Charles W. King

President Trump is expected to decertify the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly referred to as the Iran Nuclear Deal, this week. He intendeds to do this despite statements from the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Association, who is responsible for monitoring Iran’s compliance, and the United States Departments of Defense and State stating that Iran is complying with the deal. This past week in testimony before Congress Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that he believed it was in the national interest of the United States to continue the JCPOA.

Given these conditions, the Trump administration is finding it hard to completely scuttle the deal. It is unlikely that any of the other signatories to the deal would agree to re-impose sanctions. The White House has found a work around. For weeks a trial balloon has been floating inside the Beltway; the administration will declare that the JCPOA is not in the “national interest” of the United States, and make Congress responsible for determining its future. This is a shrewd move for the administration domestically. It allows Trump to claim victory against the deal without dangerously escalating the situations as Mattis and Tillerson understand unilateral decertification would.

Putting a decision like the continuation of the JCPOA in the hands of Congress is inherently dangerous. Despite the extensive support of congressional staffers, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and Congressional Research Service (CRS), Congress does not have the resources and expertise that the executive branch does. The foremost asset for the executive branch in these matters is the National Security Council (NSC). Established by the 1947 National Security Act, signed by President Harry S. Truman, the NSC truly came into its own under his successor, President Dwight D. Eisenhower. As Supreme Allied Commander Europe Eisenhower was known for the importance he placed on staff work and planning, and is quoted as saying, “Plans are useless, planning is essential.” Eisenhower continued this as president, and used the NSC’s staff to create comprehensive assessments of global events that reflected military, diplomatic, intelligence, and economic perspectives.

In the decades since 1947 the NSC has been an unqualified success, bureaucratically speaking. President after president have imbued it with more and more power as they have steadily eroded the authority of older parts of the executive branch, the State Department in particular. In the twenty first century the most important presidential appointment is the National Security Advisor (NSA). Unlike the Secretaries of State and Defense and their Undersecretaries and staffs, the NSA and the staff of the NSC do not have to be approved by Congress. The need to select compromise candidates for head the Departments of State and Defense has slowly increased their role as bureaucratic managers and decreased their policy influence, a trend that can be seen in the administrations of George W. Bush and Barak Obama especially.

In the twenty first century the government body with the resources and expertise effectively assess and make policy recommendations on important policies like the JCPOA is the National Security Council. The Constitution invests the executive branch with responsibility for foreign policy for a multitude of reasons; the Senate is responsible only for the ratification of treaties. Making Congress responsible for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is both reckless and could herald a new era in American foreign policy making; Quarterback by Committee.

Charles W. King

The United States is the world’s leading exporter of arms, more than the next two largest exporters, Italy and Germany, combined. The United State exported more than a billion dollars’ worth of small arms in 2013 according to the Small Arms Survey, a non-governmental organization supported by a group of western nations. The export of arms, from pistols and rifles to military aircraft and advanced technical systems represent not just an economic boon for the United States that incentivizes the continued growth of its arms industry, but a strategic asset for its foreign policy. Just as the United States controls the export of advanced technologies that it does not want its rivals or pariah states to possess (particularly nuclear and missile technology), it uses arms export agreements to bolster its allies and as an incentive.

The two most famous American arms export schemes are Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease program during World War Two and the Iran-Contra Scandal that rocked the administration of Ronal Reagan. Between 1941 and 1945 the United States exported $667 billion in 2017 dollars to its allies under Lend-Lease. Iran-Contra circumvented American law to fund the right-wing Contra rebels in Nicaragua with the proceeds of arms sales to the Islamic Republic of Iran, primarily missiles and also illegal. While these two programs differ greatly in scope, publicity, and legality they were both intended to provide material support to allies—long standing or of convenience—engaged in conflicts the outcome of which the respective administration felt it had a vested interest in. Today the supplying of arms to belligerents is highly controversial, and when doing so policy-makers must weigh the potential benefits of tipping the scale in a conflict, with the fallout, both domestic and diplomatic, of doing so.

