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:
And here are four arguments that the commission dismisses:
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.
]]>by Rod Mamudi
In its nuclear program, [Iran's] government enters with full power and has complete authority. I have given the nuclear negotiations portfolio to foreign ministry. The problem won’t be from our side. We have sufficient political latitude to solve this problem.
Such were the words of Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani, [...]]]>
by Rod Mamudi
In its nuclear program, [Iran's] government enters with full power and has complete authority. I have given the nuclear negotiations portfolio to foreign ministry. The problem won’t be from our side. We have sufficient political latitude to solve this problem.
Such were the words of Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani, last Wednesday, speaking to both domestic and foreign audiences by way of NBC News. They came one day after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei spoke of the virtues of “heroic flexibility” in negotiations. Since then speculation that Presidents Obama and Rouhani could meet at this week’s UN General Assembly (UNGA) — and in doing so, transform relations between the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran — has been flourishing.
Unsurprisingly, Israeli concerns over this possibility are dovetailing with their reported dissatisfaction over the Syrian chemical weapons-transfer. Their key complaint was alluded to by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu last weekend when he repeated his call for a “credible military threat” in the US’s dealings with Iran. Tehran insists that its nuclear program remains geared towards peaceful purposes, but Netanyahu argues that the perceived military climb-down over Syria will embolden Iran in its alleged nuclear-weapons pursuit while it stalls for more time.
But Israel stands to gain the most from a peaceful resolution to this issue.
A non-nuclear Iran is a clear security imperative for the Israel. But this is just one component in the Israeli calculus. More broadly, Israel has a serious interest in maintaining the current Middle Eastern nuclear status quo, in which Israel is tacitly acknowledged as the sole regional state with a nuclear arsenal.
A negotiated resolution to Iran’s nuclear dossier can preserve this overall objective. A military strike on the other hand, while the most direct short-term route to a non-nuclear Iran, could endanger Israel’s nuclear monopoly.
Meeting with US Chief of Staff General Martin Dempsey last month, Netanyahu stated that Iran “dwarfs” all other security challenges. In July, Netanyahu said on US television that Iran was now pursuing both uranium and plutonium routes to weaponization, and working on inter-continental ballistic missiles. A credible threat of force against Iran is therefore necessary, according to Netanyahu, because it is “the only thing that will get their attention”.
But Netanyahu has described the threat of force as necessary, not force itself. The Israeli position, vividly illustrated at last year’s UNGA, could be the “bad cop” to the US’ “good cop”; a method to harness both stick and carrot.
At some point, however, not delivering on a threat starts to become dangerous. Some speak confidently of Israel’s ability to conduct a surgical strike and eliminate an immediate threat of nuclear weaponization. But Iran is not Iraq or Syria. Either way, few argue this would keep Iran from a bomb indefinitely. In fact, striking Iran could speed up Israel’s worst nightmare as a cornered Iran rushes to defend itself.
There are, however, three possible alternatives to war: a continuation of the regional nuclear status quo; a proliferation of weapons in response to escalation; or a renewed drive to establishing a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East, which I will focus on.
Normally a NWFZ treaty will seek to prohibit the acquisition, testing, and use of nuclear weapons in the region. It will involve some kind of framework for the treaty’s monitoring and implementation, and, importantly, positive and negative guarantees from the five nuclear-weapons states (NWS) including security assurances in the event of an attack from outside the Treaty-area and on the non-use of nuclear weapons against the treaty’s signatories. There have been various reservations to these norms, but this is the pattern.
Currently there are five NWFZ Treaties across the world. A treaty was applied in the Caribbean and Latin America in 1969. Costa Rica had made a proposal as early as 1958, but the reaction was cool. But by 1963, a few months after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Mexico joined Costa Rica’s call. By February 1967, despite outright hostility from some quarters, a Treaty was prepared for signature. Cuba was the last to ratify in 2002.
The geostrategic situation post-Missile Crisis was ostensibly the same as that of the pre-Missile Crisis. The warheads had been removed, but the nearest countries had received a rude awakening; the crisis had thus served as a catalyst.
Prospects for a NWFZ in the Middle East are slim now for a number of reasons. But the idea is there. Iran and Egypt called for one in 1974. In 1990, Hosni Mubarak called for a weapons-of-mass-destruction free zone. UNSC Resolution 687, which terminated the 1991 Gulf War, described Iraqi disarmament as one of “steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction”. The UN’s 2010 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Review Conference called for a meeting on this subject by 2012 (yet to occur).
