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Hope on the Korean Peninsula

12 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by in Nuclear, Opinion and Response

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US President Donald Trump and North Korean supremo Kim Jong-un emerged from their summit meeting in Singapore with smiles and an understanding on the Hermit Kingdom’s nuclear programme. After nearly five hours of talks, the two leaders released a joint statement that committed both countries to build a new relationship towards peace and prosperity, joint efforts to bring peace to the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang’s promise to work to achieve a complete denuclearisation of the two Koreas, and the repatriation of the remains of prisoners of war from the Korean War nearly 70 years ago. Interestingly, the joint statement also stated that Trump committed to provide a security guarantee to North Korea.

Trump emerged from the meeting stating that it went “better than expected and no one could’ve expected this” though the statement had no trace of the pre-summit US language of “complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearisation (CVID).” Both sides promised to begin follow-on negotiations between US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Ri Yong-ho at the earliest possible date.

Before the summit, most experts would have been glad if the conference even took place and the promise of a second meeting would have been taken as a great success. Trump’s ‘unique’ style of diplomacy had worried most observers that the Korean peninsula might be heading towards an expensive and catastrophic confrontation. Indeed, it was barely ten months ago that the president had threatened to unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen” against Pyongyang. Seen against that backdrop, the Singapore summit delivered beyond expectations.

Nonetheless, optimism must be tempered and there are several questions the joint statement raises. The first and most obvious is that the joint statement is woefully short on details – there has been no agreement on what denuclearisation would entail, verification regimes, timetables, deadlines, or penalties. Still, the statement might be seen as a preliminary measure before a more concrete treaty is negotiated in much the same way the Joint Plan of Action paved the way for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran.

It may also be argued that Kim did not promise the United States anything more than he did South Korea in the Panmunjom Declaration that pledged to strive for a peace treaty to officially end the Korean War and bring about the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. Yet Trump conceded the cessation of military exercises with South Korea – apparently without consulting the military or Seoul – and suggested the removal of all US forces from the country. The president thought such activity would be “very provocative” now that negotiations had begun with Pyongyang and that the cancellation of war games would also save “a tremendous amount of money.”

Kim’s promise of denuclearisation is also a big question mark. While it implies the dismantlement of his own nuclear arsenal – which is a notable achievement – it also opens the door to the removal of US nuclear weapons from the peninsula and perhaps even from bases nearby in Guam and Japan. North Korea does not intend to disarm unilaterally as it has learned its lesson from watching how the United States treated Iraq and Libya.

If Washington does talk over the heads of its regional allies in Seoul and Tokyo, both South Korea and Japan may be tempted to seriously consider acquiring a nuclear arsenal of their own. There have long been whispers in both capitals of an independent and reliable nuclear deterrent and these may only get louder if talks between Pyongyang and Washington drag on indefinitely without a North Korean nuclear disarmament.

It must be noted that the arrangement Trump has reached with Kim is far inferior to the agreement Clinton achieved in 1994 or even the progress made by the Six-Party Talks between 2003 and 2009. Yet this reflects not a shortcoming on Trump’s part but the advancements North Korea has made in its nuclear and missile programmes in the intervening years. American myopia in the late 1990s and early 2000s has given Kim Jong-un a better negotiating hand today through no fault of the Trump administration and the concessions Washington can expect will be less or will come at a steeper price, the difference from a quarter century ago echoing the cost of Washington’s folly.

The success of the Singapore summit and any subsequent agreement will ultimately depend upon whether each side delivers on their promises. Both sides have plenty of ammunition to suspect the other of bad faith. Washington, for example, walked out of its agreement with Iran despite the international community’s protestations for no apparent reason; the United States was found wanting also in the case of the Agreed Framework of 1994 that President Bill Clinton had negotiated with Kim Jong-il. The George W Bush administration remained unconvinced of the utility of diplomacy until North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006. For its part, Pyongyang has played the role of the madman to perfection with scorching rhetoric and a series of defiant nuclear and missile tests. With so much bad blood between the two countries, it is difficult to ascertain at this juncture how the negotiations and implementation phase will develop.

The only way to confirm whatever nuclear promises North Korea makes would be through an intrusive monitoring and inspection system as the JCPOA had envisaged with Iran. This will be very complicated process in terms of voluntary disclosures and the freedom international inspectors will have to investigate in a controlled country like North Korea will always be suspect. Furthermore, if the International Atomic Energy Agency’s reports do not conform to intelligence estimates, will the international community press for even more intrusive inspections? A first step, experts suggest, is an open skies agreement that will allow the two Koreas to conduct aerial reconnaisance over each other’s territories and monitor from afar.

