Seeing power and rubles

I want to apologize for not updating recently. My office's sister organizations in the Air Force, Navy and Office of Secretary of Defense agreed recently to engage some Lean Six Sigma gurus in pursuit of 'business process improvement.'

The whole thing feels like it is some sort of pyramid scheme. I just have this sneaking feeling that nothing will get done until four or five of my civilian coworkers get their 'green belt' or 'black belt' certification.

Anyways, I wanted to offer an alternative narrative for recent Russian military exercises and pronouncements. One might see the Kremlin's decision to dust-off its strategic toys and its participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as demonstrations of Russian power, but I tend to see ruble signs as well.

My thinking on this issue goes back all the way back to Peace Mission 2005, which was a series of joint Russo-Chinese military exercises ostensibly aimed at counterterrorism operations. The counterterrorism theme didn't stop Russia from rolling out its strategic bombers for the occasion.

This idea was reinforced the following year by reports of Putin crowing over record-breaking arms sales figures in 2005. My curiosity was peaked, so I tracked down the most recent copy of the Congressional Research Service's "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Countries" report. I prefer the CRS report to other surveys of arms sales when it comes to French, Russian and Chinese sales. This is because sales to the developing world generally constitute 80-90% of total sales for each country.

The information on Russian sales since 1998 is very revealing, particularly relating to combat aircraft. Russian R&D spending on aircraft technology bottomed out after the transition from communism in the early 1990s. As a result, Russia's last new aircraft (the Su-34) had its maiden flight in 1990 and took almost 15 years to go into production. Sukhoi is supposedly pushing a fifth-generation fighter (the PAK FA) into production by 2012, but even with Russia's influx of foreign currency, I wouldn't hold by breath for it.

In order to complete with increasingly advanced U.S. and European designs, the Russians have agreed to riskier payment structures and more deferential production terms. That will only so far though. Another way for Russia to keep sales up is to demonstrate that its aging equipment is still relevant on today's battlefield.

The People's Liberation Army Air Force generals didn't bite back then, so the Russians may be upping the ante. What is a better selling point than 'these bombers are serious enough to scare Europe's NATO members'?

The same could be said about Russia's decision to put the Admiral Kuznetsov back to sea. Showing the Chinese what their Varyag hull could do when completed might quiet some of their complaints about cost and schedule overruns.

If market penetration in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia has dipped in recent years, joint military exercises can be an effective way to showcase what they've been missing.

I'm not saying the prospect of sales is the only motivation for these decisions, nor am I discounting the argument that arms sales in and of themselves can be a power play. My point is that many of the recent Russian military activities I highlighted also have clear monetary motivations.

Getting old before getting rich?

I apologize for pushing my promised C4ISR article off, but I received some questions from Chris M. about demographics, development and China:

I have a question that I would like to run by an actual East Asian specialist. Much is made about how China will be the new world power- the one to replace the US. I just don't see how it is possible. China is in a demographic coffin corner and in 50 years they are going to be totally screwed. Look at the age/sex curve projected by the Census bureau for 2050. Sure, in 2050 they will have 70+ million young males of military age, but they are going to have 450 million people 60+ (they are going to have a population 60+ larger than the entire US!). How can an economy grow, a country afford a military (especially the opportunity cost of those productive young males), and the country be expected to do anything with that much population that old? Short of inventing robots to take care of all those old folks, who will? Indonesians? Who will pay for all of this? Their ratio of workers to 60+ people will be less than 2:1. That will be a severe problem, right?

What happens when a country that is somewhat poor per capita, but has a pretty industrialized economy, goes gray really rapidly? The closest I can think of is Russia and some of the old Communist countries, who have aged tremendously in the past 15 years, but isn't a lot of that due to immigration and economic distress, not totally broken birth rates (leaving the huge sex-ratio disparity in the PRC completely out of the picture)? We also can see what happens when a rich country (per capita) grays- we have Japan and Western Europe to show us the way, but I can't think of a good model for this sort of thing. They would have to fix a lot of problems in their universal education system to be able to follow the path that Japan and Western Europe are blazing.

