapons. This is apparently why Iran has stopped its enrichment from reaching military-grade.

These facts suggest that it is of the utmost importance to advance a long-term arrangement with Khamenei on the Iranian nuclear issue before his death.

Given the plausible assessment that any elected leader will find it challenging to present a compromising policy vis-à-vis the West, an arrangement with Khamenei is becoming a preferred option to ensure that, regardless of the change in the Iranian leadership, its nuclear program will not expand.

It should be emphasized that Khamenei currently enjoys a broad consensus in Iran, and it is doubtful whether anyone can challenge his will or determination on strategic issues, including the nuclear issue. As Supreme Leader for three decades, Khamenei has a unique status with no one questioning his decisions. With this in mind, likely any decision Khamenei makes in the context of Iran’s nuclear program will be accepted and approved by the authorized bodies in Tehran without question.

This does not mean it will be easy to reach an agreement with Khamenei, who seems interested in an agreement but demands long-term guarantees to prevent a situation in which the United States leaves again. However, it will be much more challenging to reach such a deal with any future leader, who will have to gain the trust of the Iranian leadership. Therefore, he will likely demonstrate dogmatic policies for this purpose, enabling him to have the IRGC on his side. Thus, the West and Israel must see Khamenei not only as a threat but also as an opportunity—with all the difficulties involved—and strive to reach a long-term arrangement with him on the nuclear issue in his lifetime, thereby minimizing the danger that his successor will turn Iran’s nuclear program from civilian to military.

The fact that Khamenei still appears to want to seek a deal, even after the US withdrew from the JCPOA, illustrates his commitment to solving the Iranian nuclear file with political means. Khamenei will not forgo Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but his policy from 2012 onwards sought to achieve a political resolution, while he was willing to limit the program in exchange for economic relief. This behavior indicates that Khamenei has made strategic decisions in this regard.

Obviously, it will not be easy, and the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement almost shut down this possibility and greatly strengthened elements in the Iranian leadership, such as current President Raisi, who seeks to rely on the East—China and Russia—rather than on the West—the latter of which they see as the enemy of the revolution. Still, despite the complexity and low probability, Khamenei may be the last chance to reach a long-term political solution to the Iranian nuclear issue.

Danny Citrinowicz is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel. Follow him on Twitter: @citrinowicz.

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The ‘Tehran’ series isn’t far-fetched. Israeli agents are operating with ease in Iran.

Arash Azizi — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 15:09:09 +0000

The news was so incredible that it would have made more sense as an episode on the spy thriller series, Tehran. On June 29, Israeli intelligence agency Mossad revealed the details of an operation inside Iran. Its agents, it claimed, had recently interrogated an operative of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who had planned to kill Israeli citizens in Cyprus. Israel had already thanked Cyprus for helping foil this plan. For good measure, Mossad released footage from a video confession of Yusef Shahbazi Abbasalilu along with a boarding pass that had him traveling from Istanbul to Iran. If this is to be believed, Mossad agents operate with such ease in Iran that they are not only able to gather intelligence but arrest and interrogate a regime operative on Iranian soil.

Shahbazi’s confession is quite detailed. He reveals his alleged chain of command and the name of the agent who recruited him. Shahbazi says that he was put in touch with several IRGC contacts in Cyprus who had taken part in assassination operations before (Israeli media have reported these to be Pakistani nationals.) According to his account, Shahbazi entered the island by flying from Turkey to Northern Cyprus (a breakaway state only recognized by Ankara) and then smuggled himself into the Greek-majority southern part of the island. In contact with his handlers in Iran via WhatsApp, Shahbazi was preparing to kill the target—reportedly an Israeli businessman—when he found out that the police were on his tail and was told to bury his weapons and flee. Shahbazi reportedly followed the instructions and made it to Tehran via Istanbul.

Mossad’s history in Iran

Unlikely as it may sound, it’s not the first time Mossad has claimed to have undertaken such an operation. In fact, this is the third such case in the last eighteen months. In April 2022, Israeli media reported on an alleged Mossad operation on Iranian territory. Israeli intelligence agents had reportedly detained and questioned Mansour Rasouly, a fifty-two-year-old IRGC agent, in his residence in Iran, where he had confessed to a plan to assassinate an Israeli diplomat in Turkey, an American general stationed in Germany, and a journalist in France. The Israeli media published an audio file of Rasouly’s confession without revealing their source.

Months later, in July 2022, London-based diaspora satellite channel Iran International claimed that Mossad had interrogated another IRGC official, Yadollah Khedmati, in Iran, publishing the footage of his confessions about the transfer of weaponry to Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.

In each of the three cases, the Islamic Republic has come back with a different form of denial. In the two cases from 2022, they confirmed that the interrogations had taken place and claimed that they were done by a group of local criminal thugs recruited by Mossad. But in the case of Rasouly, they declared he was a farmer in northwestern Iran with no military connection. However, in the case of Khedmati, they confirmed that he was an IRGC figure (without naming him) but said that he had been forced to confess to untruths under “torture and threats.”

With Shahbazi’s case, state media outlets have taken a different path. They claim that Mossad has fabricated the entire story to overcome its panic following the recent alleged busting of its networks in Iran. In late May, judicial officials had claimed to have nabbed fourteen members of a “terrorist team” with ties to Israel. Par for the course with such claims, no evidence was given to support the charge.

As proof of their allegations about Shahbazi, regime outlets published pictures of tickets and flight manifests that show him to have taken a flight from Tehran to Baku on May 15, implying that the confession was staged and not recorded in Iran. Claiming this to be a smoking gun makes no sense. Shahbazi would have had plenty of time since May 15 to have returned to Iran from Baku and could have traveled later to Cyprus.

The regime outlets also tied the Shahbazi affair to an incident in May, in which the capsizing of a boat in Lake Maggiore in Italy led to the death of Erez Shimony, a fifty-four-year-old former Mossad agent. They went as far as implying that Shimony’s death might have been revenge for another killing that had happened almost exactly a year before: the assassination of IRGC’s Colonel Hassan Seyed Khodaee right outside his home, which, according to a report by the New York Times, was done by Mossad.

But, just as the IRGC downplays Shahbazi’s confession, some sources claim that Iran is working hard for his release by Israelis. According to the London-based and Saudi-owned newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat, Iran is requesting a prisoner exchange from Israel: Shahbazi’s release in return for that of Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Russian-Israeli scholar who was kidnapped in Iraq in March by an Iran-backed Shia militia.

The ongoing shadow war

For years now, Iran and Israel have been engaged in a shadow war involving intelligence operations, assassinations, and attacks on land and sea. When facing Israel, Iran has the benefit of using its vast network of allied militias in the region. Alongside the operations, a war of narratives also rages on and there is no surprise that both sides employ a game of cloak and daggers.

Nevertheless, even if not all Israeli claims were to be believed, there is no doubt that the ease with which they operate inside Iranian territory is astonishing. Since 2009, Israelis have helped assassinate many officials linked to the IRGC or the country’s nuclear program. Its last major hit was the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a leading figure of the IRGC, in November 2020, which took place on a road using a robotic machine gun. Prior to that, in January 2018, Mossad was able to raid the Iranian nuclear archives in a village outside Tehran, gaining access to 55,000 pages of documents and 183 CDs.

On the other side, the Islamic Republic has never been able to retaliate on anything close to a similar scale. This was clearly evident in June of 2022, when Israel worked closely with Turkey to stop an Iranian plan to kill or abduct Israeli civilians in Turkey. Israel went as far as asking all of its thousands of citizens traveling in Turkey to stay in their hotel rooms and not even open the door for food delivery. In the same week, Hossein Taeb, the powerful head of IRGC’s Intelligence Department, was finally dismissed following years of controversy. Taeb had headed the organization from its very inception in 2009 and had come under increasing criticism for all the Israeli operations that kept happening under his watch. The leaking of the Turkey-related plans seems to have been the last straw.

Given the long list of operations that Israel has been able to conduct in Iranian territory, it’s pretty clear that the clerical establishment has failed in its basic task of defending the country. It’s not hard to see why that’s the case. The country’s security forces dedicate most of their energy to oppressing ordinary Iranians and taking random foreign citizens—artists, academics, and journalists—hostage in the hope of using them as bargaining chips. Extracting forced confessions by torture helps the regime with its propaganda purposes but is not a tool for effective counter-espionage.

This was on full display in 2019, when Maziar Ebrahimi, an Iranian businessman based in Iraqi Kurdistan, revealed how he had been tortured into confessing to a role in the assassination of nuclear scientists. Arrested in 2012, Ebrahimi had, under duress, even confessed to traveling to Israel to receive military training. When all of this later turned out to be false, he was released and left the country before sharing his story with BBC Persian.

The amateur methods used by the regime are often so buffoonish to be believable. In 2012, following the execution of Majid Jamali Fashi, an Iranian athlete charged alongside Ebrahimi, the Iranian state broadcaster published an image of his alleged Israeli passport. But journalist Fereshte Ghazi was quickly able to show the source of this image: a Wikipedia template of an Israeli passport had been used with Majid’s picture inserted into it. The basic information on the passport from the Wikipedia template was not even changed.

Thus, the track record of the Islamic Republic’s security apparatus is clear: they can frame and torture their citizens to extract forced confessions but cannot stop numerous Israeli operations on Iranian soil.

Arash Azizi is a writer and scholar based at New York University. He is the author of “The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the US and Iran’s Global Ambitions.” Follow him on Twitter: @arash_tehran.

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Can the US, Israel, and Turkey collaborate to contain Iran?

Ron Tira — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 12:02:08 +0000

In recent years, the United States has shifted priorities away from the Middle East, first with a pivot to China and then to Russia and Ukraine. Understandably, the United States is searching for partners with whom it can share the burden of defending common interests in the Middle East; Iran’s containment included. At least from some perspectives, Israel and Turkey share such interests. Is a US-Israeli-Turkish partnership to contain Iran feasible?

It should be noted that Iran represents several distinct challenges. First, in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Second, as a conventional and proxy-based military threat across the Middle East, as demonstrated from attacks on cargo vessels in the Strait of Hormuz to drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities to attacks on US troops in the Middle East to its attempted deployment of weapons in Syria to its sub-state armed organizations in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen. And third, as a political competitor for regional hegemony. These challenges are intertwined, as Iranian strategy is, or at least was, based on distracting its adversaries away from Iran to secondary theaters where it commands soft power and handles proxies, and then pinning them down and attritting them in those secondary theaters (Israel in Lebanon and the United States in Iraq, to name but two obvious examples).

It may be that different partnerships and different rationales could be useful for each challenge.

Incentives for collaboration

US objectives in the Middle East begin with preventing global and regional powers from threatening freedom of navigation through the region’s waterways. US priorities are the uninterrupted supply of energy and goods from and through the region, the prevention of local problems from turning into global ones, and the stability and capabilities of its partners in the region.

Israel and Turkey’s interests are partially aligned with those of the United States, and they are not in a zero-sum game with one another. Israeli regional objectives are not well articulated, but focus on preserving the status quo while attempting to prevent the emergence of severe military threats (from the development of an Iranian nuclear bomb to the positioning of Iranian high-impact weapons in Lebanon and Syria). While Israel has transactional relationships with its regional partners, it cannot contend for regional hegemony in a theater where such contentions are influenced significantly by ethnic or religious dynamics.

Turkey’s regional objectives under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also defy simple characterization. They have ranged from far-reaching neo-Ottomanism, Blue Homeland ambition, and expeditionary interventions in such places as Libya to a “Zero Problems” policy and an attempt to maintain a Western orientation through NATO membership and, possibly, integration with the European Union as well. Perhaps a pragmatic definition would be the protection of its territorial integrity, mainly from the threat of Kurdish separatism, while attempting to increase its regional and even global strategic footprint—at tolerable cost and risk.

Turkey seems to have mastered the art of the “frenemy”—collaborating with actors with whom it also competes or even militarily clashes. Its multifaceted relations with Russia, which saw direct or indirect kinetic conflicts in Syria, Libya, and the Caucasus , are a showcase for this skill. Indeed, Turkey supplied killer unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Ukraine, while simultaneously helping Russia mitigate the impact of sanctions. Following earlier tensions, Turkey has recently made significant rapprochement attempts vis-à-vis the United States, Israel, and other regional actors such as the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. Turkish-Israeli relations rebounded as the two countries’ intelligence communities collaborated in thwarting an Iranian attempt to attack Israeli nationals on Turkish soil.

All three actors are, or at least should be, concerned about the challenges posed by Iran. A nuclear Iran would threaten the United States, Israel, and Turkey, although in varying degrees of severity. Iran represents a threat to US interests in the Gulf, to the flow of oil, and to US freedom of access. Iran’s direct and indirect lines of operation threaten to undermine the United States’ regional partners.

Over the past two decades, Israel’s prime threat has pivoted from the Arab world to Iran and its proxies. In fact, today, Israel collaborates openly or tacitly with the Sunni Arab world in a joint effort to contain Iran. Most Arab states that remain antagonistic are being so because they are aligned with Iran and not because they are Arab.

The United States, Turkey, and Israel have seen threats to their interests in Syria, Iraq, and Azerbaijan emerging from the Iranian footprint in those areas. Turkey and Israel have become bedfellows in Azerbaijan’s war with Armenia. They have also opposed Iranian attempts to establish its forces or proxies in northern and southern Syria, respectively. Iran, meanwhile, has developed working relations in Iraq with the anti-Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and in Syria with the People’s Defense Units (YPG), a PKK affiliate. In Iraq, Iran uses these groups to strengthen the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Bafel Talabani at the expense of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), which is led by Masoud Barzani, and in Syria to weaken the Turkish-supported anti-Assad opposition.

Iranian power would be boosted by weakening the Sunni opposition in Syria, the pro-US (and pro-Turkey) KDP in Iraq, or both. This provides a rationale for as-yet unrealized collaboration between Turkey and Israel in both arenas.

Disincentives to collaboration

Both the United States and Israel have seemed concerned about Turkish policies’ volatility and unpredictability, especially under Erdoğan. Turkey, home to NATO’s second-largest army, has disappointed the United States sequentially, from denial of access to Iraq to the purchase of the Russian S-400 mobile surface-to-air missile defense system to friction in northern Syria and friction with Greece and Cyprus to Turkish concerns over the path of Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership.

The US-Turkish relationship reached a low point when sanctions were imposed on Turkey’s military procurement agency (SSB) and Ankara was excluded from the F-35 program. One may infer skepticism about future collaboration with Turkey from the recent US-Greece Mutual Defense Cooperation Agreement (MDCA), which provides the United States with access to additional military bases in Greece. It seems like the United States is seeking more dependable strategic avenues.

Israeli-Turkish relations reached a low point following the Mavi Marmara flotilla affair in 2010, while the discovery of gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean dramatically rewrote regional policies. Israel, Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt developed close energy, economic, military, and political ties. These ties provide Israel with much more than a mere substitution for its lost strategic relations with Turkey. While Israel accepted recent Turkish rapprochement bids, it cannot take them to a level where it risks losing its newly gained quadruple gas partnership. Along with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Israel shares concerns about Turkish military presence in the Red Sea and in Qatar.

While the emergence of a powerful Iran, definitely a nuclear armed one, is clearly undesirable for Turkey, these neighbors do not define their mutual relations as adversarial. Their long, shared border remains peaceful, as it has been since 1639 when the Qasr-I Shirin treaty between the Safavid and Ottoman Empires ended territorial wars between them. So, Iran does not directly threaten the Turkish Republic per se, and economic relations are intensive. Turkey and Iran share opposition to the idea of a Western-backed establishment of a Kurdish state. Iran’s aggressive use of proxies in Iraq and Syria has threatened Turkish interests but has not touched upon core interests of either party.

Over the past decade, Turkey developed a robust defense industry, which reduced its dependency on US and Israeli weapons. This dilutes the transactional incentives for Turkey to align itself with the two countries’ defense establishments.

Finally, it should be noted that both Israel and Turkey face significant internal trials that may prove to be game changers. If Israel’s so-called legal reform is completed, it might experience a structural decline in both its actual and projected power, and turn inward to deal with its own domestic unrest. President Erdoğan secured a new five-year term with a comfortable parliamentary majority during the May 2023 elections. Based on atmospherics and congratulatory exchanges, it would seem that the mutual desire for better relations has survived both countries’ 2023 elections.

Future collaborations?

With regard to the nuclear file, no measures applied so far have convinced Iran to change policy and forgo its nuclear military ambitions. The actual use of force might be the only way to persuade Iran to reverse its nuclear policy; Israel and the United States are candidates for kinetic action. Translating kinetic inputs into desired Iranian policy change requires heavy lifting by the United States, though, and Turkey can probably offer little assistance or inclination in this regard.

Perhaps the most relevant takeaway for the United States is to keep Turkey out of any future nuclear arms race. Turkey has been developing a civilian nuclear program and hinted at a potential future turn to military dimensions. This would be highly undesirable and might expedite the emergence of an unstable regional, multilateral nuclear system. The most effective measure to keep Turkey out of a regional nuclear race is an inclusive policy toward Turkey—maintaining a shared nuclear deterrent out of İncirlik Air Base and assuring Turkey of Western security guarantees through the full embrace of NATO. Turkey should not be placed in a position in which it sees itself strategically and militarily isolated, and surrounded by potentially hostile forces. It should always have more to lose from breaking away from the United States than what it has to gain from developing its own nuclear military program, or from pursuing an entirely independent or anti-Western strategic direction.

Col. Ron Tira (Ret.) is the author of The Nature of War: Conflicting Paradigms and Israeli Military Effectiveness. He is a regular contributor to the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies.

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Before embarking on arms control talks, Biden needs a nuclear deal with Congress

Robert Soofer — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 15:39:58 +0000

Arms control is entering its most uncertain period in decades. New START is set to expire in February 2026, and the ongoing war in Ukraine complicates any US-Russia negotiations toward a new agreement. Meanwhile, China could have 1,500 nuclear weapons by 2035 and has shown no real inclination to discuss limits. The Biden administration has said it will “engage in bilateral arms control discussions with Russia and with China without preconditions,” as US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan explained in a speech on June 2. However, there is a precondition the US side should set with itself before any bilateral agreement moves forward.

The White House and Congress currently disagree over the type and number of nuclear weapons required to deter nuclear-armed adversaries in the coming decade, including Russia and China, but also North Korea and potentially Iran. As long as this disagreement persists, it casts doubt on the viability of whatever the administration might agree to in bilateral talks—in particular, whether any new treaty could be ratified or survive a change in administrations. However, a bargain is available that bridges these differences, and it would strengthen the president’s hand in arms control negotiations, if the administration and Congress seize the opportunity.

2010 plans do not address 2030 threats

In his June 2 speech at the Arms Control Association annual forum, Sullivan called attention to the growing threats posed by China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. In doing so, he reaffirmed the warnings in the Biden administration’s National Defense Strategy and Nuclear Posture Review that as it approaches 2030, “the United States will need to deter two near-peer nuclear powers for the first time in its history.” To address this emerging challenge, the White House is continuing the nuclear modernization program begun by the Obama administration and reaffirmed by the Trump administration, though the Biden administration has canceled the development and deployment of a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) proposed in the 2019 Nuclear Posture Review.

These 2010 modernization plans assumed a reset with Russia. And they did not envision the rapid expansion of Chinese conventional and nuclear capabilities or the “no limits” partnership between an aggressive Moscow and Beijing bent on upsetting the international world order. This begs the question, then, whether the current nuclear modernization program—which amounts to a one-for-one replacement of nuclear force levels established in the 2010 New START—will be sufficient against two nuclear great powers.

In March, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed (D-RI) asked General Anthony Cotton, head of US Strategic Command, how the US nuclear command is adapting to this “new trilateral nuclear competition.” Cotton replied that the United States is “in an absolutely good place today with our [nuclear] systems… but the basis of which we did our modernization efforts was on a 2010 threat.”

The divide over more nuclear weapons

The threats have grown manifestly worse since 2010, but the administration has been ambivalent about them. According to Sullivan in his recent speech, “the United States does not need to increase our nuclear forces to outnumber the combined total of our competitors in order to successfully deter them.” Sullivan added that “effective deterrence means that we have a ‘better’ approach—not a ‘more’ approach.” This position is at odds with Republican leaders in the House and Senate armed services committees, who have advocated “higher numbers and new capabilities” for nuclear weapons.

There are practical limits to how quickly the United States could expand its nuclear capabilities to address the expansion of China’s nuclear forces. One option by the time New START expires in 2026 is to restore nuclear warheads to existing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) that were removed to accommodate the lower New START force limits (a process called “uploading”). Additional nuclear bombs and cruise missiles could be loaded onto heavy bombers, and bombers previously converted to conventional weapons use only can be made ready for nuclear operations.

Importantly, Sullivan said in his speech that “the type of limits the United States can agree to after [New START] expires will of course be impacted by the size and scale of China’s nuclear build-up.” The administration will require a sense of what additional nuclear forces may be needed beyond New START, both to ensure any negotiated limits provide the United States with headroom to deploy sufficient forces in the future, and because adjustments to US nuclear posture will likely take years to implement.

It is entirely conceivable that Russia and the United States could agree to new (modestly larger) nuclear force limits that consider US requirements to address China’s expanding nuclear capabilities and limit and reduce Russia’s regional nuclear weapons and new novel long-range systems that are not covered under New START. Such an approach might maintain limits (albeit somewhat higher than the current 1,550 warhead limit in New START) on all US and Russian nuclear forces while allowing the United States to address the problem of two nuclear peers.

The bargain the White House and Congress could strike

Sullivan was correct when he said that “responsibly enhancing our deterrent capabilities allows us to negotiate arms control from a position of strength and confidence.” But if “responsibly” implies a set policy of no new US nuclear capabilities or no expansion of US strategic nuclear forces, then Russia has no reason to come to the negotiating table. A big incentive for Moscow to negotiate is if it fears the United States will build up its own nuclear arsenal. Just as important, an arms control approach that does not include some augmented nuclear capabilities will be a non-starter for Republicans and some Democrats on Capitol Hill.

A bargain is required. The Biden administration could, for example, agree to develop the SLCM-N and prepare for a nuclear upload onto existing ICBMs and SLBMs. In exchange, congressional Republicans could lend public support to the administration’s efforts, hopefully fruitful but perhaps not, to secure a post–New START follow-on arms control framework or agreement. In such a deal, the arms control community would see the value in continued constraints on arms competition, while the deterrence community would welcome augmented nuclear capabilities to answer the growth in Chinese nuclear forces. Russia also would have an interest in limiting the potential expansion of US nuclear forces. This approach leaves out China for the time being, given its unwillingness to engage in a dialogue; but any future limits on Russian and US forces will have to take into account the likely expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal.

During the question-and-answer period following his speech, Sullivan spoke about the bipartisan US Senate support of the 2010 New START. He failed to mention, however, that the Obama administration’s commitment—insisted upon by Republican senators as part of the deal for New START—to modernize each leg of the nuclear triad enabled that consensus. It is worth demonstrating once more that nuclear deterrence and arms control go hand in hand.

Robert Soofer is a senior fellow in the Forward Defense program in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, where he leads its Nuclear Strategy Project. He formerly served as US deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy and as a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

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Placing Russian nukes in Belarus could destabilize Putin’s last ally

Olivia Yanchik — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 23:28:18 +0000

Vladimir Putin’s plans to place nuclear weapons in Belarus are opposed by the vast majority of Belarusians and will make the country a potential target in Russia’s escalating confrontation with the West, says Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. In a statement marking the thirty-seventh anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster on April 26, Tsikhanouskaya said 74 percent of Belarusians were against the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus. “Their opinions are not taken into consideration,” she noted.

Putin first announced his intention to transfer part of Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal to Belarus in March. The news sparked an international backlash, including a thinly veiled rebuke from China. Preparations for the stationing of nuclear weapons in Belarus are expected to be complete by the beginning of July. The move is part of an expanding Russian military presence in the country that has been likened to an “creeping annexation,” with Tsikhanouskaya declaring in late 2022 that Belarus was under de facto “military occupation.”

Moscow’s growing military footprint in Belarus reflects a broader expansion of Russian influence in the country that has been underway since the Kremlin intervened in August 2020 to rescue the regime of Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid nationwide protests over a rigged presidential election. In exchange, Lukashenka has pledged total loyalty to Moscow while permitting Russia to increase its economic, political, and military dominance over Belarus.

The strategic significance of this unequal alliance between Lukashenka and Putin increased considerably during the buildup to Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Lukashenka acquiesced to the transportation of Russian troops and military equipment across Belarus, which served as the gateway for Moscow’s failed Kyiv offensive during the initial weeks of the war. The country has continued to play an important role in the ongoing conflict, providing logistical support, training Russian troops, and supplying weapons, while also serving as a launch pad for Russian airstrikes across Ukraine.

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Belarus’s involvement in the invasion of Ukraine has led many to brand Lukashenka as Putin’s last remaining ally. While other leaders have refused to condemn the Russian dictator, Putin’s Belarusian counterpart remains one of the few still prepared to publicly defend him. However, while much of the outside world sees Belarus as Russia’s little brother, notions of a passive population fail to recognize the significant opposition Belarusians have already expressed over their country’s contributions to Russia’s war.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, Belarusian opposition groups have employed a wide range of tactics to disrupt the Russian war effort. This has included a campaign to sabotage Belarusian railroads being used to transport Russian troops, equipment, and ammunition to Ukraine. Hackers have also accessed Russian military networks and logistical operations. In February 2023, Belarusian anti-war partisans claimed responsibility for an attack that caused significant damage to a Russian spy plane based at an airfield close to Minsk.

Belarusians are also fighting shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians against the Russian invasion. Although exact numbers are difficult to determine, the Belarusian contingent is believed to be among the largest of the foreign volunteer forces fighting for Ukraine, and includes the Kastus Kalinouski Battalion. Many of the Belarusians currently fighting alongside the Ukrainian military believe that defending Ukraine is a stepping stone toward a free Belarus and are convinced that victory over Russia in Ukraine will lead to the fall of Lukashenka in Belarus.

Meanwhile, exiled Belarusian opposition leader Tsikhanouskaya remains an outspoken opponent of Lukashenka and has proven a staunch critic of his role as Putin’s junior partner in the invasion of Ukraine. Tsikhanouskaya has repeatedly underlined that Ukrainians and Belarusians share a common enemy in their struggle to shake off Russian authoritarianism and embrace European democracy. “The war won’t be over until both our countries are free,” she declared in March 2023.

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Moscow and Minsk are both well aware of the dangers posed by public opposition in Belarus to their country’s involvement in the invasion of Ukraine. Lukashenka’s violent suppression of anti-regime protests in 2020 succeeded in forcing activists to retreat from the streets of Belarus’s major cities, but discontent still simmers just below the surface. If Putin pushes Lukashenka to become more directly involved in the war, it could spark a new round of unrest with unpredictable consequences for both dictators.

Potential triggers include the planned deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus. The presence of Russian nukes would deepen existing Belarusian concerns over Moscow’s increasingly overt military presence in the country. This could potentially destabilize the Lukashenka regime at a time when Russia already finds itself overstretched in Ukraine and lacking the spare resources to rescue its ally once again.

Meanwhile, speculation continues over the possibility of Belarusian troops joining the invasion. So far, Lukashenka has resisted Kremlin pressure to send his army across the border into Ukraine, but Putin’s patience may eventually run out. Any attempt to force Belarusian troops to enter the war would represent a huge gamble for the two authoritarian rulers. Numerous commentators have questioned whether the Belarusian military could be relied upon to follow orders, with some arguing that many soldiers would be likely to mutiny or switch sides and fight for Ukraine.

Direct Belarusian participation in the Ukraine invasion would also dramatically increase the chances of domestic instability inside Belarus. Alyaksandr Azarau, who leads the BYPOL organization of exiled former Belarusian military and security service officers, believes wartime realities would rapidly reignite the flames of the 2020 protests. “If small Belarus starts getting coffins from Ukraine, it will inevitably stir up protests that the authorities barely managed to stifle with mass repressions,” he told the Associated Press in late April.

This represents something of a conundrum for Putin. Faced with mounting international isolation and struggling to advance in Ukraine, he is understandably eager to strengthen his grip on neighboring Belarus and force Lukashenka to join his faltering invasion. However, if Putin pushes too hard, the outcome could be disastrous for his last remaining ally.

Olivia Yanchik is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Efforts to regain public confidence

After a few troublesome years for the US-South Korea alliance, Yoon and Biden moved to reestablish large-scale exercises and quick responses to North Korean “provocations” in order to display efforts to strengthen deterrence, with the aim of regaining public confidence. Under the previous administrations in Seoul and Washington, the alliance had dramatically scaled back its military activities in an attempt to better enable diplomacy with North Korea. As it became clear that there was no acceptable deal to be made with Kim Jong Un on his nuclear and missile programs, North Korea resumed, and then escalated, its missile launches and nuclear rhetoric. Coupled with former US President Donald Trump’s disparaging of the alliance, the South Korean public’s faith in US security guarantees deteriorated. As a result, now most of the South Korean public supports Seoul developing its own nuclear weapon capability—in part because they are losing faith in the deterrence extended by the United States, particularly the “nuclear umbrella.”

As Robert Abrams, former commander of the South Korea-US Combined Forces Command, attests, the return of large-scale alliance military exercises is appropriate, particularly considering North Korea’s evolving capabilities. But the alliance should focus on using its military exercises to strengthen readiness instead of as a response measure. In the last year, the alliance has been attempting to militarily respond and deter North Korea’s testing of its advancing military capabilities that are arguably not only militarily undeterrable but do not represent indications of an impending armed conflict, in the assessment of Admiral John Aquilino, head of US Indo-Pacific Command.

