Biden's Middle East trip: Following in Trump's footsteps
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Responsible Statecraft
Responsible Statecraft is a publication of analysis, opinion, and news that seeks to promote a positive vision of U.S. foreign policy based on humility, diplomatic engagement, and military restraint. RS also critiques the ideas — and the ideologies and interests behind them — that have mired the United States in counterproductive and endless wars and made the world less secure.
Top image credit: Let’s curb loose talk of using lower-yield nuclear weapons
John Kyl: The return of Senator Strangelove
January 15, 2025
A primary responsibility of the government is, of course, to keep us safe. Given that obligation, you might think that the Washington establishment would be hard at work trying to prevent the ultimate catastrophe — a nuclear war. But you would be wrong.
A small, hardworking contingent of elected officials is indeed trying to roll back the nuclear arms race and make it harder for such world-ending weaponry ever to be used again, including stalwarts like Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Representative John Garamendi (D-Calif.), and other members of the Congressional Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group. But they face ever stiffer headwinds from a resurgent network of nuclear hawks who want to build more kinds of nuclear weapons and ever more of them. And mind you, that would all be in addition to the Pentagon’s current plans for spending up to $2 trillion over the next three decades to create a whole new generation of nuclear weapons, stoking a dangerous new nuclear arms race.
There are many drivers of this push for a larger, more dangerous arsenal — from the misguided notion that more nuclear weapons will make us safer to an entrenched network of companies, governmental institutions, members of Congress, and policy pundits who will profit (directly or indirectly) from an accelerated nuclear arms race. One indicator of the current state of affairs is the resurgence of former Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, who spent 18 years in Congress opposing even the most modest efforts to control nuclear weapons before he went on to work as a lobbyist and policy advocate for the nuclear weapons complex.
His continuing prominence in debates over nuclear policy — evidenced most recently by his position as vice-chair of a congressionally-appointed commission that sought to legitimize an across-the-board nuclear buildup — is a testament to our historical amnesia about the risks posed by nuclear weapons.
Senator Strangelove
Republican Jon Kyl was elected to the Senate from Arizona in 1995 and served in that body until 2013, plus a brief stint in late 2018 to fill out the term of the late Senator John McCain.
One of Kyl’s signature accomplishments in his early years in office was his role in lobbying fellow Republican senators to vote against ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which went down to a 51 to 48 Senate defeat in October 1999. That treaty banned explosive nuclear testing and included monitoring and verification procedures meant to ensure that its members met their obligations. Had it been widely adopted, it might have slowed the spread of nuclear weapons, now possessed by nine countries, and prevented a return to the days when aboveground testing spread cancer-causing radiation to downwind communities.
The defeat of the CTBT marked the beginning of a decades-long process of dismantling the global nuclear arms control system, launched by the December 2001 withdrawal of President George W. Bush’s administration from the Nixon-era Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty. That treaty was designed to prevent a “defense-offense” nuclear arms race in which one side’s pursuit of anti-missile defenses sparks the other side to build more — and ever more capable — nuclear-armed missiles. James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace called the withdrawal from the ABM Treaty an “epic mistake” that fueled a new nuclear arms race. Kyl argued otherwise, claiming the withdrawal removed “a straightjacket from our national security.”
The end of the ABM treaty created the worst of both worlds — an incentive for adversaries to build up their nuclear arsenals coupled with an abject failure to develop weaponry that could actually defend the United States in the event of a real-world nuclear attack.
Then, in August 2019, during the first Trump administration, the U.S. withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which prohibited the deployment of medium-range missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. That treaty had been particularly important because it eliminated the danger of having missiles in Europe that could reach their targets in a very brief time frame, a situation that could shorten the trigger on a possible nuclear confrontation.
Then-Senator Kyl also used the eventual pullout from the INF treaty as a reason to exit yet another nuclear agreement, the New START treaty, co-signing a letter with 24 of his colleagues urging the Trump administration to reject New START. He was basically suggesting that lifting one set of safeguards against a possible nuclear confrontation was somehow a reason to junk a separate treaty that had ensured some stability in the U.S.-Russian strategic nuclear balance.
