Trump's Conflict-Ridden World : Five Hotspots to Watch in 2017 (Ukraine/Baltics, China/Taiwan, ISIS, Israel/Palestine, Mexico)

Trump’s Conflict-Ridden World: Five Hotspots to Watch in 2017

By Larry Luxner
Uploaded on March 1, 2017

From Berlin to Beijing, from Tallinn to Taipei, President Donald Trump seems eager to pick fights — even among U.S. allies — without leaving the White House, where infighting among his own team has made his young administration one of the most volatile in U.S. history.
In less than a month in office, the 45^th president has managed to turn the world order upside down.
He infuriated Chinese leaders by questioning America’s long-standing commitment to Beijing’s “one China” policy regarding Taiwan, provoked anger across the Islamic world by instituting a refugee order widely seen as a blanket ban on Muslims and infuriated Arabs by insisting he would move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Two weeks into the job, he even sparked outrage in Australia, one of America’s most steadfast allies, by abruptly cutting short a 25-minute phone conversation with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
As if that’s not enough, he’s lashed out at Germany, indirectly called for the dismantling of the European Union and threatened to start a trade war with Mexico over the building of a massive border wall to keep out illegal immigrants.
Yet all this pales in comparison to the fallout following the forced resignation of Trump’s national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, after it was revealed that he had discussed U.S. sanctions in a phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and then lied about it to no less than Vice President Mike Pence. The White House, embroiled in controversy over the timeline of who knew what when, is now in full damage control mode.
On Feb. 14, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said it was “highly likely” that the events leading up to Flynn’s departure would be included in a broader congressional probe into Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Democrats smell blood and are pushing for a wider independent investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia (the FBI is already reportedly looking into contacts between Trump’s campaign associates and Moscow a year before the U.S. election).

Photo: U.S. Department of Homeland Security

President Donald Trump, center, talks with Vice President Mike Pence, left, and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly during a Jan. 25 visit to the Department of Homeland Security.

Leaks have gushed out of the White House at an unprecedented pace and constant chaos seems to have become the new norm. Conservative pundit Eliot A. Cohen, director of the strategic studies program at Johns Hopkins University and a noted Trump critic, suggests that precisely because the problem is one of Trump’s temperament and character, the situation will not get better.
“It will get worse, as power intoxicates Trump and those around him,” Cohen wrote recently in the Atlantic. “It will probably end in calamity — substantial domestic protest and violence, a breakdown of international economic relationships, the collapse of major alliances, or perhaps one or more new wars (even with China) on top of the ones we already have. It will not be surprising in the slightest if his term ends not in four or in eight years, but sooner, with impeachment or removal under the 25th Amendment. The sooner Americans get used to these likelihoods, the better.”
At the start of the year, many journalists and think tanks reported on possible conflict scenarios to watch out for in 2017, ranging from Islamic State attacks on Turkey to humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen to bloodshed in South Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan and Iraq.
But in just a span of a few weeks, Trump has upended that equation, creating new trouble-spots that could erupt in violence or cause global chaos. To make sense of it all, we have selected five areas of conflict, military or otherwise, likely to worsen in 2017 under Trump — and what experts say can be done to prevent things from spiraling out of control.

UKRAINE/BALTICS
It remains to be seen whether Trump’s connections with Russia snowball into a Watergate-like downfall. Regardless, Trump’s admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin is well documented, as is his desire to please Moscow by lifting sanctions imposed against it by his predecessor, Barack Obama. That leaves Ukraine, still split between a beleaguered central government in Kiev and Moscow-backed rebels in the east, in the crosshairs.
The Flynn scandal may have quashed the administration’s hopes of a major rapprochement with Russia for the time being, but European leaders worry about America’s commitment to the sanctions imposed on Moscow for annexing Crimea in 2014. Europe, a major trading partner with Russia, has felt the sting of those penalties far more than the U.S. has, and without Washington’s backing, Germany and other countries may be hard pressed to convince their publics to stick with sanctions that have hurt their economies.

Photo: © Evgeniy Maloletka / OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors the movement of heavy weaponry in eastern Ukraine in March 2015. A month before, Ukraine and Russia, along with France and Germany, agreed to a ceasefire under the Minsk agreement, but Kiev and Moscow-backed rebels in the east have failed to implement key parts of the deal.

But removing those sanctions would amount to rewarding the Kremlin for bad behavior, warned John Herbst, director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center.
He said it’s no coincidence that within 36 hours of Trump’s Jan. 28 phone call with Putin — which focused mainly on working together to defeat the Islamic State — “the Russians upped the violence in Ukraine substantially.”
Herbst, who was U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006, noted that for three days, as fighting raged in eastern Ukraine that killed over two dozen civilians and soldiers, “the administration said only that, ‘We’re concerned about this.’ Only on Thursday, the fourth day of the violence, did Nikki Haley [U.S. ambassador to the United Nations] in New York slam the Kremlin for its aggression. But this slamming was never repeated by the White House. That Sunday, Trump was asked on the news if he was embarrassed by the fact that the violence went up substantially after his phone call, and he said he wasn’t.”
Observers say there is also a chance, however, that Ukraine instigated some of the violence itself.
“Kiev, too, has become less inclined to compromise as it has grown more uncertain about Washington’s policy toward the conflict,” wrote Kiev-based Isaac Webb in a Feb. 6 Foreign Policy article.
He noted that Ukraine has been making frequent incursions into the “gray zone,” the no man’s land separating government and rebel forces, increasing the likelihood of clashes. Moreover, neither side seems particularly inclined to implement the hard compromises laid out in the Minsk accords that led to the current fragile ceasefire.
“At the same time, the Ukrainian president’s office has used the escalation to remind Trump of the costs of rapprochement with Russian President Vladimir Putin: ‘The shelling is massive. Who would dare talk about lifting the sanctions in such circumstances?’” Webb wrote.
But for Trump, Ukraine — whose Russian intervention has led to nearly three years of war and about 10,000 deaths — is at best a secondary consideration, according to Herbst.
“That’s why he keeps talking about lifting sanctions if the Russians help us fight ISIS [Islamic State]. He doesn’t seem to understand that Russia is conducting a war of aggression in Ukraine, and that their aim is to weaken NATO and the EU,” Herbst told The Diplomat. “What we’re seeing right now is a fair amount of institutional pushback against this unwise policy, and not just from Sen. John McCain [R-Ariz.] and the Democrats. Even McConnell made a statement about how this is not the time to be talking about removing sanctions. Sen. Paul Ryan [R-Wis.] said the same thing. I suspect that if Trump keeps pushing, he’ll produce a serious response from Congress.”
Peter Doran, executive vice president at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), said this debate is being watched very closely throughout Eastern Europe, but especially in the three ex-Soviet republics of the Baltics: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Photo: OSCE / Evgeniy Maloletka

Civilians make the dangerous crossing over a damaged bridge in Stanytsia Luhanska in eastern Ukraine on Dec. 16, 2016. Shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump took office, skirmishes broke out between government forces and Moscow-backed rebels.

