Last Thursday and Friday I was in Waterloo, Canada to help the Centre for International Governance Innovation’s (CIGI) Balsillie School of International Affairs mark the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I spoke on two panels: one was the C…
Kingston Reif speaks at CIGI signature lecture on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis
On October 25 and 26, Center Director of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Kingston Reif participated in a conference on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis at the Centre for International Governance Innovation’s (CIGI) Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Canada. Below is the video of Reif’s remarks at the October 25 CIGIsignature lecture “Empathy […]
Romney Strikes Out On Nukes
Haven’t heard enough about nuclear weapons this election cycle? Not surprising, since it was such a struggle to even get the candidates to talk about foreign policy at the foreign-policy debate. But the next president will certainly have opportunities …
Reducing Cooperative Threat Reduction: The End of Nunn-Lugar?
On October 10, Russia announced that it will not be renewing the Nunn-Lugar Act in June 2013. Russian withdrawal from the 1991 Nunn-Lugar agreement does not necessarily signify an end to the agreement, nor to US-Russian cooperation; it does, however, complicate diplomatic processes.
Nunn-Lugar, otherwise known as the Cooperative Threat Reduction(CTR) program, is an innovative, bi-partisan solution to the problem of “loose nukes” that was widespread following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990’s. The original agreement absolved the US of any liability while conducting work in Russia. If any accident were to occur in the process of dismantling Russian weapons, the US and its contractors would not, under any circumstances, be held responsible. In lieu of this and a strengthened Russian economy, a Russian insider now claims “the agreement is thoroughly discriminating. It fails to take into account the changes that took place in the world after its signing in the 1990s.”
At the Act’s inception, the former Soviet states were in disarray – financially and politically. They did not have the resources nor the organizational capacity to dismantle and safeguard weapons of mass destruction, especially for compliance with the July 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Cooperative Threat Reduction has been essential in ensuring that Russia holds up its end of the treaty. It was created to make sure dangerous materials, or weapons themselves, do not end up in the hands of terrorists. To date, CTR has deactivated 7,610 warheads and has removed all nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus (among other successes).
Despite Russia’s withdrawal, the Cooperative Threat Reduction program will still have opportunities to improve the security of nuclear, chemical and biological materials in other nations. In 2003, Congress passed the Nunn-Lugar Expansion Act; this gave the program the freedom to address proliferation problems outside of the former Soviet Union. The US can still utilize the program’s bureaucratic know-how to be an effective world steward and stop terrorist acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. Whether Congress will see the importance of this program when it does not include Russia, the nation with the “largest WMD repository in the world”, remains to be seen.
Russia’s rejection of the American proposal comes amidst its recent expulsion of US-led humanitarian aid group, USAID. This trend reflects the tense current relations between the US and Russia, due largely to conflicts about how to deal with Iran and Syria. However despite any diplomatic conflicts, nuclear security remains a large concern for the United States’ national security. We can only hope that for our sake, and for the world’s, that Russia will follow through with its claims to independently continue the programs associated with Nunn-Lugar and allocate the necessary funding.
“It is now impossible to overlook the “new” realities that look a lot like the old ones from the Cold War,” writes Jeffrey Lewis in his Foreign Policy article “Bar Nunn.” Relations between Russia and the US are certainly more strained than they have been in recent years; luckily, however, Nunn-Lugar has, for 21 years, made the world safer than it was during the Cold War. Though some outdated views from decades ago remain, a reinvigorated Cold War is extremely unlikely.
Our cooperation with Russia has taken a hit, but as William Tobey, of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, notes, there are still many ways the US and Russia can partner to reduce the dangers of weapons of mass destruction in the world. We cannot stop fighting for a safer world, no matter how challenging it is. Russia will never align with American world views 100%, but it is clear the security of weapons of mass destruction is in all of our best interests.
Little Room for “Debate” As Romney and Obama Agree on Pragmatism
Call it the foreign-policy debate that wasn’t.
In the third and final presidential debate, moderator Bob Schieffer’s questions focused on international affairs, but the candidates steered a large portion of the discussion toward domestic issues, such as jobs, education, and taxes. At a number of points, it felt like we weren’t hearing anything about foreign policy at all. And when we did, it wasn’t much of a debate: Romney agreed implicitly or explicitly with Obama on a number of national security issues, including Syria, Iran, the ouster of President Mubarak in Egypt, Pakistan, and drone strikes.
Indeed, if you’ve been following Romney’s foreign policy positions over the course of 2012, you might not have recognized the contender on stage Monday evening. Romney backed away from his previously hawkish, neoconservative positions, putting forward a relatively more hands-off view of America in the world. He defended withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, economic development and education in the Middle East, and disavowed the idea of military action in Syria.
