The next stage in the resetting of American foreign policy is taking place. It involves recalibrating relations with those states which will be most affected by actual (Russia) and potential (Iran) dialogue with old enemies.

It is dialogue designed to agree the boundaries of new spheres of influence and to reverse the dominant role of WMD as a tool in international affairs, whether as deterrent and as prestige purchase.

The Aims of US Foreign Policy

In the case of Russia, the issues are ones of cutting existing massive over-armament, increasing diplomatic dialogue and stopping the clash between Western values and Russian security concerns from escalating into the trigger for some horrific conflagration in the decades to come.

Both the US and Russia are also engaged in a process of military and security reform that emphasises the restoration of each country’s authority within its spheres of influence and the crushing of insurgencies and radical ideologies.

Russian military reform, involving a major reduction in its Soviet era use of massive numbers of troops and tanks and of a WMD deterrent, moves it closer to a model that is more professional and makes better use of modern technology.

The US is also unraveling its excessive dependence on very expensive high technology in favour of increased soft power and a new military sophistication in the war against insurgency. Both strategies pre-suppose that global conflict between major powers is much less likely.

As an indication of the US Administration's determination to defy the pork-barrel vote, Obama (backed by McCain) secured a victory in getting the Lockheed F-22 programme curtailed as a ‘waste of money’ in a 58-40 Senate vote. $1.75bn is no longer available for the purchase of an additional seven F-22s.

Defense Secretary Gates was aggressive in his determination to get funds shifted away from big ticket, technologically brilliant but ultimately useless hardware. Obama even threatened a presidential veto if the Senate passed the appropriation.

Meanwhile, intercontinental disarmament is intended to send a signal to mid-level states (to which the UK and France are rapidly being relegated), who either have, or wish to have, nuclear weaponry, that the tide of history is against them. The UK is getting the message on the Trident upgrade.

The pressure is now on to contain Israel, Iran, Pakistan and North Korea – two allies and two rogues. India, which has created its capability independent of outside powers (see below), is also being integrated into the global system as an equal partner with Russia and China.

This massive recalibration of foreign policy contains continuities with the past. The commitment to universal values and free markets is unchanged as is the determination to contain WMDs and suppress armed revolt against established authority.

However, instead of playing the role of an over-extended global policeman, the US is engaging in partnership with the key regional players, seeking a long term role as primus inter pares in return for conceding a policy of respect and non-interference in its partners’ internal affairs.

Eurasia

Each group of front line states faced by a nuclear rival requires a slightly different approach. For the East Asians, US support is not in doubt but the issue is complicated by the presence of China as an equal to the US within the region.

For the Gulf, the issue is reassurance that the US will act as an adequate deterrent to Iran  if things go very badly wrong with Iran. But the most problematic zone is the borderland between Russia and Europe from the Caucasus to Belarus.

The problem is that the last US Administration, with its forward policy against Russia, stoked up the level of aggression against Russia to the point where a reaction was inevitable. That reaction was the Russian War against Georgia.

To be blunt, right was on the Russian side in terms of the self-determination of communities under siege. After years of fruitless resistance to Western claims that human rights trumped normal diplomatic protocol, the Russians had decided to teach the West a lesson. And it was a good lesson.

It reminded everyone that the European Union is a cipher in international affairs until the Lisbon Treaty is signed and that it is not a good idea to give carte blanche to authoritarian showman and disorganised states when small crises can start great wars.

It also reminded us again that there are some limits to Western power and that you do not tweak a potential partners’ nose too often if you want co-operation on strategic and security matters.

As Hillary Clinton came back from India after a successful visit integrating New Delhi into the US new constellation of alliances, Vice-President Biden was visiting Georgia and Ukraine. His approach has been to give love and reassurance but also to give these two naughty boys a good ticking off.

Ukraine has been told off for political disorganisation and incompetence during a major economic crisis and President Sakashvili of Georgia for his authoritarian tendencies and brinkmanship with the biggest boy on the block.

It is like the local copper ticking off one of the lads for getting drunk and disorderly and not getting a proper job and another for provoking a fight with the local bully, warning him that the law’s protection can only go so far.

Biden’s message is that US support is as strong as its clients’ support for democracy and human rights and for peace. Both countries will get US protection but not for seizures of power or attempts to reverse past mistakes by force. Love is not unconditional as it was from Dick Cheney.

The Gulf

The Gulf States are not in the same position, their noses are being more tweaked by Iran than they tweak any noses themselves, but democracy and human rights are on the agenda if only because of Congressional criticism in the context of civil nuclear support for the UAE.

Supporting Iranian democratic activists and yet turning a blind eye to alleged abuses in, say, the UAE or Saudi Arabia seems illogical to say the least. Saudi Arabia is too big to insult but the smaller Gulf states may have to make judgements on the price that they will pay for strategic protection.

Hillary Clinton, on her way back from a successful trip to India via Thailand, has reassured the Gulf that the US would extend a full guarantee for its security against Iran in the event of the Iranians acquiring WMD – an important consideration in the context of a possible Israeli unilateral strike against Tehran.

The assurance is not really necessary – Iran has no nuclear capability – but it allows the Gulf states to feel that, if it did, the US would not just walk away but would place its greater arsenal at the defensive disposal of the Gulf.

