Will China Boost its Nuclear Deterrent in Response to a US Ballistic Missile Defence “Ring of Fire” in the Pacific?
When the GOP swept to power in Congress under Newt Gingrich Ballistic Missile Defence got a new lease on life. One prediction that was often made by critics of BMD was that China would respond to a continental scale US BMD system by augmenting its offensive nuclear forces both qualitatively and quantitatively.
There were always an important issue to be mindful of here. A too overt focus on force posture tended to obscure a much basic doctrinal issue. That is to say, any Chinese buildup in response to US BMD would not necessarily reflect a move away from minimum deterrence. A modest buildup in response could reflect a desire to maintain the credibility of minimum deterrence in the presence of a US BMD system.
Now the NTI Global Security Newswire has a potentially most significant small report on the matter
...The United States' expanding missile defense activities might lead China to boost its nuclear arsenal, a former senior Russian military official said yesterday.
"At present, China has a very limited nuclear potential, but my recent contacts with Chinese military representatives indicate that if the United States deploys a global missile defense system, in particular in the Far East, China will build up its offensive capability," said former Russian Defense Ministry deputy chief Lt. Gen. Yevgeny Buzhinsky in a RIA Novosti report...
These comments follow reports that Beijing feels as if the US is extending a Ballistic Missile Defence "ring of fire" across the Pacific.
A number of comments by Chinese strategic analysts, cited by China Daily, caught my eye
...Washington appears determined to surround China with US-built anti-missile systems, military scholars have observed.
According to US-based Defense News, Taiwan became the fifth global buyer of the Patriot missile defense system last year following Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Germany.
Quite a few military experts have noted that Washington's latest proposed weapon deal with Taiwan is the key part of a US strategic encirclement of China in the East Asian region, and that the missiles could soon have a footprint that extends from Japan to the Republic of Korea and Taiwan.
Air force colonel Dai Xu, a renowned military strategist, wrote in an article released this month that "China is in a crescent-shaped ring of encirclement. The ring begins in Japan, stretches through nations in the South China Sea to India, and ends in Afghanistan. Washington's deployment of anti-missile systems around China's periphery forms a crescent-shaped encirclement".
Ni Lexiong, an expert on military affairs with the Shanghai Institute of Political Science and Law, told the Guanghzou Daily yesterday, "The US anti-missile system in China's neighborhood is a replica of its strategy in Eastern Europe against Russia. The Obama administration began to plan for such a system around China after its project in Eastern Europe got suspended"...
The headline of the NTI GSN report is; "China Might Boost Nuclear Deterrent, Russian Expert Says". We must be careful to keep the above distinction in mind. Boosting nuclear deterrence implies moving a step beyond minimum deterrence, but that does not necessarily follow.
China's angry response to the Taiwan arms deal, which included a PAC3 deal, should be seen in this wider context.
Now Patriots and the like are not the same as the other more strategic components of BMD. But these comments from the China Daily report are worth citing
...Tang Xiaosong, director of the Center of International Security and Strategy Studies with Guangdong University of Foreign Studies noted that the ring encircling China can also be expanded at any time in other directions. He said that Washington is hoping to sell India and other Southeast Asian countries the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC)-3 missile defense system...
Tang Xiaosong makes a very important point. He is referring to the open architecture provisions of US BMD policy, first enunciated by the Bush administration and now accepted by the Obama administration. He is right of course.
Notice that under the framework of "dissuasion" Beijing should now be dissuaded from investing in further enhancing its MRBM and SRBM potential. Somehow I doubt whether this will come to pass.
The thing to worry about here is that any US boost, both to the qualitative capacity of its offensive and defensive strategic potential, I think is not necessarily qualitative Chinese modernisation or even a boost in its deterrence construct, but rather a shift towards a strategic posture consistent with Launch on Warning. The interesting link here is growing Chinese space capability.
As Beijing develops a mature space program this will give PLA strategic planners the option of creating a space based early warning system, enabling the adoption of something akin to Launch on Warning.
That would be bad for strategic stability, and would have the affect of decreasing US national security. Notice that this is the opposite of the pronounced objective of Ballistic Missile Defence.
Paul Krugman Exposes Adam Smith’s Vile Maxim “of the Masters of Mankind”
Paul Krugman runs a superb half column-half blog through the aegis of The New York Times, which he calls "the conscious of a liberal."
He has a pretty hot new post-column on what he calls "the bankruptcy boys." It is worth reading.
He argues, essentially, that deficit hawks in the US, mostly right wing members of the GOP, have used tax cuts in order to fashion a deliberate fiscal crisis. This was used, from Reagan onwards, to compel downsizing in US welfare programs. All sorts of quasi philosophical rationales were used as a shield by the defenders of the bankruptcy boys, such as Nozick's entitlement theory of justice, mutual obligation, reciprocity and so on.
What is at operation here is something very simple, no philosophy is required, namely the supreme operative axiom of neoliberalism; Adam Smith's "the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."