President Obama, for his part, seemed to have come prepared to attack a more hawkish opponent – early on, he blasted Romney for taking a rigidly conservative stance on Russia, the New START treaty and other issues, saying, “the 1980s, they’re now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.” But when it became clear that the neoconservative he came to debate was absent without leave, Obama did the next best thing: he called Romney out for the flip-flop:
“You said that, first, we should not have a timeline in Afghanistan. Then you said we should. Now you say maybe or it depends, which means not only were you wrong, but you were also confusing in sending mixed messages both to our troops and our allies.”
For some, Obama might have come across as overly critical (as Romney himself put it, “attacking me is not an agenda”). But the idea that Romney is a flip-flopper with no firm beliefs does resonate with voters, so it’s tough to say who came out on top in that regard.
In fact, it’s difficult to say who came out on top at all, because so often, the candidates seemed to be rushing to agree with one another. On Iran, Obama and Romney reaffirmed their willingness to take military action in the last resort, but there seemed to be a clear effort on both sides to keep the discussion focused on sanctions and other alternatives to war. And on Afghanistan, there was virtually no disagreement from Romney that we should withdraw by 2014, which stands in contrast to the vice-presidential debate, in which Paul Ryan strongly suggested that a Romney White House might continue combat operations beyond 2014.
Finally, on Syria, there was broad agreement that we need to avoid military intervention. Obama exhibited what I thought was real candor on Syria, given that he’s been blasted by both the left and right as indifferent to the massacre happening there. But during the debate, he was straight with the American people: “[W]hat we’re seeing taking place in Syria is heartbreaking,” he admitted. Then, though, he went on to concede the limits of American influence:
“But we also have to recognize that, you know, for us to get more entangled militarily in Syria is a serious step, and we have to do so making absolutely certain that we know who we are helping; that we’re not putting arms in the hands of folks who eventually could turn them against us or allies in the region.”
A candidate on the presidential campaign trail, admitting that America can’t always make things better in troubled nations? That’s refreshing. And it was even more bracing to see the Republican candidate agree:“We don’t want to have military involvement there. We don’t want to get drawn into a military conflict.” To the extent that we can use Syria to gauge the enthusiasm for interventionism, the exchange suggested that there’s some level of bipartisan agreement that America is done getting militarily involved in Middle Eastern conflicts.
But the old, hawkish Romney wasn’t going to go away without a fight.
(more after the jump)
There were two main areas where the Governor was unable to fully abandon his previous neoconservative policies. The first was Iran: even though Romney largely endorsed the Obama approach, he doubled down on the idea that he won’t accept a nuclear-capable Iran. Romney continues to use this as a way to differentiate his Iran policy from Obama’s, but surely does not realize the implication of his words: a nuclear-capable Iran will exist long before a nuclear-armed Iran. In fact, Iran is arguably there already: it has the capacity to build a nuclear bomb, even if it hasn’t built one yet. There are actually many countries today that are nuclear-capable, including Japan, South Korea, South Africa, Sweden, Brazil, and Argentina, which would presumably all fail by Romney’s standard.
This means that, for all of Romney’s new talk about sanctions on Iran and treating military strikes as a last resort, he is much more likely to resort to force to accomplish a goal – halting Iran’s nuclear weapons program – that appears unattainable, at least through the use of military strikes.
The second place where we saw the old Romney was on the federal budget. Romney’s defense budget, which pegs defense spending at 4% of Gross Domestic Product, is clearly meant to support a more militarily-oriented foreign policy. The cost of this additional spending is estimated to be $2 trillion over the next decade.
Yet while Romney was content to walk away from his previous interventionist incarnation, he stuck to his budget plan, insisting that he would not cut military spending. Obama made the point that Romney wouldn’t be able to do this while also balancing the budget, but Romney countered by saying that he would be able to do both if he cut Obamacare and discretionary domestic spending.
So who won? Most post-debate surveys have suggested that Obama won on points, if not by a huge margin. Romney supporters counter that their candidate held his ground and showed that he can handle the position of commander-in-chief.
If you ask me, the real winner in this debate was pragmatism and prudence. Both candidates are under different kinds of pressure to support interventionist policies – Obama has come under fire for not doing more in Syria, right-wing Republicans want Romney to stay the course in Afghanistan, and both men have been encouraged to sound the drums of war in Iran. But with some important exceptions, I detected a consensus last night that war is not the answer, to quote the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Obama made this point most clearly on Syria, but one got the same sense on Iran. On Afghanistan, the candidates agreed that combat operations must end in 2014, and that this date does not “depend” on what happens in the meantime.
And if that was the candidates’ main message, I think that means the American public, which is strongly opposed to more war, was the real winner of the final debate.
