by Peter Jenkins
Last week an independent, cross-party commission of inquiry into UK nuclear weapons policy issued its report.
The commission (comprising three politicians, two diplomats, one field marshal and two academics) reviewed the arguments for and against the UK retaining nuclear weapons. They came, somewhat hesitantly, to the conclusion that [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
Last week an independent, cross-party commission of inquiry into UK nuclear weapons policy issued its report.
The commission (comprising three politicians, two diplomats, one field marshal and two academics) reviewed the arguments for and against the UK retaining nuclear weapons. They came, somewhat hesitantly, to the conclusion that on balance a UK strategic nuclear deterrent should be retained.
LobeLog readers may be most interested in the commission’s review of the global threat environment, which is based on a distinction between threats that are an argument for retaining a nuclear deterrent and threats that are not.
That review opens with an endorsement for the British government’s view that threats are a product of both capability and intent: “The Commission [agrees] that currently no state has both the intent to threaten our vital interests and the capability to do so with nuclear weapons.”
This reminder of the compound nature of nuclear threats is relevant to the US debate on Iran’s nuclear activities — relevant, indeed, to the negotiations that are ongoing in Vienna. A fixation on Iran’s growing nuclear capabilities seems to blind some to the fact that there is still no sign that Iran’s leaders intend to build and use nuclear weapons to threaten vital US interests.
The commission’s view is that an Iranian nuclear threat has yet to emerge and (by implication) is not bound to do so: “Any further development of a nuclear programme in Iran, were the current developments to take a turn for the worse, is not a reason on its own for Britain to retain a nuclear deterrent.”
The commission is equally sanguine about the potential for the four nuclear–armed states (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) to pose a threat that requires the retention of a nuclear deterrent. The commission is confident that neither India nor Pakistan will ever want to target the UK. They consider the UK’s strategic footprint in the Far East too small (what a change over the last 100 years!) for North Korea’s nuclear weapons to pose a substantial threat to the UK. Of Israel they write: “Israel’s nuclear arsenal does present a major challenge to regional arms control in the Middle East and to universalisation of the NPT, and as such is a difficult and critical obstacle to realising the essential global non-proliferation agenda. But it is no direct threat to the UK.”
These conclusions, together with the belief that strategic confrontation with China is highly unlikely, leave the commission contemplating only one possible threat as an argument for retention. In the commission’s view, recent events show that Russia is willing “to use the threat of military force…to shape the internal affairs of a sovereign country to conform to its desires.” This prompts the commission to the conclusion that NATO (and, by implication, Britain) should maintain a capacity to deter Russia from considering nuclear blackmail in pursuit of political objectives.
Following are three other arguments for retention, in the commission’s opinion:
- while the US Trident program dwarfs the British one, there would be a technical, scientific and economic impact on the US were the UK to pull out, and the US might resent that;
- the UK is explicitly committed to contributing to NATO security through its nuclear forces;
- the pursuit of a multilateral nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament agenda is crucial to strengthening UK security; possession of nuclear forces allows the UK to retain influence over the other Nuclear Weapon States, and to encourage them to move towards the shared US/UK vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.
And here are four arguments that the commission dismisses:
- the UK’s international status would suffer were it to give up nuclear weapons;
- nuclear weapons can deter attacks by non-state actors, or chemical and biological weapon use by hostile states;
- nuclear weapons are needed as a general insurance against an uncertain future;
- nuclear weapons can serve as a “shield” for UK conventional forces to intervene out-of-area.
In reviewing industrial and budgetary considerations, the commission is more tentative. They recognize that several British communities have been dependent on the UK submarine industry for their viability, but they believe it would be wrong to allow this to be a decisive influence on a national security question. They find that capital expenditure on the Trident program, during the years when replacement submarines are being procured, will consume a quarter of the Defense Ministry’s capital projects budget, but they characterize this cost as “not prohibitive given the possible implications were the UK in future to face a nuclear-armed state.”
This last sentence suggests one flaw in the report. Though the commission is opposed to seeing a nuclear deterrent as insurance against uncertainty, their central argument can be reduced, irreverently, to: “We don’t really need it now, but it could come in handy one day.” Of course, this may be fitting: a majority of Britons would probably agree.
Photo: The HMS Victorious is the second Vanguard-class submarine of the Royal Navy. Victorious carries the Trident ballistic missile, the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
]]>Having pulled all the stops to avert an Israeli attack against Iran last spring that never happened, has the Obama administration given all that it has to Israel’s hawkish leaders, only to learn that it has been played? If so, how might this affect the US response to Israeli warnings that [...]]]>
Having pulled all the stops to avert an Israeli attack against Iran last spring that never happened, has the Obama administration given all that it has to Israel’s hawkish leaders, only to learn that it has been played? If so, how might this affect the US response to Israeli warnings that it will attack Iran before the 2012 presidential election?