Attempting to decide the winner in conflicts is not the only way that the United States uses arms exports to affect geopolitics. Bolstering the capabilities of allies and even competitors during peacetime can also be of strategic value. Sometimes it is possible to provide support with a direct American military presence, as the deployment of the US Army to West Germany did during the Cold War, and American AWACS Radar and Tanker planes did to the intervention in Libya in 2011. This is not always the case. In 1979 it would not have been possible to deploy American troops to the border between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. After recognizing the Sino-Soviet split American administrations sought to improve the People’s Liberation Army’s ability to fight their Soviet counter-parts, particularly against Soviet tanks. Even with the normalization of diplomatic relations between the US and China in 1979, this was a complicated task to accomplish. Eventually, the Carter Administration received the legislative approval it needed to let the PLA manufacture American designed anti-armor weapons in China under license, direct sales would have been politically impossible.

There is a third strategic use for arms exports that the US actively engages in; incentive and subsidy. The US government subsidizes the Iron Dome missile shield deployed in Israel, much of the money transferred to Israel as military aid comes right back to the United States as payments to US defense companies. This is not only good for the defense sector, but it encourages firms to perform research and development on certain kinds of technologies, like Iron Dome, that the US government wants to encourage but may not have a direct use for at the time.

The United States will remain the world largest exporter of arms for the foreseeable future. Arms sales are an important sector of the American economy. Arms export deals influence manufacturing and the development of advanced electronics and other technologies. They also provide considerable, if controversial, strategic options for American foreign policy. While picking winners may be the most obvious use, policy-makers should remember the utility of enhancing the capabilities of nations with similar interests during peacetime as a preventative measure.

Further Reading

Irene Pavesi, "Trade Update 2016: Transfers and Transparency," Small Arms Survey, (Geneva, Switzerland: Small Arms Survey, 2016).

Charles W. King

As the Trump Administration considers its approach to the Obama Administration’s nuclear deal with Iran it is important to consider the historical context and strategic principles at play. While at times both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. developed smaller tactical nuclear weapons with the expressed purpose of use in a ‘limited nuclear exchange’ the plausibility that a nuclear war could be limited to military targets was disputed. Since the Soviet Union tested their first nuclear weapon in 1949 the defining principle of nuclear strategy has been deterrence. Throughout numerous technological advancements the U.S., its N.A.T.O. allies, the U.S.S.R., the Warsaw Pact, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of India, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan have relied on the deterrent value of nuclear weapons as a cornerstone of their defense policies.

While deterrence has largely been an effective policy, it has not deterred all acts of aggression or territorial ambitions. Multiple American administrations proved unwilling to use nuclear weapons over the Korean War, the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Vietnam War, and the Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan in 1979. That both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. went to great lengths to limit direct conflict between their armed forces demonstrates the continued importance of deterrence to both superpowers’ strategic thought. For 70 years the United States and its rivals have demonstrated to the world the value of a nuclear deterrent for preserving territorial sovereignty.

There are also a number of recent events that provide important examples of how the U.S., its allies, Russia, and China treat nuclear powers differently. Since the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014 a number of people, including Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), have stated their belief that if Ukraine had not given up their nuclear weapons then Russia would not have invaded Crimea or Donbass. The U.S. and P.R.C. both attempt to reign in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions through sanctions, aid, and negotiations. The U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 to prevent it from developing weapons of mass destruction. China is acting increasingly aggressive towards its neighbors in the South China Sea. The contrasting treatment of North Korea and Iraq by the U.S. and North Korea and other neighbors in the South China Sea by the P.R.C. demonstrate the deterrent value of nuclear weapons.

In light of the demonstrated historical and continuing deterrent value of nuclear weapons it must be recognized that Iran might seek nuclear weapons for their strategic value. Soviet, British, and Commonwealth forces invaded Iran in 1941, and the Soviets attempted to retain northern Iran after World War Two. The C.I.A. facilitated the 1953 overthrow of the elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh. In 1980 the Carter administration launched an attempt to rescue Americans held hostage in Iran using American Special Forces troops. Given this history of international violations of Iranian sovereignty it cannot be a surprise that nuclear weapons would hold an immense strategic value for the Islamic Republic. Recognizing this and formulating a strategy that addresses Iran’s perceived need for a strategic deterrent may be the difference between a successful non-proliferation strategy towards Iran and a futile one.

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Further Reading

Ronald E. Powaski, March to Armageddon: The United States and the Nuclear Arms Race, 1939 to the Present, (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1987).

Stephen Kinze, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003).