Restrategize Policies on Nuclear Proliferation, Failing States, and Terrorism

[ 27 ] special roundtable • advising the new u.s. president “The new administration should…jettison the global war on terror (GWOT) moniker and develop a new approach to terrorism—one that educates Americans about what needs to be done in response to the scourge of terrorism, why it needs to be done, and what constitutes a realistic definition of success. This task will not be an easy one because fear, passion, and demagoguery pervade our discussions of terrorism.” • Restrategize Policies on Nuclear Proliferation, Failing States, and Terrorism Rajan Menon The new president will face his most daunting foreign policy challenges in Asia—a vast region where nuclear proliferation, failing states, and terrorism constitute dangerous, interconnected problems. For example, with respect to the problem of nuclear proliferation, unstable states that possess nuclear weapons pose far trickier challenges than do nuclear states that are stable. An example of the latter would be a nuclearized Iran. Though a weaponized Iran would present a threat, this threat would—Tehran’s radical rhetoric notwithstanding—be one that in principle could be deterred by U.S. nuclear weapons. Furthermore, despite the differences of opinion on whether a grand bargain (a carrot) or stiffer sanctions (a stick) would induce Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program, there is general agreement that these are the tools available to us. Not only would military action against Iran not work, such action would feed anti-Americanism across the Islamic world. Though many Arab states are terrified by the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran, these states would not stand together with the United States were it to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. Wobbly states with nuclear weapons, such as Pakistan and North Korea, present a deeper challenge, involving many more unknown variables. If, for example, Pakistan were to collapse, it would be very difficult for the United States to know who is controlling Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, let alone whether the armaments or fissile material could be pilfered by radical groups. Even if our intelligence agencies were at their best, keeping WMD and the ingredients needed to make them out of the hands of extremists would be a Herculean task. Assuming we had the forces capable of achieving this goal, inserting these forces into a country of 164 million people—a rajan menon is the Monroe J. Rathbone Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University and Fellow at the New America Foundation. He can be reached at . [ 28 ] asia policy place where U.S. forces would be decidedly unwelcome—would aggravate the situation and generate an anti-American backlash that would be a boon to extremists. Admittedly this is a worst-case scenario, but we should have learned during the last twenty years that unexpected things happen. Although the specific circumstances would be different, the United States would face similar strategic and operational conundrums in locating and securing “loose nukes” in North Korea were that country to collapse. Terrorism is another problem that presents a more serious challenge in unstable states. In Afghanistan, for instance, Washington supports a feeble central government against a mounting insurgency. Simply ramping up the U.S. military role, however, could weaken Afghan support both for the United States and for the government in Kabul that is aligned with us. Most Afghans do not oppose the U.S. military presence; they understand what it is like to be ruled by fanatics who want to turn the clock back to the seventh century BCE and who have no qualms about brutalizing people to achieve their millenarian agenda. Yet military strikes that inadvertently kill innocents infuriate Afghans, and without popular Afghan support the counterinsurgency is doomed to fail. In Pakistan the United States has not deployed combat troops but instead has limited itself to Special Forces operations and air strikes against al Qaeda and the Taliban. This lower profile strategy, however, has not made Pakistanis any more supportive of U.S. policies: Osama bin Laden still trounces George W. Bush in public opinion polls there. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan underscore that there are no quick fixes for failing states. Attempts to stabilize such states by using ground troops—assuming that local governments permit this—will be prolonged...