Today, Kori Schake, a Hoover fellow and an associate professor of international security studies at the United States Military Academy, testified at a hearing held by the U.S. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. The subject of the hearing was “Nonproliferation and Disarmament: What’s the Connection and What Does that Mean for U.S. Security and Obama Administration Policy?”

Schake opened her testimony with the statement:

“The question [Does reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal advance non-proliferation?] is enormously consequential, for if reductions in our arsenal cause threshold states to back away from proliferation, or states whose possession of nuclear weapons threatens the United States and its interests to relinquish their nuclear weapons, then reducing U.S. nuclear forces could increase our security.  There is, however, no evidence that reducing our nuclear deterrent has that effect.”

Read the full text of Schake’s prepared testimony below:

Does Reducing the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Advance Non-Proliferation?

The question is enormously consequential, for if reductions in our arsenal cause threshold states to back away from proliferation, or states whose possession of nuclear weapons threatens the United States and its interests to relinquish their nuclear weapons, then reducing U.S. nuclear forces could increase our security.  There is, however, no evidence that reducing our nuclear deterrent has that effect.

Variety of Motivations

States choose to acquire nuclear weapons for a range of reasons.  Deterring attack or denying an adversary military advantage are the obvious spurs to nuclear possession.  But they are not the only rationales, in some cases perhaps not even the principal ones.  Regional distributions of power, national pride, bureaucratic politics, the influence of military in government, and norms of behavior that accord with national identity all affect state choices.

The list is not comprehensive; we cannot truly know what is motivating proliferant behavior.  States rarely openly and honestly give their reasons for acquiring nuclear weapons, since possession is often not an end in itself but a means to affect the choices of other states and organizations.  Politicians mislead, mischaracterize, and perhaps even misrepresent to themselves their motivations.  Historical forensics permit us to evaluate, imperfectly, a state’s choices after the fact.

The Iranian government, for example, characterizes their nuclear programs in terms designed to stoke national pride and a sense of injustice toward those who would interfere.  Until recently, at least, that has succeeded domestically: there is widespread support in Iran for their nuclear programs.  A RAND study in 2010 found that 97% of Iranians consider nuclear enrichment a national right, although only 32% would support Iran developing nuclear weapons.  This gives the Iranian government enormous incentives to maintain the belief that national pride is their motivation, even if it is not their motivation.

It is clear, though, that motivations vary, and often do not remain constant over time.  In the U.S. case, for example, preventing Nazi Germany from acquiring a war-winning advantage was the initial motivation for our nuclear program, but the program continued after Germany’s surrender.  Shifting motivations are the norm rather than the exception, because states find additional justifications, bureaucratic momentum propels a program once started, prestige of the state becomes engaged once the program begins, and compensating actions by regional rivals reinforce security concerns that may have been initial motivations.

In some ways this makes most interesting the cases of states that begin nuclear programs but decide against crossing the nuclear threshold.  Two of those cases bear particular scrutiny: Sweden, and South Africa.  The Swedish case is one of a country capable of developing nuclear weapons deciding its security was better served by foregoing the possibility: it serves as a virtuous example.  The South African case appears to be one of a country developing nuclear weapons in order to preserve their domestic political practices from outside intervention that disarmed as the result of change of governance.  Regime change precipitated denuclearization in South Africa, and there is considerable evidence to suggest the same dynamic was at work in Argentina and also Brazil when they walked back their nuclear programs.  The types of governments and their relationship to their population matter.

The salient point about motivations is that they do not correlate to the size or composition of U.S. nuclear arsenal.  In the past twenty years, the United States has made significant reductions to its nuclear forces, as have the United Kingdom, France, the NATO alliance, and even Russia; in that same period of time, China, India and Pakistan have increased their nuclear arsenals, North Korea crossed the nuclear threshold, and Iran has been engaged in suspicious nuclear activity for which it will not satisfy International Atomic Energy Agency concerns.

Supply Side Thinking

Because assessing motivations is such an imprecise and fallible art, most non-proliferation efforts have concentrated on restricting access to nuclear materials, knowledge, weapons and delivery systems.  The exception to this approach — and it is an enormous one — is the extension of nuclear guarantees to American allies and allowing their participation in nuclear missions and planning.

More than thirty countries have the industrial infrastructure and scientific knowledge to develop nuclear weapons.  Most of those countries are American allies: Japan, Australia, most of NATO Europe.  In some cases they have lingering historical resonances that an assertive unilateral defense posture would accentuate (Japan, Germany).  In other cases they have national identities associated with norms of cooperative international security (the Netherlands, Norway).  In all cases except Britain and France, they concluded that sharing in the American nuclear guarantee served their purposes better than developing forces of their own.  And even France and Britain would consider their independent nuclear deterrents affected by choices about the American nuclear arsenal.

