Speaking with JINSA Policy Director James Colbert, Bar-Levav, asked whether he thought that, like Israel’s assumed nuclear arsenal, America’s cyber warfare capabilities were purposefully being kept opaque, replied, “Can you imagine a country ‘declaring’ cyber warfare? Smoking guns are often wishful thinking … Geography is largely irrelevant. One group can ‘mass their “cyber” troops’ with almost no possibility of detection or attribution.”

Cyber Warfare and Opacity

Continuing on this theme, Bar-Levav declared that, “Cyber warfare will remain opaque because it is fundamentally asymmetric, deniable, and, strangely, because any group can claim attribution to scare others and to increase the group’s morale.”

Implying a more aggressive approach to America’s cyber warfare plans, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn recently said that “a fortress mentality will not work in [the] cyber [realm].” Asked what he thought this meant, Bar-Levav replied that, “there are three basic security strategies: security by obscurity (passwords, crypto), security by correctness (education, following secure procedures), and security by isolation (air gapping, the fortress mentality). Defense in depth requires all of these approaches working in harmony.”

After all, he explained, “a firewall might get you 80% of the way there, but you need to realize that all aspects of security are converging, and you have to take all of them into account, and realize you can be compromised anyway, say by a rogue CFO. So, we must develop and practice emergency preparedness including incident response, public relations, disaster recovery, etc.”

“What I hope Secretary Lynn meant,” he continued, “is that ‘A fortress mentality alone will not work…’ The silver lining of 9-11 should be the lessening of the complacent belief in Fortress America, both physical, and virtual.

National Cyber Defense Stymied

Asked whether he believes the U.S. government’s growing array of cyber security agencies and military cyber warfare centers will be adequate to defend not only government networks but private industry, Bar-Levav responded with an emphatic, “No.”

“Hackers can’t really be trained – at least not the best ones – and attacking and defending are pure meritocracies,” Bar-Levav noted. “If you win, you win. It’s a way of thinking, not a set of procedures. These are people who ‘repurpose’, and they’re not going to go to work for the U.S. government.”

In fact, Bar-Levav declared that the U.S. government’s hidebound practices with regard to security clearances and corporate contracts hurts its ability to attract the best talent. “The enemy doesn’t have top secret clearances, why should our defenders? Right now, the government has little chance, because the first question they ask after ascertaining that they want your help is ‘do you have a contract vehicle?’ This has nothing to do with security.”

But what about so-called public-private cyber defense partnerships, can they work? “Sure. Microsoft successfully shut down botnets in concert with the FBI and a bunch of warrants. But, to make this strategy sustainable, the U.S. government needs to allow what we call an ‘unregulated well-armed militia’ of security experts with ‘letters of marque’ to be able to point out and solve security problems in a risk-neutral, indemnified environment.”

Bar-Levav did allow that, “There is some interesting work going on in certain agencies, but our experience is that it’s being done by isolated brave individuals who are bucking the system, and we’ll see how well their careers develop.” The biggest challenge in this realm, he said, is that, “the bad guys don’t have to follow any rules, and we do.” We are hamstrung by “risk-averseness.”

Stuxnet-type Threats to National Infrastructure

Asked to assess the degree of vulnerability of American industrial facilities and utilities to Stuxnet-style attacks on vital control systems, Bar-Levav said that, “It’s a serious threat, made worse because the motivations are much more political and ideological than economic.”

Told that the cyber security firm Symantec had announced that some 60 percent of the 100,000 Stuxnet-infected computers worldwide were in Iran, leaving some 40,000 computers infected elsewhere in the world, Bar-Levav said, “Stuxnet had one aspect that was novel, the specificity of the target. In this case it was the Siemens SCADA systems at the Iranian enrichment facility at Natanz. It’s a good bet to assume that Stuxnet looked for characteristics like a Farsi language pack and Siemens software and would be quite harmless to any other system. Don’t worry about Stuxnet harming anyone but who it was meant to harm.”

Regarding rampant speculation about the provenance of Duqu, the Trojan Horse with strong similarities to Stuxnet, Bar-Levav asked, “Who had the motive? Even if it wasn’t Israel, it doesn’t hurt them for everyone to believe it was. The fact is, malware researchers all pay attention to the cyber arms race, and it’s not at all surprising if we found out that Duqu’s creators were inspired by the techniques used by the creators of Stuxnet. Technologically and financially, a private group could have created both of these attacks. These aren’t at the level of the Manhattan Project.”