Finally, in November 2023, NATO suspended its observance of a treaty that had limited the number of troops the Western alliance and Russia could deploy in Europe after the government of Vladimir Putin withdrew from the treaty earlier that year in the midst of his ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
The last U.S.-Russian arms control agreement, New START, caps the strategic nuclear warheads of the two countries at 1,550 each and has monitoring mechanisms to make sure each side is holding up its obligations. That treaty is currently hanging by a thread. It expires in 2026 and there is no indication that Russia is inclined to negotiate an extension in the context of its current state of relations with Washington.
As early as December 2020, Kyl was angling to get the government to abandon any plans to extend New START, coauthoring an op-ed on the subject for the Fox News website. He naturally ignored the benefits of an agreement aimed at reducing the chance of an accidental nuclear conflict, even as he made misleading statements about it being unbalanced in favor of Russia.
Back in 2010, when New START was first under consideration in the Senate, Kyl played a key role in extracting a pledge from the Obama administration to throw an extra $80 billion at the nuclear warhead complex in exchange for Republican support of the treaty. Even after that concession was made, Kyl continued to work tirelessly to build opposition to the treaty. If, in the end, he failed to block its Senate ratification, he did help steer billions in additional funding to the nuclear weapons complex.
Our Man from Northrop Grumman
In 2017, between stints in the Senate, Kyl worked as a lobbyist with the law firm Covington and Burling, where one of his clients was Northrop Grumman, the largest beneficiary of the Pentagon’s nuclear weapons spending binge. That company is the lead contractor on both the future B-21 nuclear bomber and Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The Sentinel program drew widespread attention recently when it was revealed that, in just a few years, its estimated cost had jumped by an astonishing 81%, pushing the price for building those future missiles to more than $140 billion (with tens of billions more needed to operate them in their years of “service” to come).
That stunning cost spike for the Sentinel triggered a Pentagon review that could have led to a cancellation or major restructuring of the program. Instead, the Pentagon opted to stay the course despite the enormous price tag, asserting that the missile is “essential to U.S. national security and is the best option to meet the needs of our warfighters.”
Independent experts disagree. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry, for instance, has pointed out that such ICBMs are “some of the most dangerous weapons we have” because a president, warned of a possible nuclear attack by an enemy power, would have only minutes to decide whether to launch them, greatly increasing the risk of an accidental nuclear war triggered by a false alarm. Perry is hardly alone. In July 2024, 716 scientists, including 10 Nobel laureates and 23 members of the National Academies, called for the Sentinel to be canceled, describing the system as “expensive, dangerous, and unnecessary.”Meanwhile, as vice-chair of a congressionally mandated commission on the future of U.S. nuclear weapons policy, Kyl has been pushing a worst-case scenario regarding the current nuclear balance that could set the stage for producing even larger numbers of (Northrop Grumman-built) nuclear bombers, putting multiple warheads on (Northrop Grumman-built) Sentinel missiles, expanding the size of the nuclear warhead complex, and emplacing yet more tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. His is a call, in other words, to return to the days of the Cold War nuclear arms race at a moment when the lack of regular communication between Washington and Moscow can only increase the risk of a nuclear confrontation. Kyl does seem to truly believe that building yet more nuclear weapons will indeed bolster this country’s security and he’s hardly alone when it comes to Congress or, for that matter, the next Trump administration. Consider that a clear sign that reining in the nuclear arms race will involve not only making the construction of nuclear weapons far less lucrative, but also confronting the distinctly outmoded and unbearably dangerous arguments about their alleged strategic value.The Advocate
In October 2023, when the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on a report from the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, it had an opportunity for a serious discussion of nuclear strategy and spending, and how best to prevent a nuclear war. Given the stakes for all of us should a nuclear war between the United States and Russia break out — up to an estimated 90 million of us dead within the first few days of such a conflict and up to five billion lives lost once radiation sickness and reduced food production from the resulting planetary “nuclear winter” kick in — you might have hoped for a wide-ranging debate on the implications of the commission’s proposals.
