The Return to the Pressure Track: The Trump Administration and the Iran Nuclear Deal

During the 2016 United States presidential election campaign, Donald Trump promised to “renegotiate” the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal. The deal does not prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons and in some ways actually makes it easier for Iran to go nuclear in the future. The mere continuation of the current deal could undermine America’s interests in the Middle East and its global non-proliferation policy. How then can the Donald Trump Administration work to renegotiate the deal? This analysis provides a strategy that the Trump Administration can follow to improve American policy toward Iran, namely do what Iran is doing to the United States: abide by the strict terms of the agreement, whilst competing in all of the ways not covered in the deal. From an American perspective, increasing pressure on Tehran will constrain Iran’s destabilising influence in the region. Over time, Washington can leverage the pressure to force Iran back to the table to strike a renegotiated agreement that eliminates, not just delays, the Iranian nuclear and missile threat.     

Engaging China in Nuclear Disarmament Debates： Is There a Role for Australia？

China has demonstrated some interest in the resurgence of nuclear disarmament debates over the past few years,but because its own nuclear arsenal is relatively small,because this capability is predicated on a very specific Chinese posture and security concerns,and because it believes firmly that the responsibility for moving towards a world without nuclear weapons belongs in the first instance to the United States and Russia-who between them possess 95% of the world’s existing nuclear weapons-it has displayed a somewhat limited contribution to this debate so far.     

Pre-emption,Deterrence, and Self-Defence: A Legal and Historical Assessment

The policy of the United States, outlined in the 2002 National Security Strategy, whereby the US claims a right under international law to engage in pre-emptive use of force to prevent a rogue state's development of nuclear weapons, or any weapons of mass destruction (WMD), is unnecessary and therefore unlawful under customary international law of self-defence. This conclusion is reached through a comprehensive and intensive assessment of the normative reactions of politically effective actors to China's development of nuclear weapons during a two-year period between the Cuban Missile Crisis and China's first test in October 1964. While pre-emptive use of force against China, a rogue state, was considered by both the United States and most likely by the Soviet Union, neither used force to prevent it developing nuclear weapons. Since a policy of pre-emptive use of force was unnecessary for either state's self-defence, it would have been unlawful under customary international law. Given that the current strategic scenario of states vis-à-vis rogue states is the same under most circumstances, notwithstanding the existence of international terrorist networks, the article concludes that the proposed claim of the United States is, prima facie, unnecessary to its self-defence, and therefore unlawful under customary international law of self-defence. It shifts the burden of proof to policymakers claiming that all rogue states can be lawfully prevented through pre-emptive use of force from acquiring nuclear weapons, to establish that a particular state cannot be deterred from the use of nuclear weapons. Though the preventive war claim of the US National Security Strategy 2002 may turn out to be an effective strategic bluff in limiting WMD proliferation, the wisdom of the threat should not be confused with the illogic of preventive war.     

伊朗核问题走向与中国安全

伊朗研发核技术的决心(包括能力)与美欧阻遏伊朗拥核的立场严重对立。美国不能容忍伊朗拥核坐大,但能够采取的手段有限,而伊朗问题又涉及诸多大国利益。伊朗核问题将使中东局势乃至大国关系更加复杂,包括对中国的国家安全产生影响。     

Do nuclear weapons affect the guns-butter trade-off? Evidence on nuclear substitution from Pakistan and beyond

Scholars have argued that acquiring nuclear weapons should allow states the luxury of exiting conventional arms races. In turn, a decreased budgetary focus on conventional arms should make possible greater spending on social welfare. I contest this logic of nuclear substitution by examining its most likely exponent, Pakistan. As a poor, under-developed state, a nuclear Pakistan should have welcomed the opportunity to cease its arms race with India, and spend greater sums on its population's welfare. Instead, I show Pakistan has doubled down on its pre-nuclear conventional posture, mainly because of its revisionism over Kashmir. More generally, I show nuclear substitution should happen only rarely: when a state is satisfied with the territorial status-quo, and its security challenges are amenable to pure nuclear deterrence. An empirical overview of conventional postures in Britain, China, France, India, Israel, the Soviet Union and the United States shows these conditions are met rarely, and never sustained. The argument has implications concerning the marginal welfare effects of nuclear weapons, the stability-instability paradox in South Asia and the standoff between Iran and the West.     

