Global Energy Forum

The ninth Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum will be held June 17 and 18 in Washington, DC. Please check back regularly for updates on our programming.

Speakers

Helima Croft
Board Director, Atlantic Council; Managing Director and Global Head of Commodity Strategy and MENA Research, RBC Capital Markets

Brett McGurk
Distinguished Fellow, N7 Initiative, Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East programs, Atlantic Council

Moderator

William F. Wechsler
Senior Director, Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East programs, Atlantic Council

Event transcript

Uncorrected transcript: Check against delivery

WILLIAM F. WECHSLER: Thank you for—once again, for everyone being here, being part of this discussion. It’s quite important. And it comes at, of course, an absolutely critical moment for those of us who’ve spent our lives caring about the geopolitics and stability/security of the Middle East.

So we’re going to have a thirty-minute discussion here with two of the most well-positioned people to give us their views on what’s going on now and what we should expect.

From my own point of view, I just want to lead off by saying I see four real scenarios going forward: a great scenario, a good scenario, a bad scenario, and a terrible scenario. The great one is that the military objectives in the current campaign are met and the Iranian regime is not able to pose the kind of existential threat to the region that it—of the Iranian people taking matters into their own hands. A good scenario is that the Iranian regime comes back to the Trump administration and wants to do a deal on eliminating their enrichment of their nuclear program. A bad scenario is the military objectives are not met and Iran goes nuclear. And a terrible one is that the region is in war, which could involve the United States.

So the two people that I have here discuss are Brett McGurk, who has joined the Atlantic Council recently as a distinguished fellow working our Middle East Programs and our N7 Initiative, a joint partnership of the Atlantic Council and Jeffrey M. Talpins Foundation; and Helima Croft, the head of commodities at RBC Global and the head of the Middle East there as well.

We’re going to talk about security and energy issues here today. Let me start with you, Brett. Tell us what—you know, as we sit here the people in the Trump administration are gathering at some point today in the Situation Room to talk about what the options are for the United States to advance the good scenarios I talked about and minimize the risk of the lower scenarios. You’ve spent more time in that Situation Room than anybody I know talking about these issues. What would you be telling the president today?

BRETT MCGURK: Well—is this working? OK. Well, thank you, and congratulations, Atlantic Council, Landon, and everyone setting this up, and it’s great to hear from Dr. Sultan this morning. And, Fred, great to see you.

I caveat comments on what’s happening to say if anyone tells you they know exactly where this is heading or making kind of bold predictions they don’t know what they’re talking about. This is truly a completely unprecedented situation.

It flows out of the events of October 7th. I’m happy to kind of talk about the broader strategic context but you asked a specific question so let me get to it. If I was in the Situation Room right now I think, from the White House perspective, we have three immediate objectives.

Number one, obviously, we want to protect Americans and we want to help defend Israel. That is, like, first priority. So making sure we’re surging defense interceptors, everything. I’ve dealt with that an awful lot in the last year when I was in the White House. That’s number one.

Number two, try to contain this to Israel and Iran. Avoid a broader regional escalation. I think that’s actually a very achievable objective. So far I think that’s going fairly well—something we dealt with every day, every hour, from October 7th on.

I don’t know how many predictions of uncontrollable regional war there have been since October 7th. There has not been an uncontrollable regional war because of what the United States has done, frankly, consistently day by day, hour by hour, month by month.

Number three, I think you want to be working with the Israelis to ensure a focus on their declared objectives and avoid a mission creep scenario. Their declared objectives are dismantlement of the nuclear program and the missile program.

So those are kind of the three immediate objectives. But on the third one it’s very important because we know an awful lot about this. The Iran nuclear program has been a vexing challenge across administrations and the Rubicon here has been crossed, and I think we’ll mention that one of the worst outcomes would be this kind of ends with the main enrichment facility in Fordow intact.

And let me say a little bit about that because there’s a lot of focus about what is Israel doing, why. But Iran has made a series of fateful strategic miscalculations from October 7th on. It decided after October 7th to basically support a multifront war against Israel, and I lived through this and watched the whole thing.

They turned on Hezbollah to open a northern front. They turned on the Houthis to open a southern front. They supplied the militias in Iraq and Syria to open additional fronts. They directly attacked Israel twice in April and October. That is—October 7th miscalculations.

What happened? Hezbollah was basically knocked out. You have a new government in Lebanon. The Assad regime collapsed. You have a new government in Syria. We had a ceasefire in Gaza and hostages coming out. I’m hopeful we can still get back to a ceasefire there. You had the militias in Iraq declaring a ceasefire, relations in the Gulf very strong, and Iran in its weakest position since October 7th. So that’s kind of where things were left.

On the nuclear side, Iran continued to escalate its program. And just last week the IAEA came out with its comprehensive report that was asked for last year and found flagrant—what was their word?—egregious failure of Iran to live up to its nuclear commitments and focused a lot on Fordow.

In Fordow right now, buried into a mountain, there are ten cascades of very advanced IR-6 centrifuges. That cannot be left intact. And I think the way the White House sees this, and the policy right now as I read it, is the White House offered a deal to Iran about six weeks ago. I don’t know every detail. It’s described as a very fair deal. But that would basically give the world confidence that Iran is not and will not ever move towards a nuclear weapon.

And Iran not only did not really respond to that. It actually escalated its nuclear program in the face of this, including just last week saying they’re going to feed fuel into the cascades in Fordow and actually open a new underground enrichment facility. So Iran has just made these series of miscalculations. And I used to lead this channel in Oman with the Iranians and told them repeatedly, if you keep this up, it’s inevitable, inevitable, somebody will take care of this problem. And that’s kind of where we are.

So right now Iran has a choice. I mean, Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister of Iran, can call Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s envoy, and say, you know, I kind of—I looked at the offer you put down six weeks ago. Actually, it’s pretty good. I think we’re going to take it. And I think this crisis would be over. Or they could not do that, looking at the possibility of a US strike on Fordow. I’m just saying that as an analyst.

But in any case, to Will’s four scenarios, this has to end without Iran’s nuclear-enrichment program intact. And hopefully that can end diplomatically. That option is still available. There’s still an off-ramp. Or the military campaign is now joined. The Israelis have a lot of options. And the US has a big option when it comes to Fordow.

WILLIAM F. WECHSLER: Thank you very much for that, Brett.

Helima, I want to talk—to turn to the energy markets. The energy markets have—don’t seem to have built in the risk that—of some of the scenarios that—of some of the scenarios that I and Brett were talking about. Can you help us understand why that is, what Iran could do that would change the markets’ views, and then how OPEC and others would react and the United States would react to that?

HELIMA CROFT: Great. Thank you so much. And Fred, thank you so much for convening us again. And Dr. Sultan, what an extraordinary open to the conference today.

As you mentioned, Will, I think the market is very sanguine about the risks entailed in any type of escalation in the Middle East at this moment. I think a lot of it goes back to the Russia-Ukraine war. There had been this expectation right away—remember what oil prices did right after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We shot up. We were running to $130. Analysts were talking about potentially $200-a-barrel price of oil. There was an expectation that we could see three million barrels of Russian oil off the market.

And when that did not materialize, I think a lot of market participants were like, we have overplayed this risk. A number of prominent investors were burned betting on a Russian supply disruption. And they were like, I’m no longer going to price in risk of disruption. You can tell me about it, but I want to see it before I start pricing this in. And we have a situation right now in the market where we are well-supplied. You know, US production has been strong. Production out of countries like the United Arab Emirates, the investments that ADNOC has made in expanding spare capacity, means that we have ample supply on the market right now.

But the question is, Will, and we talked about this, if we were to see even a repeat of what we saw in 2019, if we saw attacks on tankers—remember, in 2019, after we reimposed maximum-pressure sanctions in May, we did have tankers hit off the coast of Fujairah. They were not sunk, but they were damaged. We had drone attacks on key pipelines over that summer, including the east-west pipeline. And then in September we had the attack on Abqaiq, the world’s largest oil-processing facility.

And to some extent because that did not yield sustained disruption—and, well, we talked about that. You know, was this a ceiling of Iran’s disruptive capabilities in 2019? Could they have done far more damage to Abqaiq if they had chosen to do so? But a lot of market participants were, like, we’ve seen the worst out of this. And if it did not yield a sustained disruption in 2019 when Abqaiq was hit, I really don’t need to be worried about it now unless it actually happens.

Now, people would say, the risk is potentially low. I’ve heard many experts say the risk of this spilling over into energy is low. But it’s not zero. And if you did have a situation—even last night—where’s my friend Amena Bakr? We were back and forth, you know, on our, you know, texts last night, because we had two tankers or three tankers on fire last night. And our immediate concern was, is this a repeat of 2019? Have those tankers been struck. Is Iran seeking to internationalize the cost of this conflict? Now it turns out there was a collision. It does not look like they were actually struck by a missile or a mine. But the concern was there right away.

So if we were to see some type of incident—we’ve already seen domestic energy infrastructure targeted. We’ve already seen South Pars struck. We’ve seen attacks on the important Haifa Refinery in Israel. We’ve had oil depots struck in Iran. All domestic. All kind of warning shots. But, again, I don’t think the market would be prepared for the export infrastructure being struck. And, again, that may never happen. And the Iranians may judge that the cost of doing so is too high. The Israelis may decide not in their interest to defund Iran by attacking Kharg Island, which would take off 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports.

But, again, the risk isn’t zero. And if you were to have something—even though we’re sitting at seventy-five dollars today—if you were to have just a repeat of anything we saw in 2019, we would move materially higher. Now, the question about OPEC, I don’t think OPEC is looking to add barrels to the market this time because of this situation. They are already unwinding a voluntary cut. We expect more rolling OPEC barrels on the market. But OPEC has made it pretty clear, they’re not going to fill a gap in the market until one emerges. So I would not expect, for example, a preemptive surge of a million-plus barrels, unless we see clear evidence of a supply disruption.

WILLIAM F. WECHSLER: Thank you very much. So the implications of that is, because the risk isn’t built into the markets today, if we do have this, the market impact would be much larger than it would be. And it would be a—would be a shock.

HELIMA CROFT: I think the market is taking it as a—I think energy markets—based on everything Brett said, like, you know, we’ve had this war in the Middle East that has not disrupted energy supplies to date. Again, the clearest one was what happened with Russia [and] Ukraine, where people were really thinking, are we going to do to Russia what we did to Iran in terms of secondary sanctions? I mean, we did a lot of work, though, to prevent a Russian disruption. Again, massive releases from the SPR, carveouts in terms of energy sanctions. We did price caps after the Europeans went forward with the sixth package of sanctions, which banned the import of seaborne oil into Europe and did a services ban. There was an active effort by the White House to ensure that the market would be well supplied. So—but I think the message or the takeaway, from many market participants is, call me when there is a disruption. You tell me there’s a lot of risk, but I’m waiting to see it materialize.

WILLIAM F. WECHSLER: Thank you very much for that.

Brett, I want to come back to you. You know, the issue, as you alluded to, Fordow, Fordow, Fordow. That’s the question. That is—that’s what’s going to be on the mind of President Trump. You served President Trump in his—in his first term. You’ve been in the Oval Office with him. He’s made absolutely clear over a long period of time that he doesn’t want a war with Iran. What’s different now? What would cause him, in your mind, to make that decision? And what are ways that events could unfold that would make it more likely?

BRETT MCGURK: I’d say, first, look, nobody wants—I think no president wants to order a military strike anywhere, frankly. I mean, I’ve been around four presidents. It’s, like, the most difficult decision. And anybody with the experience over the last twenty years, and if you spend time in Iraq like I did and others, like, you better go at such a decision with heady analysis, prudence, calculation, thinking through every unintended consequence.

The issue with Fordow—and I’m just going to—a lot of you know this. But it was a secret underground facility found by intelligence, announced to the world in 2009. The JCPOA had a lot of problems. It did say no enrichment at Fordow until 2030. After the JCPOA—US left the JCPOA, Iran started installing centrifuges in Fordow. And they eventually put in ten cascades of the IR-6s, which are the most advanced. And they started enriching to 60 percent uranium grade, which can spin up very fast to weapons grade. And you just read the IAEA report from last week.

This is a huge national security challenge. And I think the hope was that it could be dealt with through a deal. I mean, frankly, we in the—in the Biden administration had worked on this knowing that this year, 2025, is the year to deal with this problem, because there’s a deadline. The deadline, again, under the JCPOA, a provision its critics like is called snapback. Snapback means any member of that deal who’s still a member, basically France and the UK, can go to the UN Security Council and say, all international sanctions on Iran snapback. And they can do that until October of this year, when that expires under the JCPOA. So this is always the year to deal with this problem. And the hope, again, still, is that it can be dealt with diplomatically.

Now, the military option has had massive risk to it. Some of them—and being around this issue over the years I’m not revealing anything that’s not known—Hezbollah. Hezbollah had 150,000 to 200,000 missiles and rockets hanging over Israel. Any military strike into Iran, you risk Hezbollah unleashing those missiles on Israel. No longer a threat. Very significant. Hezbollah, even after the start of Israel’s military operation, has said: We want nothing to do with this. Second, air defense. Iran has pretty good air defense. Russian air defense systems, S-300s. There’s the risk of a pilot being taken down. That’s a big risk. That’s no longer there. Israel has complete air supremacy over Iran, which is an extraordinary thing. And that changes the entire calculation. Third, Iran has what it has. It has proxies. It has terrorism. It has missiles and rockets. And we know all that.

So the window of availability for a military option is now very open. And then how do you use that? Do you use that to try to get a deal, which I can actually see the administration doing? And if you say, if that—if that negotiation fails, then we have to be prepared to actually do the strike. And I think you do have to back it up. And around town if you say that, it’s, like, well, that means you’re going to lead. Look what happened in the Iraq War. This is not an Iraq War scenario. We invaded Iraq in 2003 with 130,000 troops, very small force, to overthrow a government and install an entirely new system.

I mean, that—talk about ends and means gap and unintended consequences? This is—and I’m not discounting the seriousness of this—but this is a military operation that has been planned, trained on, for, like, going back ten or fifteen years. And so it is available to the president. And the Pentagon’s job is to make it available and discuss it, if the president chooses to do it. And right now, it’s available as a backstop to diplomacy. And, again, anyone talking to Abbas Araghchi, he should call Steve Witkoff tomorrow, or right now, and say, you know what? I re-looked at the deal you put down. It’s pretty good. Let’s actually get together and do it. That’s the way out of this.

And being through the crisis since October 7th, I mean, this—sometimes it’s—I can get—frustrated is not the right word. But there are ways out of these problems. And right now, there could be a—we want a ceasefire in Gaza. Ceasefire in Gaza, if Hamas releases ten hostages, you have a sixty-day ceasefire in Gaza. Israel signed up to that. The US has signed up to it. It’s there. Iran right now—this crisis can end if Iran accepts the deal on the table. Or, I think, the military option becomes very viable.

And given where we are, the worst case here would be to leave Iran with that Fordow and ten cascades intact. So it’s a deal or it’s a military strike. I mean, I just—I think that is where we’re heading, and the events over the last twenty-four hours, I think, made that pretty clear. And that’s probably being discussed right down the street right now.

WILLIAM F. WECHSLER: You know, I’ve been briefed that we got about—that Iran at the current op tempo and the current projections of Israeli taking launchers off the battlefield that there’s about a—about a week, at least, more runway of these current level of operations continue. Of course, Iran also has by my count about three thousand short-range weapons that don’t threaten Israel but threaten our friends in the Gulf if things get—things get a lot worse.

My question to you, Helima, is in the scenario that Brett was just talking about, about the United States taking a strike on the—on the nuclear facility in Fordow, what’s that implication to the energy markets? And then what does the US do if the energy markets go a little haywire?

HELIMA CROFT: Well, I mean, certainly I think that, you know, US action against Fordow you would see, you know, a little pop in prices. But again, I think given the sort of bias of the market—I would say the recency bias of the market to say if it’s not an energy facility let’s take a pause, I think the real question would be in an endgame scenario for the Iranian government, again, A, what would come after—we talk about regime change, but who’s going to emerge to run that country? But the concern would be, I think, from the people who watch energy markets, who have spent time in the Middle East, who have been to places right after attacks have happened is, would you see proxy groups?

Like, would you see potentially risk to—we’ve talked about Straits of Hormuz, but I always think about, like, risks to Basra. I think about the risk to Iraq’s four-million-plus production because of Iranian-backed militias that operate very close to those facilities. So we would be watching, you know, what would happen in terms of, obviously, tankers. We would look to what would happen to—who are—where is the sort of soft security underbelly in terms of the energy system in the Middle East? And again, I would be concerned about risks to Iraq. I’d be concerned about risks to other countries’ energy facilities where they may not have taken the necessary steps to fortify those facilities.

So I don’t think the risk is—I do not think it is tail risk in a regime that feels its days are numbered, that they are not going to at least try to impose economic cost on the West and the rest of the world.

WILLIAM F. WECHSLER: Well, thank you very much.

In just the brief amount of time that we have left, let me—let me ask each of you to leave us with a thought that we haven’t talked about and, frankly, if it’s possible, that you think most people aren’t talking about enough. Like, what should we be thinking about that most people aren’t? Let me start with you, Brett.

BRETT MCGURK: Man. Right now I think what we’re all thinking about is what we should be thinking about, which is what is going to happen in the next week. And it is—you talk about a decisive historical period; we’ve living in it. We’re living in it.

And I—and I think the potential for a Middle East—I’m looking at a lot of friends here in the audience—the potential for this region is just enormous. It is enormous. I though the president’s trip was the right thing to do, very successful. What’s happening in UAE is extraordinary, Saudi Arabia, throughout the Gulf—everything that was just talked about in this panel.

And Iran has been a huge problem in this region for decades. And what has happened to Hezbollah and Iranian networks and Iran since October 7th sets conditions for a much more peaceful, integrated Middle East that we all want. And Iran is a spoiler to that; there’s just no question about it. So what’s going to happen here in the next week, I think, or so is potentially quite decisive.

And if we were here two years ago, and the question was hypothetically what if Israel launches a massive air attack on Iran, like, tomorrow—what would happen—I think Helima would have said it’s going to be all-out Middle East war, and energy markets, and everything else you can imagine. And actually, it’s happening right now. Israel controls the skies of Iran.

I mean, this is like—you know, and I just have to say I am proud of what the United States of America has done since October 7th, not without controversy. And these are hard calls, and they should be scrutinized. But I am proud of what we have done to reduce the risks of an all-out Middle East conflict, to significantly weaken Iran and all of these networks that threaten so many people, and to set the conditions for a far more peaceful, prosperous, integrated Middle East region.

With that said, there are going to be spoilers around and terrorist groups around and extremists around, many of them funded and supported by Iran. But an Iran without the sword of Damocles of a nuclear-threshold state is a much different problem. And here we are with potential to actually resolve that, at least for a significant period of time.

And I will just finish. I hope—I hope Iran finds a way to take a deal, the deal that the US has put on the table. And if not, I think there’s no other way.

So I have to answer that question, Will, by what should we be thinking about? It’s what’s happening right now. I don’t know what else—at least that’s what I’m thinking about.

HELIMA CROFT: I will be super fast.

To echo what you pointed out about the enormous progress that we’ve seen in the Middle East—I mean, it started by the UAE with the incredible economic transformation and diversification program. I mean, Dr. Sultan, I think your portfolio speaks to everything you do in that country, just even beyond energy. And you look at the other countries, Saudi Arabia. You think about what Kuwait is trying to do, taking enormous steps to diversify their economies, to future-proof their societies. And it’s predicated on a stable security environment.

And so I do think that we should be sanguine about what’s at stake if we do not find a solution that enables, you know, a stable, prosperous Middle East. And having a stable security environment is so important for the millions of young people in the region whose futures really rest on everything that these governments are trying to undertake.

WILLIAM F. WECHSLER: Thank you very much. I think you actually hit on what I was hoping you would hit on, which is not only the risks of the region but the potential of the region is what we also need to be thinking about deeply right now.

With that, I want to say thank you very much to our panelists here for a really fascinating discussion on the issues of the day. Thank you all for listening to us.

Watch the full event

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By fusing years of intelligence preparation with special operations capabilities, Israel achieved strategic surprise and devastating effect against Iran’s nuclear program and military leadership despite months and years of mounting tensions. The operation offers critical lessons for Western military planners facing similar challenges with peer competitors who possess advanced air defenses, nuclear ambitions, and totalitarian control.

Of course, Friday’s Israeli strike on Iran occurred under relatively favorable conditions—already degraded air defenses, neutralized proxies, and no existing nuclear deterrent—complicating direct comparisons to potential preemptive strikes on true US peers such as Russia or China. Still, the concepts retain value worth exploring as Western militaries seek unconventional options to address emerging threats.

Anatomy of a surprise

Israel’s Mossad spy agency had smuggled weapons into Iran ahead of Friday’s strikes, establishing a base of operations from which it remotely launched explosive-laden drones and positioning short-range, precision weapons near critical surface-to-air missile systems. This multiyear preparation enabled what Israeli officials describe as a coordinated campaign targeting Iran’s main enrichment facility in Natanz, its nuclear scientists and military leaders, and parts of its ballistic missile program with devastating precision.

This three-pronged approach demonstrates sophisticated planning that Western intelligence and special operations forces (SOF) should study carefully. First, Mossad commando units deployed precision-guided weapons systems near Iranian surface-to-air missile installations, which activated immediately preceding Israeli Air Force strikes to drop Tehran’s defenses at a critical juncture. Second, specialized equipment and munitions were clandestinely emplaced across Iran to carry out the full range of attacks that achieved the effective decapitation of Iran’s military leadership. Third, explosive drone bases were established deep in Iranian territory to target Iran’s offensive missile systems at strategic sites to deny Tehran an immediate response capability.

The power of pre-positioned munitions

The most striking aspect of Operation Rising Lion was Israel’s ability to achieve tactical surprise through pre-positioned assets rather than relying solely on standoff weapons or penetrating strikes. According to Israeli security sources, Mossad operatives established drone and missile bases “in the open, not far from Iran’s air defense systems” and used vehicle-based weapons platforms throughout the country. This approach allowed over two hundred Israeli aircraft to drop more than 330 munitions on some one hundred targets during the opening strikes while facing degraded air defenses.

The strategic logic parallels successful special operations from previous conflicts. As I wrote recently about Ukraine’s experience against Russia, the core tenets of deep special operations remain constant: “the element of surprise achieved through operational security and misdirection; the targeting of high-value, lightly defended assets in the enemy’s rear areas; and the psychological impact that far exceeds the tactical damage inflicted.” Israel’s pre-positioning strategy enabled all three simultaneously.

Decapitation through intelligence fusion

The operation successfully eliminated Iran’s top military leadership, including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Hossein Salami, Chief of Staff Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, Emergency Forces Commander Gholam Rashid, and several nuclear scientists. This represents one of the most successful decapitation strikes in modern warfare, demonstrating how intelligence preparation can enable surgical targeting of command structures.

The targeting methodology reflects years of intelligence preparation. Israeli officials compiled detailed intelligence dossiers on senior Iranian defense officials and nuclear scientists, enabling precise targeted assassinations while conducting a coordinated campaign to neutralize Iran’s strategic missile array through airstrikes and deep-cover operations. This holistic approach—combining human intelligence, technical collection, and operational preparation—offers a template for future operations against peer adversaries.

Asymmetric air-defense suppression

Perhaps the most operationally significant aspect was Israel’s innovative approach to suppressing Iranian air defenses. Rather than relying solely on conventional airborne Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses missions, Israel used pre-positioned systems to launch precision strikes simultaneously toward designated targets with remarkable accuracy. It deployed advanced technologies mounted on vehicles that completely destroyed Iranian air-defense targets at the onset of the attack.

This approach enabled Israeli planes to achieve air superiority and freedom of maneuver during subsequent waves of the operation. The methodology demonstrates how special operations can create windows of vulnerability in sophisticated air defense networks that conventional forces can then exploit. As the West looks at China’s growing anti-access/area denial capabilities across the Western Pacific, SOF could pursue similar approaches to prevent Beijing from isolating Taiwan, Japan, or the Philippines with long-range antiaircraft systems.

The element of strategic surprise

The operation’s most remarkable feat may be that it achieved strategic surprise despite widespread expectations of Israeli action. Multiple reports over recent days suggested that US officials believed Israel could be preparing to strike Iran, with American personnel evacuated from the region and diplomatic warnings about potential mass casualty events. Yet Iran appeared unprepared for the scale and coordination of the actual attack.

This suggests that strategic surprise in modern warfare depends less on concealing intentions than on concealing capabilities and timing. Israel’s years-long preparation phase enabled operational surprise even when strategic intentions were evident to all parties. As an Israeli security official told the Times of Israel, the mission relied on “groundbreaking thinking, bold planning and surgical operation of advanced technologies, special forces and agents operating in the heart of Iran while evading the eyes of local intelligence.”

Specifically, Western defense planners should carry forward six lessons.

1. The operation demonstrates how long-term intelligence-SOF fusion can serve deterrent functions while providing robust options if deterrence fails. Israel’s ability to pre-position assets and develop detailed targeting packages likely influenced Iranian decision-making for years before the actual strike. When deterrence ultimately failed, these preparations enabled decisive action rather than graduated escalation.
2. The use of technologies ranging from precision-guided missiles to explosive-laden drones and vehicle-based weapons platforms demonstrates how modern capabilities can enhance rather than replace classical special operations principles. Ukraine’s recent “Operation Spiderweb” similarly shows how, as I wrote recently, “technological evolution from Lewes bombs to precision drones masks deeper continuities in special operations thinking.” SOF must continue to innovate to provide options for strategic surprise.
3. Israel’s strikes provide a model for how intelligence services and SOF, through prior operational preparation, can provide robust options for national leadership. This confidence appears grounded in extensive preparation and multiple redundant capabilities that enabled coordinated strikes across multiple Iranian nuclear facilities while simultaneously targeting military command structures.
4. Western nations should prioritize intelligence-SOF fusion capabilities that enable long-term operational preparation in potential conflict zones. This requires sustained investment in human intelligence capabilities, technical collection systems, and special operations units trained for extended autonomous operations in denied areas.
5. Israel’s early success despite obvious tensions suggests that operational security remains achievable even under intense scrutiny. The effort relied on close coordination between the Israel Defense Forces and the Mossad intelligence agency over multiple years, indicating that compartmentalization and operational discipline can preserve surprise even in highly monitored environments.
6. This operation tests the value of preemption. If Iran’s counterattacks fail to deliver a major impact, Israel’s attack could show how well-prepared preemptive action can end conflicts on favorable terms rather than beginning them. By targeting Iran’s nuclear program, missile capabilities, and military leadership simultaneously, Israel appears to have degraded Iran’s ability to sustain prolonged conflict while achieving its core security objectives.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration that the operation would continue “for as many days as it takes to remove this threat” suggests confidence in sustained capabilities rather than one-off strikes. While Tehran retaliated Friday with drones and missiles that killed three people and caused dozens of Israeli injuries, it remains to be seen just how effective its responses will be in light of the regime’s severely degraded capabilities.

Operation Rising Lion represents the evolution of modern special operations principles established during World War II and refined through decades of irregular warfare. The integration of multiyear intelligence preparation, pre-positioned capabilities, and coordinated targeting demonstrates how democratic nations can achieve strategic surprise against peer adversaries even in highly scrutinized security environments.

For Western military planners, the operation offers both inspiration and instruction. The challenge lies not in replicating Israeli capabilities but in developing equivalent intelligence-SOF fusion that provides national leadership with robust options across the spectrum of conflict. Unlike Iran, both China and Russia possess large, survivable nuclear arsenals, which introduces significant escalation risks to any decapitation strike or preemptive action, even if conventional thresholds are initially observed. As tensions with peer competitors continue to mount, the ability to achieve strategic surprise through patient preparation rather than reactive escalation may prove decisive.

The Greek warriors who hid away in the Trojan Horse before springing forth to storm the gates of Troy would recognize the operational logic, if not the technology, used by today’s special operators. Strategic surprise through careful preparation, audacious execution, and clear purpose remains the foundation of effective special operations. Israel’s achievement lies in demonstrating how these timeless principles can be adapted to counter twenty-first-century threats while providing templates for democratic nations facing similar challenges with authoritarian adversaries.

The lesson for future irregular warfare is clear: When facing peer adversaries with advanced capabilities and nuclear ambitions, patient intelligence preparation combined with innovative special operations can achieve effects that conventional deterrence alone cannot guarantee. The investment in such capabilities may prove the difference between managing conflict and winning it decisively.

Doug Livermore is the director of engagements for the Irregular Warfare Initiative, a member of the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Group, the national vice president for the Special Operations Association of America, national director for external communications at the Special Forces Association, and the deputy commander for Special Operations Detachment–Joint Special Operations Command in the North Carolina Army National Guard. He is a former senior government civilian, intelligence officer, and contractor in various roles at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Department of the Navy, and Department of the Army.

The views expressed are the author’s and do not represent official US government, Department of Defense, or Department of the Army positions.

The post By fusing intelligence and special operations, Israel’s strikes on Iran are a lesson in strategic surprise appeared first on Atlantic Council.

This showdown between countries that each possess approximately 170 nuclear warheads has been fueled by decades-long disputes over Kashmir and historical enmity. It unfolded following a terrorist attack on April 22 that killed twenty-six, mostly Indian civilians. India attributed the attack to Pakistan-based militants and last week responded with drone strikes, missile exchanges, and a significant airstrike on Pakistan’s Nur Khan air base, raising Pakistani fears that India would launch a decapitation strike on its nuclear command.

On May 8, US Vice President JD Vance asserted that the conflict was “fundamentally none of our business.” But then the United States received an intelligence briefing on Friday, one that likely highlighted grave developments such as, potentially, intercepted communications or troop mobilizations. Within twenty-four hours, Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were compelled by a fear that the crisis could go nuclear to engage directly with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistani leaders to secure a cease-fire. India and Pakistan agreed to that cease-fire on Saturday, although both sides have since issued accusations that the truce had been violated.

This rapid shift from Vance’s isolationist rhetoric to high-stakes diplomacy demonstrates the global stakes of nuclear crises and the impossibility of dismissing them as regional concerns. A nuclear exchange would devastate any region, disrupt trade routes, spike energy prices, and generate millions of refugees, overwhelming international systems. Radioactive fallout would pose environmental risks far beyond the countries involved, directly impacting US economic and security interests.

Those stakes are why the United States must prevent Iran’s regime from retaining the technological capability to develop nuclear weapons. Allowing Tehran such capabilities risks replicating the perilous dynamics of the South Asian nuclear standoff, with profound global consequences.

Vance’s initial claim that the conflict was “none of our business” ignored these consequences, but the crisis’s rapid escalation forced US action. The Iran nuclear negotiations must internalize this lesson.

Tehran’s regime, with its history of supporting proxy groups such as Hezbollah and the Houthis, has demonstrated a propensity for destabilization, as seen in the 2019 Aramco attack. If Iran retains the technological infrastructure for nuclear weapons, it could leverage the threat of weaponization to escalate regional aggression or actively work clandestinely to develop a weapon, creating a crisis that, like India and Pakistan’s, becomes a global liability.

The South Asian crisis also illustrates how nuclear technology can embolden provocative behavior under the guise of deterrence. India’s retaliation for the April 22 attack, which it blamed on Pakistan, and Pakistan’s counterstrikes reflect a cycle of escalation enabled by mutual nuclear capabilities. Despite Vance’s hope that the conflict would not “spiral into a broader regional war or, God forbid, a nuclear conflict,” the rapid deterioration necessitated US intervention.

Iran poses an even greater risk. With nuclear technology, Tehran could intensify proxy operations—Hezbollah targeting Israel or the Houthis disrupting Red Sea shipping—confident that its potential nuclear arsenal deters retaliation. This could spark a regional arms race, with Saudi Arabia and others pursuing nuclear capabilities, heightening the risk of miscalculation.

The India-Pakistan experience highlights the challenges of managing nuclear-armed states. Decades of diplomacy have failed to resolve their tensions, as mutual distrust and nuclear arsenals perpetuate a fragile stalemate. Iran’s history of evading International Atomic Energy Agency oversight and prolonging negotiations, as seen with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, suggests similar challenges. The United States must pursue a stringent approach in the negotiations that lie ahead, demanding that Iran dismantle its nuclear weaponization infrastructure, backed by robust verification, sustained sanctions, and a credible military deterrent.

The latest India-Pakistan crisis, triggered by a terrorist attack and propelled to the brink of nuclear conflict, forced Vance to abandon his “none of our business” posture and engage urgently to avert catastrophe. Like it or not, Washington carries a heavy burden in these crises, and that’s why it must ensure Iran cannot develop nuclear weapons—before it’s too late.

Alex Plitsas is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. He leads the initiative’s Counterterrorism Project. He is currently a principal and industry director at Providence Consulting Group for aerospace, defense, and high-tech electronics.

The post The India-Pakistan crisis shows Washington that it must stop Iran’s nuclear rise appeared first on Atlantic Council.

If Iran and the United States ultimately bridge these differences and reach a deal, how will we know if it’s a good one? Here’s my guide for how to grade various potential outcomes of these high-stakes negotiations.

A: Resolution of the nuclear problem and regional malign influence

The issue of Iran’s nuclear program is almost certainly the focus of the talks, and an understandable one given how close Iran is to having enough enriched uranium for a bomb. But if it is indeed the only issue on the table, siloing it off from the Islamic Republic’s efforts to advance its ballistic missile program, regional malign influence, terrorism operations, and global assassination and hostage-taking campaigns is a mistake—one that ensures a great deal worthy of an A grade is already off the table. 

In seeking a narrow, nuclear-only deal, Trump is almost certainly ensuring most, if any, of those other challenges will simply never be addressed, just as they were not after the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). That would leave Iran’s position in the Middle East strengthened and the region less safe overall. 

B: Full dismantlement

To get a good deal and earn a solid B grade, Trump would have to ensure that Iran fully dismantle its nuclear program, giving up its right to enrichment for civilian nuclear power. Iran claims this is the purpose of its current program, but the option to have nuclear power exists without enrichment. Other countries import the fuel, run it through their reactors, and ship the spent fuel back to its origin.

This agreement alone would not be enough to achieve a B grade, though. Iran would also have to agree to give up all of its centrifuges, which are used for spinning uranium to build a stable nuclear device, and allow them to be removed from the country. In other words, a good deal means Iran being willing to give up its program fully, similar to what Libya did in 2003. Witkoff recently said that if Iran doesn’t want a nuclear weapon, as its leaders have long claimed, then “their enrichment facilities have to be dismantled. They cannot have centrifuges.”

But such a scenario is highly unlikely. Iran has continuously professed its right to enrich uranium and its current “moderate” political leaders, President Masoud Pezeshkian and Araghchi, would almost certainly struggle to convince an already skeptical Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to agree to give up a right he has long advocated—particularly given how things ended for Libya’s dictator. Moreover, Pezeshkian and Araghchi would probably be concerned that even offering that trade could prompt such intense blowback from hardliners that their own leadership could be at risk.

C: “Civilian” enrichment with stringent conditions

In a deal worthy of a C grade, Iran would be permitted to enrich uranium to 3.67 percent, the course of action seemingly preferred by at least some in the administration, including Vice President JD Vance. Such an amount would be sufficient for Iran to have a civilian program, but Iran would have to accept more permanent restrictions than existed as part of the JCPOA deal. 

Iran would have to give up its more advanced centrifuges—known as IR-8, IR-6, and IR-2 centrifuges—that, in essence, provide it with the capability to more quickly enrich uranium than its original IR-1 design. But there would also have to be strict limits on the IR-1s themselves. Otherwise, production capacity would eventually exceed that of more advanced centrifuges; it would just take a while.  

Moreover, a deal earning a C would not put a time limit on the restrictions or have sunset clauses like in the JCPOA, something Witkoff claimed would be the US position, stating, “there’s no sunsetting of their obligations.” Among the most critical sunsetting provisions in the JCPOA were those that expired in 2023 related to ballistic missiles and those set to expire in 2031 that lifted restrictions on Iran’s uranium enrichment level and stockpile. Finally, Iran would have to agree to inspections from not only the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) but also from the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany, aka the “P5+1” nations that negotiated the JCPOA. 

Such a deal would be far from ideal. The threat of Iran being able to obfuscate its enrichment development would be perpetually present, no matter how intense the inspections. But even if Iran complied with the new agreement and restrictions, the domestic conditions in Iran, and the regional situation in the Middle East, will not remain stagnant. If conditions deteriorate, an Iranian regime under threat could quickly decide to restart its nuclear program. Iran could give up a lot in a deal, but there is no Men in Black “neuralyzer” to erase Iranian knowledge of how to properly enrich uranium and create a nuclear weapon.

D: “Civilian” enrichment with advanced centrifuges

For a below-average D grade, a deal would have the same bounds as for a C, but without Iran agreeing to give up its more advanced centrifuges or allowing in inspectors from the P5+1 to monitor its compliance with the agreement. Such a deal would leave Iran perpetually on the cusp of having a nuclear weapon, with less leverage than ever by the United States and its allies to prevent it.

F: “Civilian” enrichment with sunset clauses

And finally, an F would be the correct grade for a deal that permits an Iranian civilian nuclear program with domestic enrichment, does not compel Iran to give up its centrifuges (only to put them in storage), prohibits non-IAEA inspectors, and contains multiple sunset clauses.

Allowing sunsets almost ensures Tehran’s return to the concept of strategic patience and that some years from now, the world will once again be at risk of another crisis over Iran getting a nuclear weapon. Buying time is not always an unreasonable strategy; it wasn’t during the original JCPOA. But that was at a time when Iran was months to years from having enough enriched uranium for a single bomb. Today, Iran is only days away.

Trump may well be on his way to getting a deal with Iran over its nuclear program. But whether it passes the test will depend on its details.

Jonathan Panikoff is the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council and a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East on the US National Intelligence Council.

The post From A to F, here’s how to grade a possible nuclear deal with Iran appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Should the officials return to negotiations, Washington must acknowledge the ideological motivations underpinning Iran’s nuclear ambitions beyond enrichment levels, centrifuge counts, and sunset clauses.

What US President Donald Trump’s administration might overlook is that Iran’s nuclear program is not simply about energy or military deterrence—it is a tool for advancing a revolutionary ideology. Since 1979, the Islamic Republic has operated along two strategic tracks: exporting its Shia revolutionary doctrine and establishing influence through networks like the “Axis of Resistance.” This expansion is not limited to the Middle East—it includes initiatives in Africa and Latin America, where Iran quietly builds ideological and military infrastructure.

At the core of this ideology is an enduring hostility toward the United States and an obsession with the destruction of Israel. This hostility has been cultivated, promoted, and practiced by both Supreme Leaders, beginning with Rouhollah Khomeini’s Friday prayer pulpit in Jamaran to Ali Khamenei’s headquarters in Pasteur and millions of social media followers. After forty-six years of its existence, we have also seen that all presidents within the regime—reformists as well as hardliners alike—have adhered to these tenets of the revolution.

The regime sees both countries not just as geopolitical threats, but as ideological antitheses. The United States, “the Great Satan,” symbolizes liberal democracy, capitalism, religious pluralism, and gender equality. Israel, “the Little Satan,” presents a unique and intolerable affront: a sovereign Jewish state thriving in the heart of what hardliners see as Islamic land.

For Iran’s leadership, Israel is not merely a rival; it is the primary obstacle to their ideological vision of regional domination. As Khomeini declared and Khamenei later invoked, the position on Israel is tantamount to a cancerous tumor that must be eradicated. The Jewish state’s very existence undermines their belief in a historical and religious destiny that dates back to the Islamic conquests of the seventh century.

Western negotiators cannot dismiss the regime’s rhetoric. For decades, paired chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” have echoed across Iranian political, educational, and religious institutions. Famously, the regime erected a public billboard with a clock counting down to the destruction of Israel. Even during what was supposed to be friendlier times, post-Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the heels of the nuclear agreement, Khamenei declared that Israel would not exist in 25 years and triggered an eruption of “death to America chants” among hundreds of his disciples.

The leadership of the Islamic Republic may change its behavior toward the West, but as they keep reminding the world, their intentions remain constant. Khamenei relented and in a shift of policy which can be explained as “taqiyyah” (religious dissimulation),  permitted negotiations with the Trump administration.

But his enduring defiance of Washington was apparent, declaring that “the difference between the Iranian nation and others is that it has the courage to say the truth that America is an aggressor, a liar, a deceiver … therefore, it says “death to America,” but others do not have the courage to state these facts.”  

It’s imperative that the United States does not regard Supreme Leader Khamenei’s fatwa against nuclear weapons as an insurance policy. While fatwas are powerful religious principles for adherents of Islam, they are reversible, and Tehran has a track record in the use of deception and religious justifications for such strategic reversals.

History has demonstrated the malleability of fatwas and how they can undermine any agreement based on their supposed permanence. Just recently, Khamenei reversed his long-standing opposition to negotiations with the United States—an unfathomable decision for a leader who has been outspokenly enraged by the first Trump administration’s alleged involvement in the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani.

The concepts of taqiyyah and “khod’eh” (strategic deceit) are deeply embedded in the regime’s political playbook and play a role in this malleability. These tools allow the regime to maintain flexibility in negotiations and justify sudden policy shifts with religious cover.

Khomeini favored “khod’eh” back in 1978, when, from exile, he made glorious promises to the citizens: “The future government of Iran will be a democratic government in which religion has no role in government.” Later, he confessed that this and other promises were all “khod’eh.”

Khamenei, on the other hand, favors taqiyyah. In a 2001 Friday prayer, Khamenei clearly stated that “taqiyyah is one of our religious principles; where a Muslim’s life or the interests of Islam are at risk, taqiyyah must be practiced.” By allowing nuclear negotiations, Khamenei has certainly put this policy into practice and shifted Tehran’s political positions regarding the West.

Western analysts must also examine the inconsistencies in Iran’s domestic energy strategy, raising questions about the declared civilian purpose of their nuclear development. Despite being a top global exporter of oil and gas, Iran regularly experiences power shortages. If nuclear energy were truly intended for peaceful, civilian use, we would expect to see investments that alleviate domestic needs. Instead, the regime channels resources into expanding nuclear infrastructure with ambiguous or secretive intent.

Ultimately, the defining question missing from nuclear negotiations across both Democratic and Republican administrations is not about centrifuge counts, enrichment levels, or the range of missiles. Nor is it about whether Iran will have the means to carry out a nuclear attack against Israel.

The central question for US negotiators is intent: Is the Islamic Republic willing to renounce its dangerous objective of eliminating Israel? Can it ever recognize Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign, Jewish state?

So far, every signal—from public rhetoric to foreign policy strategy—suggests the answer is no. Until Western leaders are willing to confront this reality, any agreement based on technical constraints, rather than ideological transformation, will be both fragile and dangerously naïve.

Marjan Keypour Greenblatt is an advisory board member of the Atlantic Council’s Iran Strategy Project and New Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI) and the founder and director of the Alliance for Rights of All Minorities (ARAM).

The post Beyond the bomb: Ideology as the engine of Iran’s nuclear doctrine appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Strong words from the US president, directing a clear message to a strategic threat in the Middle East that the advancement of its nuclear program would evoke severe repercussions.

Except, these are not words directed towards the regime in Iran by President Donald Trump. These are the words of then-President George W. Bush in a 2001 communique to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. That bid to end Tripoli’s nuclear program would ultimately prove successful, and in 2003, Gaddafi voluntarily renounced the program and gave up the country’s stockpile of chemical and biological weapons.

Twenty-one years later, the nuclear disarmament of Libya serves as a model for the United States, one that Trump seeks to replicate in current negotiations with the Islamic Republic.

Senator Tom Cotton, the third-ranking Republican in the US legislature and chair of the intelligence committee, said in April that Trump “prefers a deal [with Iran] like Libya cut with the United States in 2003.” Just a week later during a high-stakes White House visit, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that he wants to see a full disarmament of Iran, adding that “if it can be done diplomatically, in a full way,  the way it was done in Libya, I think that would be a good thing.”