Those same countries are also the most active and creative designers of non-proliferation ideas, the most assiduous in policing transgressions against the norm.  They caught the idea from us and advanced it, because norms spread among communities that have broad commonalities of values and perspectives.  It is much more difficult to gain traction where there is little societal commonality.

Reducing U.S. nuclear forces even has the potential to spur proliferation among U.S. allies who rely on the guarantee of our nuclear umbrella extending to their defense.  We have committed to the defense of twenty seven NATO states, Japan, South Korea, Australia.  They have chosen instead to rely on the promise of our country to protect them, including by use of nuclear weapons.  So, ironically, the most effective prevention against nuclear proliferation is the existence of U.S. nuclear forces and extension of defense commitments.

Another argument that is often raised in connection with the non-proliferation effect of nuclear guarantees is that it inhibits proliferation to our friends, but encourages proliferation by their regional rivals.  That is, a guarantee to Japan would incentivize Chinese possession of nuclear weapons, a guarantee to Saudi Arabia would incentivize Iranian nuclear acquisition.  This is likely true; what data exists seems to support that proposition.  And if preventing proliferation as a universal good is the point of our policies, then the U.S. should withhold such guarantees.  But the abstract good of non-proliferation is not, or should not be, the purpose of our policies; it should be subordinate to the concrete good of protecting our interests and our friends around the world.

We would not care particularly if Sweden developed nuclear weapons; we would care greatly if Iran did.  We were much less concerned about India crossing the nuclear threshold than we were, and are, worried about Pakistan as a nuclear state.  The nature of a state and its international behavior greatly affect our judgment of the consequences of it breaching the norm of non-proliferation. Fostering norms that reward responsible actors is a worthwhile endeavor, and ought to be high up on the list of American national security objectives.  But it is no substitute for protecting our interests and our friends when the objectives come into conflict.

Case Study: Post-Cold War Europe

Questioning the validity of extended nuclear deterrence is, of course, a parlor game of long standing, especially among NATO experts.  Europeans worried the U.S. would not trade New York for Paris, worried the U.S. would lose a conventional war rather than escalate to fight a nuclear war, worried the Soviets could succeed conventionally before NATO could make the decision to escalate, and many other permutations.  More recently, the German Foreign Minister advocated withdrawing NATO nuclear forces from Germany.  Foreign Minister Westerwelle was encouraged in this by some in the Obama Administration who support the proposition that reductions in our nuclear forces would precipitate reductions by Russia.

Despite the Obama Administration’s advocacy, NATO allies unanimously concluded they were best served by relying on the U.S. guarantee and sharing the burden of nuclear deterrence: allies believe that as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO must remain a nuclear power.  Three times in the past three years, NATO allies have had the opportunity to walk back their support for U.S. nuclear forces stationed in Europe.  The NATO Experts Group led by Madeleine Albright, the Alliance Strategic Concept unanimously adopted, and the Defense Review to implement that strategy all endorse the importance of nuclear weapons in NATO strategy, the importance of U.S. nuclear forces stationed in Europe to “make our security indivisible,” and the value of sharing in nuclear missions rather than relying on U.S. strategic nuclear forces alone.  They believe our non-strategic nuclear forces stationed in Europe reinforce transatlantic solidarity and give them important ways to participate in nuclear deterrence.

Europe is perhaps the least persuasive case on which to base the argument that reductions in the U.S. arsenal cause reductions in the arsenals of other countries.  Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has reduced its nuclear inventory by more than 90%.  Intermediate-range nuclear forces were eliminated by treaty before the end of the Cold War; the entirety of reductions after the Cold War have been in sub-strategic, or tactical, nuclear weapons.  Nearly 2,000 sub-strategic nuclear weapons were redeployed away from NATO Europe.  The Russian reaction, so hoped for by advocates of setting an example of restraint?  Nothing.  The Russians did not remove a single nuclear weapon from west of the Ural Mountains.  Nor did they diminish the role of nuclear weapons in their doctrine (the incapacities of Russian conventional forces have given incentives for increasing reliance on nuclear weapons).  The Russians claim their sub-strategic nuclear forces are essential for defending their long land border in Asia, but their deployments remain in Europe.  Russian military exercises also routinely incorporate the use of nuclear weapons in Europe, and their leaders casually discuss deploying sub-strategic forces to Kaliningrad as a means of “balancing” the expansion of NATO to include the Baltic states.