“If the United States is going to be tested somewhere on its frontier of power, that test is likely to come where American capabilities are weak,” Doran told us. “Certainly NATO’s eastern flank has been one of the most neglected zones of conflict in recent memory. Since the Crimea invasion, the U.S. has scrambled to catch up with the game that Vladimir Putin is already playing very well — and winning, for now.”
As part of an agreement struck by Obama last year, NATO has already begun moving thousands of troops to shore up its defenses in Eastern Europe, with the first contingent arriving in Poland in January. But allies remain nervous whether Trump will follow through on the new deployments and other promised NATO initiatives. Indeed, during a Feb. 15 visit to Brussels, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis reiterated Trump’s longstanding threat that NATO members must contribute their fair share and spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense.
“If your nations do not want to see America moderate its commitment to this alliance, each of your capitals needs to show support for our common defense,” he warned.
At the same time, Mattis has repeatedly sought to reassure allies that the security bloc remains vital to U.S. interests.
Still, NATO allies are closely watching to see how the Russia drama will unfold. Doran said that despite the general rancor in Washington, there is “strong bilateral support” on Capitol Hill for taking a tough line toward the Kremlin, as well as a transatlantic consensus that the sanctions against Russia are there for good reason.
“Keeping the sanctions in place sends a very clear message to Russia: that the international system is governed by laws, that those laws must be respected and that these actions are not acceptable in the 21^st century. Putin is a leader who respects strength and power — and removing the sanctions as a way of accommodating the Kremlin would be a serious mistake.”
CHINA/TAIWAN
Many observers assumed the initial flashpoint between China and the U.S. under a new administration would occur because of maritime disputes in the South China Sea, where Beijing has been aggressively staking its territorial claims.
But Trump’s surprise December acceptance of a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen — the first since the U.S. and Taiwan severed relations in 1979 — infuriated China and drove a wedge between the world’s two largest economies.
Even before that, the billionaire candidate blasted China for manipulating its currency and ruining the U.S. economy. Once in office, Trump promptly questioned whether the U.S. will use the one China policy — under which the U.S. acknowledges that there is a single Chinese government in Beijing — as leverage to extract concessions from Beijing, which views Taiwan as a renegade province and a core national interest.
But after receiving the diplomatic cold shoulder from Chinese President Xi Jinping for weeks, Trump toned down his anti-China rhetoric, though it’s unclear what might happen next — especially with regard to Taiwan and an even more potentially serious flashpoint: North Korea.
“Donald Trump is enabling Xi Jinping to make China great again,” quipped Robert A. Manning, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security.
“Trump stepped in with his initial inane, ignorant comments, thinking that since the whole world is a real estate deal, he’d put Taiwan on the table as a bargaining chip,” Manning told The Diplomat in a phone interview. “The Taiwanese were pretty indignant. It achieved the unique goal of pissing off Taiwan and China at the same time.”

Photo: DoD / Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley, U.S. Navy

A full honors arrival ceremony welcomes then-Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping to the Pentagon on Feb. 14, 2012. Xi, now president, has bristled at Donald Trump's suggestion that the longstanding "one China" policy can be used as a bargaining chip in bilateral relations.

On Feb. 10, Trump agreed to accept the one China definition during a phone call with Xi, his first since taking office.
“The reality is, this is not a bargaining chip,” Manning said. “That’s why we’re able to have a policy with China in the first place. The idea that the Chinese would negotiate that is really dumb and deeply flawed.”
In fact, he said — and this goes back way before Trump’s election — “many of our core assumptions about China have been proven wrong, for instance the notion that as they became more integrated into the international system, they’d buy into our rules, or as they succeeded economically, we’d begin to see political reform. Actually, it’s going the other way. Given that, there will be a rethinking of China policy in any event.”
High on that policy agenda, of course, are economic issues. Yet here too, says Manning, the Trump administration has been long on rhetoric and short on facts.
“They’re right in identifying China as a troubling economic actor, but they’ve chosen all the wrong issues,” he argued. “They have not manipulated their currency in years. If you talk to 100 businessmen operating in China, 99 of them will tell you the currency issue is pretty far down on their list. The real issue of concern is China’s very nationalistic industrial policies.”
Manning cited a recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce poll which found that 80 percent of U.S. companies say they feel less welcome in China than before.
“Being frozen out — that is the central issue, and hopefully [the Trump administration] will eventually figure that out.”
But Trump may have lost his biggest source of economic leverage by abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a sweeping trade deal with 12 Asia-Pacific nations that notably excluded China. While widely expected, the move opens the door for China to push its own competing trade pact — which has far less labor, intellectual property and environmental protections — and further cement its hegemony over the region.
“By preemptively eliminating tools like economic statecraft from its foreign-policy toolbox, the Trump administration will be leaving itself with only hard power to counteract China’s ambitions,” wrote Hunter Marston in Foreign Policy magazine on Jan. 23.
Marston cited comments by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at his confirmation hearing that the U.S. would deny China access to artificial islands it is building in the international waters of the South China Sea. White House press secretary Sean Spicer doubled down on that statement, perhaps unaware of its implications. That’s because any attempt by the U.S. to militarily bar China from those islands would require a naval blockade, which would be tantamount to an act of war.
Whether those comments were a slip of the tongue because Trump officials don’t fully grasp the issue or an intentional warning, they sent a chilling signal to China watchers.

Photo: U.S. Navy / Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Gerald Dudley Reynolds

A team attached to the guided-missile destroyer USS Decatur conducts drills with a Japanese Akizuki-class destroyer in the East China Sea on Aug. 23, 2016. Decatur is deployed in support of maritime security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific as part of a U.S. 3rd Fleet Pacific Surface Action Group.

“Tillerson’s provocative remarks may be a rhetorical gesture, another tenuous red line, or they may signal the beginnings of a far more assertive American policy of containment aimed at curbing China’s control of the South China Sea. Either interpretation invites peril,” warned Marston.
What this means for North Korea’s nuclear ambitions remains to be seen. Trump has lamented that Beijing should do more to rein in its erratic neighbor, which fired a nuclear test and a barrage of missile launches last year. Its most recent provocation was an intermediate-range ballistic missile test that took place while Trump was visiting with Japan’s prime minister. Trump’s response was uncharacteristically muted as he sought to avoid an escalation with the North’s mercurial dictator, Kim Jong-un. But if the North fires an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S., that would immediately change the calculus.
Regardless, Trump needs the cooperation of China, North Korea’s economic lifeline, to address the nuclear threat on the Korean Peninsula. But Beijing is wary of toppling Kim’s regime, fearing an influx of millions of poor refugees and a unified U.S. ally on its doorstep.
“In the past, China’s role [in North Korea] has been cited as an area of U.S.-China cooperation,” said Manning. “But there’s a real risk it will become an area of U.S.-China contention. They clearly hate North Korea, and North Korea hates them, but they’re stuck with each other. China’s biggest fear is instability on the Korean Peninsula. They don’t want to do anything that would threaten that stability, so there are limits to how far they’d go.”
To that end, some experts say it’s time to end the U.S. policy of strategic patience and engage with the North, a prospect China favors. John Delury, a senior fellow at the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, wrote in Foreign Affairs that the Trump administration “should negotiate a freeze of North Korea’s nuclear program in return for a U.S. security guarantee, since that is the only measure that could enable Kim to start concentrating on economic development and the belated transformation of North Korea.”
He adds: “Like it or not, North Korea’s nukes are a reality. The United States needs a new strategy for dealing with Kim — and Trump is well placed to deliver it.”
ISLAMIC STATE
During his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to crush the so-called Islamic State (also known as ISIS and ISIL) and “defeat the ideology of radical Islamic terrorism.” But that’s easier said than done — Obama essentially made the same pledge to defeat the terrorist group. Last year, Obama’s administration did, in fact, significantly degrade the group’s capabilities, dislodging it from large tracts of territory in Iraq, Syria and Libya and killing thousands of its fighters through a relentless bombing campaign. At the same time, the Islamic State has adapted into a guerilla-style insurgency still capable of recruiting lone wolves to launch spectacular attacks abroad, both in the U.S. and Europe.
Experts fear that Trump’s controversial refugee ban (also see stories "Former Iraqi Ambassador Denounces Controversial Travel Ban", "Trump's Refugee Ban Sparks Uproar at State Department" and "Op-Ed: State Department Memo on Trump's Refugee Ban Long on Rhetoric, Short on Specifics") will only add fuel to the fire, helping the Islamic State recruit disgruntled Arabs all over the world to attack the West.
In any event, “crushing” the Islamic State has little to do with ending the grinding six-year war in Syria, a war that’s cost more than 500,000 lives and sparked Europe’s worst migration crisis since World War II. Nor will a military victory over the group end the global war on terrorism that began with 9/11.
Michael Totten, a veteran foreign correspondent with more than a decade of experience in the Middle East, said Trump’s Mideast approach is doomed to fail.
“President Trump has repeatedly said he wants to partner with Russia in Syria to fight ISIS, but there are a couple of problems with that,” Totten told The Diplomat in an email.