Replicating key strategies employed in the Libyan case example could offer US negotiators the opportunity to fully realize the nuclear disarmament of Iran. After all, both Libya and Iran congruently developed and grew their nuclear programs in an attempt to establish deterrence against the Western bloc, especially towards the end of the Cold War and the era of nonalignment. To similarly reach a deal with the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program, the Trump administration must understand and draw on the lessons learned from Libya’s disarmament.

Negotiations amid shifting geopolitical dynamics

Gaddafi’s pan-Arab dreams of becoming a regional hegemon fizzled out by the 1990s, and by 1998, he announced Libya’s withdrawal from the Arab League, solidifying his international isolation. As Gaddafi started to feel the noose of sanctions and a no-fly zone tightening, he used the country’s nuclear program as a bargaining chip in his rapprochement with the West.

In this context—not too dissimilar to Iran today—Libya began negotiations with the United States amid a shift in the region’s balance of power. Libya participated in direct nuclear talks at the beginning of 2003, as Washington was still grappling with the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. At the time, then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell was already building international support for Washington’s military action against Iraq, citing Saddam Hussein’s intention to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons as a casus belli. As the weeks passed and the US invasion ensued, Gaddafi saw the toppling of Hussein as an example of what could be done to him in Libya. Just six days after US forces captured Hussein, Gaddafi renounced Libya’s nuclear program.

Like Gaddafi in 2001, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is beginning direct negotiations with the United States nearly a year and a half after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel that launched the war in Gaza. Like Gaddafi, Khamenei has grown increasingly alienated amid the collapse of Tehran’s proxy and alliance network.

With Hezbollah decimated in Lebanon, Hamas incapacitated in Gaza, and Bashar al-Assad ousted in Syria, the Islamic Republic is leveraging its nuclear program to negotiate a favorable future to solidify its regime’s survival. Coupled with President Trump’s return to “maximum pressure” against the regime, the Ayatollah seems to be heeding US threats of direct military action, just as Gaddafi did in 2001.

Khamenei understands that, with limited military and political access, cutting a deal with Washington is the only way forward without risking the regime’s survival.

A diverging outlook for the future

While Republican leaders advocate using the Libya case as a model in current nuclear negotiations with Iran, it’s important to remember that Tehran’s political calculus today is fundamentally different than Tripoli’s was some twenty years ago. In entering negotiations with the United States, Libya envisioned a future shaped by shifting values and priorities that diverged significantly from the path the Islamic Republic is currently pursuing.

By the late 1990s, Gaddafi was already grooming his second-born, Saif al-Islam, to become the country’s next leader. Al-Islam began representing the country in high-level negotiations with the United Kingdom over the Lockerbie case in the late 1990s, and later with the United States over the nuclear disarmament issue. In these negotiations, al-Islam laid out a different vision for the country’s future, one that was in direct opposition to his father’s. He wanted to open Libya up to the West and attract investment and development projects, just as other oil-rich Gulf states have successfully modeled. During negotiations, al-Islam’s opportunistic pragmatism steered the country away from his father’s ideological commitments, which only plundered the country, leaving him and his regime’s survival at stake. It was through this forward-focused vision that Libya was willing to voluntarily give up its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief and closer ties with the West.

In contrast, Iranian negotiators lack that evolved vision for the future. They represent the interests of an increasingly senile Ayatollah without a clear vision for the future of his country. Unlike al-Islam, Tehran’s leadership is not interested in ameliorating its political and international posturing; instead, their sole motivation lies in regime preservation. In negotiations, Iranian negotiators will likely try to ensure that the regime maintains some access to enrichment capabilities to preserve the perception of projected power. This will give US negotiators little “wiggle room” to convince Iran to fully give up its nuclear program, unlike in Libya which was willing to completely abandon its nuclear ambitions in exchange for a reproachment with the West. Already, Trump’s negotiation team, led by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff seems to be flip-flopping on its red lines for negotiations to accommodate Iran’s position, ranging from full disarmament to limited enrichment.

Furthermore, Iran lacks the trust Libyan negotiators had in guarantees made by the United States and the international community. This perception of trust is evidenced in al-Islam’s 2003 interview with Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, where he relayed that “America has committed itself to defend us” in exchange for Libya’s disarmament, adding that “agreements on military and security cooperation” would follow suit after signing the agreement. Yet as the years passed, Libya grew increasingly skeptical of US guarantees and the promise of sanctions relief. In a 2005 interview, Gaddafi told CNN’s Jonathan Mann that he “doesn’t think America fulfilled its commitments and pledges vis-a-vis Libya,” adding that “Libya has not been rewarded for the good service that it did for world peace.”

Twenty years later, Iran seems to have learned from Libya’s example to remain skeptical of US guarantees, including the promise of sanctions relief and the preservation of their nuclear program short of weaponization. Moreover, Trump’s 2018 unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), even after multiple International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports confirmed Iran’s compliance with the agreement, has only reinforced hardliners’ narrative that the United States cannot be trusted. In fact, in the wake of the US withdrawal from the JCPOA, the Islamic Republic weakened moderates and reformists within Iran who had initially supported the deal, like President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Additionally, the domestic conditions that allowed Gaddafi to accept the deal without risking his projection of strength lie in the public transparency, or lack thereof, of Libya’s nuclear program. When Gaddafi gave up his stockpiles and centrifuges, little was known about the scale of Tripoli’s enrichment and nuclear development. The IAEA found out only after the signing of the deal that Libya was enriching weapons-grade uranium up to 80 percent. This posturing allowed Gaddafi to maneuver on his ideological commitment to anti-Western resistance. On the other hand, Iran has been very vocal about their country’s nuclear program and has leveraged the program to promote and export the Islamic revolution’s ideology in the region. Because of this, Iranian negotiators will have less of an incentive to fully disarm the nuclear program as they risk weakening the Islamic Republic’s projection of power in the region.

The way forward

Still, there’s an opportunity for US negotiators to “seal the deal” on Iran’s nuclear program and replicate the success of Libya’s disarmament. While both regimes remain self-interested in preserving their power, it will be up to Iran to follow Gaddafi’s example in giving up its reliance on advanced weapons development and a network of proxies to carry out its political bargaining. Without an evolved vision for the country’s future, one that reflects the political will of Iranians, any deal risks being spoiled by a change of administration or Iranian leadership.

Drawing on the Libya example, US negotiators will need to work to influence the regime’s cost-benefit analysis, one that signals to the Ayatollah that his nuclear program is in direct opposition to the longevity of his regime, just as it had done with Gaddafi. Doing so will depend heavily on establishing trust and including ironclad security guarantees for US interests, as well as sanctions relief for Iran. Already, Trump has signaled his intent to follow through on his threat of direct military action by positioning six B-2 bombers, roughly 30 percent of the US Air Force’s stealth bomber fleet, on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, in a direct show of willingness to act militarily against Tehran.

In the meantime, Trump has given an explicit two-month deadline to reach an agreement on the nuclear issue. While the Libya deal took nearly three times as long, negotiators now have the opportunity to reshape the strategic balance of power in the region, one in favor of peace, security, and prosperity. Still, the US administration must understand that Libya’s disarmament was the exception, not the standard. Threading the needle between both cases is what could allow negotiators the opportunity to replicate Libya’s success.

Yaseen Rashed is the assistant director of media and communications at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs and a Libya analyst.  

The post From Tripoli to Tehran: Lessons from Libya in US-Iran nuclear talks appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On April 11, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer was quoted in a Politico article entitled, “Trump May Be Triggering the Fastest Nuclear Weapons Race Since the Cold War.” In discussing US extended deterrence, Soofer is quoted saying, “What makes the South Koreans nervous is the fear that we wouldn’t risk San Francisco to save Seoul.”

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Trump aims to secure peace in Ukraine as part of a broader shift involving a reduced US commitment to Europe and a strategic pivot toward Asia. This goal is actually very much in line with longstanding United States foreign policy. However, with Putin’s Russia now an openly expansionist power and European nations dangerously weakened by decades of defense sector complacency, this is not the ideal time for an American withdrawal.

In the current climate of mounting international instability, maximum Western unity is required. This is essential in order to avert a descent into the geopolitical jungle and prevent the emergence of a new security environment shaped by the Kremlin where the rule of law is replaced by brute force. It is therefore in US interests to maintain Ukraine’s military strength as a bulwark against Russia while Europe rearms.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Putin has repeatedly signalled that he views the complete subjugation of Ukraine as only the first step toward reasserting Russian hegemony over the wider region. He has placed his entire country on a war footing, openly claims to be returning “historically Russian lands,” and declares his intention to establish a new multipolar world order. If Putin is allowed to succeed in Ukraine, his position will become far stronger, while Europe will be more vulnerable than ever. There will then be little to prevent him from achieving his wider objectives.

Trump’s obvious haste to exit Ukraine is now encouraging the Russian dictator to pursue his most maximalist war aims. These include the outright annexation of five Ukrainian regions representating around twenty percent of the entire country, and the international isolation of the remaining Ukrainian state, which would be left neutral, disarmed, and defenseless. In such circumstances, it would only be a matter of time before Putin completed his conquest.

The destruction of Ukraine would set a disastrous precedent that would undo many decades of progress in international relations and mark a return to the diplomatic standards of the nineteenth century, complete with empires, invasions, and annexations. Putin himself would be emboldened to acquire more “historically Russian lands,” while his fellow autocrats in Beijing, Tehran, and beyond would draw the obvious conclusions and follow suit. Failure to confront one aggressive dictatorship would give rise to many more.

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Some in Washington believe that by appeasing Putin in Ukraine, they can convince Russia to ally with the United States against China. This is dangerously naive and fails to appreciate the strength of the current strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing. China has played an important supporting role in the invasion of Ukraine and sees the current war as an opportunity to undermine the West. As long as Russia can deliver geopolitical success, cooperation between the two countries will continue to deepen.

In contrast, Russian defeat in Ukraine would set off alarm bells in Moscow and Beijing, causing both countries to reassess the nature of their partnership. Many Russian leaders in particular would become increasingly concerned over their growing dependence on China. With this in mind, it would probably make more sense for US officials to maintain or even increase their support for Ukraine if they are serious about creating the long-term conditions for closer cooperation with Russia in the coming confrontation with China.

Perhaps the gravest and most far-reaching geopolitical consequence of a Putin-friendly peace in Ukraine would be the spread of nuclear weapons. In 1994, Ukraine gave up the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the US, and the UK. These assurances have since proved worthless. To make matters worse, Russia has repeatedly used nuclear blackmail during the past three years to intimidate Ukraine’s Western allies and enable the invasion.

The lessons from Ukraine’s unilateral nuclear disarmament and Russia’s subsequent nuclear bullying are painfully clear: Any country that wishes to avoid a similar fate must acquire nuclear weapons of their own. This grim reality is likely to spark a new nuclear arms race, with governments from Berlin and Warsaw to Seoul and Tokyo already reportedly exploring their options. If the US backs a pro-Russian peace deal in Ukraine, unprecedented nuclear proliferation will become virtually inevitable.

It is still far too early to pass judgment on Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine, but the potentially disastrous consequences of a bad deal are already clear. Any peace on Putin’s terms would discredit the entire Western world and signal the dawn of a dangerous new era in global affairs marked by mounting instability, international aggression, and the looming threat of nuclear war.

This calamitous outcome can be avoided by backing Ukraine militarily and providing the country with the kind of NATO-style security guarantees that can prevent further Russian aggression and secure peace in Europe. Anything less will merely serve as a pause before the next stage in Russia’s war against the West and the unraveling of the current world order.

Oleksandr Merezhko is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament for the Servant of the People Party and Chair of the Ukrainian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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The following day, he repeated the assertion to the BBC: “Every strategic kind of infrastructure, American and NATO infrastructure, which we have on our soil is strengthening the inclination of the US and the North Atlantic Alliance to defend this territory.”

Duda’s remarks epitomize growing uncertainty, or even nervousness, among Central Europe’s political elites, in light of an abrupt shift (glass half empty) or at least ambiguity (glass half full) of US foreign policy under Donald Trump’s presidency.

The role of nuclear deterrence in the wider debate on Europe’s autonomous defense capabilities has become a hot topic in several capitals, especially after the recent cooling of transatlantic relations. European leaders have more or less openly expressed their concerns and misgivings about the United States’ reliability as a NATO ally.

However, in the Polish case, the ongoing discussion on the future of military cooperation with the United States has a strong domestic undercurrent.

The ruling liberal coalition, headed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, has always been more inclined to reinforce ties with European Union (EU) partners, partially and implicitly at the expense of Poland’s bilateral bond with the United States.

Hence, for instance, the Polish government’s efforts to reinvigorate the Weimar Triangle (a diplomatic format comprising Poland, France, and Germany), as well as its more sympathetic approach to the intentions of Paris and Berlin to render Europe more autonomous—both politically and militarily—and less dependent on Washington.

Conversely, the previous Law and Justice party government under Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki maintained strained relations with Brussels and kept a critical attitude toward Germany. At the same time, it enjoyed a thriving relationship with both the Trump and Biden administrations in Washington.

Today, the right-wing opposition harshly chastises the coalition in power for its “excessively pro-European tilt,” accusing Tusk of deliberately trying to “push America out of Europe,” in tandem with his German and French colleagues. On the other hand, government officials and majority members of parliament lambast their political rivals for being “blindly Trumpian.” This divergence is one of the main themes of the upcoming presidential election in Poland, the first round of which is scheduled for May 18. In this election, the pro-European mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, will compete with the pro-American conservative candidate, Karol Nawrocki. (My apologies for the rather simplistic definitions, but they largely reflect the two contenders’ foreign policy views.)

Therefore, the Polish president’s recent statements should be interpreted in a broader context of internal politics. Duda, elected ten years ago on a moderately conservative ticket and constitutionally barred from a third term, has been remarkably pro-American during his time in office. And since Trump’s second inauguration, he has been adamant about the necessity of upholding excellent relations with the United States.

In the above-mentioned interviews, Duda was subtle enough to simultaneously praise French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent suggestion of unfolding the French atomic umbrella over other European NATO members. Nevertheless, the Polish president’s message was straightforward: Nowadays, we need US military presence on NATO’s eastern flank more than ever—even in the extreme and apparently provocative form of nuclear warheads. It was a message aimed as well at the domestic audience and the government: You may dislike Trump’s policies, and in particular his animus toward the EU, but turning our back on the United States now would be preposterous and suicidal. For Duda and his fellow Polish right-wingers, European “autonomy” remains a mirage, an intriguing yet elusive ambition, at least for the time being.

In a nutshell: it’s not a choice between Trump’s nukes and Macron’s umbrella. Poles would be happiest having both.

Marek Magierowski is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and the director of strategy for the Poland program at the Freedom Institute in Warsaw. He previously served as Poland’s ambassador to the United States and to Israel.

The post Why Poland’s president wants US nuclear weapons appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In hindsight, it is now clear that the threat posed by Russian aggression in Ukraine could have been eliminated almost immediately. As soon as Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the illegal annexation of Crimea in early 2014, Ukraine could have declared war and ordered its military to defend the peninsula. Putting NATO forces on alert would have further cooled the heads of the more hawkish Russian officials in the Kremlin.

This did not happen. Instead, the international community stood by and watched the Russian invasion unfold, while Ukraine’s Western partners advocated passivity and cautioned Kyiv against doing anything that might risk provoking Putin. The opportunity to end Russia’s invasion in the early stages was therefore missed, paving the way for a series of further Kremlin escalations that ultimately led to the full-scale invasion of 2022.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Over the past eleven years, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has done serious damage to the foundations of the international security system. It has undermined the inviolability of international borders that was first established in the aftermath of World War II. Russia’s invasion has also seriously discredited the cause of nuclear disarmament, with Ukraine’s 1994 decision to surrender its vast nuclear arsenal now widely recognized as one of the costliest mistakes in modern history.

Given the global implications of any negotiated settlement reached over Russia’s war in Ukraine, it is vital that the entire peace process focus on Russia’s existing international commitments. These include the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and Moscow’s recognition of Ukraine’s 1991 borders. After all, what is the point of signing any new treaties with Russia if Moscow refuses to acknowledge or adhere to the terms of the many agreements and documents it has previously signed?

At stake is the credibility of the entire treaty system governing international relations, such as the 1969 Vienna Convention. Known as the “treaty on treaties,” the Vienna Convention sets out clear guidelines for how international treaties should be drafted, defined, amended, and interpreted. Russia’s invasion poses a similarly grave threat to the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which confirmed the principle of territorial integrity.

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It is also important that the peace process specifically address the issue of nuclear non-proliferation. By giving up the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal in the 1990s, Ukraine rendered an unparalleled service to the cause of global security. Over the past three decades, this unilateral Ukrainian step in support of nuclear non-proliferation has translated into savings worth trillions of dollars for countries around the world.

Unfortunately, however, the security commitments that Ukraine believed it had received in the Budapest Memorandum have proved worthless. Instead, Russia has launched the largest European invasion since World War II, bringing untold death and devastation to Ukraine.

Adding insult to injury, the Kremlin has used nuclear blackmail against non-nuclear Ukraine as a tool to enable the invasion and deter the West from providing Kyiv with desperately needed military aid. Understandably, many in Ukraine now feel they have every right to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty unless the country is able to obtain genuine security guarantees.

A bad peace deal will compound the damage that Russia’s invasion has already done to the current international security architecture. It would legitimize international aggression and set a dangerous precedent that could have catastrophic consequences for global stability. In order to avoid this, Western leaders should return to Russia’s existing international treaty obligations with regard to the sanctity of borders and the use of force.

Crucially, Ukraine must also receive credible long-term security guarantees that can prevent any repeat of the current Russian invasion in the years to come. Failure to do so will set the stage for a new era of geopolitical lawlessness that will be felt far beyond the violated borders of Ukraine.

Ihor Smeshko is a Ukrainian politician and former head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence and Security Service.

Further reading

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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Could it be true, as some reports on social media indicated, that the Islamic Republic of Iran would soon announce that its eighty-five-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was in a coma? If so, it would have far-reaching consequences, as Khamenei has been the most prominent purveyor of his country’s most odious policies: “Death to America,” “Death to Israel,” and the development of a nuclear program to advance both goals (not to mention its ban on uncovered women).

The instability that typically accompanies authoritarian succession would be magnified by three other major setbacks for the Middle East’s most disruptive power. Since September, Israel has decapitated and degraded Tehran’s proxy forces Hezbollah and Hamas, killing the leaders of both groups. In late October, Israel penetrated and took down Iran’s Soviet-made air defenses, and earlier that month Israel’s air defenses (deployed alongside those of the United States and others) intercepted or rendered harmless hundreds of Iranian missiles.

The rumors about Khamenei’s imminent demise proved untrue. However, what is true is that the long-formidable Islamic Republic of Iran—after spending decades building proxies, manufacturing ballistic missiles, and developing nuclear capabilities—is reeling from Israel’s military successes and its own vulnerabilities.

Iran’s new problems are already yielding knock-on benefits for the West’s unfolding contest with the “axis of aggressors”—China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Strikes on Iran’s manufacturing facilities have reportedly interrupted its supply of missiles to Russia for the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine. Tehran is also reportedly pleading with Moscow for urgent replenishment of its air defenses, at a time when the Kremlin itself may be running short of these systems.

Iran hasn’t been this weak in more than two decades: almost naked defensively from air attack, its proxies unable to retaliate effectively against Israel, and its advanced weaponry unable to reliably penetrate Israeli and US air defenses. Tehran may even lack the air-defense capability to defend its nuclear-related facilities, tempting some to wonder whether now might be the moment to strike them.

What all that adds up to is a potential gift and challenge for President-elect Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who already have spoken at least three times since Trump’s election. It is also a test for the presidential transition from the Biden administration to the Trump administration, as one group of officials passes to the other its analysis of the risks and opportunities regarding Iran.

Western officials say Netanyahu regards this moment as a window of opportunity—one that might not reemerge—to neutralize or significantly set back Iran’s existential threat to Israel, which would be even more menacing should Tehran obtain deliverable nuclear weapons.

For the dealmaker Trump, who has declared time and again that Iran will never deploy a nuclear weapon on his watch, this moment provides a chance to either participate in a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear sites or use the threat of doing so to negotiate a far better deal than anyone has reached with Iran previously.

Trump might now be able to go beyond the Obama administration’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed in 2015, the aim of which was to limit Tehran’s nuclear capabilities, and beyond renewing the “maximum pressure” campaign of his first term. Given Iran’s current weakness, the incoming US president could try to press Tehran to agree, in exchange for economic relief, not only to abandon its nuclear program but also to cease its support for the proxies and terrorist groups that have destabilized the Middle East and beyond for decades.

The reported meeting last week between billionaire Trump confidant Elon Musk and Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, which was apparently not coordinated with the Biden administration but almost certainly was held with Trump’s approval, suggests that the president-elect senses this opportunity and wants to explore whether there’s a chance for an early win.

The consensus among experts and officials here is that a Trump administration would bring the president-elect’s characteristic unpredictability to the Middle East, with options ranging from Trump bombing Iran to him showing up in Tehran to negotiate with its leadership.

Given that in his first term Trump ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and given US intelligence reports revealing that Tehran has in turn tried to assassinate Trump, the stage is set for just the sort of high-stakes drama the president-elect savors.

The new Trump administration is probably months away from updating the National Security Strategy that it published back in 2017. The new document will wrestle with a landscape far more dangerous than that of Trump’s first term: wars in Europe and the Middle East, rising tensions with China, and an accelerating battle for technology’s commanding heights in the era of artificial intelligence. What’s also new are some ten thousand North Korean troops in Russia, underscoring the expanded military and defense-industrial cooperation among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

Iran’s recent setbacks make it the weakest link in this anti-American axis.

Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in September, President Joe Biden said, “The United States is clear: We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.” Beyond that, I am told that if US intelligence showed that Iran is crossing the nuclear-weapons threshold, the Biden administration has developed a plan that it would execute to take out Iran’s entire nuclear infrastructure. US forces have the bunker-busting bombs to do it and the heavy bombers to execute the strikes. In a clear signal to Tehran, US military forces demonstrated as much on October 16, when US Air Force B-2 bombers conducted precision strikes against five hardened underground weapons storage locations in areas of Yemen controlled by the Houthis, Iran’s proxies in the country.

Given US capability, Israeli opportunism, and Iranian vulnerability, some experts here speculated about whether the preternaturally cautious Biden administration might revisit its own reluctance to hit Iran. The consensus is that the president won’t strike unless Iran shows it has crossed the nuclear-weapons threshold, something that US officials say they would be able to discern.

Whatever Iran’s external vulnerabilities, US and regional experts believe Iran’s religious leadership and revolutionary guards face no serious threat from domestic opposition, which has been successfully repressed and remains divided. Should the supreme leader die soon, these experts wager that he would be replaced by his fifty-five-year-old son Mojtaba, though it is also possible that the IRGC could gain more power and influence in any post-Khamenei scenario.

Pessimism has always been the safest bet at times like this in the Middle East, particularly following Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, the brutal Israeli war in Gaza that has followed, and the expanded conflict in Lebanon that has followed that. Carnage begets carnage.

Yet there is also an opportunity to defang Iran. If the incoming Trump administration isn’t distracted by deporting immigrants and purging perceived enemies in the US military, judiciary, and intelligence services, then it can apply a mixture of negotiations and military means to press Tehran, and thus advance the peace efforts that it pioneered during its first term through the Abraham Accords.

It’s hard to imagine a more compelling start for Trump 2.0, one that would confound his critics and seize early geopolitical momentum for his second term.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X: @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

The post Dispatch from the desert: Trump’s first global test is Iran appeared first on Atlantic Council.

But that’s exactly what Washington is facing right now, as the comprehensive modernization of the US nuclear triad continues. Despite warnings from top national security officials, important improvements to NC3 have been fragmented; in 2017, then US Strategic Command Commander General John Hyten testified that “NC3 is my biggest concern when I look out towards the future.”

An important part of the United States’ NC3 is space-based equipment, such as communications and early warning satellites. Efforts to modernize these space-based components have started, such as eliminating exploitable cyber and supply chain vulnerabilities and reducing overreliance on a small number of satellites. These efforts are part of the Department of Defense’s work to deploy a resilient, hybrid architecture to support all national security space missions. But the Department of Defense’s efforts so far have not focused enough on NC3, and it is not clear that the modernizations currently underway will meet the stringent requirements for nuclear surety.

The United States needs to ensure it has a secure and effective NC3 because of the devolving threat environment challenging nuclear surety, as China is aiming to join Russia as a nuclear peer of the United States at the same moment that Moscow and Beijing are strengthening their counterspace capabilities.

Evolving threats

The geopolitical situation has fundamentally shifted since space-based NC3 systems were first deployed in the 1960s. The United States and the Soviet Union pursued strategic arms control, sought to constrain the dangers of inadvertent use, and often considered limited nuclear use to be easy to prevent so long as overall strategic deterrence held fast. Today, two evolving threats pose new challenges for NC3.

First, China is improving the quality and quantity of its nuclear arsenal, which raises the two-nuclear-peer problem: NC3 must now enable the United States to deter or, if deterrence fails, restore deterrence against, two nuclear peers—Russia and China—that may attack the United States or its allies in coordination, in sequence, or in overlapping timeframes. Beijing may also lack understanding of, or appreciation for, the idea that deliberate attacks on NC3 constitute a “red line” (meaning an unacceptable action that could trigger a nuclear war). Unlike Russia (at least during the Cold War), China has avoided arms control talks, has only recently deployed missile warning/missile tracking satellites, and may see value in uncertainty over red lines.

Second, it is imperative that NC3 better cope with the growing potential of limited nuclear use, given Beijing’s evolving nuclear doctrine and recent reports that raise concerns about what Moscow might do with its weapons, including the possibility of it deploying a nuclear weapon in space.

Countering Russia and China in space

Space systems provide three essential NC3 capabilities: missile warning, assured communications, and nuclear detonation detection. Infrared sensors on space-based missile warning can detect missile launches worldwide and indicate an attack first. The Space-Based Infrared System currently provides missile warning, and several complex upgrades have begun. Assured, survivable communications are essential for the president to convene with senior leaders and command and control nuclear forces globally. Today, the Advanced Extremely High-Frequency system provides communication links for nuclear command and control; this system is to be augmented and then replaced by the Evolved Strategic Satellite system during the 2030s. Finally, the US Nuclear Detonation Detection System supports adaptive planning in the event of a nuclear conflict using sensors across several satellites to locate nuclear detonations in the atmosphere and space.

But much more needs to be done, as Chinese and Russian counterspace capabilities increasingly challenge the ability of space-based NC3 to deliver nuclear surety. For instance, if Russia wanted to disable satellites currently supporting Ukraine, it would only need to detonate one nuclear weapon in low-Earth orbit (LEO). A high-altitude nuclear detonation would raise radiation in LEO, causing failure in as little as weeks of most, if not all, LEO satellites that have not been specifically hardened against this nuclear-pumped radiation. Direct financial damages could approach five hundred billion dollars, and potentially over three trillion dollars in overall economic impact. With Russia apparently on the verge of violating its Outer Space Treaty obligations by orbiting a nuclear weapon, this scenario is no longer hypothetical. The United States must counter this daunting challenge multidimensionally, including by ensuring that LEO satellites supporting NC3 address high-altitude nuclear detonation threats.

Meanwhile, China’s new Aerospace Force now fields a range of significant and comprehensive counterspace capabilities, including satellites with rendezvous-and-proximity and robotic arm capabilities in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO). This is particularly threatening, as Chinese counterspace assets could grab noncooperative satellites belonging to its adversaries, including crucial US NC3 satellites in GEO. For its part, Russia has long developed doctrine and capabilities to target US satellites, including NC3 systems. Russia is also fielding several counterspace systems, such as Nudol direct-ascent antisatellite missiles. Moscow tested this system against a defunct Russian satellite in November 2021, creating thousands of pieces of potentially lethal LEO debris that still threaten spacecraft and astronauts.

How the US can ensure nuclear surety

Many of the Department of Defense’s bureaucratic structures that have acquired current NC3 systems have changed. Primary acquisition responsibility for space-based NC3 systems is now divided between the Space Systems Command, the Space Development Agency, and the Missile Defense Agency. None of these acquisition organizations are focused on nuclear surety, and this structure makes it more difficult for the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center to meet its overall responsibility to acquire and sustain the NC3 weapons system. A hybrid national security space architecture with commercial, international, and government systems clearly benefits most missions but is not necessarily optimal for NC3.

Before overly committing to a hybrid architecture for space-based NC3, the Department of Defense should better understand how new approaches can be certified to meet stringent nuclear surety requirements. In particular, it must consider the benefits and drawbacks of disaggregated nuclear communications, and it should carefully assess how proliferated space and ground architectures, such as the Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution and Rapid Resilient Command and Control, can integrate data from many systems. If proliferated LEO architectures cannot be made sufficiently resilient to nuclear attack at an acceptable cost, then the Pentagon should not entrust these systems with the crucial NC3 mission.

The United States must field space-based NC3 that matches today’s and tomorrow’s threats, appropriately harnesses hybrid national security space architectures to strengthen deterrence, and meets nuclear surety requirements across a range of increasingly challenging scenarios. The Department of Defense should recognize the challenges and incompatibilities it faces in rapidly and simultaneously modernizing space-based NC3 and fielding an overall hybrid national security space architecture. It should not rush to deploy space-based NC3 that is not well integrated, suffers from avoidable supply chain and cybersecurity vulnerabilities, or contains other weaknesses that adversaries and hackers could exploit during the decades in which the next generation of space-based NC3 is likely to operate.

Peter L. Hays is an adjunct professor of space policy and international affairs at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, senior fellow for the Prague Security Studies Institute, space policy advisor for the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, and senior associate (nonresident) for the Aerospace Defense and Missile Defense Projects at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Sarah Mineiro is the founder and CEO of Tanagra Enterprises, a defense, intelligence, space, science, and technology consulting firm. 

This article was adapted from the authors’ previously published issue brief, “Modernizing space-based nuclear command, control, and communications.”

The post How the US can counter Russian and Chinese nuclear threats in space appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On October 16, Matthew Kroenig, Vice President and Senior Director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, was quoted in an article for the Wall Street Journal titled “Nuclear-War Risks Rise Again, Stoked by Global Conflicts” by Laurence Norman. In the article, Dr. Kroenig was cited as a Commissioner on the Strategic Posture Commission and argued that nuclear nonproliferation can hold, so long as the United States adopts an appropriate nuclear strategy and fields additional nuclear forces to assure US allies.

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The post Kroenig quoted in Wall Street Journal on global nuclear nonproliferation appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Iran’s advanced missile capabilities pose a threat not only to Israel and the United States’ Arab allies, but to US and partner forces throughout the Middle East and beyond. Graphic courtesy of Design by Soapbox.

The wild swings in US policy toward Iran over the last decade have directly helped speed Iran’s malign influence in the Middle East and significant progress toward a nuclear weapon.

Iran is a deeply ideological regime unlikely to change its fundamental outlook on the world. But the geostrategic context has changed over the last two decades: Iran’s foreign ties are now so bolstered and buoyed, particularly by China, that isolating Tehran is far more difficult than ever before. These circumstances demand a bipartisan, long-term strategy that can span administrations.

The weapons, capabilities, and finances of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran’s other proxies have benefited from sanctions evasion and weak enforcement, allowing Tehran to funnel probably hundreds of millions of dollars to its proxy militias. Illicit oil sales to China have earned the regime around eighty billion dollars.

Iran has advanced close to the nuclear-weapon threshold and has come to believe it can defy international warnings regarding its nuclear activities with impunity. Since the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal (aka the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) in 2018, Tehran has advanced its nuclear program, stockpiling uranium enriched to 60 percent, installing more advanced centrifuges, experimenting with uranium metals that could be used in making a bomb, and restricting International Atomic Energy Agency access to nuclear sites.

Over the next two decades, the United States should pursue a long-term strategy with three main goals.

Reduce Iran’s influence in the region by strengthening weak states and countering Iran’s support to proxy militias.

• What to do: Tighten sanctions enforcement, crack down on sanctions evasion by China, and go after third-party brokers—but keep sanctions sensitive to qualitative change in Iranian behavior and the effect on ordinary Iranians.
• Shore up regional weak spots, pressing Middle Eastern and global allies to take the lead on diplomatic and economic efforts.
• Continue pursuing Israeli-Saudi normalization.
• Maintain an adequate US military presence in the region and be willing to respond with appropriate force to every attack by an Iranian proxy against US and allied interests.
• What to say: Use public diplomacy to draw attention to the destructive impact that Iran’s proxies are having on the region, including in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, the Palestinian territories, and Syria.

Prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

• What to do: Recognize that attempting to revive the JCPOA is a dead end, and that “maximum pressure” cannot be the goal unto itself. Constantly relitigating both of them has impeded the development of new policy.
• Increased pressure on the regime needs to be an immediate focus of US policy—but that pressure must be connected to a strategic end, namely new negotiations aimed at placing restrictions on its nuclear program that would leave Iran at least several months from a breakout capability and would concurrently address its regional malign influence.
• Reimposing snapback sanctions and developing a credible military option against Iran’s nuclear program are important steps to increase pressure.
• What to say: The United States needs to maintain a declaratory policy, explicitly enunciated by the president, that it will not tolerate Iran getting a nuclear weapon and will use military force to prevent this development if all other measures fail.

Where possible, support the aspirations of the Iranian people to have the freedom to choose the direction of their country’s future—without pursuing regime change through military action.

• What to do: Choose policies that can be maintained for years, even though these might not have an immediately visible impact: increased funding for educational tools and access to independent media and voices, more Persian-language news.
• Use the United States’ support for the Polish Solidarity movement and other anti-communist movements during the Cold War as a model.
• On the human rights front, lead a multilateral effort to target regime officials and their family members who engage in or benefit from corruption, or who engage in human rights abuses. Work with international allies to oust Iran from United Nations institutions whose raison d’être Iran violates on a consistent basis.
• What not to say: Anything about regime change, which could push Iran in the wrong direction. It has to be up to the Iranian people to decide for themselves the future direction of their country.
• What to say: The United States and its allies need to publicize the corruption and behavior of regime officials in a way that highlights the disparity between leadership and common Iranians.

The Atlantic Council’s Iran Strategy Project brought together a bipartisan, ideologically diverse group of experts and former senior officials to develop a holistic US policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran for the next four years, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office. This report is the result of nearly two years of work by the project’s advisory committee, working group, contributors, and staff.

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The post A bipartisan Iran strategy for the next US administration—and the next two decades appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In this context, the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative (TSI) in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security conducted a cooperative research project with the US Department of State’s Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) within the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN) to better understand the extent of Russia’s nonproliferation-related IIA in three European countries: Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia. This project focused on how to identify Russian IIA and coordinate a multistakeholder response to counter these tactics, which can ultimately strengthen nonproliferation norms and regimes.

Russian information influence activities against nonproliferation

Russia relies on a range of malign tactics to complement its conventional warfare capabilities, including information manipulation. Throughout Europe, Russia creates or amplifies false narratives that support the Kremlin’s ultimate geopolitical goals: undermining unity and security in Europe and abroad.¹ These narratives attempt to evoke emotional and psychological responses from the public with the broader aim of amplifying polarization, undermining democracy, and weakening support for international norms and institutions.

Russia’s information manipulation networks—which consist of official spokespeople, state-run media, proxy websites, social media, and other entities—aim to exploit fears and sensationalize threats through a range of information influence activities (IIA), a term we use to capture the multifaceted nature of information manipulation. IIA includes disinformation, misinformation, malinformation, and propaganda (see definitions in Table 1 and a full list of key terms in Appendix I).

Russia has perfected its use of information influence activities to achieve its geopolitical goals. Through its information networks, Russia attempts to inject narratives favorable to the Kremlin.² Russia’s tactics include saturating the information space, continuously sharing false and misleading information, and amplifying preexisting narratives.³ These narratives try to damage the credibility of political institutions and instill feelings of distrust, confusion, and fear.⁴

Historically, Russia has targeted states around the world with information warfare. In Europe, topics such as inflation, migration, and energy shortages are regular targets of Russian disinformation.⁵ To amplify its IIA, Russia uses a broad network of fake pages, social media accounts, and private messaging groups. However, authentic accounts—including many within the countries that Russia is targeting—are often just as involved in these campaigns, whether they know it or not.⁶ Media outlets within targeted countries frequently pick up, repackage, and amplify Russian narratives, furthering the impact and resonance of the Kremlin’s influence.⁷

Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine in 2022 featured IIA as a prominent Kremlin tactic to augment Putin’s conventional war. Russia’s methods included frequent narratives designed to target nonproliferation norms and regimes, which continues a pattern the Soviets followed during the Cold War. These tactics mirror previous Soviet patterns of employing “active measures,” or covert propaganda and influence operations to project control surrounding CBRN weapons and erode trust in democratic institutions.⁸ As part of its active measures campaign, the Soviet Union made false allegations that the United States had developed and used biological weapons.⁹ After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia targeted the activities of the US Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program by alleging the US government employed the CTR program as a cover to develop CBRN weapons throughout Europe and Eurasia, even though the CTR program was developed to curb the possible spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) throughout the region after the Soviet Union’s collapse and included Russian participation until 2014.¹⁰

Russia continues to spread unfounded allegations that ongoing partnerships between the United States and other countries are fronts for biological weapons development programs.¹¹ Russia intensified its use of propaganda and false claims that argued Ukraine was engaged in developing biological weapons to be used against Russian civilians.¹² These efforts damage the credibility of the work conducted in legitimate research facilities, undermine public trust in these institutions, and potentially jeopardize the safety of laboratory staff.

After the re-invasion of Ukraine, Russia intensified its influence operations across Europe to sway public opinion in its favor. Many of Russia’s claims included that Moscow is seeking peace, Ukraine is inherently aggressive, the West instigated the war, and the European Union (EU) and NATO are to blame for increased tensions in the region.¹³ Russia complements its conventional war in Ukraine with information warfare to fracture Western support for Ukraine, and shore up global support from nonaligned countries within multilateral organizations.¹⁴

Impact of Russian information influence activities on nonproliferation norms

Russia’s manipulation of the information space to erode support for nonproliferation includes continued support for the Assad regime in Syria through disinformation and misinformation, despite Assad’s well-documented history of using chemical weapons against civilian populations in Syria’s civil war in the mid-2010s.¹⁵ Russia has also used the information domain to spread false and misleading information related to the Kremlin’s targeted assassination attempts with chemical weapons. This included Moscow’s attack on Russian dissidents in the United Kingdom (UK), against a former KGB agent and his daughter, as well as on its own territory against prominent dissident Alexei Navalny.¹⁶

Russia combines information influence activities with disruptive behavior in multilateral institutions, such as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to interrupt proceedings, derail procedures, and slow down investigations.¹⁷ Russian diplomats levy false accusations against nations Moscow deems hostile to stymie progress and undermine the authority of these organizations.¹⁸ These actions are not necessarily used to persuade others to accept Russia’s arguments, but instead to create doubt and confusion, undercut the unity and effectiveness of the organizations, and weaken protections of nonproliferation norms and regimes.¹⁹ Russia’s allegations include that Ukraine is concocting plans for a potential chemical attack (articulated at the OPCW in 2022),²⁰ preparing to deploy dirty bombs and nuclear weapons (UN, 2022),²¹ and using and developing biological weapons (BWC, 2022).²²

Russia’s false claims weaken accountability and verification measures established to monitor compliance with international treaties that ban CBRN weapons and regulate the legitimate use of technologies that have a dual-purpose capacity to create such weapons.²³ These claims also undermine efforts to strengthen and modernize nonproliferation norms and regimes, especially with respect to emerging technologies. Russia’s actions also distract from the Kremlin’s own harmful activities and noncompliance with nonproliferation obligations, especially Russia’s support for and use of chemical weapons, their sympathy for other regimes that have used CBRN weapons, and their escalatory rhetoric.

In several posts on state-run media and on social platforms, the Kremlin shared so-called evidence that Ukraine was developing a “dirty bomb,” an explosive device that contains radioactive material. However, the photo—depicted in Figure 1—was taken from other websites. In this instance, the photo provided as “evidence” was taken from the Russian stateowned nuclear energy company Rosatom. In Figure 2, Russia claimed the United States was providing toxic chemicals and other CBRN-related materiel to Ukraine, which indicated a “large scale provocation.” These kinds of narratives could serve as false flag scenarios for Russia’s own potential use of CBRN weapons, which would have severe consequences for nonproliferation norms in Ukraine and more broadly in Europe.

Overall, these tactics serve as tools in Russia’s toolbox to discredit and weaken the multilateral institutions and regimes that govern nonproliferation. Russia’s persistent IIA erode trust and credibility in nonproliferation, which safeguards the international community from the development and use of CBRN weapons. The effects of Russian IIA are widespread, as evidenced by the experience of three European countries: Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia. The following sections provide an overview of each country’s recent experience with Russia’s false claims associated with nonproliferation and CBRN weapons.

Slovenia

Slovenia has been an active target of Russian disinformation and information influence activities. In 2016, Russia claimed NATO would harbor a secret arsenal of nuclear weapons throughout Eastern Europe,²⁴ including in Slovenia. Russian state media organizations invested millions of dollars in Central and Eastern European countries, such as Slovenia, to influence domestic politics and exacerbate political polarization through state-run media channels, government proxies, and other systems. Many of Slovenia’s top proliferators of disinformation and other falsehoods have significant inroads and connections to Russian state-media organizations.²⁵

Several websites that maintain strong linkages to Russia and the Kremlin—including RBTH Daily, NewsFront, and Katehon—operate or are available in Slovenia and consistently post dangerous rhetoric on the EU, NATO, and the United States. Russia launched RBTH Daily, a mobile app version of its Russia Beyond service operated by the Russian state news agency that regularly publishes content in Slovenian.²⁶

In early 2023, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed on Twitter that Ukraine was secretly building a dirty bomb and included a series of photos as evidence.²⁷ One of the photos was taken directly from a 2010 public education campaign on the Slovenian Agency for Radioactive Waste’s website. In response, the Slovenian government quickly published a statement on its official website and on social media that denied Russia’s claims and stressed that nuclear waste was stored safely in the country (see Figure 3).²⁸ Slovenian government authorities responded to these Russian campaigns and attempts to undermine its credibility with facts, data, and truthful information.²⁹

Slovakia

Russia also has frequently targeted Slovakia with IIA. Within Slovakia, pro-Russia propagandists are actively working to discredit Slovakia’s allies,³⁰ including the United States, the EU, and other NATO allies to downplay Russian aggression in Ukraine, deflect blame from historical conflicts, and denigrate responses from across the Alliance. These campaigns also attempt to erode trust in and the credibility of nonproliferation norms and regimes.

For example, in May 2023, Russia spread disinformation in Slovakia regarding an alleged radiation leak as a result of an explosion of the ammunition warehouse in the Ukrainian city of Khmelnytskyi.³¹ Through its claims circulated on social media channels and with support from the Russian embassy in Slovakia, the Kremlin attempted to incite fear within targeted communities that there was a significant airborne risk of radiation spilling over into Slovakia from Ukraine.³²

In 2022, the Russian embassy in Bratislava issued several posts that claimed the United States and Ukraine were developing biological agents. The embassy—which was named by the International Republican Institute’s Beacon Project as the most virulent in circulating disinformation across Moscow’s network of diplomatic missions—alleged that the United States and Ukraine were developing biological weapons that could target specific ethnic groups, including Slavs.³³

Similar to Slovenia’s experience, the Kremlin injects pro-Russian messaging within Slovakia to amplify its geopolitical goals. One recurring target of Russian information manipulation is the bilateral defense cooperation agreement (DCA) that Slovakia signed with the United States in 2022.³⁴ After it was signed, Russian operatives began to inject falsified information that the DCA would include the deployment of nuclear weapons in Slovakia.³⁵

Slovakia’s elections in September 2023 were preceded by an influx of false and misleading messages, including those from Russia. The London-based nonprofit organization Reset recorded more than 365,000 election-related disinformation messages on Slovak social networks in the first two weeks of September, with estimates that the number would grow.³⁶

Their research found messages that violated social network terms of use and featured disinformation generated more than five times as much exposure as the average message. More than 15 percent of such content was posted by pro-Kremlin accounts.

