A signal defeat of the Obama administration? Only because of its chosen signature vision

Per the Wikipedia entry on nuclear programs:

Red: Five "nuclear weapons states" from the NPT.
Dark orange: Other known nuclear powers.
Yellow: States suspected of having possession of, or suspected of being in the process of developing, nuclear weapons and/or nuclear programs.
Purple: States which at one point had nuclear weapons and/or nuclear weapons research programs.
Green: Other states capable of developing nuclear weapons within several years if the decision to do so were made.

The cited article is a Bret Stephens column in the WSJ lambasting Obama over the Turkey-Brazil-Iran deal, which presents all the same face-saving potential as the old Russian deal we pushed a while back (and Iran rejected).  In short, it buys us maybe 10 months of stockpile setback from the Iranians.

But Stephens point is a larger and more valid one:  the south-south diplomacy here outmaneuvers the braindead American approach on sanctions.  The Iranians don't even have to resort to chess:  they're killing us at our own game of checkers.

My point--as usual:  check out the map, and note how membership in the Core tends to correlate with nuclear capacity, with all the newbies lying not far off the Seam.  People are knocking at the door.  You can let them in or keep them out, but their pursuit of nukes is a backdoor route toward recognition of great-power status that will not be wished away with sanctions. In the end, nukes are the symptom, not the driver.  The only solution that matters is effective integration into the Core, whereupon their ownership of nukes no longer matters.  So long as we keep nukes at the center of our foreign policy, the more hamstrung we become in the processing of their "applications"--as it were.

Chart of the day: US nuclear weapon stockpile

From a DoD fact sheet (linked in reference).

What you see:  shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis convinces us we need a new model, the MAD (mutually-assured destruction) paradigm allows us to start tapering off and then reverse our astronomical climb.  Arms control treaties across the 1970s and 80s reduce it a bit more, while slowing the USSR's phenomenal climb. Then big drop at end of Cold War, plateau until mid-200s, and then another significant fall.

Point:  notion that we have too many nukes or haven't done enough to cut numbers is wrong.  We have less than 15% of the warhead total we had at the Cold War's scary peak in the early 1960s, meaning an 85% decline.

Why Obama thinks this is the big issue of our day is beyond me, as is the notion that we should reduce the role of nukes to somehow convince Iran not to reach for them.

Brazil and the bomb

Der Spiegel op-ed by way of WPR's Media Roundup.

The question asked by Hans Ruhle:  Is Brazil maneuvering itself toward an acceptable pursuit of a nuclear weapon capacity?

Brazil had three nuclear weapons programs going in the 1980s--one for each military service.  After the Cold War ended, Brazil moved toward ending all that and declaring itself only for peaceful uses.

But now Brazil is building nuclear submarines.  Why?  America's got 'em, and if that's what great powers have, then Brazil must have some too.

So we have a country that's already mastered the enrichment cycle building nuclear submarines and all of a sudden--in historical terms--it's awfully close-mouthed about its enrichment cycle and doesn't care to have the IAEA snooping around.

Oh, and it's also brokering international deals WRT Iran's controversial enrichment program--alongside another rising great power (Turkey) that logically harbors nuclear ambitions as well.

For now, Brazil's constitution says no to nukes, but as everybody knows, Latin American constitutions are very changeable documents.  And with regional rival Venezuela (yes, they're rivals, no matter how much Lula sweet talks Hugo) cooperating with Iran, you just know the Brazilian military is thinking, "Why should we be the only BRIC without nukes?"

This is why, quite frankly, Obama's push for a "world without nuclear weapons" is about as wrongly timed as it gets:  we've got all these rising great powers, all looking for respect, and everything we do to prevent that path just screams at them, "get nukes and you're in!"  I mean, just look at the way we treat India on this score (as we should), in addition to Pakistan (as we shouldn't).  

We keep looking at this dynamic in Cold War terms, when we need to understand it in globalization terms. In addition to all that frontier integration, largely conducted by rising New Core pillars, we've got this crew of great powers looking for admittance into the "made men" club.  None of them can really hope to generate a conventional balance to the U.S. military, but the shortcut? 

Man, that's just too good to pass up. Honestly, we are reduced to preaching abstinence to a bunch of very horny young men.  It will not work.

We can spend all our time and energy trying to stop that dynamic, or we can focus our attention on processing their applications.