Some of Trump’s critics have decried the camaraderie shown to Kim – Trump had called Kim a very talented man for taking over the country from his father at just 26. This stands in sharp contrast to the US president’s reaction to Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau at the recently concluded G-7 meeting in La Malbaie. North Korea’s human rights record is also brought up to emphasise Trump’s gaucheness.

Pace Trump’s relationship with the leaders of America’s long-time allies, it is worth considering, however, if more would have been achieved by the United States had Trump been boorish to dictators and despots to satisfy the moral itch of a certain segment of commentators.

The key factor to comprehend at this juncture in the US-North Korea talks is what each side wants from the other. Washington’s objectives are clear – the elimination of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal. As for North Korea’s aims, observers suggest that most of all, Kim seeks the recognition of the international community and the end to his country’s pariah status. An additional ambition of Pyongyang’s might be to improve the health of North Korea’s economy. Kim’s third aspiration might be the eventual reunification of the Koreas – an idea that carries a powerful cultural resonance on the peninsula despite the drifting apart of the two Koreas since World War II.

Each of these goals would profoundly change the geopolitics of East Asia. First and foremost, it would allow Pyongyang to get out from under China’s thumb. While Beijing has sheltered its tiny eastern neighbour for so long, there are indications that the relationship might not be as strong as it once was. A stronger and more independent Korea, or even just North Korea, might seek friends afar – dare I say Uncle Sam yet? – to balance powers nearby.

It is worth remembering that in their first summit in 2000, Kim Jong-il told his South Korean counterpart Kim Dae-jung that he had no objections to the continued presence of American troops on the peninsula even after reunification – “We are surrounded by big powers – Russia, Japan and China – so the United States must continue to stay for stability and peace in East Asia,” southern Kim remembers northern Kim as saying. South Korea’s present president, Moon Jae-in, seems cautiously ready to midwife this old and seemingly strange desire for better relations with the United States if it still exists – Moon met Kim in a historic visit in April this year and was the one who conveyed Kim’s wish to meet Trump.

Trump’s meeting with Kim holds great potential for shuffling the East Asian geopolitical deck. However, the hurdles are many too – primarily the mistrust built over the past 30 years since the end of the Cold War. The Singapore summit was a first step in a long journey towards reconciliation but as Ronald Reagan advised during the Soviet glasnost and perestroika, trust but verify; for now, the stringent economic sanctions on North Korea will remain.

This post appeared on FirstPost on June 13, 2018.

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Politics of Spite

09 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by in Iran, Middle East

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As predicted, US president Donald Trump has led the United States out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. The agreement, which was supposed to increase international (Western) oversight into Tehran’s nuclear programme and hopefully rein in its nuclear ambitions, was one of the few unambiguously positive legacies of Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, but ran into opposition even during the delicate negotiations. Critics tried to add riders involving their pet projects – usually human rights or missile development – to the deal in an attempt to derail process. Consistent with his pre-election criticism for once, Trump had called the JCPOA a bad deal and promised to repudiate it if elected.

America’s European partners – Britain, France, Germany, and Russia – have parted ways with Washington and declared their intent to continue adherence to the JCPOA; China has so far been mute but already threatened with a trade war with the United States, it is highly likely that it, too, will follow the Europeans in holding on to the Iranian nuclear deal.

It is not yet clear what the fallout of the American departure from the JCPOA will be. Although the rhetoric of the exit has been focused on how the agreement did not go far enough in preventing Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons, the fact that Trump administration officials have stated that sanctions will be “snapped back” indicates that they believe Iran to be in breach of its obligations under the JCPOA – although most technical experts disagree with this evaluation.

Given that the other members of the E3 + 3 – particularly Britain, France, and Germany – will not be following the US example, the interesting question is if Washington intends to sanction their businesses and banks under the recently passed Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) as India fears its defence dealings with Russia might. This would cause an enormous rupture in in the US and world economy as China is the United States’ single largest trading partner and Britain, France, and Germany are together the fourth largest ahead of Japan. Yet if Trump does use his presidential discretion to waive sanctions and exempt these four countries, it would be too blatant an act of political hypocrisy if the same treatment was not extended to others over Russia and North Korea as well as over Iran.

In February 2018, Patrick Pouyanné, the CEO of the French oil & gas giant Total, openly called for the implementation of the 1996 European Union Blocking Regulation, a law that prohibited European firms from cooperating with foreign demands that are in violation of international law or hurt European sovereign interests. Denis Chaibi, a senior diplomat in the European External Action Service, commented that the EU was looking at a variety of options and the blocking regulations would not be difficult to implement.

Ultimately, these are political instruments and businesses would be hurt either by European penalties for obeying US sanctions or the denial of access to American markets due to US sanctions. Obviously, firms would prefer having access to the far larger American markets than pin their hopes on soaring Euro-Iranian trade and the threat of blocking regulations is empty. States are supposed to exercise restrain and caution and a tit-for-tat exchange between the United States and its three primary European allies will hurt everyone. More to the point, the multinational supply chains of most large industrial houses today means that there would be few European firms that are not exposed to the United States and are free to do business with Iran.