A New Breed of Security Required

“Even if they brilliantly secure their networks, the greatest threat that organizations face is that they are still vulnerable if their minimum wage security guards are disgruntled or their physical access control systems can be easily bypassed,” Bar-Levav explained. “Today, security must be holistic. It must include securing information, hardware, physical access and business processes.”

“An attacker will find and exploit any vulnerability not just the vulnerabilities the organization has self-identified. Security is no longer the domain exclusively of the IT department or of the security guards. Attacks come opportunistically,” he warned.

* On November 7, 2011, Bar-Levav addressed JINSA’s Board of Directors at their Fall Meeting.

Dempsey’s meetings with Gantz reportedly were to discuss U.S.-Israel military relations, the new U.S. defense strategy, budgetary and economic issues, and regional security challenges. Nevertheless, it was assumed by nearly every commentator and analyst that the Iran issue loomed large over every meeting.

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, USA, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, IDF Chief of Staff

The postponement of the largest ever U.S.-Israel joint exercise, Austere Challenge 12, was a key topic of conversation. A Pentagon spokesperson said the exercise, originally scheduled for spring, would be carried out later in the year. There have been competing stories in the media over why the exercise was postponed. They include everything from Israel simply not being ready to host such a large endeavor to U.S. concerns that the exercise might send the wrong message about Iran just as sanctions appear to be working.

Dempsey also met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and President Shimon Peres.

Netanyahu, who has been warning about the dangers of the Iranian nuclear program for more than a decade, told Dempsey the United States should ratchet up sanctions to target Iran’s central bank and oil exports, the Israeli news site YNet reported. It quoted the prime minister as saying such measures must be imposed immediately.

It was also reported, without attribution, that Israeli leaders told Dempsey during the visit that it will give Washington 12 hours notice before launching an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Last week, U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, was quoted as saying that the Obama administration was ready to move beyond sanctions if Iran’s suspected atomic weapons ambitions were not curbed. According to Reuters, Dempsey has said he was not sure if Israel would give him advance warning if it decided to strike Iran.

The Associated Press reported that at the start of a meeting with Barak, himself a former IDF chief of staff, Dempsey said the U.S. and Israel “have many interests in common in the region in this very dynamic time, and the more we can continue to engage each other, the better off we’ll all be.” In comments released by his office, Barak replied, “There is never a dull moment, that I can promise you.”

“Each reinforced the deep and special relationship shared by Israel and the U.S.,” said Dempsey’s spokesman, Marine Col. David Lapan said. “These discussions also served to advance a common understanding of the regional security environment.”

In an interview published Friday in the Israeli daily Maariv, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, the recently retired Israeli military intelligence chief, said the U.S. and Israel now agree that Iran is deliberately working slowly toward nuclear weapons, to minimize international diplomatic pressure and sanctions.

Gen. Yadlin, who recently lectured at the U.S. Naval Academy as part of JINSA’s Military Academies Lecture Series, claimed that the U.S. and Israel differ about what would be considered unacceptable Iranian behavior that would require a military strike. “While Israel defines the red line as Iran’s ability and potential for a breakthrough, the Americans draw the red line a lot farther away,” he said.

The former chief intel officer, who retired in late 2010, said the Iranian nuclear program was Israel’s “only existential threat,” noting that in addition to the possibility of a nuclear attack from Iran, its possession of nuclear weapons would spark a regional arms race. “In that situation, in a nuclear neighborhood, the chance grows that a nuclear weapon could slip into the hands of terrorists,” Yadlin said.

During a visit to Jerusalem, Dempsey toured the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum and placed a wreath in honor of the six million Holocaust victims. In brief remarks after the tour, Dempsey noted the significance of the date – 70 years to the day of the infamous Wannsee Conference held in that Berlin suburb on January 20, 1942. It was at that meeting that senior officials of the Nazi regime discussed their “Final solution to the Jewish problem.”

The IDF Spokesperson unit posted a video of Gen. Dempsey being received by Lt. Gen. Gantz and brief clips of the Joint Chiefs Chairman’s time in Israel.

James Colbert is Policy Director at JINSA and is the Deputy Editor of JINSA’s semiannual scholarly journal, The Journal of International Security Affairs.

In his recent article in Commentary, The Sequester Disaster, Boot asks us to,

“Imagine a world in which America is not the leading military power. It would be a brutal, Hobbesian place in which aggressors rule and the rule of law is trampled on. And yet Congress will be helping to usher in such a New World Disorder if it continues to slash defense spending at the currently contemplated rate — just as previous Congresses did with the previous rounds of “postwar” budget cuts going back to the dawn of the Republic.”