Though these response activities are designed, at least in part, to reassure the South Korean public, they may have the opposite result. With the anticipated North Korean launch of a reconnaissance satellite and continued expectation that North Korea will conduct a seventh nuclear test, the alliance is at risk of being pulled into a spiraling escalation cycle if it continues its current trajectory. Doing so risks heightening the public’s concern of escalation and thus diminishing the public’s confidence that the alliance can deter armed conflict. Amid expectations for increased tensions, the alliance has continued to promise to punish North Korea for its provocations, but these promises seem empty and set unrealistic expectations about the ability to stop North Korea’s launches.

Do not just follow the leader

The alliance must avoid the political pressure and pitfalls of continuing to respond to North Korea’s antics.

First, the United States and South Korea should avoid using military drills as a form of retaliation. They should instead stress that it’s normal and expected for militaries to train—just as North Korea continues its military training exercises and has done so even in times where the alliance scaled back its activities to provide diplomatic space for negotiations.

Second, the alliance should seek to maintain readiness and deterrence without tying its military activities to the perceived level of “tensions” on the Korean peninsula. Maintaining a set alliance exercise schedule instead of using ad hoc exercises to respond to “provocations” will aid in defeating perceptions that alliance activities are inflammatory. In addition, the alliance should refrain from offering to scale back readiness exercises in its attempts to negotiate with North Korea. Making exercises a negotiating point adds salience to the regime’s false claims that exercises are threats to North Korea’s security that justify its weapons programs, while impeding training threatens alliance military readiness. In addition, the end of both long pauses in large-scale drills and limitations on live-fire training have led to the perception among peninsula observers that the alliance is escalating tensions rather than simply returning to its normal routine of training activities that it had maintained since the 1990s.

Third, the alliance should strengthen deterrence and public reassurance by evolving its combined defense posture toward North Korea’s emergent capabilities.

For instance, analysts assess North Korea’s development of solid-fueled missiles reduces the potential warning time for North Korean missile launches, as liquid-fueled missiles have to be fueled immediately ahead of launch making their detection easier via satellite imagery. Thus, improving the alliance’s ability to detect and defend against North Korean missile launches on short notice is a worthwhile endeavor toward deterrence and reassurance. Currently, South Korea is pursuing its own independent missile defense capability rather than alliance integration of missile defense efforts, in part because of China’s opposition to US missile defense cooperation with regional allies. Maintaining separate missile defense systems is hardly a recipe for confidence in the alliance’s counter-missile efforts. Moving to strengthen alliance missile defense will go farther toward strengthening deterrence and public reassurance than trying to match each activity by North Korea.

More broadly, as North Korea advances its nuclear capabilities, there are mounting questions surrounding the effectiveness of South Korea’s unilateral “Three Axis” deterrent system, which stands apart from alliance military efforts. The system consists of a plan, a first axis, to incapacitate North Korea’s leadership in response to aggression through “Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation.” The second axis is a “kill chain” that will enable rapid strikes on mobile targets. The third axis is South Korea’s Air and Missile Defense System. Rather than strengthening the alliance’s combined posture and reassuring the South Korean public, portraying these capabilities as independent of the US military just feeds the narrative that the United States cannot be relied upon. Thus, absent a diplomatic resolution to aid in regaining and strengthening the South Korean public’s confidence, the alliance should focus on ensuring that it continually evolves its combined abilities.

Yoon and Biden took an important step this week to strengthen cooperative decision making on nuclear deterrence by enhancing dialogue and information sharing regarding growing nuclear threats to South Korea and the region. Their task now is to stick to the plan and make sure they do not get distracted by the next North Korean provocation.

Jessica Taylor is a nonresident fellow in the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She served in South Korea from 2019 to 2021 as an international relations strategist for the headquarters command staffs of United Nations Command, ROK/US Combined Forces Command, and US Forces Korea.

The post Not every North Korean missile needs a response. South Korea and the US should focus more on readiness and deterrence. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The day the US-South Korea alliance became truly nuclear-armed

Atlantic Council — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 12:27:30 +0000

GET UP TO SPEED

Call it a nuclear fusion of allies. The United States has agreed to give South Korea a bigger role in decisions regarding the use of nuclear weapons to deter and respond to an attack, while South Korea has agreed to not build its own nukes. What does the Washington Declaration, announced Wednesday as the US and South Korean leaders met in DC, mean for the alliance, and how will it play in Seoul? Will the pact hold together in the long run? We hit the red button to summon our team, who dove into the details of the agreement as only they can.

TODAY’S EXPERT REACTION COURTESY OF

Markus Garlauskas (@Mister_G_2): Director of the Scowcroft Center’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative and former US national intelligence officer for North Korea
Matthew Kroenig (@matthewkroenig): Vice president and senior director of the Scowcroft Center and former nuclear-weapons expert in the US Defense Department and intelligence community
Jessica Taylor (@Jess_R_Taylor): Nonresident fellow at the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative and former international relations strategist for ROK/US Combined Forces Command in South Korea

For the history books

Wednesday, Markus tells us, may go down “as the day that the US-South Korea alliance truly became a nuclear-armed alliance.” That’s because “even if the nuclear weapons are still US-owned and US-controlled, we can now consider nuclear weapons to be an alliance capability.”
Markus and Matt were at the White House as US President Joe Biden welcomed South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for a state visit—cementing a deal that includes port visits by nuclear-armed US submarines to South Korea for the first time in decades. The United States removed its forward-deployed nuclear weapons from South Korea after the Cold War, while continuing to maintain that the US nuclear arsenal would protect its ally in a war. “The Biden administration’s announcement aims to take measures short of nuclear deployments to assure South Korea,” the US ally currently most in need of such reassurance because of the growing threat of North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program, Matt says.
But will South Koreans feel assured? Jessica points out that Yoon’s commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the Washington Declaration is “a quick turn” from his comments in January signaling openness to South Korea developing its own nuclear weapons. The deal “may not have the ability to decrease the South Korean public’s desire for an indigenous nuclear-weapon capability,” she adds.

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Making it work

Aside from additional consultations, trainings, and tabletop exercises, the biggest change stemming from the agreement will involve the “mindset” of the alliance, Markus says. It’s a shift from the United States “providing” South Korea with nuclear deterrence to a true partnership. The two countries also will need “to be prepared to be resilient in the face of nuclear attacks and to launch a coordinated counterattack as an alliance” if deterrence fails, Markus adds.
One model is NATO, which includes nuclear and non-nuclear states under the same nuclear umbrella. Markus proposes that South Korea have “official observer status” for NATO nuclear exercises and participate in other NATO nuclear planning and educational opportunities.
But the moves announced this week are only “a stopgap measure,” Matt argues. “To deal with the growing North Korean and Chinese nuclear threats, the United States will soon need theater nuclear weapons deployable and deployed to Asia.”
Matt proposes the development of the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile, which was advanced by former US President Donald Trump but canceled by Biden. He notes that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley has publicly expressed support for the weapon and “bipartisan majorities in Congress have restored funding to the program.”

Unanswered questions

Jessica points out that the deal comes as South Korea is preparing to take over “wartime operational control of the allies’ joint forces.” That leaves a big question: “How can a [Republic of Korea] general be in charge of ROK/US Combined Forces Command in a conflict when final say on nuclear weapons will always reside in Washington?”
But perhaps the biggest question is how long this deal can last, as the announcement came one day after Biden formally announced his re-election campaign. “Any concerns surrounding US abandonment will likely not be resolved within one US administration,” Jessica says. “With the 2024 US presidential election looming, it is unclear whether the winner of the election will hold similar views toward cooperative decision making on nuclear deterrence.”

The post The day the US-South Korea alliance became truly nuclear-armed appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Russian nukes in Belarus: Putin’s creeping annexation continues

Hanna Liubakova — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 16:06:56 +0000

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed his Belarusian counterpart Alyaksandr Lukashenka to Moscow in early April for two days of talks. In their public remarks, both men avoided the topic of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, Russia’s plans to place nukes in Belarus loomed large over this latest meeting between the two dictators.

Days earlier, Putin had made global headlines by announcing an agreement with Minsk to station Russian tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. This was widely viewed as a further escalation in Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling tactics as he attempts to discourage the West from continuing to arm Ukraine.

At the same time, the move to place nuclear weapons in Belarus will also advance the Kremlin goal of consolidating informal control over the country. While Putin was at pains to stress that the decision to move nukes across the border came in response to a direct request from Lukashenka, few were convinced. Instead, news of the planned deployment has served to underline Belarus’s status as a client state of Russia.

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While Belarus likely had little say in the matter of hosting Russian nuclear weapons, the country will experience significant consequences if Moscow proceeds as planned. Brussels has already warned Minsk of further sanctions due to what it terms as an “irresponsible escalation and threat to European security.” Belarus could also find itself a target for retaliatory strikes if the war in Ukraine spreads to neighboring NATO member states. In such circumstances, Belarusian nuclear weapons storage facilities, military airfields, and other military infrastructure could become potential targets.

Lukashenka has often been critical of his country’s early 1990s decision to hand over the nuclear arsenal it inherited from the USSR, and has suggested the international community would treat Belarus differently if it was still a nuclear power. Nevertheless, until the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he had consistently stated that nuclear weapons would only be based in Belarus in response to similar threats from the West.

The Russian attack on Ukraine has led to a dramatic change in Lukashenka’s position on the issue of nuclear weapons. Days after the start of the invasion, he staged a sham referendum on changes to the Belarusian Constitution which scrapped the country’s official nuclear-free status. This was followed by news that Russia was modifying Belarusian military aircraft to carry nuclear warheads and transferring nuclear-capable missile systems to the country.

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By agreeing to host Russian nuclear weapons, Lukashenka has strengthened perceptions of his country as an indivisible element of the military threat posed by Putin’s Russia. This is shaping attitudes toward Minsk throughout the democratic world. For much of Lukashenka’s almost three decades in power, Western policymakers had sought to cultivate ties with him in order to counter Russian influence in Belarus. That era now appears to be over. Instead, Lukashenka is seen as a Putin proxy who must be treated as such.

Lukashenka’s status as junior partner in Putin’s Ukraine War has also brought the curtain down on his clumsy attempts to act as peacemaker between Moscow and Kyiv. During the early stages of Russian aggression against Ukraine following the 2014 seizure of Crimea, Lukashenka positioned himself as a neutral figure and offered his country as a venue for peace talks. However, these claims to neutrality were undermined by Lukashenka’s growing dependence on the Kremlin, which intervened to rescue his regime in August 2020 following nationwide protests in Belarus over a rigged presidential vote. Lukashenka repaid Putin for his support by allowing Belarus to become a platform for the invasion of Ukraine.

The deployment of nuclear weapons would be the latest in a series of steps since 2020 to expand Russia’s military presence in Belarus. Russian troops are already stationed across the country, with Lukashenka neither willing nor able to force their departure. The establishment of a fully-fledged Russian military base complete with nuclear weapons would significantly increase Moscow’s leverage over Belarus and cement Putin’s grip on the country. In such circumstances, any subsequent attempts by Lukashenka to distance himself from Putin or assert his independence from the Kremlin would be political suicide.

Although Lukashenka himself appears obliged to accept the gradual takeover of his country, the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus could have negative domestic consequences that neither he nor Putin can entirely disregard. While opinion polls are notoriously difficult to conduct in dictatorships, research carried out by Chatham House in 2022 found that around 80% of Belarusians opposed the idea of hosting Russian nukes. This tallies with other anecdotal evidence indicating strong opposition to the growing Russian military presence in Belarus and emphatic rejection of any Belarusian involvement in the invasion of Ukraine.

The terror tactics employed by Lukashenka in recent years make it unlikely that Belarusians will take to the streets in protest over Russian plans to place nuclear weapons in their country. However, this latest strengthening of Moscow’s already dominant position will further erode the legitimacy of the Lukashenka regime while highlighting Russia’s creeping annexation of Belarus. This could help fuel a new wave of Belarusian opposition, especially if Russia suffers further military setbacks in Ukraine.

Hanna Liubakova is a journalist from Belarus and nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council. She tweets @HannaLiubakova.

Russian War Report: Belarus accuses Ukraine of plotting terrorist attack

Digital Forensic Research Lab — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 18:23:57 +0000

As Russia continues its assault on Ukraine, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) is keeping a close eye on Russia’s movements across the military, cyber, and information domains. With more than seven years of experience monitoring the situation in Ukraine—as well as Russia’s use of propaganda and disinformation to undermine the United States, NATO, and the European Union—the DFRLab’s global team presents the latest installment of the Russian War Report.

Belarus accuses Ukraine of plotting terrorist attack against Russian consulate

On April 4, Belarusian state-controlled TV channel ONT aired a documentary titled “Loud failures of the Ukrainian special services in Belarus. Gaspar did not get in touch.” Reports from Belarus’ State Security Committee (KGB) informed much of the program, which asserted that, under the leadership of Ukrainian special services, a network of Russian and Belarusian citizens planned several terrorist attacks in the Belarusian city of Grodno. The alleged perpetrators reportedly planned to target several facilities, including the Consulate General of Russia, a military enlistment office opposite Zhiliber Park, a military unit in southern Grodno, and two oil depots.

The KGB claimed that Vyacheslav Rozum, an alleged employee of the Main Directorate of Intelligence in the Ukrainian defense ministry, planned the attacks. Ukrainian authorities had not commented on the accusations at the time of writing. According to the documentary, Rozum asked Russian citizen Daniil Krinari, known as Kovalevsky, to form a network of people to carry out terrorist acts. Krinari was reportedly arrested in Grodno in December 2022 and extradited to Russia at the request of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). He was charged in Russia for cooperating with Ukraine and acting in the interests of Ukraine. The Belarusian KGB asserted that, before his extradition, Krinari managed to recruit at least two people, Russian citizen Alexei Kulikov and Belarusian citizen Vadim Patsenko. Kulikov had allegedly fled Russia in 2022 to avoid conscription and moved to Belarus.

The ONT documentary includes interviews with Kulikov and Patsenko, who argue that Rozum asked them to take photos and videos of the target facilities in Grodno. Moreover, Patsenko argued that Vyacheslav tasked him with blowing up an oil depot with a drone. The program claims Ukrainian special services promised Kulikov and Patsenko $10,000 each. While Patsenko and Kulikov allege that Ukrainian security services were involved in the operation, the ONT program does not include concrete evidence to prove this claim.

The documentary also contains an interview with Nikolai Shvets, the main suspect behind a February 26, 2023, attack on an AWACS A-50 Russian military aircraft at Machulishchy airfield in Belarus. Shvets is reported to be a Russian-Ukrainian dual citizen and served in the Ukrainian army. In the ONT interview, he claimed he was working with a person from the Ukrainian security service while planning the sabotage. The Belarusian independent media outlet Nasha Niva reported that Maxim Lopatin, one of arrested suspects in the Machulishchy attack, had a broken jaw when he filmed the ONT doumentary. Nasha Niva suggested that he was possibly beaten by Belarusian law enforcement authorities. Belarus arrested more than twenty people in connection to the February aircraft incident and announced on April 3 that the suspects were charged with committing an act of terrorism, for which the maximum sentence is capital punishment. However, the ONT program again provides no concrete evidence linking Shvets to Ukrainian security services.

In addition, the ONT documentary aired on the same day that Alyaksandr Lukashenka met Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, in Minsk to discuss joint counterterrorism measures undertaken by Belarus and Russia.

—Givi Gigitashvili, Research Associate, Warsaw, Poland

Identifying potential host sites for Russian tactical nuclear weapons

On March 28, Belarus confirmed it would accept Russian tactical nuclear weapons. The announcement came after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on March 25 plans to store tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, promising to build a nuclear weapons storage facility in the country. Putin made the comments after the United Kingdom said it would supply Ukraine with ammunition containing depleted uranium. “The heavy metal is used in weapons because it can penetrate tanks and armour more easily due to its density, amongst other properties,” Reutersreported. On April 4, Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu reported the transfer of Iskander-M tactical missiles, which are nuclear capable and have been utilized by the Russian military against Ukraine.

Two days after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, on February 26, 2022, Belarus approved via referendum constitutional amendments to remove the country’s non-nuclear status. The constitutional change allows Belarus to host nuclear weapons for foreign states.

Amidst the speculation surrounding Russia’s nuclear deployment to Belarus, the most pressing questions concern the potential location of airfields capable of nuclear deployment and which type of equipment is nuclear capable in terms of maintenance and modernization efforts.

Along with the confirmed transfer of the Iskander-M missiles (a mobile, short-range ballistic missile system with a range of up to 500 kilometers), Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jets are also a top contender in the Russian and Belarusian aviation arsenals. This aircraft is capable of carrying two nuclear bombs, which the Russian military categorizes as “special aviation bombs.” In June 2022, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka personally called on Putin to help upgrade and retrofit the Belarusian Su-25 fleet to be nuclear-capable. This resulted in a long-term project to enable Belarusian nuclear capabilities, legalize hosting Russian nuclear technology and nuclear-capable craft, enable joint-training programs for aviation sorties, and direct training for Belarusian pilots.

In conjunction with the Su-25’s capabilities against Ukraine’s current air defence networks and Russia’s non-strategic nuclear policy, Belarus’ acceptance of Russian tactical nuclear weapons can be viewed as escalatory. Video footage showed the Su-25’s capacity to evade Ukraine’s man-portable air defence system (MANPAD).

Промах двох ракет ПЗРК по російському штурмовику Су-25. pic.twitter.com/81PCZNpC21
— Ridnа_Vilnа #Rescue_Azovstal_Defenders (@ua_ridna_vilna) September 11, 2022

Video footage from the cockpit of a SU-25 aircraft demonstrating its maneuverability and evasion of MANPAD systems. (Source: ua_ridna_vilna/archive)

On April 2, the Russian envoy to Minsk announced that the nuclear weapons deployment would occur along Belarus’ western border. The exact location has not been specified, but Belarus has a number of bases along its western border, including Osovtsy, Ross, and Bereza. However, Lida is a primary staging base for the Belarusian fleet of SU-25s, and open-source researchers have confirmed a large presence of the aircraft on the base. Currently, Osovtsy is not one of the highly utilized bases in Belarus, but its proximity to the western border, especially in terms of proximity to Poland and the northern border of Ukraine, makes it a primary location to watch for potential signs of development, land-clearing operations, and heightened military activity.

Map showing Belarus’ western border and highlighting the locations of the Lida, Ross, and Osovtsy airbases. (Source: DFRLab via Google Maps)

—Kateryna Halstead, Research Assistant, Bologna, Italy

Individuals linked to Russian army form ‘angry patriots club’

On April 1, former Russian army commander Igor Strelkov (also known as Igor Girkin) published a video announcing the formation of the “angry patriots club” (Клуб рассерженных патриотов). According to Strelkov, the club aims “to help Russian armed forces” and “meet the stormy wind that will soon whip our faces as one team.” In the video, Strelkov says that Russia “is moving toward military defeat” because “we got into a long, protracted war for which our economy turned out to be completely unprepared. Neither the army nor the political system was ready for it.” In a Telegram post, Strelkov said the club “was created two weeks ago. So far, organizational issues have not been resolved publicly.” Strelkov previously played a crucial role in forming a separatist movement in the Donbas region.

The video also featured a statement from Pavel Gubarev, who in 2014 proclaimed himself the commander of the Donbas People’s Militia. In the video, he says, “We are angry that we are going from one defeat to another, and nothing changes.” He called the system in Russia “thievish and corrupt” and said the Russian elite are “elite in catastrophe.”

The video further featured Vladimir Grubnik, who in 2015 was arrested in Ukraine in connection to an explosion near a Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) building in Odesa; in 2019, he was part of a prisoner exchange and returned to the Russian forces in Donbas. Grubnik said that defeat would lead to Russia falling apart.

Vladimir Kucherenko, an Odesa-born Russian propagandist better known by his pen name Maksim Kalashnikov, said, “We are not afraid to criticize the actions of the government. Why? Because it can somehow help victory. Otherwise, they will do nothing, they will not move.” He called the Russian elite “looters,” “resource grabbers,” and “corrupts.” He predicted the war would turn into “carnage to death” and that the “corrupt Russian elites” would organize a coup that would “betray the country” by agreeing to Russia’s “separation” and “giving up of nuclear arms” in order to “earn the forgiveness of the West.” In 2015, the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture included Kucherenko in the list of Russians “threatening national security.”

Another figure in the video is Maksim Klimov, a pro-Kremlin military expert, who said, “The authorities do not know the real situation.” He added, “They do not hear nor see what is happening in the special military operation zone.” Klimov also did not rule out Russia’s defeat.

The video gained some traction online, garnering 177,000 views on YouTube at the time of writing and 623,600 views and 2,500 shares on Strekov’s Telegram channel. According to TGStat, most of the shares on Telegram came from private accounts. Many Ukrainian media outlets reported on the newly founded club. The DFRLab did not identify any mainstream Russian media outlets reporting on the club besides Kommersant, a Kremlin-approved media outlet focused on business.

—Nika Aleksejeva, Resident Fellow, Riga, Latvia

Russian propaganda reaches Ukrainian users via Facebook ads

This week, the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security (CSCIS) and Ukrainian civil society members reported that Facebook advertising campaigns are being used to spread negative content about Ukraine. The ads range from posts that claim “Romania wants to annex Ukrainian territories” to videos that claim “This is the end. There are no men to fight for Ukraine.” While these campaigns were quickly de-platformed and the pages sharing them were banned, the DFRLab was able to investigate some of the ads via the Facebook Ad Library. The DFRLab previously reported on Facebook ads promoting pro-Russia disinformation to Ukrainian users.

The ads included links to the website luxurybigisland.net, with some ads sharing variations of the URL, such as luxurybigisland.net/rbk or luxurybigisland.net/pravda. The website was built using the Russian website builder Tilda, and its the landing page featured German text that translates to, “Nothing that can’t be removed. We care for your textiles as gently as possible with the utmost care, iron and steam, so that you can enjoy your clothes for a long time. We care.” The same phrase appeared on the now-defunct Tilda-made website google-seo-top.com and the website of a German textile care company. Registration data for luxurybigisland.net is redacted, but WhoIs data for google-seo-top.com shows that the website was registered in Russia. Both luxurybigisland.net and google-seo-top.com include metadata, shown in Google results, that states, in German, “the USA are against the entire world.”

A composite image of a Google search result showing google-seo-top.com (top) and an archive of luxurybigisland.net (bottom) sharing an identical German phrase in their metadata. (Source: Google/Google cache, top; Luxurybigisland.net/archive, bottom)

One URL shared in the ads, luxurybigisland.net/pravda, remained online at the time of writing. The URL redirects to a forged article mimicking the Ukrainian news outlet Pravda. The article shared in the ads never appeared on the authentic Pravda website, but its byline cited a genuine journalist working at the outlet. The DFRLab confirmed the article was a forgery by reviewing the journalist’s author page on the authentic Pravda website, reviewing Pravda’s archived section, conducting a Google search for the forged headline, and then a more specific website search via Google.

Visually the forged website is identical to the authentic one and even features links to contact information copied from the original website. However, the forged website’s image format is different. The text of the forged article claims that the Ukrainian economy is heavily damaged and that “continuation of the war will lead to even greater losses in the economy.” The data shared in the article appears to be copied from multiple media sources and is not false, but the article’s framing contains pro-Russian sentiments as it calls for Ukraine’s surrender.

A second forged article, discovered by CSCIS, was shared on the now-offline URL luxurybigisland.net/RBK. The article mimicked the website of the reputable Ukrainian outlet RBC.

Meta itself has taken – and continues to take – action against similar cross-platform, pro-Russia networks that push users to websites designed to impersonate legitimate news organizations. The DFRLab could not tie its identified assets to those previous Meta actions, but there is some probability that they were related given the similarity of behavior.

A Facebook page with “Cripto” in its name shared some of the ads. The DFRLab identified another Facebook page with the word Cripto in the name sharing pro-Kremlin narratives via Facebook ads. The ads pushed a false story claiming there was a “riot in Kyiv over losses.” CSCIS previously debunked another narrative pushed by a similarly named page that also fomented anti-Ukrainian military sentiment.

A composite image of two ads from pages with “cripto” in the name. The first, at left, is the Facebook page identified by the DFRLab, while the second, at right, is an earlier ad previously identified by CSCIS. (Source: Cripto ukijed, left; Cripto nucergeq, right)

—Roman Osadchuk, Research Associate

Poland and Ukraine sign cooperation deal for production of tank shells

During Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Poland, Polish manufacturer Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa and Ukroboronprom signed a cooperation agreement for the joint production of 125-mm tank ammunition. The agreement assumes that the deployment of new production lines will be in Polish cities and the agreement indicates that they plan to produce a large amount of ammunition for 125-mm guns. The decision to start production in Poland was made due to the high risks of Russian missile attacks on production facilities if they were to be based in Ukraine. In place of locating the production in the country, the Ukrainian side will provide technologies and highly qualified specialists with experience in production. This will be the second factory that will produce 125-mm tank shells.

The supply of shells is of particular importance to Ukrainian forces, which are preparing a counter-offensive in southern and eastern Ukraine as heavy fighting with the Russian army continues in the Bakhmut and Donetsk regions.

Separately, German manufacturer Rheinmetall is building a service center for Western military equipment used by Ukraine’s armed forces in Romania, Reuters reported on April 2. The construction for the center is already underway in the Romanian city of Satu Mare, close to the country’s border with Ukraine. The hub is expected to open later this month.

This development is happening against the background of diplomatic activity and statements. Ukraine is not ready to sign any peace agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but the war could end as early as this year, according to an April 5 interview with Ukraine’s Minister of Defense Oleksii Rezniko, who said, “I think this war will end soon. Of course, I would like it not to start, but I personally believe in this year as a year of victory.”

Rezniko also commented on a statement made in March by Czech Republic President Petr Pavel, who claimed that Ukraine had only one chance to conduct a successful counter-offensive this year. “I think that the president of the Czech Republic now speaks more like a military man than a politician, and the logic of the military is such that they constantly calculate the worst options. But even if this is his assessment, it is subjective, and he still lays down useful for us. The message is that European countries should unite more powerfully and strengthen assistance to Ukraine,” said Reznikov. Later, Andriy Sybiha, an adviser to Zelenskyy, told the Financial Times that Kyiv is willing to discuss the future of Crimea with Moscow if its forces reach the border of the Russian-occupied peninsula.

—Ruslan Trad, resident fellow for security research, Sofia, Bulgaria

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Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling is a sign of dangerous Russian desperation

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 20:55:26 +0000

Vladimir Putin resumed his nuclear saber-rattling in late March with the announcement that he plans to place nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus. This largely symbolic move was clearly designed to intimidate Western leaders and deter them from continuing to arm Ukraine. In reality, however, it merely serves to highlight Russia’s growing desperation and the Kremlin’s lack of alternative options as the attempted conquest of Ukraine continues to unravel.

Putin has repeatedly resorted to nuclear blackmail since embarking on the full-scale invasion of Ukraine just over thirteen months ago. During the first few days of the invasion, the Russian dictator signaled his readiness to engage in nuclear intimidation by very publicly placing his country’s nuclear forces on “special alert.” This was widely interpreted as an attempt to discourage any Western intervention.

Further thinly-veiled nuclear threats came in September 2022 as Putin sought to escalate his faltering invasion. Following a string of battlefield defeats and embarrassing retreats, he announced his country’s first mobilization since World War II before boasting of Russia’s unrivaled “weapons of destruction” and vowing to “use all the means at our disposal” to defend the country. “I am not bluffing,” Putin warned.

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It is not difficult to imagine why Putin is now once again indulging in nuclear saber-rattling. In recent months, military aid to Ukraine has expanded to new levels and crossed multiple Russian red lines in the process. Western countries have agreed to supply Kyiv with state-of-the-art air defense systems, modern battle tanks, and jet fighters. Tellingly, Putin framed his plans for nuclear weapons in Belarus as a response to Britain’s decision to provide Ukraine with anti-tank ammunition that contains depleted uranium.

Meanwhile, Russia’s military fortunes in Ukraine have continued to deteriorate. The six-month campaign to bomb Ukraine into submission by targeting the country’s civilian infrastructure has ended in failure. Along the front lines in southern and eastern Ukraine, a much-hyped Russian offensive has been underway since early 2023 but has failed to make significant progress while suffering disastrous losses. This is leading to the rapid demoralization of Putin’s army in Ukraine, with video appeals regularly posted to social media featuring groups of recently mobilized Russian soldiers complaining of suicidal tactics and high death tolls.

There is also little cause for Russian optimism on the international front, where initial expectations of a weakening in Western support for Ukraine are rapidly evaporating. Indeed, during the early months of 2023, the democratic world’s commitment to Ukraine has looked stronger than ever. In February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was given a hero’s welcome during a brief trip to London, Paris, and Brussels. Weeks later, US President Joe Biden arrived in Kyiv to emphasize his resolve to stand with Ukraine.

There was more bad news for Russia in mid-March, when the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest on war crimes charges related to the mass abduction of Ukrainian children. While there is no immediate danger of the Russian ruler ending up in court, the indictment is a further humiliation that underlines Putin’s pariah status while weakening his position both at home and abroad.

Even the recent visit of Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Moscow failed to lift the gloom. The summit produced few concrete gains for Putin while confirming his position as junior partner in what is an increasingly unequal bilateral relationship. Interestingly, one of the few security-related outcomes of the visit was a joint statement calling on all nuclear powers to refrain from deploying nuclear weapons beyond their national borders. Putin’s subsequent decision to place nukes in Belarus may well be an indication of his frustration over China’s obvious reluctance to back Russia more forcefully.

