FPI Overnight Brief: May 28, 2010

FPI Overnight Brief
May 28, 2010
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National Security Strategy

Richard Fontaine writes: There are a few differences in substance and many in tone. But it would be wrong to say this is a break with the past – US interests and values are longstanding and the tools it possesses for pursuing them are stable. The realities of the international system and continuing US interests always inform its foreign policy. The differences that exist are on the margin and, while that margin can be consequential, the new strategy should be seen in the context of the country's history. - Guardian

Peter Feaver writes: The roll-out of President Obama's National Security Strategy tries to frame the strategy as a repudiation of his predecessor's. But the reality is that the new strategy is best characterized as "Bush Lite", a slightly watered down but basically plausible remake of President Bush's National Security Strategy. – Shadow Government

Will Inboden writes: now that I've had a chance to read the entire Obama administration NSS, I worry that as a strategy blueprint the overall sum is less than the parts. In other words, it fails to articulate a compelling strategic logic that connects an analysis of opportunities and threats with resources, policies, and goals. – Shadow Government

Tom Donnelly writes: I see a very deep divide between our current president and his predecessor, a fundamental difference of opinion about international politics and even human nature. Simply put, Barack Obama believes progress can be achieved through cooperation among nations through the realm of diplomacy while George Bush believes progress can be achieved despite conflict, which is the realm of armed strength. Both men profess the universality of American political principles, but have divergent views about how to carry American Exceptionalism abroad. – AEI’s Center for Defense Studies

Danielle Pletka writes: [T]here are inescapable truths that this president must grasp: A world without U.S. leadership is a world dangerous to Americans. U.S. leadership requires conviction in the nation’s greatness and commitment to American values. It requires a clear-eyed understanding — more clear-eyed than so far displayed — that international organizations cannot defend us from the predations of terrorists, Iran or, for that matter, Greece. It requires an America that will reverse the retreat of the past 18 months. It doesn’t matter what the president and his staff say they’re going to do. What matters is what they do. And don’t do. - Politico
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Koreas

North Korea said Thursday that it was cutting off a naval hot line that was intended to prevent clashes near its disputed sea border with South Korea. Meanwhile, the South conducted a large naval drill in a show of force. – New York Times

The March 26 sinking of South Korea's warship has metastasized in the past week into a major international security crisis…But the ship-sinking crisis also has another dimension, one that is especially disorienting to young people in South Korea, many of whom have grown up thinking of North Korea as yesterday's irritant. A "sunshine policy" that began after a North-South summit in 2000 had seemed to diminish Kim's menace. South Korea bought itself peace of mind by showering the impoverished North with food aid, fertilizer and economic investment. Polls here found that despite North Korea's periodic petulance -- exploding small nuclear devices in 2006 and 2008 and launching a flurry of missiles -- most South Koreans viewed Pyongyang as a manageable worry. The Cheonan incident appears to have significantly altered that view. – Washington Post

The competing reactions to the sinking of the warship Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors, slip easily into the twin currents of South Korea's political divide. One stream sees the event as the nation's 9/11, a shocking reminder of the unpredictable danger posed by North Korea that requires an end to any business-as-usual coddling of Kim Jong Il's regime…But other South Koreans — generally younger and another generation removed from the horrors of the 1950-53 Korean War — see the Cheonan incident in less threatening terms. They contend that for all its bluster, North Korea is not an existential threat to their country. And they are suspicious of the motives of a conservative government they regard as descendants of the military regimes that ruled South Korea before it became a democracy in the 1980s. – Los Angeles Times

A new U.N. report suggests that North Korea has been using front companies to export nuclear and missile technology and has helped Iran, Syria and Myanmar, a Western diplomat said. The findings were detailed in a report by a U.N. panel of experts charged with monitoring compliance with Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang, the diplomat told Reuters late on Thursday on condition of anonymity. "The details in the report are not entirely surprising," the diplomat told Reuters. "Basically it suggests that North Korea has exported nuclear and missile technology with the aid of front companies, middlemen and other ruses." "The point is that North Korea has been providing that kind of aid to Iran, Syria and Burma (Myanmar)," he said. - Reuters

South Korea sees no chance of the latest tension on the divided peninsula turning to outright war but is deeply concerned that the North may try terror attacks on civilians, a high ranking South Korean official said on Friday. He also said that though both sides have been careful not to push too far, Seoul was ready to send in troops if there is what he called "extreme provocation" by the North. - Reuters