Political flux further complicates the issue. Outside powers may yet decide such changes require a stronger commitment framework.
A crisis, coupled with the many complications arising from an arms race, may begin to drive momentum on a NWFZ in the Middle East. None of this means Israel would disarm, but it could make its position extremely politically complicated. And however remote this prospect may seem today, the tides of change hardly look like they’ve receded in the Middle East. Indeed, how many could have guessed six months ago that much of the buzz ahead of the 68th annual UNGA would be around a potential US/Iran meeting?
Using the “military option” on Iran could see off an immediate threat to Israel’s regional nuclear monopoly, but it could also trigger a crisis that compromises Israel’s currently favored status quo. But a negotiated settlement — the seeds of which could be planted at this week’s UNGA — bypasses this dilemma altogether, not to mention the many pitfalls of using force against Iran.
– Rod Mamudi is a recent graduate of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po Paris, where his research focused on Iranian foreign policy.
- Photo Credit: United Nations
]]>by Marsha B. Cohen
Last week marked the 68th anniversary of the WWII destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9) — the first and only deployment of nuclear weapons in human history. Within moments of the nuclear explosions that destroyed these cities, at least 200,000 people [...]]]>
by Marsha B. Cohen
Last week marked the 68th anniversary of the WWII destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9) — the first and only deployment of nuclear weapons in human history. Within moments of the nuclear explosions that destroyed these cities, at least 200,000 people lost their lives. Tens of thousands subsequently died from radiation poisoning within the next two weeks. The effects linger to this day.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has implied that this would the be fate of Israel if Iran was allowed to obtain nuclear weapon-making capabilities, including the ability to enrich high-grade uranium. To prevent this from happening, the economy of Iran must be crippled by sanctions and the fourth largest oil reserves in the world must be barred from global markets, as the oil fields in which they are situated deteriorate. Israel — the only state in the region that actually possesses nuclear weapons and has blocked all efforts to create a Middle East Nuclear Weapon Free Zone – should thus be armed with cutting-edge American weaponry. Finally, the US must not only stand behind its sole reliable Middle East ally, which could strike Iran at will, it should ideally also lead — not merely condone — a military assault against Iranian nuclear facilities.
Netanyahu invariably frames the threat posed by Iranian nuclear capability (a term that blurs distinctions between civilian and potential military applications of nuclear technology) as “Auschwitz” rather than “Hiroshima and Nagasaki”, even though the latter might be a more apt analogy. The potential for another Auschwitz is predicated on the image of an Israel that is unable — or unwilling to — defend itself, resulting in six million Jews going “like sheep to the slaughter.” But if Israel and/or the US were to attack Iran instead of the other way around, “Hiroshima and Nagasaki” would be the analogy to apply to Iran.
A country dropping bombs on any country that has not attacked first is an act of war, as the US was quick to point out when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor — and this includes so-called “surgical strikes”. In a July 19 letter about US options in Syria, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reminded the Senate Armed Services Committee that “…the decision to use force is not one that any of us takes lightly. It is no less than an act of war” [emphasis added].
If the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during wartime remains morally and militarily questionable, one might think that there would be even less justification for a military strike on Iran, with whom neither Israel nor the US is at war. Of course, there are those who disagree: the US is engaged in a war on terror, Iran has been designated by the US as the chief state sponsor of terrorism since 1984 and so on. Therefore, the US is, or should be, at war with Iran.
“All options are on the table” is the operative mantra with regard to the US halting Iran’s acquirement of a nuclear weapon. But if bombs start dropping on Iran, what kind will they be? In fact, the 30,000 lb. Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) that could be employed against Iranian nuclear facilities are nuclear weapons, since they derive their capability of penetrating 200 feet of concrete in the earth from depleted uranium. Furthermore, some Israelis have darkly hinted that, were Israel to confront Iran alone, it would be more likely to reach into its unacknowledged nuclear armoury if that meant the difference between victory and defeat.
Given all this, comparing the damage that would be done by bombing Iran with the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not farfetched. It also reveals some troubling parallels. In the years prior to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in response to what the US regarded as Japanese expansionism, imposed economic sanctions on Japan in 1937. Just before the US entered the war, an embargo was placed on US exports of oil to Japan, upon which Japan was utterly dependent.
