Richard N. Rosecrance

By Richard N. Rosecrance

Adjunct Professor and Senior Fellow, International Security Program; Director, Project on U.S.-China Relations, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

My esteemed colleague Stephen Walt has consigned the European Union to the trash heap of history and asserted that the US should no longer take it seriously. Europe is in decline; NATO is in decline. The United States should focus on Asia or go it alone.

As a proponent of the Balance of Power—where he has made fundamental contributions — Walt has overlooked the very essence of the problem. Asia is rising, the West, apparently declining, and the question is what to do about it. Europe is critical in these calculations.

England faced a similar question in 1897. At the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, Britain relished that it had just acquired another 2,600  miles of imperial territory from Cairo to Mombasa. After the Boer War, its territory stretched all the way from the Cape to Cairo. Today the United States stands astride Mesopotamia and the Afghan nexus between Russia and India. The worldwide breadth of US bases replicates British coaling stations and imperial connections of the 19^th century.

Yet, each power’s “splendid isolation” was crumbling. The British needed a continental ally to reduce their imperial exposure and turned to France. Today, the US needs a whole continent as a counterbalance to the rising East led by China. Direct approaches to China will not suffice. Vice President Biden’s entourage was hustled out of the meeting with Xi Jinping this week, and Georgetown’s basketball team got into a fight with a Chinese team.  The matches were then cancelled. No other Eastern power will stand up to China.

The European Union, however, is the strongest economic unit on earth with a GDP larger than that of the United States. It houses among the most important technological industries and its exports dwarf those of America. Walt rightly complains that its common currency, the Euro, does not have common political institutions to back it up.  But neither did American institutions in the early days of the continental and then dollar. A little perspective would demonstrate that common currencies provide for a very large area of unhindered growth and that they increase investment over a wide free trading area. That area should be extended with the construction of  an Atlantic-wide free-trading network, as recommended by Angela Merkel several years ago.

Today, economics largely determines politics. The economies-of-scale industries which determine the fate of economic development for the world as a whole reside largely in the West, Europe and the United States. China does not yet have one such industry, consigned as it is to perform the nether operations-links of the production chain for Western and Japanese companies. Further, Europe is continually adding strength by laterally expanding into what was once the Eastern Bloc and the old Soviet empire. It will soon add seven more states to its existing 27. This lateral power is a huge offset to the vertical power of a rising China. Not only this, the leading governments in Europe are all pro-American. Financial integration has proceeded as American banks help out their European colleagues and invest in Greek and Spanish bonds.

Looking at Europe today, Walt sees a sclerotic and blocked Europe of 1965 when General de Gaulle governed the pace of integration. After 1968, integration began again and it will spurt ahead once more, following the financial crisis. As Chinese GDP rises above American, for good Balance of Power reasons theUSA needs to be associated with this Europe.  It is the only bulwark against the growing Sinification of world politics. Once Europe is on board, then, from a position of strength, the United States can approach Beijing.

By Olli J. Heinonen

By Olli Heinonen

Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

In December 2003, Muammar Ghaddafi renounced his weapons of mass destruction program, and agreed to dismantle them in a verifiable manner. This proceeded relatively swiftly. Libya’s uranium enrichment program was taken apart, and sensitive materials and documentation ranging from nuclear weapons design information to gas ultracentrifuge components were confiscated.

Libya’s highly enriched uranium, which was used to fuel its Tajoura research reactor, took longer to remove. But after several stand-offs, the last consignment of spent fuel was flown out of Libya in December 2009. That was all good news.

Today, the world is at the cusp of yet another major development in Libya – the end of the Ghaddafi regime. Even amid the euphoria, it is clear that Libya faces huge challenges in reshaping the political landscape and recovering from the ravages of dictatorship.

And nuclear security concerns still linger. As a result of three decades of nuclear research and radioisotope production, Libya’s research center in Tajoura on the outskirts of Tripoli continues to stock large quantities of radioisotopes, radioactive wastes, and low-enriched uranium fuel. While we can be thankful that the highly enriched uranium stocks are no longer in Libya, the remaining material in Tajoura could, if it ended up in the wrong hands, be used as ingredients for dirty bombs. The situation at Tajoura today is unclear.