The article is a must read for all JINSA members, and should also be for members of Congress who too often and too quickly forget the consequences of rapid military cuts. Automatic cuts are unlikely to produce a lean and agile fighting force, but rather a force with limited capabilities to respond. Members of Congress, and some more outspoken presidential candidates, forget that peace dividends are quickly spent, and that a military must have capabilities to not just respond in crisis, but also serve as a deterrent.

Boot gives valuable instruction in history that the government glosses over, such as that aggression routinely occurs after a military budget cuts, whether it was in 1812 or 2001. Boot even quoted Secretary of Defense Gates, who outlined a round of controversial, yet more strategic cuts:

“When it comes to predicting the nature and location of our next military engagements our record has been perfect. We have never once gotten it right, from the Mayaguez to Grenada, Panama, Somalia, the Balkans, Haiti, Kuwait, Iraq and more—we had no idea a year before any of these missions that we would be so engaged.”

Boot’s article is a must read. Available to subscribers, the article can be found here.

“Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense,” is the public name for the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance, a list of intentions that are expected to guide the review for the President’s defense budget for fiscal year 2013 and following years. What that means is that no specific budget numbers have been released and, therefore, there is at present no ability to see how these changes will be implemented. That cannot happen until the Fiscal year 201313 budget is submitted to Congress next month. Nevertheless, the broad ideas shaping this ‘new look’ defense can be understood within the context of the overarching goal – to reduce the defense budget by $470 billion over the next ten years.

Here are the major intentions and what they mean:

• A “rebalancing” of U.S. force structure and investments to the Asia-Pacific area and to the Middle East, as well as advanced capabilities to maintain access and power projection which are relevant globally. What this means is that we will be drawing down U.S. forces stationed in Europe and reorienting our posture with the intent to stabilize the Middle East and counter China’s military buildup in the western Pacific.

• A different approach to force size and structure. Specifically, ground forces sufficient for large and prolonged stability operations like Iraq and Afghanistan will not be maintained. The Administration says it does not foresee the U.S. conducting such operations on its own in the future. Defense planners view the likelihood of the United States needing large numbers of troops to invade and occupy a country, like Iraq, to be very low. What this means is that the U.S. Army and Marine Corps are going to shrink in size. via personnel cuts.

• As a hedge to the expected criticisms of the above troop reductions, it was explained that there will be plans in place for readjustment of those plans since the future is uncertain and the reductions will occur over several years. What this means is that the U.S. will not be able to use ground troops on the scale of the Afghanistan or Iraq missions without a delay to build up the required forces.

• The U.S. force structure sufficient for our armed forces to prevail in more than one conflict at the same time will be maintained. Therefore, greater emphasis will be placed on what have been called new types of advanced and agile forces. Also, ways for the U.S. armed forces to meet its objectives and deny the enemy victory other than by land invasion and occupation will be evaluated. To do so, the Administration said, investments will be maintained and possibly increased in such areas as special operating forces, counterterrorism, countering weapons of mass destruction, building partner capacity, cyber security, and aspects of science and technology investments. What this means is that we may ask our armed forces to do as much as today with much less.

• The Administration made it clear that despite these massive budget cuts, critical investments in wounded warrior care and other aspects of taking care of the troops would be maintained. What this means is an acknowledgement that the public will not accept defense cuts that short-change those who have suffered in battle for their safety and security.

We can expect an avalanche of commentary and analysis related to what will surely be one of the greatest defense drawdowns in American history. The difference is that this time around we are not in a period of relative calm after a war, but count enemies still standing on the battlefields we are leaving. Even more alarming is the threat of sequestration cuts of an additional $500 billion or more because the Congressional “Super Committee” failed to find mandated deficit savings. This could result in a return to the bad old days of the “hollow” military.

James Colbert is Policy Director at JINSA and is the Deputy Editor of JINSA’s semiannual scholarly journal, The Journal of International Security Affairs.

The relationship between Canada and the U.S., despite being the two closest friends in the world, has often been strained.

Earlier this decade, Liberal governments in Canada shunned two Bush administration priorities by refusing to partake in the invasion of Iraq and by shying away from cooperation between the two states on ballistic missile defense.

Now, under the Obama administration, it is the U.S. that appears to be causing a rift in the relationship between the two democracies. Two separate stimulus bills fronted by President Obama discriminated against Canadian products, notably his “jobs bill” that failed to make it through Congress.

