A New START for a New Year

I recently finished George Friedman's "The Next 100 Years." I recommend it, not because I agree with most of it, but because it has some excellent nuggets, and the author does a superb job walking through his logic. That makes it easy for the reader to determine where he and Friedman diverge.

Friedman's major point is that geopolitics will dominate the next century, just as it did the last.  While that initially seemed a sound point, he then makes a too-literal argument for geopolitics--that nation-state war will continue just as it did in the 1800's and early 1900's. That's where he goes wrong, and where the New START treaty comes in.

The argument most opponents of New START make is that it doesn't restrict tactical nuclear weapons. (The other argument is that missile defense is discussed in the preamble, which the Senate, in its ratification, specified is not legally binding.)  It doesn't, but the lack of limits on tactical nukes really shouldn't be a surprise in a treaty called the STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

While Russia can certainly invade Georgia if it wants to, it doesn't need tactical nuclear weapons to do it.  It can do so simply because of its size.  It cannot, however, invade a NATO member.  Or, more precisly, it dare not.  Russia invaded Georgia for many reasons, but not the least of which was making the point to NATO that they should choose their friends carefully.  True, but the reverse is also true--it is unlikely Russia is willing to risk war, let alone nuclear war, by challenging NATO so blatantly.  The Soviet Union never risked it.

And, if Russia won't risk nuclear retaliation, what good are its thousands of tactical nukes?  I think Friedman goes wrong when he thinks European nations will return to their pre-World War II ways because of "geopolitics." In the world he supposes, possession of nuclear weapons becomes the guarantor of national survival, and any advanced nation-state can develop a nuclear weapon in a matter of years, not decades.  But--and this is key--nukes are not a weapon that can be used to coerce.  Doing so is simply not credible. 

It is possible, however unlikely, that nation-states might risk the 21st century equivalent of a conventional "border war," but Russia threatening to use tactical nukes in any situation is simply not credible--the risk is too great.  The last thing Russia wants is NATO members abandoning the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and developing their own defensive nuclear arsenal.  So, given that, Russia's tactical nukes are a threat only as far as they are at risk of loss or theft.  That certainly has a probability greater than 0, but the logical follow-on to that concern is that anything we can do to reduce the Russian nuclear arsenal equals progress.

Russia may not see it that way, but ultimately, that doesn't really matter.  What does matter is that Russia has made clear they wouldn't be interested in a New START follow-on if they couldn't count on the US to ratify the deal they negotiated.  Geopolitics aside, that's actually a pretty reasonable position.  Would you talk to a car dealer or realtor that offered you a deal, and then reneged without good cause? Doubtful.

So, ultimately, New START simply restarts old START, and shaves a few more warheads off the Moscow Treaty limits negotiated under the Bush administration. Yes, there are some limits on launchers, but those are questions the military has dealt with since the original SALT talks.  There are many good questions about whether we negotiated the best deal possible, but that's a separate issue.  The Senate can certainly address that later, if they're really interested.  Secretary Clinton will certainly testify next year on many things, and that might be an excellent question.

But, ultimately, ratification was an easy choice--little downside, a necessary step to further progress, and lays the foundation for the real conversation yet to come.

Happy New Year.

Nuclear Posture Review: A Whole Lot of Nothing

From Charles Krauthamer on the right to Newsweek on the left, everyone seems to be freaked out over the Nuclear Posture Review. President Obama has either given away our safety or made the greatest strides towards world peace since nuclear weapons were invented.

I think the NPR is a bunch of nothing. In the NPR, President Obama commits the United States to not using or threatening to use nuclear weapons any non-nuclear state that uses chemical or biological weapons against us, as long as they are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Special exceptions are carved out for Iran and North Korea.

Seriously? And, which countries, exactly, are we worried about that 1) don't have nukes, 2) are in compliance with the NPT, and 3) might attack us with chemical or biological weapons? Oh, let's not forget the caveat that we might change our mind.

