The Cato Institute

North Korea & How to Avoid (Potentially Nuclear) Catastrophe

U.S. military action is no solution for the North Korean crisis…

President Trump has repeatedly threatened to attack North Korea, but even limited military engagement in North Korea would escalate to unacceptable losses of life.

Although President Trump and Kim Jong-un are set to meet this summer, the Trump administration has regularly shown that it considers military action a viable option if it is unsatisfied with diplomatic efforts. 

But, any attempts to use force to denuclearize North Korea would likely spiral out of control and lead to mass casualties. Absent a clear, imminent threat, diplomacy is consequently the only viable U.S. strategy in the region.

Although U.S. policymakers seek to rid the Kim regime of its nuclear weapons, the Trump administration has few viable options. Kim views his nuclear capability as a critical deterrent. U.S. attempts to forcibly deprive the regime of its nukes could lead to escalation, with North Korea feeling a compulsion to strike first in a “use it or lose it” scenario.

In fact, in such a delicate situation, almost any U.S. military action would likely trigger full-scale war. A limited surgical strike designed to target North Korea’s nuclear arsenal would not likely be sufficient, as the locations of all North Korea’s nukes are not known and some assets are likely buried deep underground. Even an operation aimed at taking out North Korea leadership would not prevent a war from erupting, given that artillery squads threatening Seoul have orders to fire on the city “without orders from above” in the event of a U.S. attack.

Such an escalation would be devastating, given that roughly 26 million people live in the Seoul metropolitan area, leaving them vulnerable to artillery, Scud missiles, and biological weapons, not to mention a nuclear strike. Even a conventional artillery barrage could cause tens of thousands of deaths within hours. North Korea could also target South Korea’s nuclear power plants, causing major casualties as a result of fallout. Other potential targets include the Yongsan Garrison, where the U.S. Army keeps its Korean headquarters and 26,000 Americans live, as well as Guam and Tokyo.

A full-on war would be even more counterproductive for U.S. interests. The buildup to such a war would be hard to disguise, thus serving as a visible signal for Pyongyang to strike first. Although the U.S. military and South Korea’s military are more than a match for North Korea’s, such a war would be immensely costly and bloody. There is a high danger of such a war spilling out into Russia, China, and other nations, particularly if nuclear weapons are used. 

The economic costs of such a war would also be staggering. Washington would face extraordinary pressure to underwrite occupation and finance reconstruction across the entire battle zone, with the United States’ share of the burden potentially reaching trillions of dollars.

Instead of considering military options, U.S. policymakers to make serious efforts to open diplomatic channels with the North. Direct and normalized communication would go a long way toward stepping away from the brink, particularly given that the U.S. and North Korea both have heads of state given to brashness. 

The United States should also hold serious discussions with China. Possible confidence-building measures include offering aid for refugees, accepting possible Chinese military intervention in the aftermath of a North Korean collapse, as well as guaranteeing that U.S. forces would leave a reunited peninsula. Once tensions ease, the U.S. should reconsider its military alliance with South Korea, which now has a well-developed military capable of protecting the country on its own.

In other words, the United States should follow the same strategy it did with the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War, avoiding preventive strikes in favor of containment and deterrence. 

There are risks to containing and deterring North Korea, but they pale beside the costs of plunging the peninsula into the abyss of war.

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Weakening the Constitution to Go to War in Syria is a Terrible Idea

The Constitution is supposed to make it difficult for a President to take the U.S. to war. Why would Congress want to make it easier?

Despite President Trump’s calls during the campaign to pull back from the Middle East and more recent statements that he’s ready pack up and go home from Syria “very soon,” he nonetheless ordered missile strikes in Syria, ostensibly in response to reports that Assad killed civilians with chemical weapons.

President Trump’s announcement that the United States, France and Britain had launched airstrikes against Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack might have surprised the people who listened to him campaigning in 2016, when he repeatedly critiqued “stupid” Middle Eastern interventions.

Since entering office, President Trump has reversed course on foreign policy, and he evidently now shares the assumption that America must do something in response to atrocities in Syria — a wholehearted embrace of the Washington bias toward action.

In this, President Trump and his predecessor have something in common: Both he and President Obama came into office promising to change America’s foreign policy, but when faced with crises, both yielded to pressure to intervene. This bias toward action is one of the biggest problems in American foreign policy. It produces poorly thought-out interventions and, sometimes, disastrous long-term consequences.

President Trump’s previous strikes in Syria garnered bipartisan praise from the Washington establishment, praise that the president craves. Yet military action in Syria will not benefit national interests, and may draw the U.S. further into a quagmire there is no easy route out of.