Serbia

Serbia is one of Russia’s top targets in Eastern Europe for IIA. Serbia is deeply affected by Russian information operations that attempt to undermine perceptions of the EU, NATO, and other multilateral institutions in the region. With respect to CBRN weapons and nonproliferation, Russia has established a number of fake profiles, proxy pages, and state-run media (including Belgrade-based offices of Russia Today and Sputnik) in Serbia to share and amplify favorable stories on these issues.³⁷ Both Russia Today and Sputnik publish a constant flow of articles that relate to CBRN weapons and nonproliferation. Russia has invested resources and funds into ensuring that narratives gain a broader audience, especially in the Western Balkans, given Serbia’s relationship with Russia.³⁸ Several Russian state-sponsored or state-connected media organizations publish Serbian-language content in support of the Kremlin,³⁹ including News Front, SouthFront, Geopolitica.ru, and Katehon. For example, SouthFront has circulated several false claims, including that the OPCW neglected to share key details in their investigation on Syria’s chemical weapons program or that US accusations of Russia’s involvement in chemical attacks in Syria were an act of “whitewashing.”⁴⁰

However, even as Russian state-run media organizations maintain presences in Serbia, their most frequent tactic involves flooding the information space to see what resonates the most within local communities. Through these tactics, local media outlets in Serbia frequently repost and amplify Moscow’s claims laid out in state-run media, which has much more impact in reaching the public because many individuals in Serbia have greater trust in local media outlets. For example, on Serbian platforms, false claims include the story of the United States and Ukraine developing bats as biological weapons to attack Russians.⁴¹ These platforms include local media organizations, television broadcasters, radio stations, and others in Serbia that amplify, give credibility to, or create their own narratives that mirror the Kremlin’s priorities.

These narratives circulate beyond Serbia throughout the Western Balkans. Given the reach of Serbian media and historical connections with other nations in the region, many of the narratives related to CBRN weapons and nonproliferation that are shared in Serbia are picked up by other media organizations—including in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and North Macedonia—with great effect. Russia benefits significantly from destabilization in the Western Balkans, especially when Serbia and its neighbors do not condemn Russia’s actions within the international community. As part of its broader geopolitical strategy, Russia uses Serbian media organizations as proxies to create distrust in nonproliferation regimes while degrading broader support for global nonproliferation norms.⁴²

A strategic framework to counter Russian information influence activities

Given the scope and severity of Russian threats to nonproliferation norms in Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia, the project team developed a strategic framework for countering Russian IIA with the Department of State’s Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction. We convened private, small-group workshops with representatives from government, civil society, academia, media, think tanks, business groups, law enforcement, and other sectors in Ljubljana, Bratislava, and Belgrade in 2023.⁴³ The first series of workshops, conducted in all three cities, was designed to educate personnel who were familiar with the challenges of IIA but less knowledgeable about nonproliferation topics, especially as it relates to the risks IIA pose to the stability of nonproliferation norms and potential use of CBRN weapons. These workshops included a scenario-based exercise where attendees were asked to create a counter-messaging strategy to respond to a hypothetical disinformation campaign from an adversary that involved an anthrax leak at a secure government laboratory.⁴⁴

After these workshops were completed, the project team used the results of the discussions, our extensive research, and consultations with experts in the region to create a draft strategic framework for countering IIA. The framework is comprised of three critical elements, or pillars. As depicted in Figure 4, the three pillars are recognize, respond, and reinforce a community of practice. For the next series of workshops, the project team returned to Bratislava and Belgrade to present the draft strategic framework to similar groups of experts, both those who were present at the first workshops and new stakeholders. Participants shared their views related to the three pillars, as well as the threat of Russian IIA more generally in their countries. Their feedback was critical to finalize the strategic framework presented in this report.

These pillars reflect the central elements of establishing resilience against disinformation, misinformation, and other forms of IIA. As Figure 4 demonstrates, the pillars are mutually reinforcing. For example, members of a community of practice can help each other recognize possible Russian IIA and devise effective response strategies. Response options can be studied by the community of practice to understand strengths and identify areas for improvement. The next three chapters describe each pillar of the strategic framework in greater detail.

Recognizing information influence activities

Through its IIA, Russia attempts to distract from its own harmful actions and noncompliance with nonproliferation norms and regimes. These actions include Russia’s use of chemical agents as weapons, its support for other regimes who have deployed chemical weapons, and its threats of nuclear escalation in Ukraine. Russia’s long history of sowing doubt and confusion in public discourse by manipulating information goes beyond its borders. In Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia, Russia has perpetuated narratives designed to undermine nonproliferation norms, including those about the development and use of CBRN weapons. The first pillar in our strategic framework is recognize, which covers strategies, methods, and tools to identify IIA. This pillar is critical to promoting public awareness of—and resilience against—Russian influence.

Key principles of recognizing information influence activities

Effective tools and methods to recognize IIA are critical to fostering greater resilience and promoting critical thinking. Many governments and organizations have prepared guidelines for how to recognize disinformation, misinformation, and other types of IIA.⁴⁵ Several of these guidelines discuss the importance of verifying, authenticating, and scrutinizing information. Some tools are tailored for academic settings or for government and multilateral institution representatives.⁴⁶ However, the wider public can use many of the same tools. Common elements include the following principles:

Check the sources of the content and authenticate legitimacy

Understanding the source of a social media post or article is a critical first step in determining whether the information is reliable. Media consumers should assess whether a source is a reputable and well-established individual, organization, media outlet, or other legitimate entity. This is especially important when considering responses to nonproliferation-related information manipulation.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) produced a guide titled “Disinformation Stops with You,” which recommends several useful tactics to evaluate content, including investigating the issue with other reliable sources of information and thinking before sharing the content online.⁴⁷ CISA’s guide, built around the principles outlined in Figure 5, serves as an important tool for local communities to identify forms of foreign malign influence. Ensuring accuracy and conducting diligent fact-checking can help prevent the spread and impact of IIA.

Verify information within the article or publication

Cross-checking information through multiple reputable sources is instrumental in confirming the accuracy of content. Fact-checking websites and other digital literacy tools provide a methodical approach to validating the claims presented in an article. Fact-checking and verifying information also can serve as an important educational tool for individuals to learn how to critically assess information. Digital and media literacy exercises allow the public to make better-informed judgments on the credibility of content before sharing.

Apart from fact-checking websites, trusted networks can serve as another way to corroborate information before publishing or sharing content. During each workshop, participants frequently pointed to how often they rely on their own trusted relationships to screen information. Verifying content is an important step in mitigating the spread of falsehoods and minimizing the impact of Russian IIA.

Review the date of the publication before sharing

Prior to circulating any media online, audiences should inspect and identify the publication date of an article or post. A frequent Russian tactic includes circulating outdated information with eye-catching headlines that mislead audiences. First Draft News published a guide to corroborating false information online that recommends examining a webpage’s metadata to verify the date of the publication matches supporting sourcing elsewhere online and in print media.⁴⁸ Checking the publication date before sharing information can be a critical step in mitigating the spread of outdated, irrelevant, and sensationalized content.

Authenticate the authorship of content

Audiences should confirm the authorship of publications, especially as IIA can involve the impersonation of credible individuals or organizations.⁴⁹ Given that authors tend to publish within their area of responsibility and substantive focus, it is important to consider how the publication fits within the author’s broader expertise. Establishing the author’s identity by verifying their credentials contributes to the overall trustworthiness of the content.⁵⁰ Validating author identities is a necessary component to combat disinformation, while building trust and support for legitimate reporting.

Inspect multimedia and other content included within the post

With the development of new and emerging technologies, fabricated and doctored multimedia content appear more frequently on various publications, including social media posts and fringe website pages.⁵¹ To ensure manipulated content is properly verified, audiences should corroborate images and video to prevent manipulation through deepfakes, AI-generated photos and videos, deceptive editing, and other forms of online personalization.

Deepfake images in particular can mislead audiences to believe falsified content is real. For example, two seemingly authentic screenshots of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaking at a press conference appear in Figure 6.

Both images appear to be authentic, but upon closer examination, there are indications that the image on the right was doctored. In this instance, the image on the right is an authentic photograph, while the image on the left is an AI-generated deepfake. However, for a user who is scrolling quickly on Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter), the difference may not be easy to discern, creating an even more challenging information environment.

Similarly, IIA rely on visually compelling or sensational images and video to evoke extreme reactions from audiences. This holds especially true for CBRN-related disinformation, which can grab attention and spread rapidly online, in print and broadcast media, and through word of mouth.⁵² As new methods for misleading audiences are developed, it is imperative for the public to ensure content has not been altered, taken out of context, or misconstrued to serve ulterior interests.

Tools to detect information influence activities

In many cases, it can be difficult to detect and identify IIA as they arise, especially as Russia deploys several kinds of narratives. As local media outlets frequently parrot Russian IIA and communities battle the constant influx of propaganda, people can unintentionally share misinformation. Several tools and methods exist to help identify and verify the accuracy of information shared online.

Fact-checking and debunking websites

Fact-checking sites and debunking organizations play an important role in assessing the accuracy of information shared online. Fact-checkers often investigate and corroborate claims made in news articles, social media posts, and official government documents.

In Europe, EUvsDisinfo,⁵³ Snopes,⁵⁴ and PolitiFact are good examples of fact-checking and debunking websites.⁵⁵ In Slovenia, Oštro⁵⁶ and its fact-checking arm, Razkrinkavanje,⁵⁷ play an important role in vetting truthful information within the public domain. In Slovakia, fact-checking and debunking webpages—including Demagog.sk⁵⁸ and Infosecurity.sk⁵⁹—frequently fact-checked the statements of candidates during the September 2023 parliamentary elections. Similar organizations also exist in Serbia, including the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA),⁶⁰ FakeNews Tragač,⁶¹ and the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (KRIK).⁶² Finally, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty plays an important regional role throughout Central and Eastern Europe through its mission of sharing truthful information and independent analysis.⁶³

Reverse image search methods

Reverse image search tools are another important tactic in verifying online information. These platforms allow users to corroborate and verify the original uses and sources of images. Many reserve image search tools also provide tracing capabilities for audiences to track where the image has been circulated and whether the photos have previously been used in different contexts. In addition, reverse image search tools can determine whether questionable content has previously been used in other contexts. Similarly, in instances where images have been created and manipulated using deepfake technology, reverse image search tools are able to uncover the original sources of images and reveal inconsistencies, such as facial features, landscape backgrounds, and other details.

Several platforms including Google Images,⁶⁴ TinEye,⁶⁵ and ImageRaider⁶⁶ are examples of systems that can help individuals confirm the authenticity of visual content online. TinEye, as displayed in Figure 7, uses a database of over sixty-four billion images for users to cross-reference when photos have been used in other contexts. Given how technical CBRN-related topics can be for audiences, these tools are important to support efforts in debunking and combating the spread of Russian IIA related to nonproliferation.

Web browser extensions

As search engines become more sophisticated, browser extensions can be useful tools to help identify false and misleading information, especially on webpages that tend to share disinformation. Many extensions can analyze links and sources in real time, which provides important details on the trustworthiness of information online.

One example of a browser extension is NewsGuard, which provides ratings and detailed information about the news sites that users visit as they read through various webpages.⁶⁷ SurfSafe is another example that can help identify disinformation and other forms of IIA through highlighting tools on content posts.⁶⁸ TinEye, the aforementioned reverse image search tool, also offers a browser extension for verifying visual content in real time when visiting webpages.

Digital forensics tools

Digital forensics tools are more specialized software that can investigate and analyze sophisticated IIA. Many of these tools can comb through the metadata of websites, which can reveal important details of webpages and their creation, modification, and origins, especially in tracing links to other pages. Other tools, such as social media forensics technologies, can assist investigators in tracking the spread of disinformation, identifying key actors within information influence networks, and analyzing the extent of Russian IIA’s reach and impact.

One sample tool is InVID, a browser extension that can verify the authenticity of videos and information shared on social media.⁶⁹ The tool, as seen in Figure 8, can be used in a variety of different formats, including a browser extension and mobile phone application. Forensically is another suite of digital tools for digital forensics, including image analysis and other forms of authenticating content.⁷⁰ Both forensics analysis systems are useful in identifying manipulated content and deepfake technology.

Augmenting methods to recognize information influence activities

Our discussions with representatives in Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia demonstrated that recognizing information influence activities is an important step to counter Russian influence efforts. However, these efforts need to be supported and complemented by effective responses to these campaigns. To counter Russian IIA, the recognize pillar of our strategic framework seeks to address some of the broader strategies that may be used in understanding the threat of disinformation and other forms of malign influence activity. In Chapter 3, we discuss our second pillar, responding to Russian information influence activities, which examines best practices and recent responses to Russian IIA.

Responding to information influence activities

Through our research, we identified several key principles to consider when crafting a response to Russian IIA. These principles are reinforced by examples from the United States, as well as the experiences of individuals in Slovenia, Slovakia, Serbia, and elsewhere. The second pillar in our strategic framework is respond, which covers strategies and narratives used to counter Russian IIA. Workshop participants demonstrated these principles when asked to create a response to the anthrax exposure posited in our hypothetical scenario-based exercise described in Appendix II. Several attendees also shared insights from their experiences creating responses to real-world Russian IIA, which we discuss in this chapter.

Key principles of responding to information influence activities

When crafting a response to Russian IIA, it is important to keep several key principles in mind: prioritize transparency and concise messaging, connect the ideas to the correct audience and platforms; and determine the best person to deliver the message.

Be transparent, clear, and concise

An effective response should be factual and clear, especially when addressing scientific and technical information that can be confusing to a non-specialist audience. By using clear and concise information, complex topics such as nonproliferation or chemical weapons can be distilled into digestible language that is easy to understand. Russia recognizes that CBRN-related issues and WMD threats are often not well understood among the general community, which makes them popular topics for false narratives.

Russia’s use of emotionally charged IIA has made the need for clear responses a priority. In Serbia, CRTA’s Istinomer project is at the forefront of debunking, fact-checking, and countering Russian IIA.⁷¹ Istinomer consistently monitors disinformation and misinformation on social media to determine which narratives are resonating the most within communities. Following their analysis, Istinomer staff publish short-form posts on their platform that debunk the various claims using facts. See Figure 9 for an example of how the Istinomer team debunked false and misleading claims that mischaracterized the work of US-supported research facilities in Ukraine. In each post, the Istinomer author refutes each false and misleading claim with citations, secondary sources, interviews, and further reading material, including US government reports.

It is important for counter-messaging strategies to include these characteristics to resonate with audiences and ensure effectiveness, especially when it relates to nonproliferation-related information manipulation tactics.

Match the message to the audience and platforms

Different audiences might require tailored messaging strategies, including via different platforms. Younger audiences that receive much of their information from social media platforms may view TikTok before watching a local news broadcast. Those who spend more time driving might listen to radio news than those who commute via other means. Therefore, it is important to consider whether a counternarrative should include more visuals than text based on the intended audience and platform. Messages designed for television will require compelling audio and visual components, but messages designed for print media should focus on attention-grabbing graphics and text that clearly convey the main messages. However, all messages should include the same basic facts to promote consistency and accuracy.

Counter-messaging strategies must consider both the medium for sharing responses as well as the social media platforms themselves. For example, TikTok prioritizes short-form videos, while Instagram focuses more on photographs and other forms of visually appealing content. The combination of message and medium is especially important when considering which kinds of counter-messaging campaigns will resonate with different audiences. Two organizations in Slovenia—Danes je nov dan (Today is a new day) and Pod črto (The Bottom Line)—developed innovative methods of using storytelling to debunk false information in Slovenia using trusted voices and captivating forms of visual media. These efforts deepen the impact and reach of their organizations.⁷² One initiative, which Danes je nov dan termed Mislimetar (Figure 10), serves as an educational and entertainment mobile application that promotes media literacy and critical thinking in younger audiences.

Regional differences also are important to consider. For example, in Slovakia, workshop participants said that Facebook and Telegram are more popular than Instagram or TikTok.⁷³ In Serbia, Telegram is the most frequently used social media platform, while Facebook remains a popular platform in Slovenia. Regardless of platform, it is essential to make sure credible information is available in regional dialects in addition to the main language spoken in a country to reach the broadest possible audience.

Consider who is best to deliver the message

The best person, organization, or outlet to deliver a counternarrative will depend on the country, city, or local area that the message is intended to reach as well as the specific target audience. When asked who the trusted messengers are within their communities, workshop participants in our three countries had varying answers. In Slovakia, the police and armed forces were cited as effective messengers, whereas in Slovenia, participants said a response led by the armed forces would not be well received.

The Slovak Police Force led a popular community-centered Facebook campaign titled “Hoaxy a Podvody” (“Hoaxes and Frauds”), which began in 2018. Through its platform, the Police Force led public engagement to debunk false narratives circulating online and develop an informed and resilient citizenry.⁷⁴ In 2023, the Police Force, part of the Department of Interior, kicked off a campaign called “Hoaxy Sa Na Mňa Nelepia” (“Hoaxes Don’t Stick to Me”). To move the campaign beyond the digital world, members of the community displayed buttons and stickers in public spaces in support of counter-disinformation efforts, as seen in Figure 11. The project’s community-centric focus could be a potential model to replicate in the future.⁷⁵

Beyond responding: Proactive measures to prevent Russian information influence activities

Our discussions with representatives in all three countries demonstrated that responding alone is not enough to stop Russian IIA. Countries need to get ahead of possible Russian IIA campaigns, an observation shared by US government officials. For example, the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) established a dedicated information resilience office in 2022 to better understand the scope of information manipulation against its worldwide countering-WMD presence.⁷⁶ This includes prebunking,⁷⁷ a term that encompasses efforts to anticipate or identify IIA early and encourage resilience among citizens to inoculate them from IIA.⁷⁸ Additionally, the Department of State’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) has issued numerous reports about Russia’s attempts to spread disinformation about US and Ukrainian biosafety and biosecurity initiatives.⁷⁹ The GEC was established in 2017, but has more recently begun to explore whether sharing limited details about sensitive missions in advance can limit the effect of Russian attempts to twist facts after a mission has occurred.⁸⁰

To effectively counter Russian IIA, the respond pillar of our strategic framework takes a broad approach that incorporates elements of prebunking and early identification to promote a holistic view of response. In this way, response can be proactive or reactive, which is essential to limiting the effects of false narratives Russia spreads worldwide. In the next chapter, we describe our third pillar, reinforcing a community of practice, which encapsulates elements of the first two pillars to augment their importance to a broader audience.

Reinforcing a community of practice

A community of practice committed to identifying and countering Russian IIA is a critical component to limiting the effectiveness of Russia’s efforts to spread false messages in Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia. For our project, this community is defined broadly to ensure that all stakeholders are represented. Members of the public and private sectors, including government, military, law enforcement, academia, think tanks, nongovernmental organizations, and the media all have a role to play in recognizing and responding to Russian IIA. This third pillar in our strategic framework is reinforcing a community of practice, which covers opportunities to expand the multistakeholder community dedicated to responding to Russian IIA. In this chapter, we describe the general roles that a community of practice should serve in addition to country-specific considerations discussed throughout our workshops.

Community of practice roles

Members of the community play an important role in promoting resilience among the populations most frequently targeted by Russia’s false messages. These roles include reinforcing consistent communication, expanding social resilience, prioritizing multistakeholder engagement, and identifying methods to expand the overall community dedicated to countering Russian information influence activities.

Resource and reinforce

A vital role for the community of practice is to ensure that efforts to counter Russian IIA reach the broadest possible audience, both within a country and among its regional neighbors, when appropriate. Community members from academia and think tanks can amplify messages from government and law enforcement sources to add legitimacy to their campaigns. This cooperation requires consistent communication among the community to understand Russia’s IIA, how it affects the broader public, and what stakeholders can do to counter false narratives.

In March 2022, the Russian Defense Ministry circulated claims about US-backed Ukrainian bioweapons production efforts to justify Russia’s then-recent invasion of Ukraine.⁸¹ Officials from the People’s Republic of China and incendiary US media figures amplified these claims on a popular social media platform, Weibo.⁸² In response, prominent US officials testified before Congress about the legitimacy of US-backed research facilities in Ukraine—including those established with CTR resources—and organizations like DTRA and the GEC issued fact sheets and statements that bolstered the legitimacy of CTR’s work. Former US officials and private-sector experts wrote editorials, social media posts, and made media appearances decrying Russia’s claims, providing important alternative perspectives that bolstered official government messages. The reinforcement of the key message that the United States and Ukraine were not producing biological weapons was critical to reaching as broad an audience as possible.

Reinforcing capacity-building efforts focused on countering Russian influence efforts is a priority among stakeholders in Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia. However, interest in these issues must be matched by resources to maintain and create new counternarratives. Many of the workshop participants shoulder numerous work responsibilities in addition to tracking Russian IIA. One benefit of an engaged community of practice is the ability to cooperate on messaging strategies and share the resource burden, including the time it takes to craft engaging, informative narratives and discern the best platform(s) on which to disseminate these narratives. When new approaches are needed to respond to new or evolving Russian falsehoods, an active community can also ensure that key messages from past campaigns are carried over to promote consistency. Furthermore, a coordinated approach among stakeholders to amplify key messages and reduce duplication in messaging is important to reduce confusion and promote clarity.

Enhance social resilience

The community of practice should also focus on enhancing social resilience through public messaging and public education campaigns. While it is more difficult to reach people who espouse aggressively favorable views of false claims, evidence-based messages can influence those who are more open-minded.⁸³ Though it might not be possible to stop Russia’s IIA, a resilient public might be less susceptible to believing or spreading false claims.

Enhancing social resilience emphasizes whole of society responses to counter Russian malign influence activities. This is a deliberately broad goal, but given the complexity of the media landscape, it is difficult to achieve.⁸⁴ A good starting point is by working through trusted messengers to understand whether false narratives have achieved support in specific parts of the community, and why those narratives were persuasive. Local journalists are especially critical because they are in closer contact with parts of the community that national outlets might not understand as well. In this way, local journalists can both contribute to an understanding of the pervasiveness of false messages and what could be effective in changing minds.

Media literacy is another critical component of enhancing resilience. Critical thinking skills that teach students to question everything they read can promote longer-term outcomes than identifying correct and incorrect statements.⁸⁵ Furthermore, engaging the public early and often can promote trust in the output of government data.⁸⁶ Such an approach has demonstrated benefits in countering public health-related disinformation and misinformation, and also applies to Russian IIA about biological and radiological weapons that prey on the health effects of exposure to toxic substances.

Employ multisectoral and multidisciplinary approaches

An important role of the community of practice is to promote effective methods to combat IIA through multisectoral and multidisciplinary approaches. For a complicated and technical subject such as biological weapons—a frequent target of Russia’s IIA efforts—it is critical to include scientists, public health experts, academics, and other experts in the development of responses. Communications experts should seek to translate scientific and technical information into digestible information suitable for a general audience. The Bioweapons Disinformation Monitor, a partnership between King’s College London and the Canadian government, publishes videos, fact sheets, and short reports that concisely explain false Russian narratives about biological weapons and the reasons why these claims are untrue.⁸⁷ In addition to producing concise, factual counternarratives, the website also promotes articles from other sources, such as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and foreign news sites to amplify the work of like-minded organizations in multiple sectors.⁸⁸

Identify opportunities for expansion

When considering other elements of society to incorporate into a community of practice, it is important to cast a wide net. In international relations theory, the concept of latent power refers to the broad range of resources available to a state that could contribute to greater military power.⁸⁹ Russia calls this the correlation of forces and means, which explains how Russia views its military expansion potential, but also incorporates elements of alliance relations, social cohesion, and economic stability that involve broader parts of society.⁹⁰ Although these theories have primarily military implications, the principle that all elements of a society can bolster one critical function applies directly to the fight against Russian IIA.

For example, Estonia has used a multisectoral approach to countering disinformation and misinformation since 2007, when it was subject to destructive cyberattacks that continue to present day.⁹¹ Media literacy is a core component of the curriculum in Estonian schools, and leaders from across Europe visit Estonia to learn more about their broad approach to establishing resilience to IIA.⁹² The need to go beyond traditional organizations tasked with identifying and stopping IIA also is understood in Slovakia. Participants at our second workshop in Bratislava suggested that engaging religious leaders and local labor officials to amplify counternarratives against false Russian claims could be effective because these leaders maintain the trust of their members.

Expansion also applies to promoting resilience across countries, not just in large population centers. In Slovakia and Serbia, political polarization and distrust of institutions hamper counter-messaging strategies and keep people with disparate views siloed from one another. Geographic differences exacerbate these silos. Participants in both countries noted that going beyond the capital allows one to reach disadvantaged communities that might be more affected by Russian information warfare preying on their existing views that the state does not look after their interests.

As the third pillar of our strategic framework, the community of practice plays an important role in reinforcing the efforts of the first two pillars to recognize and respond to Russian IIA. The linkages between the three pillars are important to ensure thoughtful, effective responses to false narratives that damage government credibility and trust in institutions. In the next chapter, we discuss considerations for implementing the strategic framework, as well as areas for investment to continue the fight against Russian IIA that target nonproliferation.

Considerations for implementation and the way ahead

Our research and discussions with stakeholders in Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia illuminated several important considerations for implementing initiatives to counter Russian IIA as they relate to nonproliferation. In this chapter, we describe these considerations and include recommendations for investment, while discussing the way ahead for this project.

Implementation considerations

There are many opportunities for stakeholders within the region to design successful responses to Russian IIA. These include opportunities to strengthen transparency and access to information, expand cooperation within multistakeholder groups, and broaden existing networks to include international partners.

Maximize transparency and safeguard access to information

To improve trust in public institutions and political processes, government entities should strive to be as transparent as possible with information related to false Russian claims about CBRN weapons. Providing truthful and accurate information with proper citations and evidence can play an important role in prebunking Russian narratives. Maximizing transparency on social media platforms with respect to the activity of Russian information networks also can play an important role, especially as civil society and other organizations prioritize how to respond to Russian IIA.

Enhance cooperation with a multistakeholder community

Involving the private sector in government-led responses to Russian IIA can strengthen relationships and improve information sharing with partners outside of government. Members of the private sector can support a healthy information environment, including through their support for independent investigative journalism and objective reporting.

Another opportunity to strengthen responses to combat Russian IIA includes connecting civil society organizations and government entities with their counterparts in scientific and academic communities. Research-oriented professionals bring a wealth of expertise on technical topics, such as CBRN weapons and nonproliferation, which can augment countermessaging strategies with data-driven information.

Similarly, youth organizations can play an important role in mitigating disinformation. Dedicated engagement and educational initiatives with younger audiences can build broader resilience against Russian IIA. Youth organizations serve as an opportunity to reach unengaged youth who are not necessarily involved in countering Russian IIA more broadly. Increasing investment within younger generations also helps mitigate the brain drain phenomenon of young, highly educated people leaving Central and Eastern Europe.⁹³ This phenomenon leaves fewer in the next generation that are able to study disinformation and nonproliferation, resulting in a significant gap in substantive expertise on these issues. It will be critical to reinvest in the next generation of experts, which will allow for greater potential for locally driven development of policy solutions, especially around nonproliferation and information warfare.

Expand the community of practice to include international partners

Members of the community of practices within Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia should enforce stronger multistakeholder engagement with international partners, including neighboring countries, international organizations, and the United States. Maintaining consistent close cooperation with international partners provides opportunities to learn about other countries that might experience similar challenges with respect to Russian IIA and discuss best practices for response. These opportunities to learn from a broader range of stakeholders can build stronger alliances to coordinate responses against threats of information warfare on a larger scale.

Areas for investment

To expand societal resilience to counter Russian IIA, key stakeholders and organizations need to prioritize investing in programs to confront information manipulation in Europe. Several opportunities play an important role in building resilience and effectiveness in the long term, including: augmenting proactive measures, strengthening media literacy efforts and fact-checking programs, supporting independent media and community journalism, and prioritizing capacity building efforts.

Augment proactive measures

Attempts to more proactively counter malign influence campaigns are an important area for additional resourcing so counter-messaging strategies are not primarily reactive. The United States and NATO are exploring ways to be more proactive in sharing research and information, including exploration of prebunking initiatives, but continued cooperation will benefit NATO allies such as Slovenia and Slovakia.⁹⁴ For Serbia, cooperation with the EU, regional partners, or nongovernmental organizations could provide insights on how to incorporate proactive measures into their counter-messaging strategies.

Strengthen media literacy efforts and fact-checking programs

Greater cooperation between journalists and government representatives can improve public awareness about the threats of Russian IIA and enhance resilience. Instituting media literacy curriculum in education systems is also important to improve resilience among younger citizens, especially those who are more active on social media and exposed to a wider variety of messaging. Additionally, fact-checking programs to promote critical engagement with information from news, television broadcasts, and social media platforms can be expanded beyond education systems to workplaces, government offices, and other environments that would benefit from increased awareness.

Support independent media and community journalism initiatives

Independent media and community journalism can play important roles in combating IIA, especially through the prioritization of localized reporting, transparency, and accountability. Through strong connections to the communities around them, media and community journalism initiatives’ active engagement and collaboration with local organizations and trusted officials enhances the overall credibility of responses to Russian IIA. These organizations can highlight local solutions and positive stories that can play a role in bolstering broader support for institutions, minimizing polarization, and blunting the negative effects of disinformation.

Consider ways to measure success

Across the three countries considered for this project and in the United States, members of the communities of practice struggle with how to measure the success of responses to Russian IIA. It is impossible to isolate the effects of one message or campaign within the entire media landscape, given how much content is produced and how quickly it is distributed. It also is difficult to predict what could influence Russia to change its tactics. However, there are resources available to guide the development of attention-grabbing, impactful messages that can garner support, such as EUvsDisinfo and the Bioweapons Disinformation Monitor. Additionally, greater engagement with academia and journalism professionals can assist in developing messages backed by industry best practices and standards.

Review adequacy of cybersecurity infrastructure

In addition to concerns over false Russian narratives, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Serbia should consider whether existing cybersecurity measures are adequate to prevent cyberattacks. In the event prevention measures fail, each country should also review whether current defenses are up to date. For Slovenia and Slovakia, NATO’s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence could be a good resource to support or inform these reviews.⁹⁵

Focus on capacity building efforts to increase effectiveness and viability across sectors

Leveraging programs to build capacity within organizations can sustain efforts, increase effectiveness, and build long-term resilience. For civil society organizations, think tanks, media entities, and others that are involved in countering Russian IIA, it is important to prioritize efforts that strengthen their overall ability to achieve success. To counter Russian IIA, educational programs—both within and outside of formal educational institutions—allow stakeholders to obtain important skills in digital literacy, cybersecurity, and critical thinking abilities. Professional development opportunities for analysts and journalists alike can strengthen the ability to use technologies and other tools to combat Russian IIA. For public diplomacy officials, training sessions that focus on strategic communications and crisis management provide important opportunities to implement standard operating procedures within their organizations. These kinds of programs play an important role in developing the necessary skills and experience to counter Russian IIA on nonproliferation.

Additionally, community engagement programs serve an important role in capacity building within the public. Organized workshops, outreach programs, and structured dialogues contribute to a broader sense of involvement among the community, which can increase buy-in and participation when combating Russian IIA. Community engagement programs can also empower local leaders and educators to play a role in disseminating truthful information and countering Russian IIA within the public.

Project next steps

For the next iteration of this project, the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative and the Department of State’s Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction will continue to examine the threat of Russian malign influence efforts that target nonproliferation norms in Eastern Europe and the responses to these threats. The Atlantic Council will monitor developments in Russia’s IIA for topics related to nonproliferation and CBRN weapons that might emerge in our focus countries to tailor the content of our private workshops accordingly. In addition, we will also support the organizations, experts, and entities on the frontlines of Russia’s information warfare to enable implementation and sustainment of the project’s overall goals.

In the next phase of our project, the Atlantic Council will continue to refine the three pillars of our strategic framework to ensure they capture the current challenges to recognizing and responding to IIA within Central and Eastern Europe, as well as any challenges to reinforcing a healthy community of practice committed to countering IIA in the region.

Finally, we will work closely with our partners at the Department of State to identify new countries that would benefit from engagement with our strategic framework.

The research team thanks the US Department of State Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation’s Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction for their strategic guidance and overall support throughout the project. Special thanks go to the wide range of stakeholders in Slovakia, Slovenia, and Serbia who contributed their invaluable insights to our workshops and participated in other contexts to enrich the analysis.

We would also like to acknowledge Sarah Jacobs Gamberini and Amanda Moodie of the National Defense University’s Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction for their critical contributions to our workshops in Slovakia and Serbia. Sarah Jacobs Gamberini and the Atlantic Council’s Eto Buziashvili from the Digital Forensic Research Laboratory also provided valuable peer reviews that improved our strategic framework. Within the Atlantic Council, we recognize the critical contributions of Leah Scheunemann, Zelma Sergejeva, and Kristen Taylor for their project management, research, and analytical support; Dr. Matthew Kroenig and Christopher Skaluba for their oversight of the project; and Gretchen Ehle, Nicholas O’Connell, Caroline Simpson, and Ursula Murdoch for their operational guidance and assistance.

This report is intended to live up to General Brent Scowcroft’s standard for rigorous, relevant, and nonpartisan analysis on national security issues. The Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to continue his nonpartisan commitment to the cause of security, support for US leadership in cooperation with allies and partners, and dedication to the mentorship of the next generation of leaders.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Atlantic Council, the Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction, the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, the US Department of State, or the US government.

Fellow

Natasha Lander Finch

Senior Fellow

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

Arms Control Europe & Eurasia

Staff

Ryan Arick

Associate Director

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

NATO Security & Defense

Natasha Lander Finch is a senior fellow with the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She previously worked as a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, where she led and conducted research on a range of issues, including chemical, biological, and nuclear policy; counterterrorism; European security; and military and civilian workforce policy. She also held positions as an adviser within the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and as the principal adviser for NATO’s Committee on Proliferation in the Defense Format.

Ryan Arick is an associate director with the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. In this capacity, he supports TSI’s work to strengthen the transatlantic alliance against emerging security threats from around the world. His research interests include NATO defense policy and transatlantic security; arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation; democratic resilience from foreign malign influence; and state fragility and conflict prevention.

The Transatlantic Security Initiative, in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, shapes and influences the debate on the greatest security challenges facing the North Atlantic Alliance and its key partners.

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Report Feb 29, 2024

Undermining Ukraine: How Russia widened its global information war in 2023

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

On the battlefield, Russia has made strategic gains. In the information sphere, it has the resources and will to outlast the West.

Disinformation Eastern Europe

Report Oct 26, 2023

Continued US and allied integration is essential to deter Russian CBRN use

By Natasha Lander Finch, Ryan Arick, Christopher Skaluba

This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Atlantic Council project Conceptualizing Integrated Deterrence to Address Russian Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) Escalation. The objective of this project was to develop an approach for incorporating European allies and partners into the US model of integrated deterrence against Russian CBRN use.

Arms Control Defense Policy

Report Feb 22, 2023

Narrative warfare

By Nika Aleksejeva, Andy Carvin, Eto Buziashvili

In the weeks and months leading up to Russia invading Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the Kremlin and pro-Kremlin media employed false and misleading narratives to justify military action against Ukraine, mask the Kremlin’s operational planning, and deny any responsibility for the coming war. Dive into a full accounting of the road to war.

Disinformation Russia

The post How the US and Europe can counter Russian information manipulation about nonproliferation appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On September 30, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Sara Bjerg Moller contributed to The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, where she emphasized the need for US presidential candidates to address concerns from allies regarding the credibility of US extended deterrence. She highlighted that current threats from China, Russia, and North Korea, along with shifting security dynamics, make it crucial for the United States to reassure its allies about nuclear protection and future security commitments.

Fellow

Sara Bjerg Moller

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Danish Europe & Eurasia

The post Moller in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on US extended deterrence appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Putin’s televised comments were clearly timed to serve as a direct warning to Western leaders as they continue to debate lifting restrictions on long-range Ukrainian strikes inside Russia. Earlier this month, the Kremlin dictator declared that any attacks on Russian territory using Western-supplied missiles would mean that NATO is “at war” with Russia.

This week’s announcement of revisions to Russia’s nuclear doctrine is the latest in a long line of thinly-veiled nuclear threats made by Putin since he launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As Russian tanks first rolled across the border in February 2022, Putin indicated that any attempts at Western interference would be met with a nuclear response. Three days later, he hammered home the point by placing Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert.

These early examples of nuclear saber-rattling have set the tone for the invasion, with Putin and other senior Russian officials regularly resorting to nuclear blackmail in an obvious bid to undermine Western support for Ukraine. During one particularly notorious incident in September 2022 as he prepared to “annex” four partially occupied regions of Ukraine, Putin directly referenced his country’s vast nuclear arsenal and vowed to use “all means at our disposal” to defend Russia’s conquests. “This is not a bluff,” he declared.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

So far, Russia’s nuclear intimidation tactics have had little discernible impact on decision-making processes in Kyiv. On the contrary, Ukraine’s leaders have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to call Putin’s bluff.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian military has liberated entire regions claimed by the Kremlin, sunk or damaged around one-third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and conducted a comprehensive bombing campaign of Russian military and energy infrastructure, all without provoking a nuclear response. In August 2024, Ukraine crossed the reddest of all Russian red lines by invading Russia itself. Rather than reaching for his nuclear briefcase, Putin chose to downplay the invasion.

Ukraine’s boldness is striking but not entirely surprising. After all, Russia has made no secret of its intention to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and erase Ukrainian identity. Faced with the existential challenge of Russia’s genocidal invasion, most Ukrainians see no real alternative to military victory and are committed to confronting the Kremlin.

The same cannot be said for all of Ukraine’s partners, however. While countries located closer to Russia such as the Nordic and Baltic nations, the Poles, and the Czechs, have been notably inclined to dismiss talk of red lines, many leading Western countries have allowed themselves to be intimidated by Putin’s relentless nuclear threats. This fear of escalation has enabled the Kremlin to reduce arms deliveries to Kyiv, and has led to the imposition of absurd restrictions on Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. As a result, the Ukrainians find themselves fighting for national survival against a military superpower with one hand tied behind their backs.

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Online Event Tue, June 17, 2025 • 1:00 pm ET

Drones, defense, and diplomacy: Negotiations and the battlefield in Ukraine

Conflict Defense Technologies Europe & Eurasia Politics & Diplomacy

It is easy enough to understand why so many in the West seem preoccupied by the idea of avoiding a potential nuclear war. Nevertheless, this readiness to fold when confronted by Russia’s nuclear ultimatums is shortsighted in the extreme and risks plunging the whole world into a dark new era of nuclear brinkmanship.

If Putin’s nuclear blackmail succeeds and enables him to achieve his imperial ambitions in Ukraine, this would set a disastrous precedent with the potential to completely transform the role of nuclear weapons in the international arena. A triumphant Putin would be sorely tempted to use the same tactics elsewhere, while other authoritarian regimes would draw the obvious conclusions for their own expansionist agendas.

Meanwhile, front line democracies from Finland and Poland in the west to South Korea and Japan in the east would be forced to urgently rethink their own non-nuclear status. Stunned by the West’s collective failure to stand up to Russia’s nuclear bullying in Ukraine, many governments would likely decide that the only way to safeguard their national security was by acquiring a nuclear arsenal of their own. The ensuing arms race would undo decades of nuclear nonproliferation progress and dramatically increase the chances of nuclear war.

The only way to avoid this nightmare scenario is by stopping Russia in Ukraine. But for that to happen, the West must first abandon its present zero tolerance approach to nuclear risk and adopt a much more resolute posture toward Russia’s nuclear saber-rattling. Among other things, this would require far firmer public and private messaging that spells out the catastrophic consequences for Russia if Moscow dares to follow through on its nuclear threats.

More than two and half years since the start of Russia’s invasion, it should now be abundantly clear that Vladimir Putin will continue escalating his nuclear blackmail until it stops working. So far, Putin’s ability to intimidate the West has been his greatest success of the entire war, allowing Russia to retain the initiative and set the boundaries of Western support for Ukraine. Unless this changes, nuclear bullying will be legitimized on the international stage and the world will become a far more dangerous place.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Sep 21, 2024

Ukraine’s expanding drone fleet is flying straight through Putin’s red lines

By Giorgi Revishvili

Ukraine’s rapidly expanding campaign of long-range drone strikes is flying straight through Vladimir Putin’s red lines and could help persuade Kyiv’s Western partners to lift restrictions on attacks inside Russia, writes Giorgi Revishvili.

Conflict Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert Sep 17, 2024

Time to make Russia worry about the West’s red lines in Ukraine

By Mykola Bielieskov

Even talking about Western red lines in Ukraine will no doubt be seen as too provocative by some, but it is now obvious that allowing Russia uncontested escalation dominance has been a costly blunder, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Sep 5, 2024

Too many still view Ukraine through the prism of Russian imperialism

By Olesya Khromeychuk

Far too many Western newspaper editors, academics, and cultural commentators continue to view Ukraine through the distorting lens of Russian imperialism, writes Olesya Khromeychuk.

Civil Society Conflict

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Putin will keep escalating his nuclear blackmail until it stops working appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Russia’s current nuclear doctrine was set out by Vladimir Putin in 2020. It states that the Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack or if “the very existence of the state has been placed under threat.” While there is virtually no chance of the current war triggering either of these clauses, this has not prevented Putin from engaging in regular bouts of nuclear saber-rattling since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The Kremlin dictator’s nuclear bravado began as soon as Russian tanks first rolled across the Ukrainian border in the early hours of February 24, 2022. In his public address announcing the invasion, Putin warned Western leaders that any attempt to intervene would result in consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history.” Three days later, he hammered home the point by placing Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert.

This initial nuclear posturing set the tone for the entire invasion, with Putin and other Kremlin officials routinely resorting to thinly veiled nuclear threats in an obvious bid to undermine Western support for Ukraine. During one particularly notorious incident in September 2022 as he prepared to annex large parts of Ukraine, Putin directly referenced his country’s vast nuclear arsenal and vowed to use “all means at our disposal” to defend Russia’s conquests. “This is not a bluff,” he declared.

Russia’s use of nuclear blackmail has been widely condemned as reckless, but there is no escaping the fact that it has proved highly effective against risk-averse Western leaders. Since February 2022, Moscow’s nuclear threats have fueled a culture of escalation management in Western capitals that has consistently restricted the flow of arms to Kyiv and led to the imposition of absurd restrictions on Ukraine’s right to defend itself. Indeed, Putin’s ability to intimidate the West has arguably been his greatest success of the entire war.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

While the Kremlin’s nuclear saber-rattling has clearly worked against the West, it has had far less of an impact in Kyiv. Throughout the war, Ukraine has repeatedly demonstrated a readiness to call Putin’s bluff and has displayed an almost complete lack of concern over crossing Russia’s so-called red lines.

In late 2022, Putin declared that Ukrainian provincial capital Kherson had joined Russia “forever.” Just weeks later, Ukraine liberated the city. Rather than reach for his nuclear button, the Russian ruler gave the order for his defeated troops to retreat across the Dnipro river. Similarly, when Ukraine ignored Moscow’s many graphic warnings and proceeded to sink or seriously damage around one-third of the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet, this did not spark World War III. On the contrary, Putin quietly instructed his remaining warships to withdraw from Crimea to the relative safety of Russian ports.