Unfortunately, much of the discussion during the hearing involved senators touting weapons systems or facilities producing them located in their states, with little or no analysis of what would best protect Americans and our allies. For example, Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz) stressed the importance of Raytheon’s SM-6 missile — produced in Arizona, of course — and commended the commission for proposing to spend more on that program. Senator Jackie Rosen (R-Nev.) praised the role of the Nevada National Security Site, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site, for making sure such warheads were reliable and would explode as intended in a nuclear conflict. You undoubtedly won’t be shocked to learn that she then called for more funding to address what she described as “significant delays” in upgrading that Nevada facility. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) proudly pointed to the billions in military work being done in his state: “In Alabama we build submarines, ships, airplanes, missiles. You name it, we build it.” Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) requested that witnesses confirm how absolutely essential the Kansas City Plant, which makes non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons, remains for American security.
And so it went until Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) asked what the nuclear buildup recommended by the commission would cost. She suggested that, if past history is any guide, much of the funding proposed by the commission would be wasted: “I’m willing to spend what it takes to keep America safe, but I’m certainly not comfortable with a blank check for programs that already have a history of gross mismanagement.”
The answer from Kyl and his co-chair Marilyn Creedon was that the commission had not even bothered to estimate the costs of any of what it was suggesting and that its recommendations should be considered regardless of the price. This, of course, was good news for nuclear weapons contractors like Northrop Grumman, but bad news for taxpayers.
The Brink of Armageddon?
Nuclear hardliners frequently suggest that anyone advocating the reduction or elimination of nuclear arsenals is outrageously naive and thoroughly out of touch with the realities of great power politics. As it happens though, the truly naive ones are the nuclear hawks who insist on clinging to the dubious notion that vast (and still spreading) stores of nuclear weaponry can be kept around indefinitely without ever being used again, by accident or design.
There is another way. Even as Washington, Moscow, and Beijing continue the production of a new generation of nuclear weapons — such weaponry is also possessed by France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom — a growing number of nations have gone on record against any further nuclear arms race and in favor of eliminating such weapons altogether. In fact, the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has now been ratified by 73 countries.
As Beatrice Fihn, former director of the Nobel-prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, pointed out in a recent essay in the New York Times, there are numerous examples of how collective action has transformed “seemingly impossible situations.” She cited the impact of the antinuclear movement of the 1980s in reversing a superpower nuclear arms race and setting the stage for sharp reductions in the numbers of such weapons, as well as a successful international effort to bring the nuclear ban treaty into existence. She noted that a crucial first step in bringing the potentially catastrophic nuclear arms race under control would involve changing the way we talk about such weapons, especially debunking the myth that they are somehow “magical tools” that make us all more secure. She also emphasized the importance of driving home that this planet’s growing nuclear arsenals are evidence that all too many of those in power are acquiescing in a reckless strategy “based on threatening to commit global collective suicide.”
The next few years will be crucial in determining whether ever growing numbers of nuclear weapons remain entrenched in this country’s budgets and its global strategy for decades to come or whether common sense can carry the day and spark the reduction and eventual elimination of such instruments of mass devastation. A vigorous public debate on the risks of an accelerated nuclear arms race would be a necessary first step toward pulling the world back from the brink of Armageddon.
This article was originally published at TomDispatch and has been republished here with permission.
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Top Photo: Austrian far-right Freedom Party (FPO) Secretary General Kickl addresses a news conference in Vienna. Source: Reuters
Austria’s Freedom Party breaks ranks on Ukraine
January 14, 2025
The rise of the populist right in European elections continues as Herbert Kickl, the controversial leader of the populist-nationalist Freedom Party (FPÖ) appears on course to become Austria’s new chancellor after attempts to form a centrist coalition collapsed.
In a historic first for postwar Austria, the Freedom Party won the elections in September with 29%, followed closely by the center-right People’s Party (ÖVP). Chancellor Karl Nehammer resigned after having failed, after prolonged talks, to form a coalition with the social democrats and liberals. On January 6, President Van der Bellen asked Kickl to attempt to form a government. Talks immediately began with the interim leader of the People’s Party.
The Freedom Party campaigned on opposition to supporting Ukraine. The People’s Party and other major parties favor continued humanitarian and diplomatic support; neutral Austria has not supplied weapons but has backed EU sanctions against Russia. Because ÖVP and FPÖ agree on immigration and other domestic policy issues, they are considered likely to be able to form a governing coalition, having between them a comfortable majority of seats. However, it is unclear whether FPÖ’s distinctive positions on foreign and security policy will be tempered by partnership with ÖVP.