Why Does the United States Keep Helping Iran?

Since the Jimmy Carter administration, Iran has been America’s most consistent enemy. Strangely, however, the United States repeatedly helps its opponent. Following the 9/11 attacks, Washington aided Iran’s interests in six episodes: toppling the Taliban; overthrowing Saddam Hussein; suppressing the ISIS caliphate; backing the Saudi intervention in Yemen; withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, and assassinating the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. Of course, Washington does not deliberately assist its opponent. Rather, the United States unintentionally helps Iran by creating power vacuums, into which Tehran steps, and triggering power surges, or coercive campaigns against Iran, which also tend to backfire and bond Iran more closely with third parties.     

Why Not Invade North Korea? Threats, Language Games, and U.S. Foreign Policy

International relations theory has difficulty explaining how similar policies produce different outcomes. Iraq and North Korea have been identified as members of the "axis of evil" with weapons of mass destruction programs that threaten the United States. Yet in late 2002, the United States prepared to attack Iraq whereas it chose to negotiate with North Korea, even after North Korea admitted to a secret nuclear program in direct violation of its 1994 agreement with the United States. Moreover, a direct comparison with Iraq shows North Korea to possess the greater material capability to threaten the United States. I argue that a language-based constructivist approach can explain these differences in U.S. foreign policy where other theoretical approaches cannot. By examining the U.S. entanglement in intersected language games—the implementation of the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea and the enforcement of United Nations Resolutions in Iraq—it becomes possible to show how the United States could construct North Korea's nuclear program as a manageable threat that could be dealt with diplomatically.     

Nuclear Abolition: A Dangerous Illusion

A rising and influential tide of opinion is pressing for the United States to take major steps towards actually realizing “a world without nuclear weapons,” including by taking steps towards dismantling its nuclear arsenal. This article argues that a world without nuclear weapons, and particularly American nuclear weapons, is not desirable nor is real and effective nuclear disarmament possible. Therefore, while non-proliferation is an important objective, the United States should not abandon or move substantially towards the abandonment of its arsenal in pursuit of nuclear abolition. Instead, the United States should seek the worthy goal of preventing and retarding the spread of nuclear weapons while maintaining a strong nuclear deterrent, a policy that can be followed by de-linking non-proliferation from disarmament.     

中美不对称核稳定与美国战略机会主义论析

中美两国安全关系在两国总体关系中扮演着重要的角色,研究中美之间的战略稳定关系,对于维护两国安全关系的稳定具有重要意义。中国的核威慑实力弱于美国,中美之间呈现出不同于传统战略稳定关系的不对称核稳定态势。中国对美国存在一定的核威慑能力,但有效性仍有差距和不足。这一差距容易使美国产生压制和削弱中国核报复能力的机会主义思想。实施限制损伤战略、发展导弹防御能力、进行战略反潜是美国对中国实施战略机会主义的主要行动。美国谋求削弱中国核报复能力、打破中美不对称核稳定的企图,与中国努力维持核威慑能力、维持中美不对称核稳定的行为形成了两股力量相持的态势。中国应重点提升核武器的质量,提高威慑信号的传递效能,以可信可靠的核威慑和核反击能力打消美国战略机会主义心态,维持两国间的战略稳定,特别是危机稳定性,筑牢遏制战争爆发的基础。     

The Iranian Nuclear Negotiations as a Two-Level Game: The Importance of Domestic Politics

In July 2015, after more than a decade of negotiations, the international community and Iran finally reached agreement over Iran’s nuclear programme. All of the work that produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA] was nearly undone, however, by the United States Congress, which came close to killing the agreement. This episode emphasises the fact that international negotiations are “two-level games” in which policy-makers must take into account not only their own objectives and those of their interlocutors but also the interests of domestic constituencies if they are to secure the “ratification” of an agreement. In many cases, securing the consent of those constituencies is unproblematic, whether because the matter at hand is uncontroversial, domestic interests are disengaged, or policy-makers have sufficient autonomy from them to ignore their objections. In other cases, however, the domestic game can play a huge part in determining the eventual outcome of the negotiating process. As the intensity of the debate within the United States in 2015 and the narrowness of the margin by which the JCPOA survived suggest, the American–Iranian dimension of the nuclear negotiations falls into the latter category.     

