Russia Has Bigger Plans Beyond Ukraine And Belarus

November 30, 2021

This article appeared in 19fortyfive on November 26, 2021. Click here to view the original article.

During the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, after learning Nikita Khrushchev had broken his commitment not to deploy nuclear-capable ballistic missiles on the island, John F. Kennedy called Khrushchev a “f*cking liar” and an “immoral gangster.” Hours later, JFK told his senior advisors, “we certainly have been wrong about what he’s trying to do in Cuba.”
So too with Vladimir Putin and Ukraine. Despite wide-ranging debate in the West, Russia’s objectives remain obscure, as do Putin’s and Alexander Lukashenko’s goals in next-door Belarus. In fact, Putin is pursuing a macro strategy throughout Russia’s “near abroad,” while the West’s approach is micro. Never forget Putin’s lamentation about the USSR dissolving, or that thirty years ago observers said of now-Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “he’s not a Communist, he’s a czarist.”

Moscow is probing the entire “grey zone” between NATO’s eastern border and Russia’s western border: not just Ukraine and Belarus, but also Moldova and the Caucasus republics. Moldova’s “frozen conflict” with the Russian-created Trans-Dniester Republic; Russia’s ongoing occupation of two Georgian provinces; and Moscow’s recent pro-Azeri intervention in its conflict with Armenia, all demonstrate the Kremlin’s hegemonic or outrightly annexationist policies entangling the six grey-zone states. (The five Central Asian former Soviet republics face their own Russia problems, worthy of separate consideration.) Treating each conflict singly rather than strategically falls into Putin’s trap.

The Kremlin’s wider perspective is exemplified by its increases in Black Sea naval drills, and rising complaints about the U.S. Navy’s “provocative” presence there. Black Sea dominance would threaten not only Ukraine but also Georgia, intimidate NATO members Bulgaria and Romania, and induce angst in Erdogan’s increasingly erratic Turkey. Which of the several Russian threats are imminent and which less so is unclear, as in 1962 when Kennedy feared Khrushchev was holding Berlin hostage to dissuade a strong U.S. response to Russia’s Cuban adventurism.

The West’s collective inability to muster effective opposition policies underscores our nearsightedness. Confronted with widespread Kremlin misbehavior, Washington is responding by agonizing whether NATO exercises are the issue. Coming from Joe Biden, this is ironic, recalling Trumpian solicitude for Kim Jung-Un’s criticism of U.S.-South Korean joint exercises, while belittling Kim’s far more serious threats.

Meanwhile, Europe continues navel-gazing. Berlin’s new governing coalition’s agreement doesn’t mention NATO’s pledge that members spend at least 2% of GDP on defense, but strikingly supports more cooperation among EU militaries, a long-standing European chimera. The new Franco-Italian Quirinale Treaty similarly commits to strengthening EU defense strategy instead of stressing NATO.

This persistent inattention and introversion obviously give Putin substantial maneuvering room for hybrid-warfare tactics suiting Moscow’s interim objectives, particularly on sequence and timing, and setting the stage for future struggles. Today, new provocations may come sooner rather than later not because of Russian strength, but because it fears impending political or economic weakness. An aggressor can conclude it has only temporary advantages, thus encouraging striking before the balance shifts. Even worse, Putin could be coordinating with Chinese President Xi Jinping, with one regime’s rhetoric (say, China on Taiwan) intended to divert attention from the threat in Europe, in exchange for similar reciprocal aid from Putin to Xi later. Or vice versa.
Effective Western responses must recognize Moscow is pursuing a broader, more-interrelated, longer-term agenda than we have heretofore acknowledged. Even if Putin is improvising as he goes, and he almost certainly is, it is to seize targets of opportunity as they arise, manifesting Russia’s nimbleness, unfortunately, not strategic uncertainty. So, while increased military assistance to Ukraine, shutting down Nord Stream II, boycotting Russian oil, and other diplomatic and economic sanctions are all warranted, they will never be enough.

Washington must move beyond reacting to Russian provocations one by one, and through NATO, not the EU. Russia’s game, while whole-of-government in implementation, is far more politico-military than economic. NATO’s central geostrategic question is how to deal with the grey zone as an integrated problem-set. The Alliance’s eastern expansion never adequately considered where to stop, or the consequences for states left beyond NATO’s treaty guarantees, in the grey zone. The immediate task is not levying blame for this history, but deciding now which grey-zone countries are serious NATO candidates, loosening whatever grip the Kremlin has on them, and preventing new constraints from being imposed (such as a potential coup in Ukraine). Moscow must unambiguously hear both our intentions and our will to achieve them.

For those still not making the cut, NATO must decide how to protect our interests and deter Russia, while acknowledging that, by definition, the remaining grey-zone states are more vulnerable than NATO members (as all six are now at risk from unrelenting Kremlin efforts). While we grapple with these fateful decisions, NATO should tell Russia (yet again) that military changes to the status quo are unacceptable. After years of similar rhetoric, whether Putin will believe us is uncertain.

Once decided, NATO should begin unraveling the “frozen conflicts” and other entanglements Russia has imposed on prospective new NATO members. One case that should be a priority is eliminating the Trans-Dniester Republic, an artificial entity entirely dependent politically on Russia. Pressuring Moscow for the full reunification of Moldova would divert Putin’s attention from Ukraine. Another distraction would be increasing international attention to Georgia’s seized provinces, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The West’s failure to stand up to Russia’s 2008 attack on Georgia led directly to Russia’s later seizure of Crimea and the Donbass. Returning the favor to Moscow would alleviate stress on Ukraine, and also highlight the pattern of Russian behavior NATO needs to reverse.

Obviously, there is much more to do. Clearly, merely assuming defensive postures against belligerent Kremlin moves is neither the grey zone’s road to peace and security nor NATO’s. Especially in the wake of the catastrophic U.S.-NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, now is the Alliance’s time to show it is alive and well in its own heartland. The message to Moscow should be: there are no easy days ahead.

Ambassador John R. Bolton served as national security adviser under President Donald J. Trump. He is the author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.”

Congress must not let Biden bungle nuclear posture review

November 22, 2021

This article appeared in The Washington Examiner on November 22, 2021. Click here to view the original article.

