Obama Started Interfering in Elections

Nobody talks about it, but the US played a role in the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.  If Putin interfered in the US election, he may have seen it as a response to Obama’s interference in Ukrainian politics, which would have cost Russia its only warm water port, Sevastople, a strategic loss to Russia.  Putin could not accept that loss, and subsequented invaded and reannexed Crimea.  

I don’t know how involved the US was in the ouster of Yanukovych.  Certainly the US pubicly supported the protesters against Yanukovych and chered his ouster.  If the CIA or other Americans were more involved, Putin probably knows that, and wants to retaliate for it.  

I don’t know whether Putin was actually involved in the hacking and leaks of election emails.  I don’t know what involvement the US may have had in Ukrainian politics.  Clearly there is a link between Ukraine and Trump in the person of Paul Manafort.  

On Charlie Rose, David Sanger of the NYT just said that Putin may have been responding to US criticism of Putin’s victory in the last Russian election.

Obama, Hillary, Ecuador and Assange

I wonder how much pressure the Obama administration brought on the Ecuadorian government to cut off Juilian Assange’s access to the Internet in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.  I don’t particularly like Assange or the fact that the Russians are meddling in the American election, but it also indicates that the US Government is putting its finger on the scales of the election.  Of course, Obama  campaigns for Hillary, but in theory he does that as a leader of the Democratic party, not as President of the United States.  Obama’s use of the US foreign policy apparatus to support Hillary reinforces the view that the government is corrupt and that the electoral system is corrupt.  

Should the US or China Stop North Korea?

I was pleased to see a New York Times op-ed by Joel Wit on North Korea.  Sometimes he is the PBS News Hour expert, but this time, PBS turned to some other other experts.  I worked with Joel Wit off and on for several years.  In my previous blog about the North Korean nuclear test, I complained that the US government would not fund its obligations under the Korean Peninsula Development Organization (KEDO).  As I result, as the embassy science officer in Rome I had to ask the Italy and the EU if they would provide the funds that the US Congress would not.  If the US did not fund its obligations, it gave North Korea a perfect excuse to withdraw from KEDO and resume its nuclear weapons program.  Joel was back in Washington, and was at the other end of these instruction cables to ask the Europeans for money. 

It was not Joel’s fault that the US Congress would not appropriate the money for KEDO.  He was left scrambling to find the money.  I think I heard him say at least once that the US had never defaulted on its obligations.  Apparently he and his associates found the money after I retired, since KEDO continued on for years, but even if they did, it was an indication of bad faith on America’s part. 

In his op-ed, Joel says that the US cannot count on China to rein in North Korea’s nuclear program; only the US can.  To do this the US will have to escalate sanctions and keep the door open for negotiations.  He thinks that there may be something that North Korea wants enough to resume talks. 

I am not optimistic.  Looking at the past history, North Korea swings back and forth so much it’s hard to tell if they are serious about any negotiations.  They have actually entered into agreements that actually restricted their activities like any normal country that was giving up a military nuclear program.  But then they suddenly change their mind and withdraw.  Nevertheless, it’s better to try to rein in the program than just let them do anything they want. 

After KEDO, six-party talks produced various attempts at agreements to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, but they all failed in the end.  Off and on the North Koreans agree to certain restrictions on their programs, which they ultimately renounced. 

The Arms Control Association website provides a timeline.  North Korea first undertook to restrain its nuclear program in 1985, when it signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but it did not implement the safeguards agreement required by the NPT.  In 1992 it finally signed a safeguards agreement under the NPT with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).  Agreement on KEDO is reached in 1994, under which the US, South Korea and Japan promise two commercial light water reactors in return for North Korea’s dismantling of its plutonium production reactors.  In 1996 talks the US suggested that North Korea joining the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which I played a role in creating.  (North Korea did not join.)  In 1998 Japan suspended its participation in KEDO.  In 1999 KEDO signed a contract to build the two power reactors.  In August 2002 KEDO poured the first concrete for the power reactor construction.  During an American visit in October 2002, North Korea admitted that had a clandestine nuclear enrichment program in violation of its agreements.  In November 2002 KEDO announced that it was suspending its delivery of heavy fuel oil under the agreement.  The US provided funding in 2003 to wind down the organization, which announced that it was suspending reactor construction.  In 2006 the KEDO board announced the formal termination of its power reactor construction project.