The novel prospect of a government headed by FPÖ has elicited alarm and anxiety among many Austrians, although the ÖVP and FPÖ have previously governed together, with FPÖ as the more junior partner. In this sense, Austria has long since abandoned the ‘firewall’ strategy followed by Germany, which forbids any coalition with the populist right. Kickl was Interior Minister under ÖVP Chancellor Sebastian Kurz until a major scandal in 2019 forced the Freedom Party out of power. Kickl has led the party’s recovery from near collapse in public support in the aftermath of the scandal.
The uneasy partnership of the two parties began in the early 2000s when under the controversial leadership of Jörg Haider. Haider had moved the Freedom Party sharply to the right, and the EU imposed diplomatic sanctions on Austria to protest his party’s involvement in government. Once a speechwriter for Haider, Kickl follows in Haider’s footsteps with passionate and polarizing positions on immigration.
Germany’s Doppelganger?
Germany is approaching elections on February 23 with a solid “firewall” against coalition with the populist right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Because of the obvious parallels, the Austrian case is closely followed in Germany. The Greens’ leader Robert Habeck said Austria’s example showed that centrist parties needed to learn to stick together, while the AfD’s leader Alice Weidel called for the CDU/CSU to join AfD to form a “bourgeois” majority.
As in Germany, Austria’s center-right supports Ukraine and sanctioning Russia, while the populist right in both countries firmly opposes continuing on that policy course. Both center-right and center-left in both countries call for sharp curbs on immigration, reflecting, to some extent, anxieties among the public about security. Kickl’s attacks on the mainstream press and media, his call for a ‘Fortress’ Austria to keep out migrants, and his aspiration to serve as ‘Volkskanzler’ (people’s chancellor) evoke comparisons to the AfD’s Bjorn Höcke, the party’s leader in the state of Thuringia.
AfD now polls at about 20%, second to the center-right CDU/CSU at about 30% but ahead of the social democrat SPD (16%) and the Greens (13%). If the trend of growing support for AfD continues, it will become more and more difficult to form stable governing majorities that exclude them. From the standpoint of the CDU/CSU, the cooperation in governing coalitions of the center-right ÖVP and FPÖ may serve as a cautionary tale because FPÖ has, at last, surpassed the ÖVP in popular support and is, therefore, less amenable to moderating its more controversial positions. On the other hand, some conservative members of the German center-right might eventually be tempted to form a coalition with AfD rather than being obliged to adopt the compromises needed to form a “grand coalition” with the center-left Social Democrats. Coalition with CDU/CSU is clearly the AfD’s principal avenue to power.
'Orban 2.0' a potential headache for Brussels — and Kyiv
Kickl is close to Hungary’s President Viktor Orban and calls him a role model. If Kickl becomes Chancellor, he is likely to join Orban in opposing the periodic renewal of EU sanctions on Russia. Kickl’s Freedom Party and Orban’s Fidesz in June founded the “Patriots for Europe” action in the European Parliament, where they press for enhancing the power of member states and curbing the power of the Commission.
Although Austria is not a heavyweight in Europe, the addition of one more EU member to the small camp of open opponents of continuing support for Ukraine will have consequences, especially as negotiations to end the war may soon begin. However, it is possible that ÖVP will be able to win concessions from Kickl on the Ukraine issue in return for joining the governing coalition.
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Top photo credit: Quality Stock Arts/Shutterstock
Targeting China, Biden fires a big tech salvo at the entire world
January 14, 2025
On its way out the door, the Biden administration has announced a fresh round of restrictions on the sales of most advanced chips that could be used for AI.
The restrictions would reportedly cover sales of semiconductors not just to China, but also to other countries that U.S. authorities suspect might transship them — which essentially means almost the entire world.
Beyond this, the measures will also reportedly divide countries into three categories: an inner circle of allies that would retain unrestricted access to advanced U.S. chips provided they signed on to protocols governing their use of chips and AI; a secondary tier of countries that would face caps on their access to U.S. chips; and an outer tier of U.S. adversaries (most importantly China but also Russia, Iran, and a handful of others) that would face the most severe restrictions on shipments.