The Biden Administration’s ongoing Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) is extraordinarily consequential. Unlike previous NPRs, which assessed a bipolar Moscow-Washington contest, the 2021 edition must establish nuclear doctrine to confront Beijing’s rising threat and increasingly dangerous Iranian and North Korean capabilities. Moreover, this convoluted scenario is continually evolving, as external threat levels and sources multiply rapidly.

Instead of tackling the challenge of a tripolar-plus nuclear world, however, the White House is reportedly veering toward ideological sloganeering. Internal debate is concentrated on whether America should adopt a “no first use” policy for nuclear weapons, or its cousin, declaring that the “sole purpose” for such arms is responding to nuclear attacks.

Such decisions would dramatically reverse decades-long American strategy, upending both our own deterrence structures and our “nuclear umbrella,” the extended deterrence that assures our allies, limits nuclear proliferation, and advances global stability. Given the enormous complexities posed by China’s amped-up nuclear threat alone, “no first use” and “sole purpose” are not only inherently dangerous, but embracing them now is inconceivably bad timing.

“First use,” while no one’s preference, is an option circumstances can justify. The initial occasion was President Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The order was agonizing and complex, but clearly correct. World War II came to a nearly-immediate halt, avoiding Winston Churchill’s feared “unlimited effusions of American blood,” not to mention Japanese casualties, had we needed to invade Japan’s home islands.

During the Cold War, the Soviet threat of invading Western Europe was deterred not just by the U.S. troop presence in Europe, but by the prospect of “massive retaliation” with atomic arms, first articulated by Secretary of State Dulles in 1954. It was hardly controversial politically. In 1961, President Kennedy said, “Of course, in some circumstances we must be prepared to use nuclear weapons at the start, come what may — a clear attack on Western Europe, for example.”

Beyond the Soviet menace in Europe, the global risks from chemical and biological weapons were readily deemed sufficient to warrant nuclear first use in response, hopefully thereby serving as an effective deterrent. After retiring as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell said publicly that if North Korea used chemical or biological assets, the United States would turn the North into a “charcoal briquette.”

George Robertson, former NATO Secretary-General and Tony Blair’s Defence Secretary, wrote recently that, if adopted, “no first use” and “sole purpose” would “undermine deterrence, divide NATO and increase the risk of conflict.” That’s for starters. Last week, the Republican ranking members of the House and Senate armed services, foreign relations and intelligence committees sent the White House a sharp message, warning against “the distractions of ideologues,” and insisting the NPR “focus on a dispassionate, objective assessment of the facts.”

Those facts, and the 2021 NPR’s real burden, require careful planning for China’s ever-growing nuclear threat, and the risk of rogue-state nuclear capabilities increasingly close to accurately targeting America. Developing a “Single Integrated Operational Plan” was hard enough during the Cold War’s bipolar nuclear standoff. The tripolar-plus nuclear world the Pentagon now confronts is immeasurably more complicated. Deterring possible Chinese threats is not new, but never before so problematic, given the nuclear assets Beijing will soon possess.

Instead of conceptualizing escalation ladders and contingency plans solely against a Moscow attack, the Pentagon must now consider three paradigms: (1) a one-on-one confrontation with either Russia or China; (2) sequential confrontations, first with Russia or China, then the other; or (3) contemporaneous confrontation with Russia and China acting together. Our planners must consider multiple, overlapping targeting options; make judgments about U.S. requirements, globally and in separate theaters like Europe or the Indo-Pacific, and new classes of weapons like hypersonic cruise missiles; and recommend what missile defenses are necessary and feasible.

This effort will make prior, exhaustive conceptual efforts — justly praised as instrumental in helping Washington avoid a real-world exchange of nuclear salvoes — look like child’s play. With this crushing burden in mind, and with nuclear threats as real as they were in the Cold War, this is no time for fatuous ideological distractions. If the Biden Administration bungles its NPR, Congress must move swiftly to launch a national debate so our citizens know exactly what the stakes are.

John Bolton served as national security adviser to former President Donald Trump between 2018 and 2019. Between 2005 and 2006, he served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Biden Has a Summit With Xi, but No Strategy for China

November 19, 2021

Beijing’s arms buildup and menacing of Taiwan make U.S. directionlessness dangerous for the world.

This article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on November 17, 2021. Click here to view the original article.

America has no China strategy 10 months after President Biden’s inauguration. Monday’s Zoom meeting between Mr. Biden and Xi Jinping only highlighted that void. Dulcet tones and torrents of presidential words are no substitute for clear policies. Beijing could perceive White House emphasis on “cooling tensions” as a green light to continue its assertive behavior. What explains the absence of U.S. direction? Insufficient presidential engagement? Conflicting advice? Indecision?

Whatever the reason, there is a pressing need to articulate a China policy. That’s not only because the White House has to lead a vast U.S. bureaucracy but because the nation faces momentous choices requiring informed public debate. For too long, foreign and defense policy have received inadequate attention. Principally because of China, but also in light of threats from Russia, smaller rogue states and terrorist groups, we no longer have the luxury of playing down these matters. And China is the anvil on which national security debates will inevitably turn.

Mr. Biden’s focus on climate change may partly explain the eclipse of national-security planning. Climate envoy John Kerry has likely spent more time dealing with top Chinese leaders than senior State Department, Pentagon and National Security Council officials combined. From the outset the administration insisted that climate issues would be “compartmentalized” from other problems. This was never realistic, and fear of missing out on global-warming deals with Beijing has overshadowed real national-security issues. If Mr. Biden expected breakthroughs at the Glasgow climate summit, his aspiration proved feckless. The outcome, including the bilateral China-U.S. communiqué, was underwhelming, little more than a reaffirmation of Mr. Kerry’s April agreement.

China strategy doesn’t immediately require a 1,000-page opus. It does require addressing core bilateral issues. Two stand out.

First is the defense of Taiwan, a de facto American ally and important trading partner, an enormously consequential country for Japan, and a key link in the “first island chain,” the geographic defense line between the Chinese mainland and the Pacific Ocean. But many Americans don’t know Taiwan from Thailand. To protect Taiwan, not to mention East and Southeast Asia generally, we need animated and sustained U.S. public support. Mr. Biden didn’t provide it Monday. He simply mouthed longstanding bromides.