In 1945, it was already clear that Japan was preparing to surrender and that the outstanding issue at hand was the status of its emperor. There was neither a military nor political need to use atomic weapons to bring an end to the war. Numerous justifications for dropping atomic bombs on Japan were invoked, but nearly all of them were challenged or discredited within a few years after the war ended. Three are particularly noteworthy today, as we continue to face the prospect of war with Iran.
Saving lives: US Secretary of War Henry Stimson justified the decision to use atomic weapons as “the least abhorrent choice” since it would not only would save the lives of up to a million American soldiers who might perish in a ground assault on Japan, it would also spare the lives of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians who were being killed in fire bombings. President Harry Truman also claimed that “thousands of lives would be saved” and “a quarter of a million of the flower of our young manhood was worth a couple of Japanese cities.” But as Andrew Dilks points out, “None of these statements were based on any evidence.”
Speaking in Warsaw, Poland on June 12 — two days before the Iranian election that he declared would “change nothing” with regard to Iran’s alleged quest to develop nuclear weaponry — Netanyahu used the opening of an Auschwitz memorial to make his case. “This is a regime that is building nuclear weapons with the expressed purpose to annihilate Israel’s six million Jews,” he said. “We will not allow this to happen. We will never allow another Holocaust.” About the Iranians who would perish after an Israeli attack, Netanyahu said nothing.
Justifying expenditures: The total estimated cost of the Manhattan Project, which developed the bombs dropped on Japan, was nearly $2 billion in 1945, the equivalent of slightly more than $30 billion today. Secretary of State James Byrnes pointed out to President Harry Truman, who was up for re-election in 1948, that he could expect to be berated by Republicans for spending such a large amount on weapons that were never used, according to MIT’s John Dower.
A recent report by the Congressional Research Service shows that Israel is the single largest recipient of US aid, receiving a cumulative $118 billion, most of it military aid. The Bush administration and the Israeli government had agreed to a 10-year, $30 billion military aid package in 2007, which assured Israel of funding through 2018. During his March 2013 visit to Israel, President Barack Obama, who had been criticized by the US pro-Israel lobby for being less concerned than previous American presidents about Israel’s well being and survival, pledged that the United States would continue to provide Israel with multi-year commitments of military aid subject to the approval of Congress. Not to be outdone, the otherwise tightfisted Congress not only approved the added assistance Obama had promised, it also increased it. An Iran that is not depicted as dangerous would jeopardize the generous military assistance Israel receives. What better way to demonstrate how badly needed those US taxpayer dollars are than to show them in action?
Technological research and development: One of the most puzzling questions about the decision to use nuclear weaponry against Japan is why, three days after the utter devastation wreaked on Hiroshima, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. It was unnecessary from a militarily perspective. Perhaps the answer exists in the fact that the Manhattan Project had produced different types of atomic bombs: the destructive power of the “Little Boy”, which fell on Hiroshima, came from uranium; the power of “Fat Man”, which exploded over Nagasaki, came from plutonium. What better way to “scientifically” compare their effectiveness at annihilation than by using both?
The award winning Israeli documentary, The Lab, which opens in the US this month, reveals that Israel has used Lebanon and Gaza as a testing ground for advances in weaponry. Jonathan Cook writes, “Attacks such as Operation Cast Lead of winter 2008-09 or last year’s Operation Pillar of Defence, the film argues, serve as little more than laboratory-style experiments to evaluate and refine the effectiveness of new military approaches, both strategies and weaponry.” Israeli military leaders have strongly hinted that in conducting air strikes against Syria, the Israeli Air Force is rehearsing for an attack on Iran, including the use of bunker-buster bombs.
The Pentagon, which reportedly has invested $500 million in developing and revamping MOP “bunker busters”, recently spent millions building a replica of Iran’s Fordow nuclear research facility in order to demonstrate to the Israelis that Iranian nuclear facilities can be destroyed when the time is right.
Gen. Dempsey arrived in Israel on Monday to meet with Israel’s Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and Israel’s political leaders. Members of Congress from both political parties are also visiting — Democrats last week, Republicans this week — on an AIPAC-sponsored “fact-finding” mission. No doubt they will hear yet again from Israeli leaders that the world cannot allow another Auschwitz.
The world cannot allow another Hiroshima and Nagasaki either.