A Turkey reading list

Aaron Stein in the Atlantic:

Despite having its genesis in the Gezi Park movement, the dynamics of the protests now reflect many of the fundamental antagonisms in Turkey’s imperfect democracy. Erdogan’s divisive rhetoric and his penchant for authoritarian rule have steadily eroded the party’s support from small constituencies that it could once count on. While the AKP’s voter base is often simplistically assumed to be religious conservatives, the truth of the matter is that AKP supporters include a small number of liberals eager to do away with the undemocratic constitution, a business sector happy with the party’s handling of the economy, nationalists who are pleased with what they perceive as Turkey’s re-emergence as a global power, Turkish Islamists obsessed with the proliferation of Ottomania (a growing desire among the Turkish population to reconnect and reacquaint themselves with the country’s imperial past), and some members of Turkey’s Kurdish minority who are pleased with AKP’s democratic reforms.

Of these interests, the only group to leave the party en mass during the AKP’s rule has been the handful liberals that bounce from party to party in search of greater freedoms. Turkey’s main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), ostensibly represents the secular segments of Turkish society but has failed to expand their political base beyond the country’s western coast.

Joe Parkinson in the WSJ:

But Turkey’s long-running narrative has been shaken by the emergence of a broad leaderless coalition of young, secular-leaning and middle-class Turks that has dominated the protests. It is also raising questions over Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s bid to position Turkey as leader for emerging Islamist governments in the region [...]

While secular-leaning Turks—encompassing a broad spectrum of opinion including leftists, liberals and nationalists—have dominated the protests, they have by no means been the only ones present.

In Istanbul over the weekend, bearded men and some women with headscarves marched alongside others heading for Taksim Square. On Monday, some residents in the conservative district of Fatih joined the now-nightly routine of banging pots and pans to protest Mr. Erdogan’s television appearances, ostensibly in solidarity with those on the streets. There are also factions with a more radical agenda.

Steven Cook and Michael Koplow in Foreign Policy:

[T]he whole affair represents the way in which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has slowly strangled all opposition while making sure to remain within democratic lines. Turkey under the AKP has become the textbook case of a hollow democracy [...] Turkey’s anti-democratic turn has all taken place without much notice from the outside world. It was not just coercive measures — arrests, investigations, tax fines, and imprisonments — that Washington willfully overlooked in favor of a sunnier narrative about the “Turkish miracle.” Perhaps it is not as clear, but over the last decade the AKP has built an informal, powerful, coalition of party-affiliated businessmen and media outlets whose livelihoods depend on the political order that Erdogan is constructing. Those who resist do so at their own risk [...] In this the AKP has received help from Turkey’s insipid opposition, which wallows in Turkey’s lost insularity and mourns the passing of the hard-line Kemalist elite that had no particular commitment to democracy.

David Gardner in the FT:

The real drama of Mr Erdogan’s Turkey is not the secularists’ spectre of creeping theocracy but that the Kemalist opposition has proved unelectable, trapped in the past and reliant on generals and judges to win back what it keeps losing at the ballot box. Part of this drama is the paradox that Mr Erdogan and the AKP, politically paramount but paranoid about plots against them, behave as though they were still the opposition – with the difference that the feedback loop of this normally well-oiled political machine has been short-circuited by sycophants. Before first winning power in October 2002, the AKP spent 22 months interviewing in depth 41,000 people across the country. Now, even allies admit, Mr Erdogan listens mostly to himself.

Claire Berlinski in the City Journal:

Riot police blocked the roads leading to Taksim, the city’s central square, as well as those leading to Istanbul’s famous Istiklal Avenue. They fired gas bombs at everything that moved, including the city’s bewildered stray dogs. Helicopters circled the skies. Wi-Fi in the city center was jammed. The hospitals quickly filled with the injured. So far, reports of deaths have been hard to confirm, with some exceptions. Human-rights activist Ethem Sarısülük is now brain dead, having “come under fire” from police—what kind of fire, we don’t know. Mehmet Ayvalitas, reportedly a member of a banned group of left-wing hackers, is also dead. Human Rights Watch believes the casualty numbers are much higher than those claimed by the government. Reports of two other deaths, in particular, sound credible, but it’s impossible to be sure. I saw a video of a police vehicle crushing a woman under its wheels; I would be surprised if she survived [...]

Almost as chillingly, the muzzled and gutless Turkish media downplayed the events. The main source of news here was Twitter. Precisely as BBC World was showing shocking scenes of the protests, Turkey’s TV24 was featuring a lecture from Erdoğan about the dangers of smoking. While Taksim burned, NTV aired a cooking show, and another channel featured an incisive documentary about liposuction [...]

While no doubt some of the protesters committed vandalism, and some threw stones at the police, their social responsibility overall was impressive: as soon as the police pulled out of Taksim, they organized a cleanup of the square and its environs, even arranging makeshift first-aid stations for injured stray animals.

Jay Ulfelder at Dart-Throwing Chimp:

As Erdogan and his supporters keep pointing out, Turkey under the AKP seems to be doing fine on the most obvious version of broad and equal consultation, namely, elections. Where it’s plainly slipped is on the “protected and mutually binding consultation” part. The disturbingly frequent arrests of journalists and alleged coup plotters, and now the state’s overreaction to nonviolent protests on matters of routine public policy, give the lie to the claim the Turkish state gives all citizens equal treatment and due process. Instead, we see a regime in which (paraphrasing Tilly) state agents increasingly use their power to punish their perceived enemies and reward their friends [...] What those remarks reveal is a state that is happy to appeal to the citizens who reliably support it but closes off consultation with, and even bullies, the ones who don’t. The resulting regime may still be recognizable as a variation on the theme of democracy, but the discordant notes of authoritarianism are plainly audible and keep growing louder.

Pablo Barberá and Megan Metzger at The Monkey Cage:

The social media response to and the role of social media in the protests has been phenomenal. Since 4pm local time yesterday, at least 2 million tweets mentioning hashtags related to the protest, such as #direngeziparkı (950,000 tweets), #occupygezi (170,000 tweets) or #geziparki (50,000 tweets) have been sent. As we show in the plot below, the activity on Twitter was constant throughout the day (Friday, May 31). Even after midnight local time last night more than 3,000 tweets about the protest were published every minute [...]

What is unique about this particular case is how Twitter is being used to spread information about the demonstrations from the ground. Unlike some other recent uprisings, around 90% of all geolocated tweets are coming from within Turkey, and 50% from within Istanbul (see map below). In comparison, Starbird (2012) estimated that only 30% of those tweeting during the Egyptian revolution were actually in the country. Additionally, approximately 88% of the tweets are in Turkish, which suggests the audience of the tweets is other Turkish citizens and not so much the international community.

Steven Cook at Foreign Affairs:

Still, Turkey is decidedly split. Erdogan governs one half the country — his supporters — and intimidates the other. His political lineage and personal background have instilled within him a certain amount of paranoia. Turkey’s Islamists, no matter how powerful they become, are always on the lookout for the next coup or round of repression. (In 1998, for example, Erdogan was jailed for reciting a poem that was allegedly a call to holy war against the Turkish state even though the author is one of the most important theorists in Turkish nationalist pantheon.) For the rising new political and business class that Erdogan represents, correcting the past wrongs of the Kemalist elite — which discriminated and repressed the two bogeymen of the Turkish politics, Kurds and Islamists — has been a priority. They have worked to accomplish it through both democratic and (more often recently) non-democratic means. The problem for Erdogan is that, despite his best efforts, the tram that he referred to when he was mayor of Istanbul stopped in Taksim Square, where a lot of Turks are signaling they will no longer tolerate his authoritarian turn.