The enormous damage caused by withdrawing from Afghanistan would be multiplied if Washington left Taipei to Beijing’s mercies. If Mr. Xi believed U.S. indecision and weakness suggested Washington would yield, he would be encouraged to provoke a crisis, hoping to subjugate Taiwan without a fight. Rather than risk a less feckless president after Mr. Biden, Mr. Xi may feel he has three years to act. How do we deter him during that period? The question is intricate and dangerous, requiring considerable creativity. Mr. Biden has shown precious little.

Second, China’s expensive buildup of strategic weapons and manifold other military capabilities existentially threatens America as well as allies. It may determine whether our 75-year-old global nuclear umbrella, and the international stability it provides, will survive or wither away, succeeded by far wider nuclear proliferation. The pressures on India to increase its own nuclear assets and Japan to acquire nuclear weapons will be considerable, with consequences for Asia and the world. Pentagon planning in a world with two major nuclear adversaries will be akin to multidimensional chess.

Whether China learned anything from the Cold War about prudent political management of a large strategic arsenal is unknown, but the signs are worrying. One telling move:

Beijing refuses to engage in serious arms negotiations while rapidly accumulating such assets. Mr. Biden has so far been unwilling to insist with both Vladimir Putin and Mr. Xi that bilateral Russian-American nuclear deals are relics of the Cold War. No American strategist should consider limiting U.S. nuclear capabilities in a deal with Russia while allowing China unrestrained growth. Even trilateral strategic-weapons arrangements may be insufficient, although broader multilateral nuclear negotiations boast a record only of failure.

Neither Taiwan nor strategic arms are a hot campaign topic, and China is not yet at the forefront of public consciousness. Nonetheless, issues reminiscent of China’s 1958 attacks on Quemoy and Matsu and John F. Kennedy’s 1960 drumbeat about a “missile gap” with the Soviet Union could soon again be top of mind. To ensure America’s eventual strategy is workable, political leaders need to debate the challenges so citizens can appreciate the implications of the choices they will have to make.

If Mr. Biden doesn’t use his Presidency’s bully pulpit to launch that debate, his potential opponents should.

Mr. Bolton is author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” He served as the president’s national security adviser, 2018-19, and ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-06.

Offering Lukashenko a graceful exit could be the best way to stop a Putin land grab in Belarus

November 15, 2021

Western lassitude is enabling Russia’s possible total reabsorption of the former Soviet republic

This article appeared in The Telegraph on November 13, 2021. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
November 13, 2021

Short attention spans, willful ignorance, wishful thinking, and no strategic planning have preceded international debacles throughout history. That brings us to Belarus.

Thirty years after the Soviet Union lost the Cold War and dissolved, Western lassitude is enabling Russia’s possible total reabsorption of Belarus, the first former Soviet republic so endangered. Although Moscow’s goal elsewhere may be suzerainty rather than sovereignty, Vladimir Putin did annex Crimea from Ukraine, and other former Soviet republics are wavering under his relentless efforts to reverse three decades of their independence.

From Eastern Europe to the Caucasus and Central Asia, Moscow had waged an increasingly successful campaign to assert hegemony. Books will be written about the West’s collectively feeble response.

Indeed, in present circumstances, both Belarus and Ukraine may be under assault simultaneously, although in different ways and for different reasons. Russia’s latest military build-up along Ukraine’s border, if it is a serious threat, could well be a precursor for annexing a significant part of the Donbas region, currently under the control of Russian-backed paramilitaries.

Belarus, by contrast, is now the schwerpunkt of Kremlin activity that might involve a total re-amalgamation of the entire country. Obviously by foreshadowing possible conflict in two theatres, Russia has expanded its possible options and confused its adversaries.

In Minsk, President Alexander Lukashenko is not yet fully under Russian control, and his unfolding efforts to flood Poland and the Baltic countries with imported Middle Eastern refugees (and threaten natural gas cutoffs) may be entirely his own plan.

Unfortunately, Turkey’s earlier success in transferring Syrian refugees into Europe (abetted by Germany’s unilateral open-borders decision) is being repeated, as the European Union loses sight of the forced Russia-Belarus reunion while it scrambles to handle a potential new influx of migrants. Incredibly, Warsaw is actually being criticised for violating the “refugees’ human rights” by not considering them for asylum, as if they trekked to Poland on their own.

Whether Minsk’s idea or Moscow’s, this artificial refugee crisis, a form of “hybrid warfare” Putin has used adroitly, provides the distraction needed to justify both increased repression within Belarus and more serious provocations by Russia throughout its “near abroad”. Putin’s renewed troop build-ups and maneuvers along the Ukrainian border may be part of such a larger strategy.

Neither Washington nor Brussels has responded adequately to Belarus developments in recent years. America’s excuses for failure are Trump and Biden. Europe’s excuse is that the EU is still less than the sum of its parts; its primitive politico-military capabilities don’t match its rhetorical pipe organ.

No Western country responded strategically to the extensive protests against the regime in Belarus in 2020, nor to Lukashenko’s kidnapping earlier this year of the opposition leader Roman Protasevich, an act of air piracy indicating that “hybrid warfare” was already under way. Biden missed significant opportunities to confront Putin on Belarus at their June 16 Geneva summit, and over September’s quadrennial Zapad joint-military exercises in Belarus. Putin may think he has a green light.

Lukashenko’s clear preference is retaining authority in an independent Belarus. His Plan B is keeping power even if only as a Russian protectorate. The West’s problem is that sanctioning Minsk for suppressing its political opposition may not topple Lukashenko, but it may allow Putin in.

To paraphrase Lord Ismay, Nato’s first secretary general, our key objectives in Belarus should be to keep Russia out, a free Belarus government in, and Lukashenko down. Unfortunately, however, we are long past the point where we should have developed a coherent strategy to achieve these goals. Prudence therefore dictates being willing to accept what is probably the most we can get: a free, independent Belarus. At a minimum, we must avoid the worst-case outcome, with Russian bayonets keeping Lukashenko in power.