We know that during times of regime collapse, lawlessness and looting reign. We saw that substantial looting of nuclear and radioactive material storage took place at the Tuwaitha nuclear research center near Baghdad when Saddam Hussein was toppled. Most likely due to pure luck, the story did not end in a radiological disaster.

But relying on luck is not an option. The current regime in Libya is accountable for the security of nuclear and radioactive material.  But once a transition occurs, the Transitional National Council will become responsible. The TNC needs to be aware of the material sitting around Tajoura. And it should assure the world that it accepts its responsibility and will take the necessary steps to secure these potentially dangerous radioactive sources.

Before joining the Belfer Center as a senior fellow in August 2010, Olli Heinonen spent 27 years at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Heinonen spent the last five years as Deputy Director General of the IAEA, and head of its Department of Safeguards.

Nicholas Burns

By Nicholas Burns

President Obama’s careful, persistent policy on Libya has worked.   The rebels are on the verge of a major victory.  Libya’s cynical and brutal dictator, Muammar Qadhafi, has lost effective power and is on the run.

As I explained in an op-ed column in the Boston Globe today, while it is too early to brand this a complete victory for American policy, the rebel’s lightning advance over the past week is a vindication for President Obama’s decision to throw U.S. support behind NATO’s intervention in the Libyan civil war on behalf of the rebels.   Facing harsh and often unwarranted criticism on the wisdom and constitutional basis of his policy, the President remained steady and focused on NATO’s six month air campaign to weaken Qadhafi’s forces and protect Libyan citizens.  He asked Britain and France to lead NATO’s effort but provided essential and unique American capabilities at the start and end of the rebel advance from Benghazi to Tripoli.

This was not, in one Administration official’s disastrous phrase, “leading from behind” but asking our European allies in NATO to take the lead in a country where they have far greater historical, social and economic interests than the U.S.   This was the President’s most important insight and should now mean that Europe and the Arab world provide the lion’s share of economic assistance to the new Libyan government that is about to emerge.

There are lots of lessons to learn from the Libya crisis.  American leadership in the world is still essential.   Those in our own country from the extreme right to the extreme left who preach isolation and retreat would lead us astray at a time when our integration with the rest of the world is greater than it has ever been before.  That is why the President’s trust in a NATO success in Libya was so important.

The eventual defeat of Qadhafi also points to another lesson.  We may be witnessing a rare and positive turn in the Arab revolutions of the last six months.  Even a gradual emergence of a more stable, free and democratic Libya will likely spur on those in the Arab world who hope to topple other dictators.  Bashar Assad must surely know that the focus of Arab revolutionaries and the international spotlight will now shift from North Africa to Syria in the days and weeks ahead.

Monica Duffy Toft

By Monica Duffy Toft

Following months of fighting to defeat Qaddafi, it looks like the rebels are poised for victory. In terms of civil war settlements, this is potentially very good news for two reasons.

First, one of the most important findings in civil war research in the past decade is that when civil wars are ended by rebel victories, as opposed to negotiated settlements, the peace that follows is much more likely to last. Second, and of almost equal importance, when non-Marxist rebels win, political liberalization is also more likely to follow than when a civil war ends any other way. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the reason rebel victories strongly correlate with more stable and democratic outcomes is that in order to defeat the incumbent regime, rebels are forced to develop overlapping competences which include organization and administration, a rudimentary justice system (usually one intended to overcome the defects of the incumbent’s system), and a robust security sector that can effectively deploy discriminate violence. These competences, though necessary to run a government well, are of course not sufficient. Second, rebels rely on social support to achieve their victories. This support includes the provision of logistics and intelligence; but also the all-important element of legitimacy. In the case of Libya’s imminently victorious rebels, neither factor seems sufficiently developed.

This is the curse of foreign intervention, however necessary or well-intended: when done swiftly and overwhelmingly (as in the Libya case) it tends to short-circuit both the development of rebel competencies and the acquisition by rebels of the legitimacy they will need to rule.

