Brett McGurk, the former Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, has had a busy summer. Between working on a new book contract, travelling to international security conferences on two continents and prepping for his upcoming class — “Presidential Decision-Making in Wartime” — which will be taught this fall at Stanford, the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Center for International Security and Cooperation sat down with the Freeman Spogli Institute to reflect on what he’s learned about Middle Eastern politics this summer.

FSI: You recently attended a number of conferences focused on international security. Tell us a little about where you’ve been and the conferences you participated in.

Sure. I was recently at a conference in Beijing sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace that focused on China in the Middle East. This was a good opportunity to reconnect with former officials and experts on China and also to discuss with Chinese officials and academics how Beijing views its emerging role in the Middle East region. This is an important topic, and we intend to develop it further here at Stanford FSI through a combination program with CISAC and the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. I recently published an article in the Atlantic on some of the themes from Beijing.

I also attended the Oslo Forum in Norway, which brings together top diplomats from around the world engaged in mediating the most difficult conflicts. UN envoys from Syria and Libya, for example, participate, as do leaders working on Yemen and other seemingly intractable crises. The main takeaway from that important conference was that there is a window of opportunity right now for active U.S. diplomacy to help de-escalate what are in effect proxy wars between regional powers. Libya is increasingly a conflict between long-time U.S. allies, with Turkey and Qatar on one side and UAE and Egypt on the other side. Yemen is a humanitarian catastrophe and UN mediation has opened the door to ceasefires and a path for winding down the war, which some of our key allies now support. 

Iran and extremists like al Qaeda and ISIS take advantage of proxy wars and vacuums – so it’s in our interests both from a humanitarian, geostrategic, and national security perspective to use diplomacy and other tools to end these conflicts. That was the focus of the Norway meetings.

In spectacular #Oslo today for the 2019 #OsloForum. Look forward to reconnecting with former counterparts and friends from around the globe, many trying largely on their own to mediate some of the world’s most intractable conflicts. @NorwayMFA pic.twitter.com/0DmTY7swW6

— Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) June 18, 2019

To what extent did the U.S. participate in the Oslo Forum?

I was struck that the United States was largely absent. There were no U.S. officials at the Forum, for the first time as I can recall, and total lack of clarity on U.S. goals and objectives. On Syria, the top UN Envoy, Geir Pederson, attended as did a number of parties to the Syrian conflict, including from the Syrian Democratic Forces, which played a key role in defeating ISIS. 

There is some hope that Syria is approaching a stage for a meaningful political settlement; I’ve expressed some skepticism on that, again, due largely to questionable U.S. intent and commitment and the facts on the ground and in the region, which leave Washington with few good options. The sooner we acknowledge that reality the better because the situation can still get much worse. My recent article in Foreign Affairs delves into those issues in some detail.

You were at the Herzliya Conference in Israel. Did Iran’s nuclear program dominate the agenda? What else was top of mind for the conference organizers, presenters, and people in attendance?

Yes, I attended the annual security conference sponsored by Israel’s Institute for Policy and Strategy. It’s become a go-to event for assessing the direction of Middle East politics and Israeli policies in a difficult part of the world. I used to attend as a sitting official and it was great to be there as a private citizen.

Flying from San Francisco to Tel Aviv for the annual @HerzliyaConf which has become a go-to event for thinkers and practitioners on the Middle East. Look forward to reconnecting with former colleagues and new friends. @FSIStanford @CarnegieMEC pic.twitter.com/0se7WvGCG1

— Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) June 28, 2019

Much of the focus this year, of course, was on Iran – but also on the internal situation inside Israel, President Donald Trump’s much-delayed Middle East peace plan, and the rift I mentioned earlier between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and UAE on one side, with Turkey and Qatar on the other side. 