Internationally, many countries would be pulled into the US wake for similar reasons; most countries are fairly integrated into the US economy and their national economies are not robust enough to withstand the loss of the American market. Additionally, others may have political reasons to reluctantly support Washington. India, for example, has been trying to purchase high-end American weapons systems and seeks Washington’s cooperation on several crucial issues such as defence technology and the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific. It is most likely that India will have to bear the damage done to its own ambitions in Chabahar and the International North-South Trade Corridor (INSTC). Delhi will have even more to lose if Tehran responds to Delhi’s distancing by handing the responsibility for the Shahid Beheshti port over to Beijing.

If India can persuade the United States for a partial waiver on trade as it had done last time, its importance to Tehran would rise again only to the extent that other countries stop or reduce links with the Islamic republic.

Saudi Arabia, considered to be one of the beneficiaries of the American abnegation of the JCPOA, will enjoy in the short-term the spike in oil prices that is bound to follow Trump’s decision. However, this entire episode will have reiterated to Iran that the only way to be truly safe from American interference, as an Indian general is supposed to have observed after the First Gulf War in 1991, is to acquire nuclear weapons. Tehran seems to have been acutely aware of this note – Iran’s ambitions, as revealed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent document dump, were to posses just five nuclear warheads than an entire arsenal.

Riyadh has only managed to stoke Tehran’s determination and not douse it. The JCPOA was designed to give the international community breathing space to consider how best to dampen Iran’s love of the Bomb – it was never meant to provide a permanent solution as there are none. As non-proliferation experience has illustrated, the determined country will acquire nuclear weapons regardless of the financial and political costs to it and the willingness to pay such a high price will attract unscrupulous suppliers. The classic example of this is Pakistan, whose nuclear journey would have taken far longer had it not been for the generous acts of commission by China and of omission by the United States.

Perhaps the greatest beneficiary of the American walkout is Israel. On the one hand, the reintroduction and expansion of sanctions hurts the Iranian economy and removes funds that might have otherwise gone to fund the Hezbollah and its adventures in Syria but on the other, the European and Iranian decision to continue observing the JCPOA keeps the checks on the Iranian nuclear programme in place for at least the next decade. If the archives reveal 30 years down the line that this was a game of good-cop-bad-cop, this would be a strategic masterstroke by Benjamin Netanyahu.

The one certainty at this moment is that Iran is not as isolated as it was prior to 2015. Even if Europe falls in line with America’s wishes, Russia and China are both unlikely to go along with the West this time. Both countries have been antagonised by Trump’s sanctions and threats of a trade war to be receptive to cooperation. This opens the door for greater Russian and Chinese influence in the Middle East. Russia also gains by the rift that has been created between Europe and the United States over the Iranian nuclear programme.

In some ways, Trump has just given Iran’s hardline clerics a lease of life. There have been several signs that Iranians citizens are frustrated with their government and the poor economy. Some analysts were even hopeful of organic reforms that would gradually move the country from its extreme Islamic views. Trump’s abandonment of the JCPOA underscores everything hardliners warned against – that the United States is not a trustworthy partner and it ultimately seeks the total subjugation of Iran.

If Washington expects Tehran to come back to the negotiating table, it may have a long wait. Rather than re-engage with a party that has shown bad faith, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani may simply choose to wait out his American counterpart in the hopes that Trump’s successor would be more amenable to the Obamian status quo.

It is not clear what the Trump administration sought to achieve by leaving the JCPOA. If anything, it draws attention to the Iranian bogey in American minds and the ghosts of 1979 that such policies would have any support in the houses of legislature or with the citizens. Pace the political acrobatics that are about to ensue over the coming days, the ultimate prize is the withering of the Iranian nuclear weapons programme. It is not clear if anyone in the White House had kept that in mind while thinking about abruptly walking out of an international treaty.

This post appeared on FirstPost on May 10, 2018.

Creating an Indian Lake

15 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in India, South Asia

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The small, out-of-mind archipelago of Seychelles has been in the Indian news cycle an inordinate amount. Part of this is due to a prospering Indian public starting to take greater interest in the geopolitics of their region. Another reason is the recent agreement signed between India and Seychelles for the construction of a military base on Assumption Island, one of the 115 islands of the African country. Originally signed in 2015 during a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the country, work could not begin on the strategic asset as the deal was not ratified by the Seychelles parliament during the term of the previous president, James Michel.