Martin Indyk, a former US Ambassador to Israel during the Clinton years who is now head of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, is reported by the Sheldon Adelson-owned Israel Hayom to have told Israel Army Radio on August 23 that:
The administration was convinced that Israel was going to attack in the spring. That was the official assessment, everyone ran to battle stations, mobilized, engaged with the Israelis, did whatever they could to calm them down and make it clear that the President [Barack Obama] was absolutely committed to Israel’s security and to ensuring that Iran would not get nuclear weapons. That seemed to work fine. But after that, the administration concluded that Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and Defense Minister [Ehud] Barak were engaged in a complete bluff, and having succeeded in bluffing them, I think they were wary of being bluffed again.
When Obama met with Netanyahu in March, according to Indyk, the president came away convinced that an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities was about to occur. He did everything possible to reassure Israel’s leader that the US would do whatever was necessary to deter Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability. “Apparently, Israel complied, as no attack has yet taken place,” according to the religious nationalist news site Arutz Sheva.
A diplomatic success story? Hardly, according to The Jerusalem Post:
After no Israeli strike took place, Indyk said that the US officials felt as though they had been duped by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s ruse. The former ambassador added that there is a sense within the US government that Washington is once again being misled by Israeli declarations and leaks.
It’s not clear whether Indyk is working for or against the President in suggesting that the Obama administration feels it was played by Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. Or, by stating that after having been misled about Israel’s intentions, the administration remains committed to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons but views Israel as “the boy who cried wolf” and is therefore taking less seriously the hyperbolic hints that Israel will attack Iran prior to the US election. It’s possible that Indyk’s current message intentionally contrasts with the recent recommendation of fellow Clinton adviser Dennis Ross that Obama try to avert an Israeli military strike on Iran by promising Netanyahu even more armaments and military support.
The author of the Clinton administration’s “dual containment” policy that simultaneously targeted Iran and Iraq (instead of playing the two Persian Gulf powers off against one another as traditional “balance of power ” strategic logic would have suggested), Indyk has served as Assistant Secretary of State for Near East affairs, Special Assistant to the President, and the US National Security Council’s senior director for Near East and South Asia. Bill Clinton appointed Indyk as Ambassador to Israel in 1993. A former Research Director at the American Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Indyk was the founding director of the Washington Institution for Near East Policy (WINEP), an AIPAC-created think tank dedicated to influencing the executive branch on Middle East foreign policy while AIPAC focused on lobbying members of Congress. Indyk is also the founding director of Brookings’ Saban Center for Middle East Policy. During the 2008 presidential primaries, Indyk backed Hillary Clinton, but supported Barack Obama when he won the Democratic nomination.
In the past several months, however, Indyk has grown critical of Obama’s foreign policy. As co-author of Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy (with Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Lieberthal) he classified Obama as a pragmatist who opted for reasonable policies — often the least-worst available options — “with an approach typified by thoroughness, reasonably good teamwork, and flexibility when needed”. Indyk told Nahum Barnea of the Hebrew-language Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot in an interview coinciding with the book’s publication that despite the greatness of the vision he presented, “Obama’s cold, analytical and aloof attitude didn’t suit the Middle Eastern climate.”
In a February 29 op-ed in the New York Times, Indyk criticized the “fundamental design flaw” in the Obama administration’s Iran sanctions policy. Indyk warned that “crippling” sanctions designed to “persuade the Israelis that there is a viable alternative to a preventive strike” could backfire as “the Iranians conclude that they have no choice but to press ahead in acquiring the ultimate means of assuring the regime’s survival.” Furthermore, Indyk opined, the constant warnings of Obama’s military advisers about the grave consequences of a military strike by Israel might signal that the US cannot be counted upon to restrain the Israelis from launching a war against Iran. Indyk also suggested that election year rhetoric might impact Iran’s strategic calculus. The louder Obama insists that that he will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, the more likely it is that that Iran will respond defiantly:
The only way out of the vicious circle is for Khamenei to understand that Obama is not seeking his overthrow — that behind the negotiating door lies a path to Iran’s peaceful use of nuclear power and not a corridor to the gallows. But how, while pursuing sanctions designed to cut Iran’s economic jugular, can Obama credibly signal this to Khamenei without opening himself up to the charge of weakness? Any hint of reassurance to the Iranian regime will surely be seized upon by his Republican rivals as a sign of appeasement.
Yet during an Yediot Aharonot interview at the end of May, Indyk recommended that Israelis be wary of US efforts to negotiate with Iran. “The Israeli response must be skeptical, regardless of what exactly is agreed upon there,” Indyk said. “When others are negotiating in your stead, you have every reason to suspect you are being sold out.”
In his latest interview, Indyk’s message seems to be that Obama has nothing left to promise Netanyahu:
Essentially, the U.S. had done everything it could to reassure Israel, the president doesn’t have anything more in his quiver, no other arrow to shoot to reassure it. I think this time around they thought, ‘Here we go again, there’s nothing more we can do we’ll just learn to live with it.
What exactly is Indyk’s game?
]]>More expert opinion discrediting the alarmist claims being made about the latest IAEA report, which recycles old and suspicious intelligence. This time from former IAEA inspector, Robert Kelley, interviewed here on The Real News.
]]>More expert opinion discrediting the alarmist claims being made about the latest IAEA report, which recycles old and suspicious intelligence. This time from former IAEA inspector, Robert Kelley, interviewed here on The Real News.
]]>