The most serious blow to the credibility of the Kremlin’s nuclear threats has come in recent weeks with Ukraine’s cross-border offensive into Russia’s Kursk Oblast. By invading Russia itself, Ukraine has crossed the reddest of all Russian red lines. And yet once again, Putin has chosen not to escalate. Far from unleashing nuclear Armageddon, he has actively sought to downplay Ukraine’s invasion, referring to it as a “provocation” and pretending that the first foreign occupation of Russian soil since World War II is nothing out of the ordinary.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Tue, June 17, 2025 • 1:00 pm ET

Drones, defense, and diplomacy: Negotiations and the battlefield in Ukraine

Conflict Defense Technologies Europe & Eurasia Politics & Diplomacy

Putin’s lackluster reaction to the Ukrainian invasion of Russia has not gone unnoticed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in particular has seized on this weak response and called for an end to all restrictions on the use of Western weapons inside Russia. “The whole naive, illusory concept of Russian red lines, which prevailed in the assessments of the war among some of our partners, crumbled in these days somewhere near Sudzha,” Zelenskyy commented, referring to a Russian town in Kursk Oblast currently under Ukrainian occupation.

Kremlin officials also appear to recognize the danger, and are doubtless acutely aware that Ukraine’s invasion of Russia has left their nuclear threats looking increasingly empty. This would certainly explain their current interest in revising Russia’s nuclear doctrine. It is not yet clear what form these revisions may take, but it seems safe to assume that any changes will lower the threshold for nuclear use, and will be carefully calibrated to reintroduce the fear factor and send an unambiguous message of deterrence to Ukraine’s allies. Unless Western leaders finally stand up to this nuclear blackmail and demonstrate that they no longer prepared to be bullied, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Russia’s normalization of nuclear threats is unprecedented and represents the gravest challenge to international security since the end of the Cold War. If Western leaders allow Putin’s nuclear threats to succeed in Ukraine, he will inevitably use the same tactics against other victims. This will provide inspiration for fellow autocratic regimes. Meanwhile, others will note the West’s inaction and conclude that they are no longer safe without nuclear weapons of their own. Within a few short years, the world could be faced by a nuclear arms race that would undo decades of nonproliferation progress and usher in a dangerous new era of international relations where the prospect of nuclear war is no longer unthinkable.

The only way to avoid this disastrous descent into nuclear insecurity is by stopping Russia in Ukraine. For the past two and a half years, Western fear of escalation has been Putin’s most potent weapon. It is time he was disarmed.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Sep 1, 2024

Key Ukrainian front line city evacuates as Russian offensive gains pace

By Maria Avdeeva

Evacuation efforts are accelerating in Pokrovsk as Russian troops draw closer amid fears the city will soon become the latest in a growing list of Ukrainian urban centers reduced to rubble by Putin’s invading army, writes Maria Avdeeva.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Aug 13, 2024

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive proves surprise is still possible in modern war

By Mykola Bielieskov

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has succeeded in demonstrating that surprise is still possible despite the increased transparency of the modern battlefield, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Aug 21, 2024

Invasion? What invasion? Putin is downplaying Ukraine’s Kursk offensive

By Peter Dickinson

Vladimir Putin’s efforts to downplay Ukraine’s invasion of Russia have severely dented his strongman image and make a mockery of the West’s escalation fears, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Policy

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Moscow escalates nuclear threats as Ukraine erases Russia’s red lines appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On August 13, 2024, Forward Defense Nonresident Senior Fellow Lieutenant Colonel James McCue, USAF (ret.) co-authored a chapter in a new book entitled The Challenges of Nuclear Security: U.S. and Indian Perspectives. The book was published as part of the “Initiatives in Strategic Studies: Issues and Policies” series by the US Naval Postgraduate School. The volume assembles experts on US and Indian nuclear security to analyze six issues critical to the “safety and security of nuclear facilities, technologies, and materials.” These issues include insider threats, organizational culture, emergency response, physical protection, control of radioactive sources, and cybersecurity.

McCue co-wrote the chapter on “Physical Protection of Nuclear Facilities and Materials” with Anil Kumar from the Indian Department of Atomic Energy (retired) and Alan Evans from Sandia National Laboratories.

Fellow

James McCue

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

National Security Nuclear Deterrence

Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

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The post McCue co-authors chapter in edited volume on US and Indian approaches to nuclear security challenges appeared first on Atlantic Council.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has always supported the resistance of the people in the region against the illegitimate Zionist regime,” Pezeshkian wrote. “Supporting the resistance is rooted in the fundamental policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and will continue with strength.”

In response to these comments, an Israeli researcher posted on her X account, “If anyone here dreamed that the new Iranian president Pezeshkian would bring about a change in the militant policy of the Iranian regime that strives to destroy Israel, this letter is for you.”

While the Israeli response to Pezeshkian’s election was understandably skeptical, the global reaction might differ. The international community, notably the West, is in no hurry to lay its trust and optimism in the incoming Iranian president, considering previous disappointments with Iranian behavior under earlier pragmatic presidents. For example, both the nuclear and ballistic missile programs saw significant progress under President Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005). Iran’s supported regional network of non-state groups was also expanded under pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani (2013–2021). Nonetheless, the new president will likely be given a chance.

The possible appointment of Abbas Araghchi, a former nuclear negotiator and deputy foreign minister, as Pezeshkian’s foreign minister has already raised some hopes for re-engaging Iran in diplomatic dialogue with the West to find a political solution to the nuclear issue—or even to the growing tension between Iran and the United States in the Middle East. On the other hand, the election of contender Saeed Jalili, the most extremist candidate in the presidential elections, could have helped Israel persuade the world community that there is no purpose in engaging with Iran and that additional pressure should be used against the Islamic Republic.

It is indeed highly improbable that the incoming Iranian president can or will change the Islamic Republic’s attitude toward Israel or its backing of its network of regional proxies. Not only are the president’s powers largely confined to domestic affairs, but the engagement of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—particularly the Quds Force—in regional affairs significantly inhibits the president’s capacity to intercede. It is, therefore, not surprising that President Rouhani’s term was marked by rivalries and tensions between his government and the IRGC.

In a leaked audiotape released shortly before the end of Rouhani’s term in 2021, then Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the IRGC calls the shots, overruling many government decisions and ignoring advice. “In the Islamic Republic, the battlefield rules,” Zarif said in a three-hour taped conversation that was part of an oral history project documenting the current administration’s work. “I have sacrificed diplomacy for the battlefield rather than the field servicing diplomacy.”

With that in mind, Pezeshkian’s views on Israel mirror the current consensus among Iranian decision-makers. After voting in the first round of the presidential election, the reformist candidate told journalists he hoped his country would try to have friendly relations “with all countries except for Israel.”

Israel’s attitude toward Iran: from skeptical hope to complete distrust

Twenty-seven years ago, the election of a reformist president in Iran raised significant expectations in Israel. At a discussion held in the Knesset on May 28, 1997, then Foreign Minister David Levy responded to Khatami’s election as president, stating that a momentous transition was taking place in Iran that needed to be followed closely. Levy emphasized that Iran’s foreign policy was largely dictated by the supreme leader, who opposed relations with the West, but also expressed hope that the long-awaited change would soon be felt thanks to Khatami, who was “a person with education and knowledge in various fields who is familiar with the Western world.”

He concluded, “We would be very happy to see Iran join the regional effort to reduce tensions, stop terrorism, and seek ways of cooperation and peace…Perhaps we will soon see the change that we all expect.”

However, during the last three decades, it has become evident that an Iranian president, no matter how reformist or pragmatic, has limited capacity to alter Iranian policy on issues concerning Israel’s national security. Furthermore, the confrontation between the two countries has escalated significantly. Iran’s nuclear progress, its development of sophisticated weapons systems such as long-range missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), its growing regional involvement, and its continued support for terrorist organizations—including Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad—all pose a strategic threat to Israel’s national security.

As a result, Israel, particularly under Benjamin Netanyahu’s premiership, has increased its efforts to rally the international community against the Islamic Republic. Under these conditions, hardline presidents like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ebrahim Raisi, who openly called for Israel’s destruction, became assets to Israel. In contrast, more pragmatic presidents were viewed as a burden and a challenge that could make it more difficult to persuade the rest of the world to join the campaign against Iran and to avoid pursuing diplomacy with Tehran.

It is, therefore, no surprise that Prime Minister Netanyahu was quick to denounce President Rouhani shortly after his election in the summer of 2013. Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in the fall of 2013, Netanyahu dismissed the new Iranian president’s charm offensive, saying, “Rouhani doesn’t sound like Ahmadinejad, but when it comes to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the only difference between them is this: Ahmadinejad was a wolf in wolf’s clothing; Rouhani is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Where do things go from here?

Pezeshkian’s election comes at a time of rising concern in Israel about Iran. Israel’s hawkish opposition, Knesset member Avigdor Lieberman, argued on June 5 that Iran is planning a holocaust for Israel in the next two years. “We are in the midst of an Iranian extermination program,” the Yisrael Beytenu party chairman said, arguing that if Iran is allowed to create a “nuclear umbrella,” it will use the deterrence it has obtained to launch a devastating strike. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was quoted in Ha’aretz in mid-June warning that, in six months to a year, Iran will launch a multifront war of attrition against Israel aimed at its collapse and then annihilation. These statements come against the background of Iran’s continued implementation of the “unification of the arenas” strategy against Israel since October 7, 2023, as well as reports of alarming progress in its nuclear program.

Senior Iranian officials, led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have recently stated that the end of Israel is near, adding to Israel’s rising concerns about Iran’s intentions. At the anniversary ceremony commemorating the death of the founder of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s leader stated that the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, dealt a decisive blow to the “Zionist regime,” a blow from which there is no recovery. In a meeting with Hamas’s leader on the sidelines of President Raisi’s funeral, Khamenei said, “The divine promise to eliminate the Zionist entity will be fulfilled, and we will see the day when Palestine will rise from the river to the sea.”

These statements are interpreted in Israel as an expression of a shift in Iran’s mindset, as well as a possible indication that the Iranian leadership believes the ongoing campaign in Gaza and Israel’s weakening have created ripe conditions for the realization of its ideological vision of Israel’s destruction. Under these circumstances, the world might be willing to give the next president a chance, but Israel may be more anxious about the potential of needing to confront the Iranian menace alone.

Raz Zimmt is a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University. He is also a veteran Iran watcher in the Israeli Defense Forces. Follow him on X: @RZimmt.

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Looking at the current status of talks that could potentially lead to the return to the JCPOA—from which the United States under Donald Trump withdrew in 2018, reimposing unilateral sanctions despite Tehran not violating the deal—there has been little to no progress. This failure and the fact that most restrictions on Iran, as determined in the nuclear agreement, will be removed by the October 2025 deadline—the last date the West is able to apply “snapback” sanctions—make it highly unlikely that a return to the JCPOA is on the agenda anymore, despite Grossi’s claims.

Even so, in light of the parties’ urgent desire to avoid uncontrolled deterioration and escalation, they have continued their discourse in Oman to prevent a regional escalation in the post-October 7, 2023, world. In any case, returning to the JCPOA will be back on the table after the US presidential election in November, especially in light of Pezeshkian’s win in Iran and the October 2025 deadline.

Therefore, Tehran and the relevant world powers will need to discuss the possibility of a new political framework for the Iranian nuclear issue; otherwise, the likelihood of unprecedented crises between the United States and Iran will rise dramatically. But, given the failure of the parties to return to the JCPOA—and in light of the deep historical mistrust between them—the question arises as to what type of agreement can be reached when the situation of Iran’s nuclear program is dramatically different from what it was when the original deal was signed in 2015.

Tehran has made significant progress in its enrichment capacity. Today, it is enriching at 60 percent using highly advanced centrifuges and has a vast enriched uranium stockpile. It is necessary to make substantial adjustments regarding expectations of what a future agreement will cost Iran’s nuclear program. Still, its decision to expand the Fordow enrichment facility, in response to the IAEA Board of Governors’ May decision to condemn Iran for not working with the IAEA to solve open issues, highlights the danger if no agreement is found. 

Any negotiations will be complex and challenging, but a new agreement can be within reach given the understanding regarding the looming alternatives. Without a new deal, and with the continued progression of its nuclear program, the likelihood of a conflict between Iran and the West—the United States, in particular—increases exponentially.

As mentioned, it is essential to be realistic when approaching the discussions regarding a new nuclear agreement between Iran and the powers, and to understand what will not be included.

From a technological point of view, the target set in the previous JCPOA to keep the country at a one-year breakout time is technologically irrelevant due to Iran’s unprecedented progress in enrichment, making this goal practically impossible to implement. Iran crossed the threshold of enriching to 60 percent while using highly advanced centrifuges, and no country or entity will be able to delete its know-how of doing so, even if most of the infrastructure is dismantled. 

Moreover, the future nuclear agreement will only limit Iran’s nuclear capability—and not its progress in the conventional field or its regional activities—because the original deal focused solely on the nuclear file. This is Iran’s definite position, and the ability to change it is almost nonexistent. Moreover, in light of the lack of trust in the West, which only intensified after the US withdrawal in 2018, the likelihood that Tehran will agree to a significant dismantling of its nuclear infrastructure is extremely low. This does not mean that Iran will not be ready to dismantle centrifuges. However, it isn’t very likely that Iran will agree to mass dismantling, especially if the centrifuges’ storage is far from the nuclear facility.

Despite these things, it seems Iran and the United States can agree in several areas: first and foremost, ensuring a long-term inspection regime. Even recently, the IAEA director general claimed numerous times that Iran is barring some of the United Nations nuclear watchdog’s most experienced and expert inspectors and preventing inspections at its centrifuges production site. (Tehran cooperates with IAEA inspectors so that they can verify the nature of its program for an extended period.) Moreover, ​Iran is ready to dilute some of its nuclear material even though the United States left the JCPOA, highlighting that, as long as the centrifuges are rotating, the accumulation of the material is debatable in Iranian eyes. Iran will probably insist on continuing the research and development of civil nuclear facilities. Still, it will likely be prepared to leave the status of the nuclear facilities as they are, with no significant change.

With this in mind, building a nuclear bomb requires fissile material as well as the ability to take this material and craft it into a nuclear device. Iran is highly advanced in enrichment and can have fissile material quickly, but it needs dedicated scientists to build a device. The JCPOA was focused on limiting Iran’s enrichment capabilities but was less focused on the steps Iran must take to achieve weaponization. This issue was touched upon in the previous agreement but not enough, given the emphasis on Iran’s enrichment activity. In light of Iran’s claim that it has no intention of producing nuclear weapons, it will likely be possible to build closer supervision of potential weaponization.

Assuming that the parties can reach an agreement based on these starting assumptions, the West will receive the ability to supervise the Iranian nuclear program (from mining through the production of centrifuges to the enrichment itself) for many years. This agreement secures Iran as a threshold state when it comes to enrichment. Still, it will move Tehran a few months away from reaching 90 percent. The ability to monitor Iran’s progress toward weaponization will improve significantly. In exchange for this, Iran will receive a complete removal of sanctions on its energy sector and a broad and deep research and development program, to which, given the US withdrawal from the nuclear accord, Iran will be able to return easily and relatively quickly.

A JCPOA 2.0 will not be a perfect agreement, but it will significantly improve the West’s ability to monitor Iran’s nuclear program and ensure that it is limited to peaceful purposes. The price of lifting the sanctions will be highly significant. From the beginning, the United States wanted to preserve the sanctions as a whip that could be waived in exchange for Iranian fulfillment of the nuclear agreement.

However, as long as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lives—and it is possible that an agreement can only be made with him, and not with any other leader—he will ensure that any accord does not allow the trickling down of Western ideas to the Iranian population. Additionally, Iran will not stop its conventional force buildups, such as ballistic missiles and drones, and will not be ready to discuss its cooperation with its proxies in the Middle East. Any international interference in these issues has a red line, and Iran won’t accept any limitations on its connection with any proxy within any deal. Iran’s strategy was clear from day one: limitation to what it describes as a “peaceful” nuclear deal, in return for sanctions relief and nothing else.  

It is worth noting that, even if world powers accept these principles, reaching an agreement will not be easy. The suspicion between Washington and Tehran will continue regardless of who is in office in both countries. However, there may be an understanding that, without the creation of another long-term agreement framework, the conflict regarding Iran’s nuclear program is almost inevitable. Through painful compromises on both sides, the desire to avoid a broad escalation can increase the likelihood of reaching a JCPOA 2.0, which is in the interest of both the Middle East and the international community.

Danny Citrinowicz served for twenty-five years in a variety of command positions units in Israel Defense Intelligence (IDI), including as the head of the Iran branch in the Research and Analysis Division (RAD) in the Israeli defense intelligence and as the division’s representative in the United States. Follow him on X: @citrinowicz.

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The Belarusian army commander’s hawkish comments came just weeks after Belarus and Russia conducted joint nuclear drills that were widely interpreted as an attempt to intimidate the West. This followed on from Vladimir Putin’s spring 2023 announcement of plans to store Russian tactical nukes on Belarusian territory. By the end of the year, the weapons had reportedly arrived in Belarus.

Muraveiko’s recent statement illustrates how the Kremlin is using Belarus to escalate its campaign of nuclear blackmail against the West. Clearly, any Russian nuclear weapons deployed across the border in Belarus remain firmly under Moscow’s control. If Belarusian officials are now issuing nuclear threats of their own, they are doing so on behalf of Putin.

This is very much in line with the supporting role played by Belarus throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. When hostilities first began in February 2022, Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka allowed the Russian military to use his country as a base for the invasion of northern Ukraine. Following Russia’s spring 2022 defeat in the Battle of Kyiv, Putin’s army then retreated back into Belarus to regroup.

While Lukashenka has so far been able to resist Kremlin pressure to enter the war directly, he has allowed Russia to conduct air strikes on targets across Ukraine from Belarusian territory. He has also been one of the few international leaders prepared to publicly align himself with Putin, meeting with the Russian dictator on multiple occasions.

Lukashenka’s slavish loyalty to his Russian patron comes as no surprise. The Belarusian ruler has been heavily dependent on the Kremlin since 2020, when Putin intervened to prevent the Lukashenka regime from collapse amid nationwide protests over a rigged presidential election. For the past four years, Russia has been steadily strengthening its grip on Belarus, a process some have likened to the creeping annexation of the country.

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With Russian influence in Belarus now at unprecedented levels, Lukashenka has had little choice but to back the invasion of Ukraine. Naturally, this support includes playing along with Putin’s nuclear intimidation tactics. Perhaps more surprising is Putin’s readiness to involve Russia’s small western neighbor in his incredibly reckless game of nuclear brinkmanship.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began almost two and a half years ago, Putin has become notorious for frequently issuing thinly-veiled nuclear threats. This trend was first evident during his initial address announcing the decision to invade, with Putin warning Western leaders that any attempts to intervene would lead to consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history.” Four days later, he ordered Russia’s nuclear forces to be put on high alert.

Perhaps the most infamous example of Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling came six months later. With the Russian army retreating in disarray in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin ruler referenced his country’s nuclear arsenal and vowed to use “all means at our disposal” to defend Russia. “This is not a bluff,” he declared.

With Western support for Ukraine regaining momentum in recent months, Putin has once again made regular references to a possible nuclear war. Western leaders “should keep in mind that theirs are small and densely populated countries,” he commented chillingly in late May.

Other Kremlin leaders have gone even further. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, recently stated that it would be a “fatal mistake” for Western leaders to believe Russia was not ready to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine or NATO member states. “This is, alas, not an attempt at intimidation or a nuclear bluff,” he declared.

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While Ukraine has refused to be cowed by Russia’s repeated nuclear threats, many in the West have allowed themselves to be intimidated. Indeed, widespread alarm over the potential use of nuclear weapons is believed to be a key factor fueling the fear of escalation that has consistently hampered the international response to Russia’s invasion.

Putin is well aware of the low risk tolerance in many Western capitals and has used it to his advantage. He has skillfully exploited the West’s escalation phobia to reduce the flow of military aid to Kyiv, and has even managed to convince Ukraine’s partners to impose absurd restrictions on how the embattled country can defend itself.

Russia’s readiness to employ nuclear threats could have grave implications for international security that would be felt far beyond the battlefields of Ukraine. If nuclear blackmail enables Putin to succeed in Ukraine, he will inevitably use the same tactics again elsewhere. Other countries will then draw the logical conclusion and decide that they, too, must also possess nuclear weapons, sparking a scramble for nukes that will undo decades of nonproliferation efforts. The entire world will be plunged into an era of insecurity marked by a dramatically heightened risk of nuclear war.

If Western leaders wish to avoid this bleak future, they must finally stand up to Russia’s nuclear bullying. At this point, Putin evidently regards his nuclear bluster as an effective foreign policy tool. Far from being deterred, he appears determined to raise the stakes further by involving Belarus.

Putin will continue to pursue policies of nuclear intimidation until the costs outweigh the benefits. This can be achieved by increasing Western military support for Ukraine and lifting all remaining restrictions on Kyiv’s ability to strike back against Russia. Unless that happens, there is a very real danger that the international security climate of the coming decades will be defined by nuclear-backed expansionism and further wars of imperial aggression.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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Although somewhat media shy, Bagheri Kani is not an unknown face to the Iranian public or Western diplomats. When Raisi was elected president in 2021, Bagheri Kani was one of the top names bandied about as a possible foreign minister. Ultimately, the job went to Amir-Abdollahian, with Bagheri Kani serving as his top deputy and heading the crucial political department in the foreign ministry. In this capacity, Bagheri Kani has been Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, engaging in several rounds of direct talks with the European Union in Vienna and clandestine talks with the United States in Muscat. On May 19, shortly before Raisi’s crash, Iran confirmed the discussions with the United States.

Speaking at the funeral of Amir-Abdollahian, Bagheri Kani affirmed that he would follow the policies of his predecessor. In his interviews since, he has talked less about the sensitive talks with the United States and the West and more about upgrading Iran’s diplomatic ties with some regional countries—chiefly Saudi Arabia—which took place during the Raisi administration. Tehran-Riyadh relations are still patchy, as evidenced by the recent expulsion of an Iranian media delegation from Saudi Arabia. But, according to Iran, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has accepted an invitation to visit Tehran—something that would have been unthinkable not that long ago.

Bagheri Kani has had a stormy first week on the job, holding phone conversations with many of his counterparts, including those from Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. In person, he hosted Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on his first-ever trip to Tehran, as well as Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas and other Palestinian armed factions, both of whom were in Iran to attend the state funeral.

But who is Bagheri Kani? And if he were to stay on the job, what kind of foreign minister would he be?

The school of Imam Sadeq

Born in Tehran in 1967, Bagheri Kani hails from an influential clerical family that firmly belongs to the conservative side of the Islamic Republic’s faction politics. His father spent years serving in the Assembly of Experts, an eighty-eight-member clerical body tasked with dismissing and choosing the supreme leader, before losing his seat in 2016 as a list of centrist challengers backed by Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani performed particularly well. Bagheri Kani’s brother, Mesbah al-Hoda, is married to the youngest daughter of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, making him one of many regime officials related to the head of state.

His uncle, Mohammadreza Mahdavi Kani, was among the Islamic Republic’s founding fathers, serving as interior minister and interim prime minister in the early days of the regime. Mahdavi Bagheri Kani’s landmark project was the founding of Imam Sadeq University, built after the regime expropriated a Harvard-affiliated institution. Named after a Shia imam, the university has long been the Islamic Republic’s main cadre-building factory.

Bagheri Kani studied economics at the university his uncle founded and, like several of his relatives, also taught there for a while. In the 1990s, Imam Sadeq graduates started filling up governmental bodies of the Islamic Republic, and Ali was among them.

For a short time, Bagheri Kani worked at the state broadcaster, already serving as the head of political news at national radio in 1994, a rapid rise that probably had something to do with his strong familial ties to the regime’s establishment. Bagheri Kani soon left for the foreign ministry, serving as a Middle East specialist. He married his first cousin once removed in 1997 and has two daughters.

In the foreign ministry, Bagheri Kani became close to hardliner Saeed Jalili, another Imam Sadeq graduate whose star was in the ascendency when reformist President Mohammad Khatami gave way to hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. In 2007, when the European-American department of the foreign ministry was split into two, Bagheri Kani headed the European department.

However, in 2008, Iran started a new round of nuclear negotiations with the West, which was then headed by the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC). Jalili led the talks as SNSC secretary. During negotiations, Bagheri Kani left the foreign ministry to serve as Jalili’s top deputy. The talks during the Jalili era were not really negotiations, as Jalili and his entourage often lectured their Western counterparts about imperialism and the “crimes” committed by the United States, without making meaningful progress.

The failure of these talks provided the background to the 2013 presidential elections, in which the centrist Hassan Rouhani was backed by reformists pitted against four conservative candidates, including Jalili. Rouhani ran explicitly on a platform of getting a nuclear deal with the West that could ease the sanctions on the Iranian economy. In contrast, Jalili championed his track record at the talks. Bagheri Kani led Jalili’s 2013 electoral campaign and held a debate on foreign policy with Mahmud Vaezi, Rouhani’s chief of staff, in which the latter accused Jalili of having a Taliban-like foreign policy. Rouhani won the election with 50.7 percent, while Jalili finished third with 11.4 percent.

When Rouhani and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, led the nuclear talks, Bagheri Kani was a major critic who often spoke against them in the parliament, both before and after the 2015 deal. He also wrote several op-eds against Rouhani’s pursuit of the agreement. Bagheri Kani went as far as claiming that Khamenei wasn’t truly in favor of the deal, although he publicly supported it. In 2023, Bagheri Kani wrote a foreword to the unauthorized Persian translation of Not for the Faint of Heart, a memoir by Wendy Sherman, a leading US diplomat and a key negotiator of the 2015 deal. Translated by one of Raisi’s top aides, the book is riddled with deliberate mistranslations, as first revealed by IranWire, that aim to portray Sherman in conspiratorial colors. In the foreword, Bagheri Kani clarified his position by calling Iran’s talks with the United States “a bitter historical experience.”

In 2020, in the final years of the Rouhani administration, Bagheri Kani went to the judiciary, which was then headed by Raisi. Bagheri Kani headed the judiciary’s High Council of Human Rights, which was founded in 2005 to overcome the massive international pressure on Iran over its dismal human rights situation. Its main job is denouncing United Nations human rights procedures, with which Iran doesn’t collaborate.

The new Bagheri Kani?

When Raisi became president in 2021 after an engineered presidential election, Bagheri Kani went back to the foreign ministry, heading the talks aimed at renewing the very deal he had so bitterly critiqued. Unlike his predecessor, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Bagheri Kani wasn’t that media friendly. But in a speech for the faculty of a teacher-training university in Tehran in 2023, he shocked some by criticizing “those who, under the cover of defending values, want to portray any negotiations as opposed to values.” In regime speak, this counted as a turnaround. The centrist and reformist press even started speaking of a “new Bagheri Kani” who now understood the importance of diplomatic talks with the West. On May 25, a former diplomat told reformist daily Etemad that Bagheri Kani’s position had changed when he saw the difficulties of engaging in the talks compared to safely critiquing them from the sidelines.

Bagheri Kani’s intense negotiations with the European Union—which was also acting on behalf of the United States—resulted in a text publicly defended in 2022 by European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. But Tehran rejected the text. A month later, the eruption of the Women, Life, Freedom anti-regime protests made any talks with Tehran radioactive for the West. With the movement in retreat and the region in turmoil following Hamas’s attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, the talks have been ongoing again, if often clandestinely, now covering regional issues as well as the nuclear file. Bagheri Kani has reportedly led many of these talks. Yet, some reports allege that the nuclear file is now led by Ali Shamkhani, Iran’s secretary of the SNSC until his dismissal last year. Bagheri Kani, however, has neither confirmed nor denied these reports. At the same time, Rouhani insiders such as Vaezi and Zarif have vociferously criticized Shamkhani, claiming that he was an obstacle to the nuclear talks. Whomever is Iran’s next president and foreign minister would need to navigate these difficult domestic and international dynamics in pursuit of any diplomatic talks with the West.

Bagheri Kani seems to be aware of the stakes. Speaking at the memorial of his boss, he highlighted how difficult the job of a top diplomat was and said, “It won’t be an easy job for whoever becomes the next foreign minister.” He was seen smiling, surely thinking that someone might very well be himself.

Arash Azizi is a writer and scholar. He is the author of The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the US and Iran’s Global Ambitions and What Iranians Want. Follow him on X: @arash_tehran.

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This was the argument set out by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week as he bemoaned the inadequate Western reaction to Russia’s invasion. Speaking to journalists in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said he believes Ukraine’s partners “are afraid of Russia losing the war” because this would lead to “unpredictable geopolitical consequences.”

Zelenskyy’s comments are not entirely new, of course. There have long been suggestions that the West’s hesitant approach to aiding Ukraine reflects worries that a Russian defeat could lead to the fall of the Putin regime. Some have even speculated that the Russian Federation itself would be unlikely to survive, and would instead break up into a number of new states, in a continuation of the process that began in 1991.

It is easy enough to imagine why Western policymakers might be alarmed by the prospect of a new Russian collapse. Indeed, the Western response to the disintegration of the USSR was equally cautious, with US President George H. W. Bush traveling to Ukraine on the eve of the country’s declaration of independence in August 1991 to deliver his infamous “Chicken Kiev speech” warning against “suicidal nationalism.”

President Bush was far from alone in prioritizing geopolitical stability over the statehood aspirations of Ukraine and the USSR’s other captive nations. One year earlier, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had visited Ukraine and offered a similarly skeptical view of the country’s independence struggle. Bush and Thatcher were primarily concerned with the fate of the Soviet Union’s colossal war machine and vast nuclear arsenal. Allowing this to be redistributed among a collection of newly independent states seemed the height of recklessness. So rather than hasten the fall of the Soviet Empire, they sought to prevent or at least manage the process.

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These same concerns are now hampering support for Ukraine as it fights against Vladimir Putin’s efforts to reverse the verdict of 1991. But is today’s Russia really at risk of collapse?

The Wagner mutiny of June 2023 would certainly suggest that Putin’s grip on the country is far more fragile than the Kremlin would like us to believe. While the mutiny was a short-lived affair, it was nevertheless revealing that rebellious troops were able to seize control of one of Russia’s largest cities without encountering opposition. Equally noteworthy was the absence of establishment figures rushing to rally around the throne. At the same time, the demands of the Wagner rebels did not amount to regime change, never mind anything that might constitute a threat to Russia’s territorial integrity. On the contrary, they sought a stronger Russia with more effective wartime leadership.

This is not to say that the break-up of the Russian Federation is impossible, of course. The invasion of Ukraine has underlined Russia’s status as the last of the great European empires, and has sparked a long overdue debate over the need for decolonization. However, talk of an impending collapse may be wishful thinking. While Russia has a history of unraveling in sudden and dramatic fashion, there is currently little evidence of serious independence movements in any of the country’s ethnic minority republics.

Rather than sparking the next stage in Russia’s long retreat from empire, defeat in Ukraine would be far more likely to bring about the fall of the Putin regime and usher in a period of national reflection and reform. This has been the case following numerous other notable Russian military defeats. After losing the Crimean War in the middle of the nineteenth century, Russia abandoned serfdom. Defeat to Japan in 1905 led to a brief flirtation with parliamentary democracy.

Meanwhile, the failed Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s fueled public demands for reform that helped end the Cold War. If the current invasion also ends in defeat, there is every reason to believe Russia will survive intact. After all, while a retreat from Ukraine would be deeply wounding for Russian national pride, it would hardly pose an existential threat to Russia itself.

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Rather than scaring themselves into self-deterrence with nightmare scenarios of future Russian collapse, Western leaders should be laser-focused on the far more immediate dangers posed by Russian victory. After a series of initial setbacks, the Russian army has now regained the initiative in Ukraine and is advancing. Putin is more confident than ever and is clearly preparing his entire country to wage a long war of attrition. Unless the West dramatically increases its military support for Ukraine, there is every chance he will succeed.

If Putin achieves victory in Ukraine, he will almost certainly go further. The Kremlin dictator is already boasting of his Ukrainian “conquests” and comparing himself to all-conquering eighteenth century Russian Czar Peter the Great. At the beginning the war, Putin had sought to frame the invasion as a defensive measure by blaming it on NATO expansion and imaginary “Ukrainian Nazis.” As his battlefield fortunes have improved, he has begun to talk openly of reclaiming “historically Russian lands.”

As anyone with a passing knowledge of Russian history will confirm, there are currently at least a dozen other countries beyond Ukraine that could also fit Putin’s definition of “historically Russian lands.” The list of potential targets includes Finland, Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the whole of Central Asia. None of these countries can feel safe. Putin’s entire reign has been defined by his desire to reestablish Russia as a Great Power and end the era of Western domination. If he achieves victory in Ukraine, it is ludicrous to suggest he will simply stop.

Some commentators are inclined to downplay the risk of further invasions by pointing to the poor performance of the Russian army in Ukraine and claiming that Russia is in no position to engage in further military adventures. Unfortunately, such arguments fail to take into account the impact of Russian success in Ukraine. A Russian victory would transform the geopolitical climate, leading to a surge in international support for the Kremlin and the demoralization of the West. Countries throughout the Global South would abandon neutrality and rush to foster closer ties with Moscow.

In material terms, the Russian conquest of Ukraine would have even more profound consequences for European security. Putin already commands Europe’s largest army. With Ukraine subjugated, he would also have control over Europe’s second-largest army, along with Ukraine’s long neglected but rapidly reviving military-industrial capabilities. Possession of Ukraine’s fabled black earth would make Russia the dominant power on global agricultural markets, providing Putin with a formidable tool to bribe and blackmail the international community.

Even if a victorious Russia did not immediately embark on new conquests, every government in Europe would be obliged to radically increase defense spending. Many are just starting to rearm now in reaction to the Russian war against Ukraine. Expenditures could soon rise far beyond the current cost of arming Ukraine. There would also be a very real danger of a new nuclear arms race. Given the evident effectiveness of Putin’s naked nuclear blackmail in deterring the West from aiding Ukraine, it would be entirely logical for other nations to conclude that they will only be truly safe with a nuclear deterrent of their own.

The international repercussions of a Russian victory in Ukraine would be equally disastrous. Autocrats around the world would view Putin’s triumph as a sign of unprecedented Western weakness and an open invitation to pursue their own expansionist agendas. The period of relative peace and progress that followed the end of the Cold War would be replaced by a new era of international instability and insecurity.

None of this is inevitable. Russia can still be defeated in Ukraine if the West takes the decisive step of committing itself to Ukrainian victory. This means supplying Ukraine with sufficient weapons to not only defend itself but to actually defeat Russia. Crucially, it means ending absurd restrictions on the use of Western weapons and allowing strikes on legitimate military targets inside Russia. And it means providing Ukraine with the kind of guaranteed long-term military support that will convince Putin his hopes of outlasting the West are futile.

Confronting the Kremlin effectively will require considerable political will and courage. Russia will inevitably respond to any hardening of Western resolve by escalating its nuclear intimidation tactics, but the usefulness of nuclear saber-rattling diminishes when Western governments don’t allow such threats to cloud their strategic calculus.

It is now painfully obvious that the hesitancy and indecisiveness of the past two years have not succeeded in appeasing Putin or reducing the challenge posed by a resurgent Russia. Instead, the West is now facing the very real prospect of a defeat that would have catastrophic consequences for the future of international security. In order to avert disaster, Putin must lose in Ukraine. Any worries about the future of the Russian Federation will have to wait until this far more urgent threat has been addressed.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Further reading

UkraineAlert May 16, 2024

Anger and defiance in Kharkiv as advancing Russian troops draw closer

By Maria Avdeeva

The mood in Kharkiv is a mix of anger, anxiety, and defiance as Ukraine’s second city prepares to defend itself against a new Russian offensive, writes Maria Avdeeva.

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UkraineAlert May 14, 2024

Putin expands invasion as outgunned Ukraine waits for Western weapons

By Mykola Bielieskov

Russia has opened a new front in the invasion of Ukraine with a cross-border offensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region as Putin seeks to capitalize on a window of opportunity before fresh Western aid reaches Ukrainian front line troops, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict Drones

UkraineAlert May 9, 2024

Putin’s one tank victory parade is a timely reminder Russia can be beaten

By Peter Dickinson

Putin’s one tank victory parade reflects the catastrophic scale of Russian losses in Ukraine and is a reminder that behind the facade of overwhelming strength, the Russian army is far from invincible, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Industry

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Ukraine’s Western allies should fear Russian victory not Russian defeat appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In a 2012 interview with local magazine Mehrnameh, Rouhani recounted the 2004 talks with the foreign ministers of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, and claimed that he told them that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “has issued a fatwa and declared it forbidden to acquire a bomb. This fatwa is more important for us than the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] and the additional protocol. It is more important to us than any law.”

Rouhani added that he was referencing comments made by the supreme leader ahead of Friday prayers in Tehran a week prior, when Khamenei said, “No, we aren’t thinking about nuclear weapons. I have said many times that our nuclear weapon is this nation. Our nuclear weapons are these youths. We don’t want nuclear weapons. A state that has so many young believers and this unified nation doesn’t need nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons, their production, storage, and use, each has a problem. We have also expressed our religious opinion, which is clear, and everyone knows it.”

However, Khamenei’s “religious opinion” about nuclear arms has always been a carefully crafted message concocted and repeated by him—never in writing but only in speeches—in which he has exclusively called the “use” of nuclear arms “haram” (forbidden).

The campaign of deceit was initiated when the Islamic Republic saw its survival at imminent risk. In a speech the day after the March 20, 2003 US invasion of Iraq, Khamenei said, “We don’t want a nuclear bomb. We are even opposed to having chemical weapons…These things don’t agree with our principles.”

Over the years, Khamenei and other high-ranking officials have repeated this line while Iranian scientists were busy developing “all necessary components” for the development of a nuclear weapon— and the supreme leader has consistently celebrated these scientists.

Tracking Khamenei’s comments over the past two decades demonstrates that he never issued a fatwa against building a nuclear weapon, and only tentatively and revocably spoke against the use of weapons of mass destruction.

The “fatwa”

What eventually became a staple talking point of Iranian diplomats was sold to world powers as the supreme leader’s “fatwa” prohibiting nuclear arms. In reality, it was the last paragraph of his message to the first iteration of the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, which Tehran hosted in 2010.

The segment of the message marketed by the Iranian diplomatic missions as a “fatwa” reads, “We believe that adding to nuclear weapons and other types of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical weapons and biological weapons, are a serious threat to humanity. The Iranian nation, which itself is a victim of the use of chemical weapons, feels more than other nations the danger of the production and accumulation of such weapons and is ready to put all its resources in the way of dealing with it. We consider the use of these weapons to be haram (forbidden), and the effort to protect mankind from this great disaster is everyone’s duty.”

The supreme leader’s official website includes several pages dedicated to explaining his stance on nuclear arms, with one listing all comments he has made about them. Among the eighty-five quotes, the word “haram” is used only three times and exclusively about the “use of nuclear weapons,” not their production or stockpiling. He has also twice called the “use” of weapons of mass destruction a “great sin.”

On the same page, the only quote that includes the term “fatwa” comes from a 2015 speech and reads, “We don’t want a nuclear weapon. Not because of what they say, but because of ourselves, because of our religion, because of our rational reasons. This is both our religious fatwa and our rational fatwa. Our rational fatwa is that we don’t need nuclear weapons today, tomorrow, or ever. Nuclear weapons are a source of trouble for a country like ours.”

In sharia law, all acts fall into five categories: wajib (obligatory), mustahab (recommended), mubah (neutral), makruh (disapproved), and haram (forbidden). In the case of nuclear weapons, the supreme leader clearly, and presumably intentionally, has avoided labeling the “production and storage” of nuclear arms with a religious label, leaving room for a nuclear weapons program.

In addition to beguiling world powers with a false narrative about the nonexistent fatwa, the double-speak commentary by the supreme leader gives powerful factions within the regime enough ammunition to pursue the development of a nuclear weapon.

Furthermore, a point of pride for Shia Muslims is that fatwas are not inherently permanent, and Islamic jurists can—and often do—reinterpret the scripture “in accord with the needs of time.” Throughout the history of political Islam, Shia ayatollahs have used fatwas as a political tool against adversaries. For example, in the 1890s, Ayatollah Mirza Shirazi issued a fatwa during nationwide protests after the ruling Qajar Dynasty granted a British merchant a monopoly on the growth, sale, and export of tobacco in Iran. This forced the king to revoke the monopoly; after it served its political purpose, the fatwa was also removed.

A “cornered cat”

Iranian officials have consistently warned that, if push comes to shove, they might openly seek nuclear weapons.

In 2021, then Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi told state television, “The Supreme Leader has explicitly said in his fatwa that nuclear weapons are against sharia law and the Islamic Republic sees them as religiously forbidden and does not pursue them. But a cornered cat may behave differently from when the cat is free. And if [Western states] push Iran in that direction, then it’s no longer Iran’s fault.”

In June 2023, Khamenei warned world powers that they “cannot stop” his regime if it desires to build nuclear weapons—a threat echoed by Iran’s former nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi. In February, Salehi boasted that the regime has “all components” necessary for building a bomb.

With heightened tensions in the Middle East, and amid the Islamic Republic’s four-decade war with Israel creeping out of the shadows and into the open, the clerical establishment has been testing the waters for openly announcing its nuclear aspirations.

In a March speech at a Quran exhibition, Hojatolislam Mohammad Fuker Meibodi said that the Muslim holy book orders believers to amass weapons that would “sow fear in the heart of the enemies.” He argued that weapons of the past—namely swords and cannons—will not achieve that aim and “therefore, maybe we should acquire nuclear weapons.”

Iranian nuclear scientist Mahmoud Reza Aghamiri—who has ties to the supreme leader’s office and currently serves as dean of Shahid Beheshti University—said on state television on April 7 that the supreme leader “can tomorrow change his stance” on building nuclear weapons and that his regime “has the capability” to make the leap because building the bomb is “not complicated.”

Aghamiri is among the top Iranian officials who have publicly endorsed the development of a nuclear bomb. In 2022, he said that Tehran can speed up uranium enrichment to 99 percent, build a nuclear warhead, and use it as both “deterrence” and a bargaining chip in interactions with the West “like North Korea,” which, according to him, gets away with “bullying” the world.

Such rhetoric has only intensified in Iran following the April 13 attack against Israel in retaliation for the April 1 killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commanders in Syria. Anticipating a response from Israel, which eventually arrived on April 19, Iranian officials warned against the targeting of nuclear facilities in the country.

On April 18, Ahmad Haghtalab, the IRGC commander in charge of nuclear security, said, “If the false Zionist regime decides to exploit the threat of attacking our country’s nuclear sites to pressure Iran, revision of Islamic Republic’s nuclear policies and doctrine and dropping of previously announced considerations in possible and perceivable.” Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting reported his comments, sharing a video of him pronouncing the nuclear threat.

Javan, an influential daily close to the IRGC, wrote on the same day that it was the “first time a senior IRGC official” issued such a threat, and noted that state media were forcefully highlighting the comments, signaling “coordination with top decision-making bodies.”

The daily argued that every state’s primary goal is “survival no matter the cost” and that, before launching the April 13 attack against the “nuclear armed” Israel, Tehran had “prepared itself for engagement at highest level or at least is seeking to establish a new equilibrium.”

Javan warned “Israel to take the warning serious” because “all technical hurdles have been removed and with a wave of the hand from Imam Khamenei” and the regime “can” build a nuclear bomb.

Pro-reform daily Hammihan wrote on April 20 that the Islamic Republic’s attack against Israel from Iranian soil has “created a new norm of confrontation” between the two nations. According to the daily, in this new context, proxy forces “cannot provide the deterrence Iran needs.” The daily argued that if “Iran is pushed towards acquiring a nuclear weapon or adopting nuclear ambiguity, it would benefit from increased deterrence.”

On April 22, a member of the National Security Commission of the parliament, Javad Karimi Ghodousi, wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “If [supreme leader] issues permission, we would be a week away from testing the first [nuclear bomb].”