No one who predicts that China is the coming threat to the US, or that China will soon be the world's economic engine seems to ever mention this problem. Why is that? Am I missing something that people who have actually studied the issue understand? I'm somewhat afraid that this is a kooky position, as I haven't seen it discussed in the popular press.

In answer to your first question - yes, the Census Bureau's figures on Chinese population growth should be considered a fairly accurate prediction of the future. Their country summary shows that Chinese fertility rates are well under the replacement rate. The projections show that China's population growth rate will go negative around 2035, which means their total population will peak at about 1.46 billion. By all accounts, Russia's total population peaked around 1995, Italy and Japan's peaked around 2005. In fact, if you look at the Global Population at a Glance report the Census Bureau issued in 2002, the human population growth rate peaked somewhere around 2000 and the mean global fertility rate is expected to drop below the replacement rate around 2050.

Now we get to the question, "So what does this mean for China?" Before I answer that, I want to dispel the myth that population aging is always a bad thing. Declines in population growth over time will push a country's demographic composition away from a traditional pyramid shape to something more akin to a paper lantern.

Chris is right to point out that this means this will tip the population balance away from the young toward the old, but it doesn't say much about who will work. Japan and Europe have been pretty lucky because they were able to transition their economies from manufacturing towards services, which is far more friendly to older workers. Older workers are generally better at service jobs because their experience and knowledge generally adds the most value. Service jobs are also less physically intense, which allows older workers to stay on the job longer.

This does not come without cost though. Older workers require a higher degree of medical attention and at some point that cost will outweigh their contribution to the economy. This will be particularly problematic if the inflationary trend in the price of medical care in the United States -- 7.9% in 2004 according to the Economist (sorry, subscription only) -- spreads to other countries. All is not lost though because there are two effects that may mitigate the medical care crunch Chris sees over the horizon. First, older workers save more because they don't have to care children. Second, spending on health care generates fairly high margin service jobs.

The key question is, can China fill those jobs? Maybe. The Chinese economic miracle is largely predicated on a delicate balance of fertility, development and migration. The reasonably well-educated middle class that has grown in coastal provinces would not be able to meet demand without the constant flow of unskilled workers from China's interior.

If migration slows down before the Chinese economy moves further up the product life cycle, growth may come to a screeching halt. China could mitigate this by accepting greater flows of immigrants from the poorer states of Southeast Asia (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma, etc.), but it is not clear whether they would make such a dramatic policy shift before the foreign direct investment starts flowing somewhere else.

This structural movement is certainly possible. The Japanese and Europeans pulled it off in the 1950s-1960s and the Asian tigers did the same in the 1970s-1980s. So the take-home message on this subject is that population decline could seriously derail its economy, but shouldn't if the Chinese manage it correctly.

As for what things will look like after 2050, I don't know. At that point, the predictions of statisticians and economists are about as certain as fiction novels on the subject. One thing is for sure, China will probably have to get a lot more comfortable with accepting immigrants from the last few high fertility spots in the world (Africa, South Asia and the Near East).

The real question is what will happen to Russia. It looks like the boom in commodity prices and Russia's shrinking population are turning it into a full-blown rentier state. There are definitely indications that the Dutch disease's 'spending effect' is hollowing out parts of the Russian economy.

A memo to Vlad and George

To:
George W. Bush, President of the United States of America
Vladamir Putin, President of the Russian Federation

From: The Robot Economist

Subject: Missile defense and arms control -- a grand bargain

It is clear that the United States and the Russian Federation are at an impasse over two issues related to the proliferation of missile technology and nuclear weapons. The first conflict is over the United States' plan to implement a missile defense system, some of which will be based in Europe. The second conflict is over the future of the U.S.-Russian arms control regime that evolved during the Cold War.

