Head of US nuclear safety agency to step down

RAY HENRY  / Associated Press

The head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Monday that he will resign as soon as a successor is confirmed to lead the country’s nuclear safety agency, a decision that comes after fellow commissioners publicly rebuked Jaczko and accused him of acting like a bully.

Hollande: NATO missile defense should worry no one

AP

France’s new president said Sunday that Russia and other countries should not feel threatened by the planned NATO missile defense system.

U.N. nuclear chief holds talks in Tehran, hopes for deal

Fredrik Dahl and Marcus George / Reuters

The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief held rare talks in Tehran on Monday after voicing hope for a deal to investigate suspected atomic bomb research – a gesture Iran might make to try to get international sanctions relaxed and deflect threats of war.

US warns NKorea against another nuke test

FOSTER KLUG  / Associated Press

The top U.S. envoy for North Korea warned Pyongyang on Monday that any nuclear test would be a serious miscalculation that would unify the world in seeking swift, tough punishment.

Pentagon civilian contractors attacked in Yemen

PAULINE JELINEK / Associated Press

The Pentagon says three civilian contractors helping train Yemen’s coast guard were attacked in Yemen.

On Our Flashpoint Blog

Upcoming ASP event: A Conversation with Walter Pincus: Nukes, Missiles, and the Truth

Wallin: Analog vs. Digital in the Diplomatic World

The analog vs. digital debate has turned from watches, to cameras, and now to diplomacy. Today I attended an event on Digital Diplomacy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Given my skepticism of many digital diplomacy efforts, I was pleased to come out of the event with impression that there is a general understanding of the limits of digital efforts. It seems that even amongst digital’s proponents, there is an appreciation of the importance of “analog,” old-fashioned

Holland: Race for Arctic Energy Resources Shows Need for U.S. to Ratify Law of the Sea Treaty

As I have been researching and writing about Arctic energy development recently, there’s one important – and easy – policy prescription that often comes up: joining the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). As I mentioned in my article, “Energy Development in the Arctic: Threats and Opportunities” the USGS estimates that the Arctic region has 22% of the world’s undiscovered energy resources – and 84% of those resources are expected to occur offshore (so 18.5% of the undiscovered resources are on or under the Arctic seabed).

Boyle: “Strategic Pivots,” Partnerships, and the Chicago Summit: how NATO plans to save itself

NATO’s upcoming summit in Chicago on May 20-21, has been much publicized as the organization’s last chance to remain relevant amidst shifting economic and security climates.

ASP Reports and Media

Measuring Success

“As we look toward the Chicago Summit and NATO’s coming decisions about Afghanistan it is important to understand how the war is going. And while some things seem worse than ever, we just don’t have a good idea of whether we are progress toward achieving President Obama’s strategy or not.”

ASP Podcast

In the podcast we discuss the strategic importance of Central Asia to American foreign policy and national security

About the American Security Project: The American Security Project is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy and research organization dedicated to fostering knowledge and understanding of a range of national security issues, promoting debate about the appropriate use of American power, and cultivating strategic responses to 21st century challenges.

For more information, visit www.americansecurityproject.org. info@americansecurityproject.org

You can list to Josh’s first podcast report here:

Click here

You can also see a BBC report on NATO and Afghanistan featuring Josh here

Josh’s previous report can be found here:

NAto Summit May 20th 2012

Each day he will be reporting on whats happening and the atmosphere around the summit.

Yesterday evening he was at the Cubs game – in which Gen Allen threw out the ceremonial first pitch (the photo shows the military procession).

You can list to Josh’s first podcast report here:

Click here

You can also see Anders Fogh Rasmussen prepared remarks yesterday here:

The report endorses a new shift in the structure and posture of U.S. nuclear forces.  First, the number of nuclear weapons should be decreased bilaterally between the U.S. and Russia to no more than 900 warheads, split between 450 deployed and 450 non-deployed warheads.  The shift would also include lifting the hair trigger alert status for U.S. nuclear weapons, increasing nuclear weapons security, and an improving conventional and missile defense capabilities to augment the smaller nuclear force.