History gives few clean test cases for theories of international behavior, but the choices of NATO and Russia about sub-strategic nuclear forces repudiate the idea that virtuous reductions by us will lead to comparable behavior by our adversaries.

If You Carry An Umbrella, It Won’t Rain

Even states to which we have not committed formally or by treaty consider our nuclear forces important in their decisions about proliferation, but not in the way the question posed to this panel suggests.  Countries of the Gulf, for example, believe that as long as regional adversaries do not attain nuclear weapons, the U.S. conventional guarantee is sufficient to ensure their security.  Saudi Arabia, however, has made clear that if Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, a conventional guarantee will be inadequate.  Other countries in region are also likely to press for either weapons of their own or extension of the U.S. nuclear umbrella to cover them.  By retaining robust nuclear forces of our own, we foster the understanding by allies and countries that share our interests that they may be able to rely on nuclear guarantees from us rather than developing their own weapons.  There is a point at which a small U.S. nuclear arsenal would create skepticism it could bear the numerous claims upon it.

It is even possible that U.S. nuclear forces in the numbers being considered by the Obama Administration are small enough to provoke proliferation.  That is, adversaries may be tempted to believe if they accumulate more nuclear weapons they could reach parity with or surpass the United States.  And while it may seem an odd and empty boast to American ears, the dynamics of proliferation are complex and deeply embedded in national cultures and circumstances.  Superiority over American military power would be a compelling claim, especially for countries that cannot compete with the dynamism of American society.  The countries we are most concerned about acquiring nuclear weapons are countries that believe they deserve to be great powers but are not — and those are precisely the type of countries that might see advantage in the claim of replacing the United States as the world’s strongest power or foreclosing to it military options.

Nuclear weapons are existential — their killing power is so destructive and the international norm against their use so deeply engrained that they are distinctive.  Creating such devastation by other means would not carry the same psychological effect.  The belief of policymakers early in the nuclear age, to include President Eisenhower and Admiral Radford, that nuclear weapons were no more than increased yield explosives, has not proven true.  The norms that have grown up around nuclear weapons are extremely powerful.

It is important to recognize that the United States is the main beneficiary of the norm against nuclear use.  Having the strongest conventional military forces of any country gives us the ability to prevail in the non-nuclear domains.  Whether we will continue to dominate as new arenae of action such as cyber warfare evolve is an open question, but tangential to whether nuclear reductions advance non-proliferation.  The main warfighting purpose of nuclear weapons is to render any conventional war against the United States unwinnable.  For in conventional wars, sometimes the most capable force loses.

The central argument for U.S. reductions is that it creates a norm of restraint, an example that will affect the choices of other states.  To the extent that argument holds true at all, it applies principally to our allies, not to the countries we would be concerned about acquiring nuclear weapons.  And yet, even our allies have repeatedly and recently sought to preserve the nuclear forces and commitments of the United States.

The soundest course of policy is to size and structure the U.S. nuclear arsenal to deter attack on the United States, to protect its friends and interests in the world.  As in other military realms, sensible planning advocates a wide margin for error.  In the nuclear realm specifically, that wide margin prevents any country from believing they could disarm our second strike capability or foreclose our military options.

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University has named university professor and Hoover Institution fellow Kiron Skinner as its adviser on national security policy. In this role, Skinner, a renowned expert in international relations, U.S. foreign policy and political strategy, will build on the growing and diverse network that Carnegie Mellon has with the national security community in Washington, D.C. — both inside and outside of government.

Read the full press release from Carnegie Mellon University here.

One of the most enduring assertions about Iran is that its people support the government’s determination to continue its nuclear programs.  This belief underlies our hesitance in preventing development of an Iranian bomb, and also constrains our options.  If in acting against this Iranian government we cause Iranians to rally around it, Iran could become even more dangerous, the time delayed when this government so damaging to Iranians themselves is finally brought down.

But is it true that Iranians en masse support their country continuing its nuclear programs, especially at the price in sanctions and international opprobrium they are currently paying?  We don’t actually know.  However, it appears Iranians are beginning to question this shibboleth, and their prods for the government to determine public attitudes may become an important means by which Iranians challenge their authoritarian government.

The Iranian political class seems to believe they are on solid ground in asserting the Iranian people consider nuclear energy a national right.  A 2010 RAND survey showed 97% of Iranians believe so (although only 32% supported developing nuclear weapons).

