NATO Theorists Advocate Use of Nuclear Weapons

To be sure, NATO has had a tough time of it in Afghanistan. From the recent comments by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Canada's Manley Report, to the caveats of Germany, Spain and Italy that prevent their troops from being used in combat operations in Afghanistan's south, NATO has shown itself to be adrift strategically as well as tactically.
But a new proposal by five former generals (Gen. John Shalikashvili, former NATO commander and President Clinton's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Klaus Naumann, Germany’s former top general and former chairman of Nato’s military committee; General Henk van den Breemen, ex-Dutch chief of staff; Admiral Jacques Lanxade, former French chief of staff; and Lord Inge, British field marshal and former chief of the general staff and the defense staff) seeks to remedy NATO's weaknesses, titled Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World (Renewing Transatlantic Partnership), by suggesting (among a great many other things in their 150 page proposal) that NATO be prepared to use, preemptively, nuclear weapons against nations that either currently possess or seek to acquire such weapons:

We are ... no longer preoccupied with the traditional principle of destruction, which dominated strategic thinking from the early 19th century. The new principle – in line with the progress of technology–is the principle of minimum damage and victory
through paralysis, involving the surgical use of all available instruments of power.
Simultaneously observing proportionality and damage limitation will become extremely difficult in cases where the use of nuclear weapons must be considered. The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction, in order to avoid truly existential dangers. At first glance, it may appear disproportionate; but taking account of the damage that it might prevent, it could well be proportionate. Despite the immense power of destruction possessed by nuclear weapons, the principle of damage limitation remains valid and must be kept in mind. Indeed, it was one of the
principles that governed NATO’s nuclear planning during the Cold War.

An astonishing proposal, no? It is a piece of the fundamental reform advocated by these five retired generals and, in the context of fundamental reform, advises NATO to dispense with the Cold War definition of deterrence (that of "punishment, [or] the threat of total destruction") and replace it with "a new deterrence, which conveys a single, unambiguous message to all enemies: There is not, and never will be, any place where you can feel safe; a relentless effort will be made to pursue you and deny you any options you might develop to inflict damage upon us."

This stands in stark contrast to recent commentary suggesting the eventual elimination of such weapons as the preferred prescription to the daunting challenge of proliferation.
As Andy Grotto at Arms Control Wonk phrased it, "How could a renewed emphasis on the preemptive use of nuclear weapons possibly promote NATO unity?!"
But clearly the ex-generals' proposal is predicated on a belief that the international tools used to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons has failed and will remain ineffectual: "No institution and no nation is capable of responding to these dangers and risks on its own; and just a cursory glance at our international organisations leads us to ask whether we have a proper basis for coordinated action. Unfortunately, it would appear that we do not."
And:
"Regrettably, nuclear weapons – and with them the option of first use – are indispensable, since there is simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world.
On the contrary, the risk of further proliferation is imminent and, with it, the danger that nuclear war fighting, albeit limited in scope, might become possible. This development must be prevented. It should therefore be kept in mind that technology could produce options that go beyond the traditional role of nuclear weapons in preventing a nuclear armed opponent from using nuclear weapons. In sum, nuclear weapons remain indispensable, and nuclear escalation continues to remain
an element of any modern strategy."

James K Galbraith, professor of government/business relations at the Lyndon B Johnson school of public affairs, at the University of Texas at Austin, editorialized in the Guardian in a piece titled "A criminal Idea," that "to attack some new nuclear pretender now would certainly constitute the 'waging of a war of aggression ...' That's a crime. And the planning and preparation for such a war is no less a crime than the war itself."
The authors' response to this argument is "that international law is not merely codified law, but is also customary law, which is shaped by actions taken and unwritten standards of interpretation and legitimacy."

