Wow, vodka cures anything...

From Danger Room this morning. Apparently vodka helps cure you of radiation poisoning. Whoda thunk? Sphere: Related Content

Project Sapphire, the good old days

The early nineties were great. Your biggest concern was not bumping into an unmarked, left over minefield in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, Russia and the US held joint manuevers, it was good times for all.

Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan, the US paid the Kazakh government 27 million dollars to take several hundred tons of highly enriched uranium off of its hands. David Hoffman, in the Washington Post, tells the story of a US counter proliferation project called Project Sapphire. While it's not George Clooney chasing a rogue nuclear bomber around the world, it does show how good policy can effectively keep nuclear genies in the bottle. Nuclear material has value to countries as either a source of energy, or a source of power to cow their neighbors or bring parity with another nuclear power in the region.

Our best policy in this region would be to keep encouraging Russian and Central Asian counter proliferation efforts both within their borders and in the region. The latest revelation about Iran's nuclear weapons efforts only make their cooperation more important. Sphere: Related Content

Pulling the plug on missle defense in Eastern Europe

At the end of the week, President Obama announced that he is changing America's concept for missle defense in regards to countering Iran's future nuclear ballistic missile capabilities. Previously, the US had planned to counter Iranian missiles through a series of radars and interceptors stationed in Europe. This obviously has been an irritant to Moscow since it was announced. Since the end of the cold war, and even prior to it, Moscow has considered it's strategic nuclear capability as an answer to what it percieved as NATOs and the US military edge. It believes that what keeps Russia safe at night is it's strategic nuclear forces.

If we were still looking to fight a nuclear WWIII, that line of thought would hold some water, but Russia, through its recent military history, and it's observation of recent US military history, I think has seen that it can no longer think that way. Statements by Medvedev over this past year have shown that the political leadership want to break that old way of thinking. Russia now wants a military that is professional, flexible and agile. He needs a force that can quickly move to trouble spots and get control before the violence spreads. Medvedev knows that the threats that Russia faces will be along and inside its border and nuclear weapons will do nothing to solve them.

Consider this also. Russia has a strong concern about the part of the Near Abroad that encompasses the caucuses and the central asia. This part of the near abroad have invasion routes in the past into Russia and also now host a growing muslim population that chafes under Moscow's rule and influence. With our withdrawal from a robust and very public missile defense program in eastern europe to a more low key program, it may put the onus on Russia to become more involved in counter proliferation in the area. Why? For one thing, having a nuclear armed Iran in the vicinity of it's near abroad runs counter to its own national security. Secondly, Russia has been a major provider of military equipment to Iran. By this virtue of arms sales that Iran really needs, Russia has a greater stick and carrot effect than we could hope for. Thirdly, Russia and Iran have much in common, government wise. Both countries are "managed democracies". They both hold open and democratic elections (for the most part), but the powers that be, whether it be the Siloviki/United Russia Party or the Revolutionary Council and Supreme Leader maintain a very strong sway over the government and its actions. As we see in international relations, similar countries tend to associate, cooperate, build concensus and create coaltions with like countries. That is why it is possible that Russia would also have more of an influence over Iran than we could hope to have in the near future.

So in the end, I believe that this is a shrewd move by the Obama administration which opens doors for Russia to contribute more positively to the global community in terms of counter proliferation. But what does Putin think... Sphere: Related Content

Yay, we've got START, yay!!!

M: Dude, seriously, Air Force 1 does mach 3?

O: Yeah, but don't tell anybody...*
*no, I don't know what they were talking about in this picture and no I don't know how fast Air Force 1 really goes so don't ask me. It's called google.com.



At least he didn't look deeply into Medvedev's eyes and proclaim that he could see that they were kindred spirits, although, both of them are lawyers...

This announcement from the presidents left me giddy at first, but then I sat around and thought about it some more and then got serious, dammit! (about getting a blog entry written). What wasn't said in the statement, and it may be too soon for this, but the Russians will demand some form of concession to get this done, what that might be is still in SWAG stage right now. If I did have to take a guess, it will involve at least a reduction or rethinking of our missle defense programs, a slowdown on former Warsaw Pact nations getting admitted to NATO, getting Saakashvili and Georgia tamped down, more control over the arctic, greater influence over the oil market, and help with their southern border to slow the Islamic creep through the southern stans. I suspect we'll have our own concessions of Russia, probably over getting pressure on Iran to come clean on their nuclear program and help with Afghanistan.

The other concern is the proposed time line. Between now and December seems like a lot of time, but between all the little working groups that will actually hammer this out, legislative issues (the Senate has got to ratify the damn thing) doesn't really leave alot time to fine comb what promises to be a pretty comprehensive document to make sure we've identified all the loopholes that the Russians will put in. I'm not saying their sneaky, that's just the nature of the way they do deals. I would think we would hopefully push the deadline back to give our negotiators enough time to work that document inside and out and up and down.

I'd slow this one down alot.


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Dasvidania Rodina!

I wonder if Sean Connery is free these days? Russia has always seen it's strategic nuclear forces as the bulwark against the encroaching west no matter what party line the regime in power is pushing. News of their latest class of submarine preparing for sea trials is probably evident of their efforts to retool their military, especially their strategic nuclear forces as part of Medvedev's arms spending spree coming up here shortly. The still have to get a working missile for the sub though. Sphere: Related Content