Two days after President Trump declared “Mission Accomplished” on the latest round of missile strikes against Syria, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled legislation intended to reassert Congress’s relevance to the wars we fight. But the new Authorization for the Use of Military Force, introduced by Bob Corker, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, and the Democrat Tim Kaine, may end up doing the opposite.

Senator Kaine is right that, as he said in a speech about the bill, “for too long Congress has given presidents a blank check to wage war.” The 2001 authorization, passed three days after the Sept. 11 attacks and aimed at the perpetrators of those attacks, has done just that. Three presidents in a row have warped its limited authority into an enabling act for globe-spanning presidential war.

The Corker-Kaine resolution won’t bring an end to the Forever War; it will institutionalize it. Instead of ratifying war powers that three presidents in a row have seized illegally, Congress should repeal — and not replace — the 2001 legislation.

In authorizing the use of force against a list of terrorist organizations and their affiliates, the bill states that it “establishes rigorous congressional oversight,” “improves transparency” and ensures “regular congressional review and debate.” Such transparency requirements are an improvement over the status quo. But the bill also turns the constitutional warmaking process upside down.

Our Constitution was designed to make war difficult, requiring the assent of both houses and the president. The bill essentially changes that by merely requiring “regular congressional review” of presidential warmaking and requires reauthorization every four years; meanwhile, choosing new enemies, in new countries, is the president’s call, unless Congress can assemble a veto-proof majority to check him.

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Time to Rethink U.S. Arms Sales Across the Globe

Since 2002, the United States has sold more than $197 billion worth of major conventional weapons and related military support to 167 countries, often those engaged in deadly conflicts, with horrendous human rights records, under conditions in which it has been impossible to predict where the weapons would end up or how they would be used….

With the Trump administration poised to sell $110 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia — the largest such deal ever agreed to by the U.S. — and more than $84 billion to 42 other nations, it’s high time to reevaluate U.S. arms deals.

The research is clear: the geopolitical benefits of U.S. arms sales are overrated, while the benefits of discontinuing such sales are significant finding that arms sales do little to strengthen the U.S. economy or protect national security interests, even undermining the latter in some cases.

The U.S. does not discriminate between nations which may or may not pose future threats. There are a large number of risky customers in the world, and the United States sells weapons to most of them. Between 2002 and 2006, the U.S. clocked $197 billion in arms sales — and, the 28 countries currently involved in high-level conflicts bought an average of $2.94 billion worth of U.S. arms.

The U.S. has increasingly relied on arms sales since WWII, with the Nixon-era American Export Controls Act formalizing the executive branch’s ability to conduct such sales, requiring risk analyses (which are often nothing more than rubber stamps), and giving Congress the ability to block such sales within a 30-day window — a power Congress rarely exercises.

Although arms sales are an “extremely flexible” tool of statecraft allowing the U.S. to cheaply exert influence and gain favor, the benefits are illusory. Arms sales have shown little ability to prevent terrorism or conflict from taking root in a country, and arms sale-recipient countries have been significantly more likely to be attacked by their geopolitical rivals.

Most concerning is arms sales’ tendency to culminate in “blowback,” when a U.S. ally turns into an adversary. American troops and their allies have faced American-made weapons in almost every military engagement since the end of the Cold War. Moreover, weapons sales tend to have an entangling effect, leading the U.S. to take gradually more involvement in the areas it conducts such sales, most notably of late in the Syrian Civil War.

Despite this, there is limited manpower devoted to making sure weapons are not misused or end up in the wrong hands: the limited staff at the the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, which oversees U.S. arms licensing agreements, and the Blue Lantern program, which conducts end-use monitoring of weapons. The latter has a staff of twelve, responsible for tracking billions of dollars in weapons sales every year.

The United States does not need the limited economic benefits arms sales provide—and it certainly does not need the strategic headaches that come with them.

President Trump should enact a strict, conditional approach towards arms deals, with a default policy of “no sale,” and should be sure to embargo nations that are likely to misuse or lose weapons they buy from the U.S. End-use monitoring programs should be strengthened, while Congress should also legislate for itself a more active role in approving arms deals. 

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The Forgotten Anniversary: September 14th, 2001

After 16 years of war, it’s time to reckon with the less-appreciated anniversary of September 14, 2001, when Congress gave the President a relatively open-ended power to make war…

Over the last decade and a half, we’ve heard over and over again that “September 11th changed everything”—but maybe September 14 was the pivotal date. 

Sixteen years ago today, Congress passed the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Aimed at the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and those who “harbored” or “aided” them, the AUMF has been transformed into an enabling act for globe-spanning presidential war.  