Krugman could have gone much further, though. Take say some pretty strong comments he makes in framing his thesis
...Voters may say that they oppose big government, but the programs that actually dominate federal spending — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — are very popular. So how can the public be persuaded to accept large spending cuts?
The conservative answer, which evolved in the late 1970s, would be dubbed “starving the beast” during the Reagan years. The idea — propounded by many members of the conservative intelligentsia, from Alan Greenspan to Irving Kristol — was basically that sympathetic politicians should engage in a game of bait and switch. Rather than proposing unpopular spending cuts, Republicans would push through popular tax cuts, with the deliberate intention of worsening the government’s fiscal position. Spending cuts could then be sold as a necessity rather than a choice, the only way to eliminate an unsustainable budget deficit...
He could have made two very important additional points. I'm sure he is aware of this, but his blog isn't run by the Wordpress server. There is only so much that The New York Times will let you get away with, even if you are Paul Krugman.
Those supply side tax cuts were heavily skewed towards the rich, especially during the era of Bush the Wrecker. So it is tax cuts for the rich that are behind Krugman's manufactured fiscal crisis, a crisis designed to hit social programs for the poor.
That's Adam Smith's "vile maxim of the masters of mankind", i.e. "all for ourselves and nothing for other people", precisely.
It should also be added that certain government programs were exempt from the budget cutters knife. We speak of course of such things as missile defence and military-industrial spending more broadly. These programs have always functioned as a type of "military-keynesianism", what the great US economist Hyman Minsky called a "permanent war economy." This type of spending has functioned as a public subsidy for high technology industry, remember market failure and the positive externality, and so constitutes a form of corporate welfare.
Newt Gingrich's old district illustrated this well. It was very much affluent based. It also received just about the most by way of government subsidy, in the military-keynesian sense, than any other district in the union. Because it was affluent it would not have received the type of spending on social programs typical of a democratic district based upon the urban working poor.
That's all the vile maxim. What is unique to the United States, and key to understanding a lot of what happens in America, is that the vile maxim operates in the world's most open democracy. It's not easy for the masters of mankind to pull off the vile maxim under this structural condition. That's why one observes what is sometimes called "intelligence failure."
The masters have managed to pull the vile maxim off, thus far.
For how much longer, I ask?
The False Promise of a Nuclear Weapons Convention
There exist proposals that a nuclear weapons convention should be adopted by the international community, broadly modeled on the biological and chemical weapons convention.
All things being equal this should be opposed by all those interested in peace and a more demilitarised form of world order. I strongly suggest that activists in the Western anti war movement think through these issues carefully and not allow themselves to be swayed by emotional and a political arguments.
In my previous blog post I cited comments from Joe Biden to the effect that prompt global strike is here to stay. Obama's Quadrennial Defense Review was basically on a par with Clinton era Joint Vision 2020, which featured the concept of "full spectrum dominance". Obama's QDR, however, had a tinge of manifest destiny thrown into the mix.
Think about that.
If tomorrow a nuclear weapons convention were adopted that would open the field for more conventional military interventions, not less. It would not lead to a demilitarised world order, but would actually, perversely, have the affect of facilitating war.
The American peace movement should strenuously reject calls for the adoption of a nuclear weapons convention on the above grounds.
During the freeze movement of the early 1980s Noam Chomsky had made some critical remarks about this campaign. He argued that the freeze movement needed to take into consideration conventional military interventionism. He was right. The task of the peace movement then should have focused on helping to end the cold war, not necessarily ban the bomb.
The bomb was dangerous because the cold war was dangerous. Nuclear weapons might destroy civilisation, but they might also save it, for example through destroying a menacing near earth object.
The undue focus on the bomb by the freeze movement was correctly dubbed by some as "weaponitis".
The same can be said today for arguments calling for a nuclear weapons convention.
I think the agenda of the peace movement in the West must continue to focus on military interventionism and its sources in our domestic institutional and doctrinal framework.
In so far as nuclear dangers are concerned our primacy task should be directed towards trying to achieve minimum deterrence and the consequent dealerting of strategic nuclear weapons. This will greatly diminish the leading threat to nuclear security, namely accidental nuclear strikes.
That's doable under the current structure of international relations.
A nuclear weapons convention is a monumental diversion.
I implore, once again, that the Western peace movement think carefully about the issues. Do not allow emotional and a political arguments to govern the type of political action that we take.
These matters are far too important for that.
Obama’s Nuclear Posture Review Delayed Yet Again. A post START Arms Control Connection?
Many in the US arms control community often display an, I admit its very infectious, over the top fascination with the technical details of arms control. I love reading about the third stage boosters of an ICBM too, but let's not forget that arms control is an inherently political process.
Both the post START arms control treaty and the US Nuclear Posture Review continue to be delayed. In fact the NPR is now delayed yet again.
...The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), originally scheduled to be released with the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and FY11 Budget on February 1, has been further delayed.
Now, the NPR is expected in early March, but a week or two after the previously announced March 1 deadline.