NATO's difficulties in Afghanistan, which really amount to a lack of political will to determine what the objectives of NATO ought to be in that country and then implement those objectives, might very well call for a reform of that institution in a West that increasingly is unable to muster political resolve to deter fanaticism.
But the implications of this "grand strategy" are so troublesome that it suggests a response that throws the baby out with the bathwater.
The author argue that "it is important ... to have dominance over the opponent’s ability to calculate his risks. It is a very important element of strategy to keep things unpredictable for the opponent, who must never be able to know, or calculate, what action we will take. It is essential to maintain this dimension of psychological warfare by instilling fear in an opponent, to retain an element of surprise and thus deny him the opportunity of calculating the risk."
Yet asymmetry and unpredictability work both ways. How would China respond? What would their policy be to deter what they perceive as western aggression under certain circumstances? How would Russia respond?
Would Pakistan suspect NATO and India of concluding a secret agreement between them? Would Pakistan decide to use their weapons first for fear of being a likely target of this new doctrine?
The implications of such a policy are as unknown and unpredictable as they are deeply disturbing morally and ethically.

The Iraq Trap

The Bush Administration continues to seek a long-term military agreement with Iraq despite complaints from some Democrats to, as Sen. Hillary Clinton put it, "try to bind the United States government and his successor to his failed policy."
Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wondered "how do you make an (sic) commitment to a country where there is no way of measuring whether that country is likely to have a functioning government?"
In a letter to the White House in December 2007, Biden questioned the language in the Declaration of Principles agreement between the US and Iraq: "[It] contains language suggesting that the agreement you intend to negotiate with Iraq may oblige U.S. Armed Forces to support Iraq in combating 'Saddamists, and all other outlaw groups regardless of affiliation.' I am concerned about the implications of such a commitment, as it could mire us in an Iraqi civil war indefinitely, especially if a sectarian Iraqi government determines who qualifies as a 'Saddamist' or 'other outlaw group.'
At issue is the role played by Congress in agreeing to any agreement with Iraq that binds the US to Iraq for years to come, despite the widespread demand by the American public that the war be brought to a close. Gen. Douglas Lute, President Bush's Assistant for Iraq and Afghanistan, said in November "we don't anticipate now that these negotiations will lead to the status of a formal treaty which would then bring us to formal negotiations or formal inputs from the Congress."
But law Professor Michael Matheson of George Washington University Law School testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs (Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, and Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia) that "security commitments in the technical sense have generally been undertaken by treaty, or at a minimum by act of Congress [and] certainly a binding commitment to use armed force in defense of Iraq would call for such action." (He noted that "properly limited security assurances – such as a simple promise to consult – have taken various forms, including sole executive agreements and policy statements, and the President could offer them on the basis of his own Constitutional authority." [emphasis added]).
Lute also said at the November briefing that "we have about a hundred agreements similar to the one envisioned for the U.S. and Iraq already in place, and the vast majority of those are below the level of a treaty," but almost certainly those agreements don't permit the US to conduct combat operations within those nations and thus play a role in the internal politics of those countries.
Yet, as the NY Times reported today, "the Bush administration will insist that the government in Baghdad give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law, according to administration and military officials." (The civilian contractor immunity issue will hardly go down well with the Iraqi public following several widely-reported, fatal clashes between contractors such as Blackwater and civilians.)
The Bush Administration's efforts to phrase the agreement as routine--"the U.S. has concluded similar agreements with more than 120 countries around the world, including many countries in the region," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe--and not an attempt to bind the hands of the next president are belied by the recent comments of both Bush and Iraq's Defense Minister, Abd al-Qadir al-Ubaydi. Bush said, in early January, "long-term success will require active U.S. engagement that outlasts my presidency," while al-Ubaydi said "according to our calculations and our timelines, we think that from the first quarter of 2009 until 2012 we will be able to take full control of the internal affairs of the country ... in regard to the borders, regarding protection from any external threats, our calculation appears that we are not going to be able to answer to any external threats until 2018 to 2020."
Sen. Clinton noted, in a letter to Bush in November 2007, that "security assurances, once made, cannot be easily rolled back without incurring a great cost to America’s strategic credibility and imperiling the stability of our nation’s other alliances around the world."
But isn't that just the point? As Newsweek's Michael Hirsh put it, "the new partnership deal with Iraq, including a status of forces agreement that would then replace the existing Security Council mandate authorizing the presence of the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq, will become a sworn obligation for the next president." It would, he added, "be difficult if not impossible for future presidents to unilaterally breach such a pact."

Romney Knows Absurdity

Former governor and current Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R-MA) spoke before the Republican Jewish Coalition of Florida yesterday and said "today we have individuals who believe that the cause of the challenges in the Middle East is the conflict in Israel with the Palestinians, and that if somehow we could just have the Baker-Hamilton Commission imposed and we could just settle things between the Palestinians and the Israelis, why everything would be fine in the Middle East." He added, "the idea that somehow boundaries between Israel and the Palestinian authority are what’s causing the challenges in the Middle East is patently absurd."
However, that's not what the Iraq Study Group Report said. That report put it this way:
Iraq cannot be addressed effectively in isolation from other major regional issues, interests, and unresolved conflicts. To put it simply, all key issues in the Middle East—the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraq, Iran, the need for political and economic reforms, and extremism and terrorism—are inextricably linked. In addition to supporting stability in Iraq, a comprehensive diplomatic offensive—the New Diplomatic Offensive—should address these key regional issues. By doing so, it would help marginalize extremists and terrorists, promote U.S. values and interests, and improve America’s global image.
In this brief paragraph, the report summed up and underscored the complexity of conditions in the Middle East. Apparently, in his pandering remarks to a Republican Jewish audience, Romney has no time for either complexity or nuance.

Of course, his speech wouldn't have been complete without the invocation of Hitler and Nazis. He argued that appeasers accepted the "press releases" of Hitler which, according to CBS News, "said that he [Hitler] merely wanted to unite German-speaking peoples, rather than eliminate an entire race," to which Romney retorted, "the consequences of that accommodation of his press releases was devastating to the entire world, and most devastating to millions of Jews."
With "press releases" and appeasement on his mind, perhaps Romney was thinking not only of the Iraq Study Group Report and Hitler, but also Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran (Romney had earlier suggested Paul "should not be reading as many of Ahmadinejad's press releases."), Osama bin-Laden or--yikes!--even George Bush.
It was, after all, President Bush who said at the Annapolis Conference in November, 2007, "the time is right because a battle is underway for the future of the Middle East -- and we must not cede victory to the extremists. With their violent actions and contempt for human life, the extremists are seeking to impose a dark vision on the Palestinian people -- a vision that feeds on hopelessness and despair to sow chaos in the Holy Land. If this vision prevails, the future of the region will be endless terror, endless war, and endless suffering." (emphasis added)
Bush, along with the Iraq Study Group, sees a connection (albeit late in the day) between that specific issue and the broader Middle East, since he noted that "the future of the region" is at stake. Indeed, he went a step further to say, "and when liberty takes root in the rocky soil of the West Bank and Gaza, it will inspire millions across the Middle East who want their societies built on freedom and peace and hope."

Which brings up another matter. Romney referred to the argument that the Israeli/Palestinian issue is at the heart of Middle East instability (implicitly endorsed by Bush, no less) as "patently absurd." Can this be the same candidate who "blasted Huckabee for calling Bush's foreign policy arrogant and indicative of a 'bunker mentality'"? The candidate who said in January "the president is not arrogant. The president does not subject -- or is not subject to a bunker mentality. The president has acted out of his desire to keep America safe, and we owe him a debt of gratitude for keeping this country safe over the last six years"?
Yet this same Romney, in a debate earlier this month in South Carolina, said, "I have had the chance to do almost 200 town meetings across the country ... and I keep hearing the same thing, which is that Washington ... seems incapable of dealing with the challenges that we face globally and here at home," before concluding, "I know how to bring change. And I will change Washington."
Or give us more of the same confusion, lack of clarity and, oh, leadership.