Bilateral reductions in nuclear weapons and its corresponding increase in conventional and missile defense capabilities will increase the security of the United States while reducing fiscal requirements for upkeep and modernization.  However, the report does include a controversial proposal to scrap all Minuteman land-based ICBMs because they “can only support nuclear wartime operations against Russia” and that ICBMs fired against targets in China, North Korea, Iran, or Syria would have to fly over Russia on their minimum energy trajectories.  Land-based ICBMs, the report continues, are inherently targetable and depend on prompt launch after warning to be effective, whereas bombers and submarines do not need to launch quickly and will increase decision time in a nuclear crisis.

The report also promotes the complete elimination of tactical nuclear weapons, a sensible and strategic choice.  Tactical nuclear weapons were originally deployed to Western Europe and South Korea to deter a Soviet or Korean attack, respectively. However, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the overwhelming qualitative military superiority of the South Korean military and American forces in Korea, neither scenario is likely.

Overall, this is an interesting report, and one that is sure to ignite vicious debates within the policy community.  It is a good first step towards reducing American reliance on nuclear weapons, realigning defense posture towards today’s threats, and improving national security while reducing the United States’ fiscal burden.

Read the full report here.

Thornberry (R-TX): Amendment No. 114—Amends the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 (known as the Smith-Mundt Act) and the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1986 and 1987 to clarify the authorities of the Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to prepare, disseminate and use public diplomacy information abroad and to strike the current ban on domestic dissemination of such material. The amendment would clarify that the Smith-Mundt Act’s provisions related to public diplomacy information do not apply to other federal departments or agencies (including the DoD).

This represents an interesting strategy for the bill, and presents it as an issue of national security. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes from here and if it ends up changing the conduct of American public diplomacy.

AP

The House is debating a $642 billion defense budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 that adds billions of dollars to President Barack Obama’s spending blueprint and rejects several of his proposals. The White House has threatened a veto. A look at some of the bill’s disputed provisions

Cell Doors ‘Incapable of Locking’ at Giant Afghan Jail

Spencer Ackerman / Wired

The detention facility that the U.S. built in Afghanistan is state-of-the-art. Except for all of the faulty hinges on the cell doors. Or the locks that are, in the words of a new report from the Defense Department’s inspector general, “incapable of locking either manually or electronically.” Or the construction that’s deemed “not up to the standard suitable for a detention facility.”

Iran attack decision nears, Israeli elite locks down

Michael Stott / Reuters

A private door opens from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in central Jerusalem directly into a long, modestly furnished, half-paneled room decorated with modern paintings by Israeli artists and a copy of Israel’s 1948 declaration of independence. It contains little more than a long wooden table, brown leather chairs and a single old-fashioned white projector screen.

China rejects US ruling in solar dumping case

JOE McDONALD  / AP

China’s government on Friday rejected a U.S. antidumping ruling against its makers of solar power equipment and Chinese manufacturers warned possible higher tariffs might hurt efforts to promote clean energy.

Nightmare foretold if Greece heads for euro exit

Harry Papachristou and Giles Elgood / Reuters

Greece is close to breaking point as it struggles with austerity targets set by creditors, but this is just a foretaste of the nightmare of unrest, hunger and even anarchy that could engulf the debt-crippled nation if it is forced out of the euro.

On Our Flashpoint Blog

Upcoming ASP event: A Conversation with Walter Pincus: Nukes, Missiles, and the Truth 

Wallin: Analog vs. Digital in the Diplomatic World

The analog vs. digital debate has turned from watches, to cameras, and now to diplomacy. Today I attended an event on Digital Diplomacy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Given my skepticism of many digital diplomacy efforts, I was pleased to come out of the event with impression that there is a general understanding of the limits of digital efforts. It seems that even amongst digital’s proponents, there is an appreciation of the importance of “analog,” old-fashioned

Holland: Race for Arctic Energy Resources Shows Need for U.S. to Ratify Law of the Sea Treaty

As I have been researching and writing about Arctic energy development recently, there’s one important – and easy – policy prescription that often comes up: joining the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). As I mentioned in my article, “Energy Development in the Arctic: Threats and Opportunities” the USGS estimates that the Arctic region has 22% of the world’s undiscovered energy resources – and 84% of those resources are expected to occur offshore (so 18.5% of the undiscovered resources are on or under the Arctic seabed).