Did Stuxnet work?

Did Stuxnet work? Not as well as we think, says Ivanka Barzashka in a new RUSI Journal article, Are Cyber-Weapons Effective? Assessing Stuxnet’s Impact on the Iranian Enrichment Programme:

[C]entrifuge numbers unexpectedly dropped after the first Stuxnet attack wave in June 2009. Inspectors’ records show that between May and August that year, while the total number of operational centrifuges decreased by more than 300, the amount of machines being installed grew by almost twice that amount – indicating either extreme confidence or a desperate attempt to try to keep enrichment production steady. This indicates that Iran was bringing in additional centrifuges, but fewer machines were actually working [...] Consecutive Stuxnet attacks showed no net effect on centrifuge numbers at Natanz; in fact, the number of running centrifuges slightly increased after the malware’s second and third attack waves in March and April 2010 [...]

In fact, uranium-enrichment capacity grew during the time that Stuxnet was said to have been destroying Iranian centrifuges. Iran produced more enriched uranium, more efficiently: the entire plant’s separative capacity per day increased by about 40 per cent, despite the fluctuations in centrifuge numbers, and the IR-1 centrifuges’ annual separative capacity jumped by about 60 per cent [...]

Analysis of trends in centrifuge numbers shows a correlation between an unexplained drop in machines and the first Stuxnet attack in 2009, but not consecutive attacks – contrary to reports that the malware was wrecking Iranian machines in 2010. If sabotage did occur, it was short-lived and most likely happened between May and November 2009. The situation appears to have been under control by 2010. More significantly, Iran’s ability to successfully operate new machines was not hindered.

See, also, my book review in the FT of Thomas Rid’s Cyber War Will Not Take Place.

Indian views of Nawaz Sharif’s election

Indian views on Nawaz Sharif’s election – ranging from the wary to the enthusiastic.

Shyam Saran (former foreign secretary):

One, Kashmir will remain the “core issue” for Pakistan [...] Pakistani army’s well-known opposition to him. It would also reassure his constituency of right-wing and religious elements, including jihadi groups such as the Lashkar-e-Tauiba [sic].  Two, given PML-N’s close association with jihadi and fundamentalist groups, it is unlikely that serious curbs would be put on them [...] Thus, there is unlikely to be a clear break from the long-standing policy of using cross-border terrorism as an instrument of State policy — although in seeking to improve relations with India, they may be put under more strict constraint [...] Three, Sharif has been reticent about his party’s views on the Afghan Taliban or on how he sees Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan [...] India has had no place in Pakistan’s vision of a future Afghanistan and this is unlikely to change [...] Hence the best policy to adopt is to seek improved relations in small doses, whose cumulative impact over a period may still be substantive. We should learn from the experience of Kargil and other similar instances. Grand gestures on either side or an attempt to depart significantly from the established narrative are usually followed by a deliberate and often violent effort to reverse any perceived improvement in relations.

C. Raja Mohan:

Sharif is also aware that Singh’s clock is running down, and that the UPA government headed by him has little political steam left. There is a danger then that the subcontinent’s traditional curse — the misalignment of the political cycles in India and Pakistan — might once again compel Delhi to lose yet another moment of opportunity with Islamabad [...] As Delhi debates the government’s options towards Sharif within the UPA’s self-imposed constraints, there is one way out — through the Punjab. It could consider, for example, sending an Indian political delegation headed by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to attend Sharif’s swearing-in next week [...] When Vajpayee travelled to Lahore in February 1999, defying the hawks in his party, he had the wisdom to ask Parkash Singh Badal, the then CM of Punjab, to join his delegation

The elections in Pakistan provide a new political basis for re-imagining India-Pakistan relations. Nawaz Sharif’s victory is rooted in a comprehensive political sweep in Punjab — Pakistan’s largest province. On this side of the Radcliffe Line, there is a strong government, whose leaders are deeply committed to normalisation of relations between the two Punjabs, and between Delhi and Islamabad. The stars in Punjab are in rare alignment for a big political push on the people’s agenda in Indo-Pak relations. The only missing element is a bit of political courage in the Congress party

Chinmaya R. Gharekhan (former Indian Ambassador to the UN):

On the other hand, going by the election manifestos of major political parties in Pakistan in the run-up to the May 11 elections, there seems to be a growing consensus among politicians for détente with India. Their manifestos not only did not contain anti-India rhetoric; they also indicated a willingness to promote peace with India. The party of incoming Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif even went to the extent of declaring that it will open the transit route for trade between India, Afghanistan and beyond through Pakistan. Since winning the election convincingly, he has reiterated his desire to work for better relations with India, which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has warmly reciprocated. Imran Khan’s party also spoke of progressive detente with India. This trend needs to be noted and welcomed in India. It suggests that the political mainstream might be ready to stand up to the military in case the latter came in the way of normalising relations with India. Whether it is able to do so will remain to be seen, but at least it has made public its intention to do so. Mr. Sharif has declared that he will be the ‘boss’ and that civilian supremacy will be asserted. If that happens, the possibility of normal relations between the two countries can certainly be entertained. Indians have a tendency to lurch from euphoria to hostility in reacting to developments in neighbouring countries. We need to wait and watch.

Vivek Katju (former Indian diplomat):

Lastly, how should India deal with Sharif? It should welcome a forward movement on trade, treatment of prisoners, people-to-people contacts and cooperation in areas such as agriculture and the environment. However, we should be conscious that the use of terror is a part of Pakistan’s security doctrine against India and Sharif cannot change that. His views on Kashmir and other issues have also not been flexible. Statecraft requires cold assessment, not exuberant emotion. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and external affairs minister Salman Khurshid would do well to watch Sharif’s swearing-in on television in their offices rather than in person in Aiwan-e-Sadr in Islamabad.

Shekhar Gupta:

So the people of Pakistan have nuanced their view of their army and the Lashkars. But are we in India willing to change ours? Unfortunately, over the years (post-Sharm el-Sheikh, let’s say), our view of Pakistan has become re-militarised as its own society’s has become de-militarised. Anybody in Pakistan is willing to say to you now that the horrible beheading of the Indian soldier was carried out by the military establishment only to block the Zardari government giving India the MFN status. And we walked straight into the trap, calling off sporting exchanges, the prime minister himself saying it can’t be business as usual, the leader of the opposition demanding 10 heads for one. While the same Pakistan has defied the army, the Lashkars, and its hatred of America and its drones, to vote for a man whose manifesto promises trade and peace with India, even transit to Afghanistan and Central Asia [...] Sad truth is, we Indians still seem unwilling to appreciate and respond to this dramatic transformation.

Indian perspectives on border tensions with China

Some context at the WSJ on the past week’s flare-up, and my article from 2011 (PDF) on the drivers of Sino-Indian tension. And Indian reactions:

Srinath Raghavan:

The areas where Chinese intrusions occur are claimed by both sides as lying on their side of the LAC. The Chinese are perfectly sincere when they claim that their forces are operating on their side of the LAC — just as the Indians are when they claim that the Chinese have intruded into the their side of the Line. This simple fact seems to elude most of our commentators in the media. This is all the more surprising because this problem has been around for over fifty years now. Daulat Beg Oldi, the focal point of the current hubbub, was an area of contention even before the 1962 war. Such places are likely to remain contentious until there is a boundary agreement between India and China. Till such an agreement is reached, both countries will continue to send troops into disputed areas, if only to keep their formal territorial claims alive. An Indian army chief is on the record stating that “the Chinese have a different perception of the Line of Actual Control, as do we. When they come up to their perception, we call it incursion and likewise they do.”