In gauging the regime’s stability, analysts look at the economy, the armed services and the political powerbrokers likely to survive Mr Kim’s eventual demise. There is a great deal of uncertainty about each—North Korea-watchers have remarkably little to go on. Economic problems are the most apparent but may also be the least important: for years the regime has shown that it can carry on with its policies regardless of the hunger of its people. - Economist
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East Asia

South Korea and Japan will on Saturday try to persuade China not to block action against Pyongyang at the United Nations Security Council, although Seoul accepts Beijing will not publicly condemn Pyongyang for torpedoing a warship in March…Wi Sung-lac, South Korea’s most senior diplomat dealing with North Korean issues, expected weeks of negotiations and added that it was probably unrealistic to expect concrete breakthroughs in the coming days. “What China emphasises is stability on the Korean peninsula,” he told investors. Still, he said China appreciated the seriousness of the incident and had sent its condolences to Seoul. South Korea has provided a technical report on the sinking to Chinese experts and says it would welcome any Chinese investigative team that wanted to sift through the debris itself. – Financial Times

Japanese lawmakers moved Thursday to tighten restrictions on North Korea, signaling Tokyo's desire to remain a strong and reliable U.S. partner following months of acrimony over U.S. troop deployments… A Japanese parliamentary committee passed a bill Thursday to authorize the nation's coast guard to inspect North Korean cargo ships in international waters… The bill that passed through committee Thursday allows Japanese coast guard officials to board North Korean ships suspected of carrying banned items such as weapons, nuclear materials or narcotics, or order rerouting into Japanese waters where the Japanese police can order the submission of banned items. The coast guard needs to receive consent of the targeted ship before boarding, however, which could make the new law ineffectual. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

If China cannot have a grown-up discussion with America about something as clear-cut as the attack on the Cheonan, how much greater will be the danger of miscommunication in the event of something hitherto unthinkable happening: an outbreak of war, say, a nuclear incident, or the collapse of the regime. Anything that sparked fears of “loose nukes” or a refugee crisis, with American and Chinese troops aiming nervously at each other across North Korean territory, could quickly make the Korean peninsula the most dangerous place on earth. China ignores such risks at its peril. - Economist

Josh Rogin reports: the Chinese response to evidence that North Korea sank a South Korean naval ship, the Cheonan, is giving China watchers in Washington pause. The consensus here is that China is either unwilling, or at least unable at this stage, to prioritize the international community's needs anywhere near its own interests. Whether it's on security, nuclear nonproliferation, or climate change, China is not acting like a global leader and maybe the U.S. needs to recognize that. – The Cable

Michael Mazza writes: China’s policy of friendship with and support for North Korea has served Beijing well for six decades. Abandonment of that policy would mark a somewhat radical reversal, and the People’s Republic is not prone to making such changes. But today there is an argument to be made in Beijing that its interests on the Korean peninsula increasingly align with those of Washington and Seoul. Hopefully, the sinking of the Cheonan will lead some important voices to start making that argument. – The American

Mazza also writes: If Washington can take advantage of this moment both to strengthen its long-standing alliances and to build relationships with new partners — as well as to tie those allies and partners more closely to each other — it can be better assured of a stable and peaceful 21st-century Asia. And we can all thank China for shooting itself in the foot. – AEI’s Center for Defense Studies

Richard Haass writes: The good news is that many in China are coming to see North Korea less as an asset and more as the strategic burden that it is…This rethinking of what China gets out of its relationship with North Korea may not translate into open Chinese support for a tough resolution at the U.N., but it could well lead to quiet, behind-the-scenes Chinese involvement in North Korea's leadership struggle. China is in a better position than anyone else to increase the odds that Kim Jong Il is succeeded by a reformer who would introduce some market and political changes (call it the Chinese model) and act responsibly towards South Korea and his own citizens. China has a stake in doing so: to avoid instability on its border, to avoid a crisis that could further roil the region's (and hence China's) economy, and to avoid pressures for nuclear programs in North Korea's neighbors, most notably Japan. American and South Korean officials need to do more than just point out the risk to their Chinese counterparts of China's current course. They also need to discuss the character of a unified Korea and how one would get there, addressing legitimate Chinese strategic concerns including the questions of non-Korean troop presence and the full denuclearization of the peninsula. U.S. and South Korean policy should move away from ritualistic calls for resumption of negotiations and toward something far more fundamental: a change in regime in the North that could lead to denuclearization in the short run and Korean reunification over time. In addition, the two governments would be wise to step up their planning for all possible contingencies. South Korea's president may have signaled an interest in just this on Monday, saying "It is now time for the North Korean regime to change." President Obama should follow suit. There would be no better way to mark this June's 60th anniversary of the Korean war. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
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The War