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Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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It remains far from clear whether Russia is capable of regaining the military initiative in Ukraine via conventional means. Kremlin officials have recently begun speaking of massive increases in military production, while rumors persist of additional mobilization waves to bolster the depleted ranks of Russia’s invasion force. However, this optimism is at odds with the realities on the ground in Ukraine, with the UK Ministry of Defense recently reporting that Russia is now deploying tanks and armored vehicles from the 1950s and 1960s “to make up for previous losses.” With limited access to sanctioned Western technologies, many analysts question the offensive potential of what will be a largely conscript Russian army of poorly motivated troops with limited training and outdated equipment.

This grim outlook helps to explain why Putin is playing the nuclear card. His nuclear threats may ring hollow, but they are too serious to be disregarded completely and he knows it. At the same time, the international community cannot afford to let Putin’s intimidation tactics succeed. If nuclear blackmail pays off for Putin in Ukraine and allows him to snatch a victory of sorts from the jaws of defeat, it will become a normalized element of international relations with devastating consequences for global security. Countries around the world will scramble to acquire nuclear arsenals of their own in order to avoid the fate of Ukraine.

So far, the response to Putin’s latest bout of nuclear saber-rattling has been encouraging. US, EU, and NATO officials were united in their condemnation. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell branded it “an irresponsible escalation and threat to European security,” while Germany’s Foreign Ministry accused Russia of “another attempt at nuclear intimidation.” Perhaps the most fitting commentary came from Kyiv, with Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak claiming Putin’s comments demonstrate that he fears defeat in Ukraine and has nothing to offer other than scare tactics.

We are likely to see such scare tactics increasingly in the coming months. With the Ukrainian military currently preparing to launch what promises to be their largest offensive of the war, Russia’s position could worsen significantly during spring and summer 2023. If he finds himself faced with the prospect of decisive military defeat, Putin will almost certainly escalate his nuclear blackmail to new levels of danger. At that point, the international community must unite to prevent Russia from dragging the world into catastrophe.

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

Moreover, alongside in-depth discussions between Israel and the United States on the Iran file in recent months—including a meeting at the White House—military coordination on this issue is also deepening. Just a few weeks ago, the “largest-ever bilateral military exercise” by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the US Central Command (CENTCOM) took place, which, according to some outlets, reportedly simulated an “attack on Iran.”

Concurrently, Iran continues to transfer weapons to its proxies in the Middle East, while attacks continue to be carried out by Iran-supported elements on Western and especially American interests in the region—all of which strengthen the Israeli claim about Iranian expansion in the region.

Despite these significant developments, and even though Israeli views regarding Iran are finally gaining international approval, there is still a deep and unbridgeable gap between Israel and the international community regarding the Iran nuclear issue.

The first development concerns the American intelligence community’s annual intelligence assessment presented to the US Congress. It contends that, contrary to Israel’s claims, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had not decided to produce nuclear weapons after Iran abandoned a previous attempt to obtain one in 2003 (when it had an active military nuclear program).

In addition, per the intelligence assessment, Iran has been “pushed” into unprecedented actions in its enrichment program due to actions carried out by “unknown elements” against its nuclear program, such as the assassination of the country’s lead nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Moreover, the report even hinted that the correct way to prevent Iran from enriching uranium to military-grade (90 percent) is by returning to the nuclear agreement.

In other words, according to the American intelligence community, the moves made by Iran are not to produce a bomb, but to force a return to the agreement, which may be the only option to stop the advancement of its nuclear program.

The second development concerns the meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It was expected that the board would not only condemn Iran but perhaps take more serious measures against it, such as transferring the Iranian file to the United Nations Security Council due to its nuclear advancement, which Israel wanted.

But here, too, the gap between Israeli expectations and the activity of the IAEA is still very wide. Just before the Board of Governors was convened on March 4, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi traveled to Iran. There, he met with Iranian leadership and managed to extract not only a roadmap for resolving the “open files,” an issue that has become a stumbling block in the relationship between Iran and the IAEA—which makes it difficult to return to the nuclear agreement—but also for Iran’s willingness to allow tighter supervision, especially of the enrichment facility at Fordow. The conduct of the IAEA and senior Iranian officials indicate that, in the face of pressure, the parties sought to find a path forward that would leave the option of a return to the nuclear agreement, despite all the setbacks.

Interestingly, the agreements between Iran and the IAEA were only the preview of the latest development: the Chinese-brokered agreement to renew diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Israel, who was eager to join forces with Saudi Arabia and form a regional alliance against Iran, discovered that the regional spearhead of this theoretical alliance had decided to get politically closer to Iran. This rapprochement is also in line with the steps led by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over the past year to strengthen its diplomatic and, in particular, economic ties with Tehran, with the understanding that the best way to prevent escalation in the Gulf region is through integration with Iran.

These events highlight the gap between Israeli policy and the international community, including the United States and Gulf states. Chief among them is the understanding that a return to a nuclear agreement is the leading and perhaps only option to put Iran’s nuclear genie back in the bottle and roll back its enrichment progress since any other move is liable to push its nuclear program to weapons grade.

This fact requires Israel to think freshly about the Iranian nuclear issue. The Israeli government must understand that there is a need to dissociate between the nuclear issue, which has only a diplomatic solution, and Iranian malign activities like their support for proxies.

As long as the world is concerned that its actions may push Iran forward in its nuclear program—given the fact that Tehran has no other significant tool in its nuclear toolbox to retaliate against any actions against them—countries will probably refrain from taking harsh actions against Tehran concerning other negative aspects of its policy. Moreover, as long as the West assumes that Iran is not taking any actions that would lead to building a nuclear weapon, no country—including the United States—will decide to use force against the Islamic Republic or its nuclear program, and, therefore, Israel may again be left alone.

The bottom line is that the recent developments indicate that the world understands the need to use carrots in addition to sticks against Iran. Posing a military threat to Iran may be important in several ways, but without giving Iran incentives, it will be very difficult to persuade Iran not to enrich at 90 percent, or weapons-grade, which improves its ability to acquire a nuclear weapon in the future if it so desires.

In general, it is important to remember that Iran built its nuclear program to ensure the regime’s future—that is, the program is a means and not an end. If it is possible to assure Iran of the future of the regime in other ways—including a willingness to ease economic and diplomatic relations—it is very doubtful that Iran will choose the path of a nuclear bomb.

In stark contrast to its current strategy, Israel must reconsider the validity of the nuclear agreement as a tool in its foreign policy regarding Iran. A return to the JCPOA (or something akin to it) has a price: the lifting of sanctions. However, even this price will not lead the world to cooperate with the regime, as it conducts many other negative activities that push potential partners away, such as selling weapons to Russia, sending squads to harm various elements in Europe, and brutally suppressing protesters.

If Israel adheres to its current strategy and seeks to use kinetic pressure against Iran to topple its nuclear advancement, it should expect—despite all the developments of recent months—to be left alone in the face of Iran’s accelerated nuclear program, even if Iran enriches at 90 percent. Perhaps it is time Israel follows the approach of the Gulf states and adopts a more complex policy that will integrate diplomatic actions rather than just military ones.

Danny Citrinowicz is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He served for twenty-five years in a variety of command positions units in Israel Defense Intelligence (IDI). Follow him on Twitter: @citrinowicz.

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Kroenig on BBC World News discussing recent missile strikes on Ukraine

Atlantic Council — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 18:49:49 +0000

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

China Defense Policy

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Iran’s nuclear program is advancing. So too should negotiations.

Kelsey Davenport — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 15:33:42 +0000

Iran’s nuclear program made headlines again on February 20 after Bloomberg reported that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) detected uranium particles enriched to 84 percent at an Iranian facility. Unsurprisingly, Iran denied that it has ratcheted up enrichment to that level, which is just short of the 90 percent generally considered weapons grade. A February 28 report by the IAEA confirmed the presence of 84 percent enriched uranium, but only said that discussions with Iran over the incident are ongoing and that Iran is not stockpiling uranium enriched to that level.

Although the spike could be an accident, as Iran claims, Tehran has recently threatened to pursue 90 percent enrichment to build leverage over the United States. The particles could indicate that Iran is experimenting with near-weapons grade enrichment without informing the agency, as required, to increase pressure or shorten the path to nuclear weapons down the road.

Regardless of whether the 84 percent enriched particles were the accidental product of Iran reconfiguring its centrifuges or produced by design, this incident underscores the increased challenge in discerning Tehran’s nuclear intentions and the growing proliferation risk of Iran’s rapidly expanding nuclear program. This is one of several actions that Iran has taken to advance its nuclear program over the past six months while negotiations to restore the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), remain stalled.

This near-weapons-grade activity should raise alarm bells in the United States and Europe over the urgent need for diplomacy with Iran to de-escalate the growing nuclear crisis, since the current status quo is not sustainable. Absent limits on Iran’s nuclear advances, escalation to military action or sabotage to address the proliferation risk appears almost inevitable. The United States and Europe cannot afford to continue pointing the finger at Tehran for derailing JCPOA negotiations in August 2022 while waiting for the country to come back to the table.

US and European frustration with the current impasse and reluctance to reengage Iran is understandable. In late August 2022, the United States and Iran came close to reaching a deal to restore the JCPOA. Unreasonable demands from Iran over a separate IAEA investigation at the eleventh hour killed what EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called a “final” effort to revive the deal.

Since then, Iran’s brutal repression of protesters and its transfer of kamikaze drones to Russia for its illegal war in Ukraine have drawn US and European focus away from the JCPOA. Countering illegal drone sales and supporting protesters are laudable and necessary priorities, but the United States and Europe cannot lose sight of the growing proliferation threat and how current geopolitics may drive Tehran to decide nuclear weapons as necessary for its security.

There are three areas where the nuclear risk has increased over the past six months and will continue to grow (absent a deal or de-escalating steps from Iran): (1) expansion of enrichment at Fordow; (2) growth in Iran’s stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium; (3) and a growing monitoring gap. The urgency of this risk requires a new proactive diplomatic strategy.

Increased capacity at Fordow

In November 2022, Tehran announced its intentions to install an additional fourteen cascades of IR-6 centrifuges, which enrich uranium more efficiently, at its Fordow site and increase enrichment levels at the facility to 60 percent.

The Ebrahim Raisi government announced these plans after the IAEA’s Board of Governors censured Tehran for its continued failure to credibly respond to the agency’s questions about pre-2003 uranium activities, which were not declared to the agency as required by Iran’s legally binding safeguards agreement.

Prior to the November 2022 announcement, Iran operated two cascades of IR-6 centrifuges at the site and six cascades of less efficient IR-1 centrifuges. The machines produced uranium enriched to about 5 percent and 20 percent.

While the IAEA has confirmed that Iran is now enriching to 60 percent at Fordow, the February 28 report says it has not yet installed any of the planned IR-6 centrifuges. Regardless of the pace of expansion, however, undertaking these activities at Fordow is a significant escalation because of the location and nature of the facility.

Prior to the November 2022 announcement, Iran was only enriching to 60 percent at its aboveground facility at Natanz. Fordow, by contrast, is a hardened facility built in the mountains near Qom. Its small size and location suggest that it was originally built to produce material for a weapons program. More efficient centrifuges and a stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium will enable Iran to quickly ratchet up its enrichment to produce weapons-grade material, possibly before the inspectors could detect a change and the United States could respond.

Under the JCPOA, Iran was required to halt all enrichment activity at the site for fifteen years. This is because the facility poses a greater risk than Natanz and would be challenging to destroy if the United States ever determined that military strikes were necessary to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Israel, for instance, would likely need US support to strike Fordow. Given these factors, higher levels of enrichment and increased enrichment capacity at Fordow are more proliferation sensitive than if the same activities were taking place at Natanz.

Growing stocks of highly enriched uranium

Iran is currently stockpiling uranium enriched to 60 percent and 20 percent levels. There is no civil justification for Iran producing uranium at these levels (as mentioned before, these stocks are about building leverage in negotiations with the United States and the risk they pose increases as the stocks grow).

Prior to the JCPOA, Iran enriched uranium to 20 percent. It resumed that activity in January 2021 as part of its response to reimposed US sanctions. It started enrichment to 60 percent for the first time in April 2021, following an act of sabotage at the Natanz enrichment facility. Sixty percent material can technically be used for a nuclear weapon, but the design would be bulky and inconsistent with the weapons-related design work Iran did prior to 2003. However, using 60 percent—or even 20 percent—enriched uranium as a starting point for enriching material to weapons-grade (90 percent) significantly reduces the time it would take to produce enough material for a bomb.

If Tehran started with 60 percent enriched uranium, for instance, it could produce enough 90 percent material for a bomb in less than a week—a timeframe referred to as “breakout.” This short window is quite worrying because Iran could try to achieve breakout between IAEA inspections, but it is not new. What is changing, however, is Iran’s breakout time to multiple weapons, which is largely due to the growing stockpiles of 60 and 20 percent material.

According to the February 28 IAEA report, Iran’s stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium is 87 kilograms and its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium is about 435 kilograms. In late October 2022, the IAEA reported stockpiles of 62 kilograms and 386 kilograms, respectively. The 60 percent stockpile will likely grow more rapidly over this next year now that Iran is enriching to that level at both Natanz and Fordow.

With stockpiles of this size and a growing enrichment capacity, Iran could likely produce enough material for four weapons in less than a month. As that timeframe shrinks, which is likely given that Iran shows no signs of rolling back its enrichment, the proliferation threat will continue to increase.

This diminishing timeframe is significant because Iran is unlikely to breakout with just one weapon’s worth of 90 percent enriched uranium. One nuclear device is not a deterrent, particularly for a state like Iran that has never conducted a nuclear test. If Tehran can breakout to multiple nuclear weapons before the international community can detect and respond, the proliferation threat increases significantly. Enough material for multiple bombs also means that Tehran can divert the weapons-grade uranium to several covert sites, making it more difficult to detect and disrupt the weaponization process, which could take a year.

Monitoring gaps

While the IAEA still has regular access to facilities in Iran where nuclear materials are present, the agency’s blind spots are a growing concern that will continue to amplify over time. Since February 2021, when Iran suspended its more intrusive safeguards arrangement known as the additional protocol, inspectors have been unable to visit sites that support Iran’s nuclear program but do not contain nuclear materials. This includes facilities such as Iran’s centrifuge workshops, its uranium mines and mills, and its heavy water production facilities. Iran also disconnected cameras at some of these key locations in June 2022. The surveillance data was intended to allow the IAEA to reestablish a baseline for Iran’s nuclear activities if the JCPOA is restored.

For the first time, the IAEA said in its February 28 report that the monitoring gap will prevent it from reconstructing an accurate record of Iran’s nuclear activities in certain areas, such as centrifuge component production. As a result, the IAEA warned that baselines for verifying the JCPOA’s limits (if the deal is restored) “will take a considerable time to establish and would have a significant degree of uncertainty,” even if Iran cooperates with agency efforts. This finding has serious implications for the sustainability of a future deal, whether that be the JCPOA or a new agreement. If the IAEA cannot confidently verify limits, it will undermine confidence in Iran’s adherence to those restrictions.

The IAEA has continued to reiterate its concerns about the monitoring gap. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi recently made this point in a February 7 discussion at Chatham House, when he said that “the gap” is worrying and that it will be “very difficult to restore a complete picture” of Iran’s nuclear program. He warned that the situation will “get worse” without dialogue.

No surveillance at these certain sites also increases the risk that Iran may divert materials, such as centrifuges, for a covert program. Iran may also try to take advantage of less frequent IAEA inspections at Natanz and Fordow to breakout or experiment with higher enrichment levels. A February 1 IAEA report, for instance, noted that Iran changed its IR-6 cascade configuration at Fordow without notifying the agency as required by its safeguards agreement. It was five days before inspectors returned to the site and detected the change.

Iran could try to exploit the gap between future inspections if the decision was made to breakout or divert materials. Less frequent inspections combined with the short breakout window also increases the risk that United States and/or Israel will miscalculate Iranian activities or intentions, increasing the risk of a military strike. Both the risk of undetected breakout and miscalculation were significantly less under the JCPOA, when inspectors had daily access to Natanz, where Iran could conduct limited enrichment, and Fordow, which was converted from a uranium enrichment facility to a research site.

A return to dialogue

The most effective way to address the growing proliferation risk posed by Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program would be to restore the JCPOA, which proved to be an effective and verifiable deal when it was fully implemented, but that path appears blocked for the near future, if not forever. Reviving the JCPOA, however, is not the only diplomatic option and, while US and European reluctance to reengage with Iran is understandable, it is not excusable. As Iran’s program advances, it will become more challenging to detect and disrupt a dash for the bomb.

In addition to the increased speed at which Iran could build several bombs, geopolitical factors could influence Tehran’s decision-making in favor of nuclear weapons. Currently, Tehran is paying a high cost for advancing its nuclear program without reaping any of the perceived security benefits of a deterrent. Sabotage or military strikes designed to set back Iran’s program—and the perception among certain leaders in Tehran that the West is supportive of regime change—could drive the Supreme Leader to the conclusion that nuclear weapons are necessary to defend the current governing structure and the territorial integrity of the state.

If the Joe Biden administration wants to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran or a war to stop it, Washington needs to act swiftly to reengage Tehran in negotiations—either as part of reviving the JCPOA or as a new diplomatic effort—that deescalate this crisis. It is past time that the United States and Europe returned to the negotiating table with a new strategy. A limited deal or a series of gestures that prevent further escalation could create the time and space necessary for new negotiations that guard against a nuclear-armed Iran in the long term.

Kelsey Davenport is the director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association.

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The path to peace in Ukraine runs directly through Putin’s red lines

Oleksiy Goncharenko — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 13:55:09 +0000

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the one-year mark, the Western response is still being undermined by exaggerated fears of escalation and misplaced concerns over the dangers of “provoking Putin.” But while Western leaders and commentators continue to warn of dire consequences if Ukraine dares to resist, the experience of the past twelve months tells a very different story.

Since the invasion began, Ukraine has repeatedly defied the Kremlin and ignored Russia’s red lines. On each occasion, Moscow has failed to make good on its bloodcurdling threats and has instead retreated to new red lines. It should now be clear to any rational observer that in reality, Putin’s red lines are nothing less than a roadmap to Russian defeat in Ukraine.

Russia has a long history of imposing imaginary red lines on Ukraine and the West. Many years before Russia’s attack on Ukraine began with the 2014 seizure of Crimea, Kremlin leaders were warning their Western counterparts that Ukraine as a whole was a red line. Following the onset of open Russian aggression against Ukraine nine years ago, Moscow then claimed that any form of military aid to Kyiv was a red line for Russia.

Over the past year or so, we have seen successive red lines drawn over the delivery to Ukraine of anti-tank weapons, artillery, air defense systems, and tanks. All of these red lines have been crossed without provoking the threatened Russian response. It is entirely reasonable to assume that the most recently announced Russian red line over the delivery of fighter jets to Ukraine will prove equally ineffective.

Likewise, Russian attempts to impose red lines over the liberation of occupied Ukrainian land have repeatedly been exposed as toothless. In September 2022, Vladimir Putin oversaw a grandiose ceremony in the Kremlin announcing the illegal annexation of four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces. These regions had joined Russia “forever,” the Russian dictator declared. However, when the advancing Ukrainian military freed Kherson within weeks of Putin’s proclamation, Russian forces simply retreated.

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Russia’s relentless talk of red lines is central to the Kremlin’s intimidation tactics. Putin is well aware that while Western leaders staunchly oppose his imperial aggression against Ukraine, Western electorates have no stomach for an actual war of their own against Russia. By hinting at catastrophic costs, he aims to undermine Western resolve. This reflects his belief that the West is fundamentally weak and unprepared to accept any significant risks on behalf of the values at stake in Ukraine.

Behind all of Russia’s red lines looms the threat of a nuclear response. On numerous occasions during the past year, Putin has resorted to thinly veiled nuclear blackmail in a bid to scare the West into abandoning its support for Ukraine. Perhaps the most infamous example came during a September 20 address in which Putin indicated his readiness to use nuclear weapons before warning: “I’m not bluffing.” Unfortunately for Putin, Ukraine has repeatedly called his bluff without sparking a nuclear response.

Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling rings hollow for a number of reasons. The military argument is far from conclusive, with many analysts noting that nuclear weapons would not decisively turn the tide in Moscow’s favor. Crucially, deploying nukes in Ukraine would be absolutely disastrous for Russia’s global standing and would leave the country completely isolated. The United States has both publicly and privately explained to Moscow that the use of nuclear weapons would have “catastrophic consequences” for Russia. Meanwhile, even Russia’s Chinese partners have condemned Putin’s nuclear threats.

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As the world marks the first anniversary of Putin’s criminal invasion, it is time to learn the lessons of recent history and recognize that nothing is more likely to provoke further Russian aggression than continued Western hesitancy. The cautious Western response to Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia paved the way for the 2014 seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. The weak reaction to Crimea then encouraged Russia to start a war in eastern Ukraine. Failure to punish Russia for that unprecedented act of international aggression convinced Putin that he could get away with the full-scale invasion of February 2022. If Putin is not stopped now in Ukraine, he will inevitably go further.

Russian threats should not be taken lightly, of course. In addition to its vast nuclear arsenal, Moscow has huge conventional military capabilities and has also proven itself adept at hybrid forms of international aggression. Nevertheless, the experience of the past year has demonstrated convincingly that so-called Russian red lines in Ukraine can be safely crossed without triggering World War III. Indeed, these red lines actually reveal Russia’s own weaknesses and serve as signposts for Western policymakers looking to identify how best to secure a Ukrainian victory.

The real danger lies in allowing Russia’s intimidation efforts to succeed. If the West remains too afraid of Putin to stop Russia in Ukraine, the consequences for international security will be grave. Russia will be emboldened and will expand its international aggression, with likely initial targets including Moldova, Kazakhstan, and potentially the NATO member Baltic states. Other authoritarian regimes will take note of Russia’s success and will employ similar tactics. Nuclear blackmail will become an increasingly prominent foreign policy tool, leading to an arms race as dozens of threatened nations scramble to acquire nuclear weapons of their own.

The only way to prevent the world from descending into a dangerous new era of instability is by confronting Russia decisively in Ukraine. This will require considerable political courage on the part of Ukraine’s Western partners. Western leaders must overcome their fear of escalation and provide Ukraine with the tools to stop Putin. The Russian dictator has demonstrated time and again that he only understands the language of strength and will back down when confronted. This confrontation can no longer be avoided. The longer the West waits, the higher the price will become of stopping Putin.

Oleksiy Goncharenko is a Ukrainian member of parliament with the European Solidarity party.

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The last big Russian collapse caught the world by surprise and was far from universally welcomed. Indeed, some in the West saw the looming 1991 disintegration of the USSR as hugely destabilizing from an international security perspective and sought to prevent it. Most notoriously, US President George H. W. Bush traveled to Kyiv just weeks before the August 1991 Ukrainian Declaration of Independence to warn members of Soviet Ukraine’s parliament against “suicidal nationalism.”

Critics argue that the international community has been equally accommodating of Vladimir Putin’s efforts to rebuild Russia’s imperial influence since the turn of the millennium. The Second Chechen War, the 2008 invasion of Georgia, and the 2014 invasion of Ukraine all failed to fundamentally disrupt relations between Russia and the West. Indeed, in areas such as the energy sector, cooperation continued to deepen even after Moscow had illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and sparked a war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. These flourishing economic ties helped create the financial foundations for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

As the Putin regime has attempted to reassert its imperial influence in Ukraine, Georgia, and other countries that were formerly part of the Czarist and Soviet empires, Moscow has also been actively restricting the rights of the dozens of different national and ethnic groups within the boundaries of the modern Russian state. Despite calling itself the Russian Federation, today’s Russia is a highly centralized and increasingly authoritarian country. National minorities throughout Russia must contend with the colonial exploitation of natural resources in their homelands while also playing a disproportionately prominent role in the Kremlin’s wars of aggression.

Over the past year, Putin’s imperial ambitions have run into serious trouble in Ukraine. The Russian dictator expected a short, victorious war that would extinguish Ukrainian independence and force the country permanently back into the Kremlin orbit. Instead, his invading army has suffered catastrophic losses in both men and armor amid a series of battlefield defeats that have seriously damaged Russia’s reputation as a military superpower.

Despite these setbacks, Russian officials and Kremlin propagandists continue to promote an unapologetically imperialistic agenda. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently hinted that Moldova may face the same fate as Ukraine, while menacing statements directed at the Baltic states, Kazakhstan, and other Central Asian nations are routine features of the Kremlin-controlled Russian media. Until this imperial aggression is addressed, it will remain the greatest single threat to European security.

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There are various different perspectives on the problem of Russian imperialism. Some commentators advocate a reformed Russia existing as a genuinely federal and broadly democratic state within its current borders. Others argue that today’s Russia is an unrepentant empire and will remain so until it is broken up into a series of smaller countries.

This second and more radical option alarms many Western policymakers and commentators, who fear that the break-up of the Russian Federation would have disastrous consequences for nuclear proliferation and regional security. Gloomy forecasts anticipate a Russian collapse leading to a chaotic aftermath marked by the rise of nuclear-armed regional warlords and uncontrolled migration involving tens of millions of people.

In many ways, these fears mirror similar concerns at the time of the Soviet collapse. However, while the fall of the USSR brought considerable human misery for huge numbers of former Soviet citizens, this was accompanied by only a relatively small number of localized armed conflicts. Meanwhile, those nations that escaped the Soviet sphere of influence and were welcomed into NATO and the EU have gone on to prosper. Indeed, it is no coincidence that post-Soviet Russian aggression has focused on Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine, all countries that the West hesitated to embrace after 1991.

The post-Soviet experience offers important lessons for today’s policymakers as they look ahead to the increasingly realistic possibility of a post-Russia world. While the collapse of the Russian Federation is a daunting prospect, it does not necessarily have to end in disaster.

In order to avoid the worst-case scenarios that many are currently predicting, it is vital to manage the process by engaging with democratically-minded people in all regions of Russia along with the country’s national minorities. In order to avoid being caught out, Western leaders need to accurately gauge the mood within Russia and assess the appetite for greater regional autonomy or independence.

Many in the West remain reluctant to take any steps that could be seen as promoting the idea of a new Russian collapse. Indeed, some argue that talk of decolonizing the Russian Federation risks legitimizing popular Kremlin propaganda narratives of a Western plot to destroy Russia. At the same time, there is no escaping the fact that Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has put Russian imperialism at the top of the international security agenda while fueling serious discussion over the viability of the Russian state. In today’s highly volatile geopolitical climate, it makes sense to prepare for every eventuality.

Russian imperialism has proven deeply resistant to previous democratization efforts. Nevertheless, we may yet live to see the emergence of a democratic Russia as a productive and respected member of the international community. Alternatively, the Russian Federation may go the same way as the Czarist and Soviet empires and fragment into a number of smaller states, which could then develop into successful democracies. The only thing that can be said with any degree of certainty is that unless today’s Russia abandons its imperial identity, Europe will face more wars.

Taras Byk is a manager at Wooden Horse Strategies, LLC, a governmental-relations and strategic communications firm based in Kyiv.

The attack happened around the same time as Iranian television said that an oil refinery fire had broken out in Tabriz, about three hundred miles northwest of Tehran, and not far away a 5.9 magnitude earthquake shook the country’s far northwest province of West Azerbaijan. At least one report claimed the Tabriz facility may also have been attacked by drones.

As more details about the attack emerge, the biggest unknown is how Iran views the impact of this incident and how it will respond. In trying to begin to determine that, three indicators are worth watching.

First, will the attacks change Iranian plans related to their military facilities? This is among the most difficult assessments for various intelligence agencies. But just as Iran has done with much of its nuclear program, a decision by Iran to immediately harden its military production and storage facilities—or to increase the pace or scale, or alter the location of those currently being built—would indicate that the attacks had modified the thinking of Iranian defense leaders. Tehran may now believe that current facilities are insufficient and at greater risk for future attacks than it views as acceptable.

Second, Iran’s official media statements notwithstanding, did the attack in fact cause physical destruction that impacts the country’s development, production, or storage capabilities of ammunition or ballistic missiles? Ravid’s reported statement that the drone mission was achieved obviously runs counter to Iran’s claim of minimal damage. Which is true? That will be tough to ascertain without more details as to the specific target. But a clear decrease in the development, production, or transfer of critical military hardware by Iran would be an indicator that the attacks had a bigger impact than Iran is letting on. Conversely, if things are largely business as usual, it might suggest that the attacks were ultimately not as successful as Israel hoped in destroying or significantly disrupting whatever the ultimate targets.

Of course, the potential indicators related to both Iranian planning and the physical destruction do not discount an alternative possibility. The attacks may be less about specifically eliminating Iran’s facilities at Isfahan and more about testing the capacity to use drones against a target and Iran’s responses to such an attack. It is worth noting, for instance, that the explosion in Isfahan was relatively small. If this was in fact an Israeli test run, we should expect that at some point in the future—whether a few months or a few years—Israel will stage an operation with similar characteristics but in a different city and against a different type of target.

Finally, is Iran taking steps that suggest it plans to retailiate? While Iran often views responding to attacks as necessary to restore deterrence, it is notoriously patient. As a result, the absence of an immediate response cannot be, by default, read as Tehran viewing the incident as insignificant. Just a few weeks ago, for example, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi once again publicly promised to avenge the killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani that occurred over three years ago. But while Iran has lethal drones, a response by it should not be expected to look exactly the same as the attack. Iran’s asymmetric efforts go back decades as Tehran often looks to execute terrorist attacks globally against Israeli or Jewish targets. In June of last year, Turkish officials thwarted an Iranian plot to attack Israelis visiting Istanbul. In 2012, Iran sought to assassinate senior Israeli officials in India and Kenya. And Iran’s most infamous terrorist attack occurred almost three decades ago in 1994, when it bombed a Jewish community center in Argentina, killing eighty five and injuring more than three hundred people.