Equally mistaken is the notion that every move by China is part of some larger plan to box India into a corner. If our experts are to be believed, Beijing has worked out its strategy for the next thirty years while New Delhi can barely think thirty days ahead. The idea that great powers work to some predetermined grand strategy flies in the face of all international history. It is certainly not true of China, which has more than its share of extraordinary blunders.

Srinath Raghavan, again:

Srinath Raghavan, the author of War and Peace in Modern India, shares the view that Chinese unease with India’s border bustle is the big driver in this round of hostilities. But the senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi refuses to divine a hardening of Beijing’s overall stance towards India.

“I think it fits with past patterns of incursions in the area,” says Raghavan. “The Chinese are operating within their notion of the LAC. There is evidently an increase in tit-for-tat moves but China is not the only active party here. We too make our moves in areas that fall under China’s perceived LAC. So long as there is no agreed boundary, these things are bound to happen.”

Prashant Jha:

Last week, as the dispute over the alleged Chinese incursions across the Line of Actual Control deepened, the Headlines Today anchor, Rahul Kanwal, adopted a particularly aggressive line of questioning. Implicit in his approach was the assumption that the Chinese were the ‘aggressors’, that the Government of India had been weak, submissive, and not done enough [...] Mr Kanwal did not reply to The Hindu’s question whether his channel had adopted a particular editorial line on the issue. But his approach was very similar to what was seen across channels, with anchors framing provocative questions, picking experts with a particular slant of views, and hectoring down those whose opinions perhaps varied with a narrative which sought to paint the issue of border ‘incursions’ in black-and-white. This throws up, yet again, questions about the nature of foreign policy coverage on Indian television.

The other issue is of the kind of ‘experts’ on TV discussions. Senior editors admit that there is a pre-determined narrative and guests are picked depending on their availability, but also familiarity with their thoughts and what they would say. ‘We don’t like nuances,” says one editor.

 Nitin Pai:

The PLA’s tactic of creating outrage to check the Indian Army works because the Chinese side expects the Indian political leadership to act rationally. If, instead, New Delhi were to allow the situation “to accentuate”, to use the prime minister’s phrase, then it would be for Beijing to choose whether it wants to escalate matters, especially at this time when China finds itself poised on the verge of conflict with almost all of its neighbours.

This is, of course, a risky thing to do. However, this is also a good time to take a calculated risk. After this month’s incursion, PLA commanders have proposed that the Indian Army back away from its positions in return for the PLA vacating its campsite in the Depsang valley in Ladakh. New Delhi should reject such a compromise; instead, it should visibly reinforce the Indian military presence around the vicinity. New Delhi should signal to Beijing – and, lest we forget, to our television studios – that this would be our default response to anything that we consider an incursion [...] Beyond the Himalayan boundary theatre, New Delhi should calibrate its attention to the numerous maritime disputes involving China and its East Asian neighbours to the temperature of the overall India-China relationship. China cannot expect New Delhi to be insensitive to Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian states if Beijing is insensitive to India’s interests.

Ajai Shukla:

Without a road network, the cruel Himalayan terrain reduces even the largest divisions to isolated groups of soldiers sitting on widely separated hilltops. For decades, New Delhi has failed to speed up road building [...] New Delhi must initiate an emergency inter-agency drive to cut through the difficulties and cut the roads through the hills. A Strategic Roads Plan already exists, crafted by Shyam Saran, a former special advisor to the prime minister who invested years of tramping around the borders into this comprehensive document [...] Until this network of new Indian roads substantially changes the military equation on the ground, India has little choice but to hasten softly in its military build-up [...] And as India changes ground realities, it must face the current ones, too – and keep talking with the Chinese army to ensure that tensions do not get out of hand.

Ajai Shukla, again:

This is no routine patrol incursion, which is common since both sides routinely patrol up to their perceived boundaries in order to keep alive their claims. Instead, this is an escalation that establishes “facts on the ground” that would materially affect an eventual territorial settlement. Remember the Wangdung intrusion, near Tawang, in 1986? That pocket, where the Chinese had pitched up a few tents, much like they did at DBO last fortnight, continues to remain with them [...] You must make it clear that – even in the absence of a Wangdung-type troop build-up – all options remain on India’s table. The “proportionality” that you have advocated could involve a similar occupation of disputed territory by Indian troops at a selected time and place [...] If the Chinese patrol replaces tents with permanent shelters, the Indian army will conclude that they intend to remain there through winter. In that case, it will be difficult for the government to explain to voters why it is not reacting militarily to a Kargil-style occupation of Indian territory [...]

China’s new regime is clearly testing New Delhi’s resolve, checking to see whether the MEA’s wish to make the visit a success will induce it to meekly accept the incursion at DBO. Your discussions in Beijing will set the tone for the next 10 years. We are confident you will flash the steel that your predecessor, S M Krishna, did in reminding the Chinese that our sensitivities in J&K matched Chinese sensitivities in Tibet; coming closer than any Indian official before or after to reopening the Tibet question.

 Indrani Bagchi:

Watching China’s aggressive territorial moves in the east, India should have learnt one lesson — China will remain intractable in its territorial claims. It’s willing to go to war with Japan or Vietnam and even India if need be. Second, having built a formidable network of infrastructure on the border, China is apparently unsettled at India’s own efforts in the past five years. This may ‘explain’ Chinese behaviour, but the Indian government’s focus seems to be on keeping the relationship insulated from such incidents. This talks-despite-terrorism policy didn’t work in the Pakistan context and it’s bound to fail equally spectacularly with respect to China.

KC Singh (former Secretary in India’s foreign ministry):

This time, however, the Chinese have not only exceeded their accepted outer limit by a few kilometres but actually camped there. In effect, the Chinese have changed the rules of the game. The ministry of external affairs dubs it a “face-to-face” situation. The mechanisms for border stabilisation, established by the Special Representatives (SRs) for border settlement, have failed to deal with the latest Chinese infraction [...] Interestingly, the current fracas occurs weeks before the arrival of the new Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang, in India much as the Chinese ambassador’s provocative remarks on Arunachal Pradesh in 2006 were made on the eve of the visit of then President Hu Jintao. Is there method in this madness?

India’s dilemma is akin to what the US and the West faced in 1945, at the end of the Second World War, i.e. whether to trust Stalin’s Soviet Union or contain it [...] Sinologists advising the Indian government, led by national security adviser S.S. Menon, who interminably insists that a war with China is impossible, may actually have emboldened China to test the Indian resolve again half a century after the 1962 debacle. The Chinese offer of an agreement to freeze Indian troop enhancement, bolster Pakistan, encourage Sri Lanka and penetrate Nepal are all to make India accept Chinese dominance in the new world order.

