Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced on July 21 a series of measures to increase Washington’s ability to “prevent North Korea’s proliferation, to halt their illicit activities that helped fund their weapons programs and to discourage further provocative actions.”  She added, “We will implement new country-specific sanctions aimed at North Korea’s sale and procurement of arms and related material and the procurement of luxury goods and other illicit activities.”  Although the U.S is already committed to implementing exactly these sanctions under UN Security Council Resolutions 1718 and 1874, Ms. Clinton explained that they will now be more strictly imposed in response to steps North Korean entities have taken to adapt to the existing sanctions.   In addition to bolstering current sanctions, Washington also looks set to freeze a number of bank accounts associated with suspect North Korean companies, although on limited scale. So, is this latest development merely a posturing, the seeds of a major change in North Korean behavior, or likely to start a second Korean war?

In answering this question it’s important to look first at the context in which the U.S announcement was made.  March 26 saw the sinking of the Cheonan, on May 26  South Korea released its alleged evidence of North Korean culpability and ever since, U.S rhetoric has continued to condemn Pyongyang’s behavior while also warning of inevitable consequences.  Unfortunately for Washington though, ‘consequences’ did not arise for North   Korea when the Cheonan incident was finally raised at the United Nations Security Council in early July.  While the UNSC statement condemned the sinking of the ROK navy corvette and expressed “deep concern” over South Korea’s investigative report, the carefully worded text excluded any actual reference to the DPRK.  Consequently it came as no surprise that North Korea considered the UNSC statement a “diplomatic victory,” enabling it to elude any formal punishment at the Security Council.  This was of course due to China’s reticence on the issue, which derives from the fact that Beijing was unwilling to call out its communist neighbor by name (just as the U.S is rarely willing to do so with Israel)….

In the immediate follow-up to the Cheonan incident, a number of North Korea watchers made it clear that the U.S and South Korea would need to act decisively to restore deterrence over Pyongyang.  While the ROK had a number of measures planned, it initially realized very few beyond an anti-submarine drill in its West Sea.  The U.S and South  Korea have since announced a number of joint drills (regarded as highly controversial by both the DPRK and China), currently being scheduled to take place in both the East and West  Seas.  The “new” sanctions now being called for by Hillary Clinton seem to fit into a strategy that seeks, at least, to make it look like North Korea is being punished for the Cheonan incident – whether the UN likes it or not.

As some analysts have already commented, this new round of U.S sanctions will likely be regarded as “meaningless” by the DPRK.  It is important to remember that the U.S has had virtually no economic contact with Pyongyang since prior to the Korean War, and having already placed numerous sanctions on the country, has very little leverage left – if any at all in unilateral terms.  And as I have previously explained, for the type of ‘targeted’ sanctions currently being pursued to really bite, China would have to start implementing them with a lot more vigor.  While Hillary Clinton visited Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi to discuss exactly this issue last Thursday, the fact that the U.S chose not to consult with Beijing before announcing the new sanctions would not have bode well to secure Chinese cooperation on the issue , Foreign Policy.com suggests.

With the new sanctions unlikely to change things in Pyongyang, Ken Lieberthal is correct in suggesting that “The one approach that has caught North Korea’s attention in the past is financial sanctions that disrupt its access to the international banking system.” Indeed, George Bush’s freeze of DPRK assets held by the Banco Delta Asia (BDA) bank in 2005 caused significant consternation in North Korea.  However, even this was not without unintended consequences.  Indeed, the BDA freeze was very likely one of the motivating factors behind North Korea’s July 2006 missile tests and its October 2006 nuclear test – a series of tests that ultimately pushed the Bush administration to negotiate the frozen funds in return for a rejuvenation of the 6 Party Talks.   It may have been this record, in combination with North Korea’s post-Cheonan warning on further sanctions, that led Washington, keen to avoid further belligerency, to opt for a symbolic ‘tightening’ of the current set up and a limited approach to bank freezes, as opposed to anything more substantive.

Even though the new sanctions proposed by the U.S appear to make little difference, North   Korea has nevertheless reacted vehemently to them – labeling them a violation of the spirit of the recent UNSC statement.   They likely also contributed to the recent flurry of nuclear threats in response to the U.S & ROK naval exercises.  But although Pyongyang has warned that both the sanctions and naval drills ‘present a grave threat to the peace and security,’ history would suggest otherwise.   But at the same time, history would also suggest that symbolic ‘tightening’ of existing sanctions will have no affect on North   Korea’s future strategic thinking.  Instead, it seems increasingly clear that the U.S and South Korea will have to simultaneously embark on a credible engagement strategy with North   Korea if things are to ever change on the peninsula.  Of course, they could always opt for regime change a la Iraq, since we all know how well that worked out.