As an officer of the IRGC, Ghodousi has high security clearance. Through his key position in the parliament, he is privy to military decisions made at the top of the food chain. This attracted much attention when, ahead of the April 13 strike against Israel, he tweeted that the attack was happening “in a matter of hours.”

In an apparent effort to soften heightened rhetoric, on April 22, the spokesperson of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Naser Kanani said, “Nuclear weapons have no place in Iran’s defense and military strategy.”

Iran-based security analyst Alireza Taghavinia, a frequent guest of state television, reacted to the mixed signals out of Tehran, writing on X, “General Haghtalab has fulfilled his assigned duty. [MP] Karimi Qudousi has sent the necessary pulse. The Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson has also fulfilled his inherent duty. Politics has complexities and subtleties that not everyone can understand.”

Ghodousi doubled down on the comments on April 23, in a video saying that the International Atomic Energy Agency is aware that the Islamic Republic “needs half a day or maximum a week to build a nuclear warhead.”

The nuclear threat has been echoed by people privy to the supreme leader’s thinking as well. On May 9, Khamenei’s top foreign policy advisor Kamal Kharrazi warned that if Israel threatens the existence of the Islamic Republic, Tehran will change its nuclear doctrine. “We have no decision to build a nuclear bomb but should Iran’s existence be threatened, there will have no choice but to change our military doctrine,” Kharrazi told Al Jazeera Mubasher.

A Persian proverb advises that, before shouting an insult, it is best to first murmur it to test the waters. The crescendoing chorus of Iranian officials, from IRGC generals to members of parliament to scientists advocating for the development of a nuclear weapon as “deterrent” is another sign of how a nuclear weapons program may emerge from the shadows. Unsurprisingly, all Iranian officials signaling this possible change in policy have pointed to the so-called “fatwa” and its impermanent nature—another sign of the move being orchestrated by the upper echelons of the clerical establishment.

Eyeing tectonic shifts in global power dynamics, the eighty-five-year-old Khamenei, who has unchecked powers and delusions about divine intervention on his behalf, is besieged by crises at every corner. In response, he appears to be shedding his decades-old habit of being a cautious gambler. Now a “cornered cat,” the ailing ayatollah, in a rush to solidify his legacy, is more likely than ever to embark on a path toward a nuclear weapon to ensure the survival of the Islamic Republic.

Khosro Sayeh Isfahani is an advocate, journalist, and Internet researcher with years of experience working in Iran, including work related to the LGBTQI community. 

The post The nuclear fatwa that wasn’t—how Iran sold the world a false narrative appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi at the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus on April 1 was the final straw. Zahedi joined a long list of Iranian officers killed in Syria by Israel since December 2023, including Sayyed Razi Mousavi, a senior IRGC officer assassinated on December 25, 2023, in Damascus. Despite threats by senior Iranians that the Islamic Republic would respond harshly to Israel’s assassinations, Iran ultimately took limited action. On January 17, the IRGC-Navy launched an attack on two Israeli-owned ships in the Indian Ocean, and another attack targeted a building identified by Iran as the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad’s headquarters in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Following Mousavi’s assassination, voices in Iran calling for a rethinking of Iran’s “strategic patience” policy toward Israel grew louder in an effort to reestablish deterrence. The Tabnak news agency claimed that Israel’s recent actions represent an unprecedented surge in the “level of Zionist arrogance” and that Iran’s failure to respond to Israeli attacks may reveal its weakness. The conservative website Alef asserted that the concept of strategic patience had been misinterpreted as apathy and lack of response, resulting in the series of assassinations carried out by Israel. The website cautioned that continuing the existing policy will expose senior commanders to threats and undermine Iranian deterrence.

The attack in Damascus does not necessarily signify a shift in Iran’s strategy geared at avoiding a full-fledged direct military confrontation with Israel, let alone the United States. Some claim that Iran’s April 14 strike on Israel conflicted with the perception that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was “cautious” and would never order an attack, suggesting that this perception now requires study and reevaluation. However, this is not necessarily the case. It seems more likely that Zahedi’s assassination at a building adjacent to the Iranian consulate in Damascus was deemed one step too far, altering the Iranian calculus. Despite the extensive messages sent to Tehran in the days preceding the attack, urging it to refrain from a direct response against Israel, the Iranian leadership chose to abandon its containment policy. Instead, it sought to restore its deterrence against Israel, even at the cost of a potential military escalation.

The first direct Iranian attack on Israel marks a new phase in the two countries’ strategic rivalry. For years, Iran has opted to act against Israel through its regional network of partners and proxies to retain deniability and minimize the risk of political or military consequences for its actions. However, the civil war in Syria that began in 2011 led to increased Iranian efforts to use its presence in Syria to militarily entrench itself in the country, eventually leading to Iran and Israel’s first direct military engagement on Syrian soil. Concurrently, starting in 2010, a shadow war emerged between Iran and Israel over Israel’s efforts to hinder Iran’s nuclear program and military buildup through espionage, targeted assassinations, sabotage, and cyberattacks.  

Iran’s attack on Israel has shifted from the use of proxies and engagement with Israel in Syria to include direct military confrontation. For the first time since the 1991 Gulf War, Israel faced a state-launched missile attack, which Iran portrayed as a significant accomplishment despite Israel and its allies successfully intercepting the vast majority of the barrage. Following the attack on Israel, IRGC commander Hossein Salami said that Iran had formed a new approach toward the “Zionist regime” and would directly counterattack Israel henceforth. The Kayhan newspaper, affiliated with the supreme leader, described the attack as the most severe military reaction against Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, claiming that Iran was able to penetrate Israel’s multilayered defense envelope and inflict damage even though it was not a secret or surprise attack.

These professions of satisfaction could indicate an assessment that the Islamic Republic is heading toward a strategic equilibrium with Israel despite Israel’s continued aerial, technological, and intelligence supremacy. The Iranian leadership appears to have concluded that the country’s geo-strategic situation is steadily improving thanks to better strategic military capabilities, a network of proxies, and the support of Russia and China, two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

During a memorial ceremony for Mahdavi, Yahya Rahim Safavi, the supreme leader’s senior military adviser, expressed confidence in the victory of the Resistance Axis led by Iran and declared that a new Middle East is emerging with Iran at its heart. According to Safavi, the victory of the Resistance Axis is certain because Israel has lost international support, faces domestic rivalries, and has lost the Gaza war. A few days later, IRGC-affiliated hardline daily Javan asserted that the Iranian attack on Israel marks a watershed moment and that a new order will be established in the region, with Iran as its architect. These might seem like empty phrases and expressions of the regime’s propaganda, but they may reflect an authentic—if slightly exaggerated—assessment on the part of the Iranian leadership, which is now totally dominated by conservative and extreme hawks after more pragmatic individuals have been excluded from positions of power over the years.

Israel’s measured response to Iran’s April 19 attack allowed the two countries to temporarily close their current round of conflict. Iranian officials have downplayed and ridiculed Israel’s response, demonstrating their willingness to avoid further escalation. However, the continuous campaign between the foes is unlikely to end, and the precedent set by their direct military engagement has become another option on the confrontation table. It is unclear whether Tehran received the message Israel intended to convey with its reaction attack, which indicated its refusal to comply with the new Iranian equation.

The transition of the Israeli-Iranian confrontation into a new phase is risky. The dramatic escalation between the two countries in recent weeks highlights the high potential for miscalculation in the lack of direct communication channels. This danger will get even more serious if Iran decides to abandon its status as a nuclear-threshold state and turns its policy toward attaining nuclear weapons. Ahmad Haghtalab, the IRGC commander in charge of nuclear security in Iran, was quoted as saying that the Israeli threats could push Iran to reconsider its nuclear doctrine and deviate from its previous considerations. The escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, the transition from indirect to direct conflict, and Iran’s nuclear-threshold status necessitate an ongoing and unrelenting exploration of the possibility of establishing future communication channels—even if covert and indirect—between the two countries to convey messages and de-escalate tensions.

These developments should also require Israel to review and adopt a comprehensive, updated policy for Iran, allowing it to respond more effectively to the threats the Islamic Republic poses to its national security, particularly Iran’s nuclear program, military buildup, and regional activities. Dealing with Iran will necessitate Israel working with both the United States and Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. In contrast to Iran’s New Middle East vision, it should pursue an alternative approach—one centered on establishing a new regional architecture, deepening connections with the United States, and pursuing normalization processes with the Arab world, particularly Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Raz Zimmt is a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University. He is also a veteran Iran watcher in the Israeli Defense Forces. Follow him on X: @RZimmt.

The post This round of Iran-Israel escalation is over, but the next could be just around the corner appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On February 27, Forward Defense Director Clementine Starling and Deputy Director for Strategic Forces Policy Mark Massa were quoted in Air and Space Forces Magazine. They wrote about the effects that a nuclear detonation in space could have on satellites, stating that “A nuclear detonation in space would add significant radiation to orbits used by a number of U.S. military satellites, causing them to degrade in the weeks and months following the detonation unless they are specifically hardened against radiation.”

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Clementine G. Starling-Daniels

Director, Forward Defense

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Security & Defense NATO

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Mark J. Massa

Deputy Director

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy National Security

Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

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The post Starling and Massa quoted in Air and Space Forces Magazine appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On March 14, Transatlantic Security Initiative senior fellow Elisabeth Braw was featured in TRT on the nuclear threat posed by Putin’s Russia.

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Elisabeth Braw

Senior Fellow

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

NATO Resilience & Society

The Transatlantic Security Initiative, in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, shapes and influences the debate on the greatest security challenges facing the North Atlantic Alliance and its key partners.

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The post Braw quoted in TRT on Russia’s nuclear threat appeared first on Atlantic Council.

This was the latest and most explicit in a series of nuclear threats made by Putin since he first ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine just over two years ago. When announcing the invasion, Putin warned against any Western intervention with promises of consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history.” Four days later, he ordered Russia’s nuclear forces to be put on high alert.

Following Russia’s defeat in the March 2022 Battle of Kyiv, Putin sought to deter the West from arming Ukraine by promising a “lightning-fast” response and strongly hinting that he was ready to use nuclear weapons. “We have all the tools for this that no one else can boast of having,” he declared. “We won’t boast about it: We will use them if needed and I want everyone to know that. We have already taken all the decisions on this.”

Prior to this week’s statement, Putin’s most notorious nuclear threats came during a televised September 2022 address to announce Russia’s first mobilization since World War II. With the Russian army retreating in disarray in Ukraine, Putin referenced his country’s nuclear arsenal and vowed to use “all means at our disposal” to defend Russia. “This is not a bluff,” he declared.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Ukraine has repeatedly called Putin’s bluff, exposing the emptiness of the Russian dictator’s nuclear bluster. Just weeks after his September 2022 speech, the Ukrainian military liberated Kherson, the only regional capital captured by Russia since the start of the invasion and a city that Putin himself had just trumpeted as “forever Russian.” Rather than reaching for the nuclear button, Putin reacted to this embarrassing defeat by ordering his troops to quietly withdraw.

Russia has responded in similar fashion to setbacks in the Battle of the Black Sea. Kremlin officials have long sought to position Crimea as a red line for Russia, but this has not prevented Ukraine from damaging or sinking approximately one-third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This humiliation has not provoked a nuclear response from Putin. Instead, the bulk of his fleet has retreated from its traditional home port in occupied Crimea to the safety of Russia.

While Ukraine has refused to be intimidated by Putin’s nuclear blackmail, the same cannot be said for the West. Putin’s thinly veiled threats may appear crude and primitive, but there can be little doubt that they have been instrumental in fueling the crippling fear of escalation that has plagued Western decision-making ever since the first days of the invasion. This has led to the disastrously slow delivery of military aid to Ukraine and the outright denial of weapons systems that could have set the stage for a Ukrainian victory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has identified this Western fear of escalation as the single biggest obstacle to his country’s war effort. “Nothing has harmed our coalition more than this concept,” he commented in January 2024.

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Unless this changes, the damage will not be limited to Ukraine. If the mere suggestion of a possible nuclear escalation is enough to deter the West from preventing Russia’s takeover of Ukraine, Putin will inevitably employ the same tactics against other countries. He is already openly portraying the current invasion as a sacred mission to reclaim “historically Russian lands.” With more than a dozen other countries also potentially qualifying as “historically Russian,” it is all too easy to image further invasions in the coming years accompanied by more of Putin’s thinly veiled nuclear threats.

Nor will the implications be restricted to Russia’s wars of aggression. On the contrary, fellow autocrats around the world will take note of Putin’s success in Ukraine and draw the logical conclusions for their own expansionist agendas. If nuclear intimidation works for Moscow, why not for Beijing or Pyongyang?

This has the potential to spark a dangerous arms race. If Russia manages to normalize nuclear intimidation as a foreign policy tool, numerous countries will soon be scrambling to acquire nuclear arsenals of their own. There are indications that this issue is already being discussed in some quarters. Speaking in February 2024, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski warned that if additional US support for Ukraine is not forthcoming, “some countries will start hedging, and others will be considering developing their own nuclear weapons programs.”

By allowing themselves to be intimidated by Putin’s nuclear threats, Western leaders risk plunging the whole world into a dark new era of insecurity and aggression. Russia’s successful use of nuclear blackmail in Ukraine will transform attitudes toward nuclear weapons and undermine decades of nonproliferation efforts. Nukes will become an essential tool for any country that wishes to avoid being bullied by their neighbors. The potential for nuclear war will increase dramatically, as will the possibility of stray nukes falling into the hands of non-state actors.

Vladimir Putin’s decision to use nuclear intimidation as part of his Ukraine invasion is a reckless gamble that reflects his firm belief in Western weakness. Unless the West proves him wrong, the consequences for global security will be catastrophic.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Feb 15, 2024

Ukraine’s Black Sea success offers hope as Russian invasion enters third year

By Peter Dickinson

Ukraine’s remarkable success in the Battle of the Black Sea exposes the emptiness of Russia’s red lines and provides a road map for victory over Putin, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Defense Technologies

UkraineAlert Feb 20, 2024

Outgunned Ukraine bets on drones as Russian invasion enters third year

By Mykola Bielieskov

As Putin’s invasion passes the two-year mark, tech-savvy Ukraine is betting on drones as the best way to overcome Russia’s increasingly overwhelming advantage in traditional firepower, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Feb 22, 2024

Ukrainian long-range drones target Putin’s war machine inside Russia

By Victoria Vdovychenko, Alexander Khara

Ukraine is hoping a new campaign of long-range drone strikes against Russia’s strategically vital oil and gas industry can help weaken Putin’s war machine, write Victoria Vdovychenko and Alexander Khara.

Conflict Defense Technologies

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Bowing to Putin’s nuclear blackmail will make nuclear war more likely appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On February 15, Markus Garlauskas and the Korea Society’s Jonathan Corrado published a new piece in Foreign Affairs titled, “The Arsenal of Autocracy: How North Korean Weapons Fuel Conflict—and How to Stop the Flow.” The article emphasizes the importance of building a United States-led international effort to stop North Korea from establishing arms trade relationships with powerful authoritarian states like Russia and malicious nonstate actors such as Hamas. 

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On February 9, Transatlantic Security Initiative nonresident senior fellow Katarzyna Zysk was quoted in thebulletin.org discussing the Russian nuclear threats. 

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Katarzyna Zysk

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The post Zysk in thebulletin.org on nuclear threats and de-escalation appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On February 4, Global China Hub Nonresident Senior Fellow John Culver was quoted in a New York Times article on China’s rapid nuclear buildup.

The post Global China Hub Nonresident Senior Fellow John Culver Quotes in New York Times appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On December 30, 2023, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer appeared on Voice of America Korea to discuss how the United States’ strategy is evolving in response to North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. Soofer highlighted the United States’ multifaceted approach to missile defense including active defense measures, preemptive capabilities prior to missile launch, and nuclear deterrence through the threat of overwhelming retaliation. He stressed that the United States is well equipped to meet the ongoing threat and continues to develop its approach. 

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Robert Soofer

Former Senior Fellow

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Arms Control Defense Policy

Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

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The post Soofer on Voice of America on North Korean missile threat appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On December 15, Lauren Gilbert was quoted in NK News assessing President Yoon Suk Yeol’s North Korea policy as part of a survey of over 100 experts. She explained that although there was room for improvement, Yoon’s “call to cease development of the DPRK’s nuclear weapons while being open to diplomacy and providing aid” was a step in the right direction.  

On December 18, Gilbert was quoted in another survey-based NK News article, where she explained that Kim Jong Un would be likely to view future diplomacy with the United States skeptically, especially given the United States’ increased cooperation with South Korea and Japan. 

Staff

Lauren D. Gilbert

Deputy Director

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

East Asia Human Rights

The post Gilbert quoted in NK News on next steps for North Korea appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Our expert analysts

• Robert Soofer: Senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program and former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy
• Keir Lieber: Nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program and professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies
• Amy Woolf: Nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program and former specialist in nuclear weapons policy at the Congressional Research Service of the US Library of Congress
• General Kevin Chilton: Distinguished fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program and former commander of US Strategic Command
• Franklin D. Kramer: Distinguished fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and former US assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs
• Hans Binnendijk: Distinguished fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Transatlantic Security Initiative and former National Security Council official
• Daryl Press: Nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program and professor of government and director of the Institute for Global Security at Dartmouth University
• Walter Slocombe: Board director, Atlantic Council
• Rachel Whitlark: Nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program and associate professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology

Lessons learned for deterrence theory

ROBERT SOOFER: China’s nuclear buildup, combined with Russia’s increased reliance on nuclear weapons, means that the United States will now be facing a two-peer nuclear environment. When it comes to lessons of the Cold War, are they applicable to this new tripolar context?. . .

Let’s start with deterrence theory: Does the Cold War strategy suffice, or does the United States need a new strategy? How do we think about deterrence during the Cold War? And is there something unique about this new era that requires us to rethink?

KEIR LIEBER: I’m going to focus on three key Cold War deterrence theories that I think are most relevant.

The three main deterrence challenges facing the United States were 1) how to deter a nuclear attack against the US homeland, 2) how to extend deterrence to cover allies, and 3) how to manage the risk of nuclear escalation in any conflict. The United States grappled with all three of these challenges during the Cold War, mostly over the best way to make nuclear deterrence credible.

In terms of the first challenge, the United States sought to deter Soviet nuclear attack against the US homeland by deploying a robust nuclear triad of forces that could survive any Soviet first strike and still be able to carry out overwhelming nuclear retaliation.

For the second challenge, the United States sought to deter a Soviet conventional invasion of its NATO allies in Western Europe by threatening to use nuclear weapons first. That is, the United States planned to escalate to nuclear war in response to a Soviet conventional attack. The US built the forces for this, and the United States forward deployed these forces in Western Europe to make this threat as credible, real, and convincing as possible.

Third, the United States sought to avoid escalation to all-out nuclear war in any conflict with the Soviet Union by seeking superiority at every rung of the escalation ladder. That is, the United States sought to convince the Soviet Union that the United States could, and would, respond in kind to any additional escalation. In other words, the United States pursued dominance for the purpose of deterrence; and if deterrence failed, the United States planned to rely on its dominance to coerce a halt to the conflict before things got totally out of hand.

Only the third deterrence theory requires major theoretical rethinking by US policymakers and defense planners today. I don’t think the United States needs a fundamentally new theory to understand how to deter an attack on the US homeland. Of course, the United States may need to build up its nuclear forces in response to buildups by China and Russia. This is the tripolar context. But it’s still hard to imagine a surprise nuclear strike that wipes out or disables the entire US arsenal, leaving nothing with which Washington can retaliate.

Extended deterrence to allies is getting more difficult but not necessarily because of the new dynamics of tripolarity. I don’t think the United States needs a new theory of extended deterrence in the age of tripolarity. Yes, the United States needs to do more to make the nuclear umbrella over Japan and South Korea more credible, but the real challenge simply comes from the growth of North Korea’s nuclear forces, their ability to hit the US homeland, and expected challenges like that.

However, when it comes to deterring and managing escalation in a conventional war against a nuclear power, I think Cold War theories, ideas, and explanations are hindering the US ability to think clearly and realistically about the threats. The key difference is that whereas in the Cold War it was the United States that sought to make nuclear escalation credible—that is, to make plausible in the mind of the United States’ key adversary that it would escalate to nuclear use—today, the shoe is on the other foot. Today it’s the United States’ potential adversaries—including China, Russia, North Korea, and someday Iran—that might need to threaten nuclear escalation to deter the United States in a conventional war.

Today the United States seeks to avoid nuclear escalation, not make it more likely. Yet, as seen in Ukraine and in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s credible threats to escalate with nuclear weapons, most of the policy and analytic community is falling back on Cold War ideas about deterrence. Many seem to have little grasp of the reasons why an adversary losing a conventional war will seek to escalate, and what should be done about it. That’s where new theories are needed to understand and prepare for nuclear escalation in the conventional conflicts of today and tomorrow.

US leaders and the US analytical community need to better understand the new risks, dangers, and challenges of nuclear deterrence today. That’s why I see it as a theoretical challenge as much as anything else.

AMY WOOLF: The theory of deterrence and where there is a problem is not with the actual theory, but with the way that people shorthand the theory.

So throughout the Cold War, the shorthand—we would say “deterrence” and people would hear or read “deterrence by the threat of offensive nuclear retaliation.” But the theory of deterrence is that you ensure that the adversary making the decision—and this is a mind game—recognizes that the costs of taking action will far exceed the benefits of taking action. So the United States operationalized that during the Cold War through the threat of offensive nuclear retaliation.

In the circumstance of escalation from a conventional conflict to a nuclear conflict, deterrence—ensuring that the costs exceed the benefits of being the first one to use nuclear weapons—means a lot more than just threatening nuclear retaliation. You need to emphasize costs all along the escalatory ladder. If there is a regional crisis and you don’t want it to escalate, you can walk the crisis through in the Russia-Ukraine context.

But at the theory level, the idea is that through some integrated response to an adversary, you make clear to them that, at all steps of the escalation ladder, if they keep moving forward, their benefits will be swamped by the costs and dampened by the United States’ reaction. So it’s the cost-benefit mind game—which it was during the Cold War, but many shorthand it to nuclear deterrence in the Cold War.

KEVIN CHILTON: Perhaps assurance and escalation control are more closely linked than we thought of in the past. When thinking about what to field and how to posture forces, perhaps the associated considerations should not just be about escalation control but also about the benefits to assurance. One may enhance assurance or one may not, depending on how you think through both of these elements.

FRANKLIN D. KRAMER: The United States went from an early Cold War doctrine of threatening heavy use early to a doctrine of flexible response. And that basically meant that the United States was going to do its best to succeed at the conventional level. It didn’t take first use off the table, that’s for sure. But it certainly didn’t make first use predominant either.

So it seems to me that the challenges are pretty much the same. That is to say the United States always had to think about, if it started to succeed at the conventional level, the possibility that the adversary would go nuclear. That’s certainly the United States’ significant problem. It’s a problem in Europe. It’s a problem in the Indo-Pacific. But it’s not different, in my opinion, than the problem that the United States had once it moved to the flexible response approach.

HANS BINNENDIJK: But there is a distinction between deterring a rational actor and deterring a decisionmaker who is more emotionally engaged. During the Cold War, the United States was dealing with a Kremlin that, despite everything else, was comprised of actors that were still rational. I’m not sure Putin today is a rational actor. I’m not sure the United States is dealing with a rational actor in North Korea. And so as the United States thinks about deterrence theory, it might want to shape that theory with those two kinds of decision makers in mind: a rational actor and an emotional actor—someone deciding based on his or her own personal survival, on history, on culture, and all the things seen coming out of Putin’s mind.

DARYL PRESS: During the Cold War, with respect to the intersection between conventional war and escalation, there was a theoretical question the United States was trying to solve and a theoretical question that the Soviets were trying to solve.

This theoretical question links directly back to Thomas Schelling: How does the United States make credible threats that it will use nuclear weapons if its conventional forces are failing, when nuclear escalation at its highest level would lead to mutual disaster? And that’s a difficult theoretical question that gave birth to Schelling’s Nobel Prize-winning work about managing risks in a world of mutual destruction. So it was a theoretical problem that the United States faced in the Cold War, and it made a lot of progress on that problem, both theoretically and operationally in terms of deterrence strategy.

The Soviets faced a different theoretical problem, which is how do you beat in conventional war an enemy who has the ability to escalate to the nuclear level to avoid defeat? And I think they never solved that problem. The reason that’s relevant now is that’s the problem the United States faces. If it faces war on the Korean Peninsula tomorrow, the problem is how does the United States convince the North Koreans to allow it to beat them without them employing stalemated weapons? How does the United States get Russia to allow it, with its allies, to impose a really bad defeat on Russia without incentivizing an escalation? And it’s the problem the United States might face in Taiwan.

So, yes, at the most abstract level, make sure that costs exceed benefits? Check. But the analytic community for thirty years was focused on one problem in the Cold War. It is focused on a different problem today. And the fact that it is not crystal clear about that is, itself, a problem.

Cold War nuclear strategy

ROBERT SOOFER: How did the United States operationalize deterrence during the Cold War? What are the implications for the current situation?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: It seems to me there are distinct phases. The first was in the immediate post-Cold War period, where the United States had actually very few weapons, only fifty Hiroshima-size weapons, and the targets were all cities. This was a holdover from the Army/Air Force fascination with strategic bombing. And its problem is demonstrated by the question an Army guy at one of these briefings supposedly asked: I know you can destroy the fifty biggest cities in Russia, the Soviet Union. But how will that stop the Red Army? In some sense, that’s a question we’ve never answered.

The second phase is 1950 to 1955, roughly. The United States had a lot more weapons, a very big, stacked plan summarized by a naval officer at this time who said that it is a plan for reducing the Soviet Union to a smoldering, radiating ruin in about two hours. Holding back the Soviet military was added as an objective, but there was still a very heavy emphasis on urban-industrial targets. Next phase—and I’m sticking strictly to the strategic part of this problem, leaving aside the tactical—was the period as the Soviets began to develop significant forces of their own. Meanwhile, the US concept had not changed, but the target list was growing.

And just as a sideline, this was the period when the Air Force was finally coerced into fighting on the same side as the Navy—or, more accurately, letting the Navy fight on the same side as they did. Then the Kennedy administration, perhaps the most important development there was when former US President John F. Kennedy and then US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara were briefed on the Single Integrated Operational Plan, their immediate answer was it was too big. And when they heard General Lyman Lemnitzer say, quite candidly to his credit, under any circumstances, even during a preemptive attack by the United States, it would be expected that some portion of the Soviet long-range nuclear force would strike the United States—this was a period of very large increases in both sides’ forces.

The next phase, roughly the Nixon years, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger—who had, after all, made his name by a book that was substantially about limited nuclear war—made the point that the president needed to have options other than Armageddon or inaction, some way to be effective but also to constrain escalation. And the directives were to create smaller options. Some options were developed—that was a period, at least part of it, when I was on the National Security Council staff. There were lots more numbers on the briefing slides, but they were all pretty big, unless they were extremely little.

Then the Carter administration is, of course, most famous for Presidential Directive 59 (PD-59), which, partly because I was involved, I think was the first serious effort to ask what would deter the Soviets. And the conclusion was that the risk of losing the things the leader managed most (Communist Party control, conventional military power, and, importantly, ethnic Russian hegemony in the Soviet Union) would deter the Soviets. And this was the theory of articulation of the point that Amy made, that the objective is to make sure the enemy thinks that the costs and risks are graded in turn.

Over this history, I think there are a number of common themes. One, and I think it’s very important, is what I call presidential revulsion. I would assert that every US president, including Harry Truman, and even Donald Trump too, has just been appalled when they learn about nuclear weapons and wants to figure out some way out of this bomb. And so the search is to have credibility for meaningful attacks, but ones that also don’t force escalation.

The second common theme is the very weak link between theory and practice. It is remarkable the degree to which different doctrines, written up very elegantly, had essentially minimal impact on the actual planning. Now, this was partly due to massive nontransparency in the process. The most extreme version was the early days, when the Navy and the Air Force literally didn’t know each other’s target. Thus, the search for options with limited results, partly due to military resistance was, to quote Kissinger, “always short of being insubordinate but also short of being useful.”

Another theme is rapid early response. That is to avoid preemption. But it also requires preplanned options, which are very inflexible. And it is a capabilities-based approach to cover targets that are identified only in the most general terms and that the military-urban distinction is quite artificial.

Not totally artificial, but even the military can see that the co-location of facilities, particularly industrial facilities, is such that it is hard to distinguish an attack on military and industrial targets from an attack on cities as such. One important point was the absolute assertion of the proposition that only the president can reduce and authorize the use of nuclear weapons. And pretty firm pushing back at any effort to change that.

There’s a short epilogue post-1990. Very different. End of the Cold War. But it was the time when for the first time, under Franklin C. Miller’s leadership, there was real civilian access and detailed review, drastic cuts in the weapons allocation, and drastic cuts in the number of weapons.

On the United States’ nuclear strategy, mutually assured destruction (MAD) was accepted as a test of sufficiency. It was not used—to put it mildly—either for planning purposes or procurement. There is a mark of continued aspiration, fascination with the idea of going first. So if you’re going first, you’re going very quickly, so that you can reduce damage. None of the schemes, I think, had a whole lot of value.

On the United States’ current problem with tripolarity, I think there is an interesting analogy to something that runs all the way through the history. That is to have what was called in PD-59 a secure reserve force. And in many ways, a secure reserve force as a way of deterring, still by the threat of retaliation, but hoping that the enemy will avoid further escalation because of the prospect that we can still trump his ace. And I think that is in some sense simply a general case of what the United States has faced now in terms of deterring either Russia or China, if the United States is engaged in a war.

KEIR LIEBER: I would just dissent from the view that one strategic approach characterized US planning in the Cold War. In the first phase of the Cold War, US strategy entailed massive nuclear use at the outset of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. And that persisted for quite a while. It was only until the early 1960s that the United States really got serious about a more flexible response, even though it’s still not clear whether a more flexible path would have been possible.

And then later in the Cold War there was a major effort to develop counterforce capabilities to target Soviet nuclear delivery systems, and an interest in first strike: that’s a reality. Diving deeper into the Cold War, it is becoming increasingly clear that counterforce efforts pervaded many different parts of the US government and military. It’s important to understand that US goals, doctrines, and postures were variable, not constant.

DARYL PRESS: The United States may be making kind of an analytic and theoretical mistake, which is, if the United States’ principal wartime task toady was the same as it was during the Cold War—meaning stopping somebody with conventional superiority from defeating us—then the question worth asking is does the United States still have the ability to employ nuclear weapons in some sort of limited, managed way, to try to reestablish deterrence, the Cold War objective? But if the objective now is to be able to impose a defeat of some fashion on nuclear-armed adversaries—whether that’s Russia in Ukraine, or China in Taiwan, or North Korea in some war—then simply being able to continue to impose costs upon them as they’re escalating might not be enough, from a theoretical standpoint, because the costs to them of accepting defeat are so very high.

So that’s why at least it raises the possibility that the questions the United States should be asking today are different from the ones it was asking in the 1970s and 1980s. Whereas then it was about can the United States use and manage, now it’s what can the United States do to stop them from using as the United States is winning the conventional war?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: The right question to ask is how does the United States make them believe that they have more to lose in the first place by starting at all? And that’s very important. But in the second place, that they have more to lose after they use nuclear weapons? One place that I think it would be interesting to do more research is tactical nuclear weapons. For various reasons, maybe it’s just the National Security Archive hasn’t gotten around to doing it, I was able to find a great deal less information about doctrine in theater in the Cold War period than strategic.

AMY WOOLF: Nuclear strategy and employment policy are very, very, very different things. Ninety percent of this conversation is about what the United States says about how it would employ nuclear weapons, and what it would seek to achieve by employing them. But what came out of Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff (JSTPS) and STRATCOM and the actual planning had very little variation to it over time.

Where anytime you go and talk to JSTPS, even now probably going out to STRATCOM, they do their job systematically and systemically, but the doctrinal reports and papers that are sent out don’t always match. So in the two-peer environment what the United States says about what its goals are may be extraordinarily unlikely to change, because its goals are general enough.

The United States wants to restore deterrence at the minimal level of damage and keep the adversary from controlling escalation. There should be no newness to those goals. But how the United States would actually plan and employ the use of nuclear weapons may change. And that gets to the question of whether you’d see those changes if you went to the Targeteers and saw how they implemented change. Because I once asked General Lee Butler why he became an abolitionist. And he said it was because nothing ever changes. The Targeteers will go straight to all-out nuclear war no matter where you go. So it’s two separate questions.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: I think the idea in PD-59 was to have some options for use that were clearly less than all-out. My favorite was always attack the Soviet forces defending the Chinese border. Something that they would really not like very much. It wouldn’t be fatal, but it would divert their attention. And at least conceptually, that’s the sort of thing that it seems to me what the United States should be looking for.

It’s a very hard problem, in the case of Ukraine. I’m not sure it’s a harder problem in the case of having a post-exchange or a post-crisis, which doesn’t have to use nuclear weapons, with a peer when you’re still concerned with deterring the other peer. And, of course, they’re not independent variables.

Today’s nuclear force posture

ROBERT SOOFER: Today the United States has options that are extremely flexible. And whatever is not on the books, the president can order up, and the country can make happen. So the United States can use nuclear weapons in the most limited and flexible manner possible. So I would suggest that US operational policy, engagement policy, and capabilities are very much in concert now with a strategy of limited controlled use of nuclear weapons.

KEVIN CHILTON: First, I’m not sure our options are as flexible as they need to be in the current or pending environment. They certainly aren’t as flexible as they were in the European theater in the 1970s and 1980s. As we look forward, suicide cannot be the president’s only deterrent option. By that I mean it would likely be intolerable (or just as bad, unbelievable) to attempt to deter a regional conflict with threats of a strike on the homeland of a near-peer adversary who would likely respond in a similar, if not an escalated, fashion. And so not enough time, in my view, is being spent on examining the role of theater weapons, designed to be employed on targets other than those on an adversary’s mainland, in deterring a conventional conflict that the United States thinks it may otherwise lose. If, for example, the US combatant commander in the Indo-Pacific region assesses that US conventional capabilities cannot deter or defeat an invasion of Taiwan, then the United States should consider what theater nuclear threat might sow doubt in a Chinese assessment of their ability to achieve unification by force without provoking a strike on the US homeland. Additionally, we should consider what role theater nuclear weapons might have in deterring the first use of nuclear weapons by China in a case where China begins to lose a conventional conflict it initiates against Taiwan. Also, theater-based nuclear weapons are not just escalation control weapons and deterrent weapons; they can also be meaningful assurance weapons.

Secondly, the United States strategic deterrent force is essentially a dyad today. The bomber force remains flexible but difficult to put on alert. Indeed, we should take a serious look at what it would take to put bombers on alert in adequate numbers to credibly signal resolve or, in the more stressing case, backfill the loss of one of the other legs of the triad, whether it be for technical reasons in their warheads or delivery vehicles. This should include examining tanker requirements as well as security force, maintenance, and alert accommodations for crews and weapon storage area requirements.

Today, our nuclear weapon enterprise cannot manufacture our way out of a geopolitical surprise like the rise of a second near-peer competitor, which I would argue is no longer a surprise. It’s a reality, as we see China growing its strategic forces. There are those who say that there is no need to change the declaratory policies, force structure, and posture of US nuclear forces as China becomes a near peer. I think that is a sign that the United States hasn’t thoughtfully considered the potential impacts of this important change. We likely will need more flexible capabilities and employment options than what we have today. Examining what it would take to reinvigorate the readiness of the bomber leg is one thing I think the United States should be considering in this regard.

ROBERT SOOFER: But with respect to US strategy, is there any reason to change from this notion that the United States should have controlled, limited, flexible use of nuclear weapons with the purpose of limiting escalation short of strategic nuclear exchange? Is there any reason to change that strategy?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: There really is a formula for making any nonsuicidal adversary realize that the costs to them will be greater than the gains. But I’m in favor of what you call a more tailored, more limited response. Also, it’s important to remember on the tactical front, where I think some of the answers will lie, many tend to think of tactical nuclear weapons as platform-based. The issue really is not where the weapons come from, but where they go. And I would have thought one of the arguments for keeping the bombers, even if they’re limited use, in a large-scale option is that they have some very clear advantages.

DARYL PRESS: I’d just say again, in a different version, if the United States is trying to deter an adversary for reaching for nuclear weapons while the United States inflicts devastating defeats on them in a war, then I think the ability merely to respond in kind and inflict additional pain on them doesn’t make sense analytically. If you’re the North Korean government and the consequence you see coming down the path from this war is that South Korean forces are going to end up in Pyongyang, and you’re either going to get hung in Pyongyang or across the border in Beijing, the fact that United States might respond with nuclear weapons if you escalate shouldn’t, logically, give you any additional fear.

At least for the nonpeer competitor cases, if you want a coercive ability to try to convince them to keep their nuclear forces on the table while they’re suffering terrible defeat, you should have response options that do more than punish, but probably disarm. And that’s the argument for having at least good counterforce capabilities in those cases. Whether that’s feasible or desirable against China or feasible or desirable against Russia is a different can of worms.

The United States might lose a conventional war over Taiwan. It might. But it also might win overwhelmingly. It might. And if the Chinese Communist Party is faced with a catastrophic, embarrassing, humiliating defeat, leading to the loss of a big portion of their territory, China might have incentives to escalate. And simply the ability to inflict suffering in response might not be the right coercive mechanism.

To me, the case is clear, with regard to little countries, like North Korea and, in the future, Iran. It’s less clear, but the United States just can’t fall into these same ways of thinking that says coercing them from escalating is the same thing we were doing in the Cold War, because it’s not.

I think China sees the nuclear balance very differently than a lot of people in the United States do. There is a reason why China is adapting its nuclear forces in a hurry, the way they are. And I believe they perceive serious threats to their nuclear arsenal. So there is a tradeoff here. Building additional disarming capabilities against China solves one problem and leans into a different one. And the different problem it leans into is it generates the kind of responses being seen from them right now. And it’s true.

On the other hand, accepting a condition of MAD—not a policy of MAD, a condition of MAD with China—leans into a situation where they do have escalatory options to avert the worst sorts of conventional defeats. At the end of the day, at some point the United States has to give up the ability to have, I think, superior options over countries when they’re powerful, rich, and technically capable enough. But how far up that adversary continuum do you want to go in terms of building disarming capabilities, such that you can not only deter conventional war but you have a chance to deter adversary escalation in such a war and to mitigate costs to US allies and forces if that happens?

And simply saying it’s all one thing, imposing costs, it mixes all the nuance and it leads you into this situation which is giving leaders options that are no greater than different forms of defeat and disaster. And that would be a failure.

KEIR LIEBER: Can the United States do a counterforce disarming strike? That’s a calculation it needs to think about for a country like North Korea. But for Russia and China, even if that’s not possible, which is worth debating, that’s going to be an ongoing conversation. But is a limited nuclear response to, say, Russian nuclear escalation in Ukraine the right doctrine, the right approach, the right policy?

Even a limited nuclear response—what does that accomplish? If you believe that you are not willing to go up the escalation ladder all the way to all-out nuclear war, and if you believe that Russia has a more vital stake in the conflict in Ukraine than the United States does, then I’m not sure whether even a limited response makes any sense in that case.

KEVIN CHILTON: I think there is value in being able to respond in kind, and perhaps even a little bit larger than in kind, in such a circumstance. And at least, if nothing else, having the ability to do that, and threaten that, I think serves a purpose for not only escalation control, but for fundamental deterrence.

And if all you have in your response options are “sledgehammers,” then the credibility of your deterrent is reduced. Because oftentimes a bully will think, surely they’re not going to pull the sledgehammer out if I just kick them in the shins. But, surely the bully may be wrong, which is dangerous for all sides. So I think there is value both in deterring first use, but in also escalation control, by fielding those capabilities.

In the Korean scenario, I agree if Kim Jong-Un thinks he’s going to die no matter what, then he’s probably more likely to do something radical. But there’s an assumption there that the United States would drive all the way to Pyongyang and drag him to the gallows to stop an invasion of South Korea. I think that’s a bad assumption.

If what the United States is trying to do is preserve South Korea, there are choices that can be made in a conventional conflict that perhaps do not put him in that corner. And the United States needs to think about that when it considers how to posture, structure, and consider its policies with regard to nuclear use.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: It would be a mistake to assume that all wars, even all serious wars, are wars about literally national existence. I mean, for Ukraine it is, but it’s not for Russia. Taiwan is important to China, but the Chinese Communist Party has been ruling China quite successfully since 1949 with no control over Taiwan. It’s not that it’s impossible to create a situation in which the Chinese, however reluctantly, come to the conclusion that pressing an attack on Taiwan—or even starting down that path—is not very much in their interest.

Extended deterrence and assurance

ROBERT SOOFER: Making extended deterrence and assurance credible was the toughest job during the Cold War. So how did the United States do this during the Cold War? How should the United States use this moving forward?

HANS BINNENDIJK: Extended deterrence is harder than trying to deter an adversary from attacking your own territory; not just because it’s someone else’s territory, but you are also trying to deter both conventional and nuclear attacks. Having said that, it worked. It worked really quite well during the Cold War—no attack on a NATO ally or other US allies in Asia, no proliferation on the part of US allies, which would be a demonstration of lack of assurance. Contrast this with the Israeli case where the United States did not provide extended deterrence, and Israel proliferated to defend themselves and deter.

What were the characteristics of what I think was a very successful policy during the Cold War of extended deterrence? I would say there are four Ts. The United States had treaty arrangements with all of these nations. It had troops in the region, both to defend conventionally but also as—call them nuclear hostages. The United States had theater nuclear weapons there, so thinking back to the 1980 debate over Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) deployments. But the United States had the nuclear weapons there, and it had trust. It had trust with the allies. And it worked hard on building that trust. It had all sorts of consultative mechanisms. It shared plans, policies, etc. So these four Ts together allowed the United States to get through the Cold War with extended deterrence working.

Then you had the next thirty years after the end of the Cold War, and what happened to extended deterrence there? It continued to be successful. There was a dramatic change in the threat from the Soviet Union to a greater focus on the Korean Peninsula. The United States had treaties remaining in place, by and large, troop deployments there—declining numbers, but still there. Trust became a little more difficult, especially during the Trump years, and the theater nuclear weapons were largely removed except for those delivered by dual-capable aircraft in Europe. So you had a shift there in that next thirty-year period, but extended deterrence continued to work.

And now there’s a new era where both the Russians and the North Koreans are threatening use of nuclear weapons, and there is a growing INF gap, both in Europe and in Asia. So we’re beginning to lose some of those four Ts, as I call them.

I’d say there are two questions. One is extended deterrence for treaty allies—does the United States need to make changes there to continue the successful extended deterrence as seen over the last seven or eight decades? I would say the United States doesn’t need a change of theory there. But it does need, perhaps, to implement things a bit differently and strengthen several of those four Ts, and maybe look at missile defense as another element.

And the second question is, what about extended deterrence for nontreaty allies? Ukraine, Taiwan, the obvious two. The United States doesn’t really have policies there. All of the Ts, if you will, are missing. And can you have any degree of extended deterrence without treaty arrangements, without troops, without trust, and without weapons in theater?

FRANKLIN D. KRAMER: I’m not sure that I would agree that extended deterrence worked. I would say it didn’t fail. And the reason I make that point is that there are a lot of things that come into play to determine whether or not a war starts, and it’s not just the nuclear weapons, so the United States’ conventional capabilities, the geostrategic set of arrangements, etc. etc. And so that may affect how we think about things.

The second thing I think is also important to say is when we talk about so-called theater nuclear weapons, whether a weapon is strategic or not I think depends on where it lands. So if we have a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile, for example, that hits the Chinese mainland, from their perspective, that’s a strategic weapon. That doesn’t mean we should or should not have it. It just means that we need to understand that calling something theater doesn’t necessarily reduce the risk of escalation. It really depends on what you do with it.