Photo: U.S. Army / Spc. Paris Maxey

U.S. Army paratroopers maneuver through a hallway as part of squad-level training at Camp Taji in Iraq in 2015 — part of the multinational effort to train Iraqi security forces to defeat the Islamic State.

“First, Russia is not fighting ISIS in Syria. Russia is propping up the [Bashar al-] Assad regime and fighting every faction in Syria except ISIS. Second, Russia is part of the Iranian/Syrian/Hezbollah axis. Syria has been a Russian client state since the Cold War, and Iran gets its nuclear material from Moscow. So Vladimir Putin is a patron and armorer of Syria, which is the biggest state sponsor of international terrorism in the Arab world, and of Iran, which is the biggest state sponsor of international terrorism in the entire world.”
Totten, winner of the Washington Institute Book Prize for his 2012 analysis of Hezbollah, “The Road to Fatima Gate,” is predictably pessimistic about Trump helping to end Syria’s horrific civil war.
“Trump wants to be tough on Iran and tough on ISIS, but he can’t do both at the same time if he climbs into bed with Vladimir Putin,” he told us, referring to Iran and Russia’s alliance in Syria.
As of late 2016, write professors Hal Brands of Johns Hopkins University and Peter Feaver of Duke University in Foreign Affairs, the Islamic State had lost control of key strongholds such as Fallujah and Ramadi in Iraq, and Manbij and Jarabulus in Syria. Iraqi forces are currently struggling to retake Mosul, while U.S.-backed militia groups in Syria are attempting to capture the de facto Islamic State capital of Raqqa. Since August 2014, the Pentagon estimates that the U.S. coalition has killed more than 45,000 Islamic State fighters.
But even if the Islamic State can be destroyed, what happens next in the Middle East?
“Remnants of the caliphate may morph into an insurgency. Al Qaeda and its affiliates will still pose a threat. Moreover, the conditions that breed jihadist organizations will likely persist across the greater Middle East,” the professors write.
They say that leaves four options. “At one extreme, Washington could abandon its military commitments in the greater Middle East on the assumption that it is U.S. interference that provokes terrorism in the first place. At the other, it could adopt a heavy-footprint surge strategy that would involve using overwhelming military force … and attempt to politically transform the societies that produce [terrorist groups]. In between lie two options: one, a light-footprint approach akin to that taken by the Obama administration before ISIS’s rise; the other, a more robust approach closer to Washington’s response to ISIS since late 2014.”
Their conclusion: None of the four options are ideal. “The least worst choice would be an approach close to the medium-footprint strategy being used to defeat ISIS today.”
A February report by Rand Corp. suggests a similar strategy and advocates viewing the group as a trans-regional threat.
“The nature of the threat suggests the need to prioritize the security of Americans in the homeland, but does not imply placing the United States on a continuous war footing,” write authors Lynn E. Davis, Jeffrey Martini and Kim Cragin.
Rather, this approach involves boosting resources for intelligence and law enforcement, as well airstrikes and special ops raids. The authors also say the U.S. must help address underlying grievances that breed radicalism, including weak states and poor governance.
“The U.S. counter-ISIL strategy overseas should be designed to improve these conditions to the extent possible, but strategists must recognize that the United States has limited leverage to affect these conditions, and improvements will require years to accomplish.”

Photo: By Bienchido - Own work / Wikimedia Commons GFDL

A panorama of Jerusalem, the contested capital of Israelis and Palestinians, shows the Temple Mount, including Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, as seen from the Mount of Olives mountain ridge next to the Old City.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Will Trump be the president that finally brokers peace between the Arabs and Jews?
It’s hard to say, though Trump is the first U.S. leader to have a Jewish daughter and son-in-law. His relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is certainly warmer than the one his predecessor, Obama, had with Israel’s leader.
Throughout his campaign and even during the first week of his presidency, Trump vowed to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But no such move appears imminent. That doesn’t surprise Gershon Baskin, founder and co-chairman of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information.
“Trump will probably sign the order delaying the implementation of the move, mainly because the intelligence and military people will tell him that if he moves the embassy, American lives will be at risk,” Baskin told The Diplomat in a phone call from Jerusalem. “That’s what’s happened for the past 20 years, and that’s not likely to change.”
Even so, Trump is seen as more pro-Israel than any American president in recent memory. Although the president has called additional settlement construction unhelpful toward achieving peace, his pick for U.S. ambassador to Israel, Orthodox Jewish lawyer David Friedman, is an unabashed proponent of settlements who has disavowed the two-state solution and bashed liberal Jews.
The administration’s pro-Israeli bend is not necessarily a good thing, warn Dana H. Allin and Steven N. Simon, authors of “Our Separate Ways: The Struggle for the Future of the U.S.-Israel Alliance.”
In a lengthy article for Foreign Affairs, the two authors outline the dangers of Trump’s alliance with Israel’s hard right.
“Although any new administration would find the landscape daunting, the United States’ strategic interests and moral values call for continued opposition to Israeli settlements in occupied territory, a continued insistence that the Palestinians pursue their cause through peaceful means, a continued commitment to a two-state solution, and continued attentiveness to Israel’s strategic vulnerabilities,” they wrote. “In other words, the most basic requirement is to do no harm, thus following in the tradition of past presidents.”
On Feb. 15, Trump — who has suggested enlisting the help of Arab states to break the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate — met with Netanyahu in Washington and held a joint press conference.
“The body language was terrific, and their rhetoric on Iran is probably very close,” said Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center. “I think both Bibi and Trump are coming to the conclusion that it’ll be almost impossible to scuttle the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] on Iran, but they both want to work to enforce strictly the [nuclear weapons] agreement.”
He added: “They also want to work with Sunni Arab countries. One of the interesting challenges and opportunities is to get Arab states to recognize Israel and provide the imprimatur for some kind of long-term or permanent peace arrangement.”
But that has effectively left the Palestinians out of the equation. In fact, the president, in typical Trump fashion, jettisoned decades of diplomatic convention by declaring that he was open to the idea of a one-state solution, thereby effectively abandoning Washington’s long-term support of two states — one for Jews, the other for Palestinians — as a way of ending the conflict. “I can live with either one,” he told reporters.
Whether the Palestinians can is another matter entirely.
MEXICO

Photo: By z2amiller - IMG_4919_2.jpg / Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 2.0

Mexican immigrants march for more rights in the northern California city of San Jose in 2006.