There was also an open question and significant discussion over whether current U.S. policies are worsening tensions in the region. Much of that will depend on whether the core White House assumption driving its Iran policy is correct. That assumption holds that maximum pressure against Iran will force Iran back to the negotiating table that Trump himself left and result in a better nuclear deal and more responsible Iranian behavior in the region. If that assumption is false, and Iran reacts to unilateral American pressure by forging stronger ties with China and Russia, restarting its illicit nuclear activities, and increasing its malign behavior in the region – then U.S. policy may have precisely the opposite effect than its stated intent. That would require Trump to either double down on pressure, to include military pressure, or back down from what is now a zero-sum bargaining position. 

For more on Brett McGurk’s policy recommendations on Iranian nuclear ambitions, read his Op-Ed in Bloomberg News.

On stated U.S. intent, there was also quite a bit of discussion about U.S. objectives, given that Trump says one thing and his national security team says something else, often within the same 24-hour time span.  This uncertainty, I would argue, is breeding more instability, not less.

There was an interesting “war game” conducted at the Herziliya Conference, which simulated direct negotiations between U.S. and Iranian officials. The game ended without producing an agreement. What do you make of that?

I participated in that war game. Having confronted the Iranians from the shadows and in direct face-to-face negotiations, I would say this simulation was fairly accurate and its findings important. My first conclusion was that it’s highly unlikely the Iranians are going to return to the table under the current circumstances and without some up-front concession (such as reinstating some waivers to allow limited export of oil) by the Trump administration.  Nobody likes that answer, but it’s a realistic assessment of Iranian decision-making and important if the U.S. objective is truly – as Trump says – to get back to the negotiating table for a better nuclear deal. 

I read recently that the Emir of Qatar, who visited Trump in the Oval Office in mid-July, told the president the same thing.  So even our close friends in the region have this assessment. It means, if you want to get back to the negotiating table, then you need to create a pretext with some up-front steps, to be taken both from Washington and from Tehran.  A creative package, for example, might offer some limited sanctions relief and also demand release of Americans held in Iranian prisons. Absent something like that, relying on pressure alone, there are unlikely to be any talks.

How did the simulated negotiations between the U.S. and Iran unfold?

Presuming you get to the stage of talks, which was the focus of the simulation, the position of the two sides are irreconcilable. Iran was willing to consider some amendments to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – but from the U.S. side, that was insufficient. We demanded, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has demanded, a total abandonment of Iran’s enrichment program, defunding proxy militias throughout the region, cabining the ballistic missile program, and other measures. The talks totally broke down after a number of rounds, and risks of a conflict increased significantly. It’s better to have no talks than ill-prepared talks where the U.S. is not even clear on what it’s hoping to achieve or has demands that are known non-starters.

The only silver lining was that if the goal is a strengthened nuclear deal that truly blocks Iran’s path to a weapon in perpetuity, while allowing a civilian program, then it’s achievable. Trump has said that’s the goal. If so, there is a path. But that’s a far more limited goal than what has been discussed by his national security team. The more ambitious objectives are unlikely to be met, and without a realistic objective, the talks themselves are unlikely to get off the ground.

A more comprehensive approach for Iran: 1) Naval coalition to protect shipping; 2) On-ramp to strengthen nuke deal; 3) Diplomacy to de-escalate proxy wars; 4) Treat Iranian people as allies (end travel ban); 5) Keep focus on ISIS: don't leave Iraq/Syria. https://t.co/BBNVtbLEhn

— Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) June 26, 2019

Have you participated in “war games” like this one before?

I don’t like the phrase “war game” because it suggests something trite like a game or reenactment; in fact, simulations like this are among the best tools we have to predict the future and prepare for contingencies in foreign policy. Even with all the tools and information available to a policy-maker at the most senior level, humans can’t predict the future. Well-run simulations alert you to policy adjustments that may be necessary. We used them quite a bit during the campaign to defeat ISIS and to good effect. A famous war game, SIGMA II, run out of the Pentagon in 1965 predicted perfectly what would happen if the U.S. pursued its graduated pressure campaign against North Vietnam – a quagmire that sucked in multiple U.S. divisions.