Most recently, the Obama administration delayed the decision on whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline — which would transport oil from Alberta’s oil sands to American markets – until 2013, which may well kill the project. As a consequence, Canada’s Conservative government has threatened to export the oil to Asian markets instead.

However, there has been agreement is recent history. The two countries have signed the Beyond the Border perimeter security deal, negotiated over the course of the past several months, which calls for deeper security cooperation between the two nations – essentially drawing a line around the continent – in order to speed the flow of trade across the 49th parallel.

The agreement ironically, despite its clear benefits, maintains the equation of the past: The U.S. seeks to maximize security while Canada intends to maximize exports. What is ironic is that equation will be likely to reverse itself over the course of the decades ahead.

The Liberal government of the 1990s – faced with a $42 billion deficit bequeathed to it by Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives – chose the path of allowing the dollar to depreciate and hence made up the shortfall overwhelmingly through increased revenue. This government maintained its independence from the U.S. in diplomatic circles but nonetheless sought to maintain Canada’s status as an export-driven economy.

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, meanwhile, have given no indication that they are prepared to fight the soaring dollar and instead intend to reverse Canada’s structural deficit through spending cuts. Canada’s current government clearly views the country’s economy – and military, for that matter (e.g. leadership of the NATO mission in Libya, undertaking of major responsibilities in Kandahar and Kabul, and the intent to purchase F-35 Joint Strike Fighters) – as being robust enough to pull its own weight on the international stage.

Meanwhile, President Obama has made it his goal to double American exports within five years. This is likely only going to be achieved through military exports, notably through the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter sale if Lockheed Martin is able to reverse the issues related to the jet’s price, capabilities and year of delivery.

The U.S. has also decisively reduced core funding for its military since the end of the Cold War, preferring to prioritize achieving of short-term commercial gain over securing long-term strategic interests. With a perpetual debt crisis present on the American political scene for the foreseeable future and a public that is growing tired of international military engagements, it is likely that we’ll see an America in the years ahead that will continue this post-Cold-War trend.

Yet it isn’t merely policy being made at home that is shifting the Canada-U.S. balance.

As the Chinese, Indian and Brazilian economies grow and as Russia’s irrendentism becomes more and more pronounced, the international state system is becoming decisively more multipolar. And as the development of newer military technologies continues, the North American continent becomes easier to hit.

Furthermore, the thawing of the Northwest Passage due to climate change creates competition over a key choke point in the network of international shipping lanes - moreover, in a region containing possibly 25% of the world’s oil reserves – leaving Canada vulnerable.

Last, with the U.S. clearly in relative decline, it will be less and less willing to defend its allies and will focus more and more on defending itself alone. The implications for Canada are clear.

Although the equation of security vs. trade between Canada and the U.S. appears to be changing, the perimeter security deal has already been signed, leaving much of Canadian security policy in the hands of the possibly unreliable United States.

Hence, Canada needs to take steps to neutralize the possible negative effects of the Beyond the Border deal and maintain its long-term sovereignty. These would include the diversification of Canada’s trade partners with a particular focus on Asia and Latin America, the expansion of NORAD to include a maritime sector, and the negotiation of a joint environmental standard with the United States in order to protect Canada’s natural resources from American bureaucracy.

Zach Paikin is a research associate at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

Egyptian Islamists are poised to emerge as the big winners in Egypt’s parliamentary elections, a complex electoral process that will be held in phases until March.

The first round of voting, to fill one-third of the seats in the lower house of parliament, was held on November 28–29, with run-off votes held on December 5–6. Although the official results have not yet been released, early reports based on partial results indicate that the first round of elections was dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, which received about 37 percent of the vote.

The biggest surprise was the number of votes cast for the ultra-radical Islamist Nour (“Light”) Party, which came in second with about 24 percent of the vote, eclipsing the secular, liberal Egyptian Bloc coalition, which placed third with 13 percent.

Continue reading…

For now,  the “Arab Spring” and its aftermath still occupy center-stage in the Middle East and North Africa. Nonetheless, from a regional and perhaps even global security perspective, the genuinely core threat to peace and stability remains Iran. Whatever else might determinably shape ongoing transformations of power and authority in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Saudi Arabia, it is apt to pale in urgency beside the steadily expanding prospect of a nuclear Iran.

Enter international law. Designed, inter alia, to ensure the survival of states in a persistently anarchic world – a world originally fashioned after the Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 – this law includes the “inherent” right of national self-defense. Such right may be exercised not only after an attack has already been suffered, but, sometimes, also, in advance of an expected attack.