So with respect to hitting their fleet in the water might be significantly less escalatory than hitting some appropriate—from our perspective—military target on land, and I would think, pretty certainly in my opinion, if we hit the Chinese mainland, they’re going to hit the US mainland.

On the issues of assurance and extended deterrence, I think it’s useful to outline a few things. One, what we did during the Cold War didn’t necessarily assure the allies. The ROKs and the Taiwans each had so-called secret nuclear programs. We eventually stopped them, but they certainly weren’t assured for a considerable period of time. There were some people down in Australia who would have liked to have moved—even a few people in Japan—not their government. So assurance was not ironclad—let’s put it that way. And certainly, that was not the case in Europe when Schmidt—I think it was 1977 if I remember right—raised the issue of the then-Soviet weapons—the SS-20 intermediate-range nuclear missiles in particular which led to the dual-track kind of approach, deploying ground-launched cruise missiles and Pershings, but also the INF talks. And then those eventually did succeed until, of course, the Russians decided to violate it.

So the lesson I think that one wants to take is that it’s a really bad idea to think about extended deterrence in and of itself. It’s part of overall deterrence; that is to say both conventional and nuclear. There is a high degree of importance in consultations and engaging the allies so that—the dual-capable aircraft I don’t think are very important weapons from an employment approach, but they are very important weapons in terms of maintaining the alliance’s working together. The Nuclear Planning Group is sort of a talking shop, but then the same thing—it is importance for alliance management, and it’s important, I think, to modernize in a way that the allies feel most comfortable.

And one example of things changing where that’s important, of course, is the German decision late last year to go with the F-35s, which I think was not a foregone decision until the Russians decided to invade Ukraine, and then Germany’s policy very substantially changed.

In Asia, we’ve got the Japanese, the Australians, the Group of Seven for that matter, the ROKs all talking about the importance of stability in the Taiwan Strait. And so, again, they have a high degree of interest in what the United States does in this regard including nuclear weapons, but not only nuclear weapons.

And I haven’t figured out really what to do about the DPRK. I don’t think it’s accurate to say that [Kim Jong Un is] not a rational actor; it’s just that the way he analyzes things is just different. And it’s the same with Putin. Putin is rational but he’s got an entirely different set of motivations and factors that he considers.

So to go forward, I think we should do some of the things that we are doing, which is to say modernize, have an adequate amount of weapons. I think we need to look hard at, with at least three—and maybe with Iran coming—four potential nuclear adversaries. Just do some of the analysis that is done out in Omaha, main points, survivability, those kinds of issues.

We need to think through missile defense as part of that. I think we need to step up the set of consultations. The administration says it is doing that. I think that’s the right way to go. And then, we need to think through hard where we stand on Taiwan. The lesson that a lot of people have taken from Ukraine—and the administration is concerned about escalation with respect to Ukraine—is that it’s not so necessarily likely that we would utilize weapons to defend Taiwan, and does that make it more likely or not that the Chinese would attack?

ROBERT SOOFER: Is there anything else that changes in the two nuclear peer environment—two nuclear peer plus because we’ll include North Korea—and is there anything else that the United States should consider to shore up extended deterrence/assurance?

KEIR LIEBER: Two things come to mind: The first is about the issue of characterizing leaders as rational versus delusional. I think this is a red herring. It’s a distraction from the real issue and about how we should go about analyzing it.

What I always say is let’s just assume they’re a rational actor—just make that assumption, then figure out what we would do, and what he or she would do, and then we can adjust things based on whether one thinks they are crazy, recklessly aggressive, emotional, etc. When I think about Putin’s potential nuclear use, China’s potential nuclear use, North Korea’s potential nuclear use, I don’t have to go to the “they’re crazy or delusional” argument to get to nuclear use. I mean, I completely understand what the incentives would be for Putin to do this. And I don’t think we’re doing ourselves any favors by writing someone off as just a crazy actor who does or does not operate according to rational deterrence theory. Let’s first figure out what a rational actor might do and then take it from there. That might be worrisome enough.

The second thing is that there is a tendency to delink the capabilities that the US thinks it needs for actual deterrence from the capabilities it thinks it needs for assurance. I’ve always said that what US allies want it to deploy is what they think will deter the common adversary—not anything different than that. And so it’s not like when the Tomahawk land attack missile was retired, when everybody described a favorite ally as saying that they really care about, or don’t care about, this one capability—at the end of the day, I think all they care about is what are the capabilities that are going to be most likely to deter. Are the dual-capable aircraft armed with B61-12s, is that the key thing to deter a Russian nuclear escalation? I think not. I’d much rather have a new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile or the low-yield ballistic missile around if deterrence is the goal.

But my point is that’s a discussion about what we think will deter. And the thing that will deter is the thing that’s going to assure the best. We should be careful not to delink these concepts as if assurance is a separate thing from deterrence—that is, just some other psychological thing or calculation.

WALTER SLOCOMBE: I think in many ways the platform issue is much less about the Russians than it is about the allies and partners. The British minister of defence, Denis Healey, said the problem with assurance is it’s a 5 percent chance that it will work—may well be enough to deter the Russians, but a 95 percent chance that it may not be enough to reassure the allies.

The dual-capable aircraft had some unique capabilities—they’re not a waste—but they are primarily there because they are a symbol of nuclear sharing, they’re a symbol of our commitment. They are—this can cut both ways—they are physically in Europe, in country, and there are a number of things that I think come in that category.

ROBERT SOOFER: But what does that mean—except for the fact that we may need additional capabilities, but we need to be able to convince our allies that we are willing to use nuclear weapons on their behalf. We have to have those capabilities. That was the case during the Cold War, and that’s the case today. So we need to think of those types of capabilities that will deter the adversaries, and by doing so, now we will reassure the allies. That’s what we did in the Cold War, and that’s what we’re doing today. So what’s different?

HANS BINNENDIJK: Well, one of the things that’s different is that the four Ts that worked during the Cold War and weren’t needed during the next thirty years are going to be more needed in the future. And getting to them is going to be difficult. For example, in the European context, I think we would probably strengthen deterrence if we had some more theater nuclear capability in Europe. Getting there would be politically very dangerous. We do not want to have another dual-track debate—not at this particular point in Europe, given the unity we’ve been able to craft around Ukraine.

So I think the best we can do in the NATO context is to call for a review of nuclear deterrence, and do that quietly on the side with our allies. The worst thing we could do is tell them that extended deterrence is no longer as credible as it used to be. So I think that has to be done very carefully.

Asia is probably different politically. We can probably introduce theater weapons there with less political baggage. So that’s the first thing—getting back to the four Ts, if you will, and how to do that carefully.

And then the second thing I would say, there really is a difference in trying to deter attacks on non-allies. There is no theory for that, and if we’re thinking about new theory, that’s where we need it.

FRANKLIN D. KRAMER: It seems to me that some of the discussion implies that the way the Chinese—to just use one example—think about deterrence, and the use of nuclear weapons, and the like, is the same as the way we do. I don’t think we should take that as a given. I think that we need to think—we need to do our best to try and have a much better understanding of what the Chinese value, what they see as most important, how they would act.

There’s been a big difference in general since Chinese leader Xi Jinping took over with respect to the way the Chinese go at a lot of things, so the Xi approach is quite different than the approaches taken by former leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. That may or may not make a difference with respect to how they would decide whether to go into a fight or what they would do once they were in a fight. But it’s certainly something that requires a lot of thinking—in my opinion—and not simply saying that we understand what would deter the Chinese, and I don’t think that’s right.

They are human beings, they are smart—they are really smart—but how they sort out what would make a difference I think requires a lot of thought.

It certainly seems to me to be a very important approach. And the same thing actually applies to Putin in a difference as I said earlier—that his calculations are, from his point of view, quite rational. He thinks that Ukraine is and should be part of Russia—we can go into a long rap about that—what risks he’s willing to take given that analysis, that starting point needs to be thought through, and what would make a difference.

I simply do not think that calling something theater makes it less strategic from the point of view of the adversary, whose country it lands in.

DARYL PRESS: I see changes, dramatic and potentially very significant changes, across the nuclear deterrence landscape. One is that we’re trying to deter nuclear use by adversaries who, in many cases, may feel they have regime threat levels of incentives to employ, even if they are rational. And that’s a different deterrence challenge. But that’s one that we’ve talked about considerably.

The second one is we’re trying to do deterrence in an era in which it’s not an exaggeration to say it is just unprecedented rates of technological change, and it’s technological change across the board in fashions that challenge the nitty-gritty of the nuclear mission. Obviously, accuracy revolution has gone through the roof, but the other shoe has yet to fall on the accuracy revolution, which is a world in which adversaries—countries with nuclear weapons also have substantial numbers of deliverable conventional weapons that pose major threats to their enemies’ nuclear forces. When that shoe falls, everybody from the United States rethinking land-based ballistic missiles to other countries around the world, and that’s the accuracy revolution.

The sensing revolution—it’s hard to talk about it in unclassified spaces, but it just changes everything. And even while people can say, oh, open ocean submarine operations will always—God has told me they’ll always be secure, let me say we’re arming ballistic missile submarines in fashions that make me think we imagine using them in limited war situations, and that’s going to be really hard in a world of really new sensing.

So number one was these new escalatory environments. Number two is technology change. Number three is the one you keep asking us to engage with, and we’re barely doing it, which is tripolarity.

But then there is number four, which is there is an era of—we’re used to deterrence in an era of nuclear plenty. We’re not in an era of nuclear plenty anymore. We’re in an era of 1,500 weapons. We’re in an era of fewer ballistic missile submarines going to sea with smaller numbers of tubes. And you’re in an era in which—although we have an air-delivered deterrent—I was in a meeting just a couple of days ago, and I was talking about the lack of tankers that will be available in US conventional operations against China because of the STRATCOM requirements, and they laughed me out of the room and said STRATCOM won’t have any nuclear requirements for tankers in a major conventional war against China. And I think that’s crazy, and I think it’s a big hole in our thinking. And I would agree with General Kevin Chilton, which is there will be a lot of STRATCOM requirements for tankers if you are fighting a conventional war.

So I think it’s away from an era of nuclear plenty; there are real constraints in the nuclear force. Tripolarity creates new problems. It’s a whole world of technology, and the interaction between conventional, and nuclear, and sensing, as well.

And then lastly is we’re in a world where, for the first time, sensible, rational, shrewd people have rational interests in using nuclear weapons in a conventional war against us as a way of keeping themselves off the noose. And you put all those things together, and I think—I think the environment’s changing.

KEVIN CHILTON: Just a few points I wanted to bring up that I think may be important in the broader discussion. One is we should always be careful not to mirror image our adversaries, that is, we should not assume that they are deterred by the same things that we would be deterred by.

The other is a caution not to assume China and Russia can be deterred in the same manner—or North Korea or anybody else. One of the fundamental things in talking about deterrence theory—which I do not think has changed—is that the key questions remain: Who (that is, what decision maker) do you want to deter? From doing what? And in what circumstances? Are you already in a conventional war? Is one looming? What are the circumstances that an adversary may be weighing? I don’t think the need for this type of analysis has fundamentally changed.

On the assurance side, we must remind ourselves that we don’t get to decide if someone else is assured. No. They decide if they are assured or not, and if they are not, then we end up with the undesirable effect of an increased risk of proliferation

And the last point I’d make is that I don’t think we’ve adequately thought through what is motivating China to building up its nuclear arsenal. I think one option that I haven’t heard brought up today is they may want to put themselves in a position to coerce us into not intervening conventionally in a Taiwan Straits or South China Sea crisis. Their previous posture, which was more of a retaliatory posture, appears to be growing into a first-strike capability and the threat of that capability maturing gives a different set of considerations to a future president as to whether or not he or she will come to the aid of our friends and allies in a conventional fight in the Western Pacific. Again, I think it is important for the United States to consider what roles theater nuclear weapons might play in deterring or countering that type of strategy.

And to Frank’s point that where the weapon lands matters, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve always found it rather cavalier on our part to assume that we would strike the Chinese mainland with conventional weapons in a Taiwan Straits scenario as a going-in assumption because I kind of have a sense how we might respond should our homeland be attacked with conventional weapons in this scenario.

Arms control and nonproliferation

ROBERT SOOFER: The United States has tried to reduce nuclear risks during the Cold War through a combination of nuclear deterrence, arms control, and nonproliferation. How successful were we during the Cold War and how might we use these tools going forward, if at all?

AMY WOOLF: So I do this spiel on how we should stop calling arms control arms control because when you do, everybody hears sign legally binding treaties that limit and reduce nuclear weapons. Please, may I talk you out of thinking those two phrases are the same thing, arms control and legally binding limits?

We, during the Cold War, did sign eight treaties and agreements with the Soviet Union and Russia that limited or reduced deployed numbers of nuclear weapons. But that’s not the fulsome nature of our arms control engagement and it’s not even a cause-and-effect relationship.

Most of the treaties that we signed that did require reductions in nuclear weapons were signed after we’d already decided to reduce requirements for nuclear weapons. So they codified those numbers.

Arms control does not force us to reduce nuclear weapons, nor can we expect it to force adversaries to accept reductions in their nuclear weapons unless they’ve already decided that they can get by with fewer.

So I’d like to disabuse you at the get-go from using that definition of arms control to answer Rob’s questions because I won’t.

What did we use arms control for during the Cold War? I have this nice fancy definition but mostly the core of it is to manage nuclear competition, encourage restraint in the numbers of nuclear weapons, and mitigate the risk of nuclear war, and we did it using a process of thirty out of fifty or forty out of fifty years of ongoing discussions, negotiations, consultations, things we called arms control negotiations that occasionally produced legally binding treaties.

But it was the process of engagement that is the sort of concept of arms control that we’re going to want to take forward in the current security environment where we have more than one peer with whom we would want to hold those discussions.

So what am I getting at here? When we sat down with the Soviet Union in the mid-1960s, we had very different concepts of what we would do with nuclear weapons, what we meant by strategic stability, and what our goals and roles were; and we’ve heard about that already today, that our deterrence problem was different from their deterrence problem, and even if we didn’t change each other’s minds over the years of pursuing these negotiations, these discussions, these engagements, this cooperation, we got a better understanding of what each other was talking about.

And that may not sound like a lot but it actually is because deterrence is a mind game and if you don’t know what levers to pull to affect the mind game then you’re not getting anywhere.

So if you think of arms control as a process of managing the nuclear competition by communicating, transparency, predictability, rather than the exact numbers of weapons that are deployed, you can see that it was quite successful during the Cold War to have those engagements with the Soviet Union and then with Russia.

If you measure it by limits on nuclear weapons, you would be far less sanguine about its success. For a period of time, we all agreed to limit our numbers of nuclear weapons. But when requirements change, as they are doing now, the willingness to limit numbers is going away.

So what does that mean for arms control, going forward? First off, do not consider arms control something you would do at a table with Russia and China at the same time. We have gotten to a place with Russia and the Soviet Union of having done this for fifty years we have a toolkit of things that we do and things that we accept to manage our nuclear competition and mitigate the risk of nuclear war.

We can’t expect our relationship with China to be in the same place. That toolkit that we’ve developed over fifty years with Russia isn’t going to be the same toolkit that we would use if and when we sit down at the table with China in an effort to manage our nuclear competition and encourage restraint.

We are not going to sit down at the table with China and start with legally binding treaties that limit and reduce nuclear weapons. We’re just not going to be there. The Chinese have said they are unwilling to do that.

We wouldn’t even know what to put in the treaty, and as General Chilton said, we don’t even know where they’re going with this modernization or why they’re getting there.

The first question we would want to ask them is not how many silos they are building now but how long they are going to keep at this and how many they are going to get to in the long run and why. The why is a really big question.

Now, knowing why may not affect anything about what we do next with them, but it will help us understand what our deterrence job is and what our nuclear requirements are. So the first step in arms control with China now is the same as what the first few steps with arms control with the Soviet Union were fifty years ago.

Figure out what language we’re speaking—and I don’t mean English and Chinese, obviously; I mean, in deterrence theory what language we’re speaking—what issues are of concern, what the roles and requirements of nuclear weapons are, and see if we can somehow manage this next phase of adjusting our requirements so that we don’t have misperceptions, misunderstandings, and inadvertent escalation.

So the role of arms control as a tool to manage competition in the 1960s and 1970s is the same role of arms control to manage nuclear competition today. We now have to do it at two different tables. But if you’re starting with that level of what is the role of arms control, that’s the same role.

RACHEL WHITLARK: One key takeaway from thinking about the history of the Cold War is that over time, two enemies, two competitors, managed to figure out how to cooperate or at least discuss areas of mutual interest despite the ongoing competition and contestation. That discussion was especially important in the areas where we were able to come up with standard-setting rules of the road to help us mitigate some of the most dangerous possibilities or at least work to improve those areas where there was ample opportunity for miscalculation. This type of behavior is going to be even more important in this more complex realm of the tripolar problem, especially since we’re not in a world at the present where we can expect formal treaties to be forthcoming with Russia or China.

Especially important is keeping areas of communication open and we’ve seen the US leadership recently move to try to keep areas of communication open with the Chinese, and I think there was some important news this week about the Biden administration working or taking steps to foster an agreement on the role of artificial intelligence in launching nuclear weapons.

So I think this is a good sign that we are moving in the right direction to at least try to keep conversation open despite what’s going on in Ukraine or other areas of friction in the dyadic relationships.

Of course, there’s more to do in thinking about the need to focus on the possibility of having US and Chinese agreement to alert one another if there’s going to be an ICBM test or have something akin to the hotline that we eventually stood up between the United States and the Soviet Union.

There are many things that we could do in this kind of vein to help improve the environment overall, to help cut down on some of the worst risks that exist.

The other item I would note is that it’s important to remember that arms control, however you want to define it, worked in conjunction with both nonproliferation and counterproliferation tools, including extended deterrence tools that Hans and Frank put on the table for us earlier. So there’s this broader toolkit to keep in mind.

The United States worked diligently, and especially with friends, to bring states into the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons framework or to keep states already adhering to the treaty adhering to their commitments.

But we also worked to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries, thinking about the broad tools of counter proliferation to roll back programs that were in development.

So this toolkit includes the diplomatic portfolio, formal and informal naming and shaming in international organizations or otherwise; economic sanctions, offering economic goodies or threatening to take them away, working unilaterally or multilaterally with the economic tools in the toolkit; threatening or using military force, using force alone or with other partners, against third parties that were seeking nuclear weapons.

And in the modern era, we’ve also introduced cyber tools into the counterproliferation toolkit to infiltrate states’ nuclear development in order to delay or forestall someone’s successful nuclear acquisition.

The United States has used all of these tools individually and in tandem over time, and I think it’s helpful to think about how they are relevant today; perhaps potentially in need of modification, but still relevant to our new environment.

That said, it is worth noting that these tools worked in some cases and others not. For example, in the North Korean context, we’re still dealing with the fact that some of our negotiations didn’t turn out the way that we had hoped.

But I guess in the end I would note that there were famous expectations, including by Kennedy in 1962, envisioning a world where we would have twenty or twenty-five or thirty states armed with nuclear weapons.

And we didn’t just get lucky, as I don’t need to remind people in the room, that Kennedy’s prediction wasn’t borne out. But, in fact, it was the significant story of US leadership, diverse leadership on arms control, nonproliferation, and counter proliferation. So today it is critically important to have thoughtful people leaning in to think about the complexity of this new environment. It is equally important for US leadership to continue in this more complex environment, moving forward, thinking through the totality of the arms control, nonproliferation, and counterproliferation tool kit.

HANS BINNENDIJK: I really think you’re right. It’s a question of engagement, of process, of trying to find the points that could lead to real instability such as lack of knowledge about tests, or their inability to distinguish tests that we’re doing.

But I have a question for you. It took several decades of work by Walter Slocombe and others to come to an understanding with the Soviet Union about the nature of and the theory of nuclear stability, and once that theory was agreed to, out of it came a whole array of arms control proposals—SALT, START, the ABM treaties, etc. It all flowed from this kind of common approach, which actually now we are losing with the Russians. My question, though, is what would you envision that theory of stability might be with the Chinese? What is the theory of stability with China that the United States might be working towards as it engages?

AMY WOOLF: First, I want to dispute your premise. I agree we spent years, decades, trying to come to an agreed definition of strategic stability with Russia—with the Soviet Union.

There’s even a joint statement from 1990 between then US President George H. W. Bush and then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev which defined strategic stability as the circumstance where both sides have a secure second strike and no incentive to launch first with lucrative targets.

I’m not sure the Soviet Union or Russia ever agreed to that definition of strategic stability. Even inside the United States, you can find different policy elites who don’t buy that definition of strategic stability.

It was the operational definition that got us to START and START II. But calling it an agreed-on definition is a bit of a stretch. Also, you can look back over the arms control history and see that definition in operation in the treaties, obviously.

The ABM Treaty limited the numbers of defensive interceptors and, therefore, you could come to a limit on the number of offenses. You can see it in the treaties. But if you think about arms control, going forward, start at the beginning and don’t look back in time. Put stability on it.

What arms control really did was it brought about limits and restraint in areas where the two sides didn’t think they needed the weapons anymore. Either they weren’t cost effective or they weren’t militarily effective.

Missile defenses, even with limits on the interceptors, were going to be totally ineffective in a world of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles. So you’ve got something that’s not cost effective and the scientists were testifying to Congress that they weren’t going to be technologically effective. We continued to buy them for leverage but giving them up was really not that difficult.

And I can go treaty by treaty by treaty and do that and I actually have done it in a few things I’ve written in the last couple years. But the point remains that the operational definition of strategic stability—and I’m going to be a little cynical—is our stuff is stabilizing, your stuff is destabilizing. We want to keep ours and get rid of yours, and you can see that in the arms control history, too.

But mostly what we’ve done in arms control is cleaned out the attic and the basement. We’ve agreed to limit those weapons that aren’t central to our requirements, and we’ve done so to great effect.

We’ve had lots of weapons limited and lots of weapons eliminated but only after we already decided we didn’t really need them. So if you want to extend that to how do we talk to China about this, they don’t have anything in the attic and the basement yet. They’re still filling the living room.

So our job right now is to figure out what they consider necessary—not how they would define strategic stability but what they consider necessary to their national security goals to put in the living room, and once we know what that is, then we can start talking to them about restraint and excess.

And you may want to define strategic stability as a way to figure out what restraint and excess would be but I’m not sure that’s really necessary if we can get to an understanding of what their deterrence problem is. I mean, what’s the problem and then how do you solve it rather than what’s the definition of the problem and how do you solve it.

I know that’s a little wonky and I’m a lot cynical, but I’ve been thinking about this a while.

ROBERT SOOFER: Let me just try to focus us on the near future. So we have a New START treaty that’s about to expire in February of 2026. What should be our objective with Russia when New START expires?

So, for instance, one example that I’ve heard and I support is a new treaty—maybe it’s not a formal treaty. Maybe it’s a political framework. I don’t know what it is. But a new set of limits that are higher than what we have today, right, so it accommodates the additional forces that we need to address China in the future and our regional deterrence gap but still limits, nevertheless, and you now capture all nuclear weapons, tactical as well as strategic.

So I’ll put that as a marker and see what people think the next step needs to be in anticipation of the expiration of the New START treaty. Yes, Walt?

WALTER SLOCOMBE: First of all, I totally agree with Amy that the main impulse for Cold War arms control was not doing things the country had already pretty much decided they didn’t want to do unless the other side did something. And that element is critical to be able to get agreement.

I think if we’re going to talk about what we’re going to do in future arms control with the Russians, there is this little matter of the war in Ukraine, and if we could somehow just persuade them that it was in both of our interests to hold the status quo—that is, to comply maybe without even at least all of the verification and transparency measures—that’s a good thing.

I’m perfectly willing to hear arguments. I don’t think the China-Russia problem requires more numbers. It requires other things. Notably, it requires very secure command and control.

The second is we’re kidding ourselves if we say we’re going to count all nuclear weapons and not do anything about defense. The Russians are crazy paranoid about defense and the Chinese are worse.

And I’m not saying we shouldn’t have defenses. I am saying that to have a negotiation in which the Chinese and the Russians believe we’d go hell for leather for missile defense even if we don’t want to and they’re going to agree on limits. . . here might be a deal but it didn’t do a whole lot more than just kind of maintain compliance. . .

But if we’re going to go beyond that, we got to be more realistic about what the other side might propose, and particularly if you want to say anything meaningful to the Chinese.

RACHEL WHITLARK: I think it’s worth keeping in mind the interconnectedness of all of these issues.

If we are in a world where we’re talking about raising the New START limits our allies are going to have views on that, right. So it may affect other nonproliferation considerations outside of the New START framework.

Similarly, if we’re going to be talking about defenses with the Russians and the Chinese, those conversations have implications for our extended deterrence commitments. Thus circling us back to some of those other challenges that we’re discussing.

I note this fact simply as a call for eyes wide open if we’re going to pursue those kinds of conversations.

AMY WOOLF: I would strongly advise thinking in terms of what do we do after New START as something that has to involve numbers and the reason for that is yes, if we want to count things, we should count everything.

Well, before you can do that, you have to define what the everything is, and then after you define what the everything is, you have to figure out how you’re going to keep track of that everything—what’s your monitoring concept.

Once you say it’s about a specific number, you have to be able to follow on with all that other formal stuff. So I would strongly argue against proposing that the future is a next round of keeping to a specific number.

There are a number of proposals in the literature right now about what next looks like, and just in response to Jake Sullivan’s speech on Friday—I was there—he said, we will talk to the Russians about two things: first, risk reduction now before 2026 and a follow-on to New START after 2026.

He talked about transparency in that follow-on and he talked about risk reduction, and the reaction out of some of the people in the room was, I heard good things about transparency and risk reduction but he didn’t say anything about reducing numbers or moving towards a world free of nuclear weapons.

No one in the Biden administration in any speech in the last two and a half years has talked about the follow-on to New START bringing about deeper reductions or keeping numbers. So they recognize that that whole package of a future of arms control isn’t really on the table.

But the thinking in the analytic community has a lot of different options about the United States and Russia just agreeing without any framework or monitoring or verification to stay within the restraint environment that they are in now, however you define that. Is it only on strategic? Is it on everything?

But it’s a stay restrained or—and once they stay restrained stay transparent, and all of those words are undefined but they all come from a point of view that we are not getting a next round of limits under a numerical ceiling because, as Rachel said, if that numerical ceiling is higher than the one you have now, even that’s because you’re counting more things, it’s going to be politically untenable amongst some of our allies.

If it’s lower than the number you have now, even if it depends on what you’re counting, it’s going to be politically untenable in the United States. So starting from the perspective that what comes next has to be a number that you define and then you monitor is just a nonstarter.

So you have to think about what comes next in more generic terms. Restraint, transparency. What do you mean? I don’t know yet. I’ll know it when I see it. But it’s not going to have a number in it, and if it does have a number the number is not going to be meaningfully defined or monitored.

ROBERT SOOFER: Amy, I think I agree with you in principle but the politics of the situation is going to drive us to a number. There are forces that want to maintain the current New START force limits. There are others that want to go beyond it, right. It’s going to happen whether we think it’s a good idea or not.

Look, arms control, essentially, is very much a political exercise, right. The Trump administration proposed a nuclear freeze on all capabilities with very little verification. So there are Republican administrations that have agreed to reduce from START levels to the Moscow treaty level without even a treaty, without verification per se.

So anything, I think, is possible but I think things are going to be driven in that direction to come up with some sort of an agreement about what happens.

The arms control community will want to see limits. The hard-line Republicans will want to see additional nuclear forces. And the only way you’re going to get both of those together is the traditional approach where you have an arms control track and a nuclear modernization track.

AMY WOOLF: I’m going to beg to differ.

First, the Moscow treaty didn’t limit or reduce anything. It didn’t have any definitions in it. You can do whatever you want. You don’t have to report on what you’re doing. There’s no monitoring. There’s no verification. On the day the treaty is due to expire, you tell us what number you count for yourself and then a minute after you do that it doesn’t count anymore.

So. . . that’s not a treaty based on numbers. That’s a treaty based on do whatever we want.

Besides, to go to my original point, the number we put in that treaty even undefined was the number we already decided we’d be happy with. So we didn’t do numbers, and the Trump administration stuff was we’re going to have a one-year freeze on the size of total stockpiles when in one year that number is not going to vary very much anyway. So, again, you’re using your numerical agreement to ratify reality, which is different from saying we’re going to have a number that is going to change our reality.

Also, you like to say that the people on the arms control side are going to force us to have a numerical treaty. In the current political environment that is a striking minority of people.

Even in Congress amongst people who prefer arms control they recognize that in the current political environment, we are not going to numerically limit or reduce our numbers of nuclear weapons.

So unless you tell me in 2026 we’re not going to be mad at the Russians anymore and everybody’s going to be good friends again, which is usually not required for arms control, but unless you tell me the political environment is going to change by 2026, I’m going to tell you that the pressure for numerical arms control is not going to be sufficient to force us to have a numerical treaty.

I agree that the pressure is there but relatively speaking, in the current political environment, it isn’t going to drive the day.

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On November 13, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi was quoted in South China Morning Post article on the end of a thirty-year-old nuclear decommissioning pact between Japan and Russia, suggesting that “the agreement in itself is less important” than the overall decline in relations. 

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Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy Indo-Pacific

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Iran, which views Hamas as a Palestinian proxy and supports it militarily and economically, is working to achieve two primary goals. First, for the international community to reach a ceasefire that preserves Hamas’s rule in the Gaza Strip and, thus, prevents Israel from achieving its goal in the war: eliminating Hamas’s military and political capabilities. Second, to “encourage” its proxies (led by Lebanese Hezbollah) to attack Israel just below a threshold of escalation to stop Israeli military efforts and prevent it from eradicating Hamas. 

Iran is currently refraining from attacking the United States—with the exception of its militias attacking US forces in Iraq and Syria—to avoid an escalation, and has been careful not to be directly involved and threatens to respond only if attacked. With that in mind, one of the main questions is whether and how Israel’s conflict in Gaza will impact Tehran’s nuclear strategy.

As of today, Iran is enriching to 60 percent and has been careful not to cross the 90 percent military-grade enrichment threshold. In August, just weeks before the Gaza war, it also reached an understanding for broader talks with the United States—the result of which was Iran’s willingness to decrease enriched uranium in exchange for economic relief in the form of unfreezing Iranian funds around the world. Furthermore, these developments led to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly giving his blessing in September to the Iranian nuclear negotiation team to meet directly with their US counterparts in Oman.

Nevertheless, the campaign in Gaza should not change Iran’s nuclear strategy. For now, Iranian deterrence is working, since Tehran is not paying any price for its proxy activity with the Houthis in Yemen, Shia militias in Iraq, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, given the fact that the United States is careful not to attack Iran for fear of escalation (despite being attacked by these proxies in Iraq and Syria). In many ways, Iran may even think that its conventional deterrence—together with a robust nuclear program—is enough, and that there is no point in crossing the nuclear Rubicon.

The fact that the United States is making minor responses against attacks in Syria and Iraq can only strengthen this understanding in Tehran, as does the fact that the United States military no longer surrounds Iran in Afghanistan and Iraq (except for a limited presence that mainly serves the campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and el-Sham and the training of local Iraqi forces).

On the other hand, despite the profound erosion of Israel’s deterrence after the tragic events of October 7, the US’s willingness to stand by Israel’s side—including its willingness to deploy troops and capabilities in the Middle East—is demonstrating to Iran that, in extreme cases, such as an Iranian nuclear breakout, the United States will not hesitate to exercise force against Iran. 

The main problem in this context concerns the ability of the international community—especially the United States—to reach an agreement that would limit Iran’s nuclear activities. This was also evident in October when snapback sanctions were not imposed in response to the expiration of the United Nations ban on Iran’s ballistic missile program per UN Security Council Resolution 2231. The tension between Iran and the United States—influenced by Iran’s proxies attacking US forces, support for Hamas, and strengthening relationship with Moscow—is making it almost impossible for Washington to preserve a line of diplomacy with Tehran. 

On top of that, the 2024 US presidential election and disapproving voices in Congress regarding the Joe Biden administration’s policy towards Iran will make it very difficult to approve any agreement with Tehran, assuming one is even reached. Moreover, Khamenei lost his limited trust in the United States after President Donald Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018. In light of this fact, the Biden administration’s attempt to go back on its hostage swap agreement, which allowed Iran to receive $6 billion in frozen assets in South Korean banks via Qatar to be used for a humanitarian trade channel, sharpens the futility of Tehran achieving long-term agreements with Washington. 

Even if Iran does not make significant progress in its nuclear program, the political and economic pressure that is expected as a result of Tehran’s support for Hamas and the weakening relationship between Iran and the United States will increase the likelihood that the country will deepen and expand its nuclear program without crossing the 90 percent Rubicon. Iran will have no incentive to limit its nuclear program, given the pressure exerted on it from the West and the United States and the low probability of an agreement that will lift sanctions. 

If pressure exerted on Iran is added via other means—sanctions on ballistic missiles and actions against Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors—Tehran will not hesitate to take steps related to its nuclear program, such as limiting nuclear inspections as it has done in the past. Considering this option, the coming year may be characterized by an increase in tensions between the West and Iran over the latter’s advanced nuclear program, which may push Tehran towards 90 percent enrichment—not as a benchmark on its way to building a nuclear bomb, but as a move designed to discourage the international community from continuing to exert pressure.

The bottom line is that the Gaza war undermined the delicate relationship built between the United States and Iran in the last few months to probably an irreversible degree. This fact will have a significant impact on the prospect of an agreement regarding the Iranian nuclear file and introduces a severe instability dimension regarding Tehran’s nuclear program. 

It is likely that Tehran still understands the serious price it may pay if it moves towards a nuclear bomb, and the increased presence of the United States in the Middle East is terrible news for it. However, the immunity that Iran enjoys will only strengthen its assessment that, at present, there is no tangible threat to the regime and, thus, its nuclear program. 
Danny Citrinowicz is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He previously served for twenty-five years in a variety of command positions units in Israel Defense Intelligence.

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On November 7, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer attended the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ launch event of their Project Atom report, a piece which he coauthored along with eight other nuclear experts. In Soofer’s contribution, written alongside Tom Karako, he addresses the changing international security environment and its impact on arms control and extended deterrence. Soofer and Karako describe possible changes to US posture and strategy as the United States works to deter two nuclear powers, Russia and China, simultaneously. Soofer served as a panelist at this launch event, discussing nuclear flexibility and credibility with adversaries and allies.

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Robert Soofer

Former Senior Fellow

Forward Defense

Arms Control Defense Policy

Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

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On October 24, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer published an op-ed in The National Interest arguing that the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) should consider developing an “underlayer” to the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System using US capabilities that previously had only been deployed to defend allies such as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD) and Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System.

Former fellow

Robert Soofer

Former Senior Fellow

Forward Defense

Arms Control Defense Policy

Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

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On September 28, Forward Defense senior fellow Robert Soofer co-authored a paper in a recent publication by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Project on Nuclear Issues, titled Project Atom: Defining U.S. Nuclear Strategy, 2030–2050. The authors discussed the nuclear concepts, policies, strategies, forces, and posture necessary to deter and prevent nuclear use as China emerges as a nuclear peer competitor to the United States alongside Russia.

Former fellow

Robert Soofer

Former Senior Fellow

Forward Defense

Arms Control Defense Policy

Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

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On September 21, the Scowcroft Center and the Korea Society hosted a joint panel event on “New Nuclear Dynamics of Northeast Asia” in New York City featuring Matthew Kroenig, Markus Garlauskas, and IPSI nonresident fellow Jessica Taylor, alongside Dr. Sue Mi Terry and moderator Jonathan Corrado. The conversation explored issues such as growing PRC and North Korean nuclear capabilities, the potential for simultaneous conflicts in the Indo-Pacific, and the need for a paradigm shift in thinking about US deterrence posture in the region. 

Staff

Markus Garlauskas

Director

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Crisis Management Indo-Pacific

Staff

Matthew Kroenig

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

China Defense Policy

Fellow

Jessica Taylor

Nonresident Fellow

Indo-Pacific Security Initiative Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Crisis Management East Asia

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On September 17, IPSI nonresident senior fellow Thomas Cynkin was quoted in Yonhap News. Cynkin suggested that the United States may benefit from declassifying and disclosing more information related to trade activity between North Korea and Russia, as it did with intelligence on Russian military action prior to the invasion of Ukraine. He explained that this approach could help prevent North Korea from acquiring Russian military technology by creating international pressure on Russia to uphold international nonproliferation laws. 

Fellow

Thomas Cynkin

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Indo-Pacific Japan

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On September 8, Dr. Matthew Kroenig, Atlantic Council vice president and senior director of the Scowcroft Center, was quoted by Haaretz on a possible new agreement between the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. He argues that President Biden should not let Saudi Arabia enrich uranium.

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Matthew Kroenig

Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

China Defense Policy

The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world.

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Such caution could have grave implications for the future of international security. Unless the West confronts Vladimir Putin’s nuclear intimidation, there is a very real chance that he will continue with such tactics. Inevitably, others will seek to emulate him. This could plunge the entire world into a new era of international instability as countries scramble to secure a nuclear deterrent of their own.

Much of Russia’s nuclear saber-rattling has been deliberately ambiguous in nature and highly choreographed for maximum impact. In the first days of the war, Putin very publicly announced that he was placing his country’s nuclear forces on special alert, while warning that anyone who attempted to interfere with the Russian invasion of Ukraine would face consequences on a scale “you have never seen in your history.”

Seven months later in September 2022, Putin once again indicated that he was prepared to use nuclear weapons to protect the Russian people and defend the country’s borders. “We will certainly use all the means available to us, and I’m not bluffing,” he warned. This was a particularly menacing threat as it came at a time when Russia was preparing to “annex” four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces, therefore making any attempt to liberate these regions an attack on Russia itself.

Other senior figures within the Russian establishment have been even more explicit. Former Russian president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, is particularly notorious for issuing nuclear threats. In a July 2023 social media post, he warned that if Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive succeeded in liberating Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia, “we would have to use nuclear weapons by virtue of the stipulations of the Russian presidential decree.” Russia’s enemies “should pray to our fighters that they do not allow the world to go up in nuclear flames,” he added.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Although such threats violate norms of responsible state behavior, they align with what we understand about existing nuclear doctrine. “Ambiguity plays a crucial role in deterrence,” explains Marion Messmer, a senior research fellow in the International Security Program at Chatham House. “States worry about adversaries aiming for a strike just below the red line if they are too clear about what that red line is.”

Russia’s nuclear threats appear designed to maintain a high degree of uncertainty while focusing Western minds on the potential risks of miscalculation. Russia has threatened or hinted at nuclear use over a wide range of issues, but has remained intentionally vague about potential triggers in order to create the illusion that Putin has a low threshold for nuclear deployment. However, as each of the Kremlin’s red lines has been crossed, Putin’s nuclear posture has not changed. Most notably, in late 2022, Ukraine liberated a number of occupied cities that Putin himself had earlier declared to be Russian “forever,” but this did not result in the threatened nuclear response.

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Although Russia’s nuclear threats suffer from obvious credibility problems, the extreme reluctance of many in the West to test Moscow’s resolve means that these tactics have nevertheless been highly effective in restricting or delaying the delivery of military aid to Ukraine. While the quantity and quality of weapons supplied to Ukraine has steadily increased throughout the past eighteen months, every stage in this process has been marked by hesitation and procrastination.

At present, the US has still not agreed to provide long-range ATACM long-range missile systems, with many commentators attributing this reluctance to fears of escalation. “Our administration does not want to see Ukraine succeed wildly, because we are deterred, we are intimidated, and we don’t want Mr. Putin to widen or deepen the war,” retired US Air Force General Philip Breedlove commented recently.

Western timidity in the face of Russian nuclear saber-rattling is extremely short-sighted and could have disastrous consequences in Ukraine and beyond. While the risks of confronting Russia’s nuclear threats are immediately apparent, the dangers of inaction may actually be far greater. Since the full-scale invasion began eighteen months ago, Russia has been able to leverage its status as a nuclear-armed state to occupy entire regions of its neighbor’s land while deterring the international community from coming to Ukraine’s aid.

The more time passes without a decisive response from Ukraine’s partners, the more likely Russia’s aggressive use of nuclear intimidation will become a normalized element of international relations. Countries around the world will change their own nuclear postures to achieve their expansionist aims or defend themselves against their neighbors. If Putin is allowed to normalize nuclear blackmail as a foreign policy tool, longstanding nonproliferation initiatives will collapse and the world will enter a dangerous new era of nuclear-armed instability.

Olivia Yanchik is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Follow her on Twitter at @oliviayanchik.

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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The Supreme Leader celebrated his eighty-fourth birthday this year on April 19. Khamenei is known to suffer from several medical problems—chief among them prostate cancer—but, at present, he still heads the clerical establishment. Even so, rumors of a deterioration in Khamenei’s medical condition increase yearly, as do public discussions about his possible replacement.

While Khamenei has not appointed a successor, there are a number of leading candidates in the name exchange—his son Mojtaba chief among them, as well as Iran’s current president, Ebrahim Raisi. At the same time, Sadeq Larijani, former head of Iran’s judiciary, is also mentioned. However, his chances are low due to the regime’s further radicalization and Khamenei’s activity to strengthen the conservative wing within the Iranian leadership.

Whoever will be elected Supreme Leader must work hard to consolidate his position. The possible candidate will have to focus not only on the relevant religious institutions—hoping to upgrade his religious title to ayatollah to accept the religious justification for ruling—but also gain the support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

In addition to these facts, there is an understanding that Khamenei will work to prevent someone he perceives as a moderate (which he sees as posing a danger to the regime’s future), such as former President Hassan Rouhani or former Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, from being chosen as his replacement. This guarantees the election of a conservative leader from a more hardline school of thought.

Assuming this is the case, and considering the new leader’s need to accede to IRGC demands to please them, it seems that the initial moves of Iran’s future Supreme Leader won’t be able to satisfy the West.

It should be emphasized that Iran’s nuclear program has been in the most advanced states since its establishment. Iran has two protected enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow, where it enriches uranium to 60 percent while using advanced IR6 centrifuges. Iran is now a step away from enrichment to a military-grade level (90 percent). It has not yet gone that far, apparently out of fear of the international community’s reaction—not because it is technologically incapable of reaching this level of enrichment. In other words, if Iran’s future leader wishes to demonstrate leadership in the nuclear context, he will only have a few steps left to graduate to military-grade enrichment.

In order to prevent Iran’s future Supreme Leader from making dramatic progress in the country’s nuclear program to appease its conservative wing, it is right to take advantage of Khamenei’s tenure to reach a series of understandings that will not allow any future leader to cross the Rubicon in the nuclear context. This claim may be a surprise because Khamenei sought to build a nuclear bomb known as the Amad plan to ensure Iran’s future in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, given the fact that Khamenei gave up his desire to obtain a nuclear weapon due to his fear of the price Iran would pay—especially the fear of an American invasion of Iran—it is possible that Tehran will not seek to obtain one during his tenure.

Moreover, over the past decade, and even more so between 2012 and 2013, Khamenei applied the term “heroic flexibility” to justify a direct dialogue between Iran and the United States that led to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which required Iran to roll back its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. From its implementation in 2016, Iran under Khamenei fully complied with the terms of the agreement until the US withdrew from it in 2018. Even after the “great betrayal” of the US in Iranian eyes, under Khamenei’s leadership, Tehran has not stopped looking for ways to return to the original nuclear agreement. Recently, it seems that Iran is also willing to settle for a temporary understanding in exchange for some economic relief.

Moreover, despite its proximity to 90 percent enrichment, Iran has been careful not to cross the Rubicon in the current context. It has even increased its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Additionally, the world’s leading intelligence agencies assess that Iran under Khamenei is not carrying out any actions that indicate that it seeks to produce nuclear weapons. This is apparently why Iran has stopped its enrichment from reaching military-grade.