So these simulations are important. I hope the administration is conducting them on Iran, though I tend to doubt they are, at least not at the highest levels. Sound foreign policy depends on setting clear and achievable objectives, marshaling the resources for achieving them, and regularly testing assumptions to make adjustments as circumstances warrant.

I recently published an essay in Foreign Affairs on the misalignment of ends and means with respect to Trump’s foreign policies in Syria, Venezuela, and Iran. That’s generally a recipe for either a failed policy or unintended consequences that box presidents into decisions they don’t want to make: either double down on resources or ratchet back objectives.

Did you have a chance to reconnect with old friends from your many years as a U.S. diplomat in the Middle East?

I did, and I also caught up with a number of former colleagues still serving in the Trump administration. They are a dedicated group and doing all they can under difficult circumstances. I could not hide my enthusiasm for being out of Washington and out here at Stanford. Stanford is just an incredible place to think deeply and differently about the issues now confronting our nation and the world.

You start teaching in the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program in the fall quarter.  Can you tell us a bit about your course?

Sure. In the fall I will teach “Presidential Decision-Making in Wartime.” It’s a course about how the most consequential decisions – war and peace – are made in reality, particularly since 9/11. We will dive into the essential laws of strategy such as setting clear objectives, aligning ends, ways, and means, and what happens when those essential laws are ignored. I hope it will give students the tools to ask the right questions if they are ever in the Situation Room with a chance to influence the course of history for the better. 

Most debacles have this same basic flaw of ignoring what I call the iron law of strategy and alignment of ends, ways, and means. Even for students not heading towards a national security career, the tools and elements of strategic thinking are broadly applicable. 
 

This piece originally appeared in The National Interest.

Significant progress has been made in improving the defense situation in the Baltic states since 2014, but NATO can take some relatively modest steps to further enhance its deterrence and defense posture in the region, according to a report by Michael O’Hanlon and Christopher Skaluba, which was based on an Atlantic Council study visit to Lithuania. The Atlantic Council was kind enough to include me on the trek, which began in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, and included visits to troops in the field and the port of Klaipeda. I largely concur with Mike and Chris’s comments and supplement them below with several additional observations.

First, one can understand the preoccupation of Lithuania’s senior political and military leadership with the country’s security situation. Lithuania has had a difficult history with the Soviet Union and Russia. Some in Vilnius believe that Moscow regards the Baltic states as “temporarily lost territory.”

A Russian military invasion of the Baltic states is not a high probability. However, the Lithuanians cannot ignore a small probability, especially in light of the Kremlin’s recent rhetoric, the Russian military’s ongoing modernization of its conventional forces and exercise pattern of the past five years, and Russia’s use of military force to seize Crimea and conduct a conflict in Donbas.

When the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defense (MNOD) looks around its neighborhood, it can see specific reasons for concern. Russia is upgrading its military presence in the Kaliningrad exclave on Lithuania’s southwestern border. The MNOD now counts Kaliningrad as hosting some twenty thousand Russian military personnel, including a naval infantry unit and substantial anti-access, area denial capabilities, such as advanced surface-to-air missiles. The Lithuanians assess that the Russian military could mount a large ground attack from Belarus, to the east of Lithuania (the border is less than twenty miles from downtown Vilnius). These forces are backed by an additional 120,000 personnel in Russia’s Western Military District, including a tank army. Russia has substantial air assets in the region as well as warships in the Baltic Sea.

For its part, Lithuania can muster fourteen thousand soldiers and sailors (four thousand of whom are conscripts serving just nine months). They are backed up by five thousand volunteers, similar to the U.S. National Guard. Under NATO’s enhanced forward presence program, a German-led NATO battlegroup adds 1,300 troops, mainly from Germany, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. In addition, NATO member air forces rotate small fighter squadrons into Lithuania to provide air policing for the Baltic states.