What can now be done, lawfully, about relentless Iranian nuclear weapons development?  Do individual states, especially those in greatest prospective danger from any expressions of Iranian nuclear aggression, have a legal right to strike first defensively? In short, could such a preemption ever be permissible under international law?

For the United States, preemption remains a part of codified American military doctrine. But is this national doctrine necessarily consistent with the legal and complex international expectations of anticipatory self-defense?

To begin, international law derives from multiple authoritative sources, including international custom. Although written law of the UN Charter (treaty law) reserves the right of self-defense only to those states that have already suffered an attack (Article 51), equally valid customary law still permits a first use Constitutionof force if the particular danger posed is “instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means and no moment for deliberation.” Stemming from an 1837 event in jurisprudential history known as the Caroline, which concerned the unsuccessful rebellion in Upper Canada against British rule, this doctrine builds purposefully upon a seventeenth-century formulation of Hugo Grotius.

Self-defense, says the classical Dutch scholar in, The Law of War and Peace (1625), may be permitted “not only after an attack has already been suffered, but also in advance, where the deed may be anticipated.”  In his later text of 1758, The Right of Self-Protection and the Effects of Sovereignty and Independence of Nations, Swiss jurist Emmerich de Vattel affirmed: “A nation has the right to resist the injury another seeks to inflict upon it, and to use force and every other just means of resistance against the aggressor.”

Article 51 of the UN Charter, limiting self-defense to circumstances following an attack, does not override the customary right of anticipatory self-defense.  Interestingly, especially for Americans, the works of Grotius and Vattel were favorite readings of Thomas Jefferson, who relied  heavily upon them for crafting the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.

We should also recall Article VI of the US Constitution, and assorted US Supreme Court decisions. These proclaim, straightforwardly, that international law is necessarily part of the law of the United States.

The Caroline notes an implicit distinction between preventive war (which is never legal), and preemptive war. The latter is not permitted merely to protect oneself against an emerging threat, but only when the danger posed is “instant” and “overwhelming.” Using such a literal framework, it could first appear doubtful that the United States may now construct a persuasive legal argument for preemption against Iran. This would be the case even if the planned American defense operation were carefully limited to exclusively nuclear military targets.

Nonetheless, we live in very different times. Grotius, Vattel and those later jurists who were focused on the Caroline could never have anticipated the genuinely existential risks soon to be posed by a nuclear Iran.  Understandably, the permissibility of anticipatory self-defense is far greater in the nuclear age than in prior centuries. Today, after all, it is easy to imagine, simply waiting impotently to suffer an enemy nuclear attack could be entirely irrational. Even suicidal.

A  special danger is posed by terrorist group surrogates. If not prevented from receiving nuclear weapons or fissile materials from patron states, such proxies (e.g., Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda) could inflict enormous harms upon targets that would be out of range of nuclear-tipped missiles.

The United States is not the only country at risk from Iranian nuclear weapons. Israel is at greater risk. There is, however, a long and respected international legal tradition that Great Powers have proportionately great responsibilities. This would suggest, from a management of world power standpoint, that America must remain ever-mindful of a potential nuclear threat to other, far smaller states.

We are presently the only country that may still have an operational capability to conduct a successful preemptive mission against Iran’s illegal nuclear weapons program.  Ideally, such a resort to anticipatory self-defense would be broadly multilateral, and also formally endorsed by the United Nations. But, we don’t yet live in an ideal world, and, even now, the most plausible alternative to any American defensive strike on Iran would likely be a fully nuclear and possibly irrational Iran. Should this non-preemption scenario be allowed to play out as actual policy, America, in compensation for its new strategic vulnerabilities, would then need to clarify that its response to any attack on the U.S. or its vital interests and allies in the Middle East would be instant and overwhelming.

In the precise language of contemporary world politics, irrational does not mean “crazy.” It indicates, rather, that national self-preservation is valued less than certain other leadership preferences. With Iran, these preferences would be closely associated with various fundamental religious beliefs and expectations.

It is unlikely that we could ever see a stable nuclear balance of terror in the Middle East. Rather, in the foreseeable future, Iran – irrespective of any expected retaliatory consequences – might conceivably justify using nuclear weapons against certain “infidels” or “apostates.” In such realistic cases, nuclear deterrence, of course, would be immobilized.

Iran, in these cases, would become a suicide-bomber writ large; a “suicide-state.”