There are other methods of responding, as well. Iran’s cyber capabilities have greatly improved, for instance, and its 2020 cyberattack against Israel’s water system highlights a possible alternative. Regardless of method, Iran undertakes significant time and effort developing its attacks. Thus, if Tehran expends the energy to advance one in response to this incident, it also suggests that Iran considers this drone attack more damaging than it is letting on.

The truth is, it is too early to say exactly how Iran views this attack—or what exactly it was designed to do. But while it will take some patience, looking for the aforementioned indicators will start to help answer these questions.

Jonathan Panikoff is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and the former deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East.

The views expressed in this publication are the author’s and do not imply endorsement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the intelligence community, or any other US government agency.

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Experts react: What’s behind the drone strike on an Iranian military facility?

Atlantic Council experts — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 17:35:29 +0000

Drones attacked a military facility in the Iranian city of Isfahan on Saturday, a strike that US officials reportedly are attributing to Israel. While the details remain unclear around the exact nature and effectiveness of the strike, the geopolitical ramifications are fast becoming clear. We turned to our experts on Iran, Israel, and the region to help explain the dynamics at play—and what’s coming next.

Click to jump to an expert reaction:

Holly Dagres: An embarrassment for Iran’s security apparatus

Thomas S. Warrick: Israel seems to be sending a message. Will the US follow?

The US needs a post-JCPOA Iran strategy, coordinated with Israel

The apparent Israeli strikes on Iranian military facilities, and the hurried clarifications from US officials that they were indeed Israeli-authored, suggest that US-Israeli coordination on an Iran strategy following the abandoned nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) remains a work in progress.

The chances of a return to the nuclear deal are now vanishingly small, Iran having rejected multiple opportunities to conclude such an agreement. Tehran’s brutal repression of anti-regime protesters and its military aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine only further weaken the viability of any resumption of the JCPOA.

But in the meantime, Iran has advanced its nuclear program to threshold status, with enough highly enriched uranium (if further enriched to weapons-grade) to build multiple nuclear bombs. While evidence has not emerged of a regenerated weaponization program, it most certainly cannot be ruled out.

The situation calls for a revised US strategy, coordinated to the maximum degree possible with Israel and other regional partners. Deterrence must be one of its key elements. The massive joint exercise conducted by the US and Israeli militaries last week, Juniper Oak 23, was a huge step forward in that strategy. With long-range bombers, precision targeting, and mid-air refueling all part of the drill, it was clear that offensive capabilities relevant to Iran, and not merely a defense of Israel, were being rehearsed. The exercise was actively messaged as such on all social media channels.

But this excellent US-Israel coordination may not have extended to the strikes in Iran over the weekend. Israel does not always inform the United States about such operations in advance, and US leaders (civilian and military) seek to avoid being implicated in attacks they did not conduct, so as not to draw an Iranian response. The Biden administration has shown great understanding of Israel’s need to project force against Iran and appreciation for the benefits of such strikes. Improved coordination of messaging about them would serve both US and Israeli interests and strengthen the effectiveness of deterrence.

—Daniel Shapiro is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and former US ambassador to Israel.

An embarrassment for Iran’s security apparatus

The talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal have been dead since September 2022. Twenty-seven cameras monitoring Iran’s nuclear sites have been shut off, and the country has enriched seventy kilograms of uranium at 60 percent purity. Last week, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran has “enough nuclear material for several nuclear weapons,” though it hasn’t developed one. It’s in this atmosphere that a drone strike was reportedly carried out by Israel on a munitions factory in the central city of Isfahan, next to a facility associated with Iran’s ballistic missile program.

If the reports are accurate, this is the first action against Iran taken by the far-right Benjamin Netanyahu government and, in essence, appears to be Israel sending a message and possibly “mowing the lawn” to slow down Iran’s unchecked capabilities (we don’t have enough details about the facility to know for sure).

This drone strike is yet another great embarrassment for the security apparatus of the Islamic Republic and demonstrates its incompetence—it cannot protect its facilities but can gun down and beat to death seventy-one children during ongoing protests.

Though there’s not enough information about how much damage was done to the site, it’s clear the Islamic Republic is trying to save face by downplaying the incident and damage by even making fun of the drone’s (in)capabilities. This doesn’t mean that the Islamic Republic will take this event lightly, however. Expect Iran to hit back somehow—but at this stage it’s impossible to tell when or how.

—Holly Dagres is a nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Programs and editor of IranSource.

Israel seems to be sending a message. Will the US follow?

The strike, reportedly by Israel, on Saturday in Isfahan was aimed not just at disrupting an Iranian military facility. Israel appears to have used a tactic—quadcopter drones—that it has used before but that are typically short-range. This sends Iranian security forces the humbling reminder that the strike may have been launched from inside Iran itself. As with other targeted operations Israel has conducted in recent years, Israel appears to want to show that it has the ability and the daring to carry out attacks aimed at preventing either nuclear or conventional threats to Israel’s security.

The apparent Israeli strike is also a reminder to the United States, whose secretary of state arrived in Israel on Monday, of the need for more effective US action to disrupt Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, both of which together threaten not just Israel but a number of Arab Middle Eastern allies of the United States. US President Joe Biden has made it very clear that he will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear capability, and the stalled Iran nuclear talks mean that Israel wants to remind Biden that he may need to back up his threat. US military capabilities to disrupt Iran’s nuclear and missile program obviously go far beyond anything Israeli quadcopters may have done thus far.

—Thomas S. Warrick is a nonresident senior fellow in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense practice and a former deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism policy at the US Department of Homeland Security.

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Putin’s nuclear blackmail must not prevent the liberation of Crimea

Andriy Zagorodnyuk — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 23:00:30 +0000

Ukraine’s remarkable military successes in the second half of 2022 have raised the prospect that Russia’s invasion of the country could end in a decisive Ukrainian victory. While this outcome would be widely welcomed, there are many who remain alarmed about the potential consequences of Russia suffering such an historic defeat.

These concerns are focused primarily on Moscow’s vast stockpile of nuclear weapons and the possibility that an increasingly desperate Vladimir Putin could deploy his atomic arsenal when faced with the prospect of losing the war. The Russian dictator himself has fueled these fears with a series of thinly veiled nuclear threats, declaring in September 2022, “I’m not bluffing.” However, there are good reasons to believe Putin will not use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and even better arguments against bowing to his nuclear blackmail.

Much of the speculation over Russia’s nuclear saber-rattling has centered on Crimea. Ever since the Ukrainian peninsula was first occupied in early 2014, it has fallen under Russia’s nuclear doctrine, which allows for the use of nuclear weapons in response to existential threats to the Russian state. Some observers claim Crimea’s personal importance to Putin now makes it a key red line for Russia in the current war.

The 2014 seizure of the peninsula was hugely popular with the Russian public and is widely recognized as the defining moment of Putin’s 23-year reign. This has led many to conclude that the loss of Crimea would shatter his historical legacy and spark the collapse of his entire authoritarian regime.

Such assessments may not be entirely accurate. While the significance of Crimea should not be underestimated, the course and character of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, along with the recent attempted annexation of four more Ukrainian regions, have dramatically diminished the symbolic significance of the occupied peninsula.

When Crimea was first invaded almost nine years ago, the international community was caught completely by surprise. For years, Western leaders appeared perplexed by the ongoing Russian occupation and did not know how to react. This period of indecision came to an abrupt end on February 24, 2022, when Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Over the past eleven months, Crimea has lost its uniqueness and has instead become one part of a far larger geopolitical confrontation.

In September 2022, Russia officially annexed four partially occupied regions of Ukraine (Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson). These illegal annexations were carried out using the same model as the earlier seizure of Crimea, with a military occupation followed by sham referendums conducted at gunpoint. Putin clearly hoped the international reaction to these latest annexations would be similarly underwhelming.

Unfortunately for the Kremlin, there was to be no repeat of the paralysis that had marked the international response to the Crimean takeover. Instead, Russia’s September 2022 annexations were almost universally rejected and condemned. Crucially, these unrecognized annexations did not prevent Ukraine from continuing to fight back militarily in the regions now claimed as Russian by the Kremlin. Nor did they discourage the country’s Western partners from backing the Ukrainian military effort.

Just hours after Putin presided over a pompous annexation ceremony in the Kremlin, Ukraine liberated the strategically important city of Lyman in the “annexed” Luhansk region. Weeks later, Ukrainian troops completed the liberation of Kherson, the largest regional capital captured during the Russian invasion and the administrative center for another of the regions claimed by Russia.

Despite the humiliation of losing these territories so soon after declaring that they had joined Russia “forever,” Putin chose not to apply the nuclear doctrine. Ukraine’s leaders had successfully called his bluff in front of the watching world, while also demonstrating their own commitment to continuing counteroffensive operations and freeing the entire country from Russian occupation.

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It should come as no surprise that Putin failed to follow through on his own nuclear intimidation. After all, the military arguments in favor of nuclear weapons are far from convincing. In a war of aggression such as the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, crossing the nuclear threshold would result in potentially devastating costs while offering dubious strategic advantages.

These realities did not prevent Putin from employing nuclear intimidation in September and October 2022, but his menacing statements soon backfired. US officials responded to Putin’s threatening talk with statements promising “catastrophic consequences” if Russia decided to break the 77-year taboo on the use of nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, in a rare example of public discord between Moscow and Beijing, China also indicated its disapproval of Putin’s nuclear threats.

The events of late 2022 have not yet convinced everyone that Putin’s nuclear threats are empty. Some still feel Crimea is somehow different and could yet provoke a nuclear response if Ukrainian forces appear poised to liberate the occupied peninsula. This discounts the fact that any military operation to retake Crimea would almost certainly only begin following the complete collapse of Russia’s position in mainland Ukraine. By that point, the Russian army would already be exhausted and largely destroyed as a fighting force. In other words, it would be far too late for Putin to rescue his regime by employing the most extreme of all military measures.

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At stake is not only the future status of Crimea. If Putin’s nuclear blackmail proves effective, the repercussions for international security would be disastrous.

If Ukraine’s partners react to the Kremlin’s nuclear saber-rattling by withholding support for the liberation of Crimea, it would set a catastrophic precedent. Authoritarian regimes around the world would draw the obvious conclusion that nuclear powers can now safely invade their non-nuclear neighbors and annex territory with impunity.

This would lead to an unprecedented wave of nuclear proliferation as dozens of countries scrambled to protect themselves from attack. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has already sparked serious discussions over the wisdom of Ukraine’s 1994 unilateral nuclear disarmament. If Putin is permitted to occupy Ukrainian land on the basis of his nuclear threats, the whole concept of non-proliferation will be discredited.

In the specific case of Crimea, letting the Russian occupation continue indefinitely would condemn Ukraine to more war while leaving Europe permanently destabilized. The full-scale invasion of the past eleven months has revealed the extent of Russia’s determination to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and erase Ukraine’s national identity. Unless Ukraine is completely liberated, Russia will use any remaining footholds in the country to launch the next invasion once Moscow has rearmed.

Nuclear weapons will not be able to fix Putin’s military failures or prevent Russia from losing the war. Instead, crossing the nuclear threshold would likely result in crushing international consequences and possibly even the end of the Putin regime. This may not be enough to prevent the Russian dictator from attempting to frighten Western leaders by threatening a nuclear response to the liberation of Crimea. Ukraine and the country’s partners must make clear that they will not be intimidated by such tactics. Putin’s nuclear blackmail represents a grave threat to the future of global security. It is vital that he does not succeed.

Andriy Zagorodnyuk is chairman of the Center for Defence Strategies and Ukraine’s former minister of defense (2019–2020).

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Matthew Kroenig

China Defense Policy

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Kroenig on Fox News Sunday discussing North Korea and Iran

Atlantic Council — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 19:26:55 +0000

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On November 27, Scowcroft Center acting director Matthew Kroenig was interviewed by Jennifer Griffin on Fox News Sunday discussing North Korea’s latest missile test and protests in Iran.

The [North Korean nuclear] threat continues to grow. The right [US] approach is a pressure and engagement campaign. Increase the diplomatic, economic, and political pressure on North Korea so long as it pursues these destabilizing policies, but hold out the possibility for engagement and negotiations if Kim Jong Un is willing to come talk.

Matthew Kroenig

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

China Defense Policy

The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world.

Public Event Tue, November 1, 2022 • 2:00 pm ET

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What’s the future of US nuclear strategy? Top officials dissect the Biden administration’s plans.

Katherine Walla — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 17:04:34 +0000

Watch the full event

The future of US nuclear strategy: Releasing the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review

Biden administration officials participate in a fireside chat followed by a panel of nuclear security experts and former officials to release the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review and discuss its implications for US nuclear strategy and policy.

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Event transcript

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MATTHEW KROENIG: The Atlantic Council is delighted to partner with the United States Department of Defense to roll out the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review, released last week alongside the National Defense Strategy and Missile Defense Review. I’d like to thank our distinguished panelists for participating in this event, and our audience for joining us in person here at the Council’s offices, and for tuning in virtually. I’m especially grateful to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Johnson and his office for selecting the Atlantic Council as a partner for publicizing this strategy.

Here at the Atlantic Council, our Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and its allies and partners. We seek to honor General Brent Scowcroft’s legacy of service and embody his ethos of nonpartisan commitment to the cause of security, support for US leadership in cooperation with allies and partners, and dedication to the mentorship of the next generation of leaders. The Scowcroft Center’s namesake, General Brent Scowcroft, was the chairman of the 1983 Scowcroft Commission that established the foundation for US nuclear deterrence and arms control policy through the present day.

As the United States enters a new era of strategic challenges, the Scowcroft Center is proud to play a role in crafting an effective and nonpartisan strategic forces policy for the twenty-first century. Consistent with that mission, the Center’s Forward Defense Practice Area is designed to shape the debate around the greatest military and defense challenges facing the United States and its allies, and creates forward-looking assessments of the trends, technologies, and concepts that will define the future of warfare.

Since the presidency of Bill Clinton, each new presidential administration has released a Nuclear Posture Review, or NPR. This document serves as an invaluable public articulation of US nuclear strategy, contains important statements of US declaratory policy regarding nuclear weapons, explains what nuclear capabilities the United States needs, and how they contribute to deterrence. And also sets forth priorities for arms control and nonproliferation.

The 2022 Nuclear Posture Review comes at a time when US nuclear deterrence is under more stress than in recent decades. Russian President Vladimir Putin is making explicit nuclear threats in his war of aggression in Ukraine, China’s dramatically expanding its nuclear force this decade, Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear weapons state, and North Korea continues tests of nuclear-capable missiles. In this context, the United States is carrying out a thoroughgoing modernization of its aging nuclear triad… I’d like to congratulate government officials for getting this important document across the finish line. I know it’s a difficult task, but they were successful in producing a fine document. And so with that, over to you, David, to begin our discussion.

DAVID SANGER: Well, thank you, Matt. And thank all of you for joining us. It’s great to be back at the Atlantic Council. It’s particularly great to be at the Scowcroft Center. When I first came to Washington in, oh, I guess nearly three decades ago, no one spent more time with me, educated me more than Brent Scowcroft. And so we’re all living with his fine legacy here. And at the Aspen Strategy Group each summer, we all feared Brent’s hike up the mountain, because in his eighties he was sprinting ahead of people who were half of his age, and sort of leaving us embarrassed and literally in his dust.

So the Nuclear Posture Review is a fascinating document. And it’s fascinating because if you go back and you compare it over many years, you begin to discover changes that are indicative of new administrations. But this one, as Matt suggested, comes at a particularly fraught moment. And I think for many generations of students—or, at least two generations of students—you could get through an entire high school and university courses without ever learning very much about nuclear strategy, the way some of us who are here old enough to have done this during the Cold War were imbued with it. I think we’re about at the moment right now where everyone’s going to get their dose again. And so the posture review is of particular interest.

Richard, let me start with you. You’ve been through this process a few times. And at DOD you had to go shepherd this one. If you had to sort of explain to somebody who was coming anew to nuclear policy what’s the difference between this posture review and the one that we saw in the Trump administration—or, even what you saw in the Obama-Biden administration—what would you—what would you say is different and notable here?

RICHARD JOHNSON: Yeah, absolutely. And first of all, thanks so much to you, David, and to the Atlantic Council for hosting us today. It’s a really important part of what we call raising the nuclear IQ, as you were referring to. So I’m glad to be doing that.

And as you point out, you know, there have been multiple Nuclear Posture Reviews over the years, going all the way back to 1994 with the Clinton administration issuing that first one. And if you look at those documents, you do see a lot of continuity, frankly, in some of the things that we talk about. Deterrence has not changed that much over the years. But we are at a specific moment now where I think we do see increases in concerns—whether it’s obviously Russian irresponsible threats. Not only their illegal invasion of Ukraine, but doing so under the nuclear shadow with very irresponsible nuclear rhetoric.

The document also notes that, as you said in the outset, the growth of the Chinese nuclear force, which is a new and important factor that we have to take into account that we haven’t had to think about in previous Nuclear Posture Reviews. The document makes very clear that we are now facing potentially the rise of two nuclear armed competitors that we’re going to have to take into account, whether it’s from a deterrence perspective or from an arms control perspective as well.

Now, that having been said, I think one of the most important aspects of this 2022 NPR is that we see it as comprehensive and we see it as balanced. We think that there is just as much discussion in this document about the importance of nuclear deterrence, about our modernization of our nuclear forces and the triad, but also about things like arms control, risk reduction, strategic stability—all things that this administration has said that they want to regain a leadership role in and that, frankly, are both parts of this broader effort that we have to undertake to reduce nuclear risks, avoid nuclear war, and reduce the global salience of nuclear weapons.

DAVID SANGER: So, Alex, let me turn to you. From what you’ve just heard from Richard, he’s got to worry about our defense posture for all this. you’ve got to worry about our set of treaties, restraints on nuclear buildup. At a moment that, quite frankly, we only have really one significant treaty left, New START. And as President Trump kept pointing out, and now the Biden administration itself has pointed out, if China is not a member of whatever follows New START—and it will expire in, what, 2026, right—then we’ve got a significant problem. Because by DOD’s own estimates, not in the Nuclear Posture Review but I think in last year’s China Defense Review, there’s an estimate that they could well have one thousand nuclear weapons by—deployed—by 2035. Of course, the United States and Russia are limited to 1,550 each deployed and have more than that. And then, of course, we’ve got a tactical nuclear force of two thousand or more that the Russians have. And that’s what we’ve reading and hearing so much about.

So as you look at this Nuclear Posture Review, what are the diplomatic challenges that you see coming out of this agenda for the remainder of the Biden administration?

ALEXANDRA BELL: Well, first, thank you for having me. And thank you to the Atlantic Council. I’m glad you mentioned that this is something that people hadn’t talked about for a while. And I’ve always had the feeling that at the end of the Cold War there was a kind of, ah, glad that’s done. And everybody just shifted their focus. And those of us who were continuing to labor on this space were like, no, the threats are still here. There’s still a huge problem to deal with. And it’s becoming more complex and there are more actors involved. So what I think is so important about this NPR is there is an acknowledgement that deterrence in arms control and nonproliferation are mutually reinforcing, and all a part of integrated deterrence, and how we provide the maximum amount of tools available in order to deal with the challenges that we’re seeing in this space.

You’re correct, New START is the last bilateral major treaty between the United States and Russia. There are important multilateral treaties, like the NPT, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which had its recent review conference this past August. Of course, the Chemical and Biological Weapons Convention. But in terms of the bilateral space, New START is what we have left. And we’re working on right now making sure that we get back to inspections that were paused because of COVID, and then thinking about what does happen next. Because no matter what we do, in 2026 that treaty will expire and we’ll be facing a world in which there, you know, are potentially no constraints over the two largest nuclear arsenals in the world for the first time in over fifty years. It’s not a safer world, and we acknowledge that.

And we acknowledge the difficulty of getting to the next steps with Russia, because we have different priorities. As you said, tactical nuclear weapons is an issue that we’ve long wanted to discuss with the Russians. We’ve made it clear that we don’t think there is a discussion to be had where we just ignore huge parts of our arsenals, respectively. And there are concerns that the Russians have long wanted to discuss with us. We’ve said we’re happy to talk about those issues. They may not like our answers, but there’s work to be done in this space.

There is the complication added by China and its expanding forces. We’ve been doing a lot to push out sort of broadly to the global public the concerns that we have about this expanding arsenal. We don’t understand where China is going with this. It’s in contravention, this buildup, of their own stated posture and doctrine. And so as a first step, we’d really like to have a conversation with them about each other’s doctrines, about crisis communication, crisis management. We’ve been working this issue with the Russians for sixty years and, as everyone can see, it’s still quite difficult. We’re not in that space with Beijing yet. So there’s work to begin to begin the conversation, we think bilaterally.

There’s also work in the P5 space, among the nuclear weapon states recognized under the NPT. And that work, even though it is quite difficult at the moment due to the choices that Russia has made, we continue to try to keep expert-level lines of communication open so we can have a multilateral discussion about the future of arms control. So lots of work to be done, but this is a priority for the president. And it has long been a priority for him. I think he made this a campaign issue for his first Senate run, back in 1972. So this is something that he’s focused on. And I think you see that reflected in the NPR.

DAVID SANGER: I was going to ask you just to tease out for the audience two things you made brief reference to. One was the absence of inspections under New START. You mentioned COVID, but the Russians have claimed that because of sanctions on Russia—including air travel sanctions—they haven’t been able to come in to inspect. They’ve banned us from inspecting. So we’ve gone probably the longest time I can recall under the treaty without seeing each other’s. One of your colleagues in the State Department said to me recently that they thought this was on the verge of being solved. That was probably two or three weeks ago. What does the status of just resuming basic inspections look?

ALEXANDRA BELL: Yeah, so, first, I want to make clear that the data exchanges that happen under New START have continued apace. I get the notifications every day. And it has been helpful in these difficult times to get a real-time picture provided by those data exchanges of what the Russians are doing. And then every six months we do a mass data exchange. And so that has continued apace. But the—you know, the sort of backup that you get from actually getting boots on the ground in Russia is what we would like to continue as soon as possible.

There are logistical issues that even though we put things into the treaty—annexes about what happens if an inspector gets sick—we didn’t necessarily anticipate what happens if there’s a communicable disease where an entire inspection team can get sick at the same time in rapid succession. So those are the kinds of logistical issues that we need to work through with the Russians. Solvable problems, all of them.

DAVID SANGER: But you think this is logistical. It is not—it is not Ukraine-related—

ALEXANDRA BELL: It is logistical. There is nothing preventing Russia from actualizing their rights under the treaty right now. And they know that. And these problems that we need to work out in terms of the health and safety of our inspectors are important things. And there’s also broader implementation issues that we discuss, you know, over the history of the treaty, in the bilateral consultative commission. Those have to continue, but all the problems are logistical and solvable.

DAVID SANGER: And just to tease out something you referred to on China, just so it’s clear for our audience, China’s position so far has been: Thank you, we’re not interested in engaging in these arms control talks at all. Call when you have a different topic to discuss. Is that essentially a reasonable summation of their position at this point?

ALEXANDRA BELL: It has been. And that’s—it’s sort of surprising, given that China signed up to the NPT and the same commitments that the United States has under it, and is to pursue in good faith conversations for the cession of arms race, to pursue this. There’s no asterisk that says, China doesn’t to participate until it feels like it. They have the same obligations. We’re pressing them to engage us bilaterally. But we’ve also made clear, we’ll use the multilateral fora available to use to press these issues too, particularly the risk reduction issue.

So they will not escape the US on these issues, and the need to actually have these conversations, so we’re not operating based on miscalculations and misperceptions, the kinds of situations that can lead to—you know, we’re now at the sixtieth anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. We don’t need to repeat that to know that we need to be at the table having conversations with each other.

RICHARD JOHNSON: And I might just add, if I may, I mean, if they don’t want to have a discussion in a bilateral channel, there’s other ways that China can demonstrate to us that they’re not pursuing things that we think that they are. We’re extremely concerned to see, for example, the construction of two fast breeder reactors in China that could create quite a bit of plutonium for the use in nuclear weapons, as well as the reprocessing facilities that would go about in actually extracting that plutonium. There are ways to run fast breeder reactors for civilian purposes that don’t require the use of the kind of the fuel that they are using.

There’s also ways that they could—through whether it’s the International Atomic Energy Agency or through other means—to demonstrate some transparency. In years’ past, all of the P5 would declare their plutonium stocks for civilian purposes for some transparency. The Chinese have stopped doing that. And that’s a real concern. So you need plutonium, you need fissile material to make nuclear weapons. If they’re going to be making this much fissile material, it would be good for them to demonstrate that they’re not intending to divert it to military purposes. And right now, that doesn’t require any talks at all. It could be done through the IAEA or bilaterally. But we haven’t seen that out of Beijing.

DAVID SANGER: I don’t care what the diversion issue is. They’re fairly clear to me that we have 1,550 deployed. The Russians have 1,550 deployed. And they wouldn’t want to get into any discussion until they had a similar number, of which the thousand that is in the Pentagon estimate would still put them a little below the US and the Russian levels. So the way they put it to me is, well, if you guys want to cut down to three hundred, we can start talking right now. And I haven’t heard a Democratic or Republican president express any interest in doing so.

RICHARD JOHNSON: I think the point here is that—and you asked for questions in different approaches in the administrations. And this is not meant to be a critique, it’s just to point out. The previous administration did look at sort of trying to have kind of a trilateral set of talks between Beijing, Moscow, and Washington. What we’re talking about in this NPR, and that DAS Bell has mentioned, is much more basic thing. Sort of the foundations of arms control—risk reduction, information exchanges, military deconfliction, channels for crisis communication. The foundations of which we had with Russians many, many decades ago.

So we’re not even asking to have a discussion about numbers right now. So if that’s the argument that Beijing is giving, we’re not asking to have a discussion about numbers. We’re saying, let’s talk about putting some guardrails into the relationship so that we don’t have unnecessary crises and the risk of miscalculation when things happen in the region. That’s really all we’re saying.

DAVID SANGER: Cindy, let me turn to you, because the Energy Department’s got a particular fascinating piece of this—a big piece of this—because so much of the Nuclear Posture Review refers to the modernization of the American force. It discusses retiring a couple of classes of older weapons, but it also describes a modernization process that if you’re the US government you’d say this is all about safety and reliability. And if you were a US adversary you say, no, this is all about building more precision weapons—getting rid of dumb bombs, putting in smart bombs—and that that alone is destabilizing; while it doesn’t change the numbers, it changes the defensive posture for an adversary to the US So will you talk us a little bit through the discussion in NPR about the distinctions between reliability and true modernization?

CINDY LERSTEN: Sure. First of all, I’d just echo, thank you to the Atlantic Council and to you also. We are very busy over at the National Nuclear Security Administration, Department of Energy, working on modernization. And in fact, when we joined our colleagues in drafting the Nuclear Posture Review, we really worked hard to stress how we need to modernize not just the weapons but the infrastructure, and also give some time and attention to making sure that our labs, plants, and sites, and that their workforce are ready to go. Because we can’t do this without them. And so I just wanted to stress that you might hear a lot—a smidgeon a lot about modernization.

When we talk about the precision weapons, first of all, the warhead modernization activities, they ensure that the nuclear weapons stockpile—we want to continue to meet Department of Defense requirements. And there are different components to modernization that I just wanted to hit on, because I think it’s important when talk about the B61-12 and the W93, there’s four specific types of modernization activities. One is the life extension program. And that’s what’s happening with the B61-12. That is a—the B61-12, it entered service in 1968. So that’s over fifty years ago. And when we look at how we want to make sure that it’s safe and secure—because that is our number-one priority, to make sure that our nuclear stockpile is safe, secure, and effective.

The B61, we—so it’s in a life extension program. And we are refurbishing, we’re reusing, or we’re replacing all of the bomb’s nuclear and non-nuclear components. And this will help with its reliability. And that’s a significant point to mention. With these upgrades and the addition of the US Air Force-supplied tail-kit assembly, the B61-12 life extension program will balance greater accuracy, especially provided by that tail-kit. And that’s critical to sustaining the nation’s air-delivered nuclear deterrent capability. When you look at the W93, that’s a new program. And we are in the beginning phases. But again, these are important modernization efforts. The W93 falls under warhead acquisition. We also have alterations that we make under modernization and modifications.

So I would just stress that our approach is really to support the requirements that Department of Defense give us, and to ensure that we’ve got a modernized infrastructure and that we have everything that we can do to modernize the stockpile.

DAVID SANGER: So, Cindy, the critics of this approach say, yes, you’re extending the lifetime. We get that. But that—and in some cases, you’re lowering the yield of some of these weapons. But that by making them more precise and making them of lower yield, you are almost creating a greater incentive to employ them in a non-nuclear—what previously might be a non-nuclear conflict. Because it seems like it is more on par with a high-end conventional weapon. So in other words, it’s a little destabilizing, under the cover of the name of modernization. How do you answer that?

CINDY LERSTEN: Well, Richard, maybe we should talk about declaratory policy. Because we have a no first use policy—

RICHARD JOHNSON: We do not—we do not have a no first use—

CINDY LERSTEN: Sorry. Yeah, sorry.

DAVID SANGER: It’s something, but it’s not no first use.

CINDY LERSTEN: No, that’s right.

DAVID SANGER: What would you call it?

RICHARD JOHNSON: So our policy is that we would only use nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances threatening the vital interests of the United States, our allies and partners. And I think that gets to a really good point that Cindy is bringing up here, is we have a very different approach when it comes to modernization than some of our adversaries. For example, look at the Russian systems. Russians are looking at new novel, frankly rather, you know, destabilizing systems, including to your point, David, about low-yield systems. What we’re basically doing here—

DAVID SANGER: I’ve heard mostly about their tactical weapons.

