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Prof John Mueller of The Ohio State University has released this book "Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al Qaeda," and it seemed like this was the right month to review it. Two years ago,I reviewed Mueller's book "Overblown" - and if you've read it, then you have a good idea of what to expect in this book. There's no doubt for the need of a book like this one. When you get so many exaggerations about the threats of nuclear terrorism, it's good to have authors like Jenkins, Levi, and Mueller to step in and say, "whoa, slow down there. Let's look at this issue closer." However, Mueller's message may be lost in some of his own rather flamboyant statements.
Mueller addresses the issue of nuclear weapons and terrorism from a broad policy perspective, which is what I enjoyed most. Instead of focusing on boring details of the technical complexity of nuclear weapons or trying to engage the emotional aspect of the argument, he stays at the top level of trying to interpret why the government does what it does, and why people want the policy to move one way or the other. He divides his book into three parts: examining the impact of nuclear weapons over the last five decades, examining the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the success (or failure) of arms control actions, and reviewing the likelihood of a nuclear terrorist incident.
The first section largely contrasts the alarmist statements of scientists, politicians, and analysts regarding nuclear weapons against the actual (or perceived) role of strategic nuclear weapons during the twentieth century. If you read nonfiction books on nuclear weapons and related topics, you don't need to be reminded of how many times people have predicted that nuclear weapons would most certainly be used, especially in the 1960s and 1980s, just because (as Albert Einstein stated) "war is inevitable" so naturally, when the two superpowers clashed, the nukes would fly. And yet... they weren't. Mueller notes that the US possession of nuclear weapons certainly did not reduce the chance of warfare - leaders in North Korea, North Vietnam, and Iraq did not fold up merely because the United States was in a conflict with them.
At the same time, Mueller oversimplifies events during this time. He suggests that nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary events that didn't influence the Japanese to end the war. This argument has been recycled more times than necessary, but he gives it very short attention here. He goes into more depth in discussion on how the Soviet Union never wanted a fight during the Cold War, and so that yields the point that nuclear weapons were unnecessary in keeping the peace. One might disagree with that logic - while certainly the arms race got out of control and attitudes on both sides were a little too partisan, it's unfair to suggest that nuclear weapons weren't part of the equation. But he may be right to suggest that political rationale was primary to avoiding conflict rather than the existence of nuclear weapons. I do like his short discussion on defense expenditures during this period - he suggests that the nuclear buildup of the 1960s-1980s was largely fueled by exaggerations of the opposing military threat and a fixation on "worst-case fantasies." And we know that never happens today...
The proliferation section is equally provocative, as Mueller suggests that nonproliferation efforts, fueled by overly exaggerated claims by people like Graham Allison who like to warn about "nuclear weapons cascades" and such, are in fact not helpful and even contrary to their stated goals. He suggests that chemical and biological weapons were added to the term "weapons of mass destruction" not because of the potential impact of said weapons, but rather because "policy makers did not have enough to worry about at the time." I do agree with his observation that the term "WMD" is "often taken to be simply a dramatic synonym for nuclear weapons," but at the same time, I wasn't fond of his casual disregard for how the US government views/treats chemical and biological weapons.
He suggests that the correct policy approach to "rogue nations" developing nuclear weapons is to let them spend billions of dollars toward a weapon system that in actuality has very little influence on political decisions or military operations. That's all the less they spend on conventional weapons, after all - and having less conventional weapons, weapons that they might actually know how, and be able, to use is a good thing. He throws down a challenge to the nonproliferation crowd - identify one nation who might have developed and tested nuclear weapons if the CTBT or NPT didn't exist. It's not that joining the NPT was the right thing to do for many nations, it just became a no-brainer not to join. He describes the Iraq invasion of 2003 as an "antiproliferation war," which is an interesting idea. In particular, he savages those liberals who suggested that it was okay to invade Iraq if it had WMDs or an active nuclear program. So in fact, the desire to stop "proliferation" led the Democrats to support an unwise military operation that will cost the United States tens of thousands of casualties and trillions of dollars.