 KEDO was succeeded by another agreement based on a 2005 joint statement at six-party talks including North Korea, the US, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.  In November 2007 a US team travelled to North Korea to begin disablement of Yongbyon nuclear facilities under an October agreement reached in the six-arty talks.  During 2008 Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill meets with North Koreas on compliance with the agreement.  By December 2008 the US has delivered 550,000 tons of heavy fuel oil under the agreement.  In April 2009, North Korea says it will no longer be bound by the six-party talks agreement and ejects IAEA and US monitors.  In May North Korea conducted its second underground nuclear test. 

In December 2011 Kim Jong Il dies and is replaced by Kim Jong Un.  In December 2012, North Korea successfully launches a satellite.  In February 2013, North Korea conducts another underground nuclear test.  In January 2016, North Korea announces a fourth nuclear test.  It conducted its fifth nuclear test on September 9, 2016.  

North Korea and the MTCR

North Korea’s test of a nuclear device has prompted discussion of its missile program.  When I was at the State Department, I spent years working on the creation of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).  I am disappointed that I have not seen it mentioned in connection with North Korea’s development of missiles.  Before the North Korean test, the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” published several articles dealing with missile proliferation and the MTCR: “Missile proliferation: Treat the disease,” and “Too late for missile proliferation?” as well as several other articles that were part of a debate about how to deal with missile proliferation. 

The MTCR is basically an export control agreement for nations capable of supplying missile hardware and technology.  By joining the MTCR they agree not to supply items or knowledge to proliferating countries that could be used to build nuclear capable missiles.  It is not an arms control agreement that prohibits the proliferation of missile technology.  It is more like the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) than the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). 

As proliferating countries become more capable of producing missiles on their own, the export restrictions of the MTCR have less effect.  The MTCR probably did slow down North Korea’s development of missiles, but now it is less effective.  However, building missiles is “rocket science,” and there are some very difficult technologies involved.  Therefore, the MTCR may still play a role in limiting or slowing down the ability of North Korea to build more powerful and more accurate missiles, but at this point, slowing down is about the best it could do.  Press articles seem to agree that North Korea could build strategic nuclear missiles that could reach the US by 2020, e.g. a New York Times article says, “Military experts say that by 2020, Pyongyang will most likely have the skills to make a reliable intercontinental ballistic missile topped by a nuclear warhead.”  However, the MTCR might still help restrict the accuracy and the size of the warhead for such a missile by 2020.  It might mean that North Korea could be able to hit somewhere in the greater Washington metropolitan area with a bomb the size of the one the US used on Hiroshima, rather than one that could reliably hit Pennsylvania Avenue and destroy both the White House and the Capitol, as well as most of the city.  Neither of these outcomes is acceptable, but the greater the chances that a missile might misfire, go off course or fail to detonate, the better. 

Of course it would be better to have in place a strong treaty that prohibits missile proliferation like the NPT does for bombs, but that is unlikely.  One reason the MTCR is so weak is that it is all that even the friendliest countries, like the UK, France, or Japan, would agree to.  Furthermore the NPT has not been successful in limiting nuclear proliferation by the most threatening countries, such as North Korea.  As in most areas of life, laws constrain decent people, but criminals commit crimes despite the laws against it. 

One advantage of the NPT is that it has its own police force, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has performed its job well in a number of cases, discovering and reporting prohibited activities by member parties.  However, the IAEA has no authority in countries that are not parties to the NPT, which includes most of the worrisome countries, such as North Korea.  There are countries that have joined the NPT, but then have gotten off the track, perhaps after a change of government.  This happened in Iran.  The IAEA has worked successfully in Iran and is a key component of the US-Iran deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program.