But they will all be great powers, one way or the other.

You may think it's all about America + NATO holding the line, but I think that world is dead and buried.

And I've been saying that for close to a decade in public and in print since 2004.

We can choose to have allies who cower behind their bombs to cover their declining capabilities--and age, or we can choose to work this world with allies who have plenty of babies, rising defense budgets, and growing nuclear arsenals.

Which option do you will work and which will be left behind by history as globalization continues to expand and consolidate?

New Core Turkey, Brazil engineer nuclear fuel enrichment deal with Iran

This is both quite impressive in terms of non-superpower nuclear diplomacy but likewise self-serving--especially to Turkey.

What New Core powers like Turkey and Brazil say with this deal:  We ourselves can and will decide, under what circumstances we'll collectively self-engineer ourselves--and other rising regional powers like us--into nuclear status.

In other words, the Old Core, old-boy nuclear powers club no longer decides.

Bold, slick moves by both Lula and Erdogan that will provide Ahmadinejad just enough cover to claim victory--and keep us guessing--while effectively killing any movement toward tougher sanctions.  The Chinese have to like it, as will Moscow--I imagine.

Have to give it up to Iran on this one, as well as Turkey and Brazil.  This deal constitutes a real rule-set reset when it comes to issues of proliferation--both real and stealthy.  The West simply no longer dictates on this issue.

End of the world to some, but just another aspect of rising great powers incorporating themselves into the venues of international power and influence instead of waiting for the established powers to invite them in--on the West's preferred terms.

Whether or not Iran will truly be satisfied with a Japan-like outcome (obviously capable and close to weaponization but not taking the final step) is yet to be seen, but this deal is an effective short-term defusing of any logic of attack.  Now, Israel is pre-approved to be widely condemned for any kinetics by the bulk of the world's rising great powers.

Assuming it holds, it looks like the latest "check" to me, meaning a move that keeps Tehran close to its endgame win and essentially determining our next, checkmate-avoiding move.  Iran's declaration that it will continue to enrich some fuel on its own?  That's just an in-your-face reminder.

Will it be enough for the West?  Absolutely not.  But it gives China and India the out they need.

The big point:  Iran keeps coming up with these clever ways to buy time, and in doing so, it's attracting a lot of implicit support from rising New Core powers who aren't exactly in favor of Iran's nuclear status but will defend its right to do so--however quietly and cleverly.

Israel should resist any Obama bid to rid the Middle East of all nuclear weapons

WSJ piece says Obama administration is negotiating with Egypt to co-present a proposal to make the region an nukes-free zone at the UN's month-long nonproliferation conference that began on 4 May with Ahmadinejad's speech.

The goal?  To prove the US isn't unduly forgiving re: Israel's known-but-unacknowledged nuclear arsenal.

Not the first time this tried:  done also in 1995 review of non-proliferation treaty (NPT), but the non-binding designation meant nothing.

The zone is meant to include Israel and Turkey, as well as Iran and Arab states.

Israel, of course, supports a freeze on nuclear developments, just like the nuclear powers do WRT world.

According to the WSJ, the Egyptian proposal aims to put Israel's program under the "auspices" of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency.

I see this going nowhere, and constituting a useless gesture on Obama's part.  Then again, his nuclear policies have been full of such symbolism-equating-to-no-real-change.

The Economist piece points out that a lot of second-tier powers cannot be counted upon to fall in line behind the US anymore.  Brazil, for example, renounced nuclear weapons years ago but still won't let IAEA inspectors view its enrichment sites.  Like Turkey, Brazil has sought to insert itself in the West's dialogue with Iran as an intermediary.  Then there was the US strong-arming the Nuclear Suppliers Group on its special deal with India.

Any rising power has to be left with the impression that, if you're a friend of the US, you can have nukes, and if you're not, you can't.  Friendship, as we know, comes and goes, so why commit yourself to never being able to access such a hedge?  The US can change its mind about your regime at any time.

To me, this is an attempt to reshape the entire global security structure simply because Iran's getting nukes and may trigger a couple more states to do the same (Turkey, Saudi Arabia).  Since we won't backtrack for real on Israel and India--and shouldn't, we won't really get anywhere on Iran, thus logically Saudi Arabia and Turkey should be ready to arm up.  Better to work these four powers (Iran, Israel, Saudis, Turkey) in their own region than all this showy effort to rewrite the global rule set.