朝鲜核试爆与重开六方会谈

朝鲜核试爆是美朝新一轮较量的产物。朝鲜核危机的发展仍取决于美朝关系能否发生变化。重开六方会谈是相关各方的共同愿望,但取得实质性进展的可能很小。朝鲜将实际成为“拥核”国家,朝核危机长期化的可能性越来越大。六方会谈并不因为朝鲜核试爆而减弱其历史作用,它依然是解决朝核问题的最佳形式,也是各方为应对和消除朝鲜“拥核”而进行对话、沟通、协商的理想平台,并有可能进而成为实现朝鲜半岛和平机制和东北亚安全合作的合理载体。     

Why Nuclear Smuggling Matters

Nuclear leakage from the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union is an ongoing national security concern of the United States. While little weapons-usable material and no nuclear warheads have surfaced in international smuggling channels, observed data from seizures and arrests are not necessarily representative of the wider universe of illegal nuclear deals. Political and economic upheavals and associated nuclear security problems in Russia in the 1990s accentuated the risk of serious proliferation episodes. Adversaries such as Iran and Al Qaeda have tried to exploit these vulnerabilities to further their nuclear ambitions, although with uncertain results. Improved intelligence collection on the nuclear black market—who the players are, what items they seek, how they plan to obtain them and how successful they have been—should complement the essentially reactive and stationary risk management systems now in place in Russia and elsewhere.     

Peripheral or Powerful? The European Union's Strategy to Combat the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

Abstract

The European Union has since 2003 developed both a security and a Weapons of Mass Destruction strategy, and it has become the primary interlocutor of Iran in the dispute related to Iran's nuclear development. These are signs of significant policy progress. However, the fact that four years of nuclear diplomacy have brought few results invites a critical appraisal of EU strategy. This essay undertakes this appraisal, arguing that the EU is notably ambivalent regarding its underlying conception of international order. The EU wishes to be pluralist (in the tradition of sovereign equality), but is also anti-pluralist (in the liberal–democratic tradition). The essay lays out how the EU has coped with pressures for reform—arising notably from the United States—within the current international nuclear non-proliferation regime, and how this has made the EU problem apparent. The essay finally suggests that to salvage its policy of effective multilateralism the EU must acknowledge its anti-pluralist bias and promote a common transatlantic approach to nuclear non-proliferation.     

Science,security and spies

Abstract

The national research and development (R&D) base has in the post-cold war era gained increased importance in order to fill new security demands. There is a broadening of the search for security relevant science and technology involving more organizations and interests, scientific disciplines and nations. The question discussed in this article is if the premises of international, free and open R&D will be(come) compromised? Will we see more scientists, in their normal scientific activities, being accused of spying? The article suggests that such risks are not unrealistic to expect. Spy cases in less democratic countries could have consequences for scientists also in other countries. Outcomes depend on, among other things, the relative strengths of academic freedom and a political Identification Friend and Foe (IFF) component. United Nations and European Union resolutions restricting science education for students from Iran and North Korea in an attempt to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons illustrate a strong IFF component. Difficulties with regard to the implementation of these resolutions and other findings are presented in the final section of the article.     

On Extended Nuclear Deterrence

This analysis discusses the central challenges that countries face when they practice extended nuclear deterrence. One key problem has to do with credibility: potential aggressors may not believe that a country would fight to defend an ally, particularly if doing so risks a nuclear attack against its homeland. Countries might be able to address this issue by forging formal alliances with protégés or by stationing nuclear forces on the protégé’s territory. Do these measures discourage third-party aggression? Defence pacts involving nuclear-armed states effectively bolster extended deterrence. One risk of extending nuclear protection from the American perspective, however, is that it might pull the United States into unwanted wars by risk-acceptant protégés. Yet, in a nuclear context, the risk of alliance entrapment is generally overblown. Placing nuclear weapons on an ally’s territory does much less to bolster extended deterrence than one might initially think. Although foreign nuclear deployments may reassure allies and promote non-proliferation to some degree, their value for extended deterrence is fairly minimal. The United States continues to deploy nuclear weapons in five European countries, but the case for maintaining these deployments is decidedly weak.     