The two issues that propelled Donald Trump into the White House were trade and immigration — and Mexico is the proxy for both issues. It’s unfortunate, because until Trump’s election, the relationship between North America’s two most populous countries was quite positive.
Yet Trump’s rhetoric about building a wall (now estimated to cost $21 billion), deporting up to 3 million undocumented immigrants and slapping a 35 percent tariff on imports from Mexico hasn’t ended with his campaign. That worries Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank.
“This administration is still figuring out what it’s going to do on both immigration and trade issues,” he said. “They’ll have to do something that’s a change from the previous administration, because that’s why Trump was elected.”
But things are complicated by the fact that nobody is currently in charge of Latin America at the State Department. And while Roberta Jacobson — a seasoned diplomat who spent four years as Obama’s assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs — is now U.S. ambassador to Mexico, she’s unlikely to stay in that position for very long.
“The question is, how far will he go?” Shifter mused. “[Secretary of State] Tillerson recently met with Mexico’s foreign minister. He and other Cabinet officials like [Secretary of Defense] James Mattis and [Secretary of Homeland Security] John F. Kelly have a better understanding about what the stakes are in the U.S. taking such an aggressive position, which could really hurt us economically. It’s already damaged Mexico in a number of ways and is playing into the election campaign of 2018. If these economic measures are applied, that’s going to make economic conditions in Mexico worse, which is likely to spur migration to the United States.” (Ironically, net migration from Mexico has been down since the 2008 recession.)
Shifter warned that Mexico — which has been “very helpful” on issues ranging from drug interdiction to stemming the flow of Central American migrants — might not want to cooperate if the U.S. government pursues policies that hurt its southern neighbor.
“The hope is that if you have responsible people like Tillerson, Kelly and Mattis in senior positions, and some members of Congress, including Republicans, begin to speak out, the basic elements of our relationship will be preserved going forward and some of the damage could be contained.”
Shifter says he has no doubt that NAFTA will be renegotiated, most likely under the leadership of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
Yet Walter Molano, writing in Latinvex, says Mexico could be the “unexpected star” of Latin America in 2017.
“Despite the rhetoric from the White House, the Mexican economy will benefit from economic revival in the United States,” he predicted. “Today, Mexico is an integral part of the U.S. industrial base. Hence, the expansion in U.S. economic activity will surely be felt south of the border.”
Molano noted that many of the companies that have announced changes to their Mexican investment plans, like General Motors and Chrysler, either received government bailouts in the past or depend heavily on federal contracts.
“It is only natural that they kowtow to the new powers in Washington,” he observed. “Still, the larger set of corporations that are not as dependent on government assistance or projects will continue to operate unabatedly, and provide a strong boost to the Mexican economy. In other words, there will be winners and losers in 2017, but Mexico could be holding the proverbial Trump card.”

---

About the Author

Larry Luxner is the Tel Aviv-based news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

A Chinese Perspective on Obama's Asia Policy An interview with Zhu Feng

A Chinese Perspective on Obama's Asia Policy

An interview with Zhu Feng.

By Yuan Xunhui, Zhang Juan, and Shannon Tiezzi for The Diplomat

November 09, 2016

 

 

With the U.S. presidential election looming, now is a timely moment to look back at the Obama administration’s “rebalance to Asia” (originally known as the “pivot”). What successes has the policy had, and what challenges continue to face U.S. Asia policy? And how should the next U.S. president – whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump – reframe Washington’s approach to this critical region?

To answer these questions, The Diplomat and Dunjiao (formerly Consensus Net) conducted a joint interview with Zhu Feng, executive director at the China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea and dean of the School of International Relations at Nanjing University. A Chinese-language version of this interview is available from Dunjiao.

 

What do you think has been the most important change in the U.S. approach to Asia-Pacific since Obama took office in January 2009?

Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

 

The most significant change in the U.S. approach to the Asia-Pacific during the eight years under Obama has been its rebalance policy, which has shifted the U.S. global security focus away from the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11 and diverted more of its diplomatic and military resources to the Asia-Pacific. This is not only because the Asia-Pacific has become the fastest-growing economy and trading entity in the world. More importantly, Washington now sees China as its most important strategic competitor and believes China poses the largest challenge to the U.S. in the 21st century.

Obama’s rebalance policy is not limited to diplomatic and military tactics; it also tries to maintain the strategic influence of the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific, and to prevent a rising China from undermining its leadership role and interests in the region. This shift in policy is not just targeted toward China. In fact, the Asia-Pacific has now become one of the the political powerhouses of the world. Whether you draw on theories of international relations or historical facts, any region where a lot of political and economic power is concentrated becomes a “battleground” where state actors, especially big powers, tussle with each other for their own gains. After the global financial crisis in 2008, the Asia-Pacific overtook Europe in terms of its trade and investment relations with the United States. Other than a rising China, Obama’s pivot to the Asia-Pacific is also a necessary adjustment in response to such shifts in the global concentration of power.

The rebalance policy is made up of three pillars – reinforcing ties with allies in the region and boosting the U.S. military presence, bolstering diplomatic missions in the region, and pushing through the Trans-Pacific Partnership to prevent China from directing economic and trading rules. All these pillars have seen positive results in the past eight years and this will come down as the largest diplomatic legacy by the Obama administration.

 

The rebalance is designed to cement U.S. presence and influence in Asia. Observers in both the U.S. and China differ in their assessment of this policy. Some believe it has met its expectations, while some believe rather than putting a cap on China’s hegemonic ambitions, it has stoked China to accelerate its military expansion (for example, building islands in the South China Sea). What is your take on this?

 

Obama’s rebalance has caused China greater concerns over U.S. intentions in the region, and has stoked Xi Jinping to further increase China’s military budget, upgrade its military equipment, and reform its army. The U.S. is also assuming more responsibilities on conflicts in the South and East China Seas, coupled with increased military commitments. During his visit to Japan in April 2014, President Obama publicly stated that the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands are covered by the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. Under the recently signed Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement with the Philippines, the U.S. has restarted rotational deployment in five military bases in the country. It has also lifted its ban on arms trade to Vietnam. All these are indication that the U.S. sees the Asia-Pacific as the priority in its global strategy.

There is, however, a big difference in Obama’s policy between his first and second term. During his first term, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chose Asia as her first overseas destination, and she visited Asia extensively during her time in office. While during Obama’s second term, because of the turmoil in the Middle East and the Crimea crisis in Ukraine, Secretary Kerry had to visit those conflict zones far more often than Asia. In a way, Obama’s rebalance was compromised by the events in the Middle East and Europe.

This distraction aside, the U.S. still managed to effectively bolster its political and defense partnership with Japan, allowing the Abe cabinet to reinterpret the constitution and boost Japan’s military power. Japan now has a much more active political and strategic role in the Asia-Pacific. If part of the pivot to the Asia-Pacific involves a more assertive Japan, Obama’s policy has already achieved part of its objective.

As to whether the rebalance is an effective deterrent that can reshape the China-U.S. relations, from what we can see at this point, the policy has no doubt stoked China to beef up its defense power. China is also having greater concerns over U.S. intentions. This is also what is behind China’s decision to build islands in the South China Sea.

 

What approach do you think the United States will take toward China’s “Belt and Road” initiative? Does the Belt and Road pose challenges for the rebalance?

 

The U.S. is certainly concerned over China’s “Belt and Road” initiative proposed by Xi Jinping. Some American pundits see it as a tactic to counteract the U.S. rebalance. But I disagree. The real intention of B&R is to speed up the development of China’s globally-oriented economy, increase China’s involvement and influence in international economic affairs, and efficiently capitalize on its domestic overproduction. B&R in itself does not bear any strong security and strategic significance.