By my count, we're talking Syria now, Iran in the next few years, and maybe Burma (excuse me, Myanmar). Does anyone seriously think we'd attack Syria with nukes because they attack Israel with chemical weapons? I think Israel might solve that little problem. Iran? Self-solving. They either aren't a threat, or aren't in compliance with NPT. Burma? Same deal. So, the NPR actually says absolutely nothing that couldn't be said by the most right-wing President ever. That also means it's as meaningless as could be--it doesn't change our actual policy one whit. It sounds nice. But, re-read the Bush 2002 National Security Strategy, and ask whether it could have just as easily been written by President Clinton.

Let's not get overly excited, disappointed, or emotional about the NPR. It doesn't really change anything.

Piracy on the High Seas

The recent capture of the Maersk Alabama off Somalia put a spotlight on a problem that the shipping industry has been dealing with for years. For most people, piracy is something from the history books, but may I recommend John S. Burnett’s Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terrorism on the High Seas for a more up-to-date look. Burnett focuses on the piracy problems in and around the Straits of Malacca, between Indonesia and Malaysia, which will lead to some interesting observations.

Piracy exists because piracy pays. Modern ships, and modern cargos, are enormously expensive, and no ship moves without insurance. Given a choice between paying a $2 million ransom and risking a $100 million ship and cargo, the cost/benefit answer is easy. Of course, paying the ransom just tells the pirates that they have a good business model—that crime pays.

An interesting aspect of piracy is that it is one of two crimes defined universally. The other is human trafficking (a.k.a. slavery). In other words, it is defined as a crime worldwide, and every nation has jurisdiction under the International Convention on the Law of the Sea. The United States hasn’t ratified ICLOS, but the UN assures us that the treaty has become customary international law. Interesting, but it doesn’t really matter, because Title 18, US Code, defines piracy as a crime punishable by life in prison.

So, what is piracy? Well, obviously, taking over or robbing a ship on the high seas. But, an important aspect is that if a ship is captured by pirates, it becomes a pirate ship. So, you don’t have to “catch them in the act” of taking over a ship. And, since a captured ship becomes a pirate, its flag no longer matters—you don’t legally have to ask permission from the ship’s flag state to take action.

Then, why is piracy so politically charged? Well, the first problem is that no one wants to take the pirates into custody. While any nation can legally prosecute pirates, few want a bunch of Somali teenagers in their prisons. Kenya is an exception—it has recognized that piracy will affect it directly. If insurance companies insist ships take the long route around the Cape of Good Hope, the ships no longer call at Kenyan ports. So, Kenya has been willing to take captured pirates and put them on trial. (There are other nations that will take them, but they skip the trial part before passing sentence. That discourages a lot of countries from letting their navies participate in counter-piracy operations.)

The other problem is the worry about injuring or killing the merchant crew. If they are hostages, then even though a warship has a legal right to intervene in the pirate situation, it gets diplomatically complicated when a warship from nation A injures a crewman from nation B are on a ship flagged in nation C, owned by a company in nation D. And warships, generally, don't like anything that smells like "law enforcement"--even when they're allowed to do it.

There are also some limits. For instance, under ICLOS, only a warship can investigate an unknown vessel to determine whether it’s a pirate. Any ship not flying a flag on the high seas may be investigated, but only a warship can determine whether the suspect is a fishing trawler or a pirate mother ship (or a drug runner).

Who besides a warship would want to do that? That’s more interesting. The US Constitution authorizes Congress to define piracy and felonies on the high seas, and to grant letters of marque—which is a government authorization for a private ship to conduct specific warlike activities (boarding, seizing, sinking, etc.) At the Treaty of Paris, signatory nations declared that privateering was abolished, but the United States—and a lot of other nations—aren’t signatories, and abolishing privateering was more about ending commerce raiding than anything else. US law still describes how to obtain a letter of marque.

What’s really interesting is that under Title 33, US Code (Chapter 7, Section 386, if you want to look it up), the President is specifically authorized to use warships or private ships to deal with pirates!

So, what happened to piracy in the Straits of Malacca? It still happens, but this is the most important lesson: Malaysia decided it had had enough, and sent its navy to deal with the problem. It didn’t take long for pirates (many from across the strait in Indonesia) to get the idea that the business model had changed. That tells us that this isn’t an impossible problem—it isn’t a war on drugs, or poverty, or whatever. Piracy can be solved, or at least contained—after all, murder is illegal, but it happens. But it will take more than talk and hand wringing. It will take international will, or at least the will of a few nation states, for that to happen.