Josh Rogin the delay a couple days ago, citing a speech by Ellen Tauscher:
"Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Ellen Tauscher said in a speech Wednesday that the NPR is expected to come out in early March, a little later than the March 1 deadline previously announced and much later than the original Dec. 1 deadline."
Whether a "little later" means later in the first week of March or into the second or third week is unclear....
The delays in these two processes have tended to track each other.
This invites conjecture, even though, of course, correlation does not imply causation. Given that this is a blog, let us nonetheless conjecture.
It has generally been supposed that the delays to post START have been due to such technical details as verification and the sharing of telemetry data (in relation to missile tests). Personally I have never really bought that. It's true that the latest round of talks, so various public comments inform us, have been devoted to ironing out these issues.
However, if there are niggles in arms control talks between Russia and the US then we should attribute this to niggles in the political relationship between Moscow and Washington. I have always felt that the real issue here is Ballistic Missile Defence and Prompt Global Strike.
A Russian official has been cited as claiming as much in a very recent AP report
...A Russian official said Friday that U.S. plans for a revamped missile defense system in Romania are stalling talks on a new nuclear arms reduction treaty. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency that Washington's plans "in the most immediate sense" are "influencing" Russian-U.S. negotiations on a replacement to a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that expired in 2009...
Haggling on verification and telemetry does not necessarily mean that verification is behind any go slow during negotiations.
According to the Obama-Medvedev parameters a statement on the link between BMD and arms control, but also Prompt Global Strike, should be an outcome of the whole process. Noises about extending BMD into Romania and Bulgaria I am sure aren't going down well in Moscow.
On Prompt Global Strike, we are not in a position to say much. This has tended to slip under our radar. But I did notice a reference to it in Joe Biden's speech at the National Defense University. The speech was pretty light on. He did state, though
...Capabilities like an adaptive missile defense shield, conventional warheads with worldwide reach, and others that we are developing enable us to reduce the role of nuclear weapons, as other nuclear powers join us in drawing down. With these modern capabilities, even with deep nuclear reductions, we will remain undeniably strong...
Prompt Global Strike is another Bush era strategic development that you can pencil in for the Obama administration.
Now you would notice in the speech the line that Brand Obama seems to be developing. It seems that the tangible evidence to be offered for Obama's "going to zero" rhetoric is going to be strategic arms control and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Nothing new there. That's how Clinton got indefinite extension of the NPT up. Recall that the CTBT was used to deflect calls from the non-aligned movement for the nuclear weapon states to make good on their abolition obligations under the NPT.
Perhaps Moscow calculates that this gives it leverage. Perhaps Obama would like the NPR to explicitly point to a completed post START arms control accord as tangible evidence for "going to zero". This Moscow figures might be important for Obama, especially given the growing mismatch between his rhetoric and his actions. He needs a successful, especially after Copenhagen, NPT Rev Con.
Given this Moscow probably is playing hard ball to try and extract concessions on BMD,hence the delay in the post START accord which then feeds into a delay in the NPR.
As I have stated previously Obama has adopted the open architecture provision of Bush's BMD policy. That's the problem.
Under this approach the damn thing can be extended into Romania one day, Bulgaria the next and God knows where else after that.
Of course, Iran might also be an issue. Moscow likes arms control because it enables Russia to maintain strategic parity on the cheap. Washington knows this, and Obama is hell bent on going hard against Tehran. Multilateral sanctions require Russia's support. Perhaps Iran should be thrown into the mix too.
Or, maybe, Russia's new military doctrine caught Pentagon hardliners on the hop, requiring last minute revisions?
The Growth of Scientific Knowledge in Iran and the Wider Middle East
The International Atomic Energy Agency has released the latest, and first post Elbaradei, safeguards reports on Iran and Syria. Let us leave that aside for now, for my attention was diverted by an intriguing report on the growth of scientific knowledge outside of the West and especially in Iran
...It might be the Chinese year of the tiger, but scientifically, 2010 is looking like Iran's year. Scientific output has grown 11 times faster in Iran than the world average, faster than any other country. A survey of the number of scientific publications listed in the Web of Science database shows that growth in the Middle East – mostly in Turkey and Iran – is nearly four times faster than the world average...
Furthermore,
...Science-Metrix, a data-analysis company in Montreal, Canada, has published a detailed report (PDF) on "geopolitical shifts in knowledge creation" since 1980. "Asia is catching up even more rapidly than previously thought, Europe is holding its position more than most would expect, and the Middle East is a region to watch," says the report's author, Eric Archambault...
The breakdown on Iran is worth noting
...Archambaut notes that Iran's publications have emphasised inorganic and nuclear chemistry, nuclear and particle physics and nuclear engineering. Publications in nuclear engineering grew 250 times faster than the world average – although medical and agricultural research also increased...
We would expect to see this pattern repeated across the Middle East as nations in the region develop their own nuclear energy programs.
If you follow my "epistemic approach" to nuclear security then this all is not without its potential implications.
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Marko is also interested in philosophy, especially the theory of knowledge, and science, especially physics, and considers himself to work within the naturalist and enlightenment tradition. He is writing a book on nuclear terrorism.