However, China’s B&R will still pose a challenge sooner or later to the U.S rebalance. China will not hesitate in converting its increasing regional and cross-regional economic power to more diplomatic and strategic influence. But we should not be overoptimistic about the prospect of B&R. Xi Jinping’s ideal of joint consultation, joint construction, and sharing will take a long time to bear fruit; it will also invite competition from other countries as well as raise concerns over the environment and security. Moreover, B&R does not have any direct military and strategic implications. I would rather see B&R as China’s effort to increase its involvement in global economy as well as its influence in the regional economy, by capitalizing on its economic and geopolitical advantages. It may indirectly pose challenges to the U.S. attempt to isolate China and undermine its competitive edge, but to directly challenge the U.S. rebalance out of security concerns is never China’s intention.

 

Given that North Korea just conducted its fifth nuclear test, how would you evaluate the Obama administration’s North Korea policy? What do you think are the main obstacles to finding a resolution?

 

North Korea carried out its second nuclear test in 2016 on September 9. This is already the fifth test since 2006 and North Korea’s nuclear capacity has now increased. In fact, Obama’s “strategic patience” toward North Korea has completely failed. After the ROKS Cheonan sinking in April 2010, Washington basically gave up all attempts to engage and talk with North Korea while insisting it will not be deceived this time. The Obama administration clearly lacks enthusiasm and motivation for finding a diplomatic and political resolution to the crisis. This is in stark contrast to its policy of sanctions on the one hand and dialogue on the other in its dealings with Iran. The deterioration of North Korea’s nuclear crisis is a direct result of the Obama administration’s negligent diplomacy toward North Korea.

North Korea’s nuclear threat has lingered on till this day largely because of the peculiar nature of the Kim regime, which is currently the most authoritarian, terrifying, and antagonistic regime in the world. This is clearly not a regime that would succumb because of external pressure, isolation, or sanctions. Another obstacle is that the Obama administration has counted a great deal on China playing a “responsible” part in resolving the crisis, expecting the same role from China that U.S. has played in reaching a deal with Iran on the latter’s nuclear programs. The U.S. expected China to sever its relations with North Korea entirely like the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, and to suspend all trade relations with as well as its gas supply to North Korea. These arbitrary demands are not something China can deliver.

China maintains a policy of no nukes, no turmoil, and no military action on the peninsula, and has supported more intense international sanctions in response to North Korea’s nuclear tests. China still hopes to restart dialogues and has suggested the U.S. and North Korea should transform their armistice into a peace treaty in the process of talks on North Korea’s nuclear programs. The problem is that the Obama administration also does not want to consider China’s suggestions. China and the U.S. fail to converge on their policy toward North Korea. This is the main reason why North Korea’s nuclear crisis continues to stall.

 

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the centerpiece of Obama’s rebalance. What is the likelihood of TPP being ratified in the U.S. before Obama steps down? If it fails to pass through the U.S. Congress, what does that mean for Obama’s Asia-Pacific legacy?

 

The likelihood of TPP getting ratified by Congress before Obama steps down is extremely low. Just look at the political and social rifts created up by the 2016 presidential election; it’s hard to imagine TPP could be ratified by both houses within the remaining two months of 2016. If TPP fails to pass through Congress, it will deal a severe blow to Obama’s rebalance, since TPP is the economic pillar of the policy. This also points to a challenge that Obama’s rebalance faces – it won’t go very far without reaching domestic consensus first and having congressional support.

 

What changes do you think the next U.S. president will make to the Obama administration’s rebalance policy? 

 

When Trump becomes the next president, TPP talks will likely be shelved by the Republican Party. But Trump’s policy toward the Asia-Pacific will not be what he had claimed in his campaigns – isolationism and weaker relations with U.S. allies in Asia-Pacific. Trump will make major changes to the U.S. foreign policy, but such adjustments will mostly not be about the Asia-Pacific. Trump’s approach to the region will continue in its orientation the pivot strategy under Obama; the change will only be a matter of policy focus. For instance, the U.S. may ask its allies in the Asia-Pacific to take on more significant roles in maintaining security of the region.

Iran's conventional missile program

Precision Fire: A Strategic Assessment of Iran’s Conventional Missile Program

26 Sep 2016

By Bilal Y Saab and Michael Elleman for Atlantic Council

For over 30 years, one of Iran’s highest priorities has been to acquire greater missile capabilities. Well, despite having largely accomplished this end, Tehran still isn’t satisfied. Today, Bilal Saab and Michael Elleman explore its ambitious plans to expand the size, range and accuracy of its missile assets even further.

This article was originally published by the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security on 14 September 2016.

Preface by Zalmay Khalilzad
Dating back to the war of cities between Iraq and Iran, which terrorized civilians living in Baghdad and Tehran, the acquisition of more robust missile capabilities has been one of Iran’s highest priorities. And it has been largely successful. Iran now has the ability to threaten cities and large military facilities across the Middle East with conventional munitions using its missiles as a delivery system. Iran’s missile program, its proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the various Shia militias in Iraq and elsewhere, and its cyber capabilities are giving Tehran important advantages in its struggle with its regional rivals both in the sectarian conflict and in its efforts to achieve regional hegemony.
However, Iran is not satisfied with what it has achieved. It has ambitious plans for expanding the size, range, and accuracy of its missile capabilities. As Iran’s forces grow, it will be in a position to threaten not only military targets in the region more effectively, but also countries beyond the Middle East, including those in Europe and eventually even the United States. Iran could use its medium-range missiles to deliver non-conventional warheads, including nuclear weapons, across the Middle East should it decide to do so. Many Iranian officials are expressing their unhappiness with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Tehran’s abandonment of the nuclear agreement before it expires cannot be ruled out.
The Iranian missile program has been a source of significant concern for regional powers, including Israel, as well as Europe and the United States. The prospect for increased Iranian capabilities raises serious questions such as:
What should the United States, its partners, and others do to limit the growth of Iranian missile capabilities?
How will improved Iranian capability impact regional stability, as the range Iran can target with conventional or non-conventional warheads such as nuclear weapons increases?
How does Iran’s missile program fit into its longer-term strategy for regional hegemony?
What risks do enhanced Iranian missile capabilities pose for US forces in the region and for the United States’ commitment to the security of its regional partners?
What steps should regional powers threatened by the Iranian program take to defend themselves and, based on their inadequate response up to now, how likely is it that they would do so in the future?
“Precision Fire: A Strategic Assessment of Iran’s Conventional Missile Program,” written by Bilal Y. Saab and Michael Elleman, deals with these important questions. It is an excellent primer on Iran’s conventional missile program.
Zalmay Khalilzad is president of Gryphon Partners and former US permanent representative to the United Nations, US ambassador to Iraq (2005–07), and US ambassador to Afghanistan (2003–05).