Virtue signalers in Europe and America would prize a successful “colour revolution” in Belarus, with Lukashenko and his fellow miscreants humiliated in court and ultimately imprisoned, but that is likely impossible. Menacingly, an entirely plausible scenario is that the opposition stages larger and larger protests; Lukashenko panics and requests Russian military support; and Putin all too happily complies, with Belarus suppressed not under Lukashenko but under Putin, followed by reabsorption into Russia.

If events took this turn, which might happen with sudden speed, Western capitals could do very little, other than engage in more useless virtue signaling about how unacceptable it all was.

Instead, we should find ways to make it attractive for Lukashenko, his family and top advisors to hand over power in exchange for a good life in exile (perhaps in a Gulf Arab country) and immunity from prosecution in Belarus.

Western threats have not succeeded with Lukashenko, sadly, because the threats are not credible. A golden parachute for Lukashenko is credible if Western leaders recognize the unpleasant correlation of forces they face.

If circumstances permit, Lukashenko can even be allowed to leave gracefully, pretending that his departure was his own plan. The key is getting him out of Minsk before Moscow can pretend to have heard an invitation to intervene.

In America, we call such a scenario “winning ugly”. But it beats losing, especially for the citizens of Belarus, not to mention Ukraine and the others.

John Bolton is a former United States national security adviser

India’s S-400 missile system problem

November 10, 2021

This article appeared in The Hill on November 10, 2021. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
November 10, 2021

India’s nearly completed, $5.43 billion purchase of Russian S-400 air-defense systems raises serious obstacles to closer politico-military relations between Washington and New Delhi. It requires rigorous strategic thinking to avoid hampering deeper policy relationships within the Asian “Quad” (the U.S., India, Japan and Australia), compromising America’s stealth technology or jeopardizing seemingly mundane but often critical issues of interoperability among national militaries. Finding mutually acceptable solutions has enormous implications; so does failure. Undoubtedly, India needs advanced air defenses. It has long, difficult-to-defend borders with China.; Beijing’s growing navy is increasingly menacing, as are Pakistan’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs, fostered by China.

But India’s S-400 purchase, formalized in October 2018, was a mistake, even from its own strategic perspective. New Delhi directly challenged earlier U.S. legislation intended to block significant Russian weapons sales, and which provided very limited presidential waiver authority. Especially unfathomable in why India would acquire the same system China was buying, risking that Beijing’s cyber warriors, perhaps exploiting Moscow-inserted back doors, could cripple their defenses in a crisis. Turkey’s similar purchase of S-400s, and the dynamics among the three transactions, bear particularly on the current campaign to waive sanctions against India.

Washington sanctioned Beijing in September 2018 with broad U.S. domestic support. Turkey’s acquisition provoked considerable controversy, coming as it did from a NATO ally. S-400s are, not surprisingly, completely incompatible with NATO-wide air defense capabilities, leaving the alliance’s southeastern flank potentially vulnerable. (A humorous contemporaneous remark was that Turkish President Recep Erdogan wanted the S-400s to defend himself against Ankara’s own air force.)

In addition, Turkey co-produced components of the stealthy F-35 and had ordered 100 of them. Significant exposure of F-35s to S-400 radars would give the air-defense operator a clear advantage in detecting F-35s despite their stealth, thereby possibly fatally compromising the entire F-35 program. After extended debate, President Trump reluctantly and belatedly ejected Turkey from the F-35 program in 2020 and imposed economic sanctions. To this day, the potential proximity of U.S. F-35s and Russian S-400s in Turkey arouses concern.

Perhaps bolstered by Trump’s evident reluctance to punish Turkey and equally evident divisions among Trump’s advisers, India’s decision to proceed nonetheless reflects a backward-looking dependence on Russia for sophisticated aerospace and weapons technology. Now, with deliveries imminent, Indian sources still argue that the deal shouldn’t be cancelled: The actual agreement was in 2016 (before the sanctions legislation), India is dependent on Russia for spare parts and maintenance under previous weapons-systems contracts and imposing sanctions would push New Delhi back toward Moscow.

These are arguments of inertia and complacency, and they should carry no weight for the U.S. Vague assertions about future conduct, even accompanied by reduced reliance on major purchases from Russia, are insufficient to risk undermining our global efforts to counter the spread of Kremlin arms sales. Having New Delhi and Washington grow closer means just that, not equivocating or reversing field.

In fact, India’s direction in foreign arms purchases is decidedly unclear. Last week, its ambassador to Russia, Bala Venktash Varma, said that “there has been a fundamental change in how our defense relationship has moved in the last three years. Russia has moved back again as the top defense partner of India.” Still worse are reports that, even before the initial S-400 purchases are fully deployed, India and China are considering upgrading to the new S-500 system.

Skeptics might say New Delhi is playing Washington. Even viewed benignly, India is sending contradictory signals, likely due to competing views inside its government and body politic. Whatever Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reasons, the other Quad members have compelling reasons for New Delhi to articulate its future defense-procurement strategies more precisely. No one need commit to a full-blown, politico-military alliance to see the importance of striving for interoperability among like-minded states before things go further, if they ever do. NATO struggled with interoperability problems for decades, thereby leaving the alliance less effective, operationally and as a deterrent. There is no reason to engender potential problems, which prudent planning could avoid.

In such circumstances, any U.S. waiver for India’s S-400 purchases must come with clear conditions and requirements. Pending legislation in Congress says merely that the president may not impose sanctions upon a Quad member unless he “certifies … that that government is not participating in quadrilateral cooperation … on security matters that are critical to the United States’ strategic interests.” That is no condition at all; if those were the facts, it would mean there was no Quad, but merely a Trio.

Developing U.S. conditions for the waiver is an urgent priority. Washington should at least require an agreed-upon timeline and metrics to reduce Indian purchases of sophisticated Russian weapons systems, regular Quad consultations on meeting these targets and more extensive politico-military planning for Indo-Pacific threats, thereby shaping future procurement requirements.

We need not insist that India acquire all its future high-end weapons systems from the U.S., although it would obviously be helpful to see larger purchases than at present. Many Western countries are capable of supplying Indian needs, further highlighting the advantages of breaking the Russian mold. America, Japan, Australia and others also could offer opportunities for defense cooperation with India along the lines of the AUKUS project on nuclear-powered submarines, to enhance India’s own domestic weapons productions.