This impasse can be easily broken with a grand bargain designed to satisfy each nation's concerns and put U.S.-Russian cooperation on a strong, institutionalized footing. As part of the the bargain, the United States would agree to build both its planned interceptors and radar station within Russian territory. The Russian Federation will participate in managing the system's day-to-day operations, but will also allow the U.S. to protect sensitive technology in a U.S.-only facility on Russian soil. The Russians will also be given access to missile defense technology as part of a U.S.-Russian missile defense development program, but it will only be allowed to sell the resulting technology as part of U.S.-Russian joint ventures. The United States will reserve the right to expand its missile defense system outside of Europe.

The United States will agree to at least a 15-year extension of both the Strategic Ordnance Reduction Treaty (SORT) and the inspection provisions of the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). In exchange, the Russian Federation will drop its threats to abandon the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty and defer discussions of additional arms control agreements for at least 10 years.

This bargain delivers what each country desires most. The United States is allowed to have a missile defense system that can shoot down missiles coming from the Near East without threaten Russia. Russia gets to keep the Cold War-era arms control regime around for another generation.

It is by no means a solution to U.S.-Russian strategic relations. Instead, it is designed to tackle the one obstacle that prevents such cooperation, a lack of trust on strategic issues stemming from the Cold War. This lack of trust is an antiquated notion because the quest for national power is no longer a zero-sum game. It is both nations to realize that fact and build a relationship that will ensure both American and Russian strategic power for another generation.

Yulia Tymoshenko: Mad hot or just mad and hot?

Like many Americans, I have a natural weakness for female activists and politicians in Warsaw Pact countries. There is something about a Slavic nationalist damsel being threaten the Russian Federation that brings out the righteous American "knight in shining armor" in me. I can't explain it.

One such damsel I've been watching closely is the beautiful, but controversial former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Before entering politics in the mid-1990s, Mrs. Tymoshenko served as president of United Energy Systems of Ukraine, an energy company parceled off from the Soviet-Era Ukrainian Oil Company that most served as a middle-man for Russian oil and gas. She rose to prominence by backing Viktor Yushchenko during the 2004 Orange Revolution. When Yushchenko handily trounced his Kremlin-backed opponent Viktor Yanukovych December 2004 presidential run-off, he appointed her to be his first prime minister. She held the office for about nine months before her parliamentary coalition fell apart and she was dismissed.

What makes Mrs. Tymoshenko so controversial? Michael Averko over at the RussiaBlog characterizes the common criticism my Ukrainian friends give me:

Ukrainian-American acquaintance of mine recently likened Ukrainian political figure Yulia Tymoshenko to a Stalinist because the name of her party (Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc) has a cult of personality aspect. I nevertheless shy away from the loaded Stalinist label. Outside of North Korea's Kim Jong Il, I'm hard pressed to find a present day world leader who comes close to matching the Soviet dictator. Even Kim Jong Il falls well short of the ruthless standard set by “Uncle Joe.”

Politics is a business. Corporations are often named after their respective founders. For this reason, it's somewhat surprising to see so few political parties (the world over) named after the party leader. Like her or not, Tymoshenko has that charismatic touch.

[snip]

I compare Tymoshenko to the late Slobodan Milosevic, because at one time or another, both leaders utilized Communist, pragmatist and nationalist positions for purely opportunistic reasons (on the Stalin label, Chicago Governor Rob Blagojevich erroneously linked Milosevic to Stalin). Whereas other politicians show a greater sincerity to a given ideology, the Tymoshenkos and Milosevics move in whatever direction they see fit for acquiring and maintaining power.

In the last few years, Tymoshenko has been described by some political observers as a Ukrainian nationalist. The Galician region of western Ukraine is a hot bed of a Ukrainian nationalism that favors separating Ukraine from Russia as much as possible. My disagreements with the Galician Ukrainian nationalist vision simultaneously recognizes that this point of view springs from true believers. Galicia's overall numbers in Ukraine limit its clout. This is made up in part by some zealous activists in that region, combined with its relatively large and passionate lobbying diaspora in the West. North America's image of Ukraine is greatly shaped by the transplanted Galician perspective. One which is disproportionate to the overall pro-Russian stance found in Ukraine itself.