Second, Lithuania has a logical plan to enhance its defense capabilities. The MNOD is making good use of its defense dollars (Lithuania now meets NATO’s two percent of gross domestic product goal, having tripled its defense expenditures over the past six years). Eschewing shiny objects such as F-16 jets, the MNOD focuses on upgrading the capabilities of its two primary ground units, a mechanized brigade and a recently-established motorized brigade. The main procurement programs of the past three years have purchased infantry fighting vehicles, self propelled artillery and short-range surface-to-air missiles to equip the brigades.

In the event of war, the forces in Lithuania would likely fight a defensive holding action while awaiting NATO reinforcements. The MNOD and Ministry of Transport are working together to enhance the country’s ability to flow in NATO forces, including by upgrading the rollon/roll-off capacity at the port of Klaipeda and building a European standard gauge railroad line from Poland to the main base of Lithuania’s mechanized brigade. The railroad line, which o obviates the need to change the railroad gauge at the Polish-Lithuanian border, a cumbersome process involving changing out the wheels of railcars, ultimately will be extended north to Latvia and Estonia.

Third, the Lithuanians value NATO’s enhanced forward presence in the form of the NATO battlegroup. The battlegroup is fully integrated into Lithuania’s Iron Wolf Brigade, and in wartime would come under the tactical control of the brigade. The rotational NATO force is based with and trains side-by-side with major elements of that brigade.

One potential question is, if Russian forces were to cross the border and the Iron Wolf Brigade deployed, then how quickly would the NATO battlegroup take the field with it? The latter would need a NATO command to do so, and likely also national authorizations from Berlin, The Hague and Prague. Hopefully, those authorizations would be transmitted early as a crisis developed so that the NATO battlegroup could deploy immediately. It adds significantly to Lithuanian combat capabilities, including by providing the only armor unit in the country.

Fourth, as pleased as Vilnius is to have a NATO military presence, the Lithuanians very much would like to add a U.S. component to it. With a U.S. armored brigade combat team deployed in Poland on a rotational basis, the U.S. military has the assets to consider periodically rotating an armored company to Lithuania (and to Latvia and Estonia). These rotations would be useful military exercises in case there is a crisis that requires a reinforcement move from Poland to Lithuania through the Suwalki Gap.

Lithuania is moving in the right direction in bolstering its defense capabilities, with prudent steps taken over the past six years and sensible plans for the future. As Mike and Chris point out, modest steps by NATO and, I would argue, the United States could significantly add to the Alliance’s deterrence and defense posture in the Baltics.

On Tuesday [June 4], the House Subcommittee on Strategic Forces debated the draft Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.

It voted out, on party lines, language that prohibits deployment of a low-yield warhead on the Trident D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile.  That makes sense:  The rationale for the warhead is dubious, and the weapon likely would never be selected for use.

Read the rest at The Hill

This article originally appeared in the American Ambassadors Review (Spring 2019).

For nearly five decades, Washington and Moscow have engaged in negotiations to manage their nuclear competition. Those negotiations produced a string of acronyms—SALT, INF, START—for arms control agreements that strengthened strategic stability, reduced bloated nuclear arsenals and had a positive impact on the broader bilateral relationship.

That is changing. The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty is headed for demise. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) has less than two years to run, and the administration of Donald Trump has yet to engage on Russian suggestions to extend it. Bilateral strategic stability talks have not been held in 18 months.

On its current path, the U.S.-Russia nuclear arms control regime likely will come to an end in 2021. That will make for a strategic relationship that is less stable, less secure and less predictable and will further complicate an already troubled bilateral relationship.

Fifty Years of Arms Control

Bilateral nuclear arms control talks between Washington and Moscow began in 1969 with the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). They resulted from a growing understanding that negotiated limits on the superpowers’ nuclear arms competition served the interests of both. Over the next five decades, arms control treaties and unilateral force decisions led the sides to reduce their active arsenals to 4,000-4,500 nuclear weapons each—down from a U.S. peak of more than 30,000 in the 1960s and a Soviet/Russian peak that exceeded 40,000 in the 1970s.