This model is important not only for the Indo-U.S. relationship but for many others, including Turkey. If sanctions waivers or general lassitude regarding Russian weapons sales and their consequences for regional balances of power become commonplace in Washington, the problem will continue to grow. It is entirely certain that an Indian waiver will trigger instant demands for like treatment from Turkey and other prospective purchasers, while enabling Rosoboronexport, Russia’s foreign-military-sales agency, to exploit our lack of willpower. Ironically, Turkey might warrant a waiver, with appropriate conditions, if the Turks remove Erdogan from office in upcoming elections, so resolving the India problem could well be precedential.

Decisions of this magnitude require Washington to pursue a conscious strategic approach, rather than simply treating an Indian waiver (or any other) as a one-off. Time is short.

How Biden’s Afghan blunder is already endangering U.S. security

November 02, 2021

This article appeared in The Washington Post on November 2, 2021. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
November 2, 2021

After overthrowing the Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2001, U.S. and NATO forces stayed in the country primarily to preclude the Taliban from regaining power and again providing sanctuary for terrorists threatening worldwide attacks. U.S. presidents voiced other reasons to remain, some important, some not. Mistakes were made and money wasted. The undeniable human cost was almost entirely caused by the terrorists’ continued barbarity.

For 20 years, no terrorist attacks against the United States emanated from Afghanistan. Tragically, this central reality became obscured by simplistic political sloganeering. Presidents either didn’t grasp or were unwilling to advocate a limited U.S. military presence to buttress Kabul’s elected government and keep the Taliban at bay. Those advocating withdrawal simply assumed the terrorist threat was immaterial, or preventable through unproven “over the horizon” strategies.

Before Congress last week, the Biden administration conceded that one rhetorical Maginot Line supporting withdrawal had fallen. Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, testified that both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State faction in Afghanistan known as Islamic State-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, have the “intent” to conduct terrorist attacks against the West. “We could see ISIS-K generate that capability in somewhere between six or 12 months. I think the current assessments by the intelligence community is that al-Qaeda would take a year or two to reconstitute that capability.” So much for the Taliban’s credibility, having promised to prevent precisely this.

And so much for confidence in the threat’s immateriality, exemplified when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) asserted late last year that there was no “significant worldwide terrorist threat coming from Afghanistan.” The Taliban, al-Qaeda and ISIS-K must not have seen this news, or been aware of Donald Trump’s frequent insistence, as president, that they were far from America. Just two months after the departure of U.S. troops, new terrorist attacks in the United States could be only six months away.

Did the speed of the threat’s rise stem from the terrorists’ resilience or erroneous U.S. estimates of how much damage they had incurred? The question deserves close scrutiny. Whatever the explanation, the result is the same: The United States may not face another 9/11-scale attack immediately, but the terrorist threat has not moderated, and certainly not disappeared.

The Biden administration deserves credit for surprising candor, although Kahl’s testimony echoed the warnings that President Biden received before proceeding to withdraw, as Trump and President Barack Obama were similarly warned. Now, however, these troubling assessments are publicly buttressed by Biden’s own political appointee.

Biden’s long-standing over-the-horizon theory that we can mount successful counterterrorism operations from far distant platforms, with essentially no in-country presence, will now be tested. Unfortunately, this conjecture is likely to be merely a second rhetorical Maginot Line.

Without even a bare-bones U.S. counterterrorism platform in Afghanistan, intelligence on threatening activities will be enormously difficult to come by. Much of our superb technical capability for surveillance will be irrelevant. Al-Qaeda and ISIS-K will not be excavating deep silos to house nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles, like China, visible from space. Nor is eavesdropping possible when terrorists transmit truly sensitive information via the ancient but durable channel of couriers. Working with human agents, the best method against tightly knit organizations, requires in-person handling, not video conferences from Langley.

Obviously, inadequate intelligence makes long-distance strikes far more problematic, especially in remote, mountainous Afghan terrain. Pakistani help is a mixed blessing, as it has been for two decades, given the country’s Janus-like relationship with the Taliban and other terrorists. Nor is Moscow cooperating. Speaking virtually to a recent Tehran conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, “We call on Afghanistan’s neighboring countries not to allow a military presence of U.S. and NATO forces that plan to move there after leaving Afghanistan’s territory.”

As we moved out, ostensibly to focus more intensely on China, China is moving in: by offering at Tehran to host next year’s ministerial meeting of Kabul’s neighbors, and by expanding investments and fostering mutually beneficial political understandings with the Taliban.

Nor should anyone believe that the current animosities between ISIS-K and the Taliban (joined by al-Qaeda, now deeply intertwined with the Taliban), are permanent. The Islamic State emerged from al-Qaeda, and the taxonomy of Islamist terrorists is not so rigid that alliances of convenience or even firm partnerships won’t emerge against the common enemy, namely the United States. Accordingly, a notion now circulating among some in the U.S. national security community supporting the Taliban against ISIS-K should be sharply rejected. The terrorists understand their own capacity for shifting affiliations, and so should we. They are all our enemies.

Today, post-withdrawal, Americans are unmistakably more vulnerable to terrorism’s threat. Adversaries and allies alike regard the abandonment of Afghanistan as a surrender, auguring how muted a U.S. response might be to crises far from Kabul. We can reverse this slide, but doing so requires recognizing that leaving Afghanistan was a major strategic blunder.

Taiwan Must Be Included In Joe Biden’s China Strategy

October 25, 2021

This article appeared in 1945 on October 25, 2021. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
October 25, 2021

Last week, the White House yet again corrected President Joe Biden for misstating his own Taiwan policy. The day after saying America had a “commitment” to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack, thereby reversing the long-standing (and badly misguided) “strategic ambiguity” approach, his aides hurriedly said the policy had not changed. “Ironic” doesn’t come close to describing Biden’s misstep. In a 2001 Washington Post op-ed, Biden lambasted George W. Bush for exactly the same thing. Entitled “Not So Deft On Taiwan,” the op-ed ended with “Words matter.”