Two successive administrations, Bush and Obama, publicly pledged, as official U.S. policy, that a nuclear armed Iran would be unacceptable. If we are to take this bipartisan pledge seriously, we must now finally acknowledge that sanctions alone will not work. At the same time, it may already be very late for anticipatory self-defense to work against Iran.

In any event, preemption would now come at a very high cost. But, we also need to inquire, what would be the alternative cost to us of allowing a militarily nuclear Iran?  Economic sanctions, cyber-defense, targeted killings and all-out cyber-war may effectively delay Iranian nuclear weapons manufacture and deployment, but they won’t stop it altogether.

International law is not a suicide pact. Even now, even after so much critical time has already been wasted with regard to mounting effective defensive measures against Iran, anticipatory self-defense should not be dismissed out of hand. If, after all, the calculated benefits of any such option were judged to exceed the expected gains of all other available options, such a lawful preemption would still emerge as America’s rational or preferred choice.

Admiral Leon “Bud” Edney, USN (ret.)  served as Vice Chief of Naval Operations; NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic; and Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Command. Admiral Edney, who holds an advanced degree from Harvard, was also Distinguished Professor of Leadership at the U.S. Naval Academy. He is a member of JINSA’s Board of Advisors.

Louis René Beres is Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue University.

Lieutenant General Thomas G. McInerney, USAF (ret.) served as Vice Chief of Staff, USAF; Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Intelligence; and Vice Commander in Chief, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force in Europe. General McInerney is co-author (with Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely), of  Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror.

[The above article originally appeared on Nov. 3 in OUPblog.]

Ten years ago, 19 terrorists murdered nearly 3,000 human beings — including 24 Canadians — on American soil prompting NATO, for the first time in its history, to invoke Article 5 of its charter calling for collective defense.

Collective defense goes beyond securing our immediate security interests. It also advances our values both through the defense of liberty at home and the pursuit of human rights abroad.

Despite this, the post-Cold-War United States seems to be unwilling to prioritize securing long-term strategic interests ahead of obtaining short-term commercial benefit. Furthermore, core funding for the U.S. military has decreased since the end of the Gulf War while European defense capabilities have also declined.

The United States, leader of the free world, has yet to draw a new strategic map of the world after having won the Cold War. Do NATO states believe that the fall of the Soviet Union represented the end of history? Do they believe that the security of their populations can no longer be threatened?

A Canadian icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean.

From Islamic extremists pursuing nuclear weapons and engaging in acts of terrorism to an irredentist, dictatorial Russia and a rising “Communist” China, there indeed remain serious threats to the security of liberal democracies. With the United States almost inevitably set to progressively retreat as the global superpower over the decades ahead, Canada – a nation with a stronger economy (boasting a more competitive corporate tax rate and a debt-to-GDP rate significantly reduced since the 1990s, in particular) and a far less polarized electorate than the United States - has a distinct opportunity to advance international commitment to the defense of liberty.

Canada would do well to pursue the following five policies:

1) Canada should double the size of its military. Canada’s military spending is lower than that of most NATO states and such an increase will put its armed forces on par with those of its allies. Canada has already contributed significantly to NATO by completing a difficult mission in Kandahar, Afghanistan and by having Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard lead NATO’s 2011 mission in Libya. It’s time to take the next step.

2) Canada’s current negotiations with the United States concerning a security perimeter deal should be completed and further steps should be taken to advance the security and commercial interests of both states. One first step should be the negotiation of a common environmental standard between the two countries. This would achieve two goals:

First, it would protect Canada’s oil sands from the potential wrath of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A loophole in the 1989 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement allows for one side to sanction the other over dangers related to health or the environment. A common environmental standard between both states would protect Canadian jobs and would ensure that Canada – a liberal democracy - can continue to be America’s primary supplier of oil.

Second, the deal could be eventually expanded to other states as a mechanism for regulating the private sector over environmental damage without the need for the United Nations to provide a forum for the negotiation of such a deal. Countries around the world would be able to pursue clean technology with more confidence and Western states would prove that they can substantially advance their interests and values without the help of the dictator-filled UN.

3) With climate change producing a thawing Arctic, Canada should negotiate a deal similar to the 1988 deal it signed with the United States concerning the Northwest Passage but in which Canadian sovereignty is more strongly asserted. The intended result of the 1988 deal was
that Canada controls the Passage while the United States gets essentially unfettered access to it. The new deal would allow for long-term Western security interests to be ensured while reassuring the United States that its commercial needs will be met. (The Northwest Passage provides a shorter path to Asian markets from the American Northeast than does the Panama Canal.)