For more on rebel victory in civil wars see my article,  “Ending Civil Wars: A Case for Rebel Victory?” in the journal International Security, Volume 34, Number 4, Spring 2010, pp. 7-36, and my 2010 book, Securing the Peace: The Durable Settlement of Civil Wars (Princeton, 2010).

By Ben Heineman

By Ben Heineman

Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

(Note: a longer version of this article first appeared on TheAtlantic.com)

The boom in natural gas extracted from shale rock through new technology holds out great transformative promise for the future:  for consumers in lowering energy costs, for workers in creating domestic jobs, for the environment as a substitute for coal, for  balance of trade as we may export more than we import and for energy security as we become less dependent on foreign oil and gas and reduce the influence of nations like Iran, Russia and Venezuela.

But today shale gas production faces important environmental and safety issues which must be addressed through both voluntary corporate action and appropriate regulation, with business leaders playing a key role in both spheres.

This is a central conclusion in an important, interim report from a panel of experts constituted by the Department of Energy to assess environmental and safety implications of the new technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing which have made the shale gas boom possible.

The report was issued on August 11^th but lost amid stock market gyrations and global economic uncertainty.  Yet, the long-term implications of dramatically increasing supplies of natural gas from shale are of first-order significance to the global economic future. And the report— from  the  Shale Gas Subcommittee of  the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board—provides incisive perspective on how to balance economic and environmental issues and on the central part enlightened business leaders must play.

As drilling and “fracking” technologies change, gas supplies increase and debates ensue about the nature, degree and timing of the benefits of this “revolution,”  so, too, significant debates have emerged about the environmental impact and safety of shale gas production, especially the  impact of high-pressure water fracturing of shale on air and water quality.

The Shale Gas Subcommittee charts a course between the predictable extremes of the debate (no regulation v. no fracking).   Chaired by John Deutch ( MIT professor, board member of the Belfer Center, former undersecretary of energy and former director of central intelligence) and comprised of business people, former regulators, environmentalists, academics  and noted energy consultants, the Subcommittee clearly identifies a range of environmental and  safety issues which must be addressed to maintain the momentum and credibility of shale gas development.  The Subcommittee looked at “all steps in shale gas production, not just hydraulic fracturing.”

This interim report focuses on the importance of industry action in providing information, in setting standards and in developing best practices for environmental and safety problem relating to:. 1) Possible pollution of drinking water from methane and chemicals used in fracturing fluids; (2) Air pollution [e.g. ozone precursors, methane and other pollutants from the production life cycle]; (3) Community disruption during shale gas production; and (4) Cumulative adverse impacts that intensive shale production can have on communities and ecosystems.

Shale Plays: Map courtesy of U.S. Energy Information Administration, updated May 9, 2011.

Such activities, the report recommends, should be adopted by leading companies and then collected and disseminated by a new “shale gas industry production organization.”  Such an organization would identify “industry techniques or methods that have proven over time to accomplish given tasks and objectives in a manner that most acceptably balances desired outcomes and avoids undesirable consequences.” The broad benefits of efforts by an industry-wide organization, the report maintains, will be to provide better information to regulators, to achieve more efficient operations and to inform the public and create public trust. Indeed, the report optimistically hopes that better economic efficiency—waste minimization, less  water usage and reduced operating footprint—will also have environmental benefits.

But, although it identifies important issues , the interim report, of necessity, leaves many questions and fundamental tensions unaddressed—questions and tensions which enlightened business leaders, working with stakeholders and regulators,  must resolve.