Indeed. Even Kissengerian words like “strategic ambiguity” can outlive their utility. Taiwan’s central vulnerability today is that it stands isolated by decades of Chinese pressure and propaganda. The conceptual answer is to enmesh Taiwan as a key element of the overall U.S. and allied response to the full array of China’s threats, diplomatically, militarily, and economically. Focusing primarily on bolstering Taiwan’s military power underlines its isolation rather than reducing it. China’s recent improvements to military bases in Fujian province show the cross-Strait arms race is a central fixture of their relations, not a decisive answer for either.

Treating Taiwan separately obscures its significance in America’s policy debates, and fails to generate the domestic political support required to successfully deter China. In fact, given Biden’s priority on reaching agreements with Beijing on climate-change issues, China’s palpable threat to Taiwan is likely being downplayed, not to mention broader dangers. Thus, for example, when Biden met in August with Israeli Prime Minister Bennett, Israeli officials were surprised China received only passing mention.

China poses an extraordinarily wide range of threats. Understanding that Taiwan is part of that spectrum doesn’t diminish its importance, but instead ensures it is not treated as a “one-off” issue susceptible to being traded away. We didn’t trade off NATO allies to the Soviet Union one-by-one, and while we are far distant from an Indo-Pacific NATO, looking at the big picture helps us with Taiwan. Paraphrasing Eisenhower, enlarging a problem can help solve it.

Beijing’s offensive posture on its periphery is clear and growing, as its neighbors see plainly. Taiwan is hardly the alpha and omega of China’s hegemonic aspirations. Deterring Beijing from attacking Taiwan thus fits readily into a strategy both offensive and defensive all along China’s landmass. Beijing needs to hear that Washington holds it accountable for North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile programs, not as simply one more concerned state in the failed Six-Party Talks.

President Biden should strongly reaffirm that the Senkaku Islands lie within Washington’s defense commitments to Tokyo, as Obama and Trump did. In the South China Sea, tightening politico-military relations with the littoral states; explicitly rejecting China’s territorial claims and finally resolving the other nations’ competing claims (including Taiwan’s); expanding freedom-of-navigation operations and the number of navies participating; and continued growth in military cooperation with others on China’s periphery like India and Vietnam, including greater cooperation in cyber-security with “neutral” states, are all of a strategic piece.

At the apex of the pyramid are nuclear weapons, the ultimate means for China to prevent others from adequately engaging in collective defense with Taiwan. STRATCOM Commander Charles Richard has described China’s increases in nuclear weapons delivery capabilities as “breathtaking”, no understatement. Enhanced ballistic-missile inventories, reflected by substantial new missile-silo construction, plus Beijing’s progress in hypersonic cruise-missile technology, all indicate it must be a participant in any future strategic weapons negotiations. Bilateral talks between Russia and America reflect merely a bygone era of nuclear threats, not the one growing before our eyes now. China’s complaint that its nuclear inventory is too small to participate would simply give it a license to build up to Russian and American levels, and only then participate. This is unacceptable. Beijing’s nuclear importance should also be plain to Russia, but apparently not yet. Notwithstanding its current closeness to Beijing, Moscow must understand that Greater China’s territory may well include Far Eastern Russia and more by 2100. All those natural resources and tiny population may be too tempting to resist.

This is far from a complete list even of China’s politico-military threats, let alone the economic and social menace it embodies. In the immediate future, different potential partners will agree in different respects about the nature of Beijing’s dangers. Accordingly, Washington needs a “variable geometry” to involve its potential allies until perceptions of the struggle ahead are better defined and more widely shared. Taiwan is far safer nested within this process than standing apart from it. That is how Washington’s strategic thinking should proceed.

It’ll Take More than American Military Might to Shore Up Taiwan

October 21, 2021

Team Biden needs a fuller strategy that includes international recognition and new regional alliances.

This article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on October 21, 2021. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
October 21, 2021

China’s threat to Taiwan is real, not hypothetical, as recent incursions into the island’s air-defense zone demonstrate. To counter Beijing’s renewed belligerence, a successful strategy must go beyond eliminating the “strategic ambiguity” over whether the U.S. will come to the island’s defense. A successful strategy will require clarifying Taiwan’s status, its critical place in Indo-Pacific politics, and its economic importance globally. The U.S. military contribution to Taiwan’s security is crucial, but it requires strong political support here and abroad.

It begins by affirming that Taiwan is a sovereign, self-governing country, not a disputed Chinese province. It meets international law’s criteria of statehood, such as defined territory, stable population and the performance of normal governmental functions such as viable currency and law enforcement. Washington, Tokyo and others would be entirely justified to extend diplomatic recognition, and its attendant legitimacy, to Taipei.

The 1972 Shanghai Communiqué, the foundational statement of current U.S.-China relations, is effectively dead. The communiqué says that “the United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China,” and “doesn’t challenge that position.” Beijing warped these words to mean “one China run by Beijing,” a formulation the U.S. never accepted.

The reality the U.S. acknowledged in 1972 no longer exists. Taiwan’s National Chengchi University has polled the island’s people about their identity for 30 years. Between 1992 and 2021, those identifying as Taiwanese rose to 63.3% from 17.6%; those identifying as Chinese fell to 2.7% from 25.5%; those identifying as both Taiwanese and Chinese fell to 31.4% from 46.4%. (Some 2.7% didn’t respond, down from 10.5%.) The “silent artillery of time,” as Abraham Lincoln called it, will likely continue these trends. Taiwan’s citizens have made up their own minds: There is no longer “one China” but “one China, one Taiwan,” as Beijing has feared for decades.

Broader recognition of Taiwan’s status as an independent state would be extremely helpful in expanding politico-military alliances to buttress the island’s defenses against China. Yet Washington’s support may be insufficient to deter Beijing from attempting to subjugate Taiwan (or near-offshore islands like Quemoy and Matsu). Formal or informal alliances that include Taipei would show Beijing that the costs of belligerence toward Taiwan are significantly higher than China may expect.

One step would be forming an East Asia Quad, consisting of Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and America, complementing the existing Japan-India-Australia-U.S. Quad. Japan should welcome this development. Its decision makers increasingly understand that a Chinese attack on Taiwan is an attack on Japan. Both are part of “the first island chain” separating the mainland from the broader Pacific, and their mutual security is inextricable.