Early treaties such as the 1972 Interim Offensive Agreement and the 1979 SALT II Treaty (which never entered into force but whose limits were observed into the mid-1980s) merely slowed the growth of nuclear arsenals. Later treaties had a more dramatic impact. The 1987 INF Treaty banned the entire class of U.S. and Soviet land-based missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The 1991 START Treaty required the sides to reduce their accountable strategic nuclear warheads by some 40 percent while cutting strategic missile launchers and bombers by about 30 percent.

Arms control agreements often had a beneficial impact on the broader relationship. SALT helped advance détente in the early 1970s; progress on INF and START spurred an improvement in the overall U.S.-Soviet relationship in the late 1980s; and the relatively quick conclusion of New START gave a positive impulse to the Obama administration’s reset with Russia, even though the reset proved short-lived.

Today, the U.S.-Russian relationship has hit its lowest point since the end of the Cold War. Arms control, or the looming collapse of arms control, rather than helping, may contribute to a further deterioration of relations.

The Demise of the INF Treaty

The INF Treaty is on a death course. Russia violated the treaty by developing and deploying the 9M729, a prohibited intermediate-range cruise missile. Neither the Obama nor the Trump administration employed an effective strategy to persuade Moscow to return to compliance.

On October 20, 2018, President Trump announced that the United States would terminate the treaty, surprising allies and administration officials alike. NATO subsequently backed the U.S. decision, though European officials privately grumbled about a fait accompli. In early February, U.S. officials stated that they had suspended U.S. treaty obligations and given Russia the required six months’ notice of the U.S. intention to withdraw from the agreement. Russia then suspended its treaty obligations.

The United States could not remain forever in a treaty that Russia has violated. However, the way the Trump administration handled its departure amounted to diplomatic malpractice. Washington will get blamed for the treaty’s end.

There was a smarter way. First, U.S. officials should have informed their European counterparts in early 2018 that the United States would have no choice in 12–24 months but to leave the treaty if Russia did not correct its violation and urge them to apply political heat on the Kremlin, including at the highest level. Russia’s intermediate-range missiles cannot reach the United States; they threaten Europe and Asia.

Second, the U.S. military should have deployed conventionally armed air- and sea-launched cruise missiles to the European region to show that the Russian violation would not go unchallenged.

Third, NATO should have begun a study of long-term countermeasures, with one option being deployment in Europe of a conventionally armed U.S. intermediate-range ballistic missile. While the Alliance likely could not have found consensus to adopt that option, discussing it would have reminded military leaders in Moscow how much they disliked the U.S. Pershing II, whose deployment in West Germany in the 1980s proved key to securing the INF Treaty.

Fourth, U.S. officials should have indicated to their Russian counterparts that, if they addressed U.S. concerns about the 9M729 violation, the United States would consider ways to address Russian concerns that the Aegis Ashore missile defense facility in Romania could launch offensive missiles.

Would such steps have brought Russia back into compliance? Perhaps not, but they certainly would have increased the odds. Even if they did not succeed, they would have positioned Washington far better with its allies and put it in a stronger position to lay blame for the treaty’s end where it belonged—on Russia.

In the actual event, the Trump administration hardly tried. In January, Russian officials offered to exhibit the 9M729 to U.S. experts. U.S. officials could have taken that proposal and insisted on procedures for a meaningful exhibition. Instead, they flat out turned it down.

Much of the problem on the American side may lie with National Security Advisor John Bolton. He generally disdains arms control agreements as constraining U.S. capabilities and options (which is true, but they also constrain Russian capabilities and options). He had previously called for U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty.

Exhibitions of the 9M729 and Aegis Ashore facility could have opened a path to resolve each side’s compliance concerns, but Moscow and Washington have not shown the needed political will. It looks like the treaty will meet its demise in August.

Questions about the Future of New START

In contrast to the INF Treaty, Russia has complied with the limits of the 2010 New START Treaty, which required reductions by each country to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and no more than 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers by February 2018. The United States also met the limits, though Russian officials question the adequacy of measures the U.S. military took to remove some strategic systems from treaty accountability.