A senior United Nations official is expected to call on the United States next week to stop Central Intelligence Agency drone strikes against people suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda, complicating the Obama administration’s growing reliance on that tactic in Pakistan. Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said Thursday that he would deliver a report on June 3 to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva declaring that the “life and death power” of drones should be entrusted to regular armed forces, not intelligence agencies. He contrasted how the military and the C.I.A. responded to allegations that strikes had killed civilians by mistake. – New York Times

A fugitive Saudi Arabian man, who was once detained at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, was named as a senior member of Al Qaeda's Yemen wing, according to a tape by the group shown on al Arabiya television on Friday. The tape also confirmed the deaths of three leaders killed in December and January during Yemeni air raids, the pan Arab broadcaster said. - Reuters

Thomas Joscelyn reports: On January 22, President Obama’s Guantanamo Review Task Force completed its final report, which outlined the administration’s plan for the remaining detainees held at Guantanamo. The Task Force was set up as part of the president’s effort to close Gitmo. The Weekly Standard has obtained a copy of the report, as well as Attorney General Eric Holder’s transmittal memorandum. As explained below, the Task Force concluded that 95 percent of the detainees held at Gitmo, as of January 2009, had at least some noteworthy connection to the terrorist network. – The Weekly Standard Blog
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Russia

A top Russian official Thursday dismissed criticism from the Iranian president as "emotional," and expressed frustration over what he portrayed as Tehran's obstinate refusal to confront suspicions over its nuclear program. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lashed back at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who a day earlier described the Kremlin as a potential enemy that was overly susceptible to pressures from the international community. "Russia has never been manipulated by anyone," Lavrov told reporters. "It has always been guided by national interests." – Los Angeles Times

Russia's support for fresh U.N. sanctions against Iran and its help on Afghanistan show how Washington's "reset" of relations with Moscow is delivering results, President Barack Obama's top adviser on Russia said…"We believe that's a concrete achievement of resetting relations with Russia," Obama's senior director for Russian affairs, Michael McFaul, told reporters late on Thursday night. McFaul, in Russia to meet government officials and civil society leaders, also attributed other foreign policy successes to Obama's move to start afresh with Russia after rocky relations during the Bush presidency. - Reuters

Vaclav Havel writes: We ask the President of the Russian Federation and urge the Russian government to protect people in danger and to ensure quick and effective investigations into the murders of human rights activists, journalists, and independent-minded jurists. Political leaders must speak up loud and clear against these terrible crimes. They must underline the great danger posed for the health of both Russian society and the state when people who are acting in the public interest are silenced through murder. And the international community must find ways to provide support, protection, and shelter to Russia’s endangered human rights defenders. – Project Syndicate

ICYMI, FPI Director Robert Kagan writes: What is bizarre is the administration's claim that Russian behavior is somehow the result of Obama's "reset" diplomacy. Russia has responded to the Obama administration in the same ways it did to the Bush administration before the "reset." Moscow has been playing this game for years. It has sold the same rug many times. The only thing that has changed is the price the United States has been willing to pay. – Washington Post
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Iran/Brazil

As the U.S. and its allies march toward another round of sanctions against Iran, the Obama administration is already engaged in a financial and intelligence drive against Tehran's largest shipping company, with the potential to cut sharply into the Iranian government's ability to procure and transport illicit goods. Over the past 18 months, the U.S. and its allies have heightened surveillance of the fleet of Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines. That has led to the seizure of thousands of tons of arms officials say they believe were headed to Iran's allies in Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories. U.S. and Israeli naval ships and satellites closely track IRISL ships as they pass through the Suez Canal and move between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. The surveillance is aimed primarily at slowing Iran's regional arms trade and procurement of hardware for its nuclear program. The U.S. Treasury, meantime, is focused on cutting off IRISL's ability to utilize international ports, in part through a campaign to press foreign insurers to stop underwriting Iranian ships. In recent months, U.K. and Bermudan insurance clubs have frozen their business with IRISL, forcing the company out of the mainstream "protection-and-indemnity" market. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