It would be harder to persuade South Korea to join in such an effort due to historical animosities toward Japan and other factors, but its people are nonetheless aware of the consequences of Taiwan falling to China. The 2022 presidential election is an opportunity to debate whether to stand with its neighbors or risk eventually living under Greater China’s suzerainty. Vietnam, Singapore, Australia and Canada could join this Taiwan-centric grouping in due course.

Taipei’s residual South China Sea territorial claims could be bargaining chips for closer relations with other partners, especially littoral states like Vietnam, the Philippines and Singapore. At this southern end of the first island chain, Taiwan’s navy could make material contributions to freedom-of-navigation missions. Taiwan is also developing increasingly important cyberwarfare capabilities and artificial intelligence.

Similar cooperation with Pacific island states would also enhance Taiwan’s reputation as a good neighbor. In addition, American and Taiwanese information statecraft in the Indo-Pacific and globally should expose China’s hypocritical behavior on climate change and Covid and its repression of Uyghurs, Hong Kong and religious freedom. Failure to counter Beijing’s extensive influence operations hamstrings efforts to constrain China and protect Taiwan.

Few Americans appreciate how critical an economic partner Taiwan is, especially its semiconductor manufacturing industry and its extensive trade links throughout the Indo-Pacific, all of which could support enhanced politico-military ties. Economic issues are important for regional countries and Europeans, who may be less willing to engage in military action. These countries should be reminded of China’s threat, including Beijing’s weaponizing telecommunications companies like Huawei and ZTE and its brutality in taking Canadians hostage in retaliation for the legitimate arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou.

More military assets supporting Taiwan are critical but potentially futile without a fuller American strategic vision, with buy-in from citizens and other like-minded countries. That vision must be broad, persuasive and implemented without delay, to ensure the sustained popular support needed to prevail.

Arms Control Is Not an End unto Itself

October 11, 2021

Instead, the Biden administration must pursue it as a component of a comprehensive national-security strategy to advance American interests.

This article appeared in The National Review on October 11, 2021. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton and Robert Joseph
October 11, 2021

The Biden administration has ambitions to re-establish America’s “credibility as a leader in arms control,” according to its Interim National Security Strategy released this past March. While we reject the suggestion that U.S. credibility has been lost, as national-security professionals, we both understand the importance of effective arms control. But we also know that all too often, arms control has been seen as an end unto itself, instead of what it should be: a component of a comprehensive national-security strategy to advance American interests.

Recently, the administration met in Geneva for the second round of “Strategic Stability Dialogues” with the Russian Federation. One outcome was an agreement to create a bilateral arms-control working group. This working group is not itself a problem.

The question for the Biden administration is whether it will want a deal with Russia so badly that it agrees to a bad deal. Judging by the preemptive concession to Moscow in extending the New START treaty by five years, something even senior members of the administration cautioned against, we have reason to be concerned.

Yet negotiating a deal is, in some ways, the easy part. The hard work comes once a deal is in place. That’s especially true when dealing with a country like Russia, which has violated basically every arms-control treaty it has ever signed, according to the United States government.

One of the most important examples of how this process should work is when the Obama and Trump administrations had to respond to Russian violations of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty.

The INF treaty, the only arms-control agreement that actually eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons, led to the destruction of twice as many Soviet weapons as American (unlike more recent treaties such as the Obama-era New START treaty that required only the United States to reduce nuclear weapons while Russia was allowed to build up). In the Cold War context, the INF treaty advanced U.S. security interests and those of our allies in Europe and Asia.

The problem was twofold: Russia was cheating and the treaty did not prevent the People’s Republic of China from fielding hundreds of nuclear missiles at intermediate-range. The result was that only the United States was limited from developing intermediate-range ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles. For some in the arms-control community, even these undeniable facts were not enough to mean the United States was justified in leaving a treaty that had outlived its usefulness and had ceased to make any sense.

One of the most important tools the United States government had to begin to push back on Russia’s violation was the annual report of the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, “Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments.” This congressionally mandated report — the so-called compliance report — brings together all of the information available to the intelligence community, with State Department diplomats and international-law experts, and the Defense Department experts who are best able to assess the military implications of a given violation.

And the Obama administration used it to good effect. Starting in July 2014 when the unclassified compliance report first stated that Russia was violating the INF treaty, the United States was able to build pressure on the Putin regime for its conduct. It was able to do this, moreover, all while protecting intelligence sources and methods. One way this was done was by releasing the compliance report in both unclassified and classified forms. And the fact that the violation was publicly announced allowed the United States to engage in an open campaign with our allies to build a unified diplomatic front.

Imagine the following: The United States never disclosed the violation in the unclassified report and had only confronted Russia about its violation in confidential bilateral sessions. For many in the arms-control community, for whom the fact of the treaty is as important as whether both sides are complying with it, this would be just fine. But for those of us who believe that a treaty only contributes to national security when both sides adhere to it, this would be to the disadvantage of the United States, which always lives up to the treaties it ratifies.

In the case of the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, the Trump administration had to confront Russian and Chinese nuclear-weapons testing in violation of that agreement, to which the U.S. scrupulously adheres even though the U.S. Senate rejected ratification with 51 votes — including one from Senator Lugar (R., Ind.), a longtime arms-control advocate. The previous administration called out that illicit testing in the unclassified report, even though it couldn’t prove the allegation solely with unclassified information.

In the coming weeks, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the full Senate will consider the Biden administration’s nomination for the post of assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification, and compliance. Senators should determine whether the administration will distance itself from both of its predecessors and act to conceal evidence of violations just because they can’t be entirely proven in the unclassified report.

If the nominee for the AVC Bureau will not pledge to keep confronting these two countries in each subsequent unclassified report, the committee should be rightly concerned that this nominee will not meet the basic responsibility of the job: “Trust but verify.”

We’ve left Afghanistan — but its consequences are just starting to arrive

October 10, 2021

This article appeared in The Hill on October 10, 2021. Click here to view the original article.