With respect to the new shale  gas industry production organization:

• How does it fairly represent the views of both big players and small companies who  may have different economic interests and capabilities, even though serious, well-publicized mistake by a little guy can affect the whole industry?
• What kind of representation do other stakeholders have on the board (excluding them will inevitably call into question the credibility of the organization’s work product, including them may lead to irreconcilable disagreement).  Most directly, who decides?
• Does the organization “assess compliance” with its own developed standards and best practices, as the report suggests in some places but without addressing the enormous complexity and expense of that kind of function.  Or  does it just “encourage” adherence to them. (There are a wide variety of industry self-policing mechanisms which the report did not have time or space to discuss as  possible analogies.)
• Perhaps most importantly, will significant business people step forward to undertake this task by devoting time and thought leadership and by raising necessary resources for a new organization which may not see eye to eye with existing industry groups like the American Petroleum Institute, the Independent Petroleum Association and America’s Natural Gas Alliance?

With respect to regulation, the report disavows any detailed discussion of this topic.  Yet, it importantly and  explicitly says that effective and capable regulation is essential to protect the public interest;  that the private sector initiatives should supplement but do not supplant appropriate regulation; and that,  “while many states and federal agencies regulate aspects of these operations, the efficacy of the regulations is far from clear.”  But, having laid down the regulatory marker, the interim report notes but does address in any detail some of the obvious issues.

• Which of the many problems identified by the interim report—especially air and water issues—require federal regulation, and  which require state regulation?
• Is it possible for the new shale gas industry production organization to accept the need for regulation and, beyond promulgation of its own standards and best practices, to work with the relevant legislators/regulators on appropriate law and regulation  and on appropriate administrative processes.  As noted, major players should have a strong  interest in a comprehensive regime—that is only possible through law—that seeks to minimize the risk of a serious mistake by an industry outlier with industry-wide implications.
• Assuming the industry group (perhaps with stakeholder participants) can work with regulators and other stakeholders to develop appropriate regulatory policy, can that group develop enough political muscle  to create and enforce new law in, pardon the phrase, our fractured political culture?

That these fundamental questions exist does not detract from the distinct value of the interim report (a second report follows in 90 days) which candidly set out important private-public tasks  “to reduce the environmental impact and improve the safety of shale gas production.  The Shale Gas Production Subcommittee is profoundly right that environmental and safety questions must  be identified and answered in a “sound fashion that meets the need of public trust.”

Affected business leaders are obviously central. They  must find the balance between economic growth and environmental protection.. They must both organize a significant private sector continuous improvement effort and contribute constructively to the shape of necessary regulation.

The stakes are high.  The continued growth of shale gas production on a sound environmental and safety basis is critical, given the potential transformative benefits,  not just for the gas industry but for the United States and the American people.

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen

By Rolf Mowatt-Larssen
Belfer Center Senior Fellow

I recently saw a great flick entitled “Age of Heroes.” It is about the early days of the British SAS in World War II.  A team of 8 commandos was airlifted covertly into Norway on a top secret mission to steal vital Nazi technology.  It’s a hard driving, gut wrenching movie.  I got goose bumps, just like I did when I watched classic war movies like “300 Spartans” or “Cross of Iron.”  It reminded me why I went to West Point and dedicated my life to serving my country–with no regrets. “Age of Heroes” is a vivid reflection of the stuff heroes are made of — their courage, toughness, concern for their comrades, and a willingness to die, if need be, for a higher cause. In World War II, the threat was so real, so clear, so existential.  War is a great evil, but unfortunately, sometimes it is unavoidable.

I am reflecting on the nature of heroism at the moment, because I am sickened by the latest loss of life in Afghanistan – 30 SEALs and special forces troops killed when their helicopter was struck by a rocket propelled grenade.  We may sincerely believe that invading Afghanistan and Iraq was necessary to safeguard our fundamental liberties, but I doubt that to be true. The wisdom of this war doesn’t diminish the heroism of our troops, or the courage of all those who are serving on the front lines, but it does make me question whether their sacrifice is worth it.

In Memoriam
4,421 killed in Iraq theater
31,922 wounded

1,721 killed in Afghanistan
13,164 wounded

It is disturbing that so little attention is being paid to these numbers – particularly the number of troops who have been wounded, many gravely. Tell me: where can you find the “honor roll” of WIA on a regular basis in the mainstream media?  There are about eight soldiers wounded for every KIA. Far from representing a mouthpiece for the so-called liberal anti-war crowd, the media has been almost silent on informing the public as to the cost of war, whether it be measured in human terms or its impact on the American economy.   And for all the divisive politics between the Republicans and Democrats, who can’t agree on anything, isn’t it ironic that neither party contests the wisdom of these wars?