RICHARD JOHNSON: Exactly. Tactical, so-called non-strategic, nuclear weapons. What we’re really doing here in our modernization program is looking to basically replace legacy systems. The basic mix of systems that we’re looking at in our modernization is not really changing over time. What we are doing is understanding that these systems—some of which, as Cindy pointed out, have been in their life for many decades—are coming to the end of their service life. And so we have to be able to prepare for this. And I think Cindy’s boss, Administrator Jill Hruby, has herself pointed out on multiple occasions that we are—kind of the end-of-life extension period has arrived for us. We are now looking at having to do some new systems because, frankly, technology just ages out.

So to the critiques that we’re somehow lowering the use, the declaratory policy is very clear. And the document says this explicitly, that we have a very high bar for nuclear employment. We think that the declaratory policy that we’ve selected is stable and sensible and, frankly, stabilizing. But it is true that, you know, there are for a narrow range of high-consequence strategic attacks that would have those sorts of strategic effects using non-nuclear means, that, you know, potentially there could be nuclear employment.

DAVID SANGER: So that’s a really fascinating difference, because that’s the difference between no first use and no first use unless we would have a high strategically damaging element to this. President Biden when he was candidate Biden famously wrote a Foreign Affairs article. It was part of the campaign. And he said he wanted to move forward a definition that the sole purpose of these weapons was deterrence. And there was an early move in the administration, which we reported on at the time, to insert that wording. Because, you know, once you’ve made a—once you’ve made a campaign promise, it’s pretty obvious if it doesn’t happen when you’ve taken office.

And we heard from some extremely unhappy allies, who were afraid that moving the sole purpose would get around exactly the conditions you just described, Richard. So tell us a little bit about how you folks moved from the president’s or then-candidate’s expressed desire to wording that was pretty much like what we saw in the last NPR under the Trump administration.

RICHARD JOHNSON: Sure. And Alex would be a—may want to jump in here as well, since we’re talking about allies and partners. As a former State Department employee, I can never succeed in being a better diplomat than the State Department. But you’re absolutely right that the president specifically asked us to look at a range of options for declaratory policy, including that option that had been laid out in that Foreign Affairs article. I think it’s important to read what’s in that entire sentence, or sentences, in that article. Because in addition to saying the president, or then-candidate, had a goal of seeking the sole purpose declaration, he also said he would only move in that direction upon the consultations of our allies and partners and with the United States military.

And that’s exactly what we did. And we spent many, many months talking to lots of allies in a process that I somewhat inappropriately called nuclear speed dating. Where we talked to many, many allies, both in our Euro-Atlantic region in NATO and in the Indo-Pacific, to get their perspective on this. And what the NPR ultimately did is we looked at the range of threats and the range of possible attacks that had strategic impact on the United States, our allies, and partners. And we went to see what sorts of attacks nuclear weapons were necessary to deter, and how that affected our allies and partners as well.

And frankly, what we did is we came up with a series of options. And those options—of course, every department kind of weighed in on what their preferred option was, but ultimately we always knew this would be a decision by the president, for exactly the reasons that you pointed out. Because he had made a statement about this. And so I know there were lots of articles in times past saying that the Pentagon had already made a decision, or the White House had already made a decision. No. None of that was the case. We forwarded our options to the president and the president decided. And this is the decision that he made, with this particular approach.

Now, that having been said, the document also makes very clear that we still have as a goal to move towards a sole purpose declaration, but that we’ll have to identify concrete steps to do that, and work with our allies and partners to get there. But because of some of these—sort of a narrow range of these high-consequence attacks that could have strategic effects using non-nuclear means, especially some that we see particularly affecting our allies and partners, we felt we couldn’t move in that direction at this time.

DAVID SANGER: Those high-consequence attacks—and I want to come back to you, Alex, in just a second on the allies here—were described by General Mattis, then Defense Secretary Mattis, in his defense strategy in, I guess, 2018. Those seem to suggest that you might use a nuclear weapon in response to, say, a devastating cyberattack that took out infrastructure throughout the US, or some other conventional attack. So just to be clear, that remains the policy of the United States government?

RICHARD JOHNSON: So the Nuclear Posture Review does not make a definition or provide examples of what we mean by a narrow range of high-consequence strategic attacks. What we do say is that we think that they are a very narrow range, and we think that the bar for nuclear employment in such cases is very high. It is true that in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review there were some examples provided of so-called non-nuclear strategic attacks.

And my understanding, from folks—some of whom who still work at the department—is that in some ways that was intended to sort of provide a narrowing and a better explanation of what this means. But to be honest, perception is reality. And some people perceived that as lowering the bar for nuclear use. So we decided in this Nuclear Posture Review not to provide examples, but simply to say we think that there are a narrow range of these high-consequence attacks, and leave it at that.

DAVID SANGER: But the examples haven’t really changed. You didn’t look at those examples and say, nah, we wouldn’t do that.

RICHARD JOHNSON: We made a conscious decision not to include—not to include examples. I’ll just put it that way.

DAVID SANGER: Alex, when this debate was underway, I heard from some extremely unhappy allies who thought that you were on the way to using the wording that the president suggested in his Foreign Affairs article. Tell us, what were their objections? Why would—because some of them, like Japan, obviously have a, you know, high sensitivity on the use of nuclear weapons. Understandably so, given the history.

ALEXANDRA BELL: Well, yes. We had a range of positions from allies that, you know, we sort of purposefully didn’t share individually, X country said this. But it was clear from the beginning that as was laid out in the interim National Security Strategic Guidance, that we were going to use diplomacy as a tool of first resort. That we were going to have this very iterative and collaborative process with allies to go through this. And in a certain respect, yes, there is a difference between what candidate Biden said and where the NPR is.

But I sort of think that’s how policy works, in the sense of we went through the process, we reviewed all of the options—not really on the timeline that may have been reported in the press. We would often find ourselves in the room surprised to hear that we had been discussing things that we hadn’t even got to. A lot of those articles about declaratory policy came while we were still discussing the threat environment and hadn’t even started discussing policy options yet. So I think there—you know, a little bit of churn, you know—

DAVID SANGER: Can’t believe what you read in the press.

ALEXANDRA BELL: Well, I—

RICHARD JOHNSON: Who are those guys?

ALEXANDRA BELL: I think this was a focal point because the president had been very clear on it. But and by this engaging in this very iterative and collaborative nuclear speed-dating process, where we had meetings after meetings, created an environment where there was a lot of churn, and people trying to wonder what it was that we were doing. But we actually thought it was more important to have that process and understand that that would create articles that maybe, you know, were leading in one direction or the other, when we hadn’t really gotten there yet. You know, we would rather deal with that problem than deal with allies feeling they hadn’t been properly consulted and properly heard, as far as what they thought were the nuclear threats facing us in the twenty-first century.

So I think, you know, allies are sort of resoundingly happy about the engagement process. We heard that over and over again. Thanks for—you know, even if there were certain points in the NPR that some countries like a little bit more than others. You know, the overall effect was that people really appreciated the engagement. And I think we came up with a policy that’s reflective of where the president would like to go, but is, you know, also taking into account the security environment we’re currently in. And that, you know, the signal that we heard for the continuation of strategic ambiguity, you know, in our declaratory policy. And when the president was presented with those options, he went with, you know, what we had, which, you know, I think is fitting for the environment, but also aspirational in terms of where he would like to go.

DAVID SANGER: So, Cindy, we’ve made some references here to tactical nuclear weapons. We’ve said they’re not covered by treaty. We’ve said the Russians have two thousand of them. It seems to be what Putin every once in a while is referring to, although in recent days he made the claim that they are not thinking of using nuclear weapons, which we hope is true. But in your discussion before, you discussed upgrading the B61-12 and others. Has there ever been discussion that you’re aware of within the Energy Department, within NNSA, about a significant change in the way we use tactical weapons or the way we develop them?

We only have a couple of hundred left. We had vast numbers during the Cold War. They’re expensive to protect. I can’t find anybody who can describe to me a decent strategic use for them, other than the fact that they keep some allies happy because we store them in Belgium, and Italy, and Germany and, of course, famously in Turkey. Why do we—why are we keeping these now? And why are you still working on them?

CINDY LERSTEN: Well, Richard, maybe you can help out a bit. I just want to—so we have an entire—you know, the defense programs—who really gets to the heart of what you’re asking. So I don’t know if you’d want to address—

RICHARD JOHNSON: I’m happy to chime in, just to add, you know, NNSA ultimately, you know, in some ways is—

DAVID SANGER: They’re doing what they’re being asked to do?

RICHARD JOHNSON: Is they’re doing what they’re being asked to do, that’s right.

CINDY LERSTEN: Right.

DAVID SANGER: Yeah.

RICHARD JOHNSON: Yeah, but what I can say on this is, you know, you’re right that we have a different mix. You know, I can’t get into all the details, but we have a different mix in our stockpile in terms of these sort of so-called non-strategic nuclear weapons.

DAVID SANGER: We have—well, compared to the Cold War, we have tiny numbers.

RICHARD JOHNSON: Sure. Yes. And certainly things like the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives brought that down. But, you know—

DAVID SANGER: And widely reported as maybe a couple of hundred. Can you say—

RICHARD JOHNSON: I can’t get into any numbers and things like that. But what I can say—and maybe this is—not to change the topic too much—but we had a lot of discussion on this because there were questions about decisions we made. And I should say, one of the strength of the NPR, and the NDS on top of it, is we did this in parallel with the budget process. And so our budget matches up with what we need.

And to the point that you were asking Cindy about, it also matches up with what NNSA’s budget is. And we made some decisions about what we needed to do in terms of what kinds of low-yield—lower-yield weapons we needed to have. And there was a big debate about whether or not we needed to have the so-called sea-launched cruise missile. And that was a program that the previous administration put forward, along with a ballistic missile of lower yield that was also deployed onto our submarines. The so-called W76-2.

And I think what we did is this NPR validated, because—in large part—because of this threat that you’re raising from Russia, and to a certain extent we have concerns about what the PRC is doing, that part of our one of our goals as the United States is to deter limited nuclear use. Not just the so-called strategic exchange. We always thought about this. You know—

DAVID SANGER: But limited use, in the Ukraine kind of situation that we’re describing right now?

RICHARD JOHNSON: Any use of a nuclear weapon would have a strategic effect and would fundamentally change the nature of a conflict. And we say that in a document. And we think it’s important that we deter such use. And so what we determined was that we have an appropriate mix of things going forward. My boss, Secretary Austin, said it better than I could when we rolled out the NDS. Which was to say, in a very short sentence, “We have a lot of capabilities.”

And what those capabilities are include not only the B61-12, which by the way is also going to be deployed using new fifth-generation aircraft, things like the F-35. But we also have this W76-2 from a submarine. We have air-launched cruise missiles. And those are going to be upgraded. A lot of investment in NNSA on the so-called long-range standoff warhead, which will be a new weapon to replace those air-launched cruise missiles that has a certain standoff capability.

And so when you combine all of those sorts of things together, we feel like we have the capabilities we need to deter limited nuclear use, but not necessarily in the ways that the Russians have gone so much more in a destabilizing direction with these new and novel systems.

DAVID SANGER: But you announced you’re killing off two of these—the submarine launch—

RICHARD JOHNSON: So we’re not continuing the submarines launch because we has marginal utility when you add to all those other capabilities.

DAVID SANGER: Those were already deployed on a small number of submarines?

RICHARD JOHNSON: No. No. No, the sea-launched cruise missile was still in a developmental phase, so it never has gone anywhere. The system that we’re retaining is the one that is currently deployed on the submarines now, onto the boomers.

And we should also point out that that sea-launched cruise missile could very well have been placed onto attack submarines, which kind of changes the mission a little bit of our submarines. We have different kinds of submarines for different missions, and there was lots of discussion about whether that would, you know, impact the effectiveness of those attack submarines.

The other system that we are retiring is the B83 gravity bomb, which is not a low-yield weapon—in fact, it’s quite the opposite—which we think over time has had sort of a diminishment of usefulness. But that having been said, the report does point out that we do need to do more work to make sure we can get after some of what we call the hard and deeply buried targets—or so-called HDBT—because it’s the Department of Defense, and we have to have an acronym.

But we recognize that we’re going to have to get after those potential challenges with certain adversaries, and we’re going to be doing a major study looking at what capabilities we could bring to bear to that challenge, whether those are nuclear or non-nuclear.

DAVID SANGER: And the—just one more on the tacticals for both you and Alex. The basing that I hear the most concern about is in Turkey, where we keep these weapons at Incirlik Air Base, which is a Turkish base. You may remember during the coup attempt this was a big issue at the time.

We were concerned about losing access to the base. It turned out, in the end, we did not. But there was a significant movement and planning going on within the Obama administration at the time this was happening—where what would happen if you had to go get those out?

Can anybody give an explanation to us about why it is that we would want to keep weapons in Turkey, given the instability that we’ve seen there episodically and the relationship between the Turks and the Russians that has got everybody a little bit nervous?

RICHARD JOHNSON: Yeah, I mean—maybe start it, and then, turn it over to you.

ALEXANDRA BELL: Oh, yeah, I would just say the State Department supports the extended deterrence mission. That’s certainly something we got from the consultation process, that that was important to our allies.

You know, at the same time, the United States no matter where weapons are deployed in the world, we’re going to make sure they’re safe, secure, and effective. And so that’s something that’s a priority for, you know, all three of our departments and the broader interagency, you know, so. And we’ll continue to do so in consultation with NATO.

RICHARD JOHNSON: Yeah, I don’t think I could say it better than that. Just to say, you know, we have a lot of regular consultation within NATO on all of these issues, and that issue of safety, security, the surety of the weapons is something we talked a lot about.

And so, you know, I can’t get into a lot of the details about things like stationing and basing, but I will say that, you know, for now we feel like we have what we need in terms of that sort of extended deterrent within NATO. We will continue to have those discussions.

As you know, there are things like the so-called NATO Nuclear Planning Group and associated groups, and we meet very regularly on this issue and talk about these issues. And I can say that I think NATO has made great strides, even in the last few years, on some of these issues—not only on broader deterrence issues from kind of the higher level, but on things like safety and security. And so we’re going to continue to do that, and that’s kind of part of our mission.

DAVID SANGER: I feel like I’ve heard a perfectly good diplomatic and bureaucratic answer here, but I know you have colleagues who believe that it is crazy to keep those weapons in Turkey under these conditions or the conditions we saw in the past couple of years.

Because while you can talk about safety and security, if they are on a base that is controlled by a foreign power and the foreign power says we don’t want you here anymore, you’ve got a problem that can come up almost overnight. And that was exactly the fear during that time.

So just one more time, can anybody sort of defend this?

RICHARD JOHNSON: What I would say is this is a constant issue that we’re dealing with. We’re always looking at what does it look like? What does the overall picture look like of our NATO nuclear deterrent? And we work very closely with all of the allies that participate in that deterrent—not necessarily those always who may necessarily have weapons in their locations, but you know, across the entire alliance.

And so I don’t—you know, what I would say is, we are very cognizant about security—it is an incredibly important thing—because, frankly, it is important not only to us, but it is important to those allies and those partners that also rely on our deterrence, and they don’t—they have to answer to their domestic politics, to their neighbors, and they have to make sure that they can say that things are safe and secure in their region.

And so while I’m not going to get into the details about any specific country, what I will say is this is a live topic. We’re always looking at it to make sure that we have the level of security that we need, and we’ll continue to do that.

DAVID SANGER: OK. Cindy, you also have a mission within the energy department at NNSA about nonproliferation and being able to try to detect whether or not there is movement of weapons, whether we’ve moved on to actual weapons.

I remember during the Iran negotiations in 2015 some of your NNSA colleagues were along on the ride of those negotiations doing the calculations overnight. You know, if you agreed to this or that, what are the chances that we would see an Iranian move to actually build a weapon? Would we have the transparency?

Tell us a little bit about that and where all that stands, particularly in relation to Iran.

CINDY LERSTEN: OK. Well, yes, we have supported and been alongside our agency counterparts, especially as we’ve gone into the Iran negotiations in the past, and we have a very robust arms control and nonproliferation organization and also counterterrorism—you know, all areas that are mentioned in the NPR.

And you know, if you look at nonproliferation, as an organization where I started my career at the Department of Energy, we—when we first started, we were starting to work with Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, and Belarus at that time, a long time ago. And it’s now really just expanded to working with many, many countries and looking to make sure that we can control and secure material as it’s moved around the world, or as some countries try to acquire it.

We also have, you know, robust export control programs where we’re working with international countries to make sure that, you know, the technologies associated with the weapons—maybe not just the weapon itself, but the dual-use technologies—are tightly controlled, and that we make sure that, you know, we’ve got the conditions in place so that any transfers don’t happen that should not be happening.

But you know, in the arms control area also that’s an important part of the NPR, where we talked about renewing our abilities in arms control. And so at NNSA we are working very seriously and investing—I think our FY 2023 request was thirty million [dollars]—to do more monitoring and verification, to think of novel approaches to arms control—especially in the monitoring and verification area—creating testbeds at some of our lab plants and sites.

And so if you look at the whole picture of what we’re doing—I think it gets to what Richard said in the beginning—you know, there is a very critical piece with the weapons, but the nonproliferation, the counterterrorism, and the arms control, this all really creates that comprehensive and balanced approach that we’re seeking to achieve as we implement the Nuclear Posture Review.

DAVID SANGER: Cindy, let me drill down just one more time on Iran.

CINDY LERSTEN: Sure.

DAVID SANGER: So we’ve seen Iran, since the last Nuclear Posture Review came out, move to 60 percent enrichment. Sixty percent enrichment is sort of like being on the 10-yard line.

You know, you don’t have to move the ball very far to get up to 90 percent, which is bomb-grade uranium. And in fact, with 60 percent some argue you could actually build a weapon.

The State Department has said—and I think Secretary Blinken has said—we are now within probably weeks of breakout, right. In other words, if the Iranians decided they wanted to go from 60 percent to 90 percent and produce weapons-grade, it would only take them a few weeks.

Based on everything that you know about the work you’ve been doing on nonproliferation, would we be able to detect a move from 60 percent to 90 percent in time to be able to do much about it?

CINDY LERSTEN: Well, I would say—and I’d like to see if Alex and Richard want to weigh in—you know, the atomic—International Atomic Energy Agency they are just, you know, our greatest partners, and you know, they have a very proactive relationship, you know, with many countries, and with us.

And so we really rely on the International Atomic Energy Agency to, you know, as it is allowed, provide us insight.

I don’t know if you wanted to answer.

ALEXANDRA BELL: Yeah, I—well, one, want to double down on the praise for the IAEA. Between what’s happening—their day-to-day duties—what’s happening in Iran and what’s happening in Ukraine—they are just performing at a level that, you know, I’m so grateful for, and particularly under Rafael Grossi’s leadership. We’re very lucky to have him there.

But—

DAVID SANGER: He was just here last week.

RICHARD JOHNSON: Yes, he was.

ALEXANDRA BELL: Making the rounds. But I will defer to Richard who knows a little bit more about JCPOA than I do, as I’m over here in arms control land. That’s more of a non-pro issue.

RICHARD JOHNSON: I would just say—and I should say, you know, obviously, from the Department of Defense work on this a little bit less than I used to in previous jobs—but I think I can say with some confidence that, as Cindy alluded to, we really do rely on the International Atomic Energy Agency with the access that they have, and even in the situation we have now, where the Iranians have somewhat limited access under the so-called additional protocol.

But we do think that that comprehensive safeguards agreement is still in place, and I think we do think that we could detect, you know, a move to 90 percent.

And then the question is, just a reminder, is, you know, that is a key component, as you’ve said, to get to a weapon is having that bomb grade enrichment. But there are other components of the bomb that also would have to be created—you know, the nonnuclear components of this in weaponization.

And I should point out that the Nuclear Posture Review itself says that, you know, Iran has not made a decision to move towards a nuclear weapon. We’re very concerned about the activities that they’re undertaking that are relevant to that and particularly related to enrichment.

But we do think we have to remind ourselves that there are multiple elements to this piece and that we continue to press for Iran to, you know, return to the JCPOA, to have the kind of level of monitoring and verification that they have. But obviously, you know, the steps that they’ve taken are very concerning.

DAVID SANGER: That line—Iran has not made a decision—jumped out at me when I was reading the document, and I went back to our sources in the intelligence community and said, you know, this obviously had to be an approved line. You don’t just throw that out there on DOD’s—with all due respect to DOD.

And they came back and said, yes, we have no evidence that they have made a decision. But that is different from saying that we have no evidence that they are making all of the necessary steps under way so that if someone makes that decision, they could assemble that weapon in, you know, a very rapid viewpoint.

Is that your view? That they haven’t made a decision, but they are going ahead with the preparations for producing a weapon if the decision is made?

RICHARD JOHNSON: I think our concern is, again, on the fissile material side. I’m not aware of, you know—either in this setting or others—about particular efforts on other elements of a weapon.

But what I am aware of is, obviously, the advances that they’ve made in fissile material production. And you’re absolutely right that our concern would be that, you know, there would be a quick turn potentially if a decision were made.

We don’t think that they’ve made that decision. We don’t think it’s something that they are thinking about. But—and we point that out in the document, but we also say that that’s why we continue to be focused on finding a way to return to some level of oversight and limitations on Iran’s nuclear program.

DAVID SANGER: But if they did make that turn, it would still be a year or two before you got to an actual weapon?

RICHARD JOHNSON: I don’t remember what our exact public definition is right now of that, but it would be a significant amount of time.

DAVID SANGER: OK. A last question for you—and I think probably, Richard, this is more in your territory—early in the Obama administration there was discussion of did we need the third leg of the triad, right? The triad being—having the ground-based force, the force from the bombers, and then, of course, the submarine force. That discussion came up again in the Obama second Nuclear Posture Review.

In this Nuclear Posture Review, there was just sort of an assumption that we were going to retain all three elements of it. Was there any serious debate about eliminating one leg of the triad?

RICHARD JOHNSON: No, not really. I mean, there was a discussion, obviously, about the triad and whether it continued to be important, and this NPR validates that we think, you know, for a substantial time to come we need to continue to have those three legs of the triad—you know, the ground-based leg with the ICBMs, the sea-based leg with submarines, and certainly the air leg with bombers and the like. And so the—as well as the fighter aircraft.

And so, no, there wasn’t a big debate or discussion about this. I think there were good discussions about if you’re going to continue to have a ground leg, what should that look like? And this budget and this NPR moves forward fully on the development of the new ICBM, now called Sentinel, previously GBSD.

I think there was discussion about did you need to do that? Could you perhaps life-extend the Minuteman III one more time? We did look at that and we determined that basically enough time had gone by that because of things like changes in technology, the supply chain, and the like that it would actually cost us more money and give us more risk if we had tried to do one more extension.

So we looked at that, but at the end of the day the NPR validated that there’s value to the triad, each of which—each element of which comes with its own particular value to it. Obviously, the ground-based leg is extremely responsive; the sea leg, you know, is very survivable; and the air leg is visible and recallable. And so we thought that at least in this current moment, in the current security environment, and again validated all the way up to the president, that we needed to retain the triad for this time, and that’s what we’re doing.

DAVID SANGER: The argument for the other part of the ground-based, though, is that it’s a sitting duck. People know—you know, the Russians and the Chinese and everybody know exactly where it is and, therefore, might not be very survivable.

RICHARD JOHNSON: No. And so that’s why I say that’s why the importance of retaining the triad to make sure that we have a triad that has a good mix and that looks at all those different sorts of characteristics.

Again, the ground leg is particularly responsive and, frankly, our adversaries know that as well and we think that it has value there. But we wouldn’t want—

DAVID SANGER: By responsive you mean—

RICHARD JOHNSON: It’s the most responsive part of the triad if we needed to—

DAVID SANGER:—you could launch it fast?

RICHARD JOHNSON: If we needed to move quickly we could move quickly.

DAVID SANGER: OK.

Well, I have many more questions for you but what we don’t have is more time.

So I want to thank you all for your participation—Cindy, Alex, Richard—for what’s been a really great conversation. I’ve learned a lot along the way, not only about the arsenal but about the way you’re thinking about the arsenal, which, I think, is vitally important in this moment.

I look forward to the commentary that our group of formers and other experts will do as we step off the stage, and they’ll be on in a few minutes to rip apart everything that we’ve all discussed.

RICHARD JOHNSON: That’s why we make the big bucks.

DAVID SANGER: That’s right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

RICHARD JOHNSON: Thank you.

Catch up on the highlights

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Welcome back to the Atlantic Council’s series of panels on the Nuclear Posture Review. My name is Demetri Sevastopulo. I’m the US-China correspondent at the Financial Times.

In the last panel, you heard from three administration officials who were involved in writing the review. Now we’re going to talk to four experts on nuclear policy, all of whom have been in previous administrations and know a lot about what’s going on. No pressure.

Brief introductions again for anyone who’s joining us at this panel. We have Leonor Tomero, who’s a former Pentagon deputy assistant secretary for nuclear and missile defense policy; Robert Soofer, who had the same position in the Trump administration; Walt Slocombe is a former undersecretary of policy at the Pentagon; and Matthew Kroenig, who is the director of studies here at the Brent Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

We will also have fifteen minutes for questions at the end. So please have a think about what you want to ask. You can ask them online, or for the audience in the room there’ll be an iPad circulated into which you can add your question.

Matt, I’m going to start with you. Can you just explain for the layperson has the threshold for when the US would use a nuclear weapon changed with this Nuclear Posture Review?

MATTHEW KROENIG: Well, first, Demetri, thanks for doing this, and I’d like to say, first, we are at the Scowcroft Center and I do think that there is kind of a bipartisan coalition in support of US nuclear strategy, really, an international consensus as well with our allies, and it was formed, to some degree, with the Scowcroft Commission in 1983, which is strong deterrence and strong arms control, and I think you see that continued in this NPR.

And, you know, I think Republican administrations tend to lean a little bit more on the deterrence side and Democratic administrations lean a little bit more heavily on the arms control side, and I think you see that here. But I think there’s a lot of continuity.

So to your question, I think there’s also a lot of continuity when you look at strategy. You know, the United States has never had a no-first-use policy. It’s always left open the option of using nuclear weapons first to deter conventional attacks on us or our allies. And so that is here in this document as well. Deterring strategic attack, whether nuclear or nonnuclear, it says is the first role of nuclear weapons.

There is some, you know, attention to the words used in the declaratory policy. There was discussion of going to a sole purpose. You know, the only purpose of nuclear weapons is to respond to a nuclear attack. But the—this new document doesn’t go there. It does have this language about fundamental purpose while leaving open the other roles.

And we have Rob here, who oversaw the last Nuclear Posture Review, but I believe there was even fundamental purpose language in the 2018 NPR.

So, again, I think, more continuity than change, and I don’t really see a lowering or raising of the threshold of when the United States might use nuclear weapons here.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Leonor, can I turn to you?

I mean, the administration, as the former panel of officials said, you know, they looked at no-first-use. They looked at sole purpose. They looked at a range of options. Ultimately, President Biden settled on this fundamental purpose declaratory policy.

Major US allies were lobbying against any significant change in the nuclear posture in the declaratory policy. They were very worried that Biden might shift to sole purpose. Do you think major allies, are they happy with the NPR as it’s come out?

LEONOR TOMERO: Well, let me just first say, you know, I really want to commend DASD Richard Johnson and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Alex Bell and NNSA from the previous panel. This is—the Nuclear Posture Review is a tremendous undertaking led by the Department of Defense but it’s really an interagency effort, and so I think a lot of work went into getting to the document that they put out.

You know, I think as we heard in the previous panel, there was very significant consultation with allies. That started when I was at the Department of Defense. It started early on.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Speed dating, as one of you put it.

LEONOR TOMERO: Yeah. And so I think that consultation is very important. You know, between the time when we started the NPR, right, it’s about eight months, right—the classified Nuclear Posture Review came out in the spring—and so it doesn’t really give you much time. And so I think it actually—you know, to make big changes you need to have sustained consultation with allies, you know, that is broader than, you know, just the period of looking at what a review would do.

And so I think if you’re going to make a big change, you have to have that allied buy in. You have to make sure that allies are reassured. You have to explain why deterrence would be strengthened by any change, and that takes time.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Can you—I mean, for the lay people in the audience who may not be steeped in this as much as the experts, can you explain why the allies might have been concerned about a shift to sole purpose? What is it about that that made them nervous?

LEONOR TOMERO: Yeah. I mean, you know, I think just generally, you know, change is always difficult. You know, if a proposed change is happening without understanding the reasons for the change, you know, I think that’s difficult to understand.

You know, I think the administration got a range of views from different allies, and mostly allies want to be reassured. We want to make sure that we’ve got strong extended deterrence for the allies, and if we’re going to change a policy that’s been in place for decades it has to come with either an alternative of how you’re going to strengthen—this is not—that this is not zero sum, right. We’re not just weakening deterrence. And to explain why a change in policy, including declaratory policy, would strengthen the credibility and strength of US assurances.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Rob, one of the big changes between now and 2018 when we had the last Nuclear Posture Review during the Trump administration is that the Pentagon has said that China is expected or the Pentagon forecasts that China will have as many as a thousand nuclear warheads by the end of this decade, which is, you know, roughly, I think, four or five times what they’re estimated to have now.

The NPR and also the National Security Strategy, which came out recently, both say that by the 2030s the US will have to deter two major nuclear powers.

So I have two questions. One, does the US not need to do that already, given how much progress China has made? And second of all, does the NPR kind of lay out a strategy for dealing with how you deter two major nuclear powers with any specifics?

ROBERT SOOFER: Right. Thank you for the question. I think that is the central question of the next four, five years: How do we address the two nuclear peer problem, right? And so you’re right in the sense that we’ve always had to try to deter Russia and China. But I think the key phrase is major nuclear power.