Boyle: “Strategic Pivots,” Partnerships, and the Chicago Summit: how NATO plans to save itself

NATO’s upcoming summit in Chicago on May 20-21, has been much publicized as the organization’s last chance to remain relevant amidst shifting economic and security climates.

Wallin: Deja-Vu: Another Attempt to Revise Smith-Mundt

There is word of another attempt to revise the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which restricts the dissemination of material intended for foreign audiences within the United States. With the open nature of modern communication mediums, it is argued that Smith-Mundt is a Cold War relic which hinders the ability of the U.S. government to effectively communicate with the modern world and create effective public diplomacy.

Boyle: U.S. – Yemen cooperation produces results in al-Qaeda offensive

Yemeni forces, under the direction of US forces, opened a four-front offensive against al-Qaeda strongholds in the south of the nation.  Though it has long been known that the US has been maintaining significant air and naval capabilities in the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa, the operation marked the first time US forces have directed a military operation carried out by Yemeni forces.  It is the most direct involvement of the US in Yemen’s internal affairs to date, and illustrative of the two nations’ close cooperation in the fight against al-Qaeda and terrorism, more broadly.

ASP Reports and Media 

Measuring Success

“As we look toward the Chicago Summit and NATO’s coming decisions about Afghanistan it is important to understand how the war is going. And while some things seem worse than ever, we just don’t have a good idea of whether we are progress toward achieving President Obama’s strategy or not.”

ASP Podcast

In the podcast we discuss the strategic importance of Central Asia to American foreign policy and national security

About the American Security Project: The American Security Project is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy and research organization dedicated to fostering knowledge and understanding of a range of national security issues, promoting debate about the appropriate use of American power, and cultivating strategic responses to 21st century challenges.

For more information, visit www.americansecurityproject.org. info@americansecurityproject.org

Alec Ross, the Senior Adviser for Innovation to Hillary Clinton, emphasized the importance of traditional forms of diplomacy, and argued that digital tools can be used to build on these traditional methods. For instance, digital communication can be used to identify new people outside of the traditional circles with which to communicate on a face-to-face basis. He also stressed that digital communication provides another means for listening to the target audience, not just a method for pushing a message out. This perspective was surprisingly refreshing, but my fear is that this is not well-understood throughout the State Department.

Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan Casamitjana, the Mexican Ambassador to the U.S., also pointed out that digital diplomacy isn’t a substitute. Interestingly, he noted that the real-time nature of the internet puts pressure on foreign ministries, embassies, and ambassadors to produce content and respond faster, a process which simply cannot be done using the approval process that has traditionally been used.  As a consequence of the digital era, he believes that embassies will evolve into self-contained small foreign ministries operating with less oversight from the home ministry.

Ambassador Harold Forsyth, the Peruvian Ambassador to the U.S., highlighted the importance of people to the diplomatic process. He explained that diplomacy of the future will be dependent on the people, stressing the increasingly important role of public diplomacy in state-to-state relations. Despite the many surnames of diplomacy [whether cultural, e-, sports, or public], they all serve to benefit the greater concept of diplomacy as a whole.

Sarah Wynn-Williams, herself serving as part of New Zealand’s, mission to the U.N., is now a manager of public policy at Facebook. She brought up a few things that I found concerning, including the use of virtual embassies by the United States. Despite her focus on these as positive developments, I believe the use of virtual embassies is being exploited as a substitute for on-the-ground people-to-people communication. They also do little to serve the actual needs of foreigners seeking a means of communication for real world, rather than virtual needs. To read more about the problems with e-diplomacy, check out my earlier post on the topic.

While I was pleasantly satisfied with the panel’s overall emphasis on the importance of people-to-people diplomacy and traditional forms of diplomatic procedure, one topic that didn’t arise was that of censorship. In countries like Iran and China, the internet is heavily censored, monitored and restricted. The use of online tools to reach the people of these countries is extremely limited, and in some cases, the internet is used by the government to stifle opposition. The State Department made a big deal about the creation of a Virtual Embassy in Tehran, despite the fact that it was almost immediately blocked by the Iranian government.

Yes, digital diplomacy is a tool that can and should be used. But the fact is it is just another step in the progression of communication mediums. The telegraph, the television, and now the internet. It can and should be heavily used, but can never suffice for the implementation of good messaging, good listening and good policies. The difference now is that the public uses these tools better than the governments that are so excited about them.