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s conventional missile program has always been a source of concern for the United States and its European and Middle Eastern allies and partners. However, such concerns have not compelled Washington to treat this threat with a greater sense of urgency and come up with immediate policy responses.¹ Indeed, had Iran’s conventional missiles been a strategic priority for the United States, US officials would have probably used the recent nuclear talks with their Iranian counterparts to try to work out a deal that would also curb Tehran’s missile program (whether or not that would have succeeded is a different matter altogether, of course).
Instead, to the chagrin of several Middle Eastern partners, the White House decided not to overwhelm the nuclear negotiations, distinguish unconventional military challenges posed by Iran from conventional ones, and sign a separate nuclear accord. Three main factors help explain why Iran’s conventional missile program has not caused US threat perception levels to rise considerably, yet:
First, the United States’ forward-deployed presence in the Gulf is an enormously powerful deterrent against potential overt Iranian aggression, and is robust enough to neutralize any conventional threat posed by Iran. That Washington’s Arab Gulf partners have considerable military and specifically missile defense capabilities of their own tilts the military balance and augments the deterrent against Iran even further.
Second, Iran’s existing arsenal of missiles, though the largest in the Middle East, is technologically inferior and inaccurate. Its primary purpose has been to deter an Israeli attack against Iran, and possibly to intimidate neighbors and influence their defense spending and strategies, not necessarily to attack them. Iranian officials have been explicit about the role ballistic missiles play in their country’s defense strategy, as recently specified by Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan, who stated that “Iran’s missile capacity is defensive, conventional and deterrent.”²
Third, these missiles, despite what some Iranian generals have claimed recently, cannot currently traverse continents and reach the US homeland. On February 9, 2016, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper warned the US Congress that Iran has the “means and motivation to develop longer-range missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).”³ However, whether that would happen in months, years, or a decade remains very much unclear. When asked by Chairman of the Subcommittee of Strategic Forces Mike Rogers in a hearing on March 19, 2015, about current estimates of Iran’s ICBM capabilities, Adm. William Gortney, head of US Northern Command, replied: “. . . we assess Iran will not be able to deploy an operational ICBM until later this decade at the earliest.”⁴

A ballistic missile is launched and tested in an undisclosed location, Iran, March 9, 2016. Photo credit: REUTERS/ Mahmood Hosseini.

These three reassuring factors notwithstanding, the pace with which Iran’s conventional missile program has been developing in recent years suggests that the country’s missiles could become much more accurate, and thus deadly, within a few years, potentially providing Tehran with a new set of military options and a higher degree of operational flexibility. This would force (and most probably already has forced) the Pentagon to strategize and plan for a range of Iran-related military contingencies in the region like never before. As the utility of Iranian missiles expands beyond deterrence and possibly enters the realm of offense, the likelihood of military crises and kinetic flare ups in the Gulf rises.
Intentions Versus Capabilities
Intentions are as important as capabilities in world politics. Indeed, were Iran ruled by a more moderate and responsible leadership, its conventional missile program would have been less of an issue. Instead, Iran’s regional policies since 1979 suggest that Tehran has revisionist tendencies. A large nation with a civilizational role and a proud history, Iran has aspirations that extend beyond its borders, and Tehran often harks back to memories of the Persian Empire to bolster support for these ambitions.
Even though Tehran has learned to live with US regional hegemony, refraining more often than not from crossing red lines, US military power in the Middle East is a source of frustration to the country’s mullahs and generals, who often describe Washington’s military footprint in the region as unwelcome and unnatural, supposedly designed to subjugate the Iranian nation and prevent it from achieving its full potential.
Although Iran’s patience with the United States’ regional presence is likely to endure, Tehran will continue to do everything in its power to divide and exploit weaknesses among the United States’ Arab Gulf partners and indirectly increase the costs of the United States’ operations in the Gulf until Washington leaves or shrinks its presence. Regional hegemony, pursued pragmatically, gradually, and with the fewest costs, remains Iran’s ultimate ambition in the Middle East.
It is through this prism that one should assess any military challenge that Iran’s weapons pose to US interests and the regional order, including its improved missile capabilities. These missiles are, and have always been, part of a broader political strategy and military doctrine of Tehran, meant to protect the clerical regime and export the principles of the Islamic Revolution. Although, strictly speaking, they would be classified as conventional weapons, these missiles could equally be used to augment Iran’s existing asymmetric capabilities.
Why Missiles?
Tehran’s pursuit of missiles and long-range artillery rockets began soon after Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980. During the war, Iraq repeatedly attacked Iranian cities, petroleum facilities, and other strategic assets with Soviet-supplied aircraft and Scud-B missiles. Lacking reliable access to the skilled technicians and spare parts needed to maintain and operate its Western-supplied aircraft, Tehran had limited capacity to respond to the increasing pace of Iraqi assaults on its population centers.
Iran’s post-revolution regime was therefore driven to acquire missiles and rockets from willing suppliers for its counter-strike capabilities. In 1985, in response to yet another barrage of Iraqi missiles, Iran retaliated with Scud-B attacks, which shocked the Iraqi regime and large portions of its populace. Then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein promptly agreed to suspend missile launches against Iranian cities, if Tehran demonstrated similar restraint. Although the ceasefire did not last, the Iranian regime reasoned that its Scud-Bs had fundamentally altered Saddam’s strategic calculus, and that ballistic missiles are a powerful deterrent and vital to the defense of the Islamic Republic. This view remains today, with missiles a cornerstone of Iran’s deterrence and defense posture.
After the war, missile acquisition remained a regime priority, with Tehran turning primarily to North Korea for its more immediate needs, and to China to support its longer-term requirement of greater self-sufficiency. Iran purchased two to three hundred Scud-B and -C missiles, with the latter having the range needed to threaten the Arab Gulf monarchies and US forces stationed in the region. In the mid-to-late 1990s, Tehran began purchasing medium-range Nodongs from Pyongyang to fulfill the perceived need to target Israel, Turkey, and western Saudi Arabia. The Shahab-3/Nodong’s range was increased from about one thousand to sixteen hundred kilometers in the 2000s by modifying the airframe and incorporating other minor improvements, resulting in the Ghadr. By roughly 2005, Iran could threaten, intimidate, deter, and retaliate against any of its regional foes.
Iran also operates an ambitious space program, which has to date attempted to loft a series of small satellites into orbit using the two-stage Safir rocket. At least eight launches were conducted, with only three or possibly four successes. A second-generation launcher, the Simorgh, will likely be used to boost larger satellites into space. The Safir and Simorgh could, in principle, be modified for use as ballistic missiles, though no country has converted a satellite launcher into a missile.
Iran, however, is not capable of independently producing the liquid-fueled Scud and Nodong missiles. Instead, it must import liquid-propellant engines to support extraterritorial strikes. Creating an indigenous missile-production capacity has been a long-term aim of the Islamic Republic, which drove Tehran to secure the industrial infrastructure and technical know-how from China for the manufacture of solid-propellant artillery rockets. Iran leveraged the experience accrued producing heavy rockets to develop and manufacture larger solid-propellant rocket motors. In 2008, Iran began flight testing a two-stage, medium-range ballistic missile based on solid-fuel. The Sajjil-2 missile remains under development, though its existence animates Iran’s resolve to become less reliant on imported technologies for its key strategic capabilities.
Poor Accuracy, for Now
The military utility of Iran’s current missile stockpile is severely limited by the poor accuracy of its most advanced systems. For instance, Iran’s Shahab-1 missiles (Scud-Bs) carry one-ton, high-explosive warheads and have an estimated accuracy on the order of eight hundred to one thousand meters circular error probable, or CEP. CEP is defined as the radius of a circle, within which one-half of the warheads are expected to land. For the Shahab-1, this translates to a probability of mission success between one-in-one-hundred and one-in-one-thousand for a soft target, such as unprotected humans or exposed aircraft. For hardened targets, the probability drops to as low as one-in-ten-thousand.⁵ From the perspective of military planners, to destroy with moderate confidence a single, fixed-point military target, Iran would have to allocate a very significant percentage, if not all, of its missile inventory to just one mission.
Table 1. Iran’s Current Missile Arsenal

Table compiled by Michael Elleman, relying on Iran’s Ballistic Missile Capabilities: A Net Assessment, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2010.

Pursuit of Greater Precision
Iranian decision makers seem to understand that deterring attack by threatening to punish potential adversaries and their supporters may not be sufficient. The acquisition of missile defenses by neighboring Gulf states has probably amplified Tehran’s worries. Consequently, Iran has spent the past decade refocusing its missile development efforts away from increasing range to enhancing the precision and lethality of its missiles.