These facts suggest that it is of the utmost importance to advance a long-term arrangement with Khamenei on the Iranian nuclear issue before his death.

Given the plausible assessment that any elected leader will find it challenging to present a compromising policy vis-à-vis the West, an arrangement with Khamenei is becoming a preferred option to ensure that, regardless of the change in the Iranian leadership, its nuclear program will not expand.

It should be emphasized that Khamenei currently enjoys a broad consensus in Iran, and it is doubtful whether anyone can challenge his will or determination on strategic issues, including the nuclear issue. As Supreme Leader for three decades, Khamenei has a unique status with no one questioning his decisions. With this in mind, likely any decision Khamenei makes in the context of Iran’s nuclear program will be accepted and approved by the authorized bodies in Tehran without question.

This does not mean it will be easy to reach an agreement with Khamenei, who seems interested in an agreement but demands long-term guarantees to prevent a situation in which the United States leaves again. However, it will be much more challenging to reach such a deal with any future leader, who will have to gain the trust of the Iranian leadership. Therefore, he will likely demonstrate dogmatic policies for this purpose, enabling him to have the IRGC on his side. Thus, the West and Israel must see Khamenei not only as a threat but also as an opportunity—with all the difficulties involved—and strive to reach a long-term arrangement with him on the nuclear issue in his lifetime, thereby minimizing the danger that his successor will turn Iran’s nuclear program from civilian to military.

The fact that Khamenei still appears to want to seek a deal, even after the US withdrew from the JCPOA, illustrates his commitment to solving the Iranian nuclear file with political means. Khamenei will not forgo Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but his policy from 2012 onwards sought to achieve a political resolution, while he was willing to limit the program in exchange for economic relief. This behavior indicates that Khamenei has made strategic decisions in this regard.

Obviously, it will not be easy, and the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement almost shut down this possibility and greatly strengthened elements in the Iranian leadership, such as current President Raisi, who seeks to rely on the East—China and Russia—rather than on the West—the latter of which they see as the enemy of the revolution. Still, despite the complexity and low probability, Khamenei may be the last chance to reach a long-term political solution to the Iranian nuclear issue.

Danny Citrinowicz is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel. Follow him on Twitter: @citrinowicz.

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Shahbazi’s confession is quite detailed. He reveals his alleged chain of command and the name of the agent who recruited him. Shahbazi says that he was put in touch with several IRGC contacts in Cyprus who had taken part in assassination operations before (Israeli media have reported these to be Pakistani nationals.) According to his account, Shahbazi entered the island by flying from Turkey to Northern Cyprus (a breakaway state only recognized by Ankara) and then smuggled himself into the Greek-majority southern part of the island. In contact with his handlers in Iran via WhatsApp, Shahbazi was preparing to kill the target—reportedly an Israeli businessman—when he found out that the police were on his tail and was told to bury his weapons and flee. Shahbazi reportedly followed the instructions and made it to Tehran via Istanbul.

Mossad’s history in Iran

Unlikely as it may sound, it’s not the first time Mossad has claimed to have undertaken such an operation. In fact, this is the third such case in the last eighteen months. In April 2022, Israeli media reported on an alleged Mossad operation on Iranian territory. Israeli intelligence agents had reportedly detained and questioned Mansour Rasouly, a fifty-two-year-old IRGC agent, in his residence in Iran, where he had confessed to a plan to assassinate an Israeli diplomat in Turkey, an American general stationed in Germany, and a journalist in France. The Israeli media published an audio file of Rasouly’s confession without revealing their source.

Months later, in July 2022, London-based diaspora satellite channel Iran International claimed that Mossad had interrogated another IRGC official, Yadollah Khedmati, in Iran, publishing the footage of his confessions about the transfer of weaponry to Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.

In each of the three cases, the Islamic Republic has come back with a different form of denial. In the two cases from 2022, they confirmed that the interrogations had taken place and claimed that they were done by a group of local criminal thugs recruited by Mossad. But in the case of Rasouly, they declared he was a farmer in northwestern Iran with no military connection. However, in the case of Khedmati, they confirmed that he was an IRGC figure (without naming him) but said that he had been forced to confess to untruths under “torture and threats.”

With Shahbazi’s case, state media outlets have taken a different path. They claim that Mossad has fabricated the entire story to overcome its panic following the recent alleged busting of its networks in Iran. In late May, judicial officials had claimed to have nabbed fourteen members of a “terrorist team” with ties to Israel. Par for the course with such claims, no evidence was given to support the charge.

As proof of their allegations about Shahbazi, regime outlets published pictures of tickets and flight manifests that show him to have taken a flight from Tehran to Baku on May 15, implying that the confession was staged and not recorded in Iran. Claiming this to be a smoking gun makes no sense. Shahbazi would have had plenty of time since May 15 to have returned to Iran from Baku and could have traveled later to Cyprus.

The regime outlets also tied the Shahbazi affair to an incident in May, in which the capsizing of a boat in Lake Maggiore in Italy led to the death of Erez Shimony, a fifty-four-year-old former Mossad agent. They went as far as implying that Shimony’s death might have been revenge for another killing that had happened almost exactly a year before: the assassination of IRGC’s Colonel Hassan Seyed Khodaee right outside his home, which, according to a report by the New York Times, was done by Mossad.

But, just as the IRGC downplays Shahbazi’s confession, some sources claim that Iran is working hard for his release by Israelis. According to the London-based and Saudi-owned newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat, Iran is requesting a prisoner exchange from Israel: Shahbazi’s release in return for that of Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Russian-Israeli scholar who was kidnapped in Iraq in March by an Iran-backed Shia militia.

The ongoing shadow war

For years now, Iran and Israel have been engaged in a shadow war involving intelligence operations, assassinations, and attacks on land and sea. When facing Israel, Iran has the benefit of using its vast network of allied militias in the region. Alongside the operations, a war of narratives also rages on and there is no surprise that both sides employ a game of cloak and daggers.

Nevertheless, even if not all Israeli claims were to be believed, there is no doubt that the ease with which they operate inside Iranian territory is astonishing. Since 2009, Israelis have helped assassinate many officials linked to the IRGC or the country’s nuclear program. Its last major hit was the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a leading figure of the IRGC, in November 2020, which took place on a road using a robotic machine gun. Prior to that, in January 2018, Mossad was able to raid the Iranian nuclear archives in a village outside Tehran, gaining access to 55,000 pages of documents and 183 CDs.

On the other side, the Islamic Republic has never been able to retaliate on anything close to a similar scale. This was clearly evident in June of 2022, when Israel worked closely with Turkey to stop an Iranian plan to kill or abduct Israeli civilians in Turkey. Israel went as far as asking all of its thousands of citizens traveling in Turkey to stay in their hotel rooms and not even open the door for food delivery. In the same week, Hossein Taeb, the powerful head of IRGC’s Intelligence Department, was finally dismissed following years of controversy. Taeb had headed the organization from its very inception in 2009 and had come under increasing criticism for all the Israeli operations that kept happening under his watch. The leaking of the Turkey-related plans seems to have been the last straw.

Given the long list of operations that Israel has been able to conduct in Iranian territory, it’s pretty clear that the clerical establishment has failed in its basic task of defending the country. It’s not hard to see why that’s the case. The country’s security forces dedicate most of their energy to oppressing ordinary Iranians and taking random foreign citizens—artists, academics, and journalists—hostage in the hope of using them as bargaining chips. Extracting forced confessions by torture helps the regime with its propaganda purposes but is not a tool for effective counter-espionage.

This was on full display in 2019, when Maziar Ebrahimi, an Iranian businessman based in Iraqi Kurdistan, revealed how he had been tortured into confessing to a role in the assassination of nuclear scientists. Arrested in 2012, Ebrahimi had, under duress, even confessed to traveling to Israel to receive military training. When all of this later turned out to be false, he was released and left the country before sharing his story with BBC Persian.

The amateur methods used by the regime are often so buffoonish to be believable. In 2012, following the execution of Majid Jamali Fashi, an Iranian athlete charged alongside Ebrahimi, the Iranian state broadcaster published an image of his alleged Israeli passport. But journalist Fereshte Ghazi was quickly able to show the source of this image: a Wikipedia template of an Israeli passport had been used with Majid’s picture inserted into it. The basic information on the passport from the Wikipedia template was not even changed.

Thus, the track record of the Islamic Republic’s security apparatus is clear: they can frame and torture their citizens to extract forced confessions but cannot stop numerous Israeli operations on Iranian soil.

Arash Azizi is a writer and scholar based at New York University. He is the author of “The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the US and Iran’s Global Ambitions.” Follow him on Twitter: @arash_tehran.

The post The ‘Tehran’ series isn’t far-fetched. Israeli agents are operating with ease in Iran. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

It should be noted that Iran represents several distinct challenges. First, in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Second, as a conventional and proxy-based military threat across the Middle East, as demonstrated from attacks on cargo vessels in the Strait of Hormuz to drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities to attacks on US troops in the Middle East to its attempted deployment of weapons in Syria to its sub-state armed organizations in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen. And third, as a political competitor for regional hegemony. These challenges are intertwined, as Iranian strategy is, or at least was, based on distracting its adversaries away from Iran to secondary theaters where it commands soft power and handles proxies, and then pinning them down and attritting them in those secondary theaters (Israel in Lebanon and the United States in Iraq, to name but two obvious examples).

It may be that different partnerships and different rationales could be useful for each challenge.

Incentives for collaboration

US objectives in the Middle East begin with preventing global and regional powers from threatening freedom of navigation through the region’s waterways. US priorities are the uninterrupted supply of energy and goods from and through the region, the prevention of local problems from turning into global ones, and the stability and capabilities of its partners in the region.

Israel and Turkey’s interests are partially aligned with those of the United States, and they are not in a zero-sum game with one another. Israeli regional objectives are not well articulated, but focus on preserving the status quo while attempting to prevent the emergence of severe military threats (from the development of an Iranian nuclear bomb to the positioning of Iranian high-impact weapons in Lebanon and Syria). While Israel has transactional relationships with its regional partners, it cannot contend for regional hegemony in a theater where such contentions are influenced significantly by ethnic or religious dynamics.

Turkey’s regional objectives under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also defy simple characterization. They have ranged from far-reaching neo-Ottomanism, Blue Homeland ambition, and expeditionary interventions in such places as Libya to a “Zero Problems” policy and an attempt to maintain a Western orientation through NATO membership and, possibly, integration with the European Union as well. Perhaps a pragmatic definition would be the protection of its territorial integrity, mainly from the threat of Kurdish separatism, while attempting to increase its regional and even global strategic footprint—at tolerable cost and risk.

Turkey seems to have mastered the art of the “frenemy”—collaborating with actors with whom it also competes or even militarily clashes. Its multifaceted relations with Russia, which saw direct or indirect kinetic conflicts in Syria, Libya, and the Caucasus , are a showcase for this skill. Indeed, Turkey supplied killer unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Ukraine, while simultaneously helping Russia mitigate the impact of sanctions. Following earlier tensions, Turkey has recently made significant rapprochement attempts vis-à-vis the United States, Israel, and other regional actors such as the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. Turkish-Israeli relations rebounded as the two countries’ intelligence communities collaborated in thwarting an Iranian attempt to attack Israeli nationals on Turkish soil.

All three actors are, or at least should be, concerned about the challenges posed by Iran. A nuclear Iran would threaten the United States, Israel, and Turkey, although in varying degrees of severity. Iran represents a threat to US interests in the Gulf, to the flow of oil, and to US freedom of access. Iran’s direct and indirect lines of operation threaten to undermine the United States’ regional partners.

Over the past two decades, Israel’s prime threat has pivoted from the Arab world to Iran and its proxies. In fact, today, Israel collaborates openly or tacitly with the Sunni Arab world in a joint effort to contain Iran. Most Arab states that remain antagonistic are being so because they are aligned with Iran and not because they are Arab.

The United States, Turkey, and Israel have seen threats to their interests in Syria, Iraq, and Azerbaijan emerging from the Iranian footprint in those areas. Turkey and Israel have become bedfellows in Azerbaijan’s war with Armenia. They have also opposed Iranian attempts to establish its forces or proxies in northern and southern Syria, respectively. Iran, meanwhile, has developed working relations in Iraq with the anti-Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and in Syria with the People’s Defense Units (YPG), a PKK affiliate. In Iraq, Iran uses these groups to strengthen the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Bafel Talabani at the expense of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), which is led by Masoud Barzani, and in Syria to weaken the Turkish-supported anti-Assad opposition.

Iranian power would be boosted by weakening the Sunni opposition in Syria, the pro-US (and pro-Turkey) KDP in Iraq, or both. This provides a rationale for as-yet unrealized collaboration between Turkey and Israel in both arenas.

Disincentives to collaboration

Both the United States and Israel have seemed concerned about Turkish policies’ volatility and unpredictability, especially under Erdoğan. Turkey, home to NATO’s second-largest army, has disappointed the United States sequentially, from denial of access to Iraq to the purchase of the Russian S-400 mobile surface-to-air missile defense system to friction in northern Syria and friction with Greece and Cyprus to Turkish concerns over the path of Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership.

The US-Turkish relationship reached a low point when sanctions were imposed on Turkey’s military procurement agency (SSB) and Ankara was excluded from the F-35 program. One may infer skepticism about future collaboration with Turkey from the recent US-Greece Mutual Defense Cooperation Agreement (MDCA), which provides the United States with access to additional military bases in Greece. It seems like the United States is seeking more dependable strategic avenues.

Israeli-Turkish relations reached a low point following the Mavi Marmara flotilla affair in 2010, while the discovery of gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean dramatically rewrote regional policies. Israel, Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt developed close energy, economic, military, and political ties. These ties provide Israel with much more than a mere substitution for its lost strategic relations with Turkey. While Israel accepted recent Turkish rapprochement bids, it cannot take them to a level where it risks losing its newly gained quadruple gas partnership. Along with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Israel shares concerns about Turkish military presence in the Red Sea and in Qatar.

While the emergence of a powerful Iran, definitely a nuclear armed one, is clearly undesirable for Turkey, these neighbors do not define their mutual relations as adversarial. Their long, shared border remains peaceful, as it has been since 1639 when the Qasr-I Shirin treaty between the Safavid and Ottoman Empires ended territorial wars between them. So, Iran does not directly threaten the Turkish Republic per se, and economic relations are intensive. Turkey and Iran share opposition to the idea of a Western-backed establishment of a Kurdish state. Iran’s aggressive use of proxies in Iraq and Syria has threatened Turkish interests but has not touched upon core interests of either party.

Over the past decade, Turkey developed a robust defense industry, which reduced its dependency on US and Israeli weapons. This dilutes the transactional incentives for Turkey to align itself with the two countries’ defense establishments.

Finally, it should be noted that both Israel and Turkey face significant internal trials that may prove to be game changers. If Israel’s so-called legal reform is completed, it might experience a structural decline in both its actual and projected power, and turn inward to deal with its own domestic unrest. President Erdoğan secured a new five-year term with a comfortable parliamentary majority during the May 2023 elections. Based on atmospherics and congratulatory exchanges, it would seem that the mutual desire for better relations has survived both countries’ 2023 elections.

Future collaborations?

With regard to the nuclear file, no measures applied so far have convinced Iran to change policy and forgo its nuclear military ambitions. The actual use of force might be the only way to persuade Iran to reverse its nuclear policy; Israel and the United States are candidates for kinetic action. Translating kinetic inputs into desired Iranian policy change requires heavy lifting by the United States, though, and Turkey can probably offer little assistance or inclination in this regard.

Perhaps the most relevant takeaway for the United States is to keep Turkey out of any future nuclear arms race. Turkey has been developing a civilian nuclear program and hinted at a potential future turn to military dimensions. This would be highly undesirable and might expedite the emergence of an unstable regional, multilateral nuclear system. The most effective measure to keep Turkey out of a regional nuclear race is an inclusive policy toward Turkey—maintaining a shared nuclear deterrent out of İncirlik Air Base and assuring Turkey of Western security guarantees through the full embrace of NATO. Turkey should not be placed in a position in which it sees itself strategically and militarily isolated, and surrounded by potentially hostile forces. It should always have more to lose from breaking away from the United States than what it has to gain from developing its own nuclear military program, or from pursuing an entirely independent or anti-Western strategic direction.

Col. Ron Tira (Ret.) is the author of The Nature of War: Conflicting Paradigms and Israeli Military Effectiveness. He is a regular contributor to the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies.

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The post Can the US, Israel, and Turkey collaborate to contain Iran? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The White House and Congress currently disagree over the type and number of nuclear weapons required to deter nuclear-armed adversaries in the coming decade, including Russia and China, but also North Korea and potentially Iran. As long as this disagreement persists, it casts doubt on the viability of whatever the administration might agree to in bilateral talks—in particular, whether any new treaty could be ratified or survive a change in administrations. However, a bargain is available that bridges these differences, and it would strengthen the president’s hand in arms control negotiations, if the administration and Congress seize the opportunity.

2010 plans do not address 2030 threats

In his June 2 speech at the Arms Control Association annual forum, Sullivan called attention to the growing threats posed by China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. In doing so, he reaffirmed the warnings in the Biden administration’s National Defense Strategy and Nuclear Posture Review that as it approaches 2030, “the United States will need to deter two near-peer nuclear powers for the first time in its history.” To address this emerging challenge, the White House is continuing the nuclear modernization program begun by the Obama administration and reaffirmed by the Trump administration, though the Biden administration has canceled the development and deployment of a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) proposed in the 2019 Nuclear Posture Review.

These 2010 modernization plans assumed a reset with Russia. And they did not envision the rapid expansion of Chinese conventional and nuclear capabilities or the “no limits” partnership between an aggressive Moscow and Beijing bent on upsetting the international world order. This begs the question, then, whether the current nuclear modernization program—which amounts to a one-for-one replacement of nuclear force levels established in the 2010 New START—will be sufficient against two nuclear great powers.

In March, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed (D-RI) asked General Anthony Cotton, head of US Strategic Command, how the US nuclear command is adapting to this “new trilateral nuclear competition.” Cotton replied that the United States is “in an absolutely good place today with our [nuclear] systems… but the basis of which we did our modernization efforts was on a 2010 threat.”

The divide over more nuclear weapons

The threats have grown manifestly worse since 2010, but the administration has been ambivalent about them. According to Sullivan in his recent speech, “the United States does not need to increase our nuclear forces to outnumber the combined total of our competitors in order to successfully deter them.” Sullivan added that “effective deterrence means that we have a ‘better’ approach—not a ‘more’ approach.” This position is at odds with Republican leaders in the House and Senate armed services committees, who have advocated “higher numbers and new capabilities” for nuclear weapons. 

There are practical limits to how quickly the United States could expand its nuclear capabilities to address the expansion of China’s nuclear forces. One option by the time New START expires in 2026 is to restore nuclear warheads to existing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) that were removed to accommodate the lower New START force limits (a process called “uploading”). Additional nuclear bombs and cruise missiles could be loaded onto heavy bombers, and bombers previously converted to conventional weapons use only can be made ready for nuclear operations. 

Importantly, Sullivan said in his speech that “the type of limits the United States can agree to after [New START] expires will of course be impacted by the size and scale of China’s nuclear build-up.” The administration will require a sense of what additional nuclear forces may be needed beyond New START, both to ensure any negotiated limits provide the United States with headroom to deploy sufficient forces in the future, and because adjustments to US nuclear posture will likely take years to implement. 

It is entirely conceivable that Russia and the United States could agree to new (modestly larger) nuclear force limits that consider US requirements to address China’s expanding nuclear capabilities and limit and reduce Russia’s regional nuclear weapons and new novel long-range systems that are not covered under New START. Such an approach might maintain limits (albeit somewhat higher than the current 1,550 warhead limit in New START) on all US and Russian nuclear forces while allowing the United States to address the problem of two nuclear peers.

The bargain the White House and Congress could strike

Sullivan was correct when he said that “responsibly enhancing our deterrent capabilities allows us to negotiate arms control from a position of strength and confidence.” But if “responsibly” implies a set policy of no new US nuclear capabilities or no expansion of US strategic nuclear forces, then Russia has no reason to come to the negotiating table. A big incentive for Moscow to negotiate is if it fears the United States will build up its own nuclear arsenal. Just as important, an arms control approach that does not include some augmented nuclear capabilities will be a non-starter for Republicans and some Democrats on Capitol Hill.

A bargain is required. The Biden administration could, for example, agree to develop the SLCM-N and prepare for a nuclear upload onto existing ICBMs and SLBMs. In exchange, congressional Republicans could lend public support to the administration’s efforts, hopefully fruitful but perhaps not, to secure a post–New START follow-on arms control framework or agreement. In such a deal, the arms control community would see the value in continued constraints on arms competition, while the deterrence community would welcome augmented nuclear capabilities to answer the growth in Chinese nuclear forces. Russia also would have an interest in limiting the potential expansion of US nuclear forces. This approach leaves out China for the time being, given its unwillingness to engage in a dialogue; but any future limits on Russian and US forces will have to take into account the likely expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal. 

During the question-and-answer period following his speech, Sullivan spoke about the bipartisan US Senate support of the 2010 New START. He failed to mention, however, that the Obama administration’s commitment—insisted upon by Republican senators as part of the deal for New START—to modernize each leg of the nuclear triad enabled that consensus. It is worth demonstrating once more that nuclear deterrence and arms control go hand in hand.

Robert Soofer is a senior fellow in the Forward Defense program in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, where he leads its Nuclear Strategy Project. He formerly served as US deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy and as a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The post Before embarking on arms control talks, Biden needs a nuclear deal with Congress appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Putin first announced his intention to transfer part of Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal to Belarus in March. The news sparked an international backlash, including a thinly veiled rebuke from China. Preparations for the stationing of nuclear weapons in Belarus are expected to be complete by the beginning of July. The move is part of an expanding Russian military presence in the country that has been likened to an “creeping annexation,” with Tsikhanouskaya declaring in late 2022 that Belarus was under de facto “military occupation.”

Moscow’s growing military footprint in Belarus reflects a broader expansion of Russian influence in the country that has been underway since the Kremlin intervened in August 2020 to rescue the regime of Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid nationwide protests over a rigged presidential election. In exchange, Lukashenka has pledged total loyalty to Moscow while permitting Russia to increase its economic, political, and military dominance over Belarus.

The strategic significance of this unequal alliance between Lukashenka and Putin increased considerably during the buildup to Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Lukashenka acquiesced to the transportation of Russian troops and military equipment across Belarus, which served as the gateway for Moscow’s failed Kyiv offensive during the initial weeks of the war. The country has continued to play an important role in the ongoing conflict, providing logistical support, training Russian troops, and supplying weapons, while also serving as a launch pad for Russian airstrikes across Ukraine.

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Belarus’s involvement in the invasion of Ukraine has led many to brand Lukashenka as Putin’s last remaining ally. While other leaders have refused to condemn the Russian dictator, Putin’s Belarusian counterpart remains one of the few still prepared to publicly defend him. However, while much of the outside world sees Belarus as Russia’s little brother, notions of a passive population fail to recognize the significant opposition Belarusians have already expressed over their country’s contributions to Russia’s war.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, Belarusian opposition groups have employed a wide range of tactics to disrupt the Russian war effort. This has included a campaign to sabotage Belarusian railroads being used to transport Russian troops, equipment, and ammunition to Ukraine. Hackers have also accessed Russian military networks and logistical operations. In February 2023, Belarusian anti-war partisans claimed responsibility for an attack that caused significant damage to a Russian spy plane based at an airfield close to Minsk.

Belarusians are also fighting shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians against the Russian invasion. Although exact numbers are difficult to determine, the Belarusian contingent is believed to be among the largest of the foreign volunteer forces fighting for Ukraine, and includes the Kastus Kalinouski Battalion. Many of the Belarusians currently fighting alongside the Ukrainian military believe that defending Ukraine is a stepping stone toward a free Belarus and are convinced that victory over Russia in Ukraine will lead to the fall of Lukashenka in Belarus.

Meanwhile, exiled Belarusian opposition leader Tsikhanouskaya remains an outspoken opponent of Lukashenka and has proven a staunch critic of his role as Putin’s junior partner in the invasion of Ukraine. Tsikhanouskaya has repeatedly underlined that Ukrainians and Belarusians share a common enemy in their struggle to shake off Russian authoritarianism and embrace European democracy. “The war won’t be over until both our countries are free,” she declared in March 2023.

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Moscow and Minsk are both well aware of the dangers posed by public opposition in Belarus to their country’s involvement in the invasion of Ukraine. Lukashenka’s violent suppression of anti-regime protests in 2020 succeeded in forcing activists to retreat from the streets of Belarus’s major cities, but discontent still simmers just below the surface. If Putin pushes Lukashenka to become more directly involved in the war, it could spark a new round of unrest with unpredictable consequences for both dictators.

Potential triggers include the planned deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus. The presence of Russian nukes would deepen existing Belarusian concerns over Moscow’s increasingly overt military presence in the country. This could potentially destabilize the Lukashenka regime at a time when Russia already finds itself overstretched in Ukraine and lacking the spare resources to rescue its ally once again.

Meanwhile, speculation continues over the possibility of Belarusian troops joining the invasion. So far, Lukashenka has resisted Kremlin pressure to send his army across the border into Ukraine, but Putin’s patience may eventually run out. Any attempt to force Belarusian troops to enter the war would represent a huge gamble for the two authoritarian rulers. Numerous commentators have questioned whether the Belarusian military could be relied upon to follow orders, with some arguing that many soldiers would be likely to mutiny or switch sides and fight for Ukraine.

Direct Belarusian participation in the Ukraine invasion would also dramatically increase the chances of domestic instability inside Belarus. Alyaksandr Azarau, who leads the BYPOL organization of exiled former Belarusian military and security service officers, believes wartime realities would rapidly reignite the flames of the 2020 protests. “If small Belarus starts getting coffins from Ukraine, it will inevitably stir up protests that the authorities barely managed to stifle with mass repressions,” he told the Associated Press in late April.

This represents something of a conundrum for Putin. Faced with mounting international isolation and struggling to advance in Ukraine, he is understandably eager to strengthen his grip on neighboring Belarus and force Lukashenka to join his faltering invasion. However, if Putin pushes too hard, the outcome could be disastrous for his last remaining ally.

Olivia Yanchik is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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Earlier this month in one of the latest tit-for-tat rounds, the alliance responded to North Korea’s testing of its new solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-18, with air drills. South Korea’s defense ministry stated that the drills were to demonstrate “the powerful strength of the alliance and the United States’ will to provide extended deterrence against the recent series of North Korea provocations.”

There are many ways to strengthen the US-South Korea alliance, including through planned military exercises that demonstrate alliance cohesion and resolve. But it is far from clear that quick drills in response to North Korean provocations—the short-order shows of force that risk becoming more and more frequent as Pyongyang tests more missiles than ever—are effective. They might even be counterproductive. So why does the alliance continue to respond in this manner?

Efforts to regain public confidence

After a few troublesome years for the US-South Korea alliance, Yoon and Biden moved to reestablish large-scale exercises and quick responses to North Korean “provocations” in order to display efforts to strengthen deterrence, with the aim of regaining public confidence. Under the previous administrations in Seoul and Washington, the alliance had dramatically scaled back its military activities in an attempt to better enable diplomacy with North Korea. As it became clear that there was no acceptable deal to be made with Kim Jong Un on his nuclear and missile programs, North Korea resumed, and then escalated, its missile launches and nuclear rhetoric. Coupled with former US President Donald Trump’s disparaging of the alliance, the South Korean public’s faith in US security guarantees deteriorated. As a result, now most of the South Korean public supports Seoul developing its own nuclear weapon capability—in part because they are losing faith in the deterrence extended by the United States, particularly the “nuclear umbrella.”

As Robert Abrams, former commander of the South Korea-US Combined Forces Command, attests, the return of large-scale alliance military exercises is appropriate, particularly considering North Korea’s evolving capabilities. But the alliance should focus on using its military exercises to strengthen readiness instead of as a response measure. In the last year, the alliance has been attempting to militarily respond and deter North Korea’s testing of its advancing military capabilities that are arguably not only militarily undeterrable but do not represent indications of an impending armed conflict, in the assessment of Admiral John Aquilino, head of US Indo-Pacific Command.

Though these response activities are designed, at least in part, to reassure the South Korean public, they may have the opposite result. With the anticipated North Korean launch of a reconnaissance satellite and continued expectation that North Korea will conduct a seventh nuclear test, the alliance is at risk of being pulled into a spiraling escalation cycle if it continues its current trajectory. Doing so risks heightening the public’s concern of escalation and thus diminishing the public’s confidence that the alliance can deter armed conflict. Amid expectations for increased tensions, the alliance has continued to promise to punish North Korea for its provocations, but these promises seem empty and set unrealistic expectations about the ability to stop North Korea’s launches.

Do not just follow the leader

The alliance must avoid the political pressure and pitfalls of continuing to respond to North Korea’s antics.

First, the United States and South Korea should avoid using military drills as a form of retaliation. They should instead stress that it’s normal and expected for militaries to train—just as North Korea continues its military training exercises and has done so even in times where the alliance scaled back its activities to provide diplomatic space for negotiations.

Second, the alliance should seek to maintain readiness and deterrence without tying its military activities to the perceived level of “tensions” on the Korean peninsula. Maintaining a set alliance exercise schedule instead of using ad hoc exercises to respond to “provocations” will aid in defeating perceptions that alliance activities are inflammatory. In addition, the alliance should refrain from offering to scale back readiness exercises in its attempts to negotiate with North Korea. Making exercises a negotiating point adds salience to the regime’s false claims that exercises are threats to North Korea’s security that justify its weapons programs, while impeding training threatens alliance military readiness. In addition, the end of both long pauses in large-scale drills and limitations on live-fire training have led to the perception among peninsula observers that the alliance is escalating tensions rather than simply returning to its normal routine of training activities that it had maintained since the 1990s.

Third, the alliance should strengthen deterrence and public reassurance by evolving its combined defense posture toward North Korea’s emergent capabilities.

For instance, analysts assess North Korea’s development of solid-fueled missiles reduces the potential warning time for North Korean missile launches, as liquid-fueled missiles have to be fueled immediately ahead of launch making their detection easier via satellite imagery. Thus, improving the alliance’s ability to detect and defend against North Korean missile launches on short notice is a worthwhile endeavor toward deterrence and reassurance. Currently, South Korea is pursuing its own independent missile defense capability rather than alliance integration of missile defense efforts, in part because of China’s opposition to US missile defense cooperation with regional allies. Maintaining separate missile defense systems is hardly a recipe for confidence in the alliance’s counter-missile efforts. Moving to strengthen alliance missile defense will go farther toward strengthening deterrence and public reassurance than trying to match each activity by North Korea.

More broadly, as North Korea advances its nuclear capabilities, there are mounting questions surrounding the effectiveness of South Korea’s unilateral “Three Axis” deterrent system, which stands apart from alliance military efforts. The system consists of a plan, a first axis, to incapacitate North Korea’s leadership in response to aggression through “Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation.” The second axis is a “kill chain” that will enable rapid strikes on mobile targets. The third axis is South Korea’s Air and Missile Defense System. Rather than strengthening the alliance’s combined posture and reassuring the South Korean public, portraying these capabilities as independent of the US military just feeds the narrative that the United States cannot be relied upon. Thus, absent a diplomatic resolution to aid in regaining and strengthening the South Korean public’s confidence, the alliance should focus on ensuring that it continually evolves its combined abilities.

Yoon and Biden took an important step this week to strengthen cooperative decision making on nuclear deterrence by enhancing dialogue and information sharing regarding growing nuclear threats to South Korea and the region. Their task now is to stick to the plan and make sure they do not get distracted by the next North Korean provocation.

Jessica Taylor is a nonresident fellow in the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She served in South Korea from 2019 to 2021 as an international relations strategist for the headquarters command staffs of United Nations Command, ROK/US Combined Forces Command, and US Forces Korea.

The post Not every North Korean missile needs a response. South Korea and the US should focus more on readiness and deterrence. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Call it a nuclear fusion of allies. The United States has agreed to give South Korea a bigger role in decisions regarding the use of nuclear weapons to deter and respond to an attack, while South Korea has agreed to not build its own nukes. What does the Washington Declaration, announced Wednesday as the US and South Korean leaders met in DC, mean for the alliance, and how will it play in Seoul? Will the pact hold together in the long run? We hit the red button to summon our team, who dove into the details of the agreement as only they can.

• Markus Garlauskas (@Mister_G_2): Director of the Scowcroft Center’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative and former US national intelligence officer for North Korea
• Matthew Kroenig (@matthewkroenig): Vice president and senior director of the Scowcroft Center and former nuclear-weapons expert in the US Defense Department and intelligence community
• Jessica Taylor (@Jess_R_Taylor): Nonresident fellow at the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative and former international relations strategist for ROK/US Combined Forces Command in South Korea

For the history books

• Wednesday, Markus tells us, may go down “as the day that the US-South Korea alliance truly became a nuclear-armed alliance.” That’s because “even if the nuclear weapons are still US-owned and US-controlled, we can now consider nuclear weapons to be an alliance capability.”
• Markus and Matt were at the White House as US President Joe Biden welcomed South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for a state visit—cementing a deal that includes port visits by nuclear-armed US submarines to South Korea for the first time in decades. The United States removed its forward-deployed nuclear weapons from South Korea after the Cold War, while continuing to maintain that the US nuclear arsenal would protect its ally in a war. “The Biden administration’s announcement aims to take measures short of nuclear deployments to assure South Korea,” the US ally currently most in need of such reassurance because of the growing threat of North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program, Matt says.
• But will South Koreans feel assured? Jessica points out that Yoon’s commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the Washington Declaration is “a quick turn” from his comments in January signaling openness to South Korea developing its own nuclear weapons. The deal “may not have the ability to decrease the South Korean public’s desire for an indigenous nuclear-weapon capability,” she adds.

Making it work

• Aside from additional consultations, trainings, and tabletop exercises, the biggest change stemming from the agreement will involve the “mindset” of the alliance, Markus says. It’s a shift from the United States “providing” South Korea with nuclear deterrence to a true partnership. The two countries also will need “to be prepared to be resilient in the face of nuclear attacks and to launch a coordinated counterattack as an alliance” if deterrence fails, Markus adds.
• One model is NATO, which includes nuclear and non-nuclear states under the same nuclear umbrella. Markus proposes that South Korea have “official observer status” for NATO nuclear exercises and participate in other NATO nuclear planning and educational opportunities. 
• But the moves announced this week are only “a stopgap measure,” Matt argues. “To deal with the growing North Korean and Chinese nuclear threats, the United States will soon need theater nuclear weapons deployable and deployed to Asia.” 
• Matt proposes the development of the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile, which was advanced by former US President Donald Trump but canceled by Biden. He notes that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley has publicly expressed support for the weapon and “bipartisan majorities in Congress have restored funding to the program.”

Unanswered questions

• Jessica points out that the deal comes as South Korea is preparing to take over “wartime operational control of the allies’ joint forces.” That leaves a big question: “How can a [Republic of Korea] general be in charge of ROK/US Combined Forces Command in a conflict when final say on nuclear weapons will always reside in Washington?”
• But perhaps the biggest question is how long this deal can last, as the announcement came one day after Biden formally announced his re-election campaign. “Any concerns surrounding US abandonment will likely not be resolved within one US administration,” Jessica says. “With the 2024 US presidential election looming, it is unclear whether the winner of the election will hold similar views toward cooperative decision making on nuclear deterrence.” 

The post The day the US-South Korea alliance became truly nuclear-armed appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Days earlier, Putin had made global headlines by announcing an agreement with Minsk to station Russian tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. This was widely viewed as a further escalation in Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling tactics as he attempts to discourage the West from continuing to arm Ukraine.

At the same time, the move to place nuclear weapons in Belarus will also advance the Kremlin goal of consolidating informal control over the country. While Putin was at pains to stress that the decision to move nukes across the border came in response to a direct request from Lukashenka, few were convinced. Instead, news of the planned deployment has served to underline Belarus’s status as a client state of Russia.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

While Belarus likely had little say in the matter of hosting Russian nuclear weapons, the country will experience significant consequences if Moscow proceeds as planned. Brussels has already warned Minsk of further sanctions due to what it terms as an “irresponsible escalation and threat to European security.” Belarus could also find itself a target for retaliatory strikes if the war in Ukraine spreads to neighboring NATO member states. In such circumstances, Belarusian nuclear weapons storage facilities, military airfields, and other military infrastructure could become potential targets.

Lukashenka has often been critical of his country’s early 1990s decision to hand over the nuclear arsenal it inherited from the USSR, and has suggested the international community would treat Belarus differently if it was still a nuclear power. Nevertheless, until the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he had consistently stated that nuclear weapons would only be based in Belarus in response to similar threats from the West.

The Russian attack on Ukraine has led to a dramatic change in Lukashenka’s position on the issue of nuclear weapons. Days after the start of the invasion, he staged a sham referendum on changes to the Belarusian Constitution which scrapped the country’s official nuclear-free status. This was followed by news that Russia was modifying Belarusian military aircraft to carry nuclear warheads and transferring nuclear-capable missile systems to the country.

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By agreeing to host Russian nuclear weapons, Lukashenka has strengthened perceptions of his country as an indivisible element of the military threat posed by Putin’s Russia. This is shaping attitudes toward Minsk throughout the democratic world. For much of Lukashenka’s almost three decades in power, Western policymakers had sought to cultivate ties with him in order to counter Russian influence in Belarus. That era now appears to be over. Instead, Lukashenka is seen as a Putin proxy who must be treated as such.

Lukashenka’s status as junior partner in Putin’s Ukraine War has also brought the curtain down on his clumsy attempts to act as peacemaker between Moscow and Kyiv. During the early stages of Russian aggression against Ukraine following the 2014 seizure of Crimea, Lukashenka positioned himself as a neutral figure and offered his country as a venue for peace talks. However, these claims to neutrality were undermined by Lukashenka’s growing dependence on the Kremlin, which intervened to rescue his regime in August 2020 following nationwide protests in Belarus over a rigged presidential vote. Lukashenka repaid Putin for his support by allowing Belarus to become a platform for the invasion of Ukraine.

The deployment of nuclear weapons would be the latest in a series of steps since 2020 to expand Russia’s military presence in Belarus. Russian troops are already stationed across the country, with Lukashenka neither willing nor able to force their departure. The establishment of a fully-fledged Russian military base complete with nuclear weapons would significantly increase Moscow’s leverage over Belarus and cement Putin’s grip on the country. In such circumstances, any subsequent attempts by Lukashenka to distance himself from Putin or assert his independence from the Kremlin would be political suicide.

Although Lukashenka himself appears obliged to accept the gradual takeover of his country, the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus could have negative domestic consequences that neither he nor Putin can entirely disregard. While opinion polls are notoriously difficult to conduct in dictatorships, research carried out by Chatham House in 2022 found that around 80% of Belarusians opposed the idea of hosting Russian nukes. This tallies with other anecdotal evidence indicating strong opposition to the growing Russian military presence in Belarus and emphatic rejection of any Belarusian involvement in the invasion of Ukraine.

The terror tactics employed by Lukashenka in recent years make it unlikely that Belarusians will take to the streets in protest over Russian plans to place nuclear weapons in their country. However, this latest strengthening of Moscow’s already dominant position will further erode the legitimacy of the Lukashenka regime while highlighting Russia’s creeping annexation of Belarus. This could help fuel a new wave of Belarusian opposition, especially if Russia suffers further military setbacks in Ukraine.

Hanna Liubakova is a journalist from Belarus and nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council. She tweets @HannaLiubakova.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Apr 8, 2023

Human wave tactics are demoralizing the Russian army in Ukraine

By Olivia Yanchik

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has not gone according to plan but he still hopes to win a long war of attrition. However, Russia’s reliance on human wave tactics risks undermining morale within his invading army, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Apr 6, 2023

NATO poses a threat to Russian imperialism not Russian security

By Peter Dickinson

Russia’s passive acceptance of neighboring Finland’s NATO membership raises serious questions over the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the invasion of Ukraine as a response to NATO expansion, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert Mar 8, 2023

Ukrainians will never surrender. How long can they count on the West?

By Serhiy Prytula

Ukraine’s remarkable resistance during the first days of the Russian invasion convinced the democratic world to back the country but with Putin now preparing for a long war, continued Western resolve is vital writes Serhiy Prytula.

Civil Society Conflict

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Russian nukes in Belarus: Putin’s creeping annexation continues appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Security

Belarus accuses Ukraine of plotting terrorist attack against Russian consulate

Identifying potential host sites for Russian tactical nuclear weapons

Documenting dissent

Individuals linked to Russian army form ‘angry patriots club’

Tracking narratives

Russian propaganda reaches Ukrainian users via Facebook ads

International response

Poland and Ukraine sign cooperation deal for production of tank shells

Belarus accuses Ukraine of plotting terrorist attack against Russian consulate

On April 4, Belarusian state-controlled TV channel ONT aired a documentary titled “Loud failures of the Ukrainian special services in Belarus. Gaspar did not get in touch.” Reports from Belarus’ State Security Committee (KGB) informed much of the program, which asserted that, under the leadership of Ukrainian special services, a network of Russian and Belarusian citizens planned several terrorist attacks in the Belarusian city of Grodno. The alleged perpetrators reportedly planned to target several facilities, including the Consulate General of Russia, a military enlistment office opposite Zhiliber Park, a military unit in southern Grodno, and two oil depots. 

The KGB claimed that Vyacheslav Rozum, an alleged employee of the Main Directorate of Intelligence in the Ukrainian defense ministry, planned the attacks. Ukrainian authorities had not commented on the accusations at the time of writing. According to the documentary, Rozum asked Russian citizen Daniil Krinari, known as Kovalevsky, to form a network of people to carry out terrorist acts. Krinari was reportedly arrested in Grodno in December 2022 and extradited to Russia at the request of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). He was charged in Russia for cooperating with Ukraine and acting in the interests of Ukraine. The Belarusian KGB asserted that, before his extradition, Krinari managed to recruit at least two people, Russian citizen Alexei Kulikov and Belarusian citizen Vadim Patsenko. Kulikov had allegedly fled Russia in 2022 to avoid conscription and moved to Belarus. 

The ONT documentary includes interviews with Kulikov and Patsenko, who argue that Rozum asked them to take photos and videos of the target facilities in Grodno. Moreover, Patsenko argued that Vyacheslav tasked him with blowing up an oil depot with a drone. The program claims Ukrainian special services promised Kulikov and Patsenko $10,000 each. While Patsenko and Kulikov allege that Ukrainian security services were involved in the operation, the ONT program does not include concrete evidence to prove this claim. 

The documentary also contains an interview with Nikolai Shvets, the main suspect behind a February 26, 2023, attack on an AWACS A-50 Russian military aircraft at Machulishchy airfield in Belarus. Shvets is reported to be a Russian-Ukrainian dual citizen and served in the Ukrainian army. In the ONT interview, he claimed he was working with a person from the Ukrainian security service while planning the sabotage. The Belarusian independent media outlet Nasha Niva reported that Maxim Lopatin, one of arrested suspects in the Machulishchy attack, had a broken jaw when he filmed the ONT doumentary. Nasha Niva suggested that he was possibly beaten by Belarusian law enforcement authorities. Belarus arrested more than twenty people in connection to the February aircraft incident and announced on April 3 that the suspects were charged with committing an act of terrorism, for which the maximum sentence is capital punishment. However, the ONT program again provides no concrete evidence linking Shvets to Ukrainian security services. 

In addition, the ONT documentary aired on the same day that Alyaksandr Lukashenka met Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, in Minsk to discuss joint counterterrorism measures undertaken by Belarus and Russia. 