Controversy was stirred recently when the present president of the South Indian Ocean country, Danny Faure, declared in 2017 that the agreement would have to be renegotiated as it did not serve the interests of the Seychellois. Then, a recent leak of the text of the newly-negotiated agreement also stoked the controversy in that it was alleged that Victoria has sold off Assumption Island to India; Faure’s administration rushed to clarify that this was not the case and stressed that India would not be developing infrastructure on Assumption for military purposes. Ostensibly, the facilities are meant to support patrolling against illegal fishing, piracy, and drug and human trafficking.

Under the agreement, India will renovate the airstrip on Assumption Island, renovate the jetty, and build living quarters for the Seychelles Coast Guard. The entire project is expected to take a quarter of the tiny island that measures barely 6.7 kms in length and 2.9 kms in width and cost approximately $550 million.

Several things were clarified and modified between the 2015 agreement and the 2018 revision. The deal was extended to 20 years from 10 years with an option to further extend the arrangement by another 10 years; it was clarified that the island was still under the sovereignty of Seychelles, meaning that Indians stationed on Assumption Island will face Seychellois justice if accused of a crime; the obligations of each party were explicitly spelled out as were technical details pertaining to the jetty and airstrip; conditions for the storage of arms have been made more stringent (military exercises, guarding the facilities, and self-defence in case of internal disturbances). As in the 2015 agreement, India has agreed not to use the base in times of war or allow vessels with nuclear weapons to use the facilities. Third parties may be allowed use of the facilities upon joint agreement by both governments.

Although Seychelles has been at pains to emphasise that the agreement with India is not military in nature, the terms indicate otherwise or at least hold open the strong potential for use for security purposes. Victoria, however, does not wish to invite Great Power rivalry – not just between India and China but potentially the United States and France as well – into its living room and has made a public relations decision to highlight the benefits it receives from the development of infrastructure on Assumption Island in the enforcement of domestic law and order.

The deal is seen as important for India because it enhances its surveillance capabilities over the Indian Ocean. In concert with a coastal surveillance radar station already operating in Seychelles, a naval base at Agalega in Mauritius, a coastal radar station in Madagascar, an array of radars in Maldives, and a strong presence in the littoral waters of Mozambique, Delhi’s acquisition of facilities on one of the 67 raised coral islands of the Aldabra group will create an impermeable surveillance net in the southwestern and central Indian Ocean. Assumption Island’s position dominating the Mozambique channel, a key sea lane for merchant ships, adds to India’s kitty a second potential choke point after the Strait of Malacca; the latter is dominated by India’s augmented presence in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands chain as well as with naval agreements with Vietnam and Singapore.

India’s strategic assets in its ocean, important as they are on their own, have an added multiplier effect: Delhi has recently signed a Logistics Support Agreement with the United States and France, allowing the navies of those countries to share naval facilities with the Indian Navy. This extends India’s reach even further from the French base at Reunion – perhaps even Paris’ services in Djibouti – and the US base at Diego Garcia. Together, it is possible for the three countries to establish a Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) line array to closely monitor the movement of all ships and submarines through the region. It is rumoured that India is seeking Japanese assistance in setting up a similar surveillance line from Indira Point to Sumatra, which will then connect with a similar existing US-Japanese network in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean Rim. Between these two arrays, Delhi’s knowledge of movement in the Indian Ocean will see a marked increase and make its naval deployments more efficient.

An agreement with Australia for access to its Indian Ocean Territories, Cocos Islands and Christmas, is tempting but the geography and size of the islands is not an insignificant obstacle to overcome.

There has been some opposition to India’s presence in the archipelago that range from geopolitical to economic and environmental. However, with approximately 10% of the population tracing its roots back to India, there is, so far, general good will towards India. Unlike its larger northeastern neighbour China, India has avoided giving hard loans or flooding client states with Indian labour and instead preferred joint development. India’s previous assistance to the archipelago also puts it in good standing with the Seychellois. In June and September 1986, India helped suppress two coups in the country, the first by deploying the INS Vindhyagiri (which, to be fair, was already on its way to the island on a routine visit) and the second by then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi loaning Air India One to Seychelles president France-Albert René. India has also helped Seychelles patrol its Exclusive Economic Zone and provided equipment such as Dornier Do 228s and Chetak helicopters to meet the security needs of the island chain. The Indian Navy has frequently assisted Seychelles in anti-piracy operations in the past decade. and Delhi has also helped train the Seychellois own armed forces.

At present, India is economically and militarily incapable of facing Chinese encroachment into the Indian Ocean. Beijing has been candid about its String of Pearls for over a decade and yet little was done to augment India’s ability to respond to the threat, either diplomatically or otherwise. Despite its jarring paeans to non-alignment, strategic autonomy, and other such dated misadventures, Delhi has recently made a sound move by agreeing to work in tandem with similarly-minded powers to protect the Indian Ocean. The acquisition of its own assets in the Indian Ocean Region is a bonus and will retain some autonomy for India.