Fateh-110 missiles on display at the Iranian armed forces parade in 2012. Photo credit: Wikipedia.

Iran’s pursuit of greater precision is best evidenced by the evolution of the Zelzal (Earthquake) artillery rocket. The first-generation Zelzal is unguided and terribly inaccurate, with half of the rockets missing the intended target by more than three kilometers. Improvements in Zelzal accuracy were achieved by spin-stabilizing the rocket, though this measure produced modest results.
About a dozen years ago, Iran began developing the Fateh-110, a semi-guided rocket. The designers appear to have incorporated a simple navigation and guidance system, and four aerodynamic control surfaces mounted just below the rocket’s warhead section. The navigation unit, which senses deviations in the rocket’s pitch and yaw, are likely used to maintain a pre-programmed orientation (i.e., angle of attack) during the boost and ascent phases of flight. If implemented effectively, the flight stabilization system should significantly reduce the Fateh-110’s lateral dispersion; range dispersion, while improved, is still affected by inconsistencies in the rocket motor’s performance. While a significant improvement in accuracy, the first generation of the Fateh-110 still lacks the precision needed to reliably strike military targets.
In principle, Iranian engineers could enhance the navigation, guidance, and control system of the Fateh-110 so that it continuously corrects deviations along its full trajectory, including final approach to the target. The missile would necessarily have to fly within the atmosphere to maintain positive aerodynamic control over its entire path to the target. Thus, the Fateh-110, like other missiles of this type, including Russia’s Tochka (SS-21) and the United States’ ATACMS systems, cannot exceed an altitude of roughly thirty-five to forty kilometers if they are to achieve high levels of accuracy, a constraint that limits the achievable range to roughly 200 to 250 kilometers. Only Kuwait, portions of Iraq, and the eastern emirates of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are within the Fateh-110’s range. Iran’s development of the Fateh-313, with a maximum range of about three hundred kilometers, cannot reach most targets in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and western UAE, including Dubai and Abu Dhabi, unless launched from islands in the Gulf.
Despite working for a dozen years to improve Fateh-110’s accuracy, progress has been limited. During the Great Prophet-7 war games in 2012, for example, Iranian forces launched more than a dozen rockets and missiles toward a mock airfield. Most of the missiles were Fateh-110s, though a few Shahab-1 (Scud-B) missiles were also fired. Iranian television aired video showing the warheads impacting the intended target. A few months later, Jane’s Defence Weekly published a report that included satellite imagery of craters distributed throughout a mock airfield and outside its imaginary boundaries.⁶ The location of some of the craters seen in the satellite imagery corresponds with the impacts shown in the televised video, suggesting that the Jane’s information accurately reflects events during the war game. Assuming the airfield’s center was the aim point for the Fateh-110s fired, the spatial distribution of the impacts indicates a CEP of between 800 to 1,100 meters, depending on the calculation method employed, assuming an aim point at another location within the airfield boundaries does not improve the calculated CEP estimate. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the CEP value for the Fateh-110 is reasonably consistent with the theoretical predictions based on manufacturing deviations and other contributors to inaccuracy.
The Fateh-110’s CEP of eight hundred to one thousand meters is on par with that for the Shahab-1 missile. Because the lethal effects of a missile warhead weighing between five hundred and one thousand kilograms is limited to about fifty meters, it is easy to understand why the missile is not expected to land close enough to kill or destroy a specific target. As with the Shahab-1, the Fateh-110 is unlikely to succeed unless the target is very large, like an airfield or military base. Iran will likely need many more years, and scores of flight tests, to reduce the CEP to below two hundred meters. A militarily effective short-range missile will not be available before 2020, and probably much later.
Nonetheless, development of the Fateh-110 family of missiles, including the optically guided, anti-ship Khalij Fars and the anti-radar Hormuz systems, as well as the Fateh-313, suggests that Iran seeks to produce and field highly accurate missiles capable of shaping the outcome of future military conflicts. In principle, Iran could improve the accuracy of its larger missiles by incorporating Global Positioning Satellite receivers into the guidance systems of its current arsenal. However, such modifications would improve accuracy by only 20-25 percent, not enough to alter their military utility. Substantial improvements require post-boost phase control systems, or terminal steering to the target. The test launch of the medium-range Emad missile in 2015 suggests that Iran holds ambitions to enhance missile accuracy of its medium-range missiles. The Emad appears to be a Ghadr missile, with a separating warhead capable of steering itself toward a target after it re-enters the atmosphere. It is in its first phase of development. It will require very different technologies relative to the Fateh-110 to achieve the design objectives. Based on the time required for other countries to develop an accurate ballistic missile with a range of more than three hundred kilometers, Iran will not possess an arsenal of accurate medium-range missiles before 2025, perhaps longer. Extensive foreign assistance from China or Russia could shorten the timeline, however.
A Shift in Military Doctrine?
If the pattern to prioritize improved precision over increases in missile range continues, it would mark a discernable shift in Iran’s missile doctrine, from one that relies solely on punishing would-be attackers by striking highly valued targets, such as cities, to a strategy that aims also to deny potential foes their military objectives and possibly even launch limited attacks against them.
The doctrinal evolution, if it is real, is consistent with Iran’s overarching military strategy, which is primarily defensive, but with precision-guided missiles, could entertain offensive tactics. The “mosaic defense” strategy, authored by General Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, establishes three asymmetric, operational tactics to impede conventional military advances by an attacker. Proxies provide a forward-based fighting force, guerrilla warfare at sea threatens enemies and impedes a navy-supported invasion, and the implicit threat of extraterritorial attacks with ballistic missiles deters adversaries. An arsenal of accurate, highly lethal ballistic missiles supports all three elements of Iran’s asymmetric approach to warfare. Heavy-artillery rockets and short-range missiles, if they can deliver ordnance precisely, are capable of substantially raising the costs of enemy access to territory along Iran’s borders.
Short- and medium-range ballistic missiles threaten key ports that service the navies of the Arab Gulf states and external powers, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, and anti-ship cruise missiles can harass ships deployed within Gulf waters. Ballistic missiles striking air fields with precision could disrupt the sortie generation rate, so vital to US and Arab Gulf fighting strategies. Finally, missiles that reliably avoid potential collateral damage caused by inaccuracies could be used to strike key military and civilian infrastructure with less risk of backlash for the international community. These capabilities assume Iran succeeds in developing highly accurate missiles.
Evidence to date suggests Iran is improving the precision of its missiles, but not enough to generate its desired military outcomes. This will undoubtedly change as Tehran continues to master the necessary techniques needed to achieve greater missile accuracy, as well as the critical enabling technologies, such as real-time targeting and damage assessment capabilities. While Iran is at least five years away from establishing an arsenal of increasingly accurate and lethal missiles, the United States and its Gulf partners must now begin identifying and developing military strategies to mitigate their impact.
Military Contingencies
Existing, US-led deterrence structures in the Gulf against Iran would neither weaken considerably nor become obsolete should Iran acquire precision-guided ballistic missiles. Overwhelming US, British, and French firepower in the region (assuming these countries do not drastically draw down or totally pull out from the region in the future) would still cause Iran to think twice before attacking any of its neighbors.
But with potentially more accurate missiles, Iran could plan limited attacks to achieve strategic objectives, without inviting massive and swift retribution by Washington. Planning for such potential contingencies and understanding what Iranian objectives they might serve is important to get ahead of Tehran and deny it any strategic opportunities. So how could Iran take advantage of its potentially enhanced missile capabilities while averting direct war with Washington?
Iran might seek to create policy conundrums for Washington by attempting to strike specific targets in the Gulf over which the United States might not retaliate. Consider this: if Tehran ever launched an attack against any US military asset in the region, Washington would strike back forcefully (where and how might depend on what the Iranians hit in the first place). But would a similar outcome ensue if Tehran struck an Arab Gulf city or value target, such as oil installations or water desalinations plants? The Arab Gulf states would certainly hope that the United States would intervene immediately and teach Iran a very painful lesson, but US military involvement might not be so automatic, and would depend on various factors including the risk of escalation, the extent of the initial damage Iran had caused, and the very nature of the circumstances that led Tehran to attack in the first place. When direct US interests are not harmed, it is never easy or straightforward for the United States to decide to use lethal force and possibly go to war against a foreign nation on behalf of partners with whom it does not have a formal alliance or defense pact.
An even more complicated scenario is if Tehran were to fire a couple of precise shots (whenever it does acquire more accurate missiles) against, for example, military radar installations in Riyadh or Abu Dhabi, and as a result, cause serious damage to either country’s missile defense system. Would Washington lash out against Tehran then? Perhaps, but again, not necessarily, and compared with the previous scenario one could make the argument that the likelihood of US intervention would be even lower. In this contingency, Washington would definitely pause and think harder about risk-reward calculations, in the interest of, once again, avoiding escalation and preserving regional stability. However, in these second and third scenarios, Washington would face the daunting task of trying to reassure and coordinate with anxious and threatened regional partners who might (and most probably will) decide to retaliate and go on their own if they perceive any American hesitancy or lack of commitment. It is those potential differences in interest, strategy, and tactics between the United States and its regional partners that Tehran would seek to manipulate, and it is those gray zones that it would most likely focus on in potential limited war plans.