The fateful post-Vietnam decision to build an all-volunteer Army posed unforeseen consequences for American society. It has become too easy to wage war. Citizens live normal lives while a small warrior class does our fighting for us. As a consequence, a sense of collective guilt is welling up within American society. To assuage our conscience, we glorify war, we exalt its virtues, and we purge our guilt through a cult of hero-worship.  In a perverse twist, we embrace war, rather than question it. It is all too easy to confuse the virtues of individual character attributes that routinely surface in war — traits such as selflessness, bravery, and tenacity – as being virtues of war itself.

It is also worrisome that in this age of conformity, dissent has become a dirty word. War is a taboo subject in our society. It isn’t politically correct to question the decision to send our men and women to Afghanistan and Iraq, lest it be excoriated as “not supporting the troops.”  There seems to be no serious dissent in America, which reminds me of  John F. Kennedy’s words of warning (May, 1963 at Amherst College):

“The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.”

A U.S. flag is flown at half-staff with the Norfolk, Va. skyline in the background, Aug. 7, 2011. The 30 U.S. service members who died when their helicopter was shot down had rushed to help Army Rangers who had come under fire. (AP Photo)

Protests ended the Vietnam war because people did not want to be drafted to fight a war that they didn’t believe in. They didn’t want to die for nothing.  Citizens understood better than the politicians that Vietnam posed no real threat to the United States, and to make matters worse, we couldn’t win the war anyway. That’s what a draft Army will do for you – war becomes personal.  War is everyone’s business. Everyone has a stake in the decisions that politicians make.

We need to return to such an ethic, in which every citizen bears an equal burden of defending the nation, of building a just society, and safeguarding its future.

We should also seek guidance from those with the most direct experience in the horror and carnage of war.

Total war advocate and war hawk General William Tecumseh Sherman said in a letter dated May, 1865:

“I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting — its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers … it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated … that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.” 

The old war horse had clearly had enough years later, when he uttered his most enduring line at a graduation for cadets at a military academy:

“I’ve been where you are now and I know just how you feel. It’s entirely natural that there should beat in the breast of every one of you a hope and desire that some day you can use the skill you have acquired here.  Suppress it! You don’t know the horrible aspects of war. I’ve been through two wars and I know. I’ve seen cities and homes in ashes. I’ve seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is Hell!“

Juliette Kayyem

By Juliette Kayyem
Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

66 years ago this week, the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, launching the nuclear age. The world would never be the same.  But, the significance of the bombings may be overstated, at least according to an article by my Globe colleague Gareth Cook.  Gareth analyzes recent academic research that argues that it was Russia’s entry into the Pacific war, and not the nuclear bombs, that led to Japan’s surrender.  Such arguments really put into question a number of basic beliefs we have all held and that have guided the national security community for some time.  As Gareth writes:

“It also raises provocative questions about nuclear deterrence, a foundation stone of military strategy in the postwar period. And it suggests that we could be headed towards an utterly different understanding of how, and why, the Second World War came to its conclusion. ‘Hasegawa (the academic who is at the forefront of this analysis) has changed my mind,” says Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb. ‘The Japanese decision to surrender was not driven by the two bombings.’”

It’s worth a read.  I personally don’t think that you can separate the bombings with the Soviet entry into the Pacific War (they were separated only by a few days) but I was convinced that Japan’s motivations to surrender were likely much more complicated than we had previously thought.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2011/08/07/why_did_japan_surrender/

Greath is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and writes a lot on science. Follow Gareth on @garethideas and the whole Boston Globe gang at @globeopinion.

