Going Nuclear: The Good and Bad of Deterrence

The United States has recently been in the news again, this time concerning the Trump administration's championing of the US building up its nuclear arsenal and a rejection of a new START nuclear disarmament treaty between the United States and Russia. This has serious implications for the world aside from signalling a departure from the foreign policy precedent of gradual nuclear disarmament. What is the potential rationale for such a policy shift? What are its implications? This week, I examine the logic of deterrence theory and point out its pros and cons in light of recent events.

Currently, there are over 15,000 nuclear missiles in the world, with the United States and Russia currently possessing over 93% of the world's total nuclear weapons (a leftover from the Cold War era). Besides the United States and Russia, only six other countries are confirmed to have nuclear weapons: China, India, Israel, France, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, and North Korea. (Note: While North Korea has conducted nuclear weapons tests, it is not officially known whether or not North Korea's nuclear program has advanced to the point of being able to miniaturize a nuclear warhead so that it fits on a missile). These countries, both inside and outside the nuclear club (i.e. the US, UK, China, France, and Russia), possess nuclear weapons due in large part to the logic of deterrence theory.

Deterrence theory states that multiple states possessing nuclear weapons will have significant disincentives to use them against other actors because of mutually assured destruction (MAD). In other words, countries don't want to fire on other countries if they know that there will be retaliation that will ensure both sides get destroyed. This theory, like other international relations theory, relies on the basic assumption that actors (i.e. states) are rational and wish to optimize their security in order to ensure their ultimate survival. Because there has been no nuclear war yet, does this mean that deterrence theory is sound and that nuclear weapons are the key to peace and prosperity in the international system?

While it may appear to have held up so far (we're all still here), there are critical flaws in the theory (like any other theory). One major one is that in a world in which non-state actors like terrorist groups pose transnational security threats, the logic of deterrence theory breaks down. This is because non-state actors cannot be easily located and some terrorists don't act in the assumed rational manner (i.e. they may not care about their survival, as seen with suicide bombers). Moreover, as more countries acquire nuclear weapons despite international treaties like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), there is a greater chance that terrorists could acquire knowledge about nuclear weapons and use that against the rest of the international system.

I would argue that this latter risk is amplified with calls by the Trump administration to boost the US nuclear arsenal (potentially prompting other countries to possibly abandon the international nuclear disarmament regime). Secondly, the logic of deterrence doesn't hold in situations where someone accidentally launches nuclear weapons, misreads the intentions of other actors, or where leaders are not behaving rationally. Lastly, I would argue that the logic of deterrence is shaky also when it comes to instilling a potentially false sense of security.

There has to be a tipping point. This tipping point could come from any of the above situations I have outlined. Frankly, that scares me. Nuclear disarmament is probably the best way to prevent tensions from escalating between countries (despite the logic of deterrence) or between non-state actors and countries, instead of constantly being in an arms race to stay "on top of the pack." Arms races typically don't end well. Look at what almost happened in the Cold War. Deterrence theory itself almost gave way to an accidental launch, after all.



Sources Cited:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39073303
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fact-sheet-who-has-nuclear-weapons-how-many-do-they-n548481
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11813699
https://www.wagingpeace.org/ten-serious-flaws-in-nuclear-deterrence-theory/

On the Media

{The first in a series of case studies looking at the media and democracy.}

Recently, there has been many headlines where President Trump has decried the "dishonesty" of the media and that media organizations are essentially tools of the left in an overall "corrupt system" that is in need of fixing. While the media and Washington do have a symbiotic relationship of sorts, this relationship is not as cozy as some would claim. This week I write to shine a light on the critical role that media organizations and journalists play in helping to maintain a healthy democracy like ours.

One of the cornerstones of a functioning, stable democracy is an independent (i.e. not state-owned as many media organizations are in say, Russia or China) media. Some scholars have gone so far as to call the media the "fourth branch of government," in a reference to its importance in providing critical, albeit somewhat informal checks and balances on government and its exercise of power (Bennett, 2007; Cook, 1998). Essentially, the media serves the role of watchdog, helping to keep the government accountable to its people through its reporting (especially in an age of "alternative facts" that can create harmful, false realities) and to call it out when it is overstepping the bounds of its authority or acting in a way contrary to the will of the people.

Again, I acknowledge that the media does not function in a complete vacuum. However, the reporter-politician/official relationship is a two-way street. Reporters depend on government officials or politicians for the content of their stories and government officials/politicians need the media in order to reach wide audiences with their messages (i.e. the people). Like all relationships, there is friction between the two parties, as government officials feel the media can be intrusive, especially around potentially classified matters of national security. Meanwhile, reporters can feel that government officials are hiding critical information, especially when Freedom of Information Act (FIA) requests are denied on the grounds of national security.