Proliferation Implications of Civil Nuclear Cooperation: Theory and a Case Study of Tito's Yugoslavia

Programs of international civil nuclear cooperation—of “Atoms for Peace”—have come under growing criticism for unintentionally fostering nuclear weapons proliferation in developing countries. However, drawing on the literature on international technology transfer and on Albert Hirschman's theory of exit, voice, and loyalty, this article argues that Atoms for Peace efforts may often seriously hamper developing countries’ nuclear weapons ambitions by empowering their scientific workers and by facilitating the brain drain to the developed world. The article then presents a case study of the historical nuclear program of Yugoslavia, which received very generous help from the Atoms for Peace programs of the United States, Soviet Union, and European states at a time when nonproliferation controls were minimal. The international ties of the Yugoslav nuclear program made its scientific workers much less likely to choose simple loyalty to the Tito regime, and much more likely to choose voice or exit, accelerating the program's ultimate collapse.     

America's freedom to act in the Caspian Area

After the break up of the Soviet Union the conflict over energy resources in the Caspian area has flared up again. The United States has entered the stage, but the only remaining superpower finds it hard to forward its security policy interests and interests in the economic sphere in the area. The creation of a US‐dominated hegemony in the area would be beneficial for the United States, but the policy of containment of Iran and Russia, and US policy towards Azerbaijan seriously limits this possibility. Thus it is not possible to secure American influence in the Caspian area. In the long term this leaves the area open to Russia and Iran, or new actors such as China and the EU, unless the United States is willing to soften its policy vis‐à‐vis Iran and/or Azerbaijan in order to create the needed hegemony, and in this way achieve economic and political influence in the former Soviet republics.     

Global Threats and American Strategies: From Communism in 1955 to Islamism in 2005

America's current security threats—the insurgency in Iraq, Islamic terrorism, and Iran's efforts to obtain nuclear weapons—seem strange and unprecedented. Parallels can be drawn, however, between the security threats of 2005 and those of fifty years ago. The U.S. foreign policy developed to confront the communist threat offers lessons as we develop strategies to combat today's threat. Two contemporary perspectives on strategic issues—one conservative/realist, one neoconservative/idealist—apply lessons of the Cold War to today's U.S. foreign policy, but each has serious flaws. A third, neorealist perspective, suggests that by leveraging the divisions already present in the Muslim world, the United States can win the global contest against Islamic terrorism. However, this would require a transformation in American strategy that will not be easily achieved.     

Why do they want American Nukes? Central and Eastern European positions regarding US nonstrategic nuclear weapons

This article analyses the potential motivations behind the opposition of a number of Central and Eastern European States (CESs) to the withdrawal of US deployed nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNWs) from Europe. It shows why CES governments obtain no military benefits from the deployed NSNW; it argues CES are unlikely to truly see them as a promising bargaining chip; it suggests CES can derive only limited prestige from US-deployed weapons and the contrasting norm of ‘nuclear disarmament’ likely offers a more attractive option; and it assesses potential bureaucratic interests as improbable to play a decisive role. In contrast, the article proposes a more nuanced elaboration of the transatlantic ‘linkage’ argument. It maintains CES have significant motives to keep the United States involved in Europe, shows how they are likely to mistrust US commitment pledges, and argues they are prone to use the NSNW debate as a convenient instrument (within a limited toolbox) towards locking in the US foothold on the continent.     

United States Hegemony and the New Economics of Defense

Liberal theory asserts that the need for cost-effective, technologically advanced weapons requires the United States to acquiesce to increasing defense globalization even as this restrains U.S. power. Realist logic dictates that the United States should resist defense liberalization to retain its self-sufficiency. This is a false choice; the United States encourages defense globalization in order to extend its international political influence. This paper proposes an alternate theory of technological hegemony that explains the U.S. policy of massive R&D investment in both the late Cold War and the current era of American preponderance. Modern weapons' complexity and economies of scale tend to produce monopolies, and the value chain for the production of these monopolistic goods is dominated by the systems integration techniques of prime contracting firms. In turn these prime contractors remain largely enthralled by U.S. market power. The United States gains international influence by controlling the distribution of these weapons. Put simply, technology with international political effects is likely to have international political origins.