This image of Mrs. Tymoshenko is only her vitriolic article in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs entitled Containing Russia. The bulk this article is behind a subscription wall, but I bet the Council on Foreign Relations won't mind if I reproduce a few of the juicier bits of her diatribe:

Sixty-one years ago, a telegram arrived at the State Department from the U.S. embassy in Moscow. Its purpose was to examine the sources of the conduct of the men who ruled in the Kremlin. Its impact was immediate. The "Long Telegram," penned by a young diplomat named George Kennan, became the basis for U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union for the next half century.

Although the Soviet Union is long gone, the West is once again groping to understand what motivates the leaders in the Kremlin. Many believe that the principles behind Kennan's policy of "containment" are still applicable today -- and see a new Cold War, this time against Vladimir Putin's resurgent Russia, in the offing.

I do not believe that a new Cold War is under way or likely. Nevertheless, because Russia has indeed transformed itself since Putin became president in 2000, the problem of fitting Russia into the world's diplomatic and economic structures (particularly when it comes to markets for energy) raises profound questions. Those questions are all the more vexing because Russia is usually judged on the basis of speculation about its intentions rather than on the basis of its actions.

[snip]

Russia's foreign policy has been equally troubling. Moscow has given Iran diplomatic protection for its nuclear ambitions, and Russian arms sales are promiscuous. The Kremlin has consistently harassed neighboring countries; former Soviet nations, such as Georgia, have faced near economic strangulation. In February, Putin spoke favorably about creating a "gas OPEC."

None of this should be surprising, for Putin's aim has been unvarying from the start of his presidency: restore Russian greatness. Unlike Boris Yeltsin, who accepted dissent as a necessary part of democratic politics -- it was, after all, as a dissenter from Mikhail Gorbachev's rule that he gained the presidency of Russia -- Putin was determined from the outset to curtail political opposition as an essential step toward revitalizing centralized power. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, of Yukos Oil, for example, is in prison for daring to challenge the Kremlin's authority and perhaps aspiring to succeed Putin. Order, power (including the power to divide the spoils of Russia's natural-resource wealth), and reviving Russia's international influence, not democracy or human rights, are what matter in today's Kremlin.

The backgrounds of the people who make up Putin's government have something to do with this orientation. A study of 1,016 leading figures in Putin's regime -- departmental heads of the president's administration, cabinet members, parliamentary deputies, heads of federal units, and heads of regional executive and legislative branches -- conducted by Olga Kryshtanovskaya, director of Moscow's Center for the Study of Elites, found that 26 percent at some point served in the KGB or one of its successor agencies. Kryshtanovskaya argues that a closer look at these biographies -- examining gaps in resumés, odd career paths, or service in KGB affiliates -- suggests that 78 percent of the top people in Putin's regime can be considered ex-KGB. (The significance of such findings should not be exaggerated: former secret police may hold many of Russia's highest offices, but Russia is not a police state.)

[snip]

As a convinced European, I support Germany and the EU in this effort. Relations with Russia are too vital to the security and prosperity of all of us to be developed individually and ad hoc. If there is one country toward which Europeans -- and, indeed, the entire West -- should share a common foreign policy, it is Russia. With high world energy prices allowing Russia to emerge from the trauma of its postcommunist transition, now is the time for a clear-sighted reckoning of European security in the face of Russia's renewed power. Relying on Russia's long-term systemic problems to curb its pressure tactics will not prevent the Kremlin from reestablishing its hegemony in the short run.