With as much as 25% of the world’s oil resources potentially located in the Arctic, failing to negotiate a deal with the United States would be extremely dangerous over the long term. Such an agreement between Canada and the United States will demonstrate Canadian and American unity on the issue of Arctic sovereignty and will discourage Russia from intervening militarily to ensure its interests – namely domination of the Arctic’s resources and shipping lanes, possibly through the seizure of territory in Canada’s Arctic region, an act that could destabilize the North American continent.

The two options available are rather clear: either Canada asserts sovereignty over the Northwest Passage or it becomes an international strait, possibly subject to Russian and Chinese unchecked infiltration. Once Canada and the United States have reconciled their defense-related views over the Arctic, they can approach Russia together to advance the commercial interests of the three states.

4) The aforementioned negotiations with Russia over Arctic commerce should be pursued simultaneously with a joint ballistic missile defense (BMD) pact between the United States and Canada with Russian consent, a move that would strengthen relations between the United States and Canada and would repair the damage done by the Canadian refusal to negotiate such a deal over the last decade. (For more on Russian opposition to NATO BMD, click here.)

5) Canada and the United States (and eventually other NATO states) should sign an agreement on the prevention of mass atrocities abroad. Global inequality and environmental change threaten to spark more mass atrocities (war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and genocide) across the globe. These atrocities in turn often lead to the spread of pandemics, a spillover of violence across borders and the establishment of safe havens for terrorist groups, all three of which threaten the security of Western states.

Signing such a deal is particularly important, seeing as it suggests that a key way to defend liberty at home is to fight for human rights abroad. Hence, our interests and our values are intrinsically linked.

Ten years after 9/11, Canada can prove two things. First, it can prove that that NATO states still have a role to play in defending liberty. Second, with the American and European political and economic scenes visibly in turmoil, Canada — at least symbolically — can become the leader of the free world.

Zach Paikin is a research associate at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

What at first appeared to be a massive strategic victory for Iran in the Middle East may well turn out to be the beginning of the end of its vision of “exporting the revolution.” I’m writing, of course, of the so-called Arab Spring.

Without doubt, successful popular revolts to oust pro-West regimes in Egypt and Tunisia combined with similar yet less successful efforts against other Western partners – Jordan, Yemen and Bahrain come to mind – at first appear to represent a “revolution” that would benefit Iran’s interests, or at least cause American regional interests to be set back. The revolt in Syria, however, changed this.

The Alawite regime in Damascus led by President Bashar al-Asad, which for years has acted as the central pivot in the Iran-Syria-Hamas/Hezbollah axis, is now in danger. The Alawis in Syria – an Islamic religious minority representing roughly 12% of the population – are clearly at odds with the Sunni majority.

The Sunni Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – emboldened by the overthrow of the non-Islamist President Hosni Mubarak – and their offshoot Hamas in Gaza have given their support to the Syrian protesters while both Iran and its Shiite proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon continue to back al-Asad.

The Sunni Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt … and their offshoot Hamas in Gaza have given their support to the Syrian protesters while both Iran and its Shiite proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon continue to back al-Asad.

In 1979, the Iranian Revolution brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power. Khomeini’s regime, which allowed Iran to be ruled by the ‘ulama (clerics) under a system known as the velayat-e-faqih, represented a significant shift in Shiite ideology. This was the first time in history when Shiite political rule was permitted in the form of a state.

“Exporting the revolution,” as envisioned by Khomeini, clearly could not bring Shiite Islamic rule to the rest of the Sunni-majority Middle East. Its true goal was to reach out to all disenfranchised Muslim groups in the region. The relationship that would be formed through this outreach would allow Iran to become these groups’ patron.

The consequences were clear: Iran’s regional influence would increase, numerous people would become dependent upon Tehran, and as a result Iran’s Shiite way of life could continue without succumbing to the Sunni regional order. Indeed, Sunni groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad became Iranian clients after their formation.

The current uprisings in the Middle East should not be viewed as an “Arab Awakening” but rather as a “Sunni Awakening.” For decades, Iran was the only state in the Middle East with a revolutionary Islamist regime. (Saudi Arabia’s regime is Islamist although non-revolutionary. It has been willing to acquiesce to other emerging regional powers or put itself under the American defense umbrella in order to ensure its own security. Riyadh does not seek to remake the Middle East region but simply to ensure its interests and to protect the delicate legitimacy of its Wahhabi character.)

The current uprisings in the Middle East should not be viewed as an “Arab Awakening” but rather as a “Sunni Awakening.”