By John Bolton
October 10, 2021

Washington’s conventional wisdom held in recent years that Americans wanted to “end endless wars” around the world, particularly in Afghanistan. Public-opinion polling repeatedly found at least plurality support for withdrawing U.S. forces from “our longest war,” seconded by Presidents Trump and Biden, among others.

It was hardly a subject of debate among media commentators and Washington insiders. Who could disagree, except a few irreconcilables? Democrats certainly didn’t question this received truth, nor did many Republicans, bending to Trump’s influence.

The conventional wisdom and its arguments were simple: Why did we invade 20 years ago, wasting lives and treasure? The Afghans should defend themselves. The Taliban has moderated, craving acceptance by “the international community.” The global terrorist threat has receded. Our obsession with the Middle East should end so we can “pivot” to Asia. Time to focus on “nation building” at home, and on climate change.

Then came the actual withdrawal. The swift collapse of the Afghan government and its national army, the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul and riveting scenes of death and terror amid frantic efforts to evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghans who had worked with us for two decades were too stunning to ignore. Washington’s conventional wisdom encountered reality — and dissolved as quickly as the Afghan military.

But conventional wisdom is nothing if not resilient. It quickly concluded that while Americans overwhelming disapproved of how the withdrawal was executed, they nonetheless still concurred with Biden and Trump on the underlying withdrawal decision.

There is, however, strong reason to believe that conventional wisdom has stumbled again, as Americans begin to realize that withdrawal has more profound strategic consequences than simply removing U.S. troops.

Recent congressional hearings, with more coming, have informed the rethinking prompted by millions of television screens portraying our withdrawal’s fully predictable results. For starters, the Taliban provided ample evidence that it had neither modernized nor moderated, naming no women to its new government. Al Qaeda proved to be more numerous and more integrated into the Taliban than even the worst-case United Nations and other studies indicated. Terrorists across the Middle East took heart from the Taliban’s “victory,” and foreign jihadists began returning to Afghanistan. Reports of retaliation and barbarism by Taliban fighters emerged from the few Western journalists still in-country.

For years, presidents in both parties (Obama, Trump, Biden) failed to make the case for remaining in Afghanistan. They apparently did not believe we were safer deploying forces there rather than merely defending against renewed terrorist attacks in the streets and skies over America.

It stands to reason that when citizens weren’t hearing leaders advocate and adequately explain “forward defense,” they didn’t support it. Yet this was the basic logic underlying the Pentagon’s long-standing view that America’s military presence in Afghanistan was a critical insurance policy for sustained protection of the homeland. It was not just the military capabilities deployed there – and NATO’s complementary train-and-assist mission – but the intelligence-gathering program that relied upon the military’s infrastructure and protective capacity to do critical work on terrorism in Afghanistan and the dangers emanating from Pakistan and Iran on its borders.

These were arguments repeatedly put to both Trump and Biden. Contrary to Biden’s glib assertions, senior U.S. military leaders almost unanimously opposed withdrawing all American forces. Equally important, the destructive consequences of the Trump administration’s negotiations with the Taliban, producing the February 2020 Doha agreement, were not well-understood among even Washington policymakers, let alone the general public.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and CENTCOM Commander Gen. Frank McKenzie have now testified before Congress that the U.S.-Taliban agreement had a devastating impact on the spirit of both the Afghan military and the civilian government. Trump’s policy, adopted by Biden, over time demoralized and delegitimized the very Afghan government which America had been instrumental in creating two decades ago. By effectively de-recognizing that government, we caused the collapse in morale that swept away years of training and equipping of Afghan forces.

Thus, while many withdrawal advocates point to the rapid collapse of Afghanistan’s government as buttressing their argument to leave, the collapse was, in fact, a self-inflicted wound by American presidents desperate to reap the perceived political benefits of pulling out.

Looking ahead, now that America’s military departure from Afghanistan is a fact and not just a hypothetical, the key political question is whether public opinion grasps the renewed threats from terrorism thereby created. To be sure, U.S. national-security policy must be based on our fundamental interests, not on domestic U.S. politics, and certainly not on the vagaries of public-opinion polling. Polling commissioned by my Super PAC, however, points to significant shifts in public attitudes after watching and debating the withdrawal and its aftermath in real time. (The polling was conducted September 16-18, covering 1,000 likely voters, with a margin of error of +/- 3.1% at a 95 percent confidence level.)

Asked whether pulling out our forces made the United States more or less safe from terrorism, 52 percent said, “less safe,” 6 percent said “safer” and 37 percent said “no difference.” By more than a two-to-one majority (56 percent to 26 percent), Americans agreed that “withdrawal from Afghanistan wasn’t a good idea that was botched, it was a bad idea” because the Taliban could provide al Qaeda and other terrorists with bases of operations. A 52 percent majority believed we should have left some troops behind or not withdrawn any at all, compared to 33 percent who said all troops should have been withdrawn. And 61 percent believed our failure in Afghanistan would encourage jihadists around the world, making them more likely to attack the United States, compared to 29 percent who disagreed.

These are sobering numbers and, if sustained, represent a thorough rejection of the previous conventional wisdom. Trump himself seemed to grasp this new direction of public opinion; at a Sept. 25 rally in Perry, Ga., referring to his own “plans” had he been reelected, Trump said “we were going to occupy Bagram [air force base] for a long time to come, and it would’ve been so good.” Typically, Trump either ignored or did not understand that staying at Bagram “for a long time” meant not fully withdrawing. But Bagram was a good applause line at the Perry rally.

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The key conclusion today is that the consequences of the Afghanistan withdrawal are far from over, and events there and in the miasma of global terrorism will continue to command our attention. Biden will not be able to take a victory lap in the 2022 or 2024 elections for having ended one of the endless wars; instead, he will be explaining why America is once again more vulnerable to terrorism.

We may have left Afghanistan, but it has not left us. And neither have the terrorists.

John Bolton was national security adviser to President Trump from 2018 to 2019, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006 and held senior State Department posts in 2001-2005 and 1985-1989. His most recent book is “The Room Where It Happened” (2020). He is the founder of John Bolton Super PAC, a political action committee supporting candidates who believe in a strong U.S. foreign policy.