The article is clearly designed to hit all of today's hot button issues with Russia: the (show) trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a government run by the chekisti, the recent spate of thinly-veiled pipeline and production politics involving the energy giant Gasprom, Russian involvement in the breakaway provinces Abkhazia, South Ossetia (both in Georgia), Transnistria (Moldova), Nagorno-Karabak (Azerbaijian) and Crimea (Ukraine) -- she even throws in this great reference to the appeasement of Hitler to boot:

Unfortunately, political leaders usually have the least idea of what to do when the scope for action is greatest. By the time they have a better idea, the moment for decisive and effective action may have passed. In the 1930s, for example, the French and British governments were too unsure of Hitler's objectives to act. But their obsession with Hitler's motives was utterly misguided. Realpolitik should have taught them that Germany's relations with its neighbors would be determined by relative power, not German intentions alone. A large and strong Germany bordered to the east by small and weak states would have been a threat no matter who ruled in Berlin. The Western powers should thus have spent less time assessing Hitler's motives and more time counterbalancing Germany's strength. Once Germany rearmed, Hitler's real intentions would be irrelevant. This was Winston Churchill's message throughout his "wilderness years." But instead of heeding Churchill, the British and the French continued to treat Hitler as a psychological problem, not a strategic danger -- until it was too late. What matters in diplomacy is power, not the state of mind of those who wield it.

I think Churchill would be pleased to find out that everyone remembers his foresight in 1936, but easily forgets how he ordered the invasion of the Dardanelles that culminated in the disastrous Battle of Gallipoli. The diggers of ANZACs certainly remember. Hasn't anyone seen the movie? It was like one of Mel Gibson's first movies -- came out right between Mad Max and the Road Warrior.

What happens to Prompt Global Strike when START stops?

So after Congress killed the Conventional Trident Missile, the U.S. Air Force has stepped up to plate with a "midterm solution": Conventional Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.

[Col. Richard Patenaude, chief of the deterrence and strike division for Air Force Space Command] said the missile may be based in the continental United States or abroad, and “may or may not” be considered an intercontinental ballistic missile under START Treaty counting rules.

In defending the Pentagon decision to move ahead with the conventional Trident, some defense officials have suggested a conventional land-based alternative could be problematic because Russia or China may misinterpret a launch as a potential nuclear threat to their nations.

Patenaude took pains to make clear the Air Force “has no plans to put conventional warheads on current operational ICBMs or [use] their silos.”

Other defense officials have described how a land-based missile could be configured so it is incapable of carrying a nuclear payload and use a trajectory to its target that would not threaten other nuclear weapons nations. It also could be inspected by the Russians under existing arms control regimes; based on a U.S. coastline in Florida or California so launch debris could fall in the ocean rather than on land; and made capable of being rapidly retargeted.

By contrast, critics have complained the Trident submarines would use a weapon virtually identical to its nuclear-armed twin; remain on patrol typically just off Russian coasts, potentially posing at least a debris threat to Russia; likely be closed to Russian onsite inspection; and possibly take hours or longer to receive target data and steam within range of nations where fleeting threats may appear.

There are two big holes in your plan Col. Patenaude. First, the inspection provisions of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expire in 2009 and the Bush administration is doing little to renew it. In fact, the current STRATCOM commander, Marine General James E. Cartwright did a pretty smooth waltz around the subject when Arms Control Today brought it up in a June 2006 interview:

ACT: Speaking of treaties with Russia, the 1991 START, with its extensive verification and information exchange regime, is set to expire in December 2009. As a military commander, are you worried about losing that level of transparency and confidence provided by that regime, and would you like to see those mechanisms or measures extended or transformed in some way?

Cartwright: As a military commander, I would sure like to see them transformed; if not transformed, then to remain. I think you want something that is a little more responsive to the changes that occur in the world than the current treaty construct. That is someone else’s domain—the Department of State—to figure out. The attributes that you would seek are transparency, the ability to generate warning time, and confidence in what the intentions are of a counterpart. When talking about the United States and Russia before, I mentioned warning time. Warning time allows me to defend myself and not misjudge what it is that you are doing. A vehicle [for the attributes mentioned above] should allow the regime or protocol to keep up with the state of the technology in the future.