Two months after the Senate first passed their version of the war supplemental, the House passed the final version of the bill yesterday, 308-114.  Now all that stands between the military and a delicious $37.1 billion is the stroke of President Obama’s pen, coming in the next few days.

We’ve reported on this bill twice already, tracking its progress through Congress.  

A quick recap:

The Senate version of the bill, passed May 27, contained $58.8 billion in spending, including $37.1 billion for the war, over $13 billion for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange, $5.1 billion for FEMA, and $2.9 billion for Haiti disaster relief, as well as a host of smaller expenditures.

The House then passed its version of the bill on July 1, which accepted the Senate version while adding $22.8 billion in spending fully offset by $23.5 billion in cuts and law modifications.  This included a $10 billion education jobs fund, $1 billion for youth summer jobs, $5 billion in Pell grants, $4.6 billion to settle two class-action lawsuits, and $701 million for border security.

The bill then got sent back to the Senate, which was unable to invoke cloture on the new amendments on July 22 and ended up passing…the exact same bill they passed back on May 27.  

Ultimately, the House decided to play along, passing the original Senate version of the bill yesterday.  Thus, despite the title, the bill contains no funding for summer jobs and quite a bit for the war.

The bill created quite a bit of controversy, becoming a flash point for pro- and anti-war members of Congress.  Indeed, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI), despite steering the bill through committee, voted “no.”  The bill’s passage was not helped by the release of secret war documents on Wikileaks just a few days before, but ended up clearing the House in a bipartisan vote.

Update 7/28/10: The House approved the war supplemental later on Tuesday by a vote of 308-114. Obey was among the nays.

As the House nears a vote on the war supplemental, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey says he will not vote for the bill.

“I would be willing to support additional war funding – provided that Congress would vote – up or down – explicitly on whether or not to continue this policy after a new National Intelligence Estimate is produced. But absent that discipline, I cannot look my constituents in the eye and say that this operation will hurt our enemies more than us.”

Since President Obama first requested $33 billion in supplemental fiscal 2010 funds for the Pentagon in February, Congress’ concerns about the war in Afghanistan have increased.  Not helping, of course, is the recent leak of over 90,000 internal military documents detailing the war… the night before the vote.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer stated that despite concerns about the war in Afghanistan, members should vote for the funding bill.

“We may want to reconsider [the mission of the U.S. forces serving in Iraq and Afghanistan], but the fact is those troops are there now.”

As you know, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and the Heritage Foundation have been frequent guests on NoH.  See here and here for some of our recent collaborative work.  In the spirit of continued friendship, I thought I’d share a few thoughts on their latest contributions to the New START debate.

Sen. Inhofe

In today’s Roll Call, Sen. Inhofe argues that the 15 hearings held to date on New START in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee have been unbalanced because they have yet to include a witness who opposes the treaty.  Let’s set aside for the moment the fact that no sooner had the ink dried on Obama and Medvedev’s signature of the treaty than Sen. Inhofe declared his opposition to it (which belies his suggestion that he could make a more informed decision if only he could hear from witnesses who oppose the treaty.)  Let’s also set aside the fact that the Senator has only showed up for two of the thirteen public hearings on the treaty to date, including neither of the hearings with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, and STRATCOM Commander Kevin Chilton.

The Senator’s core argument – that the witness list has been unbalanced – is ludicrous.  Just look at the witnesses who have testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on New START…

Under the category of “Republican” and/or “assumed their position under the Bush administration” and/or “worked for a Republican Senator” and/or “is a lab director” there is: former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, Gates, Adm. Mullen, former Secretary of State James Baker, for Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, Gen. Chilton, Missile Defense Agency Director Patrick O’Reilly, former Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman, DTRA Director and former Lugar staffer Ken Myers III, Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Michael Anastasio, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory Director George Miller, and Sandia National Laboratory Director Paul Hommert.  If you’ve lost count, that’s a total of 15 witnesses.