In this way, the relationship is a feedback loop that can reinforce frictions between the two parties, with government officials and the media calling out each other in a battle of narratives. The outsider's view of this relationship can leave them rightly confused or even embittered towards the media, as the government has incredible powers to shape messaging in a way that it is able to portray itself as a victim of overly zealous attack journalism. The media's responses to such charges sometimes do not help that perception either.

It is this great amount of power that government has over messaging and framing issues that lately has had me worried. President Trump seems to be exploiting an underlying anger that people have towards the media by using his position one of the most visible people in the world to decry the media as "corrupt" and "against the people." Other frequent charges have centered around news organizations spreading "fake news." (The irony of this messaging method is that the president took advantage of the vast audience media organizations of all stripes report to in spreading his message that the media are not to be trusted.) By delegitimizing the news as an actor that actually runs contrary to democracy, President Trump is setting a dangerous precedent.

If people do not trust the news and are told to trust exclusively in the government and its messaging, that comes dangerously close to living in a society where government powers are not checked and opposition coalitions are systematically targeted. In other words, those civil and political liberties that we treasure can be taken away if we're not careful. In such situations, competing ideas and beliefs can be quashed by a government and tyranny of the majority becomes a very real possibility. The media represents those diverse ideas, the alternative ways of looking at problems and solving them. Diversity of ideas is one of the defining features of a democracy, after all. Therefore, do not discount the media so easily. By keeping watch over the government and providing (and rightly defending) a necessary platform for the expression of a multitude of ideas, the people can hold the government accountable. Especially when an administration like Trump's tries to circumvent the checks and balances that have held our democracy together.



Sources Cited:

Bennett, W. L. & Graber, D.A. (2007). News: the politics of illusion (6th ed.). New York: Pearson Longman.

Cook, T. E. (1998). Governing with the news: The news media as a political institution (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39018096

On Immigration & Refugees

Immigration. Refugees. It's two of the most controversial topics in the United States right now, as President Donald Trump goes to court to defend a series of executive orders seeking to halt refugees and immigrants from coming from seven Muslim-majority countries. With all the confusion and "alternative facts" floating around, I thought I would look into the refugee screening process and the immigration executive orders and set the record straight. I make the argument that these executive orders, rather than making the country safer from outside threats like terrorism, actually puts our country more at risk.

Starting with the refugee screening process, the United States has one of the most strict refugee screening processes in the world. After undergoing preliminary screening, asylum cases first arrive for initial processing by one of the State Department's nine Resettlement Support Centers (RSCs). The RSCs do additional background checks and collect more information. Then, multiple United States security or intelligence organizations (such as the Department of Homeland Security) review the RSC case info when conducting multiple interviews and even further screening for any red flags. This includes biometric testing, cultural testing, and more. Considering all the resources the United States has at is disposal, including help from allied country intelligence organizations, it is extremely rare that anything serious will be missed by the screening process. All in all, this process takes roughly 12-24 months. (For further details, see the links below.)

So, to give some further perspective, the chances of being killed by a refugee in a terrorist attack amount roughly to a 1 in 3.6 billion chance/year. This implies that the bigger danger perhaps would come from so-called "home-grown" terrorists, or United States citizens that are radicalized. The measures that President Trump is putting into place, including an indefinite ban on acceptance of Syrian refugees and a temporary ban on people coming from seven Muslim majority countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen), minus those that are United States permanent residents, might not actually make the country safer than it already is. 

The toxic anti-immigrant and refugee rhetoric during the 2016 presidential election and these restrictive (perhaps isolationist) immigration and refugee policies goes contrary to our country's very foundations in being welcoming towards immigrants and others escaping persecution. Also, these policies only serve to feed into the narratives of terrorist groups like ISIS use to recruit further members. Lastly, while these measures are being debated on their legality, there is the potential for these measures, meant to provide security, lead us onto a slippery slope where the rights of some groups are trampled on for the short-term benefit of the others. 

And that, that is not democratic. It's not who we are as a country.

Sources cited: 

https://www.state.gov/j/prm/ra/admissions

Infographic, resettlement process (State Department)

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/30/politics/immigration-stats-by-the-numbers-trnd/ (Immigration/Refugee Stats)

http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/feb/01/ted-lieu/odds-youll-be-killed-terror-attack-america-refugee/