The State Department is working very hard on a Joint Data Exchange Center with the Russians. It has had some trouble getting its foundation laid down, but it looks like it is starting to move forward. This center would allow us to exchange information in real time and across more than just offensive weapons. We could start to look at missile defense, defensive weapons, and space sensors. There are any number of things that you could start to bring in to help create, like we did with warning time, better confidence of what each other is doing so misinterpretation becomes less of a problem. Whatever the construct is that we do with a treaty-like activity, you are trying to make sure that you can build confidence, understand the intentions of your adversary, and have time to react appropriately to those intentions. Usually, “appropriately” is defined as finding alternative ways to get out of a problem. You want to generate the time to be able to do that; the less time, the less options you have.

Treaty-like activity indeed. ACT gets the best interview quotes sometimes.

The second hole is that it may be impossible to gain international acceptance of the Prompt Global Strike concept. Even if the you could conclusively mitigate the potential for a mistaken nuclear attack, China and Russia still have cause to fear Prompt Global Strike because they couldn't defend against it. Does the military think that either nuclear power would accept the idea that the United State could launch a strike deep within its territory? The Bush administration feels so insecure about such a scenario happening to the United States that it is funding missile defense programs to the tune of $10 billion annually.

There are plenty of other reasons for other states to feel wary about conventionally-tipped long-range ballistic missiles. William Arkin correctly points out that the Prompt Global Strike concept occupies a fantasy land where the U.S. Intelligence Community incompetently misses all but the last minute warning signs of a catastrophic threat against the United States. The British-American Security Information Council argues that there is a very real chance the incredible time constraints applied to the system could lead to a 'shoot first, ask questions later' attitude. If anything, Russia should be wary of the slew of half-baked arguments that Prompt Global Strike advocates make to downplay the risk of misinterpretation over a U.S. launch. My favorite is "The Russians won't do anything because they know we're not after them."

Most importantly, military thinkers should realize that the Russians have been thinking about the implications of a long-range strategic strike capability for decades. Just check out this summary from Andrew Krepinevich's 1992 Office of Net Assessment study of Russian thinking on Military Technical Revolutions (the pdf version is down, I'm using a cached html version):

Strategic Strikes

It was observed that advanced technologies may provide the means for fielding an integrated group of networked systems (or architectures) that could execute conventional "strategic" strikes against an adversary. There has been some discussion, particularly in the Soviet/Russian literature, that this could occur through the employment of so-called aerospace operations, whereby airborne and space information (and perhaps weapon) platforms provide real-time targeting information to long-range precision-guided advanced conventional munitions, which may be land-, air-, or sea-based. If a sufficient information gap can be created , it may be possible to strike the entire range of enemy strategic targets comprising their center of gravity in a relatively short period of time,without first having to defeat the bulk of an enemy's military forces. Thus, strategic strikes would be expected to either coincide with, or follow on the heels of, operations to achieve information dominance, and perhaps air and space control as well. Strategic strikes would focus on a relatively small set of enemy targets—those comprising its center of gravity—i.e., those targets that, when disabled, will deny an enemy state the ability or the will to block an opponent from achieving its military objectives.

Furthermore, at some point in this revolution it may be possible, through the use of advanced simulations, to "test strike" a small subset of a target base, observe the effects—perhaps even matching the data obtained with simulations—and then deciding whether (and how) to continue eliminating the entire class of targets designated for destruction, or to identify more promising alternatives. There are two potential advantages to employing test strikes. First, they may allow a peer competitor to preserve time and resources critical to achieving its military objectives. The intent would be to avoid the situation the United States found itself in during previous strategic bombardment campaigns in World War II and the Vietnam War. In the former case, in the European theater the United States focused on several target sets (e.g., air frames)before finding Germany's weak point. During the Rolling Thunder campaign against North Vietnam, a progression of target sets was attacked (e.g., transportation, oil, electrical) without achieving the desired results. The importance of time and the high cost of advanced conventional munitions places a high premium on "getting it right the first time" in extracting the desired results from a chosen target set. Second, such an approach allows a peer competitor to avoid creating undesirable damage to the enemy state. Such unwanted damage may complicate war prosecution (one thinks here of the effect on domestic and world public opinion), war termination (will such damage stiffen the resolve of the target regime or its people?), and postwar plans (e.g., reconstruction).