Juliette N. Kayyem, the national security and foreign policy columnist for the Boston Globe and on the faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School, has spent nearly fifteen years in counterterrorism, homeland security, and emergency management arena. She most recently served for President Barack Obama as Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Juliette Kayyem

By Juliette Kayyem
Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Over the past two weeks, I have started to use my Boston Globe column to explore the difficult and often painful issues around returning service members and veterans.  I don’t want to say I stumbled on this issue, but I don’t believe I had quite grasped what was the growing recognition by the Pentagon that we have no idea what we are about to encounter:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/
oped/articles/2011/07/25/a_soldiers_money/

Multiple deployments in unsure wars, a decade of back and forth, and a nation that can exist without barely recognizing their contributions.   And in many respects this is a homeland security issue, not simply because of the impact the wars have had on the National Guard but because it does focus us to think about what happens to a nation that has sacrificed so little to wage war (no draft, no new taxes, service members constituting only .8% of the population) and yet will have to address the consequences of those wars for generations to come.

U.S. medevac helicopter arrives to evacuate wounded soldier in Afghanistan (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)

That first piece brought about a response I had not encountered since taking on the column, which mostly focuses on national security and foreign policy issues (not even those who didn’t like my critique of the French high-brow drama in the lead up to the events in Libya come close, but the French have a lot of supporters who read the Globe apparently (I can’t find site but its online to the editorial about Bernard Levy.)  Comments on issues ranging from economics and unemployment to a generation of kids being raised in the wake of their parents multiple deployments filled my inbox.  I feel as if I have barely scratched the surface and know that colleagues like Professor Linda Bilmes and others have been at this for sometime.  But while there is tremendous focus on the wars, there is almost no meaningful media examination of the end of wars and what it means.  I took on the issue of employment in my next column on the issue, shocked as much as anyone at the unemployment rate for returning service members. Read on for the answer:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/
oped/articles/2011/08/01/promoting_prosperity/?p1=Features_link11.

I hope to examine these issues more and to use the column to draw focus to an important issue that simply hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.

Juliette N. Kayyem, the national security and foreign policy columnist for the Boston Globe and on the faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School, has spent nearly fifteen years in counterterrorism, homeland security, and emergency management arena. She most recently served for President Barack Obama as Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Richard Clarke

By Richard Clarke
Faculty Affiliate, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

We once discussed thermonuclear war strategy in the public forum. Numbers and types of nuclear weapons were the grist for Cambridge seminars. Because of that open process, we arrived at a nuclear war strategy that averted disaster.

Few people in the Obama Administration are old enough to remember all of that. Perhaps that is why they are insisting on secrecy in the development of cyber war strategy. The Pentagon’s recent cyber military strategy is an insult to its readers. I explain why I think so in this oped from Sunday’s Boston Globe…

Richard Clarke, an adjunct faculty member at Harvard’s Kennedy School, is author of “Cyber War.’’ He was special adviser on cyber security to President George W. Bush. 

Kevin Ryan

By BG Kevin Ryan (US Army retired)

Executive Director for Research, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

According to American press reports, the United States and Russia were close to signing an agreement on missile defense cooperation on the margins of the G8 Summit in May of this year.  The details of the proposal are not public, but the disappointment over not achieving the agreement is.

On the surface (and indeed well below), the disagreement between the US and Russia over US missile defense plans seems intractable and destined to scuttle further arms and security agreements.  In worst-case scenarios it is feared that it would drop the “bilateral temperature” enough to start a new Cold War.  It is true that not since the failure at the Reykjavik Summit 25 years ago to stem deployment of offensive nuclear missiles in Europe have Russia and the US faced off on such a serious arms issue.

But let’s get a grip.  It’s not 1986 and the US and Russia are not squared off in a nuclear stalemate.  We’re discussing defensive missiles – not offensive ones.  And we’re discussing cooperation – not confrontation.  At least we could be.

I am not privy to the details of the recently aborted agreement, but my 30-plus years of experience as an air and missile defense officer dealing with Russian and American bureaucracies leads me to believe that we weren’t really that close.  There’s so much confusion over terms like “joint” and “sectors” and misunderstanding of actual system capabilities that we talk past each other as if we were negotiating without interpreters.