As I have been researching and writing about Arctic energy development recently, there’s one important – and easy – policy prescription that often comes up: joining the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). As I mentioned in my article, “Energy Development in the Arctic: Threats and Opportunities” the USGS estimates that the Arctic region has 22% of the world’s undiscovered energy resources – and 84% of those resources are expected to occur offshore (so 18.5% of the undiscovered resources are on or under the Arctic seabed).

In the Arctic Sea, where there has been very little economic, social, or military activity, borders are not clearly defined and tested by international law. That is changing swiftly, as Shell prepares to move significant personnel and drilling equipment to the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas north of Alaska this summer for the first time. Other countries to are joining a “Race for the Arctic“ as countries and companies seek access to newly available oil and gas. As countries compete for these resources, the U.S. needs to become a party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in order to define American exclusive rights.

Under customary maritime law, the U.S. has access to its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) out to 200 nautical miles from shore. That means that the U.S. can allow, regulate, tax, or prohibit any economic activity in this area. The most obvious economic activities are offshore drilling and fishing. The EEZ is different from territorial waters in that the EEZ is considered international waters, but territorial waters — through which states must still allow ‘innocent passage’ of ships — are considered fully part of sovereign territory.

Under UNCLOS, the EEZ for resources on or under the seabed can be extended a further 150 nautical miles (for a total of 350 nautical miles from shore) if it can be proved that the continental shelf extends that far.

This past Wednesday, I attended a forum hosted by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Atlantic Council which brought together some of the nation’s most important business and national security leaders to call for a ratification of the Law of the Sea. Secretary of Defense Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dempsey, former Senators Lott, Warner, and Hagel, and former Director of National Intelligence Negroponte all expressed their strong support for passage of the treaty. Pew has founded a group called the American Sovereignty Campaign (www.ratifythetreatynow.org) to call for a ratification of the UNCLOS in the Senate. Not surprisingly, two of the most supportive Senators are Alaska’s Senators Begich and Murkowski.

Ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty is a tool to expand and confirm American sovereignty without resorting to military force. The Arctic Ocean is the region in which American sovereignty is most in doubt. The Navy and Coast Guard can unilaterally protect and extend American sovereignty in that region, but joining the UNCLOS would be a better way to confirm that sovereignty in law.

(1) the transition in Afghanistan;

(2) maintaining and improving capabilities in a new age of austerity (“smart defense”); and

(3) the operational flexibility afforded by deeper and broader partnerships.

The ongoing transition in Afghanistan is pressing in the short-term, as France’s President Hollande attempts to renegotiate his country’s exit date and Pakistan agrees to reopen ground transport routes following an invite to the Chicago summit.  However, the issue garnering the most attention is that of the strength of the NATO alliance itself.  The US has initiated a “strategic pivot” towards Asia and the Pacific, while the majority of European members have failed to meet the 2% GDP benchmark in defense contributions.  The “smart defense” initiative is designed to decrease the financial burden of defense through specialization and increased coordination, but critics suggest that rather than bolster NATO’s current capabilities, the initiative will leave the organization with significant capability gaps resulting from a lack of political will and financing.  NATO has persevered through difficult times before, and some do see the organization’s current challenges as an opportunity for reinvention.  Whether the Chicago summit will set NATO on the path towards reinvention and reaffirm its relevance in the current security climate is yet to be seen.

ASP Fellow Joshua Foust will be attending the Chicago summit and providing daily podcasts summing up the day’s events.  Be sure to check ASP’s website to keep up on the latest.

Especially when placed on the internet the internet, the reality is that government material intended for foreign audiences is often easily viewed by the American public. This availability makes the legality of producing such material questionable under Smith-Mundt’s restrictions.

Though it’s good to see that some people in Congress are aware of the problems caused by Smith-Mundt, this is not the first time efforts have been made to change it, and it probably won’t be the last. The bill is sponsored by Representatives Adam Smith and Mac Thornberry. Together, they authored a similar bill in 2010. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that Congress often pays little attention to issues of public diplomacy, despite its importance for national security. Thus, it is unlikely that there will be significant movement on this bill.

To read a history of Smith-Mundt and get more information on why it’s problematic, check out Matt Armstrong’s blog.

To view the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 (HR 5736), click here.