On April 20, President Obama sent a 2 1/2 -page letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva outlining a deal that the United States had unsuccessfully pursued in October, one in which Iran would swap the bulk of its enriched uranium for fuel for a medical research reactor. At the time, Brazil and Turkey were contemplating mediation efforts with Iran. "For us, Iran's agreement to transfer 1,200 kg of low-enriched uranium (LEU) out of the country would build confidence and reduce regional tensions by substantially reducing Iran's LEU stockpile," Obama wrote, according to a copy of the letter posted Thursday on the Web site PoliticaExterna.com. That letter has become a sort of talisman for Brazil, which says Lula and Erdogan used it as a guide when they negotiated a deal with Tehran on May 17. Brazilian officials are shocked that the United States is raising objections to the agreement and its terms, including the fact that it did not end Iran's recent decision to begin enriching uranium to a level of 20 percent. – Washington Post
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Defense

The Senate on Thursday approved a nearly $60 billion measure to pay for continuing military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq…Senators delivered a bipartisan 67-to-28 vote for the war financing bill after rejecting a series of Republican proposals on border protection as well as a plan by Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, to require President Obama to produce a timetable for withdrawing from Afghanistan. – New York Times

Congress was moving on two fronts late Thursday with legislation to repeal a Clinton administration-era law that bans gays from serving openly in the military. The Senate Armed Services Committee approved a measure to lift the controversial 1993 “don't ask, don't tell” policy, setting up a full vote in the Senate later. The panel passed the measure on a near party-line vote of 16-12. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was the only Republican to support the proposal, while Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia was the lone Democratic dissenter. Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat and the panel chairman, said he was confident the proposed repeal would pass the full Senate, where 60 votes likely would be needed. Some Capitol Hill Democrats already have stated reservations. Across the Capitol, a similar version passed late Thursday by a 234-194 vote. – Washington Times

The House on Thursday voted to keep funding a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, defying the White House and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. – The Hill
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Nuclear Weapons

Talks on shoring up the global anti-nuclear arms treaty were on the edge of failure on Friday as the United States and its allies clashed with Egypt over a push to pressure Israel to scrap any atom bombs it has - Reuters

Kim Holmes writes: The Obama administration’s drive to win Senate approval of the New START arms treaty with Russia has hit a speed bump. Several senators are asking to see the secret negotiating record from the administration’s official talks with Russia. Why? Because U.S. and Russian officials publicly disagree about what the treaty says. Senators have a right to know – before they consent to ratification of a treaty that affects national security – how those terms now at issue were handled during the negotiations. – The Foundry
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Intelligence

Richard Posner writes: We need a Director of National Intelligence who is not the president's senior intelligence adviser—that is the role of the CIA's director. The DNI's role is rightly that of a chairman focused on such urgent tasks as modernizing the intelligence system's many computer networks (and enabling them to communicate with each other), establishing uniform standards for security clearances, and pushing for a coherent organization of domestic intelligence. These are tasks wholly unlike briefing the president on North Korea's belligerent intentions. They call for the skills of a top manager, ideally perhaps a former intelligence officer who had gone on to manage a knowledge-generating institution in the private sector. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
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ICC

Members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) will meet next week in Uganda to discuss a controversial expansion of the court's powers that would allow it to prosecute crimes of state aggression for the first time. - Reuters
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China

A Chinese court has handed down a suspended death sentence to a Tibetan man accused of taking part in the riots that ravaged the Tibetan capital more than two years ago, the state news media reported. The same court also sentenced five other people to lengthy prison terms for their role in harboring the man, Sonam Tsering, who was convicted of “rioting and inciting the public to riot,” according to the Lhasa Evening News, which said the trial took place on Tuesday. – New York Times

Business leaders are debating what the future holds for China's economy as foreign companies there face increasing frustrations owing to new restrictions imposed by the communist government in Beijing. However, several businesses that favor trade with China say the newly implemented controls aimed at benefiting Chinese companies might additionally aid Chinese workers and some foreign businesses there. – Washington Times

ICYMI, FPI Director of Democracy and Human Rights Ellen Bork writes: The U.S. has lost its nerve at a time when China is confidently asserting its own brand of Communist Party-led authoritarianism. That is a recipe for failure on human rights. China's leaders know it. And so do China's dissidents. – Wall Street Journal Asia

Ms. Bork also discussed American policy towards the People’s Republic in a recent event at the Heritage Foundation
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Middle East

