United States

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“Transferring” The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

The British newspaper The Telegraph claims to have a copy of the US “peace plan” for Ukraine, to be released officially later today. It’s a nonstarter, but I want to talk about one of the points, which may come up in other contexts.

“The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant will be transferred to the US. The US will begin energy cooperation with Russia.” I’m not sure exactly how this is worded in the relevant documents, or if there are relevant documents, since the Trump administration has been negotiating agreements without writing them down.

The Zaoprizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe. Russia moved early in this latest phase of their war to take it over. The six reactors are now all shut down. There has been shelling at and around the plant, which has damaged auxiliary equipment.

“Transferring the plant to the US” raises many questions, both political and technical. Politically, it seems like a bad move for all involved, but perhaps it is a halfway move toward transferring it to Russian control, which the Russians very much want. I’ll address the technical and regulatory questions.

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Today’s Prisoner Exchange

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

Today’s prisoner exchange with Russia was an amazing deal, brought together by multiple countries over two years. The Wall Street Journal has a detailed, ungated(!) story. I’m delighted to see that Christo Grozev played a significant part. I worked with Christo on a couple of issues when he was at Bellingcat.

When a Russian hitman, Vadim Krasikov, was picked up in Germany for killing a Russian dissident in Berlin, Vladimir Putin decided to get him back by using one of his favorite gambits: jail Americans who might be traded for him. This kind of trade puts the United States and Germany in a difficult position. Acceding to an exchange could incentivize more such arrests in Russia, but leaving innocent citizens in Russian prison camps is unacceptable.

The Washington Post has a list of the people exchanged (gift link), with a graphic showing 4 prisoners going to the US and 12 to Germany, with prisoners from the US, Germany, Solvenia, Norway, and Poland going to Russia.

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No, It’s Not The Cold War

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

Actual analysis of today’s international situation is difficult, so numerous pundits are grabbing for the idea that we are in COLD WAR II!

This is nonsense, and it gets in the way of understanding the situation and finding some ways of dealing with it.

THE Cold War (1947-1991) was between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was called a cold war because the two parties avoided engaging directly in a full-up shooting war. They avoided that engagement partly because the world was tired of war after the first half of the twentieth century and because nuclear weapons could now end civilization. But clients of the two superpowers fought wars. The Cold War was also a time in which the world was learning to deal with nuclear weapons. Some very stupid things were done, like building almost 70,000 of them, but we avoided the stupidest – using them.

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Republicans and Russians

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

Russia’s attempts at interference in American politics aren’t going away. We see only bits and pieces of them, though. most recently, Marjorie Taylor Green was explicitly quoting from Russian and Hungarian propaganda, but she’s not alone.

The effort seems to be distributed across Russian agencies as well, with the FSB (civilian intelligence agency), GRU (military intelligence agency), and probably individual oligarchs and other government agencies reaching for some of their own advantage.

The interference varies over time, as well. The NRA was a focus, now not so much as the organization self-immolates.

Donald Trump and Paul Manafort, however, have been connected to Russia for a long time. Trump has been fascinated by Russia since the 1980s, and the Mueller Report makes clear his more recent ties. There is also Kevin McCarthy’s famous quote about Dana Rohrabacher and Trump being two who are likely paid by Russia.

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Does Putin Want A Ceasefire?

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

Anton Troianovski, Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes claim today in the New York Times that Vladimir Putin is looking for a ceasefire (gift link Content warning: photos of dead Russian soldiers). The dek beneath the headline says “Despite its bravado in public, the Kremlin has indicated its interest in striking a deal to halt the war — so long as it could still declare victory,” but I don’t see much indication of the last, although one might assume that to be the case.

The rest of the article is not much better supported. The primary sources are “ two former senior Russian officials close to the Kremlin and American and international officials who have received the message from Mr. Putin’s envoys.” It’s customary for sources in these circumstances not to be identified, so that’s not unreasonable. Later in the article, other “American officials” are cited as sources. There no distinctions or numbers when “American officials” are quoted.

Let us consider the claims made. Quotes are from the article.