The decision has led to howls of protest from single companies, including NVIDIA, widely considered the key manufacturer of the most advanced chips, which said a “last-minute rule restricting exports to most of the world would be a major shift in policy that would not reduce the risk of misuse but would threaten economic growth and U.S. leadership.”
Industry organizations had an even tougher response. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) was scathing in its criticism, calling the the rules “over-designed, yet under-informed” and suggesting they would have “potentially catastrophic consequences for U.S. digital industry leadership.”
Beyond arguing that rules would place onerous burdens on companies, the foundation also insisted the rules would cost the industry revenues from their loss of global markets and prove extraordinarily difficult for Washington to enforce. Conversely, restricting shipments to any markets where U.S. manufacturers are constrained from offering U.S. supply would certainly lead to an opening for China, according to the foundation.
ITIF also argued that the measure simply misunderstood the technological issues because a larger number of less advanced processors could produce similar outcomes as a small number of more advanced ones, essentially defeating the ostensible purpose of the sanctions. And there is a possibility that access to less advanced hardware might just lead to more innovative higher-efficiency solutions, a phenomenon supposedly behind the surprising performance of Deepseek, a recent Chinese AI challenger to established U.S. giants.
In time, such advances could also emerge from tech industries across the Global South — especially parts of Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
The actions of the administration and the reaction of industry appear to conform to the model laid out in my recent piece in RS as Industry Openers (those, primarily in the private sector, that want to expand trading opportunities around the world) face off against Derailers in government (those who wish to halt or roll back key Chinese technological advances). But this does not even begin to do justice to the complexity of the situation.
The ITIF response also noted that the structure of the export controls could also lead to diplomatic problems for Washington. And that is probably an understatement. The first-tier of countries include most of the U.S.’s allies in Western Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. There are still strange (and tone-deaf) exceptions like Portugal, which is not only a NATO and EU member, but one whose former prime minister, Antonio Costa, is now President of the European Council. The exception may reflect concerns about the fact that a Chinese entity (China Three Gorges) owns roughly a fifth of the major Portuguese electricity company, but it is nevertheless at odds with the EU’s own self-image as a deeply-integrated single market with unified governance of trade.
And that’s just the beginning. The tech offensive will be resented the most across the Global South. For one thing, the limitation of the highest tier of “chip-worthiness” to historic U.S. security allies, all of which are already relatively advanced economies, will likely be seen as an effort to restrict development opportunities for middle powers, and could be interpreted as having racial overtones.
Singapore, a high-income country with further technological ambitions is presumably left out because it is seen as either too susceptible to Chinese influence or too sympathetic to that country’s economic ambitions.
Saudi Arabia is also in the second tier, following on already articulated concerns that it might transfer advanced semiconductors to China. Meanwhile, that country is not just engaged in a breakneck drive to modernize its economy under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, it is also probably Washington’s key Arab ally in the region.
India is also in the second-tier despite not only its membership in the Quad, but also its status as a leading supplier of key academic personnel to computer science and engineering departments in U.S. universities.
According to a 2020 study by the National Science Foundation, about 60% of all Computer and Mathematical Sciences PhDs working in the U.S. were foreign born, with China in first place and India second. So much for the Biden administration’s much-vaunted love for India!
To return to the language of the original RS piece, the effort to Derail China is now seeking to press-gang Global South countries by preemptively (and presumptively) denying them access to advanced products and technologies. This is ostensibly driven by the fear that these countries might “leak.” But this is odd in the case of India, whose relations with its giant northern neighbor are improving at the moment but still frosty, and, in any event, has fewer economic linkages with China than do most ASEAN countries.
So the proposed restrictions will likely be seen in Delhi as an American primacist effort to prevent catch-up by India, as well as China.
And diplomacy of this type may actually make it harder to “decouple” from China; that is, find other, “safer” venues for U.S. investment in order to make supply chains more geopolitically resilient.
Because what is being demanded here is that many third countries also decouple, which they will likely see as a U.S. effort to derail their own development and growth. Underneath it all is still the hubris of attempting to construct an economic and technological cordon sanitaire around the world’s second largest economy, its largest exporter of manufactures, and a model of successful catch-up growth for huge portions of the Global South, whatever their political or diplomatic views about China.
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