Now, revolutionary Sunni Islamists have already taken power in Turkey and threaten to take power in Egypt and Syria as well. The centuries-old conflict between the Ottoman and Persian Empires may reignite as Turkey and Iran begin to compete for regional hegemony, albeit with both needing to take into account a resurgent Arab world possibly looking to take the leadership role in the struggle against Israel from Iran.

The consequences for Israel, the region’s only liberal democracy, are numerous.

Iran will become increasingly erratic, realizing that its Golden Age of regional hegemony is coming to an end. This will likely manifest itself on two fronts. First, Iran will continue to accelerate its nuclear program, which could in turn lead Turkey and Egypt to solidify programs of their own and may even force Saudi Arabia to buy an off-the-shelf nuclear bomb from Pakistan. Second, Hezbollah is now more likely to join a future Arab-Israeli war at Iran’s instigation in order to ensure that Sunni Palestinian – or even Egyptian – elements don’t gain the upper hand in Arab public opinion. Moreover, Hezbollah would be inclined to launch a war against Israel if pressure continues to mount against it over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s finding that Hezbollah agents were responsible for assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Egypt will, at best, tolerate or quietly encourage continued cross-border attacks against Israel if an Israeli-Palestinian war breaks out, particularly in the case of one between Hamas and Israel.

Egypt will, at best, tolerate or quietly encourage continued cross-border attacks against Israel if an Israeli-Palestinian war breaks out, particularly in the case of one between Hamas and Israel. This is the most likely scenario over the short-run, and not a full-blown Egypt-Israel war, which would only likely happen in the event of full Islamist consolidation of power in Egypt. Full Islamist consolidation of power in Iran took more than one year after protests against the Shah began, and one would expect that it would take even longer in Egypt seeing as the military continues to be a significant independent actor albeit bound by public opinion.

Syria’s uprising, unlike Egypt’s, threatens to overthrow an Israeli enemy. The result, however, is unlikely to be a friendly regime. Rather, regime change in Syria would lead to partial Syrian realignment toward Egypt from Iran. It would also lead to an emboldened Syria with a less calculated, more erratic foreign policy. The new regime in Damascus would be more – not less – likely to go to war with Israel and more likely to foment instability to Israel’s north in Lebanon.

[R]egime change in Syria would lead to partial Syrian realignment toward Egypt from Iran. It would also lead to an emboldened Syria with a less calculated, more erratic foreign policy.

The Palestinians’ UN gambit later this month will lead to uprisings in the West Bank and Gaza which will likely lead to violence if Palestinian protesters choose to march on Israeli checkpoints. Whether this violence leads to an all-out Israeli-Palestinian war similar to the Second Intifada depends, as it did during the latter, on whether the United States can contain the violence and bring Israel and the Palestinian Authority back to the table.

The odds of containing the violence are not good, seeing as the Palestinian Authority (PA) has little respect for President Obama. Indeed, the unilateral declaration of statehood gambit at the UN is rooted in the fact that the PA believes it can get everything it wants without negotiating or making concessions. The only hope to get the PA back to the negotiating table appears to be if the planned demonstrations backfire and lead to an increase in support for Hamas, although by then it may be too late to stop the violence, as was the case during the Second Intifada.

The transformation of this violence into a war may take several months, but by the end of 2012 at the latest, we’ll likely be looking at a full-blown Israeli-Palestinian war on two fronts combined with a simultaneous clash with Hezbollah and border infiltrations from Egypt and Syria by Egyptian, Syrian and Palestinian elements. Israel is far better prepared for war with the Palestinians now than it was in 2000, but war with Hezbollah’s 55,000+ rocket arsenal is an entirely different story.

By the end of 2012 at the latest, we’ll likely be looking at a full-blown Israeli-Palestinian war on two fronts combined with a simultaneous clash with Hezbollah and border infiltrations from Egypt and Syria by Egyptian, Syrian and Palestinian elements.

If Hezbollah chooses to sit this one out, then it most certainly won’t sit out a future war launched by Egypt and Syria against Israel. The latter would likely require the full consolidation of Islamist forces in those two countries, and hence is more likely to take place a few years down the road.

The Levant is far closer to full-blown inter-state war than it ever has been since 1973. As the Arab Oil Embargo of the 1970s shows, the oil taps can get shut off in the case of inter-state war. Western interests are very much at risk. As President Nixon’s support for Israel following the Yom Kippur War demonstrated, the United States would be foolish to do anything other than staunchly supporting its allies and ensuring their security in the years ahead.

Zach Paikin is a research associate at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.