Although it’s not 1986, we should take a page from our predecessors’ playbook.  A year after the failure at Reykjavik to resolve the nuclear stand-off in Europe, both sides achieved a stunning and historic agreement to eliminate an entire class of offensive missiles.  All we need is a clear understanding of what the problem is and some common-sense thinking.

Here are two clues to understanding the problem:

1. Today, to prevent a nuclear missile attack, the United States and Russia are pursuing two fundamentally opposing strategies: one a missile defense system, and the other the capability to defeat a missile defense system. The US and Russia are aiming for the same goal—freedom from a nuclear missile attack—but the strategies are antithetical.  The reasons behind the two different strategies are that Russia knows it cannot afford a robust missile defense system, but the United States believes it can.

2. The United States does not need Russian cooperation to deploy missile defense; it is already doing so. The US, however, does need Russian cooperation to prevent a missile attack against America. That is because, for the foreseeable future, Russia will retain the capacity to attack the American homeland with nuclear missiles despite our missile defense deployments.   So, US leaders must address Russian concerns or risk actually increasing the threat of nuclear attack by the very deployment we hoped would reduce that threat.

Aegis SM3 launch (Photo courtesy of US Missile Defense Agency)

Both sides have painted themselves into corners with ultimatums and proposals that have been quickly dismissed by the other.  President Obama and NATO Secretary Rasmussen have both offered to cooperate with Russia but have rejected “joint” or “combined” systems.   President Medvedev has called for a “unified” system but has demanded guarantees about deployment and targeting.

Couple these political caveats with an almost ubiquitous ignorance of what current and projected missile defenses can actually do, and it’s a wonder that we can even schedule a meeting in which to disagree.  But, in a sign that we are living in a different world than we were 25 years ago, we are actually meeting and talking.  What we need now are ideas that reflect our improved relationship.

Putting aside the statements and preconditions leaders have voiced, here are three concrete things the U.S.and Russia could do to break the impasse over missile defense cooperation:

1. Jointly Develop Separate Systems.   The reality today is that our two systems cannot be easily combined.  The technologies are complicated and different and don’t talk to one another.  But, who in the 1960’s would have predicted that the competing US and Russian space programs would be working together by the 1970’s?  Or that by 2011, the US would rely entirely on Russia to send its astronauts into space?  Maybe we should let NASA and the Russian Space Agency work this out.  We need a missile defense architecture that recognizes the current capabilities and limitations of the two sides but sets us on a path to closer integration tomorrow. To begin with, the US, NATO and Russia should agree to include Russian missile defense systems into the Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile command and control system.  Both Russia and the US must make their technologies more open to each other so that communication and coordination can be achieved between the two systems.  This is a job that industry can lead with government permission.

2. Steps by the United States.  It’s time for America to realize that it is not 1986 (nor 1996 nor 2006) and Russia is not the adversary it once was.  I am a proponent of missile defense, but I have enough experience with it to know that it will always remain a limited system, capable of protecting our forces, neighbors, and homeland only partially.  Let’s promise Russia in writing what we already know is reality – our system will remain limited and will not be directed against Russia.

3. Steps by Russia.  It’s also time for Russia to realize that the US is not its enemy and to admit that NATO is not a threat.  Every new radar site or missile defense launcher is not an existential danger to Russia.  Russia should agree to share its major military advantage – its geography.  US/NATO radars in Russia’s southern tier would be ideal for defense against missiles from Iran.  And, for US engagements by the Aegis SM3 missiles, Russia should grant permission to intercept enemy ballistic missiles over or near Russian territory.

There are many other steps we can take such as a serious and open joint assessment of the ballistic missile threat, joint research and development agreements, and joint training.  Perhaps we could even expand on our 1987 success in eliminating our own intermediate range ballistic missiles by encouraging the rest of the world to follow suit.  None of these cooperative efforts is out of our reach.  Let’s emulate 1987 and not 1986.

Kevin Ryan also wrote about this issue in greater depth in a recent article called “Preventing the Unithinkable” in the Journal of International Security Affairs. For related research on U.S.-Russia security relations, visit the Belfer Center’s U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism.