Peter L. Berger's Blog, page 489

The Problem Starts Before College

Some students get to college already primed for the political correctness typical of today’s leftwing campus politics, as Catherine Rampbell reminds us in her Washington Post column today. According to a recent national survey, “students are setting foot on campus already more liberal, more protest-happy and more amenable to speech restrictions than their predecessors,” she says. “Which suggests that colleges themselves are not wholly responsible for rising liberal and illiberal tendencies on campus — even if they do sometimes aid and abet both trends.”

Rampbell’s comments are consistent with the observations of Jonathan Haidt, one of the foremost experts on the new campus political correctness. In a recent interview with John Leo of Minding the Campus, Haidt said:

The big thing that really worries me – the reason why I think things are going to get much, much worse – is that one of the causal factors here is the change in child-rearing that happened in America in the 1980s. With the rise in crime, amplified by the rise of cable TV, we saw much more protective, fearful parenting. Children since the 1980s have been raised very differently–protected as fragile [. . .]

I’m not saying they need to be spanked or beaten, but they need to have a lot of unsupervised time, to get in over their heads and get themselves out. And that greatly decreased in the 1980s. Anxiety, fragility and psychological weakness have skyrocketed in the last 15-20 years. So, I think millennials come to college with much thinner skins. And therefore, until that changes, I think we’re going to keep seeing these demands to never hear anything offensive.

So while PC foes are right to ridicule campus censors, and right to criticize campus administrators when they surrender to the activists’ authoritarian demands, this approach may not be sufficient.

Here’s one policy change that might help get closer to the root of the problem: Admissions committees should ask students to demonstrate—through essays, recommendations, and extra-curricular activities—their independence, toughness, and openness to opposing views. We’ve tended to be skeptical of “holistic” college admissions regimes, in which admissions officers try to divine the character traits of 17-year-olds. But to the extent that those regimes are already in place, traits like emotional resilience and grace in the face of disagreement should be considered in addition to today’s more common criteria, like empathy and commitment to social justice. This might help colleges weed out at least some of the students who would be likely to have emotional meltdowns when they were offended, or call for the firing of professors with differing political views. And if there was a widespread sense that colleges were not interested in accepting special snowflakes, perhaps some helicopter parents would be less likely to coddle their children.

Follyanna? A Coda

Less than 24 hours after finishing “Follyanna?” the U.S. government, along with other Western and Russian officials, announced a ceasefire in Syria, supposedly to be discussed and detailed further in preparation for implementation next week.  Does this disprove my skepticism about the futility of the Geneva process? We’ll find out fairly soon, but I very much doubt it.

The “ceasefire” is not well defined. We know it leaves out the Salafis, ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, for example, so that we and others can keep bombing them. But more to the point, remember that the Syrian regime and its Russian “lawyers” insist that all rebel groups are composed of “terrorists.” There is therefore much uncertainty, to put it generously, that the regime and the Russians will cease attacking rebel groups trying to hold onto Aleppo even after a “ceasefire” goes into effect.It may also be the case that the battle for Aleppo will be over in the main within seven days, as the demoralized opposition is rapidly hemorrhaging people escaping from encirclement and otherwise bleeding heavily. If that is so, it means that the “ceasefire” will protect recent regime/Russian gains, but prevent remaining opposition forces from trying to take back lost ground. Most likely, the regime and the Russians will use the time out to consolidate their gains and prepare for the next phase of the war, which likely will turn west toward Idlib province. They will blame the rebels for breaking the ceasefire, and that will be almost too easy.If the battle for Aleppo is not over within a week, the Russians can always prevaricate and delay matters until it is. We do not have a date certain; all we have is “next week.”  This is similar in utility to the Russian official’s comment quoted in “Follyanna?”: “Maybe March, I think so.”Note too that which areas will be chosen to receive humanitarian assistance will be a choice made almost entirely by the regime. It is bound to be selective, and it is likely to be used to coax local forces into what amounts to surrender. We have seen this before: the regime asks local resistance fighters to lay down their arms in return for deliveries of food and medicine, and afterwards the regime flag goes up, the women and children are driven somewhere, no one knows where, and a healthy percentage of the surrendering men are lined up against the wall and shot. This is the Syrian regime’s version of a ceasefire. Sort of reminds one of Grozny, doesn’t it?If this sort of “ceasefire” technique is applied to Aleppo after its fall, we are likely to see a huge enforced exodus of people north toward Turkey, and from there, for a good number, into Europe. In this way we can look forward to forms of ethnic cleansing in Syria working double time as agents of pressure on the European Union, with the aim of weakening the EU, pressuring its member states to oppose the continuation of sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, and ultimately to bring to power in as many EU countries as possible rightwing governments less unfriendly to Russia. The concomitant result of such a political shift would be to also weaken NATO’s capacity to act. If this happens, anyone who thinks it’s not deliberate should please get in touch with me about a bridge I have for sale in Brooklyn.Secretary Kerry has not spoken of this ceasefire proposition in Follyannish terms. He has been circumspect. He has pointedly noted that all there is so far are words on paper. He is right to be circumspect, but he is now trapped in a situation in which he has no choice but to pursue this “ceasefire” on terms he cannot control, and which is very likely to end up being no genuine ceasefire at all—with no political follow-on even remotely likely to lead to a settlement of the civil war.In the conclusion to “Follyanna?”, I argued that it was not a contradiction to criticize Secretary and wish him luck at the same time. That judgment stands, but if what has happened in the past 24 hours counts as luck, then it’s the sort of bad luck I wouldn’t wish on a dog.

Predators on the Frontier

Revisionist powers are on the move. ‎From eastern Ukraine and the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea, large rivals of the United States are modernizing their military forces, grabbing strategic real estate, and threatening vulnerable U.S. allies. Their goal is not just to assert hegemony over their neighborhoods but to rearrange the global security order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War.

We first wrote about these emerging dynamics in 2010, and then in TAI in 2011. We argued three things. First, that revisionist powers were using a strategy of “probing”: a combination of assertive diplomacy and small but bold military actions to test the outer reaches of American power and in particular the resilience of frontier allies. Second, we argued that the small, exposed allies who were the targets of these probes were likely to respond by developing back-up options to U.S. security guarantees, whether through military self-help or accommodation. And third, we argued that that China and Russia were learning from one another’s probes in their respective regions, and that allies themselves were drawing conclusions about U.S. deterrence in their own neighborhood from how America handled similarly situated allies elsewhere.Five years later, as we argue in a new book released this month, these dynamics have intensified dramatically. Revisionist powers are indeed probing the United States, but their methods have become bolder, more violent—and successful. Allies have grown more alert to this pressure, amid the steady whittling away of neighboring buffer zones, and have begun to pursue an array of self-help schemes ranging from arms build-ups to flirtations with the nearby revisionist power. It has become harder for the United States to isolate security crises to one region: Russia’s land-grabs in Eastern Europe provide both a model and distraction effect for China to accelerate its maritime claims in the South China Sea; Poland’s quest for U.S. strategic reassurance unnerves and spurs allies in the Persian Gulf and Western Pacific.By degrees, the world is entering the path to war. Not since the 1980s have the conditions been riper for a major international military crisis. Not since the 1930s has the world witnessed the emergence of multiple large, predatory states determined to revise the global order to their advantage—if necessary by force. At a minimum, the United States in coming years could face the pressure of managing several deteriorating regional security spirals; at a maximum, it could be confronted with a Great Power war against one, and possibly two or even three, nuclear-armed peer competitors. In either case, the U.S. military could face these scenarios without either the presumption of technological overmatch or favorable force ratios that it has enjoyed against its rivals for the past several decades.How should the United States respond to these dynamics? As our rivals grow more aggressive and our military edge narrows, we must look to other methods for waging and winning geopolitical competitions in the 21st century.The most readily available but underutilized tool at our disposal is alliances. America’s frontline allies offer a mechanism by which it can contain rivals—indeed, this was the original purpose for cultivating security linkages with small states in the world’s rimland regions to begin with. In coming years, the value of strategically placed allies near Eurasia’s large land powers will grow as our relative technological or numerical military strength shrinks. The time has come for the United States to develop a grand strategy for containing peer competitors centered on the creative use of frontline allies. It must do so now, before geopolitical competition intensifies.Predatory PeersProbing has been the strategy of choice for America’s modern rivals to challenge the existing order. Over the past few years, Russia, China, and, to a degree, Iran have sensed that the United States is retreating in their respective regions—whether out of choice, fatigue, weakness, or all three combined. But they are unsure of how much remaining strength the United States has, or of the solidity of its commitments to allies. Rather than risking direct war, they have employed low-intensity crises to test U.S. power in these regions. Like past revisionists, they have focused their probes on seemingly secondary interests of the leading power, either by humbling its weakest allies or seizing gray zones over which the United States is unlikely to fight. These probes test the United States on the outer rim of its influence, where the revisionist’s own interests are strongest while the U.S. is at its furthest commitments and therefore most vulnerable to defeat. Russia has launched a steady sequence of threatening military moves against vulnerable NATO allies and conducted limited offensives against former Soviet satellite states. China has sought out low-intensity diplomatic confrontations with small U.S. security clients, erected military no-go zones, and asserted claims over strategic waterways.When we wrote about this behavior in The American Interest in 2011, it was composed mainly of aggressive diplomacy or threatening but small military moves. But the probes of U.S. rivals are becoming bolder. Sensing a window of opportunity, in 2014 Russia upped the ante by invading Ukraine—the largest country in Eastern Europe—in a war that has so far cost 7,000 lives and brought 52,000 square kilometers of territory into the Russian sphere of influence. After years of using unmarked fishing trawlers to harass U.S. or allied naval vessels, China has begun to militarize its probes in the South China Sea, constructing seven artificial islands and claiming (and threatening to fight over) 1.8 million square kilometers of ocean. Iran has recently humiliated the United States by holding American naval vessels and broadcasting photos of surrendering U.S. sailors. In all cases, revisionist powers increased the stakes because they perceived their initial probes to have succeeded. Having achieved modest gains, they increased the intensity of their probes.The strategic significance of these latest probes for the United States is twofold. First, they have substantially increased the military pressure on frontline allies. The presence of a buffer zone of some sort, whether land or sea, between allies like Poland or Japan and neighboring revisionist powers, helped to reduce the odds of sustained contact and confrontation between allied and rival militaries. By successfully encroaching on or invading these middle spaces, revisionists have advanced the zone of contest closer to the territory of U.S. allies, increasing the potential for a deliberate or accidental military clash.Second, the latest probes have significantly raised the overall pressure on the United States. As long as Russia’s military adventures were restricted to its own southern periphery, America could afford to shift resources to the Pacific without worrying much about the consequences in Europe—an important consideration given the Pentagon’s jettisoning of the goal to be able to fight a two-front war. With both Ukraine and the South China Sea at play (and with a chaotic Middle East, where another rival, Iran, advances its reach and influence), the United States no longer has the luxury of prioritizing one region over another; with two re-militarized frontiers at opposite ends of the globe, it must continually weigh trade-offs in scarce military resources between geographic theaters. This disadvantage is not lost on America’s rivals, or its most exposed friends.Frontier FrenzyThe intensification of probing has reverberated through the ranks of America’s frontline allies. In both Europe and Asia, the edges of the Western order are inhabited by historically vulnerable small or mid-sized states that over the past seven decades have relied on the United States for their existence. The similarities in the geopolitical position and strategic options of states like Estonia and Taiwan, or Poland and South Korea, are striking. For all of these states, survival depends above all on the sustainability of U.S. extended deterrence, in both its nuclear and conventional forms. This in turn rests on two foundations: the assumption among rivals and allies alike that the United States is physically able to fulfill its security obligations to even the smallest ally, and the assumption that it is politically willing to do so.Doubts about both have been growing for many years. Reductions in American defense spending are weakening the U.S. military capability to protect allies. Due to cuts introduced by the 2009 Budget Control Act, the U.S. Navy is smaller than at any point since before the First World War, the U.S. Army is smaller than at any point since before the Second World War and the U.S. Air Force has the lowest number of operational warplanes in its history. Nuclear force levels are static or declining, and the U.S. technological edge over rivals in important weapons types has diminished. The Pentagon in 2009 announced that for the first time since the Second World War it would jettison the goal of being able to conduct a two-front global war.At the same time that U.S. capabilities are decreasing, those of our rivals are increasing. Both Russia and China have undertaken large, multiyear military expansion and modernization programs and the technological gap between them and the United States is narrowing, particularly in key areas such as short-range missiles, tactical nuclear weapons, and fifth-generation fighter aircraft.Recent American statecraft has compounded the problem by weakening the belief in U.S. political will to defend allies. The early Obama Administration’s public questioning of the value of traditional alliances as “alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War” shook allied confidence at the same time that its high-profile engagement with large rivals indicated a preference for big-power bargaining over the heads of small states. The U.S.-Russia “reset” seemed to many allies both transactional and freewheeling, and left a lasting impression of the suddenness with which U.S. priorities could shift from one Administration to the next. This undermined the predictability of patronage that is the sine qua non of effective deterrence for any Great Power.As the revisionists’ probes have become more assertive and U.S. credibility less firm, America’s frontier allies have started to reconsider their national security options. Five years ago, many frontline states expressed security concerns, began to seek greater military capabilities, or looked to offset risk by engaging diplomatically with revisionists. But for the most part, such behavior was muted and well within the bounds of existing alliance commitments. However, as probing has picked up pace, allied coping behavior has become more frantic. In Europe, Poland, the Baltic States, and Romania have initiated military spending increases. In Asia, littoral U.S. allies are engaged in a worrisome regional arms race. In both regions, the largest allies are considering offensive capabilities to create conventional deterrence. Their willingness to build up their indigenous military capabilities is overall a positive development, but it carries risks, too, spurring dynamics that were absent over the past decades. The danger is that, absent a consistent and credible U.S. overwatch, rearming allies engage in a chaotic acquisition strategy, poorly anchored in the larger alliance. Fearing abandonment, such states may end up detaching themselves from the alliance simply by pursuing independent security policies.There is also danger on the other side of the spectrum of possible responses by frontline allies. Contrary to the hopeful assumptions of offshore balancers, not all frontline allies are resisting. Some are choosing strategies of accommodation. Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia in Europe and Thailand and Malaysia in Asia are all examples of nominal U.S. allies that are trying to avoid antagonizing the stronger predator. Worsening regional security dynamics create domestic political pressures to avoid confrontation with the nearby revisionist power. Full-fledged bandwagoning in the form of the establishment of new alliances is not yet visible, but hedging is.Seeds of DisorderThe combination of intensifying probes and fragmenting alliances threatens to unravel important components of the stability of major regions and the wider international order. Allowed to continue on their current path, security dynamics in Eastern Europe and the Western Pacific could lead to negative or even catastrophic outcomes for U.S. national security. One increasingly likely near-term scenario is a simmering, simultaneous security competition in major regions. In such a scenario, rivals continue probing allies and grabbing middle-zone territory while steering clear of war with the United States or its proxies; allies continue making half-measure preparations without becoming fully capable of managing their own security; and the United States continues feeding greater and greater resources into frontline regions without achieving reassurance, doggedly tested and put in doubt by the revisionists. Through a continued series of probes, the revisionist powers maintain the initiative while the United States and its allies play catch up. The result might be a gradual hardening of the U.S. security perimeter that never culminates in a Great Power war but generates many of the negative features of sustained security competition—arms races, proxy wars, and cyber and hybrid conflicts—that erode the bases of global economic growth.A second, graver possibility is war. Historically, a lengthy series of successful probes has often culminated in a military confrontation. One dangerous characteristic of today’s international landscape is that not one but two revisionists have now completed protracted sequences of probes that, from their perspective, have been successful. If the purpose of probing is to assess the top power’s strength, today’s probes could eventually convince either Russia, China, or both that the time is ripe for a more definitive contest. It is uncertain what the outcome would be. Force ratios in today’s two hotspots, the Baltic Sea and South China Sea, do not favor the United States. Both Russia and China possess significant anti-access/area denial (A2AD) capabilities, with a ten-to-one Russian troop advantage in the Baltic and massive Chinese preponderance of coastal short-range missiles in the South China Sea. Moreover, both powers possess nuclear weapons and, in Russia’s case, a doctrine favoring their escalatory use for strategic effect. And even if the United States can maintain overwhelming military superiority in a dyadic contest, war is always the realm of chance and a source of destruction that threatens the stability of the existing international order. Having failed a series of probes, the United States could face the prospect of either a short, sharp war that culminates in nuclear attack or an economically costly protracted two-front conflict. Either outcome would definitely alter the U.S.-led international system as we know it.A third, long-term possibility is a gradual eviction of the United States from the rimland regions. This could occur either through a military defeat, as described above, or through the gradual hollowing out of U.S. regional alliances due to the erosion of deterrence and alliance defection—and therefore this scenario is not mutually exclusive of the previous two. For the United States, this would be geopolitically disastrous, involving a loss of position in the places where America must be present to prevent the risk of hemispheric isolation. Gaining a foothold in the Eurasian rimlands has been a major, if not the most important, goal of U.S. grand strategy for a century. It is through this presence that the United States is able to shape global politics and avoid the emergence of mortal threats to itself. Without such a presence, America’s largest rivals would be able to steadily aggrandize, building up enlarged spheres of influence, territory, and resources that would render them capable of sustained competition for global primacy. Unlike in the 20th century, current A2AD and nuclear technology would make a military reentry into these regions difficult if not impossible.Averting CourseAvoiding these scenarios should be a high priority for the United States. In all three cases—a simmering competition along Eurasian rimlands, a great power war, and a forced U.S. retreat to hemispheric defense—it is likely to be more cost-effective for the United States to prevent negative outcomes than to undo them once they have occurred. The current moment therefore represents an important and likely perishable opportunity in which to take strategic action for shaping emerging security dynamics to our advantage. Unlike the past geopolitical contests in which it has participated, the United States will not have inexhaustible resources with which to wage the emerging battle of the 21st century. Unlike in the Second World War, it cannot simply out-produce its rivals; unlike in the Cold War, it cannot outspend them and ultimately rely on better technology. Both China and Russia, despite the latter’s relative economic weakness, have been able to use the slippage in U.S. defense spending to significantly close both the qualitative and quantitative gaps with U.S. forces. Militarily, the United States will face a more leveled playing field than it has against any other rival for many decades.The United States should avoid the error of thinking that the contest can be industrial or technological. It is first and foremost a strategic rivalry for alliances: the revisionist powers aim to weaken the rings of allies the United States has constructed over the past century, while the U.S. wants to maintain and improve them. This—namely, the system of alliances and the inherently conservative nature of America’s grand strategy—is also where the United States has a comparative advantage.A global network of alliances is particularly important now in the age of contested primacy. In the bipolar and nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union U.S. alliances added few material advantages, and arguably in the immediate post-Cold War period they were disposable if not for the diplomatic benefit of having multi-national forces fighting alongside American ones. Now, alliances represent a critical margin of advantage for the United States over its peer competitors.For the United States, the contemporary advantage of alliances goes back to their original purpose of containing distant rivals arising across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and menacing the political plurality of Eurasia. Allies, in particular those located on the expansionistic path of the regional predators, are most valuable because they are the most effective mechanisms to maintain the geopolitical status quo. Frontline allies have the most to lose from a dramatic change in the existing order, and thus are the most motivated to sustain it. They are the first targets of revisionists, and thus are the place where the contest is occurring and will be decided. They can also benefit from the modern technological regime that allows small states to be more lethal than in previous decades, and thus can potentially turn into defensive strongholds on their own. They want to be and can be key defenders of the Western order.The objective of U.S. grand strategy coincides with that of its frontline allies: the maintenance of the status quo. America’s geopolitical project is conservative in nature because it aims to uphold the current geopolitical order. This goal translates most immediately into holding the existing regional limes as they are, a clear benefit to our frontline allies. Additionally, relying more on these frontline allies will allow the United States to manage the security threats in multiple regions, spanning the length of the 21st century “arc of instability” from the Baltic through the Black Sea, the Persian Gulf, and East Asia. The United States cannot thwart these challenges alone and needs to refocus its grand strategy on frontline alliances.The purpose of such a grand strategy is to strengthen the current posture of deterrence to prevent further probes by the revisionist powers. As these probes are slowly rewriting the rules of the regional orders and are redrawing the physical lines of influence on the maps, U.S. strategy must hinder this gradual but increasingly more assertive revisionism. The role of the most vulnerable allies is crucial in the success of this strategy. The underlying assumption is that, without the active American involvement in these regions, the allies will not resist the revisionist thrusts of Russia and China, either because they cannot do it effectively alone or because they will choose to accommodate the local rival. There is nothing automatic in the survival of the current international order and the resulting security of the United States.A strategy centered on frontline alliances will be informed by three principles.First, the United States should organize allies. Without America’s stabilizing political leadership and reassuring military presence, the various frontier regions—U.S. allies in the most exposed rimlands—are unlikely to be able to create new regional diplomatic arrangements that can serve as the immediate bulwarks to the revisionist powers. Current alliance structures are functioning but are not well suited to the nature of the challenge. In Europe, NATO, perhaps the most successful alliance in history, incorporates states with such a fundamentally different threat assessment that its cornerstone, Article 5, suggesting that an attack against one is an attack against all, is increasingly seen as just that—a suggestion. Under the NATO umbrella, there are incipient new formations, most notably of states around the Baltic Sea (Baltics, Poland, Norway, Sweden—the latter not a NATO member). A further sub-alliance can link the Baltic region with the Black Sea, by strengthening military cooperation between the two states most interested in defending the status quo: Poland and Romania. In Asia, the alliance structure inherited from the 20th century is very different, built along bilateral relationships between individual states and the United States. But several states located on China’s seaward projection of power—for example, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, and, farther out, Australia—share parallel concerns and fears that were not present a few decades ago. This opens up the possibility of security cooperation and planning, building a new set of regional alliances. Historical grievances continue to be an obstacle but this is why U.S. leadership and presence continues to be crucial. Without it, these frontline states will maintain a posture that only timidly considers other states in their region as solid partners in the competition with China. In brief, old alliances are not to be jettisoned but should serve as foundations for new configurations that will strengthen the frontlines.Second, the United States should arm frontline allies. Not all, but some (e.g., Poland and Japan) are openly pursuing programs of defense modernization and seeking to acquire new weapons. The United States should encourage this by speeding the process of acquiring U.S.-made platforms and by helping these countries to think through their role in the larger strategy of anti-revisionism. Frontline states should be enabled to deter their nearby revisionists, mostly by denial. Deterrence by denial involves the development of capabilities that hinder the enemy’s military advance by increasing the costs of territorial expansion and control. Relatively cheap weapons for this purpose are widely available: anti-tank missiles, precision-guided artillery, small arms, anti-air missiles. This is also politically appealing because it is clearly an effort to shore up territorial defense, creating a difficult environment for the aggressor. But there are also other capabilities that the United States should proliferate to select allies: medium to long-range missiles, drones, and, on the higher end of the spectrum, stealth planes are examples of weapons that have a longer reach and can strike within the enemy’s territory. More offensive in nature, they still serve a defensive purpose by enhancing the ability to deter by denial. The capability to strike beyond the immediate frontline inflicts costs on the aggressor and creates problems for his logistics. By targeting command and control centers and radar installations, it also can serve to blind the enemy, easing the projection of allied reinforcements toward the attacked state. U.S. frontline allies are no longer in a permissive environment in which American forces can function unopposed. These allies therefore have the greatest incentive to keep their own air, sea, and land routes open so that the United States and other states can join them in the conflict.Well-armed allies on a frontier under assault are a strategic blessing for the United States. They can stymie the expansion of revisionist states by becoming hardened obstacles. And the current technological regime characterized by wide availability, ease of use, and relative cheapness of many lethal platforms favors such a strategy centered on arming small states. We live in the age of small states, and even non-state actors, that are capable of inflicting serious destruction and of being strategic actors on their own. Usually in U.S. policy circles the spread of lethal capabilities is seen as a source of instability, presenting a challenge to the maintenance of international order and regional security. The plethora of hostile groups and reprobate states that can destabilize their respective regions through their capacity to wield violence is undoubtedly a problem, but the trend that makes this possible has also positive connotations. U.S. small and medium-sized allies can in fact be sources of regional stability thanks to the same technological developments that are allowing challengers to be more disruptive. The United States should harness these developments to its own advantage by doing a targeted proliferation—by arming its frontline allies.Third, the two main revisionists, Russia and China, are nuclear powers—and the smaller third, Iran, is likely to be one in the future. Their probes are occurring therefore in the shadow of nuclear weapons. Even more disturbingly, Russia has exacerbated tensions with Europe and the United States by recurrent nuclear saber rattling in the form of provocative flights of nuclear-capable bombers, large conventional military exercises ending in a virtual nuclear attack against a NATO member, and public statements threatening nuclear use. Nuclear weapons are not decreasing in importance; on the contrary, they play a greater role now than they did fifty years ago. Any U.S. strategy dealing with its frontline allies must have a nuclear component because it needs to figure out how to deter a small conventional attack (a militarized probe) under the threat of potentially rapid nuclear escalation.The United States should therefore enhance its nuclear arsenal by maintaining and modernizing it. It needs to sustain a credible nuclear extended deterrent at a time when revisionist states are gradually pushing their spheres of influence and control closer to, if not against, U.S. allies. Moreover, it should use the limited tactical nuclear weapons at its disposal and seed them in a few of the most vulnerable and capable frontline states (Poland and Japan, for instance) under “nuclear sharing” agreements.By organizing and arming its most exposed allies, the United States can shore up the frontier of its influence and security. The stability of these regions cannot depend exclusively on the capability and credibility of the United States—that is, on America’s extended deterrent—but has to be built on the strength and resilience of the local allies. America’s frontline on Eurasia’s rimlands requires local defense: a well-armed and well-organized limes of allies. Only by building up such allies will the United States be capable of enduring the persistent challenge of multiple rivals that are eager to impose their own orders in their respective regions.

Czech Investors See a Future for Coal in Germany

Germany’s struggling coal assets are attracting attention from the country’s eastern neighbor, as two wealthy Czech magnates and a Czech state-owned utility—convinced that coal has a future even in green-minded Germany—are considering investing in the troubled industry. Bloomberg reports:

[A]dept at squeezing profits from the cheapest and dirtiest coal…[the investors are] betting that Germany’s need for lignite to guarantee energy security for years to come will eclipse concerns over emissions.

“At an attractive price, the business can be interesting for Czechs who are very familiar with Germany and have lignite expertise,” Sven Diermeier, an analyst at Independent Research GmbH, said by phone from Frankfurt. “It may also be a bet on increasing wholesale electricity and coal prices.”

Germany has a long history of mining and burning lignite, a particularly filthy variety of coal, which is already a dirty energy source. But the rapid expansion of the country’s renewable energy industry (coming as a result of heavy government subsidization) has made it more difficult for lignite-burning plants profitably to operate. This is a problem for Berlin, which, despite all of its green rhetoric, still needs lignite to keep the lights on. While wind and solar power might not emit greenhouse gases, they also don’t consistently provide power, and with the country’s nuclear reactors being phased out (an emotional decision made in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster), Germany has had to increasingly rely on lignite for its baseload power.

Barring a breakthrough in commercially scalable (and cost-effective) energy storage, Berlin will keep mining and burning lignite for the foreseeable future—and that’s why these Czech investors are interested in these assets.

Middle Class Families Flee the Golden State

The Hoover Institution’s Carson Bruno took a close look at California’s migration patterns, and what he found should worry policymakers in Sacramento. Not only are Californians leaving the state in large numbers, but the people heading for the exits are disproportionately middle class working families—the demographic backbone of American society.

Between 2004 and 2015, roughly 930,000 more people left California than moved to the Golden State—just three years saw net domestic in-migration. The biggest beneficiaries of California’s net loss are Arizona, Texas, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

… Knowing that net out-migrants are more likely to be middle-class working young professional families provides some hints as to why people are leaving California for greener pastures. For one, California is an extraordinarily high cost-of-living state. Whether it is the state’s housing affordability crisis – California’s median home value per square foot is, on average, 2.1 times higher than Arizona, Texas, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington’s – California’s very expensive energy costs – the state’s residential electric price is about 1.5 times higher than the competing states – or the Golden State’s oppressive tax burden – California ranks 6th, nationally, in state-local tax burdens – those living in California are hit with a variety of higher bills, which cuts into their bottom line.

As we’ve noted before, many of the biggest, bluest states in the country—including New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts—have also experienced major exoduses over the last five years (although these outflows have been offset, to varying degrees, by foreign immigration). These large out-migrations represent serious policy failures, at least in California’s case: Sacramento has enacted taxes and regulations that drive up the cost of living even as they repel companies that might offer stable middle-class jobs outside of Silicon Valley.

The new statistics out of California are a bad omen for the future of the state’s doctrinaire blue model governance. As Bruno notes, if families and the young continue to flee California, the population will become older and less economically dynamic, creating a shortfall in tax revenue and possibly pressuring Sacramento raise rates even higher. Meanwhile, California faces a severe pension shortfall, both at the state and local level, that will require painful sacrifices from various constituencies—even as the state’s rapid demographic change (the state is still a magnet for foreign immigrants) could heighten political tensions. Don’t expect California’s domestic exodus to reverse itself anytime soon.

A Turning-Point in the Refugee Crisis?

Angela Merkel surprised Germany’s allies and threw NATO into a tizzy earlier this week when she unexpectedly endorsed a Turkish proposal to have the military alliance help solve the migrant crisis. On Monday, Merkel spoke in Ankara; by Thursday, NATO ministers at a meeting in Brussels were voting for a deployment that hadn’t even been on their agenda 72 hours earlier.

The mission will be built around a small force already in the Mediterranean, the “flagship” of which is a German supply vessel, with assistance from Canada, Greece, Turkey, and soon, Denmark and others. Officials are speaking vaguely of intelligence-gathering against smugglers as the main purpose of the effort, but it’s clear that the details are to be worked out in the future. Mission creep in this case won’t be a peril so much as the point: if all goes well, this may well become the start of a larger effort.If the project seems a bit slapdash, it contains a very important detail—one that marks a turning point in how Europe approaches the migrant crisis. As the Wall Street Journal reports:

Under international law any ship is obliged to rescue people in distress at sea. NATO officials acknowledge their ships may have to intercept migrant boats in trouble, if Turkish or Greek coast guard vessels are not near. But key to the NATO mission is an agreement among allies to return those migrants to Turkey, rather than taking them to Greece.

“There is a firm agreement backed by Turkey that refugees will be returned to Turkey,” German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said. “This is a clear signal to traffickers.”

One of the problems that has exacerbated the immigration crisis since its earliest days has been that various EU, Italian, and Greek maritime patrols have brought all those they rescued to European shores—where they could apply for asylum, travel within the EU (particularly north to Germany and Sweden), and be reasonably confident that very few even of those whose asylum claims were denied would ever be sent back. Thus, getting “caught” by coastal patrols has no deterrent value and in fact became a bit of a draw.

It would obviously be barbaric and unacceptable to let people drown to establish deterrence; at the same time, this situation was untenable. In fact, it has led to a great deal of suffering: one of the worst tragedies in the Med came when migrants rushed toward an Irish patrol vessel, excited about the possibility of rescue and a safer passage to Europe, causing their boat to capsize. Many others have traveled in unseaworthy vessels, with the possibility of rescue at least part of their calculus.The seemingly obvious solution is to return the refugees to the country they’d set out from. But European refugee laws say its illegal to return refugees to unsafe countries, and Turkey, the relevant nation in this case, is not deemed by most European countries to be a “safe country of origin” due to the Kurdish conflict and civil rights abuses.But these laws—written in the aftermath of World War II, to deal with situations like ethnic Germans being driven out of Czechoslovakia into Germany—are badly outdated. In an age of the hybrid refugee-migrant, they’ve proven woefully inadequate. As we’ve written before:

[T]he line between refugees (those fleeing war zones, whom the EU nations are obligated by law to shelter) and economic migrants is much blurrier in real life than on paper. These Iraqi men on the one hand are leaving behind a war zone and a collapsing government; on the other hand, as theJournal and their own words make clear, their move—and their destinations—is one of choice. They are both refugees and migrants.

This is particularly true of Syrians fleeing to Europe through Turkey—they are refugees in that they’ve fled the Syrian Civil War, but also economic migrants, in that they’re moving from Turkish refugee camps to Europe. From a physical standpoint, Turkey is safe for them. And the absolute obligation of EU nation-states to take them to Europe has become politically untenable. For there to be any chance of solving the migrant crisis, changing this legal situation was a necessary (if not sufficient) condition.

So the NATO mission is a big deal. The involvement of the Turkish government—which is part of NATO, but not the EU—in this latest effort seems to have changed the legal calculus. Also importantly, the German government finally seems to have firmly embraced the political necessity of returning refugees-migrants to Turkey. Three ships in the Aegean isn’t going to end the migrant crisis on its own. But we anticipate that, given the way the EU does business, once this precedent has been set, its scope will grow.

Indonesia Invites Foreign Investment

Yesterday, Indonesian officials said that they will allow complete foreign ownership in 35 industries. The WSJ:

Officials announced they would open up 35 business sectors to 100% foreign ownership, including toll roads, film production and distribution, tourism-related ventures such as restaurants, and nontoxic waste management. Dozens of others in sectors such as health care and telecommunications will see an increase in allowable foreign stakes. Ventures in online-marketplaces—a budding business in the nation of 250 million people—will be fully opened to investments of more than 100 billion rupiah, or over $7.4 million.

The announcement comes a week after Jakarta signaled its intent to amend at least a dozen laws and thus pave the way for Indonesia to join the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership. President Joko Widodo has repeatedly stated that he hopes Indonesia can be more integrated into the global economy. Foreign investment should help Indonesia develop its economy and become more powerful. That’s good for the United States as well as for Indonesia, because the U.S. wants to see more a strong, prosperous Indonesia—not least for the part it could play in helping to challenge China’s regional ambitions.

Indonesia’s liberalization and TPP will no doubt be topics of conversation at the upcoming ASEAN summit President Obama is holding in California. That event signals to China that the U.S. intends to compete aggressively for investment and security arrangements in Southeast Asia.

U.S. to Dock Stealth Destroyers in Japan

The U.S. Navy is modifying Japan’s Sasebo base so that it can host high-tech Zumwalt-class stealth destroyer ships. The Japan Times reports:

It is not known when a Zumwalt-class missile destroyer will arrive at Sasebo. The Navy is scheduled to receive the delivery of its second ship in the class in fiscal 2017. The first vessel will be home-ported in San Diego.

Meanwhile, the pier repairs at Sasebo appear to be in line with the U.S. military’s strategy of deploying its newest weapons in the Asia-Pacific region.

With China looming and North Korea lurking nearby, Tokyo has plenty of reason to welcome American reinforcements. So we may see more renovations of Japanese ports over the next few years to permit the U.S. Navy to dock its ships in them. The Zumwalt-class destroyer incorporates some of the Navy’s latest technologies. CNN ran a profile of it in 2014:

Much of the ship is built on angles that help make it 50 times harder to spot on radar than an ordinary destroyer. “It has the radar cross-section of a fishing boat,” Chris Johnson, a spokesman for Naval Sea Systems Command, told CNN last year.

[…]

In its current configuration, the Zumwalt will carry a considerable arsenal of weapons, including two Advanced Gun Systems (AGS), which can fire rocket-powered, computer-guided shells that can destroy targets 63 miles away. That’s three times farther than ordinary destroyer guns can fire.

The U.S. intention to station these ships in Japan is a reminder to China of the sophistication of U.S. weapons systems. With China upgrading its own naval capabilities and putting greater emphasis on maritime territorial claims in the South China and East China Seas, this arms race between Washington and Beijing is one to keep an eye on.

Misconceptions on Mass Incarceration

Secretary Hillary Clinton has been taking a beating from the civil rights left over her strong support for the 1994 crime bill, which toughened sentences for a range of federal offenses, and, according to its critics, was particularly devastating to African American men. While some of this criticism may be warranted—especially given Clinton’s recent efforts to cast herself as a full-throated supporter of Black Lives Matter—it is probably not the case that the crime bill was a very big driver of the phenomenon we now call mass incarceration. In fact, no federal policy was. As Fordham law professor John Pfaff explains in an illuminating interview with Slate:

The reason I push so hard against this idea that the 1994 act caused mass incarceration is not just a desire for historical accuracy, although I think that’s important. It’s that saying that the 1994 act caused mass incarceration seems to imply that the federal government can get us out of the problem too. If Clinton passed a law that caused this to happen, then conceivably D.C. should be able to pass a law that reverses this problem. And that’s just not right. This is not a federal issue. And to stress that the feds didn’t cause it is important because it drives home the fact that if you really want to fix it, you have to go state by state, county by county, and change state criminal codes, change DA charging practices, and change how the plea bargaining system works. Nothing can come out of D.C. that can fix this because it’s not really a fed-created problem. And that’s what really bothers me about this ’94 act narrative. By saying the Clintons caused it, it suggests whoever is president next can fix it. And that’s just not true.

As the Senate mulls a bill to ease sentencing for some offenses, it’s important for people who want to see prison reform—and we count ourselves among that group—to remember Pfaff’s perspective. The federal government didn’t create this problem, and, while it can make some progress on the margins, it can’t solve it, either. For one thing, ninety percent of prisoners in America are housed in state, not federal, facilities. Moreover, as Pfaff suggests, and as we’ve written before, much of the real action in criminal justice reform is in plea bargaining and prosecutorial culture, not just sentencing. For a variety of reasons, prosecutors have grown much more aggressive in throwing the book at defendants over the last several decades.

People really interested in reducing the prison population can’t be satisfied with a federal law marginally reducing minimum sentences, or even with state-level legislation knocking a few misdemeanors down to infractions. Initiatives like these don’t address much of the real reason our prison population has grown so much. A better approach, as Glenn Reynolds has suggested, would be to reform plea bargaining procedures, or, as Pfaff has hinted elsewhere, to change the way prosecutors are compensated. Once the civil rights left has a better handle on the origins of the problem, it will be better situated to enact lasting solutions.

How to Unwind the Iran Nuclear Deal

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal, will likely be the most controversial foreign policy issue of the 2016 general election campaign for President of the United States. President Obama considers the deal to be among his foremost foreign policy accomplishments and leading contenders for the Democratic Party’s nomination have publicly backed the deal. In stark contrast, all the major Republican presidential candidates have opposed the accord and several have vowed to scrap it if elected. Florida Senator Marco Rubio, for example, has promised “on my first day in office . . . I am going to cancel this ridiculous deal [Obama] has struck with Iran.” Texas Senator Ted Cruz has echoed this position stating, “You better believe it. If I am elected President, on the very first day in office I will rip to shreds this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal.”

Many others, including within the Republican Party, believe that this tough talk is merely campaign rhetoric, and that it would be unrealistic to suggest that this agreement, negotiated with our closest international partners and consecrated in a United Nations Security Council Resolution, can be easily or even ever undone. Moreover, now that the deal has formally gone into effect, many believe either that the value of the agreement has already been demonstrated, or at least that it is now too established to overturn in the absence of undeniable demonstrations of Iranian bad faith.On both points, however, they are mistaken. The Iran nuclear deal undermines many of America’s most important national security objectives and will not stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The next President of the United States, therefore, should work to unwind it. But he or she must do so carefully, with a clear sense of the desired end state and a realistic plan to achieve it. By following the strategy outlined below, the next U.S. President can responsibly unwind the Iran deal and work toward a better agreement, one that prevents, not merely delays, Iran from building the bomb. And even if a better agreement proves unattainable, on balance U.S. interests are better served by the absence of an agreement than by the continuation of the one we have.Why Undo the DealThe primary purpose of the P5+1/Iran nuclear negotiations was to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and, while the current deal seems certain to buy some time (but not necessarily 10-15 years of it), it also creates two new pathways by which Iran can go nuclear. First, by allowing Iran to keep a significant enrichment program and providing sanctions relief upfront, the deal is structured in a way that will tempt Iran to cheat. It can pocket the sanctions relief and then resume its march to the bomb whenever it decides to invoke paragraph 36’s open-ended right to exit the agreement. Second, the deal contains sunset clauses, which means that Iran can simply be patient, wait for the nuclear restrictions to expire over the next 15 years, and then build up its nuclear program until its breakout time shrinks, in the words of Obama, “almost down to zero.” Consistent with the terms of the deal, at that point it can build an enrichment program so large and sophisticated that no outside power could ever realistically intervene to stop it from assembling nuclear weapons.Proponents of the deal argue that if these scenarios come to pass we can simply reapply pressure, but this overlooks the fact that our means of doing so are also eroded by the terms of the deal. As other countries increase trade ties with Iran, they will be less willing to impose new sanctions. Moreover, as Iran’s economy recovers, it will become less vulnerable to economic pressure. If Iran makes a concerted push for the bomb, therefore, it is unrealistic to expect multilateral “snap back” sanctions to stop it in sufficient time.This leaves only the military option, which, admittedly, the Obama Administration has not formally taken off the table against unpredictable future contingencies. The President has stated clearly that any U.S. president in future would have to consider using force to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear arsenal, if it came to that. However, the military option is also rendered less effective the longer the deal remains in place. By providing Iran with over $100 billion in upfront sanctions relief and lifting the UN embargoes on Iranian trade in advanced conventional weapons and ballistic missiles, the deal will enable Iran to improve its defenses and its retaliatory capabilities. Even if Iran simply waits for the nuclear restrictions to expire, it will be extremely difficult for any U.S. Administration to build domestic and international support for military action against an Iran that has abided by the terms of an agreement designed in Washington for over a decade. Iran could follow the terms of this deal almost to the letter, and the deal would still not achieve its stated objective of stopping Iran from proliferating.There are other problems, as well. By granting Iran, a country that has routinely defied international law and its own past nonproliferation commitments under the NPT, a de facto right to enrich, the deal sets a dangerous precedent. Indeed, other countries in the Middle East and Asia are already claiming that if Iran can enrich uranium, then they can, too. Governments want to know why, when the U.S. government signs civil nuclear deals with a country—the UAE comes to mind as a recent example—it insists that its counterpart foreswear enrichment . . . after effectively blessing Iran’s right to enrich. One can hardly blame them for asking.Beyond the realm of nonproliferation, by providing Iran with an influx of cash and making Washington more hesitant to push back against Iran’s activities elsewhere for fear of upsetting the agreement, the deal has already strengthened Iran’s hand in the region and unsettled traditional U.S. regional partners. This has added fuel to ongoing regional proxy wars, as in Yemen, where Saudi policy takes the form of self-help in the perceived vacuum of U.S. engagement. This perception has also obstructed the U.S. ability to effectively combat ISIS.Many supporters of the deal argue that it is a step toward a new, more normalized relationship with Iran that could alter Iranian politics and make Tehran a more responsible international actor. But it is possible that Iran’s reigning theocracy will use the deal to strengthen its rule and to step up its destabilizing activities in the region. Authoritarian regimes can be stubbornly durable, as for example in Cuba, where U.S. policy has also probably aided rather than undermined an authoritarian status quo. For this reason, perhaps, the Obama Administration was unwilling to explicitly sell the deal as part of a broader rapprochement, but within its own counsels it is likely that such a prospect played a role in its assessments. It is of course possible that a nuclear pact will fundamentally transform Iranian politics and policies, but no one can know that from the present vantage point. It therefore seems a risky bet on which to justify an agreement of this magnitude.In sum, while reasonable people disagree on the value of the Iran deal, there is a case to be made that it weakens, rather than strengthens, U.S. and global security. Most importantly, several people who might be sworn in as President next January find the argument persuasive. What, then, is the alternative to the present deal?A Framework for a Better DealThe first step to unwinding the Iran nuclear deal in a responsible manner is to establish a clear objective. That objective cannot be merely to punish Iran. The goal must be to reach a better deal, one that actually prevents Iran from building nuclear weapons.The Obama Administration has consistently argued that the deal’s critics will accept nothing less than Iran’s complete capitulation, but this is not true. A deal based on the principals that have guided U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy for decades, and a framework that has been acceptable to many other countries with truly peaceful nuclear programs, can in no way be fairly characterized as a punishment.For years, the United States has allowed, and even encouraged, countries to operate nuclear reactors for research or energy purposes, but it simultaneously worked to restrict the spread of nuclear fuel-making capabilities: uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing. Once a country has the ability to make its own fuel for nuclear reactors it also has the ability to make fuel for nuclear weapons.The vast majority of countries with peaceful nuclear programs, such as Mexico, South Korea, and the aforementioned United Arab Emirates, do not enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium. Rather, they have nuclear fuel for their reactors provided to them by other nuclear states. This is the preferred arrangement for a peaceful nuclear program and one that Washington has promoted since the 1957 Atoms for Peace initiative, including with its own allies. There is no good reason, therefore, to make an exception for Iran, a U.S. adversary that has continually failed to live up to its international commitments.Iran should be allowed to retain a truly peaceful nuclear program. While the details must be worked out in negotiations, this means that Iran may be allowed in principle to maintain nuclear reactors for research and the production of energy, such as the Tehran Research Reactor and its light-water reactors at Bushehr. There is no compelling reason, however, for Iran to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium. Iran must therefore completely dismantle its sensitive nuclear facilities—those that can be used for the