To All;
This week's Stratfor Weekly Global Intelligence Update certainly is worth posting and commentary.
Jerard P
Global Intelligence Update
Red Alert
November 23, 1998
Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Proposal for a U.S. Policy
As the weekend came to an end, the perennial Iraqi crisis was
cranking up again, with Iraq charging that Richard Butler, the
chief UN inspector was an American spy and, interestingly, with
Bill Clinton calling for calm. Clinton clearly doesn't want
another crisis in Iraq, having been made to look fairly impotent
in the last go around. Oddly, while calling for calm over Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction, Clinton was working up to a crisis
during his visit to Korea, warning that North Korean development
of missiles and nuclear technology represented a serious threat
that the United States would not tolerate.
In one sense, the talk of the North Korean threat represented
part of Clinton's diplomatic strategy for his visit to Asia.
Following the inability of the APEC meeting to reach any
understanding on how (in a concerted way) to solve Asia's
economic problem, the United States has obviously decided to
shift its focus to national security matters. The United States
wants to hold together its regional coalition, including South
Korea and Japan. Since it neither can nor will provide the
economic glue for holding the coalition together, the American
fallback position is that it alone can guarantee the national
security requirements of South Korea and Japan. Therefore, the
argument goes, whatever the economic disputes that exist between
the three nations, there is a fundamental and shared interest in
the military relationship that guarantees the physical security
of the region. Now, in order for this argument to be truly
persuasive, there needs to be a threat to regional security.
Enter North Korea, an always available and quite real threat.
There were two subtexts to all of this. The first was a clear
U.S. tilt toward South Korea and away from Japan. Clinton, who
had been quite critical of Japanese efforts to cope with its own
economic problems, praised the South Koreans as being on the
right track. When Clinton raised the issue of the North Korean
threat, it was music to South Korea's ears. The Japanese, who
have had tense relations with the United States of late
concerning interpretations of recent North Korean tests, were
also undoubtedly assuaged by the U.S. interpretation.
Nevertheless, the U.S. warnings and praise over their respective
economic policies represented a tilt toward Seoul and a warning
to Tokyo.
The second subtext was the summit meeting between China and
Russia. Labeled a strategic partnership by both countries, the
Sino-Russian relationship will, as we have forecast for the past
year, grow into one of the fundamental international
relationships of the coming decade. Their motive is simple:
creating a critical mass to limit and control U.S. foreign
policy. Both Russia and China feel that the U.S. is simply too
strong for them to realize their interests on the world scene.
Joined by France and quite possibly now by the new German
government, it is a coalition designed to counter-balance the
United States. One of the most immediate effects of such a
detente would be to shift the balance of power in Northeast Asia.
The warning against North Korean nuclear power is, therefore,
also a warning of other threats in the region and the assertion
that only the United States can truly protect the national
security interests of the region as the balance of power shifts.
Thus, the warning against Korea's weapons of mass destruction is
to be taken as part of U.S. geopolitical repositioning following
Asia's economic meltdown and in anticipation of a Beijing-Moscow
alliance. It is a riveting symbol of regional fears that
reinforce regional dependence on the United States. Thus, the
obsession with Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is designed to
increase dependency on the United States by countries like Saudi
Arabia, Turkey and even Iran. The alleged presence of a chemical
plant in Sudan is used as a justification to strike at Sudan,
even though the real justification had nothing to do with the
facility and everything to do with the fact that Sudan was
harboring Bin Laden's operatives. Nuclear tests in India and
Pakistan are used to define our relationships in the region.
Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have become the Holy Grail of
U.S. foreign policy, providing a justification for actions that
have little or nothing to do directly with them. WMD have also
become a trap. Long after the United States has lost its
strategic interest in Saddam Hussein, the existence of WMD in
Iraq compels the United States to remain in an impossible and
uncontrollable operational situation. Moreover, U.S. behavior
can be controlled by any ally that can lay claim to plausible
intelligence of the spread of WMD. The classic case is Israel,
which, regardless of how much it irritates the United States over
its Palestinian policy, can still mold U.S. behavior by invoking
the threat of WMD in countries like Iran and Iraq. So too, South
Korean intelligence can mold U.S. behavior by invoking WMD in
North Korea. To be blunt, all someone has to do is yell
"biological weapons development" and the U.S. then redefines its
interests and shifts resources to deal with the problem.