B. Raman (former intelligence officer):

There is no evidence to show that this could be a prelude to a major Chinese assertion of territorial sovereignty in this area. The Chinese aim seems to be to re-assert their claim of sovereignty over this area without disturbing peace and tranquillity. The Chinese troops are presently camping in the area in a tent. We will have reasons to be more than concerned only if they stay put there and construct permanent defences as they often do in the uninhabited islands of the South China Sea [...] There is a noticeable keenness on the part of both China and India to avoid any provocative incident either in the Eastern or Western sector [...] The Chinese are unlikely to relent in their claims to Indian territory in the Eastern sector till after they have succeeded in imposing on the Tibetans a Dalai Lama chosen by the Communist Party of China (CPC) with the help of the Panchen Lama chosen by the CPC

P. Stobdan (former Indian Ambassador):

Since 1986, China has taken land in the Skakjung area in the Demchok-Kuyul sector in Eastern Ladakh. Now, it has moved to the Chip Chap area in Northeastern Ladakh. As in Kargil, India has been lax in patrolling. Unlike the lowlands in Eastern Ladakh, the Chip Chap valley is extremely cold and inhospitable. Until end-March, it remains inaccessible, and after mid-May, water streams impede vehicles moving across the Shyok River. This leaves only a month and a half for effective patrolling by the Indian side. For China, accessibility to Chip Chap is easier. No human beings inhabit the area. No agencies except the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the army have a presence there. And both are locked in inter-departmental disputes [...] The Chinese intention is to enter from the south of the Karakoram and cross the Shyok from the east. That would be disastrous for Indian defence, leaving the strategic Nubra vulnerable, possibly impacting supply lines and even India’s hold over Siachen. It is quite possible that China is eyeing the waters of the Shyok and Chang Chenmo rivers, to divert them to the arid Aksai Chin and its Ali region. The only provocation from the Indian side was the recent opening of airbases at Daulat Beg Oldi, Fukche and Nyoma [...]

As of today, the issue is not reclaiming 38,000 square km of Aksai Chin lost to China in 1962 but retaining the territory lying inside the Indian LAC. India’s problems include poor infrastructure, shortcomings in understanding the boundary, discrepancies in maps held by various agencies, a lack of institutional memory, lack of clarity in South Block, a demoralised army. In a 2010 meeting, officials admitted the loss of substantial land in 20-25 years, though then Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor dismissed that Ladakh had shrunk. Some agencies used the change in river course as a reason for the loss of 500-1,500 metres of land every year [...] India’s political sensitivity towards Ladakh has also waned over the years. A drift in Ladakh is not desirable.

Major General Vinod Saighal:

To the armed forces, to the people of India, and to the world the foreign minister of India is not going to the Chinese capital to demand a pull-back. He is seen to be going to Beijing as a supplicant. As in the days of yore the imperial power may graciously oblige its vassal. The country will not know as to what concessions the minister would have been authorised to concede that would further undermine India’s capability in the future. Flowing from it, it could be well on the cards that during the Chinese Prime Minister’s visit some public pronouncements that the country can live with would be made. Nobody would be deceived that once again India would have been humiliated.

India still has a range of options to make China see reason without losing face. It hardly matters that India loses face, the country having been inured to it, used to it and reconciled to it by now. If these options are not exercised early enough – timing always being of the essence - India’s humiliation would have been compounded and its military position further degraded. What is worse the status quo might conceivably turn out to be freezing of positions as obtaining on the date of the agreement; meaning thereby the new LAC on the DBO sector would be 19 kms within Indian Territory.

Sushil Kumar (former navy chief):

This stand-off may be defused diplomatically, but what it really shows is the PLA’s contempt for our military capability. This raises a serious question: why do we continue to remain militarily fragile vis-a-vis China, despite being nuclear-armed, with a deterrent that boasts of an ICBM capability? [...] We consequently lack the refinements needed for manoeuvre warfare in our mountainous borders with China. With improved border infrastructure and massive airlift resources, the PLA can deploy up to four full-fledged mountain divisions to any point along the LAC within 24 hours. In contrast, our troops remain bogged down by decrepit border infrastructure and lack of mobility. That is the ground reality [...]

But why are we in such a paradox — nuclear-armed, yet militarily fragile? It is because we have deluded ourselves that nuclear deterrence reduces the need for conventional force levels and, taken in by this flawed proposition, scarce national resources have been diverted to build a nuclear war-fighting machine that will never be used. Influenced by nuclear warfare gurus with a “nuclear mindset”, we have misplaced our strategic priorities [...] Hopefully, we are not going to make the type of strategic blunder Great Britain made in the 1960s and 1970s, when it opted for the Polaris-Trident programme to bolster its nuclear deterrence. Massive resources were diverted that emasculated Britain’s conventional war-fighting capability. It cost the Royal Navy dearly. An atrophied Royal Navy realised the consequences of this folly much later in1982, when it could barely assemble a motley group of ships to sail for the Falklands.

Srikanth Kondapalli:

They are testing us and we are testing them back. When you have uncertainty, people play games. In this case, the fact that we asked for two flag meetings and the Chinese had to accept, indicated that we too put them to a test. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made a comment on this, and their foreign ministry spokesperson also said, “We should go back to status quo.” This means they accepted that it was China that changed the status quo, so to go back to it, they will have to withdraw and go back 10 km. So it is true that China tested India and India, in turn, also succeeded in testing it [...] I don’t think this issue will lead to a war. This is just posturing. Both sides will protect their sovereignty and territorial integrity, but they will not go to war on small issues. It is a big issue in terms of changing the status quo, but a small issue in terms of war.

Manoj Joshi:

Even so, it would be hazardous to speak definitively about Chinese motivations. After being lambasted by the Indian media for occupying “Indian territory,” the Chinese might be concerned about losing face with a hasty retreat. The fact of the matter is that the boundary in the region is defined merely by a notional Line of Actual Control, which is neither put down on mutually agreed maps, let alone defined in a document through clearly laid out geographical features. While both sides accept most of the LAC and respect it, there are some nine points where there are overlapping claims and both sides patrol up to the LAC, as they understand it. In such circumstances, the Chinese could well withdraw after a decent interval.

This more benign interpretation of Chinese behaviour is also in tune with the statements that the new leadership in Beijing has been making [...] 2013 is not 1962 and the Indian media and politicians should not behave as though it was, by needlessly raising the decibel level and trying to push the government to adopt a hawkish course on the border. But what the recent controversy does tell us is unsettled borders are not good for two neighbours because they can so easily become the cause of a conflict that neither may be seeking.

Praveen Swami:

Finding a speculative explanation for what is going on is easy. For example, it is possible Chinese want to lean harder on Indian positions facing the Karakoram, or that they are signalling irritation about India’s wider build-up on its eastern borders, which includes the raising of an entire new corps [...] It is also, of course, possible that China is telling the truth when it suggests the action may be a protest against defensive fortifications India has put up in Phuktsé, to compensate for its vulnerable logistical chain [...]

Even though it’s improbable China wants war, India wants one even less. India’s political leadership is hesitant to authorise force, wary of the certain costs of precipitating a crisis. Later this year, as the cold sets in across Ladakh, China’s outpost will have to withdraw: there’s simply no way to survive the cold in temporary shelters. However, Chinese will by then have drawn lessons about Indian resolve—and it’s vital, in the long-term interests of peace, that they not be the wrong ones. There are things India can do, short of setting off a firefight, which can signal seriousness of purpose: among them, more aggressive probes and presence-marking operations. There will be a price—but it will be cheaper than the cost of doing nothing now.

