CNAS Conference Round-Up

I spent all day at the Center for a New American Security's annual conference. The think tank has become the de-facto bench for a lot of top Obama Pentagon officials (Flournoy, Miller, etc, etc), so the room was packed with people waiting to see what future policies might look like (although quite a few people left after keynote speaker General David Petraeus was done).

The event featured four panels, each on a recent report the organization has produced, on Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, natural security, and North Korea.

Overall I thought the event was very well run. I got to meet two of my favorite bloggers, Andrew Exum and Tom Ricks. Both panelists and the audience raised some very interesting points. The fact that I didn't get satisfactory answers to my questions is beside the point. I thought topics missing from the reports/panels included:

1. How much can we trust Pakistan's government? What leverage do we have for increasing accountability and governance in Pakistan? What metrics should we use for how responsive and cooperative Pakistan's government is, and can we tie aid to those metrics?
2. Lots of organizations are writing reports about how climate change and natural security are related to national security. Of course they are. These groups are great at saying "you think that's bad, let me paint an even worse scenario for you." I get that it's bad. How about some solutions or policy prescriptions. I already drive a hybrid car, but I want something on a bigger scale. CNAS' project is just getting started, so hopefully they can come up with some answers.
3. One reason China may be reluctant to get tough with North Korea, or allow us to really tighten the screws, is that they fear a humanitarian crisis and refugees flooding across their border if North Korea really goes downhill. What can we (the United States or the international community) do to lessen that possibility, in order to enable China to take action? The panel said that South Korea is even more worried about refugees than China. Fine, I get that, but what can we do?

If any of my readers has answers or opinions, I'd love to hear them.

North Korean Tests

My reaction to North Korea conducting another nuclear test and launching a few short range missiles? "Eh? Who cares?"

Not that I want North Korea (or anyone for that matter) setting off nuclear devices, but we didn't learn anything from this. Did we know North Korea had nuclear weapons, and that they didn't work very well? Of course. The last test was kind of a fizzle, this one was less so. It's like if you shank a golf shot and drop another ball on the same spot, your second hit is usually better. But in this case it wasn't even all that much better/bigger. It wasn't a shank into the woods and then a shot onto the green, it was a shank and then a weak hit into the rough. And the missiles it launched weren't ICBMs, those don't work, the were glorified bottle rockets. I'd be scared if I lived in Seoul, but not much more so because of the recent tests.

My read is that this is Kim Jong-Il tring to hold on to power, demonstrate that he is still alive, and make his generals happy. He wants attention, so he is throwing a tantrum like a two year old. The best reaction would be for us to shrug our shoulders. Sure, a UN Security Council resolution is a good idea, because that's what you do, but it won't accomplish much unless China wants to start playing hardball. But until then, ignore the tantrum and put Kim Jong-Il on a timeout.

Another Fizzle: Best Possible Outcome on North Korea?

Yes, North Korea defied United Nations regulations and test-fired a multi-stage Taepodong-2 missile over the weekend. Yes, North Korea has some nuclear weapons capability. Yes, if the missile test had been successful it could potentially have reached Alaska or Hawaii. But it wasn't successful; the second stage didn't fire fully and the third stage not at all, leaving the hyped satellite in "subaquatic orbit" as a commenter from the wonderful geeks at Arms Control Wonk put it (the image is also from ACW).

Before the launch the debate ran rampant among the nonproliferation policy community about how to respond to the launch. Some advocated using either U.S. or Japanese resources to shoot it down in midflight, to the point that Kim Jong-Il stated that such actions would lead to war. South Korea shouted about how scared they were, but an ICBM isn't at all necessary to hit South Korea, so the test shouldn't seem any more threatening.

The failed launch can be considered the best possible outcome. Since 2006 North Korea now has two highly-publicized missile launch failures (the 2006 test after only 35 seconds) and a largely failed nuclear test. Why should that scare anyone, particularly the United States (Joseph Cirincione argues this at length)? Miniaturizing a nuclear device to fit on a warhead is quite difficult, and North Korea would be hard pressed to do it in a decade. Even then, given their track record, what are the odds that all three stages of an ICBM and a miniaturized warhead would work?

As Fred Kaplan argues, making a big deal about a missile launch that ultimately failed was the action of a weak state, not a strong one, and President Obama should not play North Korea's game. Frankie Sturm agrees, calling for managing North Korea's brinksmanship. John Bolton calls the launch a win for North Korea and says Obama is weak, but considering he worked for an administration with the least diplomatic success in the past 50 years, whose actions (or lack thereof) allowed North Korea to reprocess plutonium and test a nuclear device I take that as a good sign.

President Obama has demonstrated his leadership by not spending too much energy on a UN resolution, and instead focusing on the larger real nonproliferation issues, including a call for global nuclear disarmament in Sunday's speech. As the New York Times stated, again echoing me,

It is a strategy based on the idea that if the United States shows it is willing to greatly shrink the size of its atomic arsenal, ban nuclear testing and cut off the worldwide production of bomb material, reluctant allies and partners around the world will be more likely to rewrite nuclear treaties and enforce sanctions against North Korea and Iran.