Two-thirds of the House members who voted for the 2001 AUMF and three quarters of the Senate are no longer in Congress today. But judging by what they said at the time, the legislators who passed it didn’t think they were committing the US to an open-ended, multigenerational war; they thought they were targeting Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Undeclared wars and drive-by bombing raids were hardly unknown before 9/11. But most of the military excursions of the post-Cold War era were geographically limited, temporary departures from a baseline of peace.

Barack Obama left office as the first two-term president in American history to have been at war every single day of his presidency. In his last year alone, U.S. forces dropped over 26,000 bombs on seven different countries. Seven months into his presidency, Donald Trump has almost certainly passed Obama’s 2016 tally already — all under the auspices of the AUMF.

The AUMF Congress passed in 2001 still serves as legal cover for current wars we fight in seven countries. War is now America’s default setting; peace, the dwindling exception to the rule.

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We Cannot “Win” in Afghanistan

President Trump’s Afghanistan strategy ignores the evidence amassed over 16 hard-fought years. There will be no winning for the U.S. in Afghanistan…

President Trump campaigned on a platform of pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. That no longer seems to be on the table. 

On Monday night, President Trump informed the nation that he is escalating America’s war in Afghanistan. That means that our longest war will continue for at least four more years, and likely longer. It also means that more Americans will be sent across the globe to fight — and die — in the pursuit of unclear objectives, and in a conflict that is not vital to U.S. national security.

While specifics about the new strategy are sketchy, it seems to be more of the same, and more of the same will not improve reality in Afghanistan; it may, in fact, make things worse. 

Trump assured Americans that he had the strategy for “winning,” but his strategy looked a lot like one that previous battlefield commanders have suggested is sorely wanting.

Trump’s “winning” rhetoric, like that of previous administrations, makes it sound as though this is America’s war to win or lose. It is not.

The failure of the Afghan government and security forces is, primarily, a failure of Afghans. The U.S. can adjust its strategy as often as it would like, but Americans should not expect substantially different outcomes until Afghans find their own way.

Despite invading two countries, toppling three regimes and conducting military strikes in seven nations, the estimated number of Islamist-inspired terrorists has grown from approximately 32,000 before initiation of the war on terror to 109,000 now.

That is an argument to end America’s involvement in Afghanistan’s civil war, not for more of the same.

President Trump’s new strategy ignores the evidence amassed over 16 hard-fought years, and, as a result, more American lives and resources will be lost as this unnecessary war continues. There will be no winning for the U.S. in Afghanistan.

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President Trump’s First 100 Days: Trade & Foreign Policy

Inaugurated on January 20, 2017, our 45th President will complete 100 days in office this Saturday, April 29th…

The “first 100 days” was a dictatorial metaphor from the start. It entered the presidential lexicon in 1933, when journalists likened FDR’s legislative onslaught to Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1815 breakout from Elba and subsequent three-month rampage, ending at Waterloo.

Thankfully, President Trump’s first 100 days haven’t been nearly so dramatic. But of course, we are less than 100 days into Trump’s presidency, so we cannot reach any firm conclusions yet

In his first three months, Trump has learned that the presidency can be an incredibly frustrating job. Of the long list of items in Trump’s “100-day action plan,” he’s barely moved on most, reversed himself on others, and been stymied by Congress and the courts on the few where he’s made a serious push.

For foreign policy wonks, Trump’s first hundred days have been a bit like a roller coaster ride.

 Trump has put additional boots on the ground in Syria, loosened rules of engagement designed to minimize civilian deaths, and dropped more bombs in Yemen than Obama did in any year of his presidency.

What we may get out of Trump’s trade policies is a more nuanced and targeted approach than was hinted at during the campaign, but his policy has been anything but predictable. 

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Nobel Peace Prize Winner Obama Leaves a Legacy of War

President Obama will leave office as the first two-term president in American history to have been at war every day of his presidency, having dropped over 25,000 bombs on seven countries in 2016 alone….

As a young state senator in 2002, Obama gave an antiwar rally speech railing against the “dumb,” “rash” rush to war in Iraq. As a presidential candidate five years later, he promised to “turn the page on the imperial presidency” and usher in “a new dawn of peace.” In a speech to US troops last month, he denounced the “false promise” that “we can eliminate terrorism by dropping more bombs,” and piously proclaimed that “democracies should not operate in a state of permanently authorized war.”

And yet, 2008’s “peace candidate” has launched two undeclared wars (in Libya and against ISIS), ordered 10 times as many drone strikes as George W. Bush — including the remote-control execution of an American citizen, and, this summer, bombed six different countries just over Labor Day weekend.