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Russia After The War

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

At some point Russia’s war on Ukraine will end. There will be agreements to end the war. But there is a larger question of how the world deals with Russia. That’s what I’m discussing in this post – not how the war ends. How the war ends has some bearing on subsequent relations with Russia, but given Russia’s history of the last thirty years, probably not a lot. I’m also not going to speculate on black swan events in Russia, like Vladimir Putin’s demise. Again, they can have an effect, but there are too many possibilities, and it’s too easy to slide into wishful thinking.

After the war, Russia will still be there. Most likely, it will not be put in a position of complete loss, although it could be humiliated – already has been humiliated – by the Ukrainian military. It will not split the way the Soviet Union did.

It’s the largest country on earth, and it will continue to be Ukraine’s and Europe’s nextdoor neighbor. NATO will continue to come up to its borders.

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I See We’re “Restoring Deterrence” Again

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

Deterrence is a favored word among all too many military and defense strategists. It is wildly overused, to a point where its use stymies thought. If an action (or expenditure) is claimed to promote deterrence, well then it’s not to be questioned. For that reason alone the word should be retired. But it’s worse than that.

Deterrence implies agency on the part of the deterrer and powerlessness on the part of the deterred. It implies that actions on the part of the deterrer are determinative. It imparts a feeling of control over the situation that may not be there.

The phrase “restoring deterrence” has cropped up again. But what is to be restored, and by whom? We now know that Hamas has been quiet the past few years, not because it was deterred, but because it was preparing and waithing for the right time. I’ve seen the phrase used in connection with IDF actions against Hamas. Those actions seem to be retributive, or intended to destroy Hamas’s ability to strike, but neither of those is primarily about deterrence. Rather, they are direct military action.

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The Nuclear Testing Standoff

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

A quick update on possible preparations for nuclear testing and suspicions of preparations for nuclear testing. Previous post here.

Jeffrey Lewis and the folks at CNS supplied CNN with interpretations of overhead photos showing activity at Russian, Chinese, and US test sites. Given that much of the activity at the US test site in Nevada has to do with an enormous expansion of subcritical underground tests, one might expect similar things are happening at the other two. Lewis notes some of the differences in activity supporting the two kinds of tests.

The Secretary of Energy, in a tweet I can’t find, was quoted as saying that the US has no plans for a nuclear explosive test. Update: It was NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby. Thanks to Chris Casilli!

Now a statement from Mikhail Kovalchuk, President of Kurchatov Institute National Research Center, says that Russia also is not planning for a nuclear explosive test, but if the US tests, Russia will test too, to preserve deterrence.

If the US were to test, the rationale would likely be that a test is needed to validate the substitutions of updated components into stockpile weapons or that a slight reconfiguration to meet military needs, not a new weapon, needs to be tested. The deterrence part would go unspoken. Russia has gone in the opposite direction.

It certainly looks like everyone is daring everyone else to go first. Back in 1958 through 1961, there was a moratorium between the US and Russia (starting around 4:00) and then a resumption of tests around 4:30 in Isao Hashimoto’s graphic depiction of all the world’s nuclear explosions.

 If one country breaks the moratorium, it’s likely to look like that this time around, with China joining in.

In line with my other recent writing, would anyone like to venture a gendered interpretation?

Cross-posted to Lawyers, Guns & Money

Aaaannd – They’re Gone!

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

Some very good news to end the week.

The effort started back in the 1980s with the Chemical Weapons Convention. I played a tiny part when a technology my team was investigating, supercritical water oxidation, was considered by some of the sites that would have to destroy the weapons. That technology was not ultimately selected, but I learned a lot about chemical weapons.

Much more detail from the New York Times (gift link)

Cross-posted to Lawyers, Guns & Money

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The Great Rivalry?

Posted on by Cheryl Rofer

Every argument that the US is in danger of losing out to China, that the US needs more weapons to deter China, that the US can’t afford to help arm Ukraine, and many others, should be required to begin with these two graphs.

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Data for the first graph is from the International Monetary Fund, for the second from the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The graphs appear in this article.

Cross-posted to Lawyers, Guns & Money