Once the United States invokes the threat of WMD, it is difficult
to settle diplomatic problems. Iraq is a case in point. The
United States has made WMD the justification of its Iraqi policy.
Rather than the death of Saddam Hussein, the dismemberment of
Iraq, or a military alliance with Iran, the avowed goal of U.S.
foreign policy has been dismantling of WMD, which Saddam
officially denies he has. Since complete verification is really
impossible (how can anyone ascertain the absence of something for
certain?), disengagement is impossible.
The obsession with WMD also creates a moral dilemma for U.S.
foreign policy. The United States has WMD, as do most major
powers. Israel clearly has WMD. We would be surprised if South
Korea and Taiwan didn't have them as well. Why doesn't the
United States act to eliminate their weapons? Why doesn't the
United States eliminate its own WMD? The answer is simple: the
United States does not oppose WMD. It opposes WMD in the hands
of nations whose interests diverge from those of the United
States. Now, that is a thoroughly reasonable position to take.
The problem is that while it is the U.S. position in practice, it
is not the U.S. position in public.
Hypocrisy is natural to foreign policy. It isn't the problem.
The real problem is that the U.S. is establishing operational
criteria for its foreign policy that it does not have the means
to achieve. It is building failure into its foreign policy.
The reason that nations seek to acquire WMD is normally
deterrence or aggression. With the exception of chemical weapons
used tactically in several wars, the strategic use of WMD has not
happened since WWII. They have been used primarily to deter
others from threatening the existence of regimes. In other
words, their primary purposes are to guarantee a regime's
survival and ensure the territorial integrity of a nation. As
such, they are extremely important weapons to have. There are
few interests greater than regime survival and territorial
integrity. Therefore, there are few threats serious enough to
deter a regime that feels it needs such weapons from developing
them. Similarly, there are few incentives that can be offered,
save a serious guarantee to the regime for its survival. To
simultaneously threaten a regime's survival and its territorial
integrity, and then demand that a nation refrain from developing
WMD is an impossible contradiction.
Yet this is precisely what U.S. policy in Iraq and elsewhere has
been. The greater the threat to regime survival, the more likely
that a nation will develop WMD. The more advanced the WMD
project, the more intense the threat to the regime. On the one
hand, what results is a heightened interaction of a regime's
desire for security based on the development of WMD technology
and U.S. condemnation of this development. Therefore, countries
that develop WMD cannot possibly achieve what they intend. On
the other hand, whatever way U.S. policy is structured, it is
impossible for the U.S. to release pressure on these countries,
as WMD development is, at least theoretically, an automatic
triggering device to confrontation. In the end, U.S. policy also
begets what it is putatively trying to avoid.
All such crises must end inconclusively. Short of invasion and
occupation, there is no conclusive surety that a nation is not
developing WMD. Intelligence gathering can increase the
likelihood of knowledge, but it can never guarantee certain
knowledge. Therefore, it is impossible to ever be sure whether a
nation is developing WMD. This means that military actions
directed solely at WMD facilities suffers from two defects.
First, military action at great distances cannot guarantee the
destruction of facilities where WMD are developed. Air and
missile strikes against known facilities carry with them a built
in error factor. They may fail. Worse, they may fail and the
attacker may not know that they have failed. Second, even the
complete and certain destruction of known facilities does not
assure that all facilities were known in the first place. Thus,
the means that are being made available to suppress WMD are by
definition incapable of either guaranteeing their destruction, or
of deterring their development. Quite the contrary, the use of
inadequate means to destroy WMD increases the likelihood of their
development by increasing regime insecurity and threatening
territorial integrity. The primary means used to prevent the
development of WMD are economic and political sanctions, and
precision air strikes. Each increase insecurity, convincing
regimes that the real goal is their destruction and that the WMD
issue is merely a justification. The use of either one increases
not only the need for WMD, but also the tempo of their
development.
