John Bolton writes on arms control.

I can see where he’s coming from, and that’s comforting, but I still don’t agree.

…U.S. nuclear capabilities provide a deterrence umbrella for its allied countries, whereas Russia plays no such positive role. Thus, the two countries are simply not “symmetrical,” but treaties with specific warhead limits gave the illusion they are.

Thing is, Russia’s domestic leadership wants strategic symmetry. It needs strategic symmetry like our last president needed low casualty figures out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Medvedev et al has to convince the population that things are getting back on track to the good ol’ days of the early 1970s. These good ol’ days include the Cold War, or at least when Russia’s opinion mattered everywhere and anywhere on the world stage, from Afghanistan to Central America. At the end of the day, it’s just posturing – the USSR is gone and its true strategic successor probably won’t be back for a while. (Note: that doesn’t mean that you can totally ignore Russia, either – do that, and you’re in for trouble.) But it’s posturing that Russian leaders desperately need, especially when the economy – the other prime mover for domestic credibility – is tanking.

how we “count” nuclear capabilities is important. This is not a merely technical issue, but carries profound implications for both our nuclear and conventional capabilities. Under START counting rules, weapons levels were imputed based on the capabilities of delivery systems, rather than actual warhead levels. Thus, for example, each Soviet SS-18, capable of carrying 10 nuclear warheads was imputed to do so no matter how many were actually under the nosecones.

…and what better way for Russia to get symmetrical with the US than to engineer it out of thin air in an arms control agreement? It looks good for the press whether it’s real or not, bilateral negotiations themselves look good for the Russian media, and most of said Russian media is owned by Gazprom and/or government-controlled. (Two ways to say the same thing, actually).

Again: this would be great for the Russian leadership during an economic crisis. Strategic parity without buying any new missiles. And if the Russian leadership decides they want it badly enough, they could make something like the transit of NATO troops/supply into Afghanistan contingent upon it. They would never cut it off entirely – it looks really bad, and Russia really wants to do all it can to keep the Taliban types out of Kazakhstan and the Caucuses. They want NATO to win, in other words. But they could threaten it, and there could still be a lot of very public brouhaha and brinksmanship over the issue. It’d be very bad for Obama.

Obama: Let us run supplies through Uzbekistan/Kyrgyzstan/wherever into Afghanistan. Pretty please. Please.
Putin: Maybe. Maybe if you count our nukes the way we want them counted. And maybe I’ll leak this whole conversation to CNN and let the whole world know that I have you by the balls. And then I’ll give you what you want, but only after you give me what I want. You’ll depend on me for something important, and everyone will know that. I also don’t expect your news media to be able to credibly explain warhead counting and missile counting and multiple-independently-targetable this and that. They haven’t even gotten around to explaining what a credit derivative is yet, and that crisis is six months old. Anyway, you need access to Afghanistan way more than I need this notch in my domestic political bedpost. That doesn’t mean I don’t really really want it (but there’s a difference between ‘want’ and ‘need’ here).

Obama looks weak. Putin looks strong. The alternative route would be to give the ’stan in question a ton of money. That might not work either, given the Manas Air Base fiasco there is likely to be a great deal of reluctance. And Russia has some non-monetary bargaining advantages with the ’stan in such a scenario, contiguous borders, transit links and all that. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but I don’t think it’d be the best option. It certainly wouldn’t be the cheapest. Again: the economy.

And at the end of the day it’d be better off to let the Russians count their warheads in whatever reasonable fashion they require. Let them reap the domestic political benefits so that we can both reduce our stockpiles and go home. It’s less expensive for US taxpayers that way – why piss off the Republicans in Congress any more than you have to? And again, Bolton doesn’t seem to get that – the fact that domestic and international politics are never walled off from one another.

The Obama arms control agenda reflects the longstanding, attractive and woefully simplistic notion that ever-lower numbers of Russian and American nuclear weapons will create a more stable strategic relationship, diminishing the threat of nuclear war.

Domestic. Politics. Nuke development, maintenance, and security is really expensive. It’s money that both countries could be putting to far better use right now. I think they both get that. And that’s why you will get ‘arms control’, which is actually more like “let’s sit around this table and posture for secondary political gains while we negotiate for something we both need.” Which is actually what it’s always been between these two countries, if you go back and look at the history. The really contentious issues are rarely about the weapons themselves.

Also, Bolton’s a prick. I hope everyone understands that. But he’s former ambassador to the UN and all that. What the hell do I know?