By the time Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, he’d already launched more drone strikes than “war president” Bush managed during his two terms. 

It is Obama who is largely responsible for warping the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force—passed three days after 9/11 to target Al Qaeda and the Taliban—into an enabling act for endless war, anywhere in the world.

Where Bush secured congressional authorization for the two major wars he fought, Obama made perpetual warfare the new normal, and the president the ultimate “decider” in matters of war and peace.

Alas, political tribalism warps people’s perceptions of basic reality, convincing partisans they’re entitled to their own facts.

Even during the heyday of resistance to the Vietnam War, the criticism became more intense after Republican Richard Nixon took over the White House than it had been under Democrat Lyndon Johnson. There was far more criticism of Republican George H.W. Bush’s Persian Gulf War than there was of Democrat Bill Clinton’s wars in Bosnia and Kosovo (a distressing number of prominent liberals even found reasons to praise Clinton’s military crusades in the Balkans).

Left-wing groups mounted a fairly serious effort to thwart Republican Bush’s invasion of Iraq. But when Democrat Obama escalated U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and led a NATO assault to remove Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi from power, the reaction was very different.  Except for a few hard-left organizations, the sounds coming from the usual supposed anti-war liberal quarters were those of crickets. Likewise, there has been little push-back to Obama’s gradual return of the U.S. military presence in Iraq or the entanglement of the U.S. military in Syria.

With Trump’s inauguration near, Obama has described the transfer of presidential power as ”a relay race” where he’ll pass the baton to his successor. In private, he’s occasionally used a more ominous metaphor: leaving “a loaded weapon” behind for the next president.

And, now, Obama will pass that weapon on to Donald J. Trump, a man he’s flatly declared “unfit” for the office — someone who can’t be trusted with a Twitter account, let alone the nuclear launch codes.

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Is China the Fix to North Korea’s Nuclear Obsession?

The increasingly unpredictable and confrontational regime in North Korea continues to develop its nuclear weapons capability and launch a series of provocative missile tests. The traditional carrot-and-stick approach of ratcheting up sanctions while holding out the option of diplomatic engagement has failed. Policymakers in Washington need a new direction…

In his new study, Will China Solve the North Korea Problem?, Cato Institute senior fellow Doug Bandow argues that, in order to solve the world’s most dangerous flashpoint, Washington must persuade China to use its leverage over North Korea and back an allied denuclearization deal.

China is North Korea’s only ally, most important trading partner, and provides the North with up to 90 percent of its energy, 80 percent of its consumer goods, and 45 percent of its food supply. Only with China’s full cooperation can economic pressure on Pyongyang be effective.

The challenge is convincing Beijing that it is in China’s interest to solve the North Korea problem. In order to do that, the U.S. must reassure the People’s Republic on several strategic fronts. First, one of the primary reasons China continues to prop up the North Korean regime is to maintain a buffer state between Chinese territory and a strong U.S. security ally in which tens of thousands of U.S. troops are based. Washington should make clear to Beijing its intention to disengage militarily once the Korean problem is solved.

Next, the U.S. should work with South Korea and Japan to develop a comprehensive offer to the North that takes China’s strategic concerns into account. The offer should include a peace treaty, denuclearization, diplomatic recognition, end of sanctions, participation in international agencies and forums, economic aid, removal of U.S. troops from the South, increased inter-Korean contacts, and discussion of reunification.

If these compromises fail to impel China to pressure the North, Washington should indicate that further expansion of Pyongyang’ s atomic arsenal may lead to proliferation in Japan and South Korea. But China sees proliferation in North Korea, never mind South Korea and Japan, as harmful to its interests, so there is hope for further cooperation.

Sanctions, international isolation, and occasional diplomatic negotiations with North Korea have failed to moderate the regime or to solve the decades-long stalemate on the Korean Peninsula. The key to success is China, but the United States must be willing to think outside the box to incentivize serious cooperation from Beijing.

“The incoming Trump administration appears ready to begin its relations with China on a confrontational note, threatening a trade war and upending four decades of dealings with Taiwan,” Bandow says. “Yet Washington and Beijing have shared interests, including keeping the Korean peninsula non-nuclear. However, winning China’s cooperation will require compromise. If President Donald Trump follows his predecessor in simply demanding Beijing’s assistance, he is likely to get the same result: failure.”

Read the study…

Remembering the Anti-War Movement

47 years ago today, the largest anti-war protest in American history took place…

On November 15, 1969, over 250,000 Americans gathered peacefully in Washington D.C. to call for withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.

