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Iran An Experiment in Strategic Risk Taking.pdf - 1 views

diigo.com/093nj3 Iran nukes nuclear proliferation analysis
shared by Ed Webb on 22 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • what-ever happens next, the patient efforts of the E3/EU+3 since 2006, along with the harshest non-proliferation sanctions ever imposed, will have demon-strated that illegal nuclear proliferation is costly. Simply put, this is the most detailed non-proliferation agreement ever devised. But it nevertheless includes several problematic aspects, which deserve careful scrutiny
  • By 2025–30, providing its weaponisation expertise is solid, Iran will be technically in a position to make, in a matter of months, a nuclear weapon that can be carried by a medium-range ballistic missile. By year 15 of the deal, produc-ing one bomb’s worth of HEU might take less than two weeks; and after a few more years, it might only be a matter of days.6 And by the end of the deal, if it had not ratified the Additional Protocol, Iran could just stop its ‘voluntary’ implementation
  • Iran has become a nuclear-threshold state, and it will remain one, with our blessing
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Countries do not give up when they have invested so much, unless they are forced to do so after a major war (as Iraq was), or when regime change comes (as it did in Brazil and South Africa
  • The eternal hope of Western dip-lomats is that authoritarian regimes are on the wrong side of history and therefore cannot last long. But sometimes they do.
  • Around 2012, under US pressure, the E3/EU+3 abandoned roll-back in favour of contain-ment
  • Reimposing sanctions will be hard when hundreds of Western, Russian and Chinese companies flourish in Iran
  • Could the deal have been better? Its supporters have used two slogans: ‘this is the best possible deal’, and ‘this deal now or war later’. Both are false alternatives, giving the impression that they were created for rhetorical purposes. Washington’s self-imposed deadlines left it negotiating against itself. It may very well have been wiser to wait until Iran felt the pressure of sanctions even more. At times, the United States may have given Tehran the impression that it needed a deal even more than the Iranians did. The second argument is equally spurious: few serious analysts or politicians would support immediate military action against Iran
  • we should make it work. This will require careful and constant monitoring: let us beware of ‘Iran fatigue’. The E3/EU+3 should supplement the massive-retaliation snapback provi-sions with informal understandings among the group’s members on how to respond to minor violations: a graduated response is needed. A key aspect will be the way the IAEA will judge whether or not the PMD question is settled. Here, Tehran should not be let off the hook. Finally, the E3/EU+3, or at least its four Western members, should regularly – perhaps annually – make a solemn commitment that they will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear explosivedevice and are ready to use any means to that effect.
  • Any precedent the Iranian crisis creates will be fully exploited by the next ‘Nth country’
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Western Strategists Are Obsessed With Thucydides, Athens, and Sparta. Here Are Some Asi... - 0 views

foreignpolicy.com/...ot-the-peloponnesian-war-again analogies history IR opinion China US USA
shared by Ed Webb on 28 Apr 21 - Cached
  • The Peloponnesian War mesmerizes strategists and international relations scholars. When it comes to ancient Greece and the U.S.-China relationship, the most prominent comparison is the “Thucydides Trap,” made famous by the political scientist Graham Allison, which uses the relationship between Athens and Sparta to draw an analogy between a rising China and the threat felt by the United States today. But conflicts between city-states in a backwater Eurasian promontory 2,400 years ago are an unreliable guide to modern geopolitics—and they neglect a vast span of world history that may be far more relevant.
  • Other lessons from Greek history are strangely never mentioned; Thebes, the great power of the fourth century B.C., barely gets a mention. And no strategist has called for the formation of an elite Sacred Band of American warriors, each fighting alongside his lover so as not to appear shameful in his eyes
  • In all the takes on the U.S.-China relationship, the history of Chinese warfare itself—and the vast span of Asian conflict, warfare, and political contention over the last 3,000 years—goes virtually unmentioned
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Historical analogies aren’t always relevant. As useful as the past’s lessons can be, the parallels drawn can say more about the priorities of the pundit than the messy realities of ancient empires that bore little resemblance to our own challenges
  • To be sure, Asian history is harder to access in English than Europe’s, and the continent’s military history is shamefully underwritten. But the materials are out there—and they are far more geographically, culturally, and historically relevant to the continent that is defining the 21st century than dipping into Thucydides again.
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