—Givi Gigitashvili, Research Associate, Warsaw, Poland

Identifying potential host sites for Russian tactical nuclear weapons

On March 28, Belarus confirmed it would accept Russian tactical nuclear weapons. The announcement came after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on March 25 plans to store tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, promising to build a nuclear weapons storage facility in the country. Putin made the comments after the United Kingdom said it would supply Ukraine with ammunition containing depleted uranium. “The heavy metal is used in weapons because it can penetrate tanks and armour more easily due to its density, amongst other properties,” Reutersreported. On April 4, Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu reported the transfer of Iskander-M tactical missiles, which are nuclear capable and have been utilized by the Russian military against Ukraine. 

Two days after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, on February 26, 2022, Belarus approved via referendum constitutional amendments to remove the country’s non-nuclear status. The constitutional change allows Belarus to host nuclear weapons for foreign states. 

Amidst the speculation surrounding Russia’s nuclear deployment to Belarus, the most pressing questions concern the potential location of airfields capable of nuclear deployment and which type of equipment is nuclear capable in terms of maintenance and modernization efforts.  

Along with the confirmed transfer of the Iskander-M missiles (a mobile, short-range ballistic missile system with a range of up to 500 kilometers), Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jets are also a top contender in the Russian and Belarusian aviation arsenals. This aircraft is capable of carrying two nuclear bombs, which the Russian military categorizes as “special aviation bombs.” In June 2022, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka personally called on Putin to help upgrade and retrofit the Belarusian Su-25 fleet to be nuclear-capable. This resulted in a long-term project to enable Belarusian nuclear capabilities, legalize hosting Russian nuclear technology and nuclear-capable craft, enable joint-training programs for aviation sorties, and direct training for Belarusian pilots.

In conjunction with the Su-25’s capabilities against Ukraine’s current air defence networks and Russia’s non-strategic nuclear policy, Belarus’ acceptance of Russian tactical nuclear weapons can be viewed as escalatory. Video footage showed the Su-25’s capacity to evade Ukraine’s man-portable air defence system (MANPAD).

On April 2, the Russian envoy to Minsk announced that the nuclear weapons deployment would occur along Belarus’ western border. The exact location has not been specified, but Belarus has a number of bases along its western border, including Osovtsy, Ross, and Bereza. However, Lida is a primary staging base for the Belarusian fleet of SU-25s, and open-source researchers have confirmed a large presence of the aircraft on the base. Currently, Osovtsy is not one of the highly utilized bases in Belarus, but its proximity to the western border, especially in terms of proximity to Poland and the northern border of Ukraine, makes it a primary location to watch for potential signs of development, land-clearing operations, and heightened military activity.

—Kateryna Halstead, Research Assistant, Bologna, Italy

Individuals linked to Russian army form ‘angry patriots club’

On April 1, former Russian army commander Igor Strelkov (also known as Igor Girkin) published a video announcing the formation of the “angry patriots club” (Клуб рассерженных патриотов). According to Strelkov, the club aims “to help Russian armed forces” and “meet the stormy wind that will soon whip our faces as one team.” In the video, Strelkov says that Russia “is moving toward military defeat” because “we got into a long, protracted war for which our economy turned out to be completely unprepared. Neither the army nor the political system was ready for it.” In a Telegram post, Strelkov said the club “was created two weeks ago. So far, organizational issues have not been resolved publicly.” Strelkov previously played a crucial role in forming a separatist movement in the Donbas region.

The video also featured a statement from Pavel Gubarev, who in 2014 proclaimed himself the commander of the Donbas People’s Militia. In the video, he says, “We are angry that we are going from one defeat to another, and nothing changes.” He called the system in Russia “thievish and corrupt” and said the Russian elite are “elite in catastrophe.” 

The video further featured Vladimir Grubnik, who in 2015 was arrested in Ukraine in connection to an explosion near a Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) building in Odesa; in 2019, he was part of a prisoner exchange and returned to the Russian forces in Donbas. Grubnik said that defeat would lead to Russia falling apart. 

Vladimir Kucherenko, an Odesa-born Russian propagandist better known by his pen name Maksim Kalashnikov, said, “We are not afraid to criticize the actions of the government. Why? Because it can somehow help victory. Otherwise, they will do nothing, they will not move.” He called the Russian elite “looters,” “resource grabbers,” and “corrupts.” He predicted the war would turn into “carnage to death” and that the “corrupt Russian elites” would organize a coup that would “betray the country” by agreeing to Russia’s “separation” and “giving up of nuclear arms” in order to “earn the forgiveness of the West.” In 2015, the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture included Kucherenko in the list of Russians “threatening national security.”

Another figure in the video is Maksim Klimov, a pro-Kremlin military expert, who said, “The authorities do not know the real situation.” He added, “They do not hear nor see what is happening in the special military operation zone.” Klimov also did not rule out Russia’s defeat. 

The video gained some traction online, garnering 177,000 views on YouTube at the time of writing and 623,600 views and 2,500 shares on Strekov’s Telegram channel. According to TGStat, most of the shares on Telegram came from private accounts. Many Ukrainian media outlets reported on the newly founded club. The DFRLab did not identify any mainstream Russian media outlets reporting on the club besides Kommersant, a Kremlin-approved media outlet focused on business. 

—Nika Aleksejeva, Resident Fellow, Riga, Latvia

Russian propaganda reaches Ukrainian users via Facebook ads

This week, the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security (CSCIS) and Ukrainian civil society members reported that Facebook advertising campaigns are being used to spread negative content about Ukraine. The ads range from posts that claim “Romania wants to annex Ukrainian territories” to videos that claim “This is the end. There are no men to fight for Ukraine.” While these campaigns were quickly de-platformed and the pages sharing them were banned, the DFRLab was able to investigate some of the ads via the Facebook Ad Library. The DFRLab previously reported on Facebook ads promoting pro-Russia disinformation to Ukrainian users.

The ads included links to the website luxurybigisland.net, with some ads sharing variations of the URL, such as luxurybigisland.net/rbk or luxurybigisland.net/pravda. The website was built using the Russian website builder Tilda, and its the landing page featured German text that translates to, “Nothing that can’t be removed. We care for your textiles as gently as possible with the utmost care, iron and steam, so that you can enjoy your clothes for a long time. We care.” The same phrase appeared on the now-defunct Tilda-made website google-seo-top.com and the website of a German textile care company. Registration data for luxurybigisland.net is redacted, but WhoIs data for google-seo-top.com shows that the website was registered in Russia. Both luxurybigisland.net and google-seo-top.com include metadata, shown in Google results, that states, in German, “the USA are against the entire world.”

One URL shared in the ads, luxurybigisland.net/pravda, remained online at the time of writing. The URL redirects to a forged article mimicking the Ukrainian news outlet Pravda. The article shared in the ads never appeared on the authentic Pravda website, but its byline cited a genuine journalist working at the outlet. The DFRLab confirmed the article was a forgery by reviewing the journalist’s author page on the authentic Pravda website, reviewing Pravda’s archived section, conducting a Google search for the forged headline, and then a more specific website search via Google.

Visually the forged website is identical to the authentic one and even features links to contact information copied from the original website. However, the forged website’s image format is different. The text of the forged article claims that the Ukrainian economy is heavily damaged and that “continuation of the war will lead to even greater losses in the economy.” The data shared in the article appears to be copied from multiple media sources and is not false, but the article’s framing contains pro-Russian sentiments as it calls for Ukraine’s surrender.

A second forged article, discovered by CSCIS, was shared on the now-offline URL luxurybigisland.net/RBK. The article mimicked the website of the reputable Ukrainian outlet RBC. 

Meta itself has taken – and continues to take – action against similar cross-platform, pro-Russia networks that push users to websites designed to impersonate legitimate news organizations. The DFRLab could not tie its identified assets to those previous Meta actions, but there is some probability that they were related given the similarity of behavior.

A Facebook page with “Cripto” in its name shared some of the ads. The DFRLab identified another Facebook page with the word Cripto in the name sharing pro-Kremlin narratives via Facebook ads. The ads pushed a false story claiming there was a “riot in Kyiv over losses.” CSCIS previously debunked another narrative pushed by a similarly named page that also fomented anti-Ukrainian military sentiment.

—Roman Osadchuk, Research Associate

Poland and Ukraine sign cooperation deal for production of tank shells

During Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Poland, Polish manufacturer Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa and Ukroboronprom signed a cooperation agreement for the joint production of 125-mm tank ammunition. The agreement assumes that the deployment of new production lines will be in Polish cities and the agreement indicates that they plan to produce a large amount of ammunition for 125-mm guns. The decision to start production in Poland was made due to the high risks of Russian missile attacks on production facilities if they were to be based in Ukraine. In place of locating the production in the country, the Ukrainian side will provide technologies and highly qualified specialists with experience in production. This will be the second factory that will produce 125-mm tank shells.

The supply of shells is of particular importance to Ukrainian forces, which are preparing a counter-offensive in southern and eastern Ukraine as heavy fighting with the Russian army continues in the Bakhmut and Donetsk regions.

Separately, German manufacturer Rheinmetall is building a service center for Western military equipment used by Ukraine’s armed forces in Romania, Reuters reported on April 2. The construction for the center is already underway in the Romanian city of Satu Mare, close to the country’s border with Ukraine. The hub is expected to open later this month. 

This development is happening against the background of diplomatic activity and statements. Ukraine is not ready to sign any peace agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but the war could end as early as this year, according to an April 5 interview with  Ukraine’s Minister of Defense Oleksii Rezniko, who said, “I think this war will end soon. Of course, I would like it not to start, but I personally believe in this year as a year of victory.”

Rezniko also commented on a statement made in March by Czech Republic President Petr Pavel, who claimed that Ukraine had only one chance to conduct a successful counter-offensive this year. “I think that the president of the Czech Republic now speaks more like a military man than a politician, and the logic of the military is such that they constantly calculate the worst options. But even if this is his assessment, it is subjective, and he still lays down useful for us. The message is that European countries should unite more powerfully and strengthen assistance to Ukraine,” said Reznikov. Later, Andriy Sybiha, an adviser to Zelenskyy, told the Financial Times that Kyiv is willing to discuss the future of Crimea with Moscow if its forces reach the border of the Russian-occupied peninsula.

—Ruslan Trad, resident fellow for security research, Sofia, Bulgaria

The post Russian War Report: Belarus accuses Ukraine of plotting terrorist attack appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Putin has repeatedly resorted to nuclear blackmail since embarking on the full-scale invasion of Ukraine just over thirteen months ago. During the first few days of the invasion, the Russian dictator signaled his readiness to engage in nuclear intimidation by very publicly placing his country’s nuclear forces on “special alert.” This was widely interpreted as an attempt to discourage any Western intervention.

Further thinly-veiled nuclear threats came in September 2022 as Putin sought to escalate his faltering invasion. Following a string of battlefield defeats and embarrassing retreats, he announced his country’s first mobilization since World War II before boasting of Russia’s unrivaled “weapons of destruction” and vowing to “use all the means at our disposal” to defend the country. “I am not bluffing,” Putin warned.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

It is not difficult to imagine why Putin is now once again indulging in nuclear saber-rattling. In recent months, military aid to Ukraine has expanded to new levels and crossed multiple Russian red lines in the process. Western countries have agreed to supply Kyiv with state-of-the-art air defense systems, modern battle tanks, and jet fighters. Tellingly, Putin framed his plans for nuclear weapons in Belarus as a response to Britain’s decision to provide Ukraine with anti-tank ammunition that contains depleted uranium.

Meanwhile, Russia’s military fortunes in Ukraine have continued to deteriorate. The six-month campaign to bomb Ukraine into submission by targeting the country’s civilian infrastructure has ended in failure. Along the front lines in southern and eastern Ukraine, a much-hyped Russian offensive has been underway since early 2023 but has failed to make significant progress while suffering disastrous losses. This is leading to the rapid demoralization of Putin’s army in Ukraine, with video appeals regularly posted to social media featuring groups of recently mobilized Russian soldiers complaining of suicidal tactics and high death tolls.

There is also little cause for Russian optimism on the international front, where initial expectations of a weakening in Western support for Ukraine are rapidly evaporating. Indeed, during the early months of 2023, the democratic world’s commitment to Ukraine has looked stronger than ever. In February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was given a hero’s welcome during a brief trip to London, Paris, and Brussels. Weeks later, US President Joe Biden arrived in Kyiv to emphasize his resolve to stand with Ukraine.

There was more bad news for Russia in mid-March, when the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest on war crimes charges related to the mass abduction of Ukrainian children. While there is no immediate danger of the Russian ruler ending up in court, the indictment is a further humiliation that underlines Putin’s pariah status while weakening his position both at home and abroad.

Even the recent visit of Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Moscow failed to lift the gloom. The summit produced few concrete gains for Putin while confirming his position as junior partner in what is an increasingly unequal bilateral relationship. Interestingly, one of the few security-related outcomes of the visit was a joint statement calling on all nuclear powers to refrain from deploying nuclear weapons beyond their national borders. Putin’s subsequent decision to place nukes in Belarus may well be an indication of his frustration over China’s obvious reluctance to back Russia more forcefully.

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It remains far from clear whether Russia is capable of regaining the military initiative in Ukraine via conventional means. Kremlin officials have recently begun speaking of massive increases in military production, while rumors persist of additional mobilization waves to bolster the depleted ranks of Russia’s invasion force. However, this optimism is at odds with the realities on the ground in Ukraine, with the UK Ministry of Defense recently reporting that Russia is now deploying tanks and armored vehicles from the 1950s and 1960s “to make up for previous losses.” With limited access to sanctioned Western technologies, many analysts question the offensive potential of what will be a largely conscript Russian army of poorly motivated troops with limited training and outdated equipment.

This grim outlook helps to explain why Putin is playing the nuclear card. His nuclear threats may ring hollow, but they are too serious to be disregarded completely and he knows it. At the same time, the international community cannot afford to let Putin’s intimidation tactics succeed. If nuclear blackmail pays off for Putin in Ukraine and allows him to snatch a victory of sorts from the jaws of defeat, it will become a normalized element of international relations with devastating consequences for global security. Countries around the world will scramble to acquire nuclear arsenals of their own in order to avoid the fate of Ukraine.

So far, the response to Putin’s latest bout of nuclear saber-rattling has been encouraging. US, EU, and NATO officials were united in their condemnation. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell branded it “an irresponsible escalation and threat to European security,” while Germany’s Foreign Ministry accused Russia of “another attempt at nuclear intimidation.” Perhaps the most fitting commentary came from Kyiv, with Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak claiming Putin’s comments demonstrate that he fears defeat in Ukraine and has nothing to offer other than scare tactics.

We are likely to see such scare tactics increasingly in the coming months. With the Ukrainian military currently preparing to launch what promises to be their largest offensive of the war, Russia’s position could worsen significantly during spring and summer 2023. If he finds himself faced with the prospect of decisive military defeat, Putin will almost certainly escalate his nuclear blackmail to new levels of danger. At that point, the international community must unite to prevent Russia from dragging the world into catastrophe.

Peter Dickinson is Editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Feb 20, 2023

‘You cannot outlast us’: Biden’s Kyiv visit sends strong message to Moscow

By Peter Dickinson

US President Joe Biden’s bold surprise visit to wartime Kyiv sent a strong message to Moscow that time is not on Putin’s side and Russia should not pin its hopes on a weakening of Western resolve to stand with Ukraine.

Conflict Freedom and Prosperity

UkraineAlert Mar 19, 2023

Putin the Pariah: War crimes arrest warrant deepens Russia’s isolation

By Anders Åslund

The ICC decision to indict Putin for war crimes is a highly consequential step that will deepen Russia’s international isolation while weakening Putin’s personal position both at home and abroad, writes Anders Åslund.

Conflict Human Rights

UkraineAlert Mar 8, 2023

Ukrainians will never surrender. How long can they count on the West?

By Serhiy Prytula

Ukraine’s remarkable resistance during the first days of the Russian invasion convinced the democratic world to back the country but with Putin now preparing for a long war, continued Western resolve is vital writes Serhiy Prytula.

Civil Society Conflict

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling is a sign of dangerous Russian desperation appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Against the backdrop of difficulties in returning to the JCPOA, Tehran is speeding up uranium enrichment. Using advanced centrifuges, Iran is currently enriching at a high level (60 percent) that is difficult to justify on a civilian scale. Moreover, finding uranium particles at near weapons grade (84 percent) substantiates the permanent Israeli claim that Iran seeks to produce a nuclear weapon. At the same time, Iran seems to be making all possible mistakes in its foreign policy.

For starters, Iran’s support for Russia in the Ukraine war, which is reflected in the sending of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and the ridiculous attempt by the clerical establishment to deny this. This is alongside the regime’s violent repression of protesters since mid-September 2022, as well as foiled Iranian intelligence plans to harm Iranian opposition figures in Europe. All this has led to a number of European countries pushing to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, thereby reinforcing the Israeli perception that the Islamic Republic is, in the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a “dark regime” that seeks to create terrorism around the world.

Moreover, alongside in-depth discussions between Israel and the United States on the Iran file in recent months—including a meeting at the White House—military coordination on this issue is also deepening. Just a few weeks ago, the “largest-ever bilateral military exercise” by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the US Central Command (CENTCOM) took place, which, according to some outlets, reportedly simulated an “attack on Iran.”

Concurrently, Iran continues to transfer weapons to its proxies in the Middle East, while attacks continue to be carried out by Iran-supported elements on Western and especially American interests in the region—all of which strengthen the Israeli claim about Iranian expansion in the region.

Despite these significant developments, and even though Israeli views regarding Iran are finally gaining international approval, there is still a deep and unbridgeable gap between Israel and the international community regarding the Iran nuclear issue.

The first development concerns the American intelligence community’s annual intelligence assessment presented to the US Congress. It contends that, contrary to Israel’s claims, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had not decided to produce nuclear weapons after Iran abandoned a previous attempt to obtain one in 2003 (when it had an active military nuclear program).

In addition, per the intelligence assessment, Iran has been “pushed” into unprecedented actions in its enrichment program due to actions carried out by “unknown elements” against its nuclear program, such as the assassination of the country’s lead nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Moreover, the report even hinted that the correct way to prevent Iran from enriching uranium to military-grade (90 percent) is by returning to the nuclear agreement.

In other words, according to the American intelligence community, the moves made by Iran are not to produce a bomb, but to force a return to the agreement, which may be the only option to stop the advancement of its nuclear program.

The second development concerns the meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It was expected that the board would not only condemn Iran but perhaps take more serious measures against it, such as transferring the Iranian file to the United Nations Security Council due to its nuclear advancement, which Israel wanted.

But here, too, the gap between Israeli expectations and the activity of the IAEA is still very wide. Just before the Board of Governors was convened on March 4, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi traveled to Iran. There, he met with Iranian leadership and managed to extract not only a roadmap for resolving the “open files,” an issue that has become a stumbling block in the relationship between Iran and the IAEA—which makes it difficult to return to the nuclear agreement—but also for Iran’s willingness to allow tighter supervision, especially of the enrichment facility at Fordow. The conduct of the IAEA and senior Iranian officials indicate that, in the face of pressure, the parties sought to find a path forward that would leave the option of a return to the nuclear agreement, despite all the setbacks. 

Interestingly, the agreements between Iran and the IAEA were only the preview of the latest development: the Chinese-brokered agreement to renew diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Israel, who was eager to join forces with Saudi Arabia and form a regional alliance against Iran, discovered that the regional spearhead of this theoretical alliance had decided to get politically closer to Iran. This rapprochement is also in line with the steps led by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over the past year to strengthen its diplomatic and, in particular, economic ties with Tehran, with the understanding that the best way to prevent escalation in the Gulf region is through integration with Iran.

These events highlight the gap between Israeli policy and the international community, including the United States and Gulf states. Chief among them is the understanding that a return to a nuclear agreement is the leading and perhaps only option to put Iran’s nuclear genie back in the bottle and roll back its enrichment progress since any other move is liable to push its nuclear program to weapons grade.

This fact requires Israel to think freshly about the Iranian nuclear issue. The Israeli government must understand that there is a need to dissociate between the nuclear issue, which has only a diplomatic solution, and Iranian malign activities like their support for proxies.

As long as the world is concerned that its actions may push Iran forward in its nuclear program—given the fact that Tehran has no other significant tool in its nuclear toolbox to retaliate against any actions against them—countries will probably refrain from taking harsh actions against Tehran concerning other negative aspects of its policy. Moreover, as long as the West assumes that Iran is not taking any actions that would lead to building a nuclear weapon, no country—including the United States—will decide to use force against the Islamic Republic or its nuclear program, and, therefore, Israel may again be left alone.

The bottom line is that the recent developments indicate that the world understands the need to use carrots in addition to sticks against Iran. Posing a military threat to Iran may be important in several ways, but without giving Iran incentives, it will be very difficult to persuade Iran not to enrich at 90 percent, or weapons-grade, which improves its ability to acquire a nuclear weapon in the future if it so desires.

In general, it is important to remember that Iran built its nuclear program to ensure the regime’s future—that is, the program is a means and not an end. If it is possible to assure Iran of the future of the regime in other ways—including a willingness to ease economic and diplomatic relations—it is very doubtful that Iran will choose the path of a nuclear bomb.

In stark contrast to its current strategy, Israel must reconsider the validity of the nuclear agreement as a tool in its foreign policy regarding Iran. A return to the JCPOA (or something akin to it) has a price: the lifting of sanctions. However, even this price will not lead the world to cooperate with the regime, as it conducts many other negative activities that push potential partners away, such as selling weapons to Russia, sending squads to harm various elements in Europe, and brutally suppressing protesters.

If Israel adheres to its current strategy and seeks to use kinetic pressure against Iran to topple its nuclear advancement, it should expect—despite all the developments of recent months—to be left alone in the face of Iran’s accelerated nuclear program, even if Iran enriches at 90 percent. Perhaps it is time Israel follows the approach of the Gulf states and adopts a more complex policy that will integrate diplomatic actions rather than just military ones.

Danny Citrinowicz is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He served for twenty-five years in a variety of command positions units in Israel Defense Intelligence (IDI). Follow him on Twitter: @citrinowicz.

The post Israel and the international community have deep gaps on the Iran nuclear issue. It’s time the Israeli government adopts fresh thinking. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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Vice President and Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

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Although the spike could be an accident, as Iran claims, Tehran has recently threatened to pursue 90 percent enrichment to build leverage over the United States. The particles could indicate that Iran is experimenting with near-weapons grade enrichment without informing the agency, as required, to increase pressure or shorten the path to nuclear weapons down the road.

Regardless of whether the 84 percent enriched particles were the accidental product of Iran reconfiguring its centrifuges or produced by design, this incident underscores the increased challenge in discerning Tehran’s nuclear intentions and the growing proliferation risk of Iran’s rapidly expanding nuclear program. This is one of several actions that Iran has taken to advance its nuclear program over the past six months while negotiations to restore the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), remain stalled.

This near-weapons-grade activity should raise alarm bells in the United States and Europe over the urgent need for diplomacy with Iran to de-escalate the growing nuclear crisis, since the current status quo is not sustainable. Absent limits on Iran’s nuclear advances, escalation to military action or sabotage to address the proliferation risk appears almost inevitable. The United States and Europe cannot afford to continue pointing the finger at Tehran for derailing JCPOA negotiations in August 2022 while waiting for the country to come back to the table.

US and European frustration with the current impasse and reluctance to reengage Iran is understandable. In late August 2022, the United States and Iran came close to reaching a deal to restore the JCPOA. Unreasonable demands from Iran over a separate IAEA investigation at the eleventh hour killed what EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called a “final” effort to revive the deal.

Since then, Iran’s brutal repression of protesters and its transfer of kamikaze drones to Russia for its illegal war in Ukraine have drawn US and European focus away from the JCPOA. Countering illegal drone sales and supporting protesters are laudable and necessary priorities, but the United States and Europe cannot lose sight of the growing proliferation threat and how current geopolitics may drive Tehran to decide nuclear weapons as necessary for its security.

There are three areas where the nuclear risk has increased over the past six months and will continue to grow (absent a deal or de-escalating steps from Iran): (1) expansion of enrichment at Fordow; (2) growth in Iran’s stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium; (3) and a growing monitoring gap. The urgency of this risk requires a new proactive diplomatic strategy.

Increased capacity at Fordow

In November 2022, Tehran announced its intentions to install an additional fourteen cascades of IR-6 centrifuges, which enrich uranium more efficiently, at its Fordow site and increase enrichment levels at the facility to 60 percent.

The Ebrahim Raisi government announced these plans after the IAEA’s Board of Governors censured Tehran for its continued failure to credibly respond to the agency’s questions about pre-2003 uranium activities, which were not declared to the agency as required by Iran’s legally binding safeguards agreement.

Prior to the November 2022 announcement, Iran operated two cascades of IR-6 centrifuges at the site and six cascades of less efficient IR-1 centrifuges. The machines produced uranium enriched to about 5 percent and 20 percent.

While the IAEA has confirmed that Iran is now enriching to 60 percent at Fordow, the February 28 report says it has not yet installed any of the planned IR-6 centrifuges. Regardless of the pace of expansion, however, undertaking these activities at Fordow is a significant escalation because of the location and nature of the facility.

Prior to the November 2022 announcement, Iran was only enriching to 60 percent at its aboveground facility at Natanz. Fordow, by contrast, is a hardened facility built in the mountains near Qom. Its small size and location suggest that it was originally built to produce material for a weapons program. More efficient centrifuges and a stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium will enable Iran to quickly ratchet up its enrichment to produce weapons-grade material, possibly before the inspectors could detect a change and the United States could respond.

Under the JCPOA, Iran was required to halt all enrichment activity at the site for fifteen years. This is because the facility poses a greater risk than Natanz and would be challenging to destroy if the United States ever determined that military strikes were necessary to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Israel, for instance, would likely need US support to strike Fordow. Given these factors, higher levels of enrichment and increased enrichment capacity at Fordow are more proliferation sensitive than if the same activities were taking place at Natanz.  

Growing stocks of highly enriched uranium

Iran is currently stockpiling uranium enriched to 60 percent and 20 percent levels. There is no civil justification for Iran producing uranium at these levels (as mentioned before, these stocks are about building leverage in negotiations with the United States and the risk they pose increases as the stocks grow).

Prior to the JCPOA, Iran enriched uranium to 20 percent. It resumed that activity in January 2021 as part of its response to reimposed US sanctions. It started enrichment to 60 percent for the first time in April 2021, following an act of sabotage at the Natanz enrichment facility. Sixty percent material can technically be used for a nuclear weapon, but the design would be bulky and inconsistent with the weapons-related design work Iran did prior to 2003. However, using 60 percent—or even 20 percent—enriched uranium as a starting point for enriching material to weapons-grade (90 percent) significantly reduces the time it would take to produce enough material for a bomb.

If Tehran started with 60 percent enriched uranium, for instance, it could produce enough 90 percent material for a bomb in less than a week—a timeframe referred to as “breakout.” This short window is quite worrying because Iran could try to achieve breakout between IAEA inspections, but it is not new. What is changing, however, is Iran’s breakout time to multiple weapons, which is largely due to the growing stockpiles of 60 and 20 percent material.

According to the February 28 IAEA report, Iran’s stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium is 87 kilograms and its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium is about 435 kilograms. In late October 2022, the IAEA reported stockpiles of 62 kilograms and 386 kilograms, respectively. The 60 percent stockpile will likely grow more rapidly over this next year now that Iran is enriching to that level at both Natanz and Fordow.

With stockpiles of this size and a growing enrichment capacity, Iran could likely produce enough material for four weapons in less than a month. As that timeframe shrinks, which is likely given that Iran shows no signs of rolling back its enrichment, the proliferation threat will continue to increase.

This diminishing timeframe is significant because Iran is unlikely to breakout with just one weapon’s worth of 90 percent enriched uranium. One nuclear device is not a deterrent, particularly for a state like Iran that has never conducted a nuclear test. If Tehran can breakout to multiple nuclear weapons before the international community can detect and respond, the proliferation threat increases significantly. Enough material for multiple bombs also means that Tehran can divert the weapons-grade uranium to several covert sites, making it more difficult to detect and disrupt the weaponization process, which could take a year.

Monitoring gaps

While the IAEA still has regular access to facilities in Iran where nuclear materials are present, the agency’s blind spots are a growing concern that will continue to amplify over time. Since February 2021, when Iran suspended its more intrusive safeguards arrangement known as the additional protocol, inspectors have been unable to visit sites that support Iran’s nuclear program but do not contain nuclear materials. This includes facilities such as Iran’s centrifuge workshops, its uranium mines and mills, and its heavy water production facilities. Iran also disconnected cameras at some of these key locations in June 2022. The surveillance data was intended to allow the IAEA to reestablish a baseline for Iran’s nuclear activities if the JCPOA is restored.

For the first time, the IAEA said in its February 28 report that the monitoring gap will prevent it from reconstructing an accurate record of Iran’s nuclear activities in certain areas, such as centrifuge component production. As a result, the IAEA warned that baselines for verifying the JCPOA’s limits (if the deal is restored) “will take a considerable time to establish and would have a significant degree of uncertainty,” even if Iran cooperates with agency efforts. This finding has serious implications for the sustainability of a future deal, whether that be the JCPOA or a new agreement. If the IAEA cannot confidently verify limits, it will undermine confidence in Iran’s adherence to those restrictions.  

The IAEA has continued to reiterate its concerns about the monitoring gap. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi recently made this point in a February 7 discussion at Chatham House, when he said that “the gap” is worrying and that it will be “very difficult to restore a complete picture” of Iran’s nuclear program. He warned that the situation will “get worse” without dialogue.

No surveillance at these certain sites also increases the risk that Iran may divert materials, such as centrifuges, for a covert program. Iran may also try to take advantage of less frequent IAEA inspections at Natanz and Fordow to breakout or experiment with higher enrichment levels. A February 1 IAEA report, for instance, noted that Iran changed its IR-6 cascade configuration at Fordow without notifying the agency as required by its safeguards agreement. It was five days before inspectors returned to the site and detected the change.

Iran could try to exploit the gap between future inspections if the decision was made to breakout or divert materials. Less frequent inspections combined with the short breakout window also increases the risk that United States and/or Israel will miscalculate Iranian activities or intentions, increasing the risk of a military strike. Both the risk of undetected breakout and miscalculation were significantly less under the JCPOA, when inspectors had daily access to Natanz, where Iran could conduct limited enrichment, and Fordow, which was converted from a uranium enrichment facility to a research site.

A return to dialogue

The most effective way to address the growing proliferation risk posed by Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program would be to restore the JCPOA, which proved to be an effective and verifiable deal when it was fully implemented, but that path appears blocked for the near future, if not forever. Reviving the JCPOA, however, is not the only diplomatic option and, while US and European reluctance to reengage with Iran is understandable, it is not excusable. As Iran’s program advances, it will become more challenging to detect and disrupt a dash for the bomb.

In addition to the increased speed at which Iran could build several bombs, geopolitical factors could influence Tehran’s decision-making in favor of nuclear weapons. Currently, Tehran is paying a high cost for advancing its nuclear program without reaping any of the perceived security benefits of a deterrent. Sabotage or military strikes designed to set back Iran’s program—and the perception among certain leaders in Tehran that the West is supportive of regime change—could drive the Supreme Leader to the conclusion that nuclear weapons are necessary to defend the current governing structure and the territorial integrity of the state.

If the Joe Biden administration wants to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran or a war to stop it, Washington needs to act swiftly to reengage Tehran in negotiations—either as part of reviving the JCPOA or as a new diplomatic effort—that deescalate this crisis. It is past time that the United States and Europe returned to the negotiating table with a new strategy. A limited deal or a series of gestures that prevent further escalation could create the time and space necessary for new negotiations that guard against a nuclear-armed Iran in the long term.

Kelsey Davenport is the director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association.

The post Iran’s nuclear program is advancing. So too should negotiations. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Since the invasion began, Ukraine has repeatedly defied the Kremlin and ignored Russia’s red lines. On each occasion, Moscow has failed to make good on its bloodcurdling threats and has instead retreated to new red lines. It should now be clear to any rational observer that in reality, Putin’s red lines are nothing less than a roadmap to Russian defeat in Ukraine.

Russia has a long history of imposing imaginary red lines on Ukraine and the West. Many years before Russia’s attack on Ukraine began with the 2014 seizure of Crimea, Kremlin leaders were warning their Western counterparts that Ukraine as a whole was a red line. Following the onset of open Russian aggression against Ukraine nine years ago, Moscow then claimed that any form of military aid to Kyiv was a red line for Russia.

Over the past year or so, we have seen successive red lines drawn over the delivery to Ukraine of anti-tank weapons, artillery, air defense systems, and tanks. All of these red lines have been crossed without provoking the threatened Russian response. It is entirely reasonable to assume that the most recently announced Russian red line over the delivery of fighter jets to Ukraine will prove equally ineffective.

Likewise, Russian attempts to impose red lines over the liberation of occupied Ukrainian land have repeatedly been exposed as toothless. In September 2022, Vladimir Putin oversaw a grandiose ceremony in the Kremlin announcing the illegal annexation of four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces. These regions had joined Russia “forever,” the Russian dictator declared. However, when the advancing Ukrainian military freed Kherson within weeks of Putin’s proclamation, Russian forces simply retreated.

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Russia’s relentless talk of red lines is central to the Kremlin’s intimidation tactics. Putin is well aware that while Western leaders staunchly oppose his imperial aggression against Ukraine, Western electorates have no stomach for an actual war of their own against Russia. By hinting at catastrophic costs, he aims to undermine Western resolve. This reflects his belief that the West is fundamentally weak and unprepared to accept any significant risks on behalf of the values at stake in Ukraine.

Behind all of Russia’s red lines looms the threat of a nuclear response. On numerous occasions during the past year, Putin has resorted to thinly veiled nuclear blackmail in a bid to scare the West into abandoning its support for Ukraine. Perhaps the most infamous example came during a September 20 address in which Putin indicated his readiness to use nuclear weapons before warning: “I’m not bluffing.” Unfortunately for Putin, Ukraine has repeatedly called his bluff without sparking a nuclear response.

Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling rings hollow for a number of reasons. The military argument is far from conclusive, with many analysts noting that nuclear weapons would not decisively turn the tide in Moscow’s favor. Crucially, deploying nukes in Ukraine would be absolutely disastrous for Russia’s global standing and would leave the country completely isolated. The United States has both publicly and privately explained to Moscow that the use of nuclear weapons would have “catastrophic consequences” for Russia. Meanwhile, even Russia’s Chinese partners have condemned Putin’s nuclear threats.

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As the world marks the first anniversary of Putin’s criminal invasion, it is time to learn the lessons of recent history and recognize that nothing is more likely to provoke further Russian aggression than continued Western hesitancy. The cautious Western response to Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia paved the way for the 2014 seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. The weak reaction to Crimea then encouraged Russia to start a war in eastern Ukraine. Failure to punish Russia for that unprecedented act of international aggression convinced Putin that he could get away with the full-scale invasion of February 2022. If Putin is not stopped now in Ukraine, he will inevitably go further.

Russian threats should not be taken lightly, of course. In addition to its vast nuclear arsenal, Moscow has huge conventional military capabilities and has also proven itself adept at hybrid forms of international aggression. Nevertheless, the experience of the past year has demonstrated convincingly that so-called Russian red lines in Ukraine can be safely crossed without triggering World War III. Indeed, these red lines actually reveal Russia’s own weaknesses and serve as signposts for Western policymakers looking to identify how best to secure a Ukrainian victory.

The real danger lies in allowing Russia’s intimidation efforts to succeed. If the West remains too afraid of Putin to stop Russia in Ukraine, the consequences for international security will be grave. Russia will be emboldened and will expand its international aggression, with likely initial targets including Moldova, Kazakhstan, and potentially the NATO member Baltic states. Other authoritarian regimes will take note of Russia’s success and will employ similar tactics. Nuclear blackmail will become an increasingly prominent foreign policy tool, leading to an arms race as dozens of threatened nations scramble to acquire nuclear weapons of their own.

The only way to prevent the world from descending into a dangerous new era of instability is by confronting Russia decisively in Ukraine. This will require considerable political courage on the part of Ukraine’s Western partners. Western leaders must overcome their fear of escalation and provide Ukraine with the tools to stop Putin. The Russian dictator has demonstrated time and again that he only understands the language of strength and will back down when confronted. This confrontation can no longer be avoided. The longer the West waits, the higher the price will become of stopping Putin.

Oleksiy Goncharenko is a Ukrainian member of parliament with the European Solidarity party.

Further reading

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Poland was the unsung hero of the recent landmark decision by Berlin and Washington to provide Ukraine with tanks as Polish leadership continues to shape the European response to Russia’s genocidal invasion.

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Ukrainian military medic Yulia Paievska has a simple message for anyone who still believes in the possibility of a compromise peace with Putin’s Russia. “They will not stop until they are stopped,” she says.

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Is Putin’s Russia heading for collapse like its Czarist and Soviet predecessors?

By Taras Byk

Vladimir Putin’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine is sparking debate over the possibility of a new Russian collapse. Could today’s Russian Federation be facing the same fate as its Czarist and Soviet predecessors?

Central Asia Civil Society

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

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The post The path to peace in Ukraine runs directly through Putin’s red lines appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Participants included representatives of the indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation, many of whom have been working for some time within the framework of the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum. They were joined by numerous Members of the European Parliament and a host of international experts.

An event on this scale would have been hard to imagine just one year ago. However, the invasion of Ukraine has thrust the topic of Russian imperialism firmly into the European mainstream. Over the past year, a steady stream of analytical articles and opinion pieces have appeared in respected international publications accusing Vladimir Putin of pursuing an imperial agenda in Ukraine and calling for the decolonization of Russia itself. While there is still no consensus on the desirability of a new Russian collapse, the topic is no longer taboo.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

The last big Russian collapse caught the world by surprise and was far from universally welcomed. Indeed, some in the West saw the looming 1991 disintegration of the USSR as hugely destabilizing from an international security perspective and sought to prevent it. Most notoriously, US President George H. W. Bush traveled to Kyiv just weeks before the August 1991 Ukrainian Declaration of Independence to warn members of Soviet Ukraine’s parliament against “suicidal nationalism.”

Critics argue that the international community has been equally accommodating of Vladimir Putin’s efforts to rebuild Russia’s imperial influence since the turn of the millennium. The Second Chechen War, the 2008 invasion of Georgia, and the 2014 invasion of Ukraine all failed to fundamentally disrupt relations between Russia and the West. Indeed, in areas such as the energy sector, cooperation continued to deepen even after Moscow had illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and sparked a war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. These flourishing economic ties helped create the financial foundations for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

As the Putin regime has attempted to reassert its imperial influence in Ukraine, Georgia, and other countries that were formerly part of the Czarist and Soviet empires, Moscow has also been actively restricting the rights of the dozens of different national and ethnic groups within the boundaries of the modern Russian state. Despite calling itself the Russian Federation, today’s Russia is a highly centralized and increasingly authoritarian country. National minorities throughout Russia must contend with the colonial exploitation of natural resources in their homelands while also playing a disproportionately prominent role in the Kremlin’s wars of aggression.

Over the past year, Putin’s imperial ambitions have run into serious trouble in Ukraine. The Russian dictator expected a short, victorious war that would extinguish Ukrainian independence and force the country permanently back into the Kremlin orbit. Instead, his invading army has suffered catastrophic losses in both men and armor amid a series of battlefield defeats that have seriously damaged Russia’s reputation as a military superpower.

Despite these setbacks, Russian officials and Kremlin propagandists continue to promote an unapologetically imperialistic agenda. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently hinted that Moldova may face the same fate as Ukraine, while menacing statements directed at the Baltic states, Kazakhstan, and other Central Asian nations are routine features of the Kremlin-controlled Russian media. Until this imperial aggression is addressed, it will remain the greatest single threat to European security.

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There are various different perspectives on the problem of Russian imperialism. Some commentators advocate a reformed Russia existing as a genuinely federal and broadly democratic state within its current borders. Others argue that today’s Russia is an unrepentant empire and will remain so until it is broken up into a series of smaller countries.

This second and more radical option alarms many Western policymakers and commentators, who fear that the break-up of the Russian Federation would have disastrous consequences for nuclear proliferation and regional security. Gloomy forecasts anticipate a Russian collapse leading to a chaotic aftermath marked by the rise of nuclear-armed regional warlords and uncontrolled migration involving tens of millions of people.

In many ways, these fears mirror similar concerns at the time of the Soviet collapse. However, while the fall of the USSR brought considerable human misery for huge numbers of former Soviet citizens, this was accompanied by only a relatively small number of localized armed conflicts. Meanwhile, those nations that escaped the Soviet sphere of influence and were welcomed into NATO and the EU have gone on to prosper. Indeed, it is no coincidence that post-Soviet Russian aggression has focused on Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine, all countries that the West hesitated to embrace after 1991.

The post-Soviet experience offers important lessons for today’s policymakers as they look ahead to the increasingly realistic possibility of a post-Russia world. While the collapse of the Russian Federation is a daunting prospect, it does not necessarily have to end in disaster.

In order to avoid the worst-case scenarios that many are currently predicting, it is vital to manage the process by engaging with democratically-minded people in all regions of Russia along with the country’s national minorities. In order to avoid being caught out, Western leaders need to accurately gauge the mood within Russia and assess the appetite for greater regional autonomy or independence.

Many in the West remain reluctant to take any steps that could be seen as promoting the idea of a new Russian collapse. Indeed, some argue that talk of decolonizing the Russian Federation risks legitimizing popular Kremlin propaganda narratives of a Western plot to destroy Russia. At the same time, there is no escaping the fact that Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has put Russian imperialism at the top of the international security agenda while fueling serious discussion over the viability of the Russian state. In today’s highly volatile geopolitical climate, it makes sense to prepare for every eventuality.

Russian imperialism has proven deeply resistant to previous democratization efforts. Nevertheless, we may yet live to see the emergence of a democratic Russia as a productive and respected member of the international community. Alternatively, the Russian Federation may go the same way as the Czarist and Soviet empires and fragment into a number of smaller states, which could then develop into successful democracies. The only thing that can be said with any degree of certainty is that unless today’s Russia abandons its imperial identity, Europe will face more wars.

Taras Byk is a manager at Wooden Horse Strategies, LLC, a governmental-relations and strategic communications firm based in Kyiv.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jan 28, 2023

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By Diane Francis

Poland was the unsung hero of the recent landmark decision by Berlin and Washington to provide Ukraine with tanks as Polish leadership continues to shape the European response to Russia’s genocidal invasion.

Conflict Economic Sanctions

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Hero Ukrainian medic: “Russia will not stop until it is stopped”

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Ukrainian military medic Yulia Paievska has a simple message for anyone who still believes in the possibility of a compromise peace with Putin’s Russia. “They will not stop until they are stopped,” she says.

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Europe’s last empire: Putin’s Ukraine war exposes Russia’s imperial identity

By Botakoz Kassymbekova

Vladimir Putin’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine has exposed modern Russia’s unapologetically imperial identity but could yet lead to the collapse of the Kremlin’s broader imperial ambitions, writes Botakoz Kassymbekova.

Belarus Central Asia

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Is Putin’s Russia heading for collapse like its Czarist and Soviet predecessors? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack and there is a reasonable chance that no one will—publicly. But multiple media reports are highlighting previous suspected Israeli attacks on Iran, a reflection of the long shadow war between the two countries, and other reports are already explicitly identifying Israel as responsible.

It is quite possible the “workshop”—which is probably an Iranian defense ministry ammunition facility—was not the target. Next to the warehouse is the Iran Space Research Center, an agency that has cooperated previously with the country’s ballistic missile program—and is sanctioned by the United States. Israeli journalist Barak Ravid on Sunday reported that Iran’s “missile program” was the target and according to a source, “four different areas in the building were accurately targeted and the goal was achieved.”

The attack happened around the same time as Iranian television said that an oil refinery fire had broken out in Tabriz, about three hundred miles northwest of Tehran, and not far away a 5.9 magnitude earthquake shook the country’s far northwest province of West Azerbaijan. At least one report claimed the Tabriz facility may also have been attacked by drones.