Zorawat Daulet Singh (via Nitin Pai):

China’s perceptions and its approach to its entire periphery has undergone changes in recent years. The reasons can be attributed mostly to internal political dynamics where the Dengist image of a pragmatic and agreeable China has been trumped by a more assertive self-image of China as a great power. The East Asian geopolitical dynamic, especially the US ‘pivot’ and renewed intra-allied cooperation in the US security network, only reinforces China’s threat perceptions and its assertive posture. This is now an ongoing game as part of the evolving balance of power in the Asia Pacific [...] At some point intense forward probing can tend to undermine the bigger negotiating picture with both militaries seeking marginal improvements in their LACs. If political oversight from both sides over the operational details is robust then this game can carry on a little longer. While on India’s side political oversight is strong, overzealous tactical behaviour must not be allowed to dictate the strategy of seeking a negotiated settlement.

Brahma Chellaney:

In this light, it will be a mistake to view the Chinese intrusion in Ladakh in isolation of the larger pattern of increasing Chinese assertiveness that began when Beijing revived its long-dormant claim to Arunachal Pradesh just before the 2006 India visit by its president, Hu Jintao. The resurrection of that claim, which was followed by its provoking territorial spats with several other neighbours, was the first pointer to China staking out a more domineering role in Asia. It was as if China had decided that its moment has finally arrived [...] India’s defensive and diffident mindset has been on full display in the latest episode. Not only has it publicly downplayed an act of naked aggression — the worst Chinese intrusion since the 1986 Sumdorong Chu incursion brought the two countries to the brink of war — but India also insists on going with an outstretched hand to an adversary still engaged in hostile actions, unconcerned that it could get the short end of the stick yet again [...]

More fundamentally, India can maintain border peace only by leaving China in no doubt that it has the capability and political will to defend peace. If the Chinese see an opportunity to nibble at Indian land, they will seize it. It is for India to ensure that such opportunities do not arise. In other words, the Himalayan peace ball is very much in India’s court. India must have a clear counter-strategy to tame Chinese aggressiveness. [...] To build countervailing leverage, India has little choice but to slowly reopen the central issue of Tibet — a card New Delhi wholly surrendered at the altar of diplomacy during the time Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister.

Jaideep Prabhu:

Returning to 2013, these patterns from the past are immediately visible – proclamations of the desire for peaceful coexistence, feigned anger at a supposed slight, ambiguous diplomatic positioning, and military risk-taking with the hope of usurping territory and rights undefended. Enough ink has already been spilled on how the Indian military might better defend the country’s frontiers, how India lacks a coherent China policy, and how Indians need to calm down about an incident that is more routine than one would like. However, it might also behoove policy makers to take a step back and see the larger pattern of Chinese behaviour with its neighbours: duplicity, opacity, and belligerence when they can get away with it. The present border skirmish is not an isolated incident but fits uncomfortably well with Chinese strategy over the past few decades. India needs to consider the entirety of Chinese strategy and not restrict its response to a singular event but develop a range of options by which to undermine China’s game.

Pierre Fitter:

Let’s start with the immediate problem – the incursions. The one thing India does not want to do is to play Beijing’s game. Beijing wouldn’t mind a fight right now. This would rally China’s citizens behind the Party. The goal, remember, is not the fight itself, which the PLA will likely win thanks to superior logistics. It is for the Party to have the unquestioning support of its citizens. India, at any rate, cannot afford a conflict right now. The best solution is to talk and defuse such provocations. This has happened 600 times before and will continue to happen in the future. The media should avoid conflating such obvious distractions with the real problems identified above.

That said, there is no harm in enhancing India’s ability to respond to a potential conflict. The stationing of new military units along the LAC is a strong signal that New Delhi is prepared to defend its territory. This conventional deterrence bolstered by the existing nuclear deterrent, will ward off more serious land-grabbing attempts [...] Another strong signal would be the strengthening of ties with China’s other neighbours such as Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan [...] The wider the basket of benefits for good behaviour, the greater will be Beijing’s perceived alienation for its bad behaviour. MEA officials and observers in the strategic community indicate that the New Delhi is doing exactly this. Perhaps its public messaging could do with improvement.

Suggested additions welcome.

What to read on Syria and chemical weapons, Part II

Following yesterday’s post, another roundup:

Reuters:

[President Obama:] “That is going to be a game changer. We have to act prudently. We have to make these assessments deliberately. But I think all of us … recognize how we cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian populations,” he said.

McClatchy:

CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency assessments agreed that there was insufficient evidence from tissue and soil samples to conclude concretely that forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad had launched sarin against civilians, someone who’s familiar with the issue told McClatchy. “There are these tiny little data points, none of which are conclusive,” said the person, who asked not to be further identified because of the issue’s sensitivity. U.S. intelligence agencies “can’t say anything conclusively about this right now,” he said.

Steve Hynd:

But what about the blood and soil samples supposedly obtained by various intelligence agencies that have tested positive for sarin? Well, in the first place – they probably did not test positive for sarin because such tests don’t usually test for sarin itself, they test for the down-stream products of sarin breaking down in the body or in the environment(PDF). Sarin breaks down very quickly – within minutes – in the body, leaving behind various derivative compounds all of which are variants on methylphosphoric acid. Many of these chemicals are already present in the environment or easily available for accidental exposure – in pesticides, fertilizers, rust removers and in textile- and paper-processing compounds. The presence of such compounds in samples means squat unless there is a clear chain of custody for the samples.

Michael Weiss:

Might the rebels have attacked a regime chemical weapon in transit? (This is what the White House intended in its letter by referring to the indeterminate “chain of custody” of Assad’s chemical arsenal.) An unintentional hit might have happened once, but if it did so repeatedly, then that would strongly suggest that many chemical stockpiles are now in transit throughout Syria, which would also constitute a clear violation of Obama’s “red line.” And if by referring to the movement of “a whole bunch” of WMD, the president made his policy contingent on the proportion of chemical mobilization, at what point does multiple instances of “small scale” attacks become a worrying size-matters problem for his administration?

Could the regime have “accidentally” launched one or more chemical warheads that were wrongly labeled conventional artillery rounds or surface-to-surface rockets or other types of munitions? That seems unlikely, but if the regime is so careless with the cataloging of its own arsenal, then more accidents are bound to happen. As it happens, the Syrian military has had some bad experiences with trying to fill conventional artillery rounds with chemical compounds. In the 1970s, soldiers “experimented” in just this way, only to have the results literally explode in their faces. What if the next time Assad makes a mistake, he accidentally sends a VX warhead to Hezbollah? If the regime has not learned to be more careful since, then should it not be alleviated of the overtaxing burden of having to differentiate between WMD and mere W?

All of this academic speculation ignores obvious intentionality. Wired magazine reported last December that the Syrian military had already outfitted rockets with chemical warheads. “Physically, they’ve gotten to the point where the can load it up on a plane and drop it,” one quoted intelligence official said, and he did not add that these were in any way errors of judgment or categorization.

Joseph Holliday at FP:

This subtle introduction of chemical weapons fits the Assad regime’s established model for military escalation. Over the course of the conflict, each regime escalation has started with military necessity and expanded to brutal punishment of the Syrian population. Assad has established a clear modus operandi for ramping up the battle without triggering international intervention: toe the line, confirm Western inaction, and then ratchet up the violence further. At each step Washington’s hollow “we strongly condemn” rhetoric has validated the approach [...] Much like the strategy employed with artillery, air power, and ballistic missiles, Assad’s introduction of weapons of mass destruction intends to pave the way for more lethal and wide-ranging chemical attacks against the Syrian people in the future [...] Assad’s approach to the conflict has been the inverse of what Western militaries call population-centric counterinsurgency: rather than clear insurgents out of population centers, Assad has sought to clear populations out of insurgent-held areas.