The United Arab Emirates offload a BMP3 Tank with “Namut” thermal sight, at a Kuwaiti port facility, from its Elbahia L62 landing craft in 2003. Photo credit: Wikipedia.

Again, the purpose of such surgical strikes for Iran would not be to degrade the military capabilities of its Arab Gulf adversaries, but would be, more importantly, to test the resolve or threshold levels of Washington, the coherence of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and the unity of the US-Gulf partnership. Another potential goal would be to politically destabilize the intended target and cause enough panic and chaos domestically to allow Iranian proxies already operating in the country to make a serious move by either launching a coup or facilitating a popular insurrection against the government. In other words, in the first few critical moments of the crisis following missile launch, Iran would immediately seek to create new and favorable facts on the ground that would serve its long-term interests, and that Washington would find extremely difficult to reverse.
Missile Defense Integration
This is why missile defense in the Gulf, and particularly the goal of integrating this capability, is so critical. That the Arab Gulf states have considerable missile defense capabilities reduces the likelihood of Iran achieving any of its previously mentioned aims (at least not in the very beginning of the crisis) by increasing the raid size required for an attack to penetrate, which would allow these states to “hold the line” until the United States (possibly) steps in militarily. While Arab Gulf missile defense is not foolproof and extremely unlikely in the foreseeable future to negate the potential advantage of offensive Iranian precision-guided ballistic missiles, it does provide flexibility to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, for example, in terms of military and diplomatic strategy. It also buys them time, reduces their vulnerability, and puts the burden of escalation in an emerging crisis on Iran.
However, Arab Gulf missile defense integration will remain an illusion without greater trust and closer political relations among the United States’ regional partners.⁷ Even if Washington overhauls its export control regime, adopts a more strategic approach to foreign military sales, and provides all the software and hardware needed to develop its Gulf partners’ capabilities, Arab Gulf politics will continue to obstruct missile defense integration. Effective missile defense in the Gulf requires first and foremost a fully integrated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance system and a shared early-warning system. But GCC nations do not agree on what such a system should look like and they do not share nearly enough information. Imagine this hypothetical scenario: Iran fires a missile at any target in Saudi Arabia and the first Gulf country to intercept it is Qatar. Given the rivalry and recent tensions between the two, would the Qataris “take the shot”? It is not entirely clear.
Missile defense integration requires serious political commitment on the part of the Arab Gulf states to conducting cooperative exercises, including high-level, tabletop, scenario-dependent gaming exercises involving the senior military leadership of each GCC member, and preferably in partnership with the United States. The Arab Gulf states would also benefit from thinking collectively about concepts of operations, tactics, techniques, and procedures.
But such efforts are not happening on a consistent or periodic basis, whether in Washington or in the region (with the notable exception of a senior-level exercise held by Kuwait on May 23-25 of this year), and it is not just because there are organizational and institutional challenges or intellectual and analytical shortcomings among Gulf military leadership and staff. In addition to mistrust, the real issue is that GCC members do not even perceive the Iranian threat in the same way. Nobody expects the Arab Gulf states to unite or agree on all issues. The ship of GCC unity sailed a long time ago. But there is a big difference between disagreement and mistrust, and this is a clear case of the latter.
It will already be extremely difficult for the Arab Gulf states’ missile defense systems to keep up with the increasing accuracy of Iran’s missiles. Cementing Iran’s advantage in the future even further is the absence of an integrated missile defense structure in the Gulf, perhaps calling into question the strategic premise of Arab Gulf missile defense altogether, given its exorbitant financial costs and uncertain overall contribution to national security.
Conclusion
Conventional wisdom suggests that in the presence of a major US, British, and French military deterrent in the Gulf, there is little reason to worry about any conventional weapon Iran might acquire. Iran is neither careless nor irrational, and therefore is less likely to pick a fight with a much more powerful set of adversaries. However, the profound socio-political changes that are sweeping across the Gulf and the broader Middle East have introduced a degree of unpredictability that could challenge future regional security. This could be enabled by a reduced US desire to get involved militarily in the Middle East, the growing political and military involvement of major powers such as Russia and China, and far-reaching political and generational changes in the Arab Gulf countries that are likely to impact future security and defense policies.
In a post-nuclear-deal era, Iran might be emboldened to test Washington’s informal security commitments to its Gulf partners as it has never done before. Although it will most probably continue to avoid clashing militarily with the United States and its regional partners, it might exploit its potentially superior missile capabilities to experiment with contingencies that would create tough policy dilemmas for Washington.
Notes
¹ Though it has compelled the United States to push hard for the long-term goal of ballistic missile defense cooperation and integration in the Gulf.
² Alalam, “Iran warns Israel of military deterrence, missile might,” May 25, 2014, http://en.alalam.ir/news/1597338.
³ James R. Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community,” Statement for the Record, Senate Armed Services Committee, February 9, 2016, p. 8, http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Clapper_02-09-16.pdf.
⁴ Hearing On “Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Budget Request For Missile Defense Programs,” March 19, 2015, p. 113, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-114hhrg94227/pdf/CHRG-114hhrg94227.pdf.
⁵ Iran’s Ballistic Missile Capabilities: A Net Assessment, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2010.
⁶ Jeremy Binnie and Andy Dinville, “Satellite imagery shows accu-racy of Iran’s ballistic missiles,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, October 31, 2012.
⁷ Bilal Y. Saab, “Why the Persian Gulf Isn’t Ready for Joint Se-curity,” Defense One, June 19, 2014, http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2014/06/why-persian-gulf-isnt-ready-joint-security/86800/?oref=d-river.
About the Authors
Bilal Y. Saab is senior fellow and director of the Middle East Peace and Security Initiative at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council.
Michael Elleman is consulting senior fellow for missile defence at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
For more information on issues and events that shape our world, please visit the CSS Blog Network or browse our Digital Library