There is no way to prevent the development of WMD except by the
direct seizure of the national territory on which they are being
developed. By seizing and garrisoning all of Iraq or North
Korea, the United States could in fact be certain that no WMD
were being developed. Of course, the very preparation for such
an invasion would send warnings to the target country that they
should hurry up and deploy their WMD in order to deter the
attack. You can attack a country that is building WMD. It is
tough to attack a country that has WMD.
Thus, the entire WMD issue has created a strategic swamp for the
United States. The goal, preventing the spread of WMD -- which
do indeed pose a very real threat -- is unattainable given the
means at hand. The U.S. has neither the intelligence nor the
capability to strike at and then eliminate WMD. Nor does the
U.S. have the resources to invade and occupy each country that is
developing or will develop WMD. Finally, it is not WMD that the
U.S. is concerned about, but only certain nations with WMD. All
of this makes the development of coherent policies impossible.
Since it is impossible to prevent the development of WMD, what
should U.S. policy be? It seems to us that three layers of
policy should exist. First, the U.S. should develop technologies
against the delivery of WMD to the U.S. This includes strategic
missile defenses and border security monitoring. Second, the
United States should monitor the movement of precursor material
and personnel. The number of biological weapons specialists in
the world is limited. They should be watched by U.S.
intelligence to see with whom they are talking and working. The
same should hold with regard to strategic materials needed for
WMD development. The first increases the security of the United
States, the second increases the difficulty of obtaining
materials. Both policies are good. Neither will work by itself.
The final policy should be a dramatic shift away from prevention
to deterrence. The United States should announce that the use of
WMD against the United States by any nation, or by any group
which the United States regards as being associated with that
nation, will result in an immediate, massive strike with American
WMD. The strike should be designed to annihilate the leadership
of that country and of the populace, if needed to achieve that
end. The United States, not the United Nations, will determine
who is to be held responsible for a strike. At that point it
will be in the interests of any country to control the movement
of people and material on its territory. Each nation will be
responsible for the behavior of any terrorist groups linked to
it. Thus, the Afghani claim that the Bin Laden group was not
associated with the Taleban government would, if they had used
WMD, prove irrelevant. They should have been more careful with
whom they associated.
By shifting the burden of policing terrorist groups to the host
country, and by making it clear that the host country would be
held entirely responsible for the behavior of all terrorists
linked to them, regardless of the formality of the ties, the U.S.
would shift the burden of policing terrorism away from itself and
to the host country. By making it clear that the failure to
prevent an attack with WMD would mean the death of the leadership
of the host country, the U.S. would provide better incentives for
cooperation than currently exist. By taking responsibility for
its own foreign policy rather than shifting it into the U.N.
Security Council, the United States would limit the ability of
both future U.S. governments and perpetrators to shift
responsibility and confuse issues.
Deterrence with the Soviet Union worked. It worked because it
provided clarity, responsibility and clear consequences. It
personalized the problem, placing the lives of the leaders and
their families in jeopardy for policy failures. It will work
again. Defense is needed, as is interdiction. But the final
sanction, massive and unlimited retaliation for any use of WMD
against the U.S. or anything that the U.S. regards as being in
its national security zone, will focus the attention of the
Iraqi, North Korean, Iranian or any other leadership. If you
build weapons of mass destruction, and they are used by anyone
against the United States, you will be held responsible
regardless of whether the U.S. government has proof that will
stand up in a court of law. If you are afraid that someone will
use WMD and blame you for it, then you had better work with the
United States, before it happens, to demonstrate your bona fides.
Otherwise, you are taking your life and the lives of your
families into your hands when you develop WMD. No excuses.
With that, U.S. foreign policy can get off the mindless merry go
round it is on, and focus on fundamentally important geopolitical
matters.
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