FT:

American and British officials said the initial response would be to use the evidence to put more pressure on Russia, which has prevented action at the UN against the Syrian regime. Officials believe the potential use of chemical weapons could provide a way to break the diplomatic deadlock over the Syrian civil war [...] In the near term, the most likely option is increased support for groups of opposition fighters considered moderate, which the US is currently supplying with non-lethal military aid but not weapons. “What we are trying to do is get the sensible moderates among the rebels leading this fight,” said a UK official. “The trouble is that the EU arms embargo ensures that the moderates like Salem Idriss [the leader of moderate rebels] are the only ones that don’t get weapons, while the extremists do get them.” The official added: “We have to help Idriss and show he can supply arms and be a source of weapons in the fight against Assad. That will ensure that Syrians rally around him.”

NYT:

Across Syria, rebel-held areas are dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics, and by fighting brigades led by extremists. Even the Supreme Military Council, the umbrella rebel organization whose formation the West had hoped would sideline radical groups, is stocked with commanders who want to infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government. Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of [...] Although led by an army defector, Gen. Salim Idris, the council has taken in the leaders of many overtly Islamist battalions. One called the Syrian Liberation Front has been integrated nearly wholesale into the council; many of its members coordinate closely with the Syrian Islamic Front, a group that includes the extremist Ahrar al-Sham, according to a recent report by Ms. O’Bagy, of the Institute for the Study of War.

Guardian:

Congressmen briefed by secretary of state John Kerry on Friday in Washington say the most likely option Kerry outlined would involve joining other countries in arming specific rebel groups. The imposition of a no-fly zone is also being considered but is deemed unattractive by the administration because chemical weapons do not require aircraft to be used – and because the high quality of Syrian air defences would put US lives at risk. There was also discussion of special forces use and specially designed ordnance designed to safely incinerate chemical weapons facilities, but there was scepticism that either would address the problem, which is thought to be widely dispersed.

Washington Post:

Despite military gains by the rebels in some parts of Syria, Jordanian intelligence officials see potential for a protracted struggle lasting many more months or even longer, with neither side capable of a decisive victory. Left on its current trajectory, the conflict will result in “a Taliban-style failed state, or a series of small mini-states,” said a senior Jordanian official, insisting on anonymity in discussing intelligence assessments. “We’re looking at the potential for sectarian spillover, threatening the whole region.”

What to read on Syrian chemical weapons

(Updated)

1. The Times (£):

An investigation by The Times inside Syria into the April attack in Aleppo, including interviews with survivors and doctors who treated the casualties, along with an examination of video footage shot in the immediate aftermath, suggests that nerve gas is being used in Syria’s war. [note: see Borger piece below]

2. The Financial Times (£):

According to a senior western diplomat, the evidence of the use of sarin is based on two separate samples taken from victims of the attacks. One sample has been analysed by the US authorities, while the second has been examined by Britain’s Defence Science Technology Laboratory.

According to this diplomat, both the US and UK samples were taken from victims at separate locations and on separate dates in the conflict.

A senior British official said: “When you put everything together, both in terms of the hard evidence we have and the circumstantial evidence, then it is increasingly likely that sarin was used by the Assad regime.”

However the official added: “What the evidence does not tell us is things like the scale of use, the precise location and whether the sarin was weaponised. We do not yet have that hard information which allows us to make a categorical statement that would be unchallengeable in the court of international public opinion.”

3. Wired:

The blood samples were taken by Syrian opposition groups from alleged victims of that strike. But American analysts can’t be entirely sure where the blood came from or when the precisely exposure took place.

“This is more than one organization representing that they have more than one sample from more than one attack,” the source tells Danger Room. “But we can’t confirm anything because no is really sure what’s going on in country.”

What’s clear is that the samples are authentic, and that the weapons were almost certainly employed by the Assad regime, which began mixing up quantities of sarin’s chemical precursors months ago for an potential attack, as Danger Room first reported.

4. McClatchy:

Another person familiar with the issue, who asked not to be further identified because of its sensitivity, said that only a minuscule trace of a “byproduct”– a toxic residue left behind after use of a nerve agent, and which he did not identify – had been found in a soil sample.

“They found trace amounts of a byproduct in soil, but there are also fertilizers that give out the same byproduct,” the person said. “It’s far from conclusive.”

5. The New York Times:

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who is chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the [intelligence] agencies actually expressed more certainty about the use of these weapons than the White House indicated in its letter. She said Thursday that they voiced medium to high confidence in their assessment [...] While several officials said the intelligence agencies expressed medium to high confidence about its overall assessment, two intelligence officials noted that there were components of the assessment about which the agencies were less certain. They did not offer details.

6. The Wall Street Journal:

“If the evidence is really fragmentary, then it is hard to say what you do militarily,” said Steve Simon, who served as a White House adviser on Syria in 2011 and 2012. “If you don’t know which units were responsible for the deployment of the weapons, you don’t really know who to hit, if you were inclined to hit anyone.” [...] More likely, he said, is a diplomatic response through the U.N., possibly by asking for Mr. Assad to allow international inspectors into the country to investigate what happened more fully. “A military approach to the chemical-weapons problem is not anyone’s favorite option. It’s highly dangerous, so people are not going to want to go down that road, at least now.”

7. Arms Control Wonk:

One can immediately see the problem: The samples show sarin exposure, but they are not linked to specific, credible events [...] Suddenly the constant references to the “small scale” use becomes more clear — we don’t have multiple victims in a single use, as might be expected if the Syrians gassed a military unit or a local community.  At most, we have two events in which only one person was exposed.

For all we know, these two poor souls stumbled into sarin canisters while ransacking a liberated Syrian military sites.  I don’t say that to be callous, but rather because strange things happen on the battlefield.  Remember, in 1991, US troops detonated a pit of munitions at Khamisiyah in Iraq only to discover that the munitions contained Sarin. The image atop the post is one of a series showing US forces detonating the munitions at Khamisiyah, exposing thousands of US service personnel to low-levels of sarin.  This was the worst event, but not the only potential exposure of US forces in 1991 to nerve agents. There are many ways that FSA fighters might find themselves exposed to Sarin.  I still think caution is important.

8. Nuclear Diner:

Chain of custody means assurance that the samples are what they are said to be. The sample is taken and sealed in a tamper-proof manner. The sample-taker signs off on a paper that accompanies the sample. Each person to whom the sample is transferred signs off on that paper. The reason is that samples can be faked from the start or adulterated somewhere along the line. Given the chaos in Syria, however, I doubt that a credible chain of custody can be produced, even if a piece of paper with signatures exists. You have to be able to believe all the people who signed off.

A quick Google search suggests that gas chromatography is the method of choice for analyzing sarin in blood. There seem to be at least two methods, both fairly involved. The more direct method is affected by the amount of time between exposure and analysis. We don’t know what that was in this case. I find the writeup of the other method confusing, but the paper lays out exactly how a sample could be faked. All that would be needed would be a very small amount of sarin, which might be, say, stolen from a laboratory, and someone’s (anyone’s) blood. Was the blood tested to show it was human?

9. Peter Beaumont in The Guardian:

The history of the allegations made about Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction requires that proof is offered on public forums that can be adequately cross-examined. In this case, if it is true that the UK and French governments have soil samples that show sarin has been used, they should not only be shared with UN investigators but the chain of evidence showing how they came to have the samples must made public.