So China is not considered today a major nuclear power. People can disagree over that. But, clearly, there’s a difference between a country with a hundred nuclear warheads and a thousand nuclear warheads, or whatever the number is.

And so by the time Russia—I mean, sorry, China—deploys its thousand nuclear weapons it won’t just be the numbers but the fact that they have a full triad and the fact that in addition to the strategic systems they’re also going to have regional systems.

So it’s a whole new framework for addressing it, and that’s why I think the administration rightly—and I got to tell you they nailed the threat environment. They nailed the strategic environment in this review and the National Security Strategy.

What they have said is, basically, an indication that we are moving beyond the post-Cold War period. I mean, this is something, yeah, the idea of great power competition was actually signaled by the Obama administration, right—the rise of China. We reaffirmed it in the Trump administration and they had now actually, you know, put it out there. It’s the two nuclear peer problem, right. So that’s a big deal.

So they’ve done us a great service by teeing up the issue but, unfortunately, they don’t answer the question. They don’t, and I understand that they spend a lot of energy—I’ve done these reviews before and just getting the fundamentals—reviewing the nuclear triad, addressing the no-first-use question—it takes up a lot of senior energy and attention, and it’s going to be hard for them to focus on that question. But they’ve teed it up and now we need to move out.

But I would say, if I could offer one item of criticism or just a question, is that, look, on the one hand, they’ve identified this problem but there seem to be actions in the review that preclude options for dealing with the problem. So, for instance, they point out that Russia and China are both increasing the resilience and the reliance of nuclear weapons in their policy and, yet, they continue to say that, you know, eventually we want to move to reducing the role of nuclear weapons.

But they also eliminate sort of hedging as a central focus point, which was in the Trump review. Of course, this administration, they’re going to continue to hedge. They’re going to continue to build a resilient nuclear enterprise so that we can, you know, hedge against the future.

But by eliminating things like the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile, I think, they’re taking away an option to deal with this two nuclear peer problem, and I think it would have been advisable to leave it in there. Maybe slow it down, further study it. But, clearly, eliminating that option is probably, for me, the greatest criticism of this document.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Well, I want to come back to that in a little while and also, more broadly, ask the rest of you whether you have views on the same question.

But just specifically, Walt, staying on China for a second, how do you see the implications for US nuclear strategy or US nuclear posture if China moves to having a thousand warheads? And then, secondly, given how opaque the Chinese leadership is, how much do we know about what China is doing and why it’s doing this now?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: I think, in some ways, the least of our problems with China is the possibility that they’ll go from two hundred to a thousand.

There’s a very flat return on numbers after a certain point, and I would say the numbers is about two hundred, maybe a little bit more. It’s much more important that they’re moving toward a, in effect, a triad that will increase survivability, and once you get to those kind of numbers, yeah, makes some difference. And, of course, the Chinese also have a lot of short-range stuff.

I think the more serious threats—and I think this is true of Russia, too—is the use of the possibility of nuclear weapons for coercion. That is, to deter the United States and our allies from doing whatever the Russians or the Chinese don’t want done.

This is the famous story about the Chinese general who said, we know that you wouldn’t trade Los Angeles for Taipei. We’re seeing it with Putin now. And I think dealing with that problem is perhaps the most serious one we have, as we’ve had a whole series of administrations that have basically said, yeah, we need to secure a second-strike capability—and oh, by the way, we need some other things, too, because that’s a—that’s got lots of problems.

I think the place where we have not got a good answer and, yet, it’s the one thing we have to face, literally, today is how do you deal with the potential of a threat of using nuclear weapons as a way of, for example, restricting aid—restricting aid to Ukraine, or, in the case of China, responding to a Taiwan scenario.

Now, I have views on what the answer might be. But I think that’s definitely the question.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Leonor or Matt, do you want to weigh in on whether the NPR should have said more about how do you deter two major nuclear powers?

LEONOR TOMERO: Sure. I can start.

Yeah, I agree. I don’t think we should get into a numbers game and that’s my concern, right. There’s a sentence in the Nuclear Posture Review that says, right, the—facing two major nuclear powers might require force structure changes.

You know, I think it’s very dangerous to look at, you know, how many missiles, how many holes in the ground do we need. I think very quickly you get into a dangerous and expensive arms race, and it’s very important that we not do that.

It’s not our advantage and, again, you know, adding a certain number, you know, when—we have 1,550 strategic nuclear weapons deployed, right. If that doesn’t deter, you know, will two thousand do the trick, right. At a certain number, the arithmetic is irrelevant. So I think it’s—

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: But just to slightly play devil’s advocate, the Chinese, clearly, don’t agree because if that was the case they wouldn’t be developing more. So why do you think they’re doing what they’re doing and how should the US counter that?

LEONOR TOMERO: Well, they are—you know, they had about a tenth of what the US had, right, and so they are significantly increasing that. They’re still going to be at a fraction of what the United States has, and we should—and I agree, we need to engage China. This is causing concern, rightly so. This is a significant increase in their nuclear arsenal and we need to be talking to China about that and they need to understand that this is—might cause significant reaction.

But I think, more broadly, we need to also understand that they’re making very significant increases in cyber and space capabilities and those will increase the risk of miscalculation in a crisis that could lead to rapid escalation leading to nuclear use.

And so we do need to be talking to China. It needs to be more than just about—we do need to talk about, of course, their nuclear modernization but it needs to be broader. We need to talk about their expanding military capability, including capability in space.

Again, that could lead to miscalculation. We don’t have—we have no history of having talked to China. We’ve had a lot of near misses during the Cold War with Russia. We have decades of history sitting down and talking to Russia not only about numbers, right, but about doctrine, about their strategy, making sure that we understand what they mean, that they understand what we intend, and we don’t have that with China. We do need it.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Has there been any kind of serious talks with China at all, historically?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: If I could—go ahead.

LEONOR TOMERO: No. No. Go ahead.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: I’m afraid I am a skeptic about dialogue as the answer to all these problems. We talk to China. This document talks to China. The Chinese talk to us by what they say.

Yes, there’s, certainly, the practical problems. So security, that sort of thing, and where there were crisis communications. That’s fine.

The problem is—let’s turn it around. What are we going to say? What are people like Johnson going to say when asked what American doctrine is? They’re going to faithfully reproduce what it says in the Nuclear Policy Review. That’s why they wrote it.

I think the problem is that our—we and China face a very different situation. The reason that the two hundred is important is that with two hundred comes a very high degree of Chinese assurance of a second-strike capability, that I think our biggest task with China is to deter an attack on Taiwan, obviously.

Mostly that’s not about nuclear weapons. That’s about cyber. It’s about space. It’s about navies. It’s about what the Taiwanese need to do to protect—present their own effective defense. It’s about dealing with more complicated problems like a blockade, not a Normandy invasion.

And, in some ways, the dialogue takes place. Yes, you know, if we had a Henry Kissinger who could go out to talk to the Chinese, although I’d actually rather he went to Moscow right now, that would be important and useful.

But dialogue in the sense of sitting in the same room seems to me much less important than communicating effectively, mostly through public statements.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Even though the US puts out a Nuclear Posture Review, you know, roughly, every five years, but China hasn’t put out a big public document that I’m aware of that lays out why it’s going from two hundred to, potentially, a thousand or more?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: They’ve said an awful lot. I mean, we don’t like it. We often don’t believe it. You know, that’s one of the other problems. You hear—it is often the case that countries, like people, say what they would like someone to believe about what they think.

I’m not saying the Chinese are lying any more than we’re lying. But I think that the—as I said, I think the central problem is the use for coercion, and one of the ways we deal with that has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. It has to do with conventional capabilities, the role—what the Taiwanese are prepared to do, building up alliances in Asia to join with us in confronting the Chinese.

A dialogue is fine but it’s not really going to move the ball very far.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: So, Matt, what do you think the NPR should have said in terms of deterring two major nuclear powers and simultaneously, potentially?

MATTHEW KROENIG: Well, I did want to come back to that because I do think this is a fundamental issue.

Admiral Richard, commander of US Strategic Command, says this is the biggest challenge he faces and says it’s the first time in United States history that we’ve had to deal with two near peer nuclear rivals, and I think that’s right and I think sometimes people think that the basics of nuclear deterrence theory and nuclear strategy have already been solved.

But I think this is a new challenge that nobody really has the answer for now, and I know it’s something we’re working on here at the Scowcroft Center. I think Rob is doing some work on this. I know our colleague, Brad Roberts, a former DASD out at Livermore, is working on this. So I think a lot of people are trying to get their heads around this.

But I do think it, potentially, does mean there could be major changes coming in US strategic forces policy. You know, essentially, the way the United States has sized its force in the past is to count up the strategic targets in the adversary. How many targets do we need to hold at risk? That’s the number of warheads that we need.

So as the number of Chinese warheads go up, you know, if we’re not going to rethink US, you know, deterrence policy then the answer would be, well, we need more warheads to hold those targets at risk.

So I think this is a debate we’re going to have over the coming years. Do we do strategy the way we’ve always done? There’s a good argument for that. It seems to have worked pretty well over the past seventy years. Or do we need to change to a kind of a minimum deterrent or do we size for Russia and do a minimum deterrent against China, or vice versa?

And so I think I agree with Rob on that, that this NPR teed up the question but didn’t really answer it, and I suspect that will be the job for, you know, strategists outside of government and maybe for the next NPR.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: So if we come back a year from today and have an event here we’ll have all the answers?

MATTHEW KROENIG: We’ll have it figured out by—come back on, you know, Thursday.

ROBERT SOOFER: Demetri, if I could just add, what makes this debate so interesting and potentially volatile is the uncertainty, right, because you have the contours of the debate already. You’ve got the—sort of the arms controllers who are afraid that if you believe—well, they’re afraid of sort of an open-ended requirement for more nuclear weapons or maybe even nuclear testing to respond to the threat, right. So they’re afraid of too much.

Others—I call them the deterrence realists—they’re afraid that we’re not going to do enough to address the Chinese threat, and it’s this band of uncertainty that’s creating a lot of tension, right.

But I think, in fact, the answer is—there is a compromise answer that doesn’t require a lot more nuclear weapons that can be, you know, wrapped up in an arms control framework. But the quicker we come up with an answer, I think, the quicker we can try to build a consensus over the ultimate solution, which includes things other than nuclear, of course.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: And I think there are many practical problems, like, how you allocate weapons. Do you say you have to have a completely separate force for China and for Russia? Do you need to rethink what it is you need to hit?

I mean, at various times, there’s been a tendency to generate as many targets as we can use. If you got a—this is just an example—if you’ve got 2,500 nuclear weapons you got to find 2,500 targets for them. That’s not quite right but sometimes we get dangerously close to that.

We need a much better sense for both China and Russia of what it is we actually need to hit. Part of the problem in this field is that the answer, if you’re talking about a secure second-strike capability, is relatively simple.

You need to be able to—and blunt and grim, but you need to be able to have a capability, no matter what the adversary does, to essentially end them as an organized government. Awful we should think about it, but the answer is relatively straightforward. For everything else the answer is pretty complicated.

We’re now talking, for example, about what we would do if Putin uses a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, only one or two. We’ve got the same problem with China, and I think those are the problems which are not, broadly, going to be covered by changing numbers.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Leonor, can I ask you, you know, one of the things the review says—and this is to get back to a discussion in the earlier panel about the balance between deterrence and then, you know, reducing the reliance on weapons in the future arms control, et cetera—putting aside Russia for a second, you know, with China there was some discussion after President Biden and President Xi spoke—I think it was either September or November—and Jake Sullivan came out and said the Chinese had shown a willingness to talk about strategic stability.

But it’s, you know, that, roughly, a year has passed and it doesn’t seem that there’s been any real discussion, and the Chinese may have said it or Xi Jinping may have said it but it doesn’t appear that he was serious.

So how will the administration kind of achieve this balanced approach if the Chinese aren’t even willing to come to the table, you know, for arms control talks and then even for the kind of crisis control mechanisms that the Pentagon is having so much difficulty doing even in, you know, other areas that don’t involve nuclear weapons?

Easy question.

LEONOR TOMERO: Yeah. Yeah.

No, and I think the Nuclear Posture Review does a very good job of laying out the importance of strategic stability, the importance of arms control, the importance of risk reduction.

But, of course, you’re dependent for a lot of that on, you know, having an adversary that’s willing to engage on these issues, and so China has not so far been willing to engage and then, of course, the strategic stability dialogue with Russia has stopped as well.

And so you have New START expiring in 2026. It doesn’t give us a lot of time, and I’m very concerned that we might—now, you know, the debate is, are we going to be facing a world without any verifiable arms control in 2026. We’re just running out of time.

And so I don’t think you can just rely on talking to adversaries to solve the risk of—risk reduction, to solve strategic stability. What we need to be doing as we look at future deterrence is increasing resilience. It’s making ourselves less vulnerable to attack if we are attacked; for example, if our strategic assets—nuclear command-and-control assets—are attacked in space, that we are able to fight through, that we’ve got layers of redundancy, that we can absorb an attack without forcing a quick decision by the president or going up the escalation ladder to using nuclear weapons.

And I think—so to answer your question, we need to focus on the things that the United States can be doing, which is increasing resilience, which is looking at innovation. We’ve got—our tremendous capability and strength vis-à-vis China and Russia is our technological innovation and creativity, and we need to be applying that to nuclear deterrence.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Maybe if I could just probe on that a little bit more, yourself or anyone on the panel.

When the Pentagon China power report came out, roughly, a year ago, most of the attention or the top line attention was on the projection for warheads.

But one of the most interesting things in the report, from my perspective, was the number of satellites that are being put into space that the PLA will be able to use for their weapon systems.

How concerned are you that actually the US is becoming relatively much less resilient when it comes to the ability of Chinese satellites to complicate American nuclear policy?

LEONOR TOMERO: Yeah. That is—that should be a key focus of our nuclear posture, frankly, and I think there should have been more emphasis on resilience. It does mention resilience and innovation, and I think that’s a very good first step forward. But I think that needs to be fleshed out a lot more.

And so given that, you know, we have—you know, our legacy space satellites have become, you know, what General Hyten, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has called fat, juicy targets, we need to move away from that model and build much more resilient—not only resilient systems, but resilient architectures that will make it harder for our adversary to attack, and I think introduce more strategic stability into the system.

MATTHEW KROENIG: Some people say we shouldn’t weaponized space; I would say it’s too late. Space is already weaponized. The United States depends on space a lot for its military operations, and the Russians and the Chinese understand that, and so they are developing a lot of counterspace weapons so it is a challenge. It’s part of the reason the Trump administration developed—or established the Space Force, Space Command, and so I agree with Leonor. We need to figure out a way to make our space architecture more resilient against those kind of attacks.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Can I ask you—one of the things that wasn’t in the report at all is looking at the role of hypersonic weapons and, you know, we wrote a year ago that China, for the first time, had flown a hypersonic weapon around the world, nuclear capable.

How to those kind of weapon systems factor into the way the US should be thinking about nuclear policy? Is that a fundamental change? Or is that just one more weapon and it’s really the same issue?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: Yes, it’s—I think the hypersonic threat is actually much more serious with conventional forces to give a very quick capability to go after niche targets. My favorite is to try to take out the ground part of our surveillance system in the first hours of the war.

Yes, the hypersonics give some greater flexibility. They’re maneuverable. We can’t defend against them; of course, we can’t defend against thousands of nuclear weapons on ballistic missiles, either.

I also think one of the things that we need to do think much more seriously about what it actually is that deters these countries; what it is that we can credibly threaten, credibly incentivize, and that’s how you—we don’t have to deter the RAND Corporation. We have to deter China or Russia.

To go back to very old history, in PD-59 in the Carter administration, we at least made a serious effort to say, what is it that the Russians—the Soviets—value? And broadly, the interesting part of the answer was the survival of the Communist Party, the survival of the regime. Is that true of China? Is it true of Putin? What are the things that we need to do, including how we structure our diplomacy, our programs, so as to impress on the Chinese and the Russians that there is no way they can gain an advantage by using nuclear weapons, and indeed, that there is no way they can gain an advantage by massive conventional attack. We are unfortunately seeing that in Ukraine. I’ve always believed that if there is ever again use of nuclear weapons, it will be because of a conventional fight that has gone out of control or that people on one side or the other think they need to use nuclear weapons as a way of dealing with that problem.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: But can I ask you this? This is going back to a question from earlier to a certain extent.

In order to work out what the Chinese think, you need to talk to them. I mean, General Hyten has an interesting story. When he was writing his master’s thesis on what China would do with its nuclear arsenal, he asked the Chinese students in his class, what are you going to do? And he says that if you read what they said then, it actually matched quite well with what has happened.

But there is very little—relatively little communication between the government here and the government in China. US-China relations are in a really, really difficult place right now. So how can the US work out what China is thinking? You’ve got a reluctant partner on the other side of the table even when they come to the table. Does anyone have a clever way around that?

ROBERT SOOFER: I think you’ve identified a good problem. But I always thought it would be neat to write an article: How to think about nuclear strategy when you don’t know what the other guy is thinking.

So there are some basic, fundamental things that you can do, and one is assuring the survivability of your second-strike capability, right? And this gets back to your hypersonics example. The big fear of hypersonics is that they will be able to, you know, disarm us, take out our command and control so we can’t respond.

We had a similar fear during the Cold War, right—the cruise missiles fired off of a submarine off our coast. We’ve always had that problem, and we know we’ve had that problem. We know we’re going to have the problem with hypersonics, and we deal with it through improvements in survivability.

And Admiral Richard has already said publicly that he is thinking differently about the way he thinks about warning—nuclear warning, warning of attack. And there are things that we can do today to mitigate the threat posed by these hypersonics.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: I think our biggest vulnerability is and always has been the command and control system.

Secretary Brown had an interesting answer. He said, what we have to—we were always worried about a so-called decapitating strike. And what Secretary Brown said, if I were in Russia, I would wonder whether it was really a good idea to change the decision maker on whether the United States would use nuclear weapons from the president of the United States to some two-star in an airplane; that the more effective the decapitation was, the greater the likelihood of an overwhelming response. Well, that’s—in some ways, that’s not a bad way to think about it.

But we now know that we’re in this middle ground where we’re not talking—mostly—about a massive attempt at a first-strike to disarm. It’s much more complicated uses of nuclear weapons as a way essentially to manipulate a conventional situation. And that’s what we’re seeing from the Russians today in Ukraine.

MATTHEW KROENIG: If I could jump in that at, I think that was another strong point of the NPR. It does talk about the risk of limited nuclear use in a convention conflict, or using that threat to coerce the United States. And I think that’s right.

But just—then transitioning to a criticism, then I think the question is, you know, if Russia uses a nuclear weapon or two in, say, Ukraine, or against a NATO ally, if the United States wants to rely more on nuclear deterrence to deter China from invading Taiwan, how would we do that. And I think the answer is with more of these non-strategic nuclear capabilities.

And so one of the questions I’ve been thinking about is, you know, what are the capabilities we need for that. I’m not sure the B-61 gravity bombs that we have currently are the right answer. It requires getting an airplane basically directly over the target, and so I know Rob, in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, was working on what are the additional flexible options we need, and came up with this low-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile and this nuclear SLCM. And so I think it was good to have those options, and so—you know, this NPR decides to cut the nuclear SLCM. I mean, it will be interesting to see—

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Which is a submarine-launched cruise missile for—

MATTHEW KROENIG: That’s right, that’s right.

And then, you know, but it seemed that bipartisan majorities in Congress have restored funding for that missile in the defense bill, so it will be interesting to see what happens there. And maybe Leonor or Rob, who have worked on the Hill, can let us know what happens when there is an executive-legislative dispute over a system like that.

But I—yeah, I think—

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Well, maybe we can just first step back and—what was the logic for getting rid of—what was the logic for introducing that system in the first place, and then what was the logic for deciding to abandon it?

ROBERT SOOFER: Right. So what kept us awake at night when we conducted the Nuclear Posture Review was the Russian tactical nuclear weapons, right—two thousand, a ten-to-one advantage over us, and the fact that they seem to be integrating this into their strategy and then practicing to it. And we need to do something to disabuse them of the notion that they could use these weapons and get any advantage, right?

And so there are a number of things that you can do. You can say that, well, if you use, you know a low-yield nuclear weapon, a tactical nuclear weapon, we’re going to respond. But there’s a difference between saying it and demonstrating it. The wonderful line by former—or it’s the existing NATO secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, who said, deterrence starts with resolve. You can’t just feel it; you have to show it, right?

And so we needed—we needed a deed to show, to convince Russia that they could not get away with this strategy, and China actually was also thinking along these lines as well in developing these capabilities. So that’s why we say we have to do something.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: But were there not other things in the U.S arsenal that could have achieved the same results?

ROBERT SOOFER: Right, right. So there are things, as DASD Johnson pointed out. We had the B-61, but you pointed out a potential vulnerability there. There’s the air-launched cruise missile that you can launch from a bomber, but again, that requires time.

But in the Asian context, you don’t actually have a presence of nuclear weapons, right? We do have weapons, as you indicated, deployed in Europe, but not in Asia. And we realized—again, politics is really important when you do these reviews. We realized that actually asking our allies to host nuclear weapons would be a heavy lift. So the next best thing to have that presence there, to have that promptness and presence would be a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile which would be based on an attack submarine, and our attack submarines are constantly plying the waters in that region, right?

So the SLCM provided a demonstration with deed that we were taking Russian and Chinese limited nuclear use scenarios seriously. It provide presence, which the other capabilities do not provide, right?

But here’s another reason that we didn’t articulate directly in the Nuclear Posture Review, and this is related to the two nuclear peer problem, right? So as Russia and China start to build up their capabilities—especially China—you worry about the survivability of US nuclear forces, right? The worst case scenario is that they can devise a way of disarming us in a first strike.

And so, again, job number one is survivability. If you deploy sea-launched cruise missiles on, say, forty or fifty attack submarines—and you wouldn’t put a lot of them on there; you would just have some—you have now made the attack problem impossible for Russia and China. And so you’ve improved the survivability of our sea-based leg as well as the rest of their triad.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: So can I just quickly ask Leonor? So if it’s such a good solution, why was it taken out?

LEONOR TOMERO: Well, I’ll give you the opposite view. I think the administration made the right choice in cancelling the program. The program actually hadn’t even started development in earnest, right; there had been a lot of studies, very low-level funding while the administration—right, in the Trump administration was, again, a study by the Navy, and the Biden administration had low-level funding to keep it alive while they decided what to do.

So it’s cancelling the program, but the program had barely even started. So this really wasn’t a real capability yet. And what we’re talking about is do we want to develop a new capability that we would have, you know, seven years, ten years from now? And I think, given the nuclear modernization that we are pursuing, including stealthy B-21s, the long-range standoff weapon that will be also available in the 2030s, that we will have new, modern capabilities. And I don’t see this deterrence gap that the Trump administration was talking about.

Sorry—we do have—you know, we do have low-yield or lower-yield capabilities in our arsenal. You know, we’ve never said those are just for NATO or Europe, right? It’s a range of capabilities that we reserve in our nuclear forces. And so, you know, I don’t think there was that deterrence gap. We did have existing capabilities, and again, adding a new program on top of an already stressed and important nuclear modernization program would have been very difficult and I think endangered the other higher-priority programs.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: OK. Sorry, Walt, you wanted to add something?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: I also think we need to remember that one of the main functions of our declaratory nuclear policy is not just deterrence of the adversary, but reassurance of our friends. I think the military case for sea-launched cruise missile with a nuclear warhead is at best marginal. As other people have said, there are lot of things that are—we can reach the target if we need to.

I think it’s much more important that, for better or for worse, the Japanese in particular think that they would really like to have something they can point to and say, this is for you. And that aspect—and I must say, right now the idea of cancelling a program which is important to our Asian allies is not the right signal to be sending. I don’t think it’s as much military case for it, but not least because it wouldn’t come in—we get the benefit of saying we’re going to do it long before it becomes available.

And I think there is a failure sometimes to recognize that nuclear weapons are at least as much about perception and politics as they are about actual hard military capability.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Leonor, did you want come back?

LEONOR TOMERO: That’s a communication problem with our allies, right? That’s not necessarily a military capability problem. And so, again, I think that comes back to we need thick engagement with our allies. That’s the crux of extended deterrence, and they need to understand that our capability to threaten and use nuclear weapons in their defense is credible and will happen.

And so I think, again, that’s comes to alliance management, to, you know, having a close relationship with our allies, and I don’t think, you know, we need to spend tens of billions of dollars necessarily to say, here’s one nuclear weapons capability that’s just really for your shores.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: So I want to come back to something that was asked in the previous panel, and not just because some of the officials are still in the room.

David Sanger, the moderator in the first panel, said, should the US have tactical nuclear weapons in Turkey, and should the administration be thinking about ways to somehow get those weapons out of Turkey without insulting a NATO ally?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: The DCA—dual capable aircraft—is exactly an example of what I am talking about in the Asian—let’s be honest: The reason we have the dual capable aircraft is because the Europeans want them.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: You’re talking about the F-35s or the—

WALTER SLOCOMBE: The F-35s, yes. The systems—I think we do not officially acknowledge that there are any in Turkey. We do officially acknowledge that there are some somewhere in Europe.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: But let’s—I mean, yes, well, we know they are there, so let’s speak about the reality and not kind of—in Washington we like to paper over things.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: No, and I think—I think the reason that we have them there is they are very important—rightly or wrongly, they are very important to our friends and allies in Europe. And that’s a legitimate reason to have some military capabilities. They are not useless. It’s just that the principal case for them is their political effect, and to some degree their political—

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: But I think—I think David’s question was more some allies are more reliable than others. Is it OK to have these kind of weapons in Turkey?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: Well, it’s interesting. We did take them out of one country on security grounds. You know, I think that’s a question of can you actually make them secure. It’s all very well to say they’re at Incirlik and that it’s—Turkey-controlled Incirlik.

I think if you really think there’s a danger that they could be misappropriated in a coup, you need to think about that. The problems of the security has always been a problem. I don’t know any more today about what the situation is.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: OK. We’re going to go to Q&A.

The first question is from Lauri Nurmi, who is a NATO correspondent at Iltalehti from Finland. I hope I’m pronouncing that right.

The question is, NATO is expanding in the Arctic and northern regions as Sweden and Finland join the defensive alliance. There is now a lot of talk in these countries about NATO nuclear weapons. What’s the role of the US nuclear deterrent in the defense of NATO’s northern member nations and its planning?

Who would like to take that? Matt.

MATTHEW KROENIG: Well, I would say that the US nuclear umbrella is for all treaty allies, including the new members of NATO, Finland and—or soon-to-be new members, Finland and Sweden. And so, you know, they’ve been partner countries for some time, and I talk to officials from those countries, and they’d say, well, we’re not allies, but really, your nuclear umbrella kind of protects us, too, right? And I was like, well, not really, you know. Article 5 is for NATO members, and so I think that is one of the benefits of them joining the alliance, is that they are now formally covered by US nuclear weapons.

There’s also been some news recently because some Swedes and the Finnish were asked, you know, would they maybe host US nuclear weapons, how do they feel about nuclear weapons, and they basically said—I think rightly—that, hey, we’re just now joining the club; we’re not—we’re keeping our options open, we’re not—and some people I think said, oh, they’re wanting to host nuclear weapons. And I think that’s not the case. I mean, look, let’s give them some space. They are new members to the club. I think they are not making, you know, firm commitments on anything at this point.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: OK. Another interesting question from Tom Karako at CSIS.

How do you believe—excuse me—how do you perceive the deliberate decision on the part of our British allies to increase the number of nuclear weapons it fields? Are they responding to an increased salience of nuclear deterrence that we are perhaps trying to avoid?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: I guess you should ask the British.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: In the absence of any British nationals on the stage, I’m Irish; I can’t answer that one, sorry.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: The British are determined to maintain an effective nuclear deterrent that is, to a very considerable degree at an operational level, independent of the United States. It’s not independent, fully, in terms of weapons development, and to a slightly lesser extent, submarine technology.

And I mean that seriously. If the British feel that they are more confident that they have an independent deterrent with larger numbers, that’s probably the reason. And seriously, they must have said things—that is a place where dialogue is useful.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Just a short story: a former British defence secretary asked me during the Trump administration, would it be possible for President Trump to launch a nuclear weapon without anyone stopping him, and how did the process work. And I said, there are lots of theories; I don’t know the exact answer. How did it work in the U.K? He said, I don’t know. They never briefed me on what I would have to do. True story.

A question from Sangmin Lee of Radio Free Asia. The Nuclear Posture Review has called any nuclear attack by North Korea on the US and its allies the end of the North Korean regime. In response, the North Korean foreign ministry has said that the US is the only country that has set Pyongyang as a target as the government of a sovereign state. What do you think about North Korea’s reaction?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: I think one of the most interesting—at least one of the most specific and novel parts of the new NPR is the paragraph about North Korea, which is absolutely bloodthirsty—you know, that we will destroy you as a regime—a regime, not as a country—if you use nuclear weapons.

I think that’s probably a good message to send to the North Koreans. Unsurprisingly, the North Koreans say, it doesn’t bother us; you’re just troublemakers.

LEONOR TOMERO: I think that was a good—I think that’s a good area of continuity, too, with the Trump administration Nuclear Posture Review which, for the first time, made a similar statement. I think reiterating that I think was important.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: Interestingly enough, also, the contrast with the next paragraph, which is about Iran, is sort of much—very low key, very let’s try to keep from—this from being a problem. We still want to have Iran in the—it’s no doubt partly because we are trying to negotiate a follow-on to the JCPOA.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: That language might change if Iran does have the weapon, as North Korea does.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: Presumably.