The final part of the book on the likelihood of a nuclear terrorist incident will probably not surprise anyone who's read Levi or Jenkins. He scolds the 9/11 commission, various politicians, and the Graham-Talent comedy team who brought us "World at Risk" for deliberately over-hyping the threat and trying to scare the pants off us. Amusingly, he jabs at the G-T team's prediction that terrorists "somewhere in the world" will use a WMD, and because we've dumbed down the definition of WMD so well, any use of chlorine, ricin toxin, or high-yield explosive in any amount during the commission of a crime will fit the prediction. That doesn't mean a nuclear terrorist is out there. As for people who point to the 9/11 incident as if to say "you can't rule out anything," he suggests that the unsophisticated nature of the operation - low risk, using boxcutters and keeping the conspiracy small - was key to the success. The exact opposite would apply to a nuclear event - high risk, technologically demanding, and a large conspiracy would be necessary.
Again, Mueller is a little sloppy on some details. He claims that no state has ever given another state, let alone terrorist organizations, a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon. And while I'm pretty sure that he's correct on the state-terrorist transfer concept, China did in fact sell or send chemical weapons (mustard projectiles) to Albania back in the days when Tito was not getting along with the Soviet Union. And I'd have to check my history to see if the Soviet Union ever forward-deployed chemical weapons in Warsaw Pact nations. But perhaps that's not the same. He takes a swing at Pete Zimmerman's and Jeffrey Lewis's article that one could build a nuke for $10 million, suggesting that the actual costs of the operation might be ten times that. It's argumentative.
All in all, this is an enjoyable book to read, because we do need a counter to all the alarmist claptrap about nuclear terrorism being "the gravest security threat to the United States." In viewing other reviews of Mueller's book, I believe I'm not alone in wishing that Mueller's evil twin would stop inserting loose facts and carelessly brushing off significant points in the discussion, especially when the facts don't support his thesis. But I have to agree with his final sentence in the book: "[W]ould-be atomic terrorists are exceedingly unlikely to be successful in such a quest, however intense the inspiration and encouragement they receive from the unintentional cheerleaders among their distant enemies."
The Graham-Talent comedy show has an open invitation to the House and Senate homeland security committees. It must be a nice benefit of being former senators, that you can just drop into these hearings and get away with saying the most ridiculous things. Last week, the two prophets of doom were at the House Committee on Homeland Security, preaching their usual line - "we're all going to die from biological agents unless you provide billions for the bioterrorism industry!" Really, you have to read their testimony to believe the truly sensationalistic crap they are spouting.
The failures did not begin with the current group of leaders. Each of the last three Administrations has been slow to recognize and respond to the biothreat. The difference is that the danger has grown to the point that we no longer have the luxury of a slow learning curve. The clock is ticking, and time is running out. [This "danger" is based on subjective assessments of the availability and access to biological materials and technology, not any actual intelligence indicators]
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So, while it is certainly possible for terrorist groups to get a nuclear weapon, it is less difficult for them to develop and disperse a bio-weapon. There may be even fewer barriers for terrorist groups with close ties to those nation states which are accumulating both the materials and scientific capability for weaponization. All of the ingredients are in place for a biological weapon to be in the hands of a terrorist organization, which is subject to none of the international law constraints and retaliatory consequences which might impede a nation state from its use. [This is utter rot. There are both international constraints and deterrence approaches in place today]None of this is speculation. Al Qaeda was well down the road to producing such weapons prior to 9/11. Due to the ease in creating a clandestine production capability, our intelligence community had no knowledge of two such facilities in Afghanistan prior to their capture by U.S. troops and a separate, but parallel bioweapons development program al Qaeda ran in Malaysia. Facilities with more sophisticated equipment than those found could be in operation today without our knowledge. [Utter bullshit and unwarranted speculation]
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Consider this scenario: a team of engineers sympathetic to al Qaeda bring a seed culture of anthrax spores to the U.S. from an overseas laboratory. ... In the following weeks, 13,000 people die. The city may need to be cleaned up so that people can safely enter the downtown area, at a cost of billions of dollars. And as tragic as this event could be, the terrorists remain at large, free to commit the same murder twice. ... Unfortunately, this scenario is not considered ‘worst-case’ or unrealistic, but it is in fact the National Planning Scenario for a biological attack. It was released 5 years ago this month. Five years—the clock is ticking, and we are not prepared. [This was and continues to be a really stupid approach to plan or critique resource allocation]
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...anthrax vaccine could and should be available to first responders, and we agree with the Committee that the government should seriously review the issue of whether and under what conditions home MedKits should be available for concerned citizens who wish to prepare themselves and their families. [Worst Idea Ever]
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THE CLOCK IS TICKING
We cannot overstate the urgency of this crisis, and the need for action, now. The international situation is fragile, with Israel and its neighbors, on the India-Pakistan border, and this fragility substantially increases the risk of terrorism with a WMD. While there are issues at stake that have gone unresolved for over 60 years, we may have only 3 more years of procrastination before the consequences reveal not a World at Risk, but a world immobilized by crisis. [Oh noes!! but then again, what happens when the clock alarm goes off in 2013, and nothing has happened? Can we retire these two clowns then?]