Until then, the caution of Chuck Hagel is the only appropriate response. He said last week that Washington will not be rushed into intervention by foreign intelligence reports, even those from allies. “Suspicions are one thing;” he declared, “evidence is another”. Given the history of British officials’ behaviour in the run up to war in Iraq, they should either do the right thing – disclose what evidence they have – or let the UN investigating team reach its own conclusion.

10. Arms Control Now:

Now, the international community must unite in efforts to achieve a full investigation of the evidence. In particular, the UN Security Council should meet to outline a course of action to prevent any further use of chemical weapons, including ensuring that the Syrian Government permits and facilitates access by the OPCW team the UN Secretary General has called on to conduct the investigation.

Despite having requested that UN investigate a possible chemical weapons attack that took place on March 19, Syria is currently refusing to allow inspectors to enter the country, unless the UN agrees to confine its investigations to that single incident.

All states, particularly Syrian allies such as Russia and Iran, should urge Syrian strongman Bashir al Assad to allow the UN investigation into the past use of chemical weapons to go forward unhindered and reiterate that the use of chemical weapons by any party in the Syrian conflict is unacceptable and individuals involved will be held accountable.  Iran, as a victim of massive Iraqi chemical attacks in the past, has a particular responsibility to condemn chemical weapons use.

11. Julian Borger in the Guardian:

Some of the videos in circulation online show alleged victims foaming at the mouth, but that is not listed as a sarin symptom on the website of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Richard Guthrie, a British chemical weapons expert and former head of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said: “That [foaming at the mouth] would not be indicative of use of nerve agents but is more likely to be a sign of a choking agent such as phosgene being used, if anything were used. Phosgene is a widely used industrial chemical as well as being a first world war-era chemical weapon.”

Jean-Pascal Zanders, an expert at the EU Institute for Strategic Studies, said: “It’s not possible that what is being shown to the public is a chemical weapons attack. The video from Aleppo showing foaming at the mouth does not look like a nerve agent. I’m wholly unconvinced.”

And, on a related note, my  co-authored RUSI paper, Iran: Red Lines and Grey Areas (PDF) on the concept of deterrent red lines, released today:

But any red line that allows for such post-hoc or ad-hoc re-interpretation is unavoidably ambiguous and correspondingly more prone to being tested [...] As Scott Sagan notes, ‘risk and deterrence go hand-in-hand as a consequence of commitment: a state cannot get the extra measure of deterrence that comes from making threats without also accepting some extra risk of having to implement that threat if deterrence fails’. Diluting that risk also dilutes deterrence.

The end of Mutually Assured Destruction?

Via Matt Fay, a very concise statement (PDF) of Daryl Press’ and Keir Lieber’s arguments regarding the end of nuclear “stalemate”, published in the Strategic Studies Quarterly:

[T]he same revolution in accuracy that has transformed conventional warfare has had equally momentous consequences for nuclear weapons and deterrence. Very accurate delivery systems, new reconnaissance technologies, and the downsizing of arsenals from Cold War levels have made both conventional and nuclear counterforce strikes against nuclear arsenals much more feasible than ever before. Perhaps most surprising, pairing highly accurate delivery systems with nuclear weapons permits target strategies that would create virtually no radioactive fallout, hence, vastly reduced fatalities. (p3)

The same models that were used during the Cold War to demonstrate the inescapability of stalemate—the condition of “mutual assured destruction,” or MAD—now suggested that even the large Russian arsenal could be destroyed in a disarming strike. Furthermore, the dramatic leap in accuracy—which is the foundation for effective counterforce—is based on widely available technologies within reach of other nuclear-armed states, including Russia, China, Pakistan, and others. (p4)

And why counterforce is a desirable capability:

Fielding powerful counterforce weapons may help deter adversary escalation during war— by convincing enemy leaders to choose a “golden parachute” rather than escalation—and would give US leaders better response options if deterrence failed … the United States should retain and develop nuclear weapons that bring together three key characteristics of counterforce: high accuracy, flexible yield, and prompt delivery (p7)

(An aside: ‘High accuracy, flexible yield, and prompt delivery’ certainly characterizes the direction in which South Asian arsenals are headed, even if at a crawl)

Richard Betts on deterrence, Iran, and ambiguity

Richard Betts, in a long Foreign Affairs essay on deterrence, talks about Iran:

Nevertheless, rather than planning to deter a prospective Iranian nuclear arsenal, the United States and Israel have preferred preventive war. Although many still hope to turn Iran away from nuclear weapons through sanctions and diplomacy, the debate within and between the United States and Israel over what to do if Iran moves to produce a bomb is about not whether to attack but when. U.S. President Barack Obama has firmly declared that he has not a “policy of containment” but rather “a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” and other administration officials have repeatedly emphasized this point. As promises in foreign policy go, this one is chiseled in stone. Backing down from it when the time comes would be the right thing to do but would represent an embarrassing retreat.

The logic behind rejecting deterrence is that Tehran might decide to use nuclear weapons despite facing devastating retaliation. The risk can never be reduced to zero, but there is no reason to believe that Iran poses more danger than other nasty regimes that have already developed nuclear weapons. The most telling example is North Korea. Although the American public has not paid nearly as much attention to North Korea, Pyongyang’s record of fanatical belligerence and terrorist behavior over the years has been far worse than Tehran’s.

Refusing to accept an iota of risk from Iran ignores the massive risks of the alternative of initiating war. Leaving aside the danger of being blind-sided by unanticipated forms of Iranian reprisal — for example, the use of biological weapons — the obvious risks include Iranian retaliation by overt or covert military means against U.S. assets. The results of the initially successful assault on Iraq in 2003 are a reminder that wars the United States starts do not necessarily end when and how it wants them to. Indeed, the records of the United States and Israel suggest that both countries tend to underestimate the prospective costs of the wars they enter. Washington paid fewer costs than expected during the Gulf War but faced a far higher bill than anticipated in Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and the second war against Iraq. Israel suffered less in the 1967 Six-Day War than expected but was badly surprised by the costs of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 1982 Lebanon war, and the 2006 war against Hezbollah.

Launching a war against Iran would also have negative spillover effects. First and foremost, short of an accompanying ground invasion and occupation, an air attack could not guarantee an end to Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons; it could guarantee only a delay and would almost certainly drive the Iranians to commit more fervently to building a bomb. If Iran’s capabilities were only temporarily degraded but its intentions were inflamed, the threat might become worse. Striking first would also fracture the international coalition that now stands behind sanctions against Iran, undercut opposition to the regime inside the country, and be seen throughout the world as another case of arrogant American aggression against Muslims.

Those costs might seem justifiable if launching a war against Iran dissuaded other countries from attempting to get their own nuclear deterrents. But it might just as well energize such efforts. George W. Bush’s war to prevent Iraq from getting nuclear weapons did not dissuade North Korea, which went on to test its own weapons a few years later, nor did it turn Iran away. It may have induced Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi to surrender his nuclear program, but a few years later, his reward from Washington turned out to be overthrow and death — hardly an encouraging lesson for U.S. adversaries about the wisdom of renouncing nuclear weapons.