Almost five decades later, U.S. forces are engaged in active conflict in at least 6 countries, ranging from the well-known (Iraq; Afghanistan) to the largely invisible (Somalia; Yemen). Between January and March 2015, U.S. Special Operations forces deployed to over 80 countries. Although many of these deployments focused on training exercises or advisory roles, it is an astounding measure of the scope of the U.S. military’s involvement around the world. 

What happened to the anti-war movement?

The public often seems blissfully unaware of America’s wars, reflecting a blurring of the line between war and peace. However, the sentiments behind that historic protest carry on today, though partisanship sometimes colors how passionate Americans are about ending needless wars…

Read on….

Fabricated Myths about War

“Americans rarely see the horror and savagery of the wars being fought in their name. The public—right or wrong—could care less about war; and our military and political elites have incentives for withholding the realities of war from the public.”

What War Does to Our Society

“Assessments of war should go beyond critiques of its political and geostrategic ramifications; they should also extend to the various ways that war affects our society and public more generally.”

PODCAST: Partisanship and Anti-War Sentiment

“Where did the anti-war movement go?”

How Partisanship Killed the Anti-War Movement

“What lessons can be learned from the collapse of the post-9/11 anti-war movement?”

VIDEO: Ain’t My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism

“Conservatives love war, empire, and the military-industrial complex. They abhor peace, the sole and rightful property of liberals. Right? Wrong.”

Why Are FBI Agents Trammeling the Rights of Antiwar Activists?

“The FBI’s surveillance of antiwar activists dates back to at least World War I…No FBI agent or manager has ever been fired or prosecuted for violating the constitutional rights of those individuals or groups wrongly surveilled, harassed or charged.”

Don’t Make Women Register for the Draft. Just End Draft Registration for Everyone.

“When it comes to the draft, or any lingering vestige of it, it’s time for Congress to end it, not mend it.”

Isolationist or Imperialist?

“On foreign policy, Trump’s statements throughout the campaign have been profoundly incoherent, ranging from more traditional hawkish Republican views on issues like the Iran deal, to more unorthodox, restrained views on Syria and other Middle Eastern conflicts, to his more conciliatory approach to Russia and truly bizarre fixation with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.So what comes next?”

Donald Trump Is about to Become America’s President. Here’s What His Foreign Policy Should Be.

“Trump has an opportunity to dramatically reshape a conventional wisdom that has consistently failed America.”

Our Foreign Policy Choices: Rethinking America’s Global Role

“America’s foreign policy cannot simply rely on the business-as-usual policies that have sustained us in recent years. Instead, the country must look to alternative approaches to foreign policy, many of which are better suited to dealing with the complexities of the 21st century.”

New Guide Hopes to Change Foreign Policy Debate at RNC and DNC Conventions

In a new book, Cato Institute scholars present practical, realistic approaches to today’s top foreign policy challenges, grounded in a strategy of restraint.

In Our Foreign Policy Choices: Rethinking America’s Global Role, Cato Institute scholars offer a clear strategic vision and a set of foreign policy options that starkly contrasts with the foreign policy platforms of both the Republican and Democratic parties. Bipartisan support exists for extensive alliance commitments, frequent military intervention, and higher defense spending. Cato’s new volume offers a wiser alternative that would make U.S. foreign policy cheaper, safer, and more popular.

Rather than being the policeman of the world, the authors argue for a more restrained approach to the world that avoids over-spending on defense and averts needless military intervention. Two editors of this book, Christopher Preble, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy, and Emma Ashford, Research Fellow, will attend the Democratic and Republican national conventions to put forth these ideas.

The anthology includes chapters on key topics such as ISIS and the threat of terrorism, how to sensibly deal with the Syrian conflict, the right approach to Iran in the aftermath of the nuclear deal, and Russian assertiveness in Eastern Europe. It advises policymakers that NATO incentivizes free riding among allies and that America’s East Asian partners like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan should carry a larger share of the defense burden in the face of a rising China.

America’s current foreign policy of maintaining a global military presence and intervening even when vital U.S. interests are not at stake is expensive, dangerous, and unnecessary. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya have cost us dearly in blood and treasure without making us more secure.

Restraint-oriented reforms could reduce annual defense spending by more than 25 percent and polls show that a majority of Americans do not want the United States to take a leading role in solving all the world’s problems.

“This new book seeks to advance a much-needed debate about the direction of foreign policy, says Emma Ashford. "Contrary to the conventional wisdom in Washington which identifies grave dangers to U.S. interests around every corner, Americans are fortunate to enjoy substantial security. We rarely need to use our military might. It’s in our interest to understand this.”