The frightening thing is that there appears to be a "WMD Prevention and Protection Act of 2010" either being proposed or prepared for debate (and by "WMD", they mean "biological threats"). Not clear to me if this is a product of the committee or of the fevered imaginations of the Graham-Talent comedy team. But in looking at the details, at least the proposed legislation only goes after DHS, DHHS, DoJ, DoS, and the intel community, leaving DOD out of the impact area. I mean, how crazy would it be if there were some foolish policy makers in OSD who were suggesting that DOD ought to be the lead federal agency to address the Obama administration's "Countering Biological Threats" strategy? That would just be insane.
And as a final note, I'd like the Indo-Asian News Service to please, please disregard Bob Graham's ridiculous statement that, in the event of heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, the Pakistani goverment might deliberately allow the Taliban access to its nuclear weapons so that a nuclear terrorist incident might happen in India. He's really not a "top US non-proliferation expert." He's just a foolish, old man who has way too much time on his hands.
The U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency announced that it has "completed its mission to destroy all non-stockpile materiel declared" as of 1997, when the United States formally ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. The term "non-stockpile materiel" refers to those chemical warfare agents and associated munitions that were discovered outside of the Army's nine original stockpile sites, mostly found in formerly utilized defense sites and places like the American University. For those items that could be safely transported, the non-stockpile material was moved to Pine Bluff Arsenal for eventual destruction.
CMA’s U.S. Army Non-Stockpile Chemical Materiel Project (NSCMP) began operations at the Pine Bluff Explosive Destruction System (PBEDS), located at Pine Bluff Arsenal (PBA), Ark., in June 2006 to destroy items, such as 4.2-inch mortars and German Traktor rockets captured during World War II. PBEDS completed destruction operations on April 14.
"The Army's Non-Stockpile Chemical Materiel Project is the Nation's best equipped organization to provide safe, successful destruction of such a diverse inventory of recovered chemical munitions," said Carmen Spencer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Elimination of Chemical Weapons. "This accomplishment exemplifies the excellent work we have come to expect from this dedicated group."
Munitions were assessed at PBA before treatment in NSCMP’s Explosive Destruction System (EDS), a neutralization technology that provides safe, environmentally responsible treatment of RCWM. Developed as an alternative to open detonation, the transportable EDS provides on-site treatment and neutralization of RCWM and prevents the release of vapor, blast and munition fragments from the process. Operators confirm complete neutralization of the chemical agent by sampling liquid and air prior to opening the EDS.
This is a worthy achievement, if not only because the Army successfully destroyed more than 1200 items without any significant safety incidents. This process described in the article is also how the Army has proposed to initiate some disposal work at Pueblo, a proposal that has met with some resistance by local citizens who don't want to see the Army finish its work too quickly. And while I laud the CMA accomplishment, let me note the careful wording in this announcement. Although CMA has completed its disposal of all declared non-stockpile munitions, there is still the possibility that there are undiscovered chemical munitions out there.
I remember an old report that suggested there were literally hundreds of suspect sites in more than 30 states, and it was only because of a lack of resources that the Army couldn't confirm whether or not the sites did have any chemical materials there. So the task continues, although the Army has met an important milestone that it should celebrate. It reinforces the important point that destroying chemical munitions is not only possible with current technology, it can be done safely and to both domestic and international safety and accountability standards.
I was in the Pentagon the other day, and a poster on the wall caught my eye. Now it's not unusual to see posters about operational security or some official event here and there. But this one was different. It was warning troops about "weapons of mass destruction" - the kind pictured here.