Under the category of “Democrat” there is: former Secretary of Defense William Perry, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance and Implementation Rose Gottemoeller, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Jim Miller, Secretary of Defense Representative to Post-START Negotiations Ted Warner, and Mort Halperin.  That’s a total of 6 witnesses.

If you eliminate current administration officials and the lab directors, the ratio is 7 Republicans to 2 Democrats.

Thus, if there’s an imbalance, it’s heavily in favor of Republicans and former Bush administration officials!  Clearly the overwhelming bipartisan support for New START doesn’t matter to Sen. Inhofe; indeed it seems to have really upset him.  Not even Joseph and Edelman, who Inhofe commends for raising concerns about the treaty, said that they oppose the treaty.  

In sum, the Senator should be forced to answer a simple question: Why does he believe that our senior military leadership, all of whom assumed their current positions under the Bush administration, and statesmen in his own party have no idea what they’re talking about?

Baker Spring

Apparently the State Department’s New START verification assessment caused a bit of a stir at Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on New START, specifically the statement in the unclassified summary of the assessment that “any Russian cheating under the treaty would have little effect, if any, on the assured second-strike capabilities of U.S. strategic forces.”  Sen. McCain interpreted this trivial statement of fact to mean that we’d cavalierly accept any Russian cheating on the treaty.  But forget Sen. McCain.  Baker Spring smells a conspiracy:

The State Department’s report…effectively concedes that the Administration really favors a “minimum deterrence” strategic nuclear force, where a large disparity in the numbers of strategic nuclear warheads in favor of Russia is determined to be insignificant.

Baker, you can’t be serious!?  There’s simply no way one could read the Nuclear Posture Review or anything else the administration has said and come away from it thinking that the U.S. intends to start unilaterally disarming or that it would stand idly by if Russia began producing hundreds of additional missiles like salami.

A General Suggestion to the Heritage Foundation

The degree to which Heritage will say just about anything to cast doubt on New START is pretty amazing, though perhaps not surprising.  For example, yesterday Peter Brookes stated: “So we will cut our strategic nuclear warhead levels to 1,550, but Russia will keep 2,100. How does that advance American security?”  Also yesterday, Baker Spring opined: “Russia plans to maintain in excess of 2,000 real warheads [under New START].”  

But today Kim Holmes alleges: “Experts predict Russia’s strategic forces will drop to 1,000 warheads, which is below the 1,550 level of accountable warheads in New START, with or without the treaty.”  It would be nice if Heritage could at least get its story straight, even if they continue to have a little trouble with the facts!

As the tension builds, with a few even speculating that neither the C-17 nor the F-35 extra engine will make it in to final fiscal 2011 defense appropriations, things have heated up at the Farnborough International Airshow, taking place from July 19-25 in the UK.

Dave Hess, president of Pratt & Whitney, the manufacturer of the current F-35 engine, acknowledged at the show that his company was actively lobbying lawmakers on the issue.  He insisted, though, that the rival team of General Electric and Rolls Royce are spending “orders of magnitude” more.

While he acknowledged that the issue is an “enormous priority” for both GE and Rolls, Jean Lydon-Rodgers, president of GE Aviation’s military business and former head of the GE-Rolls engine team, rejected Pratt’s criticism as “unfair”.

Boeing and EADS also took their show on the road, each touting the size of their orders.  Bids for the $35 billion KC-X tanker contract have closed and a decision is due in November.

As the Pentagon’s belt gets tighter and tighter, the fierce competition for contracts is reaching a fever pitch.  PACs associated with both Lockheed and Boeing are on track to make record-level campaign contributions this election cycle, with each already well over the $2 million mark.  Both have already maxed out contributions to several lawmakers, as well as to party committees.

According to The Hill:

Lockheed’s PAC has maxed out its contributions to Reps. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who is facing a tougher reelection fight than usual; Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), Armed Service’s ranking member; Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), a new member of the House Appropriations Committee; Bill Young (Fla.), the top Republican defense appropriator; and Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), who is running for the Senate. Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) also received maximum contributions.

Boeing’s PAC made the maximum $10,000 in contributions to Reps. Todd Akin (R-Mo.); John Boehner (R-Ohio,) the House minority leader; James Clyburn (S.C.), the Democratic whip; and Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee. Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) received $10,000 for his Senate run, as did Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.).

Contributions continue to increase.  From EADS to General Dynamics to Northrop Grumman, as talk of trimming the fat gets louder, so does the fight over what will remain.