New START by its terms will expire in February 2021, though the treaty allows extension for up to five years. Russian officials have proposed discussion of extension. In 2017, Trump administration officials said they would first have to complete the new nuclear posture review and see whether Russia met the February 2018 limits. Both of those boxes were checked more than a year ago. U.S. officials now say they are studying the question and see no rush.

New START extension should be a no-brainer. First, it would extend to 2026 the limits on Russian strategic forces and provide a mechanism to address new nuclear systems that the Russian military has under development. Second, extension would not affect U.S. strategic modernization plans, which the Pentagon designed to fit within New START’s limits. Third, extension would continue the flow of information that the U.S. military and intelligence community receive about Russian strategic forces from data exchanges, notifications and on-site inspections. That information lets the U.S. military make smarter decisions about how to equip and operate U.S. strategic forces.

When asked about extension, however, Bolton has raised two alternatives: renegotiation of New START or a treaty modeled on the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT). Neither holds much promise.

Renegotiation would allow Washington to try to improve New START, perhaps with additional verification measures or expanded limits to capture nuclear weapons not now covered by the treaty. But Moscow would seek changes as well, starting with limits on missile defense and conventional strike systems, both of which are anathema to the Trump administration. Renegotiation would take a long time and have, at best, an uncertain prospect of success.

As for the SORT model, SORT limited just warheads (though with no verification measures); it did not constrain strategic missiles and bombers. While Moscow accepted such an agreement in 2002, Russian officials since 2008 have made clear that a strategic arms control agreement must limit missiles and bombers, as does New START.

Bolton opposed New START when the Senate discussed its ratification back in 2010. Neither Secretary of State Mike Pompeo nor Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan seem to be advocates for the treaty. Although extension would be very much in the U.S. interest, the Trump administration appears inclined to let it expire.

No Strategic Stability Talks

U.S. and Russian officials in the past have held strategic stability talks to take a broad look at developments that affect their strategic relationship. Such talks are useful, particularly when new developments, such as those in the cyber and space domains, emerge and when Russian nuclear doctrine has provoked concern in Washington and led to changes in the U.S. nuclear posture. Even if strategic stability talks do not spin off specific negotiations, they provide a venue for the sides to exchange views and better understand the concerns of the other.

During the Trump administration, a one-day session of strategic stability talks took place in September 2017. As of March 2019, it has not agreed to a second meeting.

An Unsettling Future

For most of the five decades of U.S.-Soviet/Russian arms control negotiations, the American side took the lead. Moscow often struck a pose not of disinterest, but of less interest—likely for bargaining purposes. That is no longer the case. The Kremlin now faces a White House that attaches as little priority to reducing arms as it does—perhaps less. The U.S. President evinces no understanding of arms control, while his national security advisor apparently seeks to end it.

With the INF Treaty all but dead, New START’s fate uncertain after 2021 and no sign of new initiatives on either side, arms control as practiced for some 50 years may be coming to an end or, at a minimum, to a pause. That occurs at a time when Russia and the United States have significant nuclear modernization programs underway. While the bulk of those programs aim primarily to replace old weapons with new ones, the sides are also developing nuclear capabilities that neither previously had in its arsenal. Economic constraints may limit an all-out arms race, but the strategic nuclear relationship seems headed for uncharted territory.

The end of the U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control regime would have wider impacts. If the two nuclear superpowers no longer are reducing—and no longer limiting—their nuclear arms, what credibility will they have to insist that other countries, such as North Korea, forgo nuclear weapons or that third countries sanction proliferating states? Will China decide to adjust its nuclear posture and move from its current modest stockpile of under 300 weapons toward a larger and more diverse arsenal?

The current course will lead to a less stable and secure world. The United States and Russia will be less able to predict future developments on the other side and thus will have to make expensive worst-case assumptions. It will make for a more complex and dangerous relationship. Perhaps then they will recall the lessons of the 1960s and 1980s that arms control, however imperfect, can offer a useful tool for managing great power competition.