The DOD civilian personnel office was doing its part to inform both military personnel and civilians to watch their weight, primarily through avoidance of these fat pills. Yes, the military is concerned about the obesity epidemic in our country. But did they have to change the definition of WMDs again? Aren't these weapons of mass addition?
Noah Shachtman at the Danger Room tells me that the Army has hired the defense contractor MPRI to analyze the various political and military blogs that comment on Army issues. The purpose of this analysis is to inform top leadership about what's being said online and in leading social outlets. I suppose it's "situational awareness" for information operations. And yours truly is one of the two dozen blogs under review.
Only posts that directly blast a particular Army general — or the Army’s ability to perform in Afghanistan — seem to qualify as “critical.” Our pal Jason Sigger was dinged as critical twice during the week of April 3rd. In one post, he called Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey “something of an ignorant asshole.” Then, in a book review, he opined that “the US Army hasn’t effectively executed COIN [counterinsurgency] operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The reports also rank the top issues of the week in the national security blogopshere, and categorize blog posts into “strategic lines of effort.” (Most fall into “other.”) A few choice comments on blog posts are highlighted, as well. (So keep ranting away there, trolls!)
Technically, I didn't opine that the Army hadn't effectively executed COIN operations, it was the author, COL Robert Cassidy who was opining. I just had to dig that feeling out of the man's book, because he didn't come out and directly state it, and I did agree with his sentiments. But yeah, I did call Casey an asshole. That's not really gonna change.
In the other two weekly reports that are identified in the Danger Room post, I do have a few posts that are rated as "balanced" or "supportive." But it really doesn't hurt my feelings when they note that I wrote some critical posts. I love the Army, had a great time for several years, and it provided me some great skills and a security clearance. I still enjoy working military issues, but let's be honest. There are some dumb people in the military, and there are military issues that just shouldn't have been started and others that are badly directed. I consider it my responsibility to help the Army become a better organization, as well as the DOD overall. And part of that responsibility means criticizing the Army and DOD when I think it's going the wrong way.
Anyway, it's pretty cool. I hope I continue to entertain the MPRI contractors and the Army leadership.
I find myself in the odd position of agreeing with a Wall Street Journal article that criticizes the Obama administration on its myopic focus on nuclear terrorism. Now it's not a brilliant article - it throws together a collection of disparate information that is all related to CBRN terrorism and the government's response to that threat. The journalist doesn't do a good job in explaining why the people he quoted said the things that they did, but I'm willing to overlook that because it does have the interesting point of being accurate in stating how the government's approach to CBRN terrorism is uncoordinated and not addressing the right priorities.
Last week's nuclear-security summit in Washington took steps to thwart attempts by al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to acquire the fuel for a nuclear bomb, which White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan called "one of the greatest threats to our national security."
But some proliferation experts worry that chemical and biological weapons are much more likely to be used in a terrorist attack, and that the administration and Congress hasn't adequately addressed this threat.
One example: The Obama administration has yet to name an ambassador to the Chemical Weapons Convention in The Hague, a group that monitors military-grade chemical weapons and dual-use chemicals that could be used as weapons by terrorists.
All true statements, except for the last part of that section. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons doesn't monitor weapons, they monitor the compliance of those states who have declared that they have chemical weapons and are in the process of destroying them. The OPCW doesn't really track the production and transportation of dual-use chemicals that could be used by terrorists - that would overwhelm their small staff, there are simply too many chemical producers and too much global traffic for that to be possible. Shall we go on?
There's been more than a few posts discussing the Pentagon's desired "prompt global strike" capability in the blogosphere. I'm on the record as thinking this is a poorly thought-out operational concept. It's not just the question of confusing conventional and nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles. It's the whole idea of whether we really will ever have a situation where it is in the United State's vital interests to obliterate a discrete target thousands of miles away within an hour. I don't think any target, even bin Laden, is worth the very expensive investment that would be required, as opposed to existing conventional methods of warfare.
And then there are other considerations. Take this point from the NY Times article:
Called Prompt Global Strike, the new weapon is designed to carry out tasks like picking off Osama bin Laden in a cave, if the right one could be found; taking out a North Korean missile while it is being rolled to the launch pad; or destroying an Iranian nuclear site — all without crossing the nuclear threshold. In theory, the weapon will hurl a conventional warhead of enormous weight at high speed and with pinpoint accuracy, generating the localized destructive power of a nuclear warhead.
The idea is not new: President George W. Bush and his staff promoted the technology, imagining that this new generation of conventional weapons would replace nuclear warheads on submarines.
In face-to-face meetings with President Bush, Russian leaders complained that the technology could increase the risk of a nuclear war, because Russia would not know if the missiles carried nuclear warheads or conventional ones. Mr. Bush and his aides concluded that the Russians were right.
If, in fact, a "prompt global strike" is moving so fast that it packs the power of a localized nuclear blast, that could cause complications in the realm of international law. The 1948 Resolution of the UN Commission for Conventional Armaments defines what a "weapon of mass destruction" is:
...weapons of mass destruction should be defined to include atomic explosive weapons, radio active material weapons, lethal chemical and biological weapons, and any weapons developed in the future which have characteristics comparable in destructive effect to those of the atomic bomb or other weapons mentioned above.
Now maybe this "prompt global strike" isn't going to approach this level of destruction, but it ought to be something that the DOD leadership keeps in mind. Certainly Congress has expressed its concern about putting conventional warheads on Trident missiles, for instance. But whether this capability is a refitted ballistic missile, short-range hyper-velocity cruise missiles, or an unmanned bomber that the Air Force is controlling in orbit around the globe, it would be a shame to invest billions into this high-risk technology and then find out that it's really not a capability that we can actually use in the future operating environment. But wait, that kind of logic didn't stop the US government from doing that with the national missile defense program, did it?
I don't usually look to publicize books that the WMD community should avoid, but it was brought to my attention that promotions for this suspiciously intellectually defunct book were being circulated through email to the usual suspects. It really sounds bad.
The story begins in the days following the 9/11 terrorist attacks when anthrax-laced letters, mailed to media offices in New York and to the U.S. Senate in Washington, spread fear and panic across the United States and beyond. The filmmakers probe troubling questions surrounding the FBI’s investigation of the 21st Century’s first act of biological terrorism.
The search for answers takes them from the United States to the United Kingdom, then to the edge of Siberia and to Southern Africa and leads them into an underworld in which leading scientists working with germs die under mysterious circumstances. The growing list includes Bruce Ivins, who the FBI claims was the only person behind the U.S. anthrax murders; Dr. David Kelly, the former head of UK bio-defense; and Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, the mastermind behind the Soviet Union’s vast and illegal bio-weapons complex who defected to the West.
The filmmakers penetrate what they come to call the “international biological warfare mafia” and uncover the development of terrifying new weapons – genetically mutated germs, some with the ability to target specific ethnic groups. In a rare interview, the man known as “Doctor Death”, who headed South Africa’s apartheid-era biological warfare program that developed germs aimed at the country’s black population, reveals that he received help from the U.S. and U.K. The filmmakers also learn that some of these germs may be for sale on the black market today.
ANTHRAX WAR goes on to reveal how the 2001 Anthrax Attacks have spawned a $57 billion dollar “Bio-defense” boom in which germ weapons research is now being conducted, with little oversight, by corporations and private labs – the new ‘Bio-Terrorism Military Industrial Complex’.
The investigation underscores how fear of terrorism combined with the lure of extraordinary profits may be leading to a global germ war arms race that could be hurtling the planet toward catastrophe.
Really, really insane stuff. On the one hand, you have to admire how the authors identified discrete points of information that is, in fact true (estimates are that the government has spent $57 billion on biodefense in general, depending on how you count), but then they weave in Teh Crazy about deliberate actions by government conspiracies. But I suppose this book and its associated film will find an audience with those who have always suspected the government of being a ruthless, efficient machine of death, instead of the bumbling, massive bureaucracy within which I work. And the Ivins defenders will probably enjoy how the authors bend the evidence to suggest a dark conspiracy that snuffed out the good doctor as a hapless patsy to the crimes that they committed.
Last week, some College Republicans at Western Kentucky University thought it would be a Good Thing to celebrate the reign of the United State's worst president to date. They want to call it "W-Day."
Nashville senior Rachel King, public relations chair for the College Republicans, said Bush deserves respect, just like any other president.
“He did what he thought was best for our people, and I truly respect him for everything he did,” King said. “He had a hard presidency, and I think that he held himself with respect and honor.”
I agree with the spirit of the movement. We should honor GW Bush with his own annual holiday and pause to remember this man's extensive work against America's core values and principles. I propose, though, that we move it a week to May 1st, in order to celebrate the greatest achievement of his two-term administration. So this Saturday, pause for a few minutes and reflect on W's presidency.
In Dallas, Texas, officials determine that another discovered "white powder" letter is, in fact, harmless and not an indication of the prophetized Graham-Talent commission's future bioterrorism assault on our world community. No big surprise.
Some white powder was discovered in an envelope in a remote area on the east concourse of Love Field around 9:30 a.m. Friday, officials said.
By 11:00 a.m., a hazardous material team from Dallas Fire-Rescue completed testing on the substance and found it was non-toxic. Crews will remain on the scene until cleanup and their investigation is complete
It wasn't immediately clear what that substance was or how it got there.
The white powder was flour. A later news report connects this incident with several others, all related in that the postmark on the letters all seems to come from North Texas. These letters started appearing all over the world in December 2008. So many angry people in Texas... I wonder how many years it will take for the the FBI to catch this faux Amerithrax mailer. Meanwhile, other "white powder" cases continue to pop up across the nation. But unless you're afraid of cocaine or baby powder, you don't have to worry that much about it.
Elisabeth Bumiller at the NY Times writes what she must think is a clever commentary on the military's use of Powerpoint in its briefs. She uses, for illustration, the visually complex graphic representing the dynamics of COIN, which was commented upon four months ago by numerous bloggers and television pundits. We've been here before, and there's nothing new to report. She notes:
Despite such tales, “death by PowerPoint,” the phrase used to described the numbing sensation that accompanies a 30-slide briefing, seems here to stay. The program, which first went on sale in 1987 and was acquired by Microsoft soon afterward, is deeply embedded in a military culture that has come to rely on PowerPoint’s hierarchical ordering of a confused world.
“There’s a lot of PowerPoint backlash, but I don’t see it going away anytime soon,” said Capt. Crispin Burke, an Army operations officer at Fort Drum, N.Y., who under the name Starbuck wrote an essay about PowerPoint on the Web site Small Wars Journal that cited Lieutenant Nuxoll’s comment.
In a daytime telephone conversation, he estimated that he spent an hour each day making PowerPoint slides. In an initial e-mail message responding to the request for an interview, he wrote, “I would be free tonight, but unfortunately, I work kind of late (sadly enough, making PPT slides).”
Yeaaahhhh, that's really not that funny. The stories about how bad Powerpoint briefs can be on a person's productivity seem to never end, but here's the thing - the requirement to use Powerpoint to communicate one's concept and/or recommendations doesn't end either. As much as people like to bash PPT briefs because of their complexity or number of slides, they also fail to understand the futility of criticizing the mode of communication. I've already covered this phenonema in past posts.
Instead of rehashing the obvious, let me suggest that there are a lot of military and civilian personnel out there who are just poor presenters. They simply lack the ability to organize their thoughts and to display them in a coherent and succinct fashion within a short period of time. I was formally trained in this ability in the Army's Combined Arms Services and Staff School (CAS3), where the group leader rigorously drilled us in turning around 10-slide information briefs on various topics within 12-hour periods. I was fortunate enough to excel at this skill, which, yes, makes me a Powerpoint Ranger.
Yes, 30-45 slide powerpoint briefs are dangerous to your health. But if you're going to present findings in a day-long meeting in front of 40 people who are ready to discuss a complex issue (say like the defense budget), maybe that's what is required. There are, no doubt, many instances when a short 1-2 page paper would be better than a 5-10 slide brief. But a good, organized staffer would be able to do either equally well. It's not the medium, it's the presenter. And the medium isn't going away.
Just remember, when they ban powerpoint briefs, only rogue nations will have powerpoint briefs. And we can't afford to be disadvantaged like that.
I've been watching the news and blog posts fly for the past few weeks about the allegation that Syria had transferred a few Scud missiles across its border with Lebanon to the terrorist group Hezbollah. It's unclear if there was any US intelligence to substantiate this story. There has been a lot of conjecture about "hybrid warfare," and it's only a matter of when, not if, Israel is going to invade Lebanon again. It seemed odd that the overwhelming majority of posts seemed to blindly accept the idea that a terrorist group operating largely in the open in Lebanon might want a clunky Cold War relic like a Scud missile. In particular, I've seen a few stories that go so far as to speculate if Syria would have given Hezbollah chemical warheads for the Scuds. But it seems clear that Israel's leadership is pushing the story.
Israeli defense officials have said they believe Hezbollah has obtained Scud missiles capable of hitting targets anywhere in Israel. Israel's President Shimon Peres earlier this week directly accused Damascus of providing the weapons.
Israel has not offered proof to back up the claim, and Syria's Foreign Ministry strongly denied the charge, saying it "believes that Israel aims through these claims to further strain the atmosphere in the region."
And of course, the US government response was to verbally abuse Syria over this allegation, because accusing Israel of hyping the threat would just be unseemly.
Speaking before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, the state department's top official on the Middle East said it would consider the "full range of tools" available to make Syria reverse any delivery of ballistic missiles to Hezbollah.
Mr Feltman would not confirm that Scuds had been delivered but said it would be an "incendiary, provocative action" if it turned out to be true.
"The United States has shown in the past that we are able to act," he said. "I expect that all options are going to be on the table looking at this."
After repeated protestations by Syrian and Lebanonese leaders that there had been no transfer of Scuds, only then did people start thinking, "wait, does this story really make sense?"
Simply put, Hezbollah does not need Scuds. The missiles are, according to military analysts, less sophisticated than the group’s current missiles, and although explosively powerful they are not very accurate. Additionally, the Scuds reportedly transferred to Hezbollah have a range of 500 kilometers and beyond. That is useless for Hezbollah, which already has all Israeli cities and towns within range of its missiles, which all fall within a 15-200 km arc.
British defense analyst Charles Heyman remarked, "Hezbollah need[s] to float like butterflies, sting like bees. They don’t need something that lumbers along like an ox." This was in reference to the bulky nature of Scud missiles, which are a handicap in guerilla warfare. Even prominent Israelis came out to challenge the Scud claims, with Uzi Rubin, an advisor to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, saying, "What do they need Scuds for? They already have [the] Fateh-110, which has a similar range, and being a solid-fuel rocket, is far less cumbersome. Okay, so Scuds weigh a ton while the Fateh-110 is half a ton. Nothing to stop them firing two Fateh-110s."
When the Israeli prime minister is questioned directly on this issue, he declines to answer and just waves it off as "well, we see a lot of weapons flowing from Syria through Lebanon to Hezbollah." Now that we are finally seeing stories suggesting that US intel agencies and defense experts now are reacting a little more skeptically, one has to wonder why Israel went through all of this effort to shake everyone up. I have only three ideas:
Any way you cut it, the rush to judgment against Syria speaks poorly of US news coverage. I understand the desire to beat other news organizations to the punch by breathlessly announcing this alleged arms escalation in the Middle East. It does nothing, however, but feed raw meat to conservative politicians who just want an excuse to badmouth the Obama administration's foreign policy and to beat a neo-con war drum for the continued use of military force in the Middle East as the primary tool of diplomacy.
UPDATE: And where would we be without Fred Hiatt at the WaPo trying to sharpshoot the Obama administration on foreign policy and simultaneously show his pro-Israel neo-con support? Asshat.
Our Democratic Senators continue to confuse the development of good national strategy with desire for short term political gain. After being told by SecDef Bob Gates that the State Dept needs more money than DOD does, and seeing how DOD has more money than it can responsibly spend in the Middle East, they turn around - and take money from State and call that "trimming the budget." They're really idiots.
In his 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama called for a“non-security” discretionary spending freeze to help bring down the deficit. He proposed exempting “security-related budgets for the Pentagon, foreign aid, the Veterans Administration and homeland security,” as well as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
On a party-line vote of 12 to 10 yesterday, the Senate Budget Committee approved “a $3.7 trillion budget blueprint” that goes further than Obama’s plan by “slicing $9.5 billion from discretionary spending in fiscal year 2011.” Under the Senate Budget Committee blueprint, approximately half of the savings would come from dramatic cuts to the budgets of the State Department and other international aid programs. Nevertheless, the committee decided to actually increase the Defense Department’s funding.
We really are ruled by idiots. It would be nice to expect smarter behavior from Democrats than Republicans, but there you are.
Like others, I do hope that the Army quickly executes its court-martial of LTC Terrence Lakin, who has clearly violated the UCMJ in his refusal to deploy to Iraq. Then he can carry on his tea-party/birther insane, radical ideas without disgracing the uniform.
Lakin was charged Thursday "with one specification of a violation of Article 87, Missing Movement and four specifications of a violation of Article 92 (three specifications of Failure to Obey a Lawful Order, and one Specification of Dereliction of Duty)," said Chuck Dasey, spokesman at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where Lakin is assigned.
The court martial is likely to raise the prominence of what is already a cause célèbre among Birther adherents.
Our military has no use for people like him. Unfortunately, I agree that his discharge from the military will only elevate his status among the nutcases. Ironically, USA Today chose to get their information about this issue from the blog "Talking Points Memo." I thought, for some reason, that newspapers employed journalists to get the news. But I guess that's just a silly idea.
Rob Farley commented last week about how conservatives shape perceptions to meet their world views about how liberals are "weak" on national security, using the question of whether the US government should keep tactical nukes in Europe as an example.
The fact that most Europeans have no interest in keeping US tactical nuclear warheads on their territory is irrelevant compared to the rhetorical value of the few complaints about American “abandonment.” In this sense, conservatives genuinely are quite Realist, in the sense that they view allies in purely utilitarian terms.
I have no doubt that he is right, especially as we see our SecState Clinton trotting out the tough talk in reference to this same issue.
But Mrs. Clinton ruled out removing these weapons unless Russia agreed to cuts in its arsenal, which is at least 10 times the size of the American one. And she also appeared to make reductions in the American stockpile contingent on Russia’s being more transparent about its weapons and willing to move them away from the borders of NATO countries.
“We should recognize that as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance,” Mrs. Clinton said. “As a nuclear alliance, sharing nuclear risks and responsibilities widely is fundamental.”
The push to withdraw tactical weapons from Europe has gained momentum in recent weeks, with Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Norway jointly petitioning NATO to take up the issue. Many analysts consider these weapons a dangerous relic of the cold war, expensive to safeguard and deadly if they fell into the wrong hands.
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[NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen] also lined up with Mrs. Clinton on the nuclear question, saying he believed that “the presence of American nuclear weapons in Europe is an essential part of a credible deterrent.”
Even those eager to see an end to these weapons acknowledged the process would be lengthy and would require unity within NATO. “We’re not in a hurry,” Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said in an interview. “We don’t believe in acting fast or acting unilaterally.”
We have way too many Cold Warriors in the liberal hawk population and even within European capitols. After so many weeks on nuclear weapons talks - the new START treaty, the Nuclear Posture Review, the nuclear security summit, and the upcoming NPT conference - you''d think that the point that nuclear weapons were a strategic tool and that precision-guided conventional munitions were ready to replace tactical nuclear weapons in most, if not all roles would have been made. Instead, we're going to have to watch this administration beat its chest to show how manly it is with its nukes.
Those big, bad Russkies - with whom we've just made significant progress in nuclear weapons talks - can't be trusted to pull back their tactical nukes? What kind of stupidity is this? As for Rasmussen, he's a fool. I'd like to ask him, where are the 7,000 European military personnel that he insisted were ready to deploy to Afghanistan. Time to reel in the "non-strategic nuclear weapons." We don't need them in Europe.
Zarein Ahmedzay, a New York City taxi driver, pleaded guilty to federal charges in a Brooklyn courtroom, testifying that he plotted suicide attacks in Manhattan in September, during the month of Ramadan. Ahmedzay said he conspired with Najibullah Zazi, an airport shuttle bus driver who had earlier pleaded guilty in the plot. Federal officials have said their plan was in its final stages when it was thwarted.
Ahmedzay, 24, told a judge that he, Zazi and another person met along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in August 2008 with two top al-Qaeda officials, who ordered them to return to the United States and conduct attacks. The primary target was the New York City subway, where the group planned to detonate potent explosives.
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A lawyer for Ahmedzay, a U.S. citizen and resident of Queens, N.Y., did not return telephone calls Friday. Ahmedzay pleaded guilty to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and to providing material support to al-Qaeda. He faces a sentence of up to life in prison.
High explosives are not WMDs. Pipe bombs and grenades are not WMDs. If you ever hear an FBI spokesperson talk about their success in "combating terrorist WMDs," laugh at them and tell them they're insane.
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