production of fuel for nuclear weapons. That would include its uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Qom. Furthermore, in addition to dismantling current facilities, Iran must forswear future enrichment and reprocessing.This is a reasonable compromise that, unlike the current deal, prevents Iran from building nuclear weapons forever. Indeed, eliminating Iran’s enrichment capability was the Administration’s original goal of negotiations with Iran, one that was enshrined in multiple UNSC resolutions, before it was abandoned in a desperate search for an accord.Critics will argue that Iran would never agree to such limitations, having already concluded an agreement without them. But how can they be sure? Few predicted that Muamar Qaddafi would give up Libya’s enrichment program just days before he did so in 2003. And several years ago many serious analysts did not believe that the current Iran nuclear deal was in the cards. Occasionally, international diplomacy makes the seemingly impossible possible. But for that to happen in this case, we must first set the appropriate conditions.Returning International Pressure on IranIt is highly unlikely that Tehran would quickly agree to these renegotiated terms. If it is unwilling to do so, the United States must work to return international pressure against Iran. Time and time again—from its agreement to a ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, to its suspension of enrichment following the U.S. invasion of Iraq (due to fears that it might be next), to its acceptance of restrictions on its nuclear program in the face of tough international sanctions—we have seen that Iran only responds to pressure.Over the past decade, the U.S. government has orchestrated against Iran the most intensive international sanctions regime in history. This economic pressure brought Iran to the negotiating table, but we erred by letting up too soon. To compel Iran to make the concessions necessary for a good deal, Washington must work to re-impose crippling international sanctions. To be sure, this will be much more difficult now that the deal has already gone into effect, but, if it is a foremost foreign policy priority of the next President, it can be done.Indeed, the process actually began several months ago when the Republican candidates announced their intention to tear up the Iran deal. As a result, many international business interests are reluctant to make major investments in Iran, knowing that, depending on the outcome of the American presidential election, there is a good chance that international sanctions against Iran may return in a few short months. As Rubio said, “this should have a chilling effect for any business thinking about investing in Iran. . . . This deal will not outlive this Administration, and international businesses that move into Iran in the coming months need to know they will lose everything.” Republican candidates should reinforce this message. By making it clear that Obama’s deal with Iran may last no longer than 12 months, they can deter the international business community from rushing into Iran.Next, on day one of his or her term, the new President can reinstate by executive order any sanctions that were suspended by the Obama Administration. He or she can also put an immediate halt to the unfreezing of any still-frozen Iranian assets. Finally, he or she can cease the use of executive waiver authority in order to effectively re-instate past Congressional sanctions on Iran.The next and most difficult step will be working with allies and partners to reinstate international and multilateral sanctions against Iran. Critics of this approach have argued that the rest of the world will not support continued sanctions against Iran, but this is incorrect. It takes the United States, a global superpower, to lead on issues of nuclear nonproliferation.1 Other, smaller nations understandably focus on their narrower, often economic, interests. This was true in 2003 when the United States began its unsuccessful, years-long struggle to win international approval for UNSC sanctions against Iran. But Washington demonstrated persistent leadership across two administrations and was able eventually to win international consensus and erect the toughest sanctions regime in history.Now, some international business interests are eager to rush back into Iran, but only because the White House has in effect announced that Iran is once again open for business. To be sure, it will require substantial political capital, but if a new President were to reverse course and present a new plan to permanently resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis through sanctions, the world’s other key governments will again reluctantly follow. In part, they will do so for the same reason they signed on in the first place: America’s so-called secondary sanctions threaten to penalize foreign firms that do business in Iran.In my travels to many foreign capitals in Europe and Asia in the past year, I have been told repeatedly that if the U.S. government were to demand new sanctions on Iran, these governments would again grudgingly comply. U.S. sanctions force them to choose between doing business with Iran and doing business with the United States, and that is really no choice at all. It is perhaps not widely known, but in building the sanctions regime that brought Iran to the table, the U.S. approach was to target major companies first, not governments. Most of the relevant governments were not happy with this approach, but in the end they found it irresistible. They came around because their own private sectors did not want to lose access to the much larger U.S. market and beseeched them to do so.To be sure, a reconstituted sanctions regime may not be as comprehensive as that which existed in 2013—at least not immediately—but it could be enough to seriously damage Iran’s economy. By reinstating sanctions, Washington can once again attempt to convince Iran’s leaders that they can have a healthy economy or (if we don’t preempt it with military force) a nuclear weapons capability, but not both.All Options Are Still on the TableThis approach raises the risk that Iran will use the re-imposition of sanctions as a pretext for expanding its nuclear program. Indeed, some movement in this direction may be inevitable, but so long as Iran stops short of crossing red lines, the risk is manageable. To deter Iran from dashing to a nuclear weapons breakout as we wait for the economic pressure to build, Washington must keep all options to the table—and seem credible as it does so.The United States should establish clear red lines, affirming that it is U.S. policy to prevent Iran from producing sufficient fissile material for even a single nuclear weapon, and that the United States will use all means necessary, including military force, to prevent this. The new President should declare this to be U.S. policy and ask Congress to formally endorse it. Of course, Iran may make a reckless dash for a nuclear weapon anyway and, if so, Washington must be fully prepared to use force to stop it. In all likelihood, however, Iran’s leaders will be deterred. These stated red lines will box Iran in, allowing time for the economic pressure to mount.At the end of the day, this plan will give Iran’s leaders a simple choice. They can stubbornly insist on maintaining an enrichment program, but as long as they do so, they will meet with credible military threats, their economy will be decimated by international sanctions, and their country will remain an international pariah. In the short- to medium-term, Iran’s leaders may choose this course. If so, we will find ourselves in another enduring stalemate. The lack of immediate resolution may make some people uncomfortable, but it is preferable to the status quo, in which Iran still possesses a dangerous enrichment capability that now comes with the international community’s stamp of approval, while the United States gives up viable options for rolling back that capability.A return to the pressure track will remind the international community that Iran’s enrichment program is in fact still a problem, and re-enlist its help in actively working toward eliminating that program. Over time, therefore, Iran’s leaders will grow increasingly inclined to accept the new deal Washington is prepared to offer. As the economic pressure builds again, Iran’s leaders will return to the negotiating table looking for relief. And they will know that in order to receive it, they must take one simple step: dismantle their sensitive nuclear infrastructure. Only when this is accomplished will the international community have achieved its longstanding goal of preventing, not merely delaying, Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.

1Matthew Kroenig, “Force or Friendship: Explaining Great Power Nonproliferation Policy,” Security Studies (2014), pp. 1-32.