It’s very difficult to get accurate information in repressive societies, especially about government policies that are well-known to the public.  If you were Iranian, would you honestly answer a stranger asking you whether you support your government’s most visible international policy, when people are routinely sent to prison for such things?

Two weeks ago, an Iranian state tv station polled viewers on the subject, and an amazing 63% opposed the Iranian government position.  The majority of respondents believed their government should end its nuclear enrichment in return for gradual lifting of sanctions by the international community.

The poll was shut down as soon as media reports began covering the findings, the site (irinn.ir) saying it did “not represent the whole population of Iran.”  But it had received enough attention that the Iranian government felt the need to discredit the poll: they comically alleged that the British Broadcasting Company had hacked the site (the Iranian government has a particular obsession with the British).

The sample from the tv poll is unlikely to be representative: only 2,000 people answered, and its respondents would need to have computers and be willing to risk identification.  But despite that, a significant slice of viewers chose to record their opposition to the government’s policy.  More than that: they repudiated the government and supported much of our negotiating position.

The L.A. Times reported today that a prominent Iranian cleric, Abdullah Nouri, has suggested the Iranian government hold a national referendum about whether to continue its nuclear programs.  Speaking to a group of students, he said “It is quite obvious that we should have the right to pursue peaceful nuclear programs, but the question is whether it is worth sacrificing national interests for the sake of only one issue…It would therefore be wise to let the people decide in a referendum about the nuclear dispute between Iran and the world powers.”

Iranian news outlets are not reporting his statements, not surprisingly since the government censors all media in Iran — Iran ranks 192nd in press freedom (only Belarus, Eritrea, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and North Korea rank lower).  And Nouri is not a mainstream elite voice, having spent 5 years in prison for political activism in the late 1990s.  But he is not an insignificant voice.

There are many possible explanations for these glimpses of Iranian opposition to their government.  It could be that Iranians were never enthusiastic about the policy.  It may well be that sanctions have been in place long enough (recall the Bush Administration achieved three unanimous UN Security Council Resolutions putting sanctions in place) and are now significant enough that Iranians are revising their opinions — Iran’s currency lost 50% of its value in the past year and trading grows ever more constrained.  But this is how democratic revolutions often begin.

The Department of Defense’s reprogramming request — the appeal to Congress to allow  the Pentagon to move money among its accounts — reveals the Pentagon failed to anticipate $8 billion they have spent since the 2012 budget went into effect.  While that sounds like a lot, DOD has actually come within 1.2% of its anticipated needs, which is solid performance for any organization.  What is worrisome about the reprogramming request is not the overall number, but the needlessly inflicted $100 million every month we are paying because President Obama cannot bring himself to apologize to Pakistan for killing 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Reprogramming is a rite of summer in the Pentagon budget, the Secretary asking the authorizing committees (Armed Services) and appropriating committees of the House and Senate for the latitude to readjust its spending.  Reprogramming does not add money to the budget, it reallocates already appropriated money to different uses.  It is not a means for implementing new policies; it shifts money between accounts to pay for agreed activities that prove costlier than predicted, identifying the lower priority activities that will have money taken.

This year’s reprogramming request totals $8.2 billion, which is pretty close to the mark in an overall defense profile of $703 billion for the year (this counts both the DOD baseline budget, as well as war funding, nuclear programs, and support to other agencies’ programs that are paid for by DOD but not strictly defense activities).  In general, reprogramming shows the professional competence of the Pentagon’s budget staff: they’re mighty good at their work to come within 1.2% of their spending plan, especially given the number of variables affecting their budget.

Also as usual, the changing cost of fuel is the main driver of reprogramming.  What the rest of us have experienced at the gas pump the Pentagon, as the world’s largest consumer of fuel, experiences to an even greater degree.  This is all business as usual.

What stands out in the reprogramming request is the unanticipated $772 million needed to reroute supplies going to Afghanistan.  Until October of 2011, the majority of supplies for coalition military forces fighting in Afghanistan came through Pakistan.

That relations with Pakistan are difficult is an understatement.  It is a country struggling to democratize and modernize simultaneously while under the stifling grip of corrupt political elites and a military still dominant over civilian institutions.  Finding mutually beneficial approaches with Pakistan to the problems we are concerned about would be difficult even under a diplomatically adept U.S. administration.

But President Obama and his team are most definitely not diplomatically adept.  They crafted a war strategy fundamentally dependent on Pakistan’s support, but have neither found a means of delivering that support nor changed their strategy so that it is unnecessary.  The Administration has vacillated widely in its policy toward Pakistan, aggravating that country’s (accurate) concern about abandonment by us.  The petulant comments of Secretary Panetta — while in India, no less — stoke resentment in Pakistan over the high-handed unilateralism of our military strikes inside their country.

The proximate cause of Pakistan cutting off transshipment of our military supplies is the unwillingness of the Obama Administration to apologize for killing 24 Pakistani soldiers last fall.  The circumstances of the firefight are murky, evidently with wrong on both sides.  Our side has admitting wrongdoing, the Pakistani’s have not; this may have to do with the military’s humiliation at the Osama bin Laden raid, or their attempts to retain control over civilian choices in Pakistan’s domestic politics, or the withholding of information by the Pakistani military from its civilian “masters,” or crass political calculations by the civilian leaders.

What matters from the U.S. point of view is that 74% of Pakistani’s view the United States as their enemy, according to the new Pew poll of public attitudes.  Pakistan’s parliament and its President have repeatedly called for an apology and said shipments could resume.  President Obama is only willing to go so far as to “express regret.”  Secretary Panetta says it’s time for Pakistan to move on; but the Pakistani’s are actually the ones who get to decide when they move on.

The Obama Administration’s choices — drone strikes, exasperated public comments, unwillingness to apologize — are entrenching opposition to us in the very country essential to our war efforts.  Are we really so brittle that the world’s strongest country cannot bring itself to apologize to a weak country even if we are only partly in the wrong?

This is not to defend Pakistan so much as to point out that the Administration’s choice not to apologize to Pakistan is costing American taxpayers $100 million a month directly in costs of supplying the war effort, and much more indirectly because the Pakistani government perceives our efforts as both an insult and a threat to their interests.  That cannot be a winning strategy for the United States.  President Obama should apologize.

This week’s installment of Data Matters features data that shapes the thinking of Kori Schake, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and Associate Professor of International Security Studies at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Professor Schake points us to what she considers the best chart on worldwide defense spending, originally produced by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the definitive collector of national data on defense capabilities.

The chart in the lower right of the image below shows the magnitude of 2011 U.S. defense spending compared to the rest of the world. The bubble chart running across the top of the image puts that spending in perspective as a proportion of GDP.

Click on the image below to enlarge.

The takeaway is that our economic strength affects our national security, because while the U.S. accounts for 46% of all defense spending in the world, we have, to date, been able to make that national security commitment by spending a relatively modest percentage of our GDP, both historically (4% is well below our post-World War II average) or relative to other powerful countries. (European countries being the exceptions because they’re free-riding off our NATO commitment.) Robust economic growth enables us to maintain a strong national defense while minimizing the trade-offs we must make with other important national priorities.

It merits mentioning that IISS data is based on what countries report, and the Chinese figures are generally believed to be double their reported amount.

Kori Schake is a regular contributor to Advancing a Free Society. You can read her analysis of national security issues and foreign affairs here, and subscribe to her RSS feed here.

With Data Matters, we highlight data relevant to public policy that Hoover fellows are using in their research. We feature original data, data from another source that Hoover fellows are presenting in a new way, or data that fellows find helpful in shaping their own thinking. Visit the Data Matters archive here.

Sign up for the Advancing a Free Society RSS feed to follow our data stream.

Sunday’s Washington Post featured an extensive article titled “U.S. Sees Gains in Iran Intelligence,” that details efforts by American intelligence services to penetrate Iran’s nuclear program by both technical means and human agents.  Sources in the article describe U.S. drones flying undetected over Iran, the CIA working through countries in the region to place spies in Iran and connect to knowledgeable Iranians.  The tone of the article is self-assured, conveying the message that Iran is not building a nuclear bomb.  It might more accurately be titled We Know What We’re Doing, under the Obama Administration’s byline.

The article is anonymously sourced by “seven current or former advisers on security policy who agreed to discuss U.S. options on Iran.”  Far from being a journalistic scoop of clandestine intelligence operations, the article should be read as a policy gambit by the Obama Administration.  They are attempting to discredit the need for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The article follows by a discreet few weeks testimony by the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, that Iran has not made the decision to build a nuclear weapon — even as Iran trumpets enriching uranium to 20% (beyond what is needed for nuclear fuel), and expends enormous effort and money to shift their nuclear program to deep underground facilities.  Secretary Panetta gave the same message in comments to reporters.  The article has “a senior U.S. official involved in high-level discussions about Iran policy” quoted saying “Across the board, our access has been significantly improved…There is confidence that we would see activity indicating that a decision had been made.”

These views are not shared by American allies — most notably Britain and Israel.  The article acknowledges that those countries are looking at the same intelligence as our intelligence services, but have come to the conclusion that Iran is building a nuclear weapons capability.  None of the seven anonymous sources attempted to explain why Britain and Israel are not persuaded; nor did the authors ask the Administration.

The article also conveniently appears before negotiations with Iran next week, negotiations that seem unlikely to produce a breakthrough capitulation by Iran, given that they’re even contesting the location of Turkey for holding the talks.

President Obama championed openness to Iran — instead of branding the theocratic government as evil, he set out to engage with it.  The Administration disavowed regime change, stressed both the high price any attack on Iran would accrue and that it could not destroy the program (because it could be rebuilt).  In return for these concessions, Russia, China, Germany, France and Britain agreed to increased sanctions on Iran for not complying with UN Security Council resolutions and allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency inspections.

Iran, however, has still — three years into the Obama Administration — not complied with the IAEA or UN Security Council Resolutions.  Sanctions are clearly biting, but it has not compelled Iran’s leadership to renounce its nuclear ambitions.  So the Obama Administration has taken it upon themselves to renounce Iran’s nuclear ambitions for them.

President Obama has not taken our country’s precarious debt situation seriously. When forced by Congress to revise his budget earlier this year, Defense was the only department targeted for cuts. Last summer’s Budget Control Act legislated further reductions for this year’s budget and portends even more significant cuts in the out years of the coming decade. Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently unveiled a sensible set of choices for the coming year, but unfortunately failed to account for hundreds of billions of dollars that still must be found under the terms of last summer’s legislation. Unless they provide a better blueprint for spending, across-the-board cuts will come into effect in January 2013. And, as Panetta himself has said, not just the budget choices but the entire Pentagon strategy would collapse with any further cuts.

In addition to producing a budget willfully ignorant of further cuts, the White House has avoided any serious discussion of the hazards of cutting spending this deeply. The president is trying to have it both ways, cutting defense while pretending there is no risk associated with the cuts. At his Pentagon press conference in January, Obama said that “yes, our military will be leaner, but the world must know—the United States is going to maintain our military superiority.” But neither he nor Panetta has produced a plan that gives credence to the claim.

Continue reading Kori Schake…

When the Arab spring began a year ago, the Western world was shocked. Liberty seemed to have bypassed the Arabs; they had seemed resigned to tyranny. But once unleashed, the upheaval knew no restraint, and there were both mayhem and promise in the streets of the Arab world. Since then, the rebellions have spawned a steady stream of punditry and conventional wisdom about the Arab spring—some of it vastly mistaken. Let’s explore what really fueled the uprisings.

Myth one: Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech helped inspire the Arab spring.

Nothing could be further from the truth. By the time of these rebellions, the Arab and Muslim romance with President Obama had long vanished. He had gone to Cairo in June 2009 promising a new American approach to the Arab-Muslim world. But embattled liberals in the Arab world (and in Iran) had already begun to see through him. While Obama pledged “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect,” Arabs saw the new American leader’s ease with the status quo.

Obama set out to repair America’s relations with Syria and Iran, and gave George W. Bush’s “diplomacy of freedom” a quick burial. “Ideology . . . is so yesterday,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bluntly proclaimed in April 2009, identifying Bush’s assertive foreign policy as a thing of the past. As upheaval swept through Iran in the first summer of the Obama presidency, the self-styled bearer of a new American diplomacy ducked for cover.

Continue reading Fouad Ajami…

Ten years have passed since the opening of the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the anniversary was marked with much hand-wringing. There were articles by former detainees, a statement by retired military personnel, denunciations of President Obama for his failure to close the site, and tear-stained statements by human rights groups.

In a decade of policy experimentation at Guantánamo, some efforts have succeeded, some have failed tragically, and some are still in process. But far more interesting than the past ten years is what the next ten will look like. And that subject seems oddly absent from the conversation.

Make no mistake: there will be another ten years of Guantánamo. (Even if Guantánamo itself miraculously closed, we would have to build it somewhere else.) Our forces already hold more detainees than they can safely release or put on trial before any tribunal to which this country would attach its name. And in any future conflict against nonstate actors, our forces are likely to capture more of such people, and we will have to put them somewhere. If the United States is lucky, we may be able to reduce the number of detainees further than the combined efforts of the George W. Bush and Obama administrations have so far managed. But we will not eliminate it, and even if we could, we cannot guarantee that we will not replenish it all of a sudden in some future, spasmodic set of military operations abroad.