LEONOR TOMERO: And I think, just on the North Korea piece, obviously, we’re here to talk about the Nuclear Posture Review but I think the Missile Defense Review, I think, is also—was very well-crafted. I think it was a very good, broad approach to missile defense, and I think an important element in our response to North Korea.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: Also an area of remarkable continuity. For a Democratic administration to begin the statement on missile defense is—that a limited defense is essential—is pretty much of a breakthrough.

MATTHEW KROENIG: Just a quick comment on North Korea, if I could. I think this is another element of continuity and goes to US nuclear strategy for years, which is we don’t have a one-size-fits-all deterrence policy. The way we deter Russia is different from the way we deter North Korea. That was true in the Trump NPR and also true in this NPR. If you’ll notice, it doesn’t say, you know, if Russia uses nuclear weapons, it’s the last thing you will ever do. We will come to downtown Moscow. But we do say that to Pyongyang.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Yeah. Easier to say when they have a much smaller arsenal, as well,

MATTHEW KROENIG: Exactly.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: So on missile defense, how does technology—and this is from Johannes Bonnelycke—how does technology meant to defend from missile attacks such as the glide phase interceptor fit into this conversation? How could it change the course of deterrence strategy?

ROBERT SOOFER: Well, you know, the current missile defense policy—and this, again, reflects continuity again over three administrations. We actually have two missile defense policies: one to protect the homeland and one to protect regional forces and allies, right?

So with respect to the homeland, again, we bifurcate this with respect to Russia and China. We continue to rely on nuclear deterrence to try to hedge—you know, to deter those attacks. But with respect to North Korea and other rogues, our policy is to stay ahead, right? And so to the extent technology can help us stay ahead of that threat, that’s good.

But again, Demetri, to get back to the two nuclear peer problem, as that becomes more of a forcing function, as we become more worried about China and Russia’s collusion or limited attack options, there might actually be a role for limited defense against Russia and China. That is a big policy debate to be had, but I think that that resurfaces the debate.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: We’re just a couple of minutes away from ending. Can I ask you just to close out, ask each of you, what was the thing about the NPR—in thirty seconds—that surprised you the most, either in a positive or a negative way?

Walter.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: How similar—this is one of the few areas where if you change a little bit of the rhetoric, you could have issued the Trump administration’s NPR or the Trump administration could have issued the Clinton administration’s and—or the Obama administration’s.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Obama.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: There is a high degree of continuity. One of the main things that we have an advantage is that there is a remarkably broad agreement on some pretty basic and pretty difficult principles about nuclear deterrence, that it’s one of the few areas where—at least not yet—we have a partisan polarization.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Leonor?

LEONOR TOMERO: Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think the amount of continuity. I mean, it essentially continues with the same capabilities, right—deploying the W76-2 that was introduced in the Trump administration—so, you know, strong—coming out strong in favor of the nuclear modernization program record; you know, very similar language on strategy of damage limitation.

So I think—and then, you know, even though the president had tasked his administration with reducing the role of nuclear weapons, you know, that has stayed the same. You even have certain sentences within the Nuclear Posture Review that say, actually, our nuclear deterrent underpins all our national defense priorities, which I thought was surprising, and I think should raise some questions, especially in the context of, you know, if the president’s goal was to reduce the role, it looks like we’re actually expanding the role of nuclear weapons, you know, in certain instances.

But I think, again, it could have done a lot more with looking at emerging capabilities, innovation, resilience, and those were key principles that were laid out in the National Defense Strategy that I think could have been applied a lot more broadly to the Nuclear Posture Review.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: OK. Rob?

ROBERT SOOFER: Yeah, I was surprised that there were no pictures in here like there were in the Obama and Trump—no, I’m just kidding, no.

In fact, there are—

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: The Atlantic Council has made up for that.

ROBERT SOOFER: No, there are actually very, very few surprises here because if you have been tracking what they’ve been saying in the administration and congressional testimony, in the budgets, this is more or less true to that, right?

But again, maybe if there is a surprise—and I’m gratified to see—is that threat—the understanding of the threat, especially the two nuclear peer problem. That is a big deal. That is historic, I think.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Matt, the final word.

MATTHEW KROENIG: Yeah, so just two points, you know. I know there were healthy debates within the administration about some of these things, and people view these issues differently. And sometimes you can almost see that debate and tension coming through in the document; you know, we’re not going to a no or to a sole-purpose policy, but we hope to—

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: But we might next year, yeah.

MATTHEW KROENIG:—create the conditions to do that in the future. There are some other example like that where you can almost see the administration debating with itself in the document.

And then, just tying my colleagues’ points together, I think that Walt and Leonor are right that there is a lot of continuity. And on balance I think that’s a good thing. You know, if you look at our nuclear modernization program, it’s going to be in place for decades, so you do need bipartisan consensus to keep that in place. But then tying that to Rob’s point, the threat environment is changing. China’s buildup is really changing things, and so I think the big challenge going forward is can we adapt this kind of bipartisan consensus in this new, more threatening security environment through the 2020s and into the 2030s.

So we’ll have to invite everyone back to talk about that in the coming years.

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO: Sounds good. Well, on that note, I’d just like to thank everyone for a very interesting discussion, and to the Atlantic Council, thank you. Thanks to the audience.

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Inside the US Nuclear Posture Review’s approach to a new era of three-power nuclear competition

Katherine Walla — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 16:57:33 +0000

The Biden administration’s recently released Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) depicts a new nuclear era taking form. As Richard Johnson, deputy assistant US secretary of defense for nuclear and countering weapons of mass destruction policy, described it at an Atlantic Council event Tuesday where the Department of Defense rolled out the review, the United States is now “facing potentially the rise of two nuclear-armed competitors” for the first time.

By focusing on the problems posed by two nuclear peers, the review “nailed the strategic environment” and has shown that the world is “moving beyond the post-Cold War period,” said Robert Soofer, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy.

A pillar of post-Cold War nuclear arms control, the New START arms-reduction treaty between the United States and Russia is set to expire in 2026. Given that looming deadline, Alexandra Bell—deputy assistant secretary at the Department of State’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance—said that the administration will need to think about how to face a scenario in which there are “potentially no constraints over the… largest nuclear arsenals in the world.” If that happens, “for the first time in over fifty years, it’s not a safer world.”

Below are other highlights from the event hosted by the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense practice, which saw current and former Department of Defense, State, and Energy officials outline the top takeaways from the new NPR.

The newcomer on the block

According to the NPR, China is set to join the ranks of the world’s biggest nuclear powers by accumulating one thousand warheads by 2030; but it isn’t just the number of warheads that should be concerning, according to Walter Slocombe, a former undersecretary of defense for policy. He pointed out China’s concerning moves “towards, in effect, a triad” with which it can launch nuclear weapons from land, sea, and air. Slocombe added the worrying “possibility of [China and also Russia] using nuclear weapons for coercion” in order to deter the United States and its allies from pursuing their interests. He explained that this coercion could, hypothetically, look like restrictions on the West’s aid to Ukraine or response to a Taiwan invasion.
Bell explained that the United States doesn’t “understand where China is going with this” expansion of its nuclear arms, and that the administration has tried to engage with Beijing on arms control—but bilateral talks haven’t panned out. “It is sort of surprising given that China signed up to the [Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] and the same commitments that the United States has,” she said.
“If they don’t want to have a discussion in the bilateral channel, there [are] other ways that China can demonstrate to us that they’re not pursuing things that we think that they are,” Johnson said. For example, he explained that the United States is concerned to see the construction of two fast breeder reactors in China, from which plutonium can be extracted for use in nuclear weapons. “It would be good for them to demonstrate that they’re not intending to divert it to military purposes,” Johnson said. “And right now, that doesn’t require any talks at all.” Rather, it could be achieved through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Rather than insisting on limiting the sheer number of arms, Johnson said that the Biden administration wants to reduce risk across the board—with channels of communication, information exchanges, and military deconfliction. “Let’s talk [with Moscow and Beijing] about putting some guardrails into the relationship so that we don’t have unnecessary crises and the risk of miscalculation when things happen in [their regions],” he said.

Assurances for US allies

After then presidential candidate Joe Biden wrote in a 2020 Foreign Affairs essay that “the sole purpose of the US nuclear arsenal should be deterring—and, if necessary, retaliating against—a nuclear attack,” a number of US allies worked to sway him otherwise. Johnson said that Biden only intended to pursue that direction “upon the consultations of our allies and partners and with the US military,” which Johnson described as “nuclear speed dating.”
Johnson added that at the end of the policy review, the administration found that there is a “narrow range of high-consequence attacks” that could affect US allies and partners; thus, the Biden administration adopted a policy that only allows nuclear use in the most “extreme circumstances” in which vital US and allied interests are threatened.
Johnson explained that moving toward the sole-purpose concept is still the administration’s goal, but it will have to “identify concrete steps to do that and work with our allies and partners to get there.” Bell commended the NPR for reflecting Biden’s eventual goal, but also “taking into account the security environment we’re currently in,” with Russia’s rising threats and China’s expanding capabilities.

What’s changed—and what hasn’t

Matthew Kroenig, acting director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and former nuclear-weapons expert in the Department of Defense and intelligence community, explained that the United States has never had a “no first use” policy, and the NPR is following previous administrations by keeping options open. Leonor Tomero—a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy—also pointed to the continuity with previous administrations in capabilities, including continuing to field the W76-2 thermonuclear warhead that was introduced during the Trump administration. The NPR is “coming out strong in favor of the nuclear modernization program of record,” she explained.
However, the Biden administration canceled the nuclear-armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile Program launched in the 2018 NPR. Soofer, who served in the Trump administration, explained that the program was designed to establish a nuclear presence in Asia and elsewhere without having to ask allies to host weapons. That presence “improved the survivability of our sea-based leg” of the nuclear triad. By taking it away, Soofer argued, the Biden administration is “taking away an option to deal with this two-nuclear-peer problem.”
In contrast, Tomero pointed out that the program “hadn’t even started development in earnest” so this “really wasn’t a real capability yet.” Johnson said that the Biden administration feels “like we have the capabilities we need to deter… nuclear use,” including a possible tactical strike by Russia, without the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile Program. “We think it has marginal capability when added to all those other capabilities.”
While weapons and capabilities are “very critical,” Cindy Lersten, director of the office of policy and strategic planning at the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said that “nonproliferation, counterterrorism, and arms control” are what create this NPR’s “comprehensive and balanced approach.” According to Johnson, these are all areas in which the administration wants to “regain the leadership role” to avoid nuclear war.

Diving deeper

Tomero noted that the NPR’s approach to North Korea is another “good area of continuity” from the Trump administration. Slocombe called the NPR’s section on North Korea “absolutely bloodthirsty” in saying that any nuclear attack from Pyongyang would result in the end of Kim Jong-Un’s regime. That is a “good message to send to the North Koreans,” Slocombe added. But not everyone: Kroenig explained that there is no “one size fits all deterrence policy,” so “the way we deter Russia is different from the way we deter North Korea.”
In contrast, Slocombe pointed out that the NPR’s approach to Iran is much more “low key,” with the aim of keeping Tehran’s nuclear exploration “from being a problem” as negotiations continue to revive the country’s 2015 nuclear deal. With Iran reaching uranium enrichment levels of 60 percent, nearing the 90 percent that is considered weapons grade, Lersten said that the United States will continue to rely on the IAEA to monitor and provide insight into Iran’s nuclear activities. Johnson added that via the IAEA, the United States should be able to detect any moves to increase enrichment levels.
The Biden administration will next need to contend with “increasing resilience” and “making ourselves less vulnerable to attack” in order to maintain credible deterrence, Tomero said. “That needs to be fleshed out a lot more.”
Lersten pointed to the NNSA’s plans to modernize nuclear capabilities and infrastructure that will see the retirement or refurbishing of older weapons and the introduction of new, higher-precision and lower-yield capabilities—all of which could improve resilience. “Our number one priority [is] to make sure that our nuclear stockpile is safe, secure, and effective,” she said.

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Bowing to Putin’s nuclear blackmail will make nuclear war more likely

Andriy Zagorodnyuk — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 20:56:25 +0000

With his armies in retreat and his invasion of Ukraine rapidly unraveling, Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently resorted to nuclear saber-rattling. This has caused widespread international alarm and is fueling mounting calls for Ukraine to reach a compromise with the Kremlin in order to avert World War III.

The current rush to appease Moscow is deeply unnerving and reflects a shortsighted failure to appreciate the appalling security implications of bowing down to Russian intimidation. Giving in to Putin’s nuclear blackmail would not end the war in Ukraine. What it would do is set a disastrous precedent that makes a future nuclear war far more likely while encouraging dozens of countries to acquire nuclear arsenals of their own.

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Putin first raised the prospect of a nuclear escalation in a September 21 address that saw him announce plans to annex large swathes of occupied Ukrainian territory and launch Russia’s first mobilization since World War II. “I’m not bluffing,” the Russian ruler declared. The following week, he accused the United States of “creating a precedent” by dropping atomic bombs on Japan in 1945 and vowed to use “all means at our disposal,” to defend Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia.

The Western response has been mixed. US officials have informed the Kremlin that Russia would face “catastrophic consequences” if it moves to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, while EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has warned Moscow that any nuclear attack would be met with “such a powerful answer that the Russian army will be annihilated.”

Others have been less forthright, with French President Emmanuel Macron in particular coming under fire for unilaterally ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in response to a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine. Meanwhile, tech billionaire Elon Musk has been one of numerous high-profile figures to promote Kremlin-friendly peace plans while arguing that the world faces possible nuclear apocalypse unless Ukraine cedes land (and millions of citizens) to Russia.

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What comes next will determine the future role of nuclear weapons in international relations and shape the security climate for decades to come. If Russia’s nuclear threats succeed and Ukraine is forced to accept partial partition, the entire doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which served so well throughout the Cold War, will be torn up and a new age of instability will begin.

MAD worked because the two Cold War era superpowers balanced each other out. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is completely different. We are currently witnessing a nuclear superpower threatening a non-nuclear state precisely because it has failed to win a war by conventional military means. The message from Moscow is both menacing and unmistakable: countries with nuclear weapons cannot be defeated by those who have none. This is a recipe for nuclear proliferation.

If Putin is able to rescue his failing invasion and achieve his military goals through the use of nuclear blackmail, it will spark a nuclear arms race of unprecedented proportions. A long list of countries including everyone from Iran and Saudi Arabia to Nigeria and South Korea will take note of the new rules established in Ukraine and scramble to join the nuclear club. Eventually, not having nukes could come to be seen as an invitation for invasion.

This would be bitterly ironic as Ukraine was once something of a poster child for nuclear non-proliferation. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to hand over what was at the time the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for “security assurances” from Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The Budapest Memorandum is now widely recognized as one of the most notorious diplomatic blunders of the modern era. It is a mistake few are eager to repeat. Indeed, given Ukraine’s current predicament, why would any country abandon their own nuclear aspirations in return for empty assurances?

The only way to prevent the world from descending into a dark future of spiraling nuclear confrontation is to make sure Putin fails. His nuclear threats require an overwhelming response spelling out that any atomic aggression in Ukraine would mean defeat and ruin for Russia. There is no longer room for strategic ambiguity or talk of proportional retaliation; Putin must be made to personally understand that neither he nor his regime would survive if he chooses to cross the nuclear red line.

Many NATO member states will no doubt be deeply uncomfortable with the idea of directly confronting the Kremlin in this manner. Others will warn that such posturing could easily ignite a third world war. These are valid concerns, but there are no longer any risk-free options available. Unless the international community stands up to Putin now, the entire world will be plunged into a dangerous new era defined by the constant threat of nuclear warfare.

Andriy Zagorodnyuk is chairman of the Center for Defence Strategies and Ukraine’s former minister of defense (2019–2020).

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Putin denounces imperialism while annexing large swathes of Ukraine

Peter Dickinson — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 17:35:05 +0000

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered one of his most unhinged performances on September 30 in a speech announcing the annexation of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. Addressing hundreds of Russian officials during a ceremony in the Kremlin, Putin had relatively little to say about the war in Ukraine. Instead, his address was dominated by some of the fiercest anti-Western rhetoric of his 22-year reign.

Putin branded Western leaders as “racist” and claimed they were guilty of “spreading Russophobia all around the globe.” However, his main focus was the allegedly imperialistic policies of the West. The Russian leader supported his argument by reciting a long list of crimes committed in the name of Western imperialism including everything from the colonization of Africa to the mid-nineteenth century Opium Wars in China. “For centuries, the West has claimed to be bringing freedom and democracy to the world,” he declared. “In fact, the exact opposite is true.”

Putin is apparently oblivious to the absurdity of condemning imperialism while at the same time committing the most brazen act of imperial aggression in modern European history. Perhaps this should not come as a surprise. After all, for years he has been transforming Russia into a fascist state while presenting himself an anti-fascist. Why not also pose as an anti-imperialist while engaging in naked imperial aggression?

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Many veteran Kremlin observers commented that this was comfortably the most vitriolic public attack on the West ever delivered by the Russian leader. “I’ve watched a lot of Putin speeches over the last 10-15 years and this is the most anti-US one by a really long way,” tweeted Financial Times Moscow bureau chief Max Seddon.

Putin’s decision to focus his annexation address on the alleged injustices of modern Western imperialism was in part motivated by a desire to distract domestic attention away from Russia’s embarrassing battlefield defeats in Ukraine and place the war in a broader geopolitical context. But it also aimed to position Russia at the forefront of a new global coalition of anti-Western forces. At one point in his speech, the Russian leader spoke specifically of ending US hegemony through an “anti-colonial movement” to be led by Moscow.

This emphasis on anti-imperialism reflects Russia’s broader geopolitical realignment as the Kremlin comes to terms with the fallout from the disastrous invasion of Ukraine. Moscow now appears to recognize that there is little chance of repairing relations with Europe or the US. Instead, Russia will seek to mobilize global anti-Western sentiment and play the role of counter-weight to Western dominance in the international area.

It is far from clear whether this gambit will be successful. At present, few countries from the developing world seem ready to align themselves with Russia. Judging by voting habits at the United Nations, only a handful of global pariahs such as Syria and North Korea are currently prepared to side with the Kremlin. Meanwhile, both China and India have signaled in recent weeks that they are far from happy with the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Nor are Putin’s anti-imperial credentials particularly convincing. While he has tried to blame the war in Ukraine on everything from NATO expansion to imaginary Ukrainian Nazis, it is now painfully obvious that the invasion is actually an old-fashioned war of imperial aggression. Putin himself admitted as much in summer 2022 when he compared the invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great. His decision to annex approximately 15% of Ukraine now removes any lingering doubts.

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Today’s speech should cure Western policymakers of any illusions regarding the possibility of a pragmatic relationship with Russia as long as Vladimir Putin remains in the Kremlin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already drawn the necessary conclusions and declared that there will be no more negotiations with Putin. Given the gravity of the situation, similar clarity from other Western leaders is now urgently needed. Putin has effectively declared war not only on the West but on the entire rules-based system of international relations. He is attempting to redraw the map of Europe by force and is holding the world hostage with the thinly-veiled threat of nuclear apocalypse.

It is crucial that the democratic world stands up to Russia’s nuclear blackmail. Failure to do so will have potentially catastrophic consequences for international security. Putin would be emboldened to repeat his nuclear ultimatums against new victims throughout the former Soviet Empire, while countries across the globe would soon scramble to protect themselves from this new reality by acquiring nuclear arsenals of their own. Decades of nuclear nonproliferation efforts would collapse and give way to a perilous new era of international instability.

Putin is not escalating from a position of strength. His fake referendums, absurd annexations, nuclear threats, and anti-Western rants all point to the fact that he is losing the war in Ukraine. This desperation makes him more dangerous than ever. The West must respond by demonstrating unwavering unity and resolve. This means tougher sanctions against Russia and accelerated military support for Ukraine. Today’s events make clear that Putin can no longer be reasoned with. He can only be defeated.

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

The Russian ruler is betting that the possibility of a nuclear escalation will persuade Western leaders to stop arming Ukraine and convince them instead to pressure Kyiv into accepting a negotiated settlement that would leave around 20% of Ukrainian land under Russian control. Putin’s readiness to engage in such direct nuclear extortion is a sign of his mounting desperation as the invasion of Ukraine continues to unravel.

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When Putin launched his invasion on February 24, most Russians anticipated a short and victorious campaign that would bring the era of Ukrainian independence to an end and force the country firmly back into the Kremlin orbit. This proved to be a disastrous miscalculation.

Far from welcoming invading Russian soldiers as liberators, the Ukrainian nation united against a common enemy and rose up in resistance. Russian troops were defeated outside Kyiv and forced to retreat from northern Ukraine. They were fought to a standstill in the south and the east. Worst of all, Putin’s army was completely routed in northeastern Ukraine in early September and fled the region in disarray.

Almost seven months since the invasion of Ukraine began, it is becoming increasingly obvious that Russia is heading toward what would be one of the most humiliating military defeats in the country’s history. Things are looking so grim for the Kremlin that international observers have begun to debate whether the Putin regime or the Russian Federation itself can survive such a debacle.

The Russian army has suffered catastrophic losses in Ukraine. Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed, while more than 1000 tanks have been captured or destroyed. Unsurprisingly, Putin’s invasion force is deeply demoralized, with reports growing of mass resignations and desertions. Tellingly, mobilization measures announced in parallel to Putin’s nuclear ultimatum also extended current military service contracts indefinitely while increasing penalties for soldiers who refuse to fight.

As Russia’s fortunes in Ukraine go from bad to worse, the Kremlin’s broader international position is also collapsing. The Western world has imposed unprecedented sanctions in response to the invasion and finally seems to have reached the conclusion that it must end years of growing energy dependence on Moscow. Russian troops are under investigation for war crimes and Putin himself is increasingly seen as an international pariah.

Closer to home, Moscow’s influence in the post-Soviet region is visibly receding on an almost daily basis. Kazakhstan has publicly split with Russia and recently signaled that it now sees China as its key partner. In the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan has renewed hostilities with Armenia in open defiance of Russia’s peacekeeping role. On Russia’s western borders, Finland and Sweden are poised to join NATO and the Baltic states have imposed visa bans on Russian citizens. Even Belarus dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who is almost entirely dependent on the Kremlin for his political survival, has resisted relentless Russian pressure to join the invasion.

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As things currently stand, the Russian invasion of Ukraine may well be the biggest geopolitical blunder of the twenty-first century. The gravity of the situation can no longer be denied and now appears to have finally penetrated Putin’s personal information bubble of courtiers and sycophants. After months of insisting that everything was going “according to plan,” the Russian dictator has been forced to acknowledge that drastic measures are required in order to avert disaster.

Putin insists his threat to use nuclear weapons is not a bluff. There is no way of knowing in advance whether this is true or not. Despite this uncertainty, it is crystal clear that the international community simply cannot allow itself to be intimidated in this manner.

If the West were to respond to Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling by abandoning Ukraine, it would have devastating consequences for international security and the entire concept of nuclear nonproliferation would be consigned to the dustbin of history. Instead, we would enter a dangerous new era of chronic instability marked by nuclear blackmail and wars of aggression. The only way to avoid this fate is by confronting Putin before it’s too late.

In the coming days, the West must send an unambiguous message to Moscow that nuclear weapons are not acceptable bargaining tools. They must spell out the crushing costs Russia will face if it dares to cross the nuclear red line, and they must convince the Kremlin that they are most certainly not bluffing. Now is also the time to emphasize that support for Ukrainian statehood is non-negotiable by ramping up weapons supplies.

Putin knows he is heading toward disaster in Ukraine but is hoping the West’s collective fear of a nuclear apocalypse will allow him to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Despite the setbacks of the past seven months, he remains convinced that the democratic world is weak at heart and will ultimately back down. If Western leaders do not stand up to him now, they will regret it for decades to come.

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

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Russia may not survive Putin’s disastrous decision to invade Ukraine

Janusz Bugajski — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 15:04:56 +0000

Russia’s war in Ukraine has demonstrated that the Kremlin does not respect the fundamentals of international law or the sanctity of international borders. This imperialistic foreign policy may soon rebound on Russia itself. Russia’s territorial integrity looks set to become increasingly disputed by the country’s numerous internal republics and regions as the disastrous invasion of Ukraine serves as a catalyst for imperial collapse.

My new book, Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture, contends that the Russian Federation has been unable to transform itself into a nation-state, a civic state, or even a stable imperial state. The approaching rupture of the Russian Federation will be the third phase of imperial collapse following the unraveling of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Russia’s numerous economic, demographic, and social weakness are exacerbated by a convergence of factors including over-dependence on fossil fuel exports, a contracting economy, and intensifying regional and ethnic disquiet. Since February 2022, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has accelerated the process of state rupture by failing to achieve the Kremlin’s goals while resulting in escalating military casualties and increasingly damaging international sanctions.

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Although Russia’s 1993 Constitution defines the country as a federation, in reality it is a centralized neo-imperial construct. This state is approaching the end of a regime cycle in which the political status quo is becoming increasingly precarious. Not since the fracturing of the Soviet Union have several simultaneous crises become so stark, including government inability to ensure sustained economic development, widening disparities between Moscow and the federal regions, and looming military defeat or indefinite stalemate in Ukraine.

The Russian Federation is faced with an existential paradox in which the liberal opposition is no position to replace the regime. Without political pluralism, economic reform, and regional autonomy, the federal structure will become increasingly unmanageable. However, even if democratic reforms were undertaken, several regions could nevertheless use the opportunity to secede. The potential for violent conflicts may diminish in the event of systemic reform, while the prospects for violent conflict substantially increase if reforms are indefinitely blocked.

As the country slides toward turmoil, the existing federal system will be viewed as illegitimate by expanding sectors of the population. A spectrum of domestic scenarios can then materialize that will thrust the country toward fragmentation, including intensifying intra-elite power struggles, escalating conflicts between the Kremlin and regional governments, and a breakdown of central controls in several parts of the country.

Moves toward separation by any of the 22 non-Russian republics would be likely to provoke similar demands for self-determination among several regions with ethnic Russian majorities. This would significantly weaken the center and lessen the likelihood of maintaining an autocratic state. Instructively, in the early 1990s when the Soviet Union began to unravel, 40% of the predominantly ethnic Russian regions pressed for greater autonomy and some veered toward sovereignty similar to the national republics. Separatist movements often start with demands for economic decentralization and then escalate in response to central government actions along with soaring elite and public aspirations.

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Public acquiescence and regime survival under Putin’s rule are based on a combination of aggressive foreign policy, militarism, anti-Western propaganda, and rising living standards. But the failing and costly war in Ukraine will deepen social and regional discontent regardless of Kremlin propaganda.

Disquiet in numerous republics and regions will be driven by an accumulation of grievances including sharply rising poverty levels, stark socio-economic inequalities, falling federal financial subsidies, deteriorating local infrastructure, environmental disasters, collapsing healthcare services, rampant official corruption, and public alienation from central decision-making. Moscow will be increasingly perceived as the exploiting colonial metropolis.

In the coming years, the Russian Federation could face a repeat of either the Soviet or the Yugoslav collapse, or some combination of the two. While some republics may exit Russia relatively unscathed, outright conflicts could materialize between the center and some federal subjects. Moscow can try to emulate Serbia in the 1990s by mobilizing ethnic Russians to carve out ethnically homogenous regions from rebellious republics while expelling non-Russian populations, but this will simply hasten the rupture of the imperial state.

Some national republics where the number of ethnic Russians is shrinking may seek full emancipation and statehood, including in the North Caucasus and the Middle Volga. Several predominantly ethnic Russian regions in Siberia, the Urals, and the Russian Far East will also benefit from sovereignty and control over local resources such as fossil fuels, metals, and precious minerals that Moscow now exploits in the manner of a colonial empire.

As Russia lurches toward an escalating internal crisis, NATO will face the urgent challenge of managing the multi-regional impact of growing turmoil. With Russia sliding toward dissolution, NATO will need to prepare its members for any conflict spillovers or territorial incursions.

With this in mind, Western governments should simultaneously declare support for democracy and federalism in Russia as well as the rights of republics and regions to determine their sovereignty and statehood. This can help embolden citizens by demonstrating that they are not isolated on the world stage. As the process unfolds, linkages must be developed with emerging states and closer coordination pursued with all of Russia’s neighbors directly affected by the rupture of Europe’s last imperial construct.

Janusz Bugajski is a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington DC. His new book, Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture, has just been published. A Ukrainian translation will be available from arc.ua Kyiv in October.

daniellemiller — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 16:24:40 +0000

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On August 26, Foreign Policy published its biweekly “It’s Debatable” column featuring Scowcroft Center acting director Matthew Kroenig assessing the latest news in international affairs.

In his latest column, he discusses ongoing US-Iran nuclear talks and outlines what an effective new Iran deal might look like.

The goal for negotiations with Iran should be for Iran to shut down its uranium enrichment program. [The] world gave up in 2015 and signed this lousy deal that allows Iran to make nuclear fuel.

The alternative would be to insist that Iran shut down its enrichment facilities, and if it refuses to do so, then as a last resort, the U.S. Defense Department can shut down its facilities for them.

Matthew Kroenig

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

China Defense Policy

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Gaber in the Macdonald-Laurier Institute: While Russia threatens the world with nuclear war, we might be well into it: Yevgeniya Gaber for Inside Policy

rcasberg — Tue, 09 Aug 2022 19:31:00 +0000

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Slavin interviewed on Asharq about the status of the Iran nuclear deal

Atlantic Council — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 17:37:00 +0000

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Rabia Akhtar in Al Jazeera: Will global powers give up their nuclear weapons?

Atlantic Council — Tue, 02 Aug 2022 17:26:00 +0000

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Nasr in European Council of Foreign Relations: Can the Iran nuclear deal be saved?