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that it's time to move to direct talks with the Palestinians and that he will raise the issue with President Obama in Washington next week…”We want to move as speedily as possible to direct talks because the kind of problem that we have with the Palestinians can be resolved in peace and can be arranged only if we sit down together," Mr. Netanyahu told reporters at the French presidential palace. – Associated Press

Hezbollah is running weapons, including surface-to-surface missiles, from secret arms depots in Syria to its bases in Lebanon, according to security sources. The Times has been shown satellite images of one of the sites, a compound near the town of Adra, northeast of Damascus, where militants have their own living quarters, an arms storage site and a fleet of lorries reportedly used to ferry weapons into Lebanon. The military hardware is either of Syrian origin or sent from Iran by sea, via Mediterranean ports, or by air, via Damascus airport. The arms are stored at the Hezbollah depot and then trucked into Lebanon. – Times of London
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Afghanistan

Con Coughlin writes: Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are desperate to escape from the quagmire that is Afghanistan. Yet paradoxically, the only way we stand a chance of extricating ourselves is by sending a clear and unequivocal message that we are going to stay the course. - Telegraph

Greg Mills writes: As ISAF commanders prepare for the pivotal [Kandahar] campaign, they should put themselves in the shoes of their enemies. The Taliban enjoy considerable advantages in the fight due to a lack of accountability and their ability to provide amenities to the local population that the government doesn't. To understand where the Taliban are coming from and therefore jump-start our thinking on how to counter these advantages, I propose a thought experiment: If I were a Taliban commander in Quetta, anticipating the Kandahar offensive from the other side of the battle lines, what would my hopes and fears be right now? What traps would I be setting for the ISAF? And what potential ISAF missteps might I be praying for? – Foreign Policy
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South Asia

Dozens died early Friday morning after a passenger train was derailed in an apparent act of sabotage and collided with an oncoming cargo train in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. Authorities said Maoist rebels, who are active in the area, were to blame for the tragedy. An 18-inch section of track was shown missing. Authorities said there also was an improvised explosive device used at the crash site, though other reports said it remained unclear whether explosives had been used. – Wall Street Journal

The latest standoff between India and Pakistan features familiar elements: perceived Indian injustices, calls to arms by Pakistani extremists. But this dispute centers on something different: water. Militant organizations traditionally focused on liberating Indian-held Kashmir have adopted water as a rallying cry, accusing India of strangling upstream rivers to desiccate downstream farms in Pakistan's dry agricultural heartland. – Washington Post
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Ukraine

Ukraine Thursday formally buried pursuit of NATO membership as an aim, its foreign minister declaring the issue had been taken off the policy agenda. It was the most clear-cut statement by the new leadership of President Viktor Yanukovich that the issue was a dead letter in Ukraine for the conceivable future. "Ukraine will continue developing its relations with the alliance, but the question of membership is now being removed from the agenda," the foreign minister, Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying. - Reuters
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Africa

After a long and tense debate with the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations has decided to withdraw 2,000 peacekeepers, far fewer than Congolese officials wanted, according to a draft resolution. Congo is still haunted by countless armed groups, and a new rebellion recently erupted in the middle of the country. But the Congolese government has been demanding that the United Nations reduce its 20,000-plus peacekeeping force because Congolese officials see the United Nations presence as a violation of their sovereignty. – New York Times

The United Nations hosted the Conference on Somalia, and it was predictably high-class…At the conference, there were the usual participants—Western, Arab and African diplomats, United Nations officials and of course the Somali government. This time, however, a different sort of guest also was invited.The nearly 60 suit-clad business executives that showed are a tight-knit group formed amid Somalia's conflict. Their attendance underscored how robust Somalia's private sector has become, and the special role they play in nudging the war-wracked country closer to stability. – Wall Street Journal
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Jamaica

Jamaican police on Thursday said at least 73 people have died as security forces hunt for a reputed drug lord wanted by the United States. Deputy Police Chief Glenmore Hinds said all the deaths have occurred as police raided the Tivoli Gardens stronghold of Christopher Coke. Officials previously said that 44 civilians had died. – Associated Press
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Thailand

152 businessmen, politicians, lawyers and other alleged financiers of "red shirt" protests, [have] seen [their] bank accounts frozen and been ordered to report details of all financial transactions since September to authorities. The aim, said an emergency decree signed by Gen. Anupong Paochinda, is to root out threats to "national security and the safety of citizens" and "get rid of this problem effectively and immediately." – Washington Post

ENDS

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