The problem for the Gulf States is what happens if dialogue with Iran is successful – an entente with Iran will require the same recalibration towards a more conditional level of support that we are seeing in the Eurasian borderlands.

India

This brings us to India where the problem for the US Administration was how to transfer the good will of the Bush era into the Obama era. India is pro-Western but very independent-minded. It is not expansionist but it is nobody’s fool.

There was one slip. India refused to sign up to a flagship statement on cuts in carbon emissions. It established a rather important point – that India cannot be relied upon to line up with the US in the way that Japan and Germany can. Even China appears more amenable on climate change policy.

Nevertheless, India remains strongly attached to the Western alliance with an important agreement on the sale of defence technology to India, something on civil nuclear co-operation and another agreement on US-Indian space co-operation resulting from Secretary of State Clinton’s five-day visit.

In effect, the US has recognised India’s full claim to be another global power alongside China (and certainly as a counterweight to China). It is now hard to conceive of India not taking a UN-SC permanent seat if the UN was ever to be reformed.

India is now seen as the US’ global partner with a specific peace mission aimed at regional de-nuclearisation. Prime Minister Singh was even offered the first US State Visit in November. India is also being asked to collaborate in unraveling Pakistan’s paranoia.

The US' commitment to West Asia is centred on buttressing civilian rule against nationalist sentiment in Pakistan and encouraging a pro-Western India to bite its tongue under provocation. The US wants India to see Pakistani civilians as co-fighters in the war on terrorism and insurgency

WMDs

Halting nuclear proliferation has been a central concern of the US for well over a decade. There seems to be an intensification of that concern under Obama.

This is partly a genuine moral concern about the devastation that might be caused by nuclear weaponry but it also represents an awareness that the Cold War permitted all sides to let sub-proxies develop regional weaponry that they thought might merely be extension of their own deterrence.

This was not quite a case of security sub-contracting because no power (except possibly the British in the case of Israel and the Chinese in the case of Pakistan) actively promoted such proliferation but they tolerated muddying of the waters.

Proliferation only became a central concern of policymakers as the Soviet Union began to unravel in the early 1990s. The US-Russian nuclear disarmament treaty is the centre-piece of current efforts but its purpose is not just to ‘reset’ US-Russian relations. 

A US-Russian treaty will set the tone for a wider programme of global WMD control. The context is that with the end of the Cold War, the Americans were faced with the prospect of countries like Israel and Pakistan dangerously ploughing their own furrow.

Unless restrained, these countries could become agents of proliferation in their own right. Indeed, Pakistan has been responsible for proliferation in the past and Israel, though indulged in until very recently, similarly.

Neither Israel nor India will now be a cause of proliferation but the West can see a situation where, just as Eurasia is preparing to reduce its nuclear capability, two key dissident nations (Iran and North Korea) could create a regional arms race in West, Southern and East Asia.

Iran’s nuclear militarisation (though still by no means proven as an actual planned intent) might create a nuclear zone from Pyongyang through Beijing, New Delhi and Islamabad (and north to Moscow) that would go to the very edge of the massive energy resource on which the West depends.

It would be hard for Saudi Arabia, then Egypt and even Turkey to avoid considering investment in a deterrent. From there, it would not be long before Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria and Australia would want to be in the Club.

East Asia

What is different between the Bush and Obama administrations is only their approach, the ultimate aims are the same – a hegemony of values. But even the approaches are not so different once we move out of the Middle Eastern theatre.

The Bush Administration adopted a surprisingly moderate tone with North Korea, maintaining sanctions but keeping its rhetoric moderate and attempting dialogue at every reasonable opportunity. The Obama Administration has merely attempted to transfer this approach to Iran.

North Korea represents a different case from Iran because the question in Western minds is the degree to which it is under the advice and influence of Beijing. The fear is that the answer may be, not as much as everyone would like.

North Korea was, like Cuba, a Soviet protectorate and has an extremely guarded approach to its immediate Northern neighbor. Now the US is claiming that the North Koreans may be offering their expertise to the Burmese junta.

The issue for Japan, South Korea and even Taiwan, just as with the Gulf States, is the credibility of the US strategic umbrella. As one Gulf diplomat told us privately, there is no point knowing that you will ultimately win any nuclear exchange if your mini-State is a smouldering ruin.

Japan fears one or two Japanese cities in a worse state than Hiroshima and Nagasaki well before North Korea is turned into an irradiated wasteland by US ICBMs.

There is also the issue of American will to engage in a nuclear strike. Its population has turned inwards and may not have the stomach for any use of WMDs even in retaliation for a rogue act, let alone as a pre-emptive threat.

The legitimacy of Western Governments no longer seems to include the right to engage in mass slaughter willy-nilly. The Asian tigers are also aware that the US might be deterred itself by even a hint that China might act militarily or economically in response to sabre-rattling and threats.

As with blow-back from the use of insurgents against the Soviet Union, the current nuclear pickle is largely of the superpower’s own making. Although no power appears to have armed any other as a matter of policy, nuclear weaponry was seen as a grey area until the 1990s.

Barriers were certainly placed against proliferation yet little was done about local work-arounds when it seemed to suit the balance of power between the major players. The reversal of US policy is to be welcomed, even if its tactics have left much to be desired in the past.

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