One reason U.S. leaders might be reluctant to apply deterrence these days is that the strategy’s most potent form — the threat to annihilate an enemy’s economy and population in retaliation — is no longer deemed legitimate [...] But that inhibition should hardly be a reason to prefer starting a war, nor does it cripple deterrence. An acceptable variant would be to threaten not to annihilate Iran’s population but to annihilate its regime — the leaders, security agencies, and assets of the Iranian government — if it used nuclear weapons. Although in practice, even a discriminating counterattack of that kind would result in plenty of collateral damage, U.S. planners could credibly make the threat and could reinforce it by pledging to invade Iran as well — a step that would be far more reasonable to take after an Iranian nuclear strike than it was against Iraq in 2003. And even if legal concerns constrained the United States from massively retaliating against Iranian civilians, Israeli leaders would surely be willing to do so if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, since Israel’s national existence would be at stake. Those mutually reinforcing threats — that the fruits of the Iranian Revolution and even Iranian society itself would cease to exist — would be an overwhelming restraint on Tehran.

A nuclear-armed Iran is an alarming prospect. But there is no sure solution to some dangers, and this challenge presents a strategic choice between different risks. There is simply no real evidence that war with Iran would yield any more safety than handling the problem with good old deterrence.

Fine as far as it goes, but it misses what is now the more relevant debate over what will happen if Iran stays below the American red line in perpetuity.

Last week, The Economist reported that “[Obama] has told [Netanyahu] that America is now closer to the threshold for taking such a step” – that step being “an ultimatum to Iran that it must reach a deal on halting enrichment within months or face military action” – and “that he [Obama] is not prepared to allow diplomatic negotiations to run beyond this year without a big change in Iran’s attitude”.

If that is so, and I am somewhat sceptical that Obama would have been so committal, then we run into a problem identified by Betts earlier in his essay:  ”the deterrent warning must be loud and clear, so the target cannot misread it. Deterrence should be ambiguous only if it is a bluff”.

Iran is unlikely to take any obvious steps towards weaponisation – say, enrichment beyond 20% or the expulsion of inspectors. So what will that ultimatum look like? There will be considerable ambiguity over where other red lines should be drawn if the talks fail and Iran continues its nuclear advances: introduction of IR2s at Fordow? A certain number of cascades?

This ambiguity may even be realistically irresolvable. Setting a specific date, as Israel wants and The Economist suggests might have occurred, is deeply problematic: true, it is unambiguous (2014 comes when it comes), but it is also entirely non-credible, because Iran could temporarily trim down capabilities, undercut the objective basis for any military action, and slowly build back up to those levels.

More likely is a Schelling-esque approach: that the trigger for any future red line(s) is unambiguous (a specific date) but that the response is left ambiguous. But this still leaves open the possibility that, as Betts warns, Iran interprets this as a bluff.

Arms to Syria: attempt #2

Then:

‘We reached a point in the fighting, in spring 2012, when we needed proper support. We needed heavy machine guns, real weapons. Money was never an issue: how much do you want? Fifty million dollars, a hundred million dollars – not a problem. But heavy weapons were becoming hard to find: the Turks – and without them this revolution wouldn’t have started – wanted the Americans to give them the green light before they would allow us to ship the weapons. We had to persuade Saad al-Hariri, Rafic Hariri’s son and a former prime minister, to go to put pressure on the Saudis, to tell them: “You abandoned the Sunnis of Iraq and you lost a country to Iran. If you do the same thing again you won’t only lose Syria, but Lebanon with it.”’ The idea was that the Saudis in turn would pressure the Americans to give the Turks the green light to allow proper weapons into the country.

‘The Americans gave their blessing,’ Abu Abdullah said, ‘and all the players converged and formed an operations room. It had the Qataris, the Saudis, the Turks and Hariri.’ In their infinite wisdom the players decided to entrust the running of the room – known as the Armament Room or the Istanbul Room after the city where it was based – to a Lebanese politician called Okab Sakr, a member of Hariri’s party who was widely seen as divisive and autocratic. The plan was to form military councils to be led and dominated by defectors from the Syrian army – this in order to appease the Americans, who were getting worried about the rising influence of the Islamists. All the fighting groups, it was assumed, would eventually agree to answer to the military councils because they were the main source of weapons.

At first, the plan seemed to be working [...] A few weeks later, though, the plan started to collapse. In Deir al-Zour, an army defector accused the military council of being dominated by a single tribe and village. He set up a rival council. In Idlib and Homs the council was seen as too weak as rival battalions grew in influence. The Istanbul Room was accused of favouritism. By mid-July it was only in Aleppo that the council seemed to be working and the rebels pushed towards the city [...]

‘Why are the Americans doing this to us? They told us they wouldn’t send us weapons until we united. So we united in Doha. Now what’s their excuse? They say it’s because of the jihadis but it’s the jihadis who are gaining ground. Abu Abdullah is $400,000 in debt and no one is sending him money anymore. It’s all going to the jihadis. They have just bought a former military camp from a battalion that was fighting the government. They went to them, gave them I don’t know how many millions and bought the camp. Maybe we should all become jihadis. Maybe then we’ll get money and support.’

Now:

Saudi Arabia has financed a large purchase of infantry weapons from Croatia and quietly funneled them to antigovernment fighters in Syria [...] The weapons began reaching rebels in December via shipments shuttled through Jordan, officials said, and have been a factor in the rebels’ small tactical gains this winter against the army and militias loyal to Mr. Assad [...] officials said the decision to send in more weapons is aimed at another fear in the West about the role of jihadist groups in the opposition [...]

Officials familiar with the transfers said the arms were part of an undeclared surplus in Croatia remaining from the 1990s Balkan wars. One Western official said the shipments included “thousands of rifles and hundreds of machine guns” and an unknown quantity of ammunition [...] An official in Washington said the possibility of the transfers from the Balkans was broached last summer, when a senior Croatian official visited Washington and suggested to American officials that Croatia had many weapons available should anyone be interested in moving them to Syria’s rebels. [...] Jutarnji list, a Croatian daily newspaper, reported Saturday that in recent months there had been an unusually high number of sightings of Jordanian cargo planes at Pleso Airport in Zagreb [...]  four sightings at Pleso Airport of Ilyushin 76 aircraft owned by Jordan International Air Cargo. It said such aircraft had been seen on Dec. 14 and 23, Jan. 6 and Feb. 18 [...]

One Western official familiar with the transfers said that participants are hesitant to discuss the transfers because Saudi Arabia, which the official said has financed the purchases, has insisted on secrecy.

Mali readings

Some things I’d found useful/interesting on Mali. Top two especially recommended.

1. Africa is a Country, ’France in Mali: the End of the Fairytale’
2. Bridges from Bamako, ‘Behind Mali’s conflict: myths, realities & unknowns’
3. LRB, ‘What went wrong in Mali?’ (from August 2012)
4. The Monkey Cage, ‘Voices from Contested Territory: 531 Messages for President Obama from Northern Mali’
5. McClatchy, ‘French forces unseen as Mali town prepares for possible Islamist advance’
6. The Arabist, ‘Mali and the Maghreb’
7. The Economist, ‘The crisis in Mali and Algeria: Jihad in the Sahara’
8. New York Times, ‘U.S. Sees Hazy Threat From Mali Militants’
9. Der Spiegel, ‘Germany’s Mali Predicament: Trapped Between France and War’
10. Jamestown Foundation on Mokthar Belmokthar, suspected to be behind the Algeria hostage-taking

I’m sure that the English-language writing only scratches the surface of what’s been written over the past couple of weeks.

Update with others:

1. CNN, ‘Six reasons events in Mali matter’: “Experts say [AQIM's] total strength is probably in the hundreds rather than any more”
2. Dart-Throwing Chimp, ‘Did Libya Cause Mali?’