Atlantic Council — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 14:15:00 +0000

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Azodi quoted in Iran Front Page on whether the JCPOA will be revived

Atlantic Council — Mon, 04 Jul 2022 17:44:00 +0000

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Manning in The Hill: No longer ‘Groundhog Day’ in North Korea

Atlantic Council — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 18:13:00 +0000

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Scowcroft Strategy Initiative

On June 28, Robert Manning published his biweekly column in The Hill, raising alarm at the advancements of North Korea’s missile testing and nuclear program.

“Like the classic movie “Groundhog Day,” North Korea’s seemingly endless ballistic missile tests occur, a mostly inured world condemns then moves on. Passive acceptance. Rinse. Repeat. No more,” Manning warned.

“Overshadowed by the Ukraine war and U.S.-China tensions, Kim has altered the military balance in ways that raise new questions about his intentions,” Manning observed. “He has developed a full array of missiles — including short, medium and long-range ICBMs, tested hypersonic missiles, as well as submarine-launched missiles and solid fuel tactical nuclear missiles. Pyongyang can hit Guam and, most likely, reach the U.S. mainland.”

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Huessy in Warrior Maven on nuclear deterrence and modernization

Atlantic Council — Sun, 12 Jun 2022 14:57:00 +0000

Former Nonresident Senior Fellow

On June 12, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Peter Huessy was interviewed in Warrior Maven where he discussed nuclear deterrence and modernization in a modern context.

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Kroenig and Ashford debate US policy toward the Persian Gulf

daniellemiller — Fri, 10 Jun 2022 21:39:24 +0000

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On June 10, Foreign Policy published its biweekly “It’s Debatable” column featuring Scowcroft Center deputy director Matthew Kroenig and New American Engagement Initiative senior fellow Emma Ashford assessing the latest news in international affairs.

In their latest column, they debate President Biden’s shifting policy toward US Gulf partners as Iran works to build the bomb.

The goal for negotiations with Iran should be for Iran to shut down its uranium enrichment program. [The] world gave up in 2015 and signed this lousy deal that allows Iran to make nuclear fuel.

The alternative would be to insist that Iran shut down its enrichment facilities, and if it refuses to do so, then as a last resort, the U.S. Defense Department can shut down its facilities for them.

Matthew Kroenig

I find the Biden team’s sudden shift on the region to be perplexing. It’s not just the overtures to Saudi Arabia (in which the Saudis get something they desperately want, and Americans get nothing). It’s these rumors that the White House is considering offering the UAE a security guarantee of the type it offers NATO allies. We don’t really know what that would entail.

Emma Ashford

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

China Defense Policy

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Kroenig in Fox News on Iran’s development of nuclear weapons

Atlantic Council — Wed, 08 Jun 2022 17:45:52 +0000

Former Nonresident Senior Fellow

On June 8, Scowcroft Center deputy director Matthew Kroenig was quoted in Fox News discussing Iran’s continued attempts to develop a nuclear weapon.

We need to take action or Iran will be a nuclear-armed power forever.

Matthew Kroenig

Former fellow

Peter Huessy

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Arms Control China

The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world.

Pro-Kremlin Telegram channels twist IAEA director’s words to claim Ukraine is building a “dirty bomb”

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Russian War Report: Pro-Kremlin Telegram channels claim Ukraine is building a “dirty bomb”

Digital Forensic Research Lab — Fri, 27 May 2022 15:44:16 +0000

As Russia continues its assault on Ukraine, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) is keeping a close eye on Russia’s movements across the military, cyber, and information domains. With more than seven years of experience monitoring the situation in Ukraine, as well as Russia’s use of propaganda and disinformation to undermine the United States, NATO, and the European Union, the DFRLab’s global team presents the latest installment of the Russian War Report.

Tracking narratives

Pro-Kremlin sources attempt to deny New York Times evidence of Bucha massacre

Russia accuses Poland of occupying Ukraine’s territory

Pro-Kremlin commentators push false claims about deployment of Polish battalions in Ukraine

Pro-Kremlin Telegram channels twist IAEA director’s words to claim Ukraine is building a “dirty bomb”

The pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Readovka misrepresented comments made by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Rafael Grossi to claim Ukraine was producing a “dirty bomb.” The DFRLab previously analyzed similar claims made by Russian politicians and media.

In a statement made at Davos on May 25, Grossi expressed concern that an attack on the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, either cyber or physical, could accidentally release radioactive material. He said the IAEA is attempting to access the Zaporizhzhia plant, where 30,000 kilograms of plutonium and 40,000 kilograms of enriched uranium are stored. “We hope to go there to be able to prevent…a problem, or we end up finding that there are a few hundred kilograms of nuclear weapon-grade material going missing. This is what keeps us awake at night at the moment,” he said.

The Telegram channel Readovka shared a screenshot of a tweet published by Wall Street Journal journalist Laurence Norman, who cited Grossi’s comments about the volume of materials stored at the nuclear plant. Readovka used Grossi’s comments to suggest that Kyiv had used concentrated plutonium and uranium to produce a dirty bomb. The channel further implied that if materials were missing, it was because Ukraine had used them to build a dirty bomb.

The Telegram channel’s claim is paradoxical, because a dirty bomb is not the same thing as a nuclear weapon. Dirty bombs only require radioactive material to be placed alongside explosive material, which would spread radioactivity across the surrounding area, but not result in a nuclear detonation or anything approximate to one.

Energoatom, the state enterprise responsible for operating all of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, said, “Neither uranium nor plutonium, which could be used for military purposes, was and is not stored at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. But fuel assemblies are stored, but this is a completely different story.”

Similar narratives were shared by the Kremlin-owned outlet Sputnik and the pro-Kremlin Telegram channels Signal and Strana.

—Roman Osadchuk, Research Associate

Pro-Kremlin sources attempt to deny New York Times evidence of Bucha massacre

A recent New York Times article used CCTV footage, witness statements, and unreleased drone footage to confirm that Russian soldiers killed civilians in Bucha, Ukraine. Building on previous denials from Russia, the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Агент Госдепа (State Department Agent) published three posts that attempted to debunk the New York Times’ new evidence.

The Times published a video showing “Russian soldiers leading a group of Ukrainian captives toward the courtyard where they would be executed moments later.” To debunk this footage, the Telegram channel asserted that it is “standard procedure” during a war to tie up the enemy and force them to another location. The channel also claimed that the video did not prove anything since no shots are fired in the footage. In addition, the New York Times partially relied on one of the captive’s bright blue sweaters to confirm the executions. In an attempt to debunk this, the Telegram channel asserted that the sweater seen in the footage of the corpses is purple, not blue. The drone footage has been zoomed in, which can result in color distortion.

Screenshots from the New York Times’ video, which the Telegram channel Агент Госдепа (State Dept Agent) claims is too blurred to provide meaningful information. (Source: New York Times)

In addition, the channel claimed that the drone footage is too blurred to identify the corpses correctly. Trees that are visible in front of the bodies, along with the drone’s movement, result in the ‘blur’ effect. However, there are frames in the footage where the bodies can be identified.

—Roman Osadchuk, Research Associate

Russia accuses Poland of occupying Ukraine’s territory

In an attempt to stir division between Ukraine and its supporters, Russia is waging a disinformation campaign accusing Poland of having plans to occupy Ukraine. Disinformation narratives have been spread by high-level Russian officials, including the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the deputy chairman of the Security Council, and the head of Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), as well as Eurasian imperialist and far-right philosopher Alexander Dugin.

During Polish President Andrzej Duda’s visit to Ukraine on May 22, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that in response to Poland’s adoption of a law that will grant the Ukrainian citizens “almost the same rights and opportunities as Polish citizens,” Ukraine should consider adopting what he referred to as “a similar – mirror – bill.” Since Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, Poland has granted three million Ukrainian refugees the right to live, work, and use social security benefits.

The Kremlin based its latest wave of disinformation narratives on Zelenskyy’s remarks. Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, wrote in her Telegram channel that these are “not separatists, but the President of the country himself [who] transfers the rights on the territory of his state to the citizens of another country.” Zakharova also stated, “The Kyiv regime is actively throwing away its independence,” and was “legalizing the de facto seizure of its country…under the guise of preserving its own identity.”

While reporting Zakharova’s statement, Kremlin-owned RT included a section “reminding [readers] about historical claims of Poland on a number of Ukrainian territories.” RT also accused Poland of violating Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Aleksandr Dugin, leader of the Russian nationalist fascist organization Eurasia Movement, also amplified the disinformation campaign, claiming that the integration of Ukraine into Poland is being prepared at an accelerated pace and that Ukrainians now have to choose whether they ultimately want to live in Russia or Poland. Dugin stated, “We will liberate the territory from Odesa to Kharkiv and annex it one way or another. This is no longer under discussion. Western Ukraine as part of Poland at first glance is acceptable. Ours belong to us, and the second half of the failed Ukraine goes where its authorities dreamed of.” Dugin also highlighted the risks of the outbreak of World War III. According to him, the presence of Polish troops in western Ukraine “will mean the direct participation of NATO” in the war; therefore, “the likelihood of using nuclear weapons in this case increases.”

Earlier in May, Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council, accused the Polish president of “officially recognizing territorial claims in Ukraine.” This statement followed another accusation coming from the head of the SVR, Sergey Narishkin, who had claimed that Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service obtained information about “the plans of Warsaw and Washington to establish tight military-political control of Poland over their historical possessions in Ukraine.”

—Eto Buziashvili, Research Associate, Washington, DC

Pro-Kremlin commentators push false claims about deployment of Polish battalions in Ukraine

On May 23, pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Wargonzo, run by Russian journalist Semyon Pegov, claimed without evidence that two battalions of Polish infantry, equipped with four Rapira towed anti-tank guns and armored personnel carriers, had arrived in Pavlohrad, Ukraine, located between Dnipro and Donetsk. The post stated that Polish infantry were being prepared to be transferred to Avdiivka, on the front line near Donetsk; it also asserted that it was unknown whether these were Polish regular soldiers or mercenaries. Viktor Baranets, military commentator at pro-Kremlin outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda, reiterated this claim on May 25, asserting that two Polish battalions had deployed to Ukraine, and that Russian intelligence had already found one of these battalions near the city of Dnipro. Baranets also argued that NATO might not help Poland if conflict between Russia and Poland ever erupted. Meanwhile on May 22, the Telegram channel Rybar wrote that Polish mercenaries had been spotted in Kharkiv. A number of pro-Kremlin Russian media outlets amplified stories about presence of Polish military in Ukraine; these claims were also amplified by several Polish Twitter accounts.

The Polish Ministry of National Defense responded by stating the claims were false. It also noted that Polish Army does not have Rapira anti-tank guns at its disposal.

—Givi Gigitashvili, Research Associate, Warsaw, Poland

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Putin deploys nuclear-capable missiles to Belarusian border with Ukraine

Brian Whitmore — Wed, 25 May 2022 21:13:08 +0000

Alyaksandr Lukashenka warned the West this week that it was risking World War III by continuing to arm Ukraine, even as he allowed Russia to deploy nuclear-capable missiles on Belarusian territory near the Ukrainian border.

In a rambling letter to United Nations Secretary General António Guterres on May 23, the Belarusian autocrat wrote that the West’s “disrespect for” what he called Russia’s “legitimate interests” led to the current East-West tension and “provoked a heated conflict on the territory of Ukraine.” Lukashenka also called on the West to “refrain from the supply of weapons” to Ukraine in order to “prevent a regional conflict in Europe from escalating into a full-scale world war.”

In the letter, which was delivered as Lukashenka was meeting Putin in Sochi, he also decried the fact that much of the world views him as a co-aggressor in the war. “We are not aggressors, as some states try to present us. Belarus has never been the initiator of any wars or conflicts,” he wrote.

The Belarus dictator’s protestations have repeatedly proven to be hollow given that Lukashenka has allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory as a platform to attack Ukraine, and this time was no exception. With Lukashenka, it is always best to watch what he does rather than listening to what he says. Shortly after warning the West about escalation and protesting that he was not a co-aggressor, Lukashenka proceeded to act like an aggressor and help Putin escalate the war in Ukraine.

One day after Lukashenka’s letter, on May 24, the Ukrainian General Staff announced that Russia had deployed a division of nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles in the Brest region of Belarus near to the Ukrainian border. “There is a growing threat of missile and air strikes on our country from the territory of the Republic of Belarus. The aggressor has deployed a battery of Iskander-M mobile short-range ballistic missile systems in the Brest region, approximately 50 kilometers away from the Ukrainian state border,” the Ukrainian General Staff wrote in a post on Facebook.

The missiles have a range of 400-500 kilometers, which puts large swaths of central and western Ukraine within striking distance. Lukashenka also announced the previous week that Belarus had purchased Iskanders and S-400 anti-aircraft missiles from Russia.

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The missile deployments and sales came as Belarus conducted military exercises near the Ukrainian border and Kyiv warned about increased troop levels and military activity. In a situation report on May 23, the Ukrainian General Staff warned that “the armed forces of the Republic of Belarus are intensifying reconnaissance and additional units are being deployed in the border areas of the Homel region.”

The Russian missile deployments to Belarus and the uptick in Belarusian military activity suggests that while the fighting in Ukraine may currently be concentrated in the east of the country, Moscow still intends to pressure Ukraine from the north.

The military build-up on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border has been mirrored by similar activity along Ukraine’s nearby northern frontier with Russia. Seven weeks after Russia withdrew from the Chernihiv and Sumy regions in northern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials have recently noted an uptick in cross-border rocket and artillery fire and an increased Russian troop presence. “In any case, we are preparing for a possible reinvasion,” Oleksandr Vadovsky, deputy commander of Chernihiv’s border guards, told The Washington Post.

The Russian deployment of Iskander missiles to Belarus also starkly illustrates that despite his claims to the contrary and his half-hearted attempts to distance himself from the conflict, Lukashenka remains Putin’s chief enabler in the war against Ukraine and is very much a co-aggressor.

He allowed the Kremlin autocrat to use his country’s territory to stage an illegal invasion of a sovereign and democratic country. Lukashenka let Belarus become a platform for Russia to bomb Ukrainian cities and villages. He is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Ukrainian civilians. And now he is allowing Putin to deploy nuclear-capable Iskander missiles near Ukraine’s border.

The blood of any Ukrainians who may be killed by those missiles will also be on Lukashenka’s hands and he should be held accountable for it.

Brian Whitmore is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, an Assistant Professor of Practice at the University of Texas at Arlington, and host of The Power Vertical Podcast.

Mark Massa — Wed, 18 May 2022 03:21:41 +0000

Director of Studies and Deputy Director of Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security will bring expertise in nuclear strategy and policy to high-level commission

WASHINGTON, DC – May 17, 2022 – The Atlantic Council today welcomed the appointment of Dr. Matthew Kroenig as a Commissioner on the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. Dr. Kroenig, who will continue in his roles as the Council’s Director of Studies and the Deputy Director of the Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, is recognized globally as a leading expert in nuclear strategy and policy.

The bipartisan, twelve-member Commission is tasked with delivering a report by the end of this year with recommendations for “the most appropriate strategic posture and most effective nuclear weapons strategy” for the United States.

“New technologies and evolving geopolitical challenges are putting strategic deterrence under its greatest strain in decades,” said Barry Pavel, senior vice president at the Atlantic Council and director of the Scowcroft Center. “This Commission will serve an essential purpose in charting a bipartisan path forward for strategic forces policy, a key goal of the Scowcroft Center as we honor the legacy of our namesake, the late General Brent Scowcroft, who chaired an eponymous commission in 1983 that paved the way for US strategic forces policy for decades.”

Dr. Kroenig has served in several positions in the US Department of Defense and the intelligence community in the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations. From 2017-2021, he was a Special Government Employee (SGE) and Senior Policy Adviser in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capability/Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy. He was a national security adviser on the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney (2012) and Marco Rubio (2016).

Dr. Kroenig is also a tenured professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University. He is the author or editor of seven books, including The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy: Why Strategic Superiority Matters (Oxford University Press, 2018). Dr. Kroenig co-authors the bi-weekly “It’s Debatable” column at Foreign Policy. He holds an MA and PhD in political science from the University of California at Berkeley.

In assuming his new position, Kroenig said, “The security environment has deteriorated significantly since 2009 (the last time a congressional commission issued a report assessing these issues), making it necessary for this Commission to take a fresh look at an appropriate strategic forces policy for the United States. I am honored to serve alongside a distinguished group of national security leaders to take on this important challenge.”

The Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world. The Center honors General Brent Scowcroft’s legacy of service and embodies his ethos of nonpartisan commitment to the cause of security, support for US leadership in cooperation with allies and partners, and dedication to the mentorship of the next generation of leaders. Our namesake, General Scowcroft, was the chairman of the 1983 Scowcroft Commission that established the bipartisan basis for US nuclear deterrence and arms control to this day. As the United States enters a new era of strategic challenges, the Scowcroft Center is proud to play a central role in crafting an effective and nonpartisan strategic forces policy for the twenty-first century.

For any questions or to request an interview with Dr. Kroenig, please contact us at press@AtlanticCouncil.org.

The Atlantic Council is a nonpartisan organization that promotes constructive leadership and engagement in international affairs based on the Atlantic Community’s central role in meeting global challenges. The Council provides an essential forum for navigating the dramatic economic and political changes defining the twenty-first century by informing and galvanizing its uniquely influential network of global leaders. The Atlantic Council—through the papers it publishes, the ideas it generates, the future leaders it develops, and the communities it builds—shapes policy choices and strategies to create a more free, secure, and prosperous world. For more information, please visit AtlanticCouncil.org and follow us on Twitter @AtlanticCouncil

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Kroenig and Ashford in Foreign Policy on endgames in Ukraine

Atlantic Council — Sun, 15 May 2022 15:29:00 +0000

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On May 13, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security deputy director Matthew Kroenig and NAEI senior fellow Emma Ashford discussed desirable outcomes of the war in Ukraine in their Foreign Policy debate titled “What’s the endgame in Ukraine?”

The endgame is Ukraine wins, Russia loses. Why let a murderous dictator off the hook that he put himself on?
Matthew Kroenig

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

China Defense Policy

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Azodi quoted in Al-Monitor on Iran’s diplomatic options in the case of nuclear talk failure

Atlantic Council — Sat, 14 May 2022 20:53:00 +0000

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Slavin joins AlHurra to discuss the diplomatic obstacles facing Iran and the US amidst nuclear talks

Atlantic Council — Sat, 14 May 2022 20:43:00 +0000

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Slavin joins Voice of America to the US-Iran nuclear deal

Atlantic Council — Fri, 13 May 2022 20:48:00 +0000

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Slavin quoted in Al Jazeera on the diplomatic implications of US blacklisting of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on US-Iran nuclear talks

Atlantic Council — Fri, 13 May 2022 13:35:00 +0000

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Slavin quoted in Al Jazeera: How US blacklisting of IRGC is stalling Iran nuclear deal revival

rcasberg — Fri, 13 May 2022 06:11:00 +0000

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Independent Ukraine’s first president Leonid Kravchuk dies aged 88

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 12 May 2022 21:24:32 +0000

Ukraine’s first post-Soviet president Leonid Kravchuk passed away on May 10 at the age of 88 following a long illness. Active in Ukrainian politics for most of his adult life, Kravchuk is best remembered for his prominent role in the events leading up the 1991 Ukrainian Declaration of Independence and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Kravchuk joined the Ukrainian Communist Party in the 1950s and rose through the ranks to become leader of Soviet Ukraine in July 1990. He is widely credited with having helped convince the communist parliamentary majority in Kyiv to accept demands for Ukrainian independence during the historic days of late summer 1991.

Following his election as independent Ukraine’s first president in December 1991, Kravchuk negotiated the Belovezh Accords with Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Belarusian leader Stanislav Shushkevich, marking the formal abolition of the USSR.

Kravchuk’s record as president of independent Ukraine was mixed, with economic woes contributing to his defeat in the country’s 1994 presidential election. The subsequent peaceful handover of power to his successor, Leonid Kuchma, was an important milestone in the consolidation of Ukraine’s democratic political culture.

After stepping down as president, Kravchuk remained active in Ukraine’s national life. He was a member of parliament until 2006 and courted controversy for his ties to pro-Kremlin politicians. In 2020, Kravchuk became Ukraine’s representative in peace negotiations with Russia over the Kremlin’s undeclared war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Throughout his career, Kravchuk was known as a shrewd figure whose formidable political skills allowed him to navigate the unlikely transition from high-ranking Soviet official to leading figure in Ukraine’s independence movement. It was famously said of Kravchuk that he did not need to carry an umbrella as he could “slip between the raindrops.”

As Ukrainians mourned the passing of the country’s first post-Soviet president, the Atlantic Council invited a range of experts to share their recollections of Leonid Kravchuk and reflect on his place in Ukrainian history.

Daniel Fried, Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council: I got to know President Kravchuk long after his presidency during the period following the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014. When we met in Kyiv and Warsaw, he spoke of the need for Ukraine to transform itself, as Poland and the Baltic states had done after they regained their independence but as Ukraine had not done after 1991. He was right, but he was also late.

As president, Leonid Kravchuk led Ukraine to post-Soviet independence but not to a democratic, free-market, European national identity. In the 1990s, with Russia relatively benign and the US and Europe ready to start putting into practice the vision of a Europe whole and free through growing its core institutions of NATO and the EU, Ukraine as a society did not seem ready to embrace a future with the West. At the same time, the West didn’t seem ready to regard a European future for Ukraine as achievable. Sadly, the moment passed.

By the time Ukraine had embraced a European future after the 2004 Orange Revolution and 2014 Revolution of Dignity, Putin had revealed himself as determined to reconquer as much of the old Russian Empire as he could reach. I understood from our many conversations that President Kravchuk knew this. He was determined to match his earlier achievement in fostering Ukraine’s independence by championing its internal transformation and, on that basis, solidifying its Europe identity and future.

Ukraine is now fighting to maintain its independence. When it achieves this, as looks likely, Ukraine will have to turn to the next task and focus once again on Kravchuk’s last great goal: building a country worthy of the sacrifice and courage of the Ukrainian people. Leonid Kravchuk’s championing of Ukrainian independence was a great deed and he understood the next challenges facing the country.

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Miriam Kosmehl, Senior Expert Eastern Europe, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Germany: Naturally, Leonid Kravchuk will primarily be remembered as the first president of post-Soviet Ukraine, after more than 90 percent of Ukrainian voters supported independence in December 1991.

It was Kravchuk who then met with Russia’s Boris Yeltsin and Belarus’s Stanislav Shushkevich to dissolve the Gorbachev-led Soviet Union. I am not sure Kravchuk will be remembered as positively as Shushkevich, who became an outspoken critic of his successor Alyasandr Lukashenka, but he was a different personality as a former party official. At any rate, Kravchuk’s role in those difficult times should not be underestimated. He was a clever party politician but by no means a stubborn ideologue. He sensed the wind of change and the window of opportunity, and was able to draw undecided people to his side.

While he contributed to the establishment of democratic traditions in Ukraine with the peaceful transfer of power following his defeat in the 1994 presidential election, Kravchuk did not always choose his partners wisely during his subsequent political career. Some may accuse him of not getting more out of negotiations over the surrender of Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal that resulted in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. However, critics must also recognize that the pressure from Moscow and Washington was enormous and he had little room for maneuver.

It is particularly tragic that Kravchuk has died at a time when the independence he helped build is threatened by Putin’s war of aggression. This reflects the fact that unlike Ukraine, Russia remains trapped in the past and has failed to progress towards a more positive sense of modern statehood.

Anders Åslund, Senior Fellow, Stockholm Free World Forum: I first met Leonid Kravchuk in Davos in January 1991. He was a jovial, mild and humble person who appeared a very unlikely second secretary for ideology of the hardline Communist Party of Ukraine. Kravchuk won by being underestimated and kind, usually with a mild smile on his lips.

In the course of 1991, he transformed himself from high-ranking Ukrainian communist to a leading Ukrainian nationalist. Coming from a small village in western Ukraine, he spoke perfect Ukrainian. The saying went that Kravchuk did not need an umbrella because he walked between the raindrops.

His three greatest successes occurred in December 1991. Ukraine voted overwhelmingly for independence; Kravchuk was elected Ukraine’s first president; and together with Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin and Belarusian leader Stanislav Shushkevich, he dissolved the Soviet Union. Coincidentally, Shushkevich died one week before Kravchuk, also aged 88.

Kravchuk’s worst side was his economic policy. Due to his training in Marxist-Leninist political economy he had no clue on economic matters and led Ukraine into the hyperinflation and chaos of the early 1990s. Fortunately, he accepted early presidential elections in 1994, which he unexpectedly lost to Leonid Kuchma. To his credit, Kravchuk accepted his loss and set a fine precedent for the peaceful democratic transition of power in independent Ukraine. Afterwards, Kravchuk played the role of elder statesman honorably and was always appreciated at national and international events. He was active until the very end. He will be missed.

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Diane Francis, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council: I first interviewed Leonid Kravchuk in early 1992, just six months after the dawn of Ukrainian independence. We spoke again in 2015 following the Revolution of Dignity and Russia’s seizure of Crimea and part of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. Despite the 23-year gap between these two conversations, much remained the same. Ukrainians were still concerned about the threat to their statehood coming from Moscow.

Kravchuk told me that Ukraine had been held hostage by Russia ever since independence and had effectively been occupied by the Russians in terms of the economy, investment and trade. “They took away the best assets. They occupied Ukraine step by step gradually then eventually at very the top. It used to be that they controlled only trade and the economy but then it became the political and military leadership. Putin’s policy is to conquer Ukraine and keep it a slave.”

We shook hands and Kravchuk told me that Ukrainians must never give up their country. Now he’s gone and they are still fighting.

Taras Kuzio, Research Fellow, Henry Jackson Society: Leonid Kravchuk has earned himself a place in Ukrainian history as the godfather of Ukrainian independence. Coming from western Ukraine in a state with a communist political tradition, Kravchuk was in the right place at the right time. He was able to successfully traverse the Soviet system and navigate widespread Russian resistance to Ukrainian independence, something which former dissidents and members of the oppositionist independence movement would not have had the political skills to do.

Kravchuk made three key contributions to Ukrainian independence. He mobilised parliament to overwhelmingly adopt the declaration of independence in August 1991; he persuaded southern and eastern Ukraine to support the December 1991 referendum on independence; and he convinced Boris Yeltsin to dismantle the USSR.

Kravchuk will also be remembered for peacefully transferring power when he lost the 1994 presidential election. This firmly established Ukraine on its path of democratisation. Vichna yomu pamyat!

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

As for the Belarusian autocrat’s concern, the only threats of nuclear use since the war began have come from his ally, Vladimir Putin, and other senior figures in Moscow. On February 27, for no apparent reason, Putin announced that Russia’s nuclear forces had been placed on “special combat readiness.” On April 25, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the nuclear threat should not be underestimated.

Meanwhile, on one of Russia’s flagship television shows, leading propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov gleefully depicted a Russian nuclear weapon devastating the United Kingdom. This was one of several recent references by Kremlin TV pundits to Russia’s nuclear arms and the use of nuclear weapons. It is worth noting that none of these pundits has addressed what would happen to Russia when the inevitable retaliation arrived.

Despite the worrisome words from Moscow, the Pentagon has said that it currently sees no change in Russia’s nuclear posture.

So far, senior Russian military leaders have remained largely silent on the nuclear issue. Perhaps they understand better than Putin, Lavrov and Kiselyov that Russia’s introduction of nuclear weapons into the current war with Ukraine would open a Pandora’s Box full of unpredictable, nasty and potentially catastrophic consequences, including for Russia.

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Lukashenka cannot comfortably distance himself from the nuclear issue. He is heavily dependent on Moscow’s support and recently oversaw a contrived referendum to approve a new Belarusian Constitution which permits nuclear weapons, presumably Russian, to be deployed in Belarus. Putin and Lavrov’s irresponsible attempts at nuclear intimidation should therefore worry Lukashenka, who also recently professed to be troubled that the war in Ukraine had “dragged on” longer than expected.

During much of the Cold War, NATO faced off against the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. Both sides arrayed against one another large conventional forces backed by nuclear weapons. NATO periodically war-gamed how a conflict with Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces would play out. These war games were sometimes designed with a nuclear element in order to give players a feel for the kind of consultations that would have to occur in the event of a nuclear war.

In those war games, if NATO decided to go nuclear, several questions arose. Perhaps the most important question was the choice of target for a nuclear strike. NATO of course did not want to target its own territory, but targeting Soviet territory could prove too escalatory. One other option presented itself: a strike against Soviet forces and other targets in the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact countries.

Fast forward to 2022. If the Kremlin were now to make the extremely reckless decision to use a nuclear weapon and NATO deemed a response necessary, the alliance would have a variety of options. One would be an overwhelming conventional counter-attack.

However, if the alliance considered a nuclear response, similar thinking as during the Cold War would likely apply. NATO would not want to target a nuclear weapon on NATO territory and might regard immediately striking Russian territory as too escalatory. As the victim of Russia’s invasion and a recipient of strong political support and major military assistance from NATO members, Ukraine would also be ruled out. This would leave Belarus. And Lukashenka has allowed the Russians to deploy plenty of possible military targets on his country’s territory.

Russia will hopefully not be foolish enough to use a nuclear weapon. However, the Belarusian autocrat might want to think about the potential implications for his own country. If the war drags on and the Kremlin, which has already made a series of miscalculations, were to make another regarding nuclear use, Lukashenka could well find that he has dragged Belarus into far more than he bargained for.

Steven Pifer is a William J. Perry Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and a retired Foreign Service officer.

Atlantic Council — Wed, 04 May 2022 13:47:00 +0000