Continue reading Benjamin Wittes…

On September 22, 2011, Admiral Mike Mullen, then-chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, made his last official appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee. In his speech, he bluntly criticized Pakistan, telling the committee that “extremist organizations serving as proxies for the government of Pakistan are attacking Afghan troops and civilians as well as U.S. soldiers.” The Haqqani network, he said, “is, in many ways, a strategic arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency [ISI].” In 2011 alone, Mullen continued, the network had been responsible for a June attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, a September truck-bomb attack in Wardak province that wounded seventy-seven U.S. soldiers, and a September attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

These observations did not, however, lead Mullen to the obvious conclusion: Pakistan should be treated as a hostile power. And within days, military officials began walking back his remarks, claiming that Mullen had meant to say only that Islamabad gives broad support to the Haqqani network, not that it gives specific direction. Meanwhile, unnamed U.S. government officials asserted that he had overstated the case. Mullen’s testimony, for all the attention it received, did not signify a new U.S. strategy toward Pakistan.

Yet such a shift is badly needed. For decades, the United States has sought to buy Pakistani cooperation with aid: $20 billion worth since 9/11 alone. This money has been matched with plenty of praise from U.S. leaders, who have also spent an outsized amount of face time with their Pakistani counterparts. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton has made four trips to Pakistan, compared with two to India and three to Japan. Mullen made more than twenty visits to Pakistan.

Continue reading Stephen Krasner…

The detention and interrogation facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which I have visited, has served and continues to serve an important role in the war against terrorists since it opened a decade years ago. It houses high-value terrorist detainees, like Khalid Sheik Muhammad, the architect of September 11.

The military commissions’ courthouse, called the Expeditionary Legal Compound, is a world-class, state-of-the-art facility specifically designed to accommodate the needs of both defense and prosecutors dealing with classified information. The detainees there are represented by civilian and military counsel, and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that they enjoy the constitutional right of habeas corpus. The conditions of detention there are safe, secure, and humane, and comply with national and international standards, including Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

It is important to remember that the United States of America is engaged in armed conflict and has been since September 11, 2001. The September 18, 2001, Authorization for Use of Military Force, relied upon by both the Bush and Obama administrations, gives our military the legal authority to engage the enemy under appropriate circumstances.

Continue reading Ed Meese…

The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced today that it would not pursue an investigation of Israel for “acts committed on the territory of Palestine since 1 July 2002.” This closes off, for now, an attempt by
Palestine to draw the Court into its dispute with Israel over alleged war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09.

But there is an even larger story here about whether the relatively young Court (established in 2002) would seek to expand its jurisdiction and play a role in deciding whether Palestine is already a state. To that the answer is “no, for now.”

The Minister of Justice of the Government of Palestine filed a submission with the Court in January, 2009, asking the Court to take jurisdiction of the matter and open an investigation. But the Court’s own rules limit submissions to “States,” so from the beginning the key question was whether Palestine was a state for this purpose.

The Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, seriously entertained the question for three years, following a remarkable prosecutorial process of inviting outside submissions, posting briefs on the Internet, and hosting roundtable arguments in his offices in the Hague. He seemed open to the possibility that the definition of “State” for purposes of the ICC might be different than a “State” in international law generally. He spent three years looking at arguments that Palestine possessed this or that mark of statehood. One sensed that he was under political pressures to open the doors of the Court more widely to take this case.

In the end, the Prosecutor said it was really up to the United Nations to decide what is a “State” and that, so far, Palestine was only treated there as an observer. It thus becomes a political decision for the U.N., rather than a legal decision for an international
court, which was surely the right answer all along. The lengthy process for what should have been a straightforward decision reminds us of the dangers of these politicized and expansionist international courts.

For three years, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in the Hague has been trying to decide whether he had jurisdiction over Israel for alleged war crimes in Gaza. Even though the legal answer (“NO”) seemed obvious from the start, both politics and the inevitable expansionist agendas of international courts kept the question alive and Israel potentially subject to the Court.

Finally this week the Prosecutor announced that he would not pursue the investigation of Israel “for acts committed on the territory of Palestine since 1 July 2002.” For now, this closes off yet another legal front of attack on Israel, and also thwarts another end-run by Palestine around the path by which Palestinian statehood is supposed to be resolved; namely the Middle East peace process and the United Nations.