In a war between peer competitors it seems clear that, unless an assured second-strike capability is established, the side that can execute its strategic strike operations first stands to benefit most, assuming that it retains sufficient information on the enemy target base, and overcomes active and passive defenses, to conduct its strikes effectively. This is an important point, since it is not yet clear that forces engaged in strategic strikes will have the requisite level of RSTA and battle-damage assessment (BDA) data, or that they will be able to negotiate successfully all enemy countermeasures. Therefore, in a war between peer competitors, it may not be possible to execute decisive strategic strikes,especially if the defender retains a sufficient level of its information structure intact to enable it to conduct an integrated, coordinated defense. As for nuclear weapons, they may become significantly more discriminate. Micronuclear weapons might be able to destroy targets with little collateral damage that conventional systems could not eliminate at an acceptable cost. While their employment may be useful in a purely military sense, there are obviously strong political factors and precedents for not employing nuclear weapons, save in extremis. However, nuclear weapons in the hands of radical regimes that possess ballistic or cruise missiles could emerge as the "poor man's" counter against peer competitor states.

But hey, I'm just crazy, right? Then again, I bet Bush didn't see Putin suspending Russian compliance in the CFE when he looked into his soul either...

Update: Dear readers, I apologize for all of the syntactical errors in this piece. Last Thursday was a lesson in why beer and blogging don't mix sometimes.

Blast from the Past: Latest 6-P Talks joint statement

I just read the latest joint statement agreeded to by the six parties (China, Russia, Japan, the U.S. and North and South Korea) and I almost cried. Not out of elation or sadness, but because it reminded me so much of the 1994 Agreed Framework and 1994 always makes me think about the death of Kurt Cobain. Here is a summary of today's statement:

---

I. The Six Parties reaffirm their intention to implementing the September 2005 joint statement in a 'step-by-step' fashion. (see this ACW post for a good description of how Joe Rood's unilateral reinterpertation of U.S. commitments in the 2005 JS caused implementation to fall apart before it even began)

II.

1) North Korea will power down and seal the graphite-moderated Magnox reactor at Yongbyon.

2) North Korea will disclose all of its nuclear activities.

3) The U.S. and North Korea will initiate talks to normalize relations, including consideration of taking Pyongyang off the state-sponsors of terror list and easing some unilateral sanctions.

4) Japan and North Korea will initiate talks to normalize relations, including North Korean grievances originating from the Japanese occupation and the status of the Japanese citizens kidnapped by the Norks back in the 70s (not explicitly stated, but definitely in the subtext).

5) Reaffirms the first three clauses of the JS issued two years ago. This includes commitments to normalizing relations all around, an affirmation that U.S. nuclear weapons are off the Korean peninsula and will not return and commitments to provide energy aid to Pyongyang.

III. The Six Parties will establish working groups on Korean denulearization, energy assistance to the North, the normalization of relations between Pyongyang and Tokyo/Washington and a East Asian 'peace and security' mechanism.

IV. The North Koreans will receive up to 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil (with an initial shipment of 50,000 tons) once they declare and begin dismantling their nuclear program.

V. The Six Parties agree to future ministerial meetings to monitor implementation and explore other subjects to promote 'peace and security' in East Asia.

VI. The Six Parties will work to build mutual trust and peace in the region. Peace between the North and South will be handled in a different (probably bilateral) venue.

VII. The Six Parties will meet again on March 19th for the sixth round of talks.

---

The lack of a firm promise to provide North Korea with a permanent substitute for the energy generated by Yongbyon (i.e. light-water nuclear reactors) and a commitment to continue six-party consultations on larger security issues are the two major differences between today's JS and the Agreed Framework.

These changes definitely reflect the Bush administration's qualitatively different approach to security East Asia and nonproliferation. In terms of East Asia, the U.S. has chosen a position that is long on revisionist rhetoric (shaping China's rise, regime change in North Korea, etc.), but is short on similar policies. The administration's most substantial policy shift in my eyes was Bush solidifying the status quo in the Taiwan Strait back in 2003 by writing off U.S. support for a unilateral declaration of Taiwanese independence. That was a pretty big step away from revisionism for a man who declared the the U.S. will do "whatever it takes to help Taiwan defend herself" in the opening days of his presidency.

It is, therefore, not surprising that the White House is still moving away from the 'hub-and-spoke' model of relations towards East Asia that the U.S. has used to maximize its leverage over Japan, Korea and Taiwan for the past 40 years. Converting the six-party format into a semi-permanent regional security dialogue is a critical first step towards East Asian security integration. One thing is for sure, this certainly wouldn't have been possible with a sino-phobic Rumsfeld still at the helm of the DOD.

The JS is also interesting because it toes the administration's belief that nuclear proliferators should completely abdicate their right to even peaceful, proliferation resistant nuclear technology. Previous administrations have been willing to trade light-water reactors and the Additional Protocol in exchange for dismantlement, but the White House's expandive definition of 'nuclear capability' generally foreclose that route.

This may be practical option for states with minimal nuclear know-how like Iran, but it doesn't seem very practical for North Korea considering that they (kind of) crossed the nuclear threshold last year.

This may all be a moot in few months anyways, considering each party's seeming inability to implement their side of the JS in good faith. Then again, the years I've spent studying Japan, Taiwan and China have given me a pretty cynical view of the East Asian security environment.

Translation: North Korea says uranium deal with Russia contigent on their support in the Six Party talks

This article from the Chunichi Shimbun is a bit old, but it is what started me on this translation idea. Jane over at the ACW originally picked up on it as it was reported on in an IHT article on the same subject. The translation is as follows: North Korea on negotiations of uranium deal with Russia: Supply is contingent on Six Party talks support December 3, 2006

North Korea made it clear on December 2nd that Russian plans to expand its enrichment industry by importing North Korean uranium ore are dependent on the condition that Russia support the North's position in the Six Party talks. Russian government sources have confirmed this to this paper. According to these same officials, Russian wants monopolistic import rights on uranium ore mined from sites at Pakchon and Sunchon, which are near the North Korean capital Pyongyang. The uranium would be enriched inside Russia with the aim of selling it for large sums of money as fuel for Russian-made nuclear power plants in China and Vietnam. Russia and North Korea have been in secret negotiations over this deal since 2002. Recently, the North Korean side has been positive about their prospects because they have tied opposition to the condition of an import monopoly on uranium ore to an understanding that Russia would advocate on their behalf at the Six Party talks in China and meet Pyongyang's desire for protection. On the one hand, the North Korean nuclear test was greated by a United Nations sanction resolution adopted in October, which affirmed steps towards an embargo on North Korean weapons of mass destruction and missile-related goods. To this end, Russia fears that the guarantees on peaceful use that are needed for imported North Korean uranium ore will be too complicated for their plans. Russia's current economic growth will continue to be fuelled by its exports of natural gas and crude oil, but its plans to expand its international influence in the nuclear fuel market by expanding its uranium enrichment industry. These problems have also occured regarding Iran's nuclear program, where Russia is supporting the construction of nuclear reactors in Bushehr that it will fuel, but it is also discretely taking up support for a UN sanctions resolution.

The last paragraph is a bit of a rush job, but I think the readers will get the picture. It definitely lines up with the fact that Russia is renationalizing its civilian nuclear industry and is working to build up its low-enriched uranium exports.