Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency allegedly reported Wednesday that Tehran has acquired “four S-300 surface-to-air missile systems”.  Iran apparently acquired two “S-300 from Belarus and two others from another unspecified source”, with Fars adding, “Iran possesses four S-300 PT missiles.”  The news comes following June reports that suggested the seemingly never-ending saga between Russia and Iran over the sale of the S-300 PMU1 air defense system had finally come to a close – as a result of a recent tightening of UN sanctions.

As explained before, if Iran really did acquire the much touted S-300 PMU-1, it would make an air attack of its controversial nuclear program a lot harder.  However, from looking at the Fars report in more detail and the context in which it was released, it seems that there are a number of issues which cast doubt on the credibility of the notion Iran has acquired a robust S-300 air defense system from Belarus.

In terms of the detail of the report, there is firstly no elaboration on what is meant with regards to the “four S-300 surface-to-air missile systems”.  Indeed, does the wording refer to launchers or batteries?   One battery of S-300 PMU1’s, the system that Iran was trying to buy from Russia, consists of up to 12 semi-trailer erector-launchers (TEL) which mount four tubular missile container-launchers and a launcher complex of several other components, detailed photographically here.  Should this report merely infer that Iran has acquired four launchers, then there is little for any would-be aerial attacker to worry about.  Indeed, even with a launcher complex, four TELs would only ever be able to provide a highly limited air defense….

Secondly, and to confuse things further, the report adds that “Iran possesses four S-300 PT missiles”.  It is important to note Iran was hoping to buy the S-300 PMU1 from Russia, a major refinement of the original Soviet era S-300 technology.  The S-300 PT that Fars cites Iran as now owning however entered service in 1978 and is considerably less capable than the S-300 PMU1.   What is more, the fudgy wording of the report here implies Iran possesses only the missiles themselves – with no mention of the rest of the launch complex required or even the TELs.  Even assuming the launch complex is there, in perfect conditions only four missiles could stop a maximum of four aircraft – hardly representative of a robust air defense.

Thirdly, the Fars report suggests Iran purchased two of the ‘systems’ from Belarus, with a further two coming from an unknown source.   But this all sounds rather familiar.  According to Jane’s, Iran acquired four S-300 PT ‘battalions’ in 2008, with two sourced from Belarus and two “ sourced from an undisclosed nation [that] were recently refurbished by Belarusian technicians working at an IRGC facility in Iran, where the units were stored.”  However, Belarus has vehemently denied both this and the recent Fars report, yesterday saying “The State Military-Industrial Committee can officially state that Belarus has never held talks with Iran on the deliveries of the S-300 air defense systems…Belarus has never supplied S-300 systems or their components to Iran.”   While it is likely that the recent UN sanctions would make such a transfer politically controversial, part of this denial will be down to the fact that the Soviets originally sold the S-300 PTs to Belarus on condition that they could never be resold.  Of course that only explains half of the four systems being talked about though.  But from the questionable reporting described so far, one cannot really assess the credibility of the claim two systems came from an “unknown source”– although there is the possibility that these may just be the units Iran paraded recently in Tehran.

Aside from the sketchy reporting by Fars on the alleged S-300 acquisition, events in recent weeks paint a possible motivation for Iran to suggest it may finally have obtained its ‘holy grail’ of air defense.  Indeed, with Admiral Mike Mullen for the first time mentioning U.S plans to attack Iran should negotiations fail, Time magazine now suggesting that Israel is tacitly involved in building attack plans with the U.S, and intelligence experts rumor mongering about the possibility of an imminent Israeli strike, its quite possible that in combination with recent UN sanctions, Iran is feeling under possibly unsustainable pressure.  This pressure is perhaps what drove Iran to now agree to restart nuclear fuel swap talks in late August, and may also be motivating Tehran to suggest its military capabilities have improved, through the acquisition of the S-300s, in order to help deter any attack.  Such a strategy would seek to decrease impetus toward any imminent attack while simultaneously increasing ‘deterrence’ against one actually being carried out.

Regardless of the credibility of this report, it nonetheless suggests Iran remains desperate to implement a robust air defense system as soon as possible.  Whether it ultimately goes to China, fields an indigenously produced alternative, or ever persuades Russia to provide it with its cancelled order, remains to be seen.

Yesterday, Howard Berman and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of the House Foreign Affairs Committee released the following statement announcing the initiation of a bipartisan Working Group on Iran Sanction Implementation:

“The group will meet on a regular basis with Administration officials, foreign ambassadors, and outside experts to oversee and verify enforcement of Iran sanctions implementation” —- which is pretty ambiguous, but there’s nothing like leaving for recess on a strong note, right?

A small article from The Hill caught my attention Friday evening, because it illustrates how complex the federal appropriations puzzle really is.  The Congressional Black Caucus is upset after White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel promised Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) $1.5 billion in farm disaster relief in exchange for her support of the (soon-to-be filibustered) small-business bill.  The CBC is miffed because the administration is stonewalling them on the settlement of Pigford v. Glickman:

Six members of the Congressional Black Caucus wrote to President Obama on Thursday calling on him to find a way to compensate black farmers who suffered discrimination in government loan programs during the 1980s and 1990s.
[snip]
…the administration has told black farmers it lacks the funds to pay a $1.2 billion agreement they reached with the Department of Agriculture in 1999 to settle the Pigford class-action lawsuit.
[snip]
The lawmakers say that Obama should also take administrative action to pay $3.4 billion the federal government promised to settle claims that it mismanaged Native American trust funds. Elouise Cobell is the lead plaintiff in the case against the Interior Department.

Lincoln’s $1.5 billion was originally part of the small-business bill and was later removed in a vain effort to curry Republican support.

What does this have to do with defense spending?

Today, President Obama signed the FY 2010 War Supplemental, sending $37.1 billion of funding to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The bill as passed contains over $21 billion in spending unrelated to the wars.  However, the House added two amendments with an additional $22.8 billion (fully offset) that were later eliminated by the Senate.  Included in this was $4.6 billion dollars to settle the aforementioned Pigford v. Glickman lawsuit, as well as another, Cobell v. Salazar.

The inclusion of a final Pigford v. Glickman settlement in the House amendments was a significant victory for the CBC, but illustrates the sometimes paradoxical nature of the appropriations process.  Discrete, unrelated items become uncomfortably mashed together or linked in the strangest ways: the war supplemental (which campaign-Obama promised never to sign) contains farm subsidies and veterans compensation.  At one point it also included education funding and Pell grants, summer jobs funding, border security money, and federal discrimination and mismanagement lawsuit settlements.  

These various causes are but a tiny fraction of the total yearly federal budget, and yet it seems jarring that we should be discussing funding for waging war in the same breath as educating our children and helping farmers.  These are incompatible ideas, linked only by their roles as slices of the federal pie in a system where the competition never ends.  

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.