The interesting question is why it took so long for the Prosecutor to reach what seemed like a no-brainer outcome from the start. In January 2009, the Palestinian Minister of Government filed a submission with the ICC asking the Court to take jurisdiction over Israel’s actions in Gaza. But the Court’s own rules require that any matters submitted must come from a “State.” Since Israel is not a party to the treaty creating the Court (nor is the U.S. and 70 or so other nations), and since Palestine is neither a party nor a State, it seemed obvious to most international lawyers that the ICC had no jurisdiction over the matter.

Continue reading David Davenport…

The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria, former Secretary General Kofi Annan, reported to the Security Council yesterday that the government of Bashir al-Assad has agreed to a cease-fire commencing April 10th. Annan also reported there has been no abatement of the violence by the government of Syria against its citizens. Assad’s government is estimated by the U.N. to have killed more than 9,000 people in the past year, when Syrians began demanding the rights we Americans consider universal.

In that year, the Obama administration has gingerly moved away from defending Bashir al-Assad. When thousands of people had already been victims of murder by their own government in Syria, Secretary of State Clinton described Assad as a "reformer" who should be supported by the United States. Astonishingly, she contrasted him with Arab despots we supported protests against.

While Obama administration policy has improved somewhat with the advance of revolutions in the Middle East, it continues to chase rather than positively affect change. Our president now concedes that Assad should step down, but endorses a U.N. peace plan that would leave the murderer of nine thousand in power. Moreover, the Obama administration considers itself restricted from intervening in Syria because Vladimir Putin shields a fellow despot with Russia’s vote in the U.N. Security Council.

Continue reading Kori Schake…

It’s been a discouraging several weeks in the Afghan war, but we absolutely should not speed the pace of our withdrawal. All of the evidence suggests that if we walk away from Afghanistan without securing it, terrorists will return it to what it was in 2000 (or worse), their narratives about American decadence will be reinforced, and America’s trustworthiness as a partner to struggling societies will be badly compromised.

Counterinsurgency wars are difficult to win: they take a long time, rely on the indigenous government to develop the capacity to achieve our aims, and on our ability to persuade a war-ravaged society that we are better than our enemies — to trust us and not them. It’s difficult to see progress even when it’s occurring. But there’s a reason our enemies force us to fight this way: if they fought to our strengths, they would lose decisively and quickly. The
only way the states and organizations we are worried about can defeat us is by eroding our will to prosecute the war. And they are currently succeeding.

Continue reading Kori Schake…

I testified a few days ago at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on REAL ID implementation.  I expected to have harsh things to say about the way REAL ID has been handled by the National Governors Association and the Obama administration. And there was certainly plenty to criticize.  But what surprised me after a few years away from the issue is how much progress has been made, almost reluctantly, by all parties.  Much more secure identification is now within reach, though politics may delay the final steps much too long.  Here’s some of what I told the subcommittee:

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with the need for better drivers’ license security. Opposition to REAL ID unites the nations’ governors and the ACLU. As a candidate, President Obama campaigned against REAL ID. And as a governor, Secretary Napolitano did the same. So it was no surprise that the Obama administration supported repeal of REAL ID and adoption of a softer approach, called PASS ID. Expecting PASS ID to be adopted, the administration soft-pedaled the states’ obligations under REAL ID.

Continue reading Stewart Baker…

Michele Flournoy’s extravagant campaign spin on the president’s foreign policy is politics, not policy, which inclines me against replying. But the outsize claims the campaign is attempting to peddle that America is “more secure, safer and more respected” deserve to be tested. The president’s record is not nearly as good as this campaign puffery suggests, nor is it as thoroughly bad as his most boisterous critics claim, in part because the Pentagon has been effective in shaping policy on the war in Afghanistan and other key areas. Some of the credit for that is due to Michele herself, who handled her portfolio is a creditable way. But Michele Flournoy the policymaker is much more credible than Flournoy the campaign spinner.

First and foremost, it merits remembering that the counter-terrorism policies that made America safer are almost in their entirety policies that Barack Obama opposed in the Senate and campaigned against when running for president: long-term detention of terrorists, trial by military tribunal, support for the Patriot Act, Executive Authority to kill American citizens engaged in terrorism. Where he sought to change those policies, such as closing Guantanamo or prosecuting intelligence agents for torture, he was prevented by the Congress from doing so.

Second, the administration’s claim of the president’s unique courage in approving the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed is deeply unfair to President Bush. Can they really believe their predecessor, who bears the scars of having been in command during the attacks of September 11th, would not have made the same decision? It is uncharitable in the extreme, especially for a politician who claimed he would return civility to our public life.

Continue reading Kori Schake…