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In "Will Iran Be Next?" James Fallows (The Atlantic Monthly, December 2004) describes a war game conducted by The Atlantic involving soldiers, spies, and diplomats, to determine how an American President could respond to Iran's push to obtain nuclear weapons.

The game's participants, first determining that an Osirak-type preemptive strike would be too demanding for Israel, then focused on the military options available to the U.S. In the role of commander of CENTCOM, Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel in charge of running the simulated war game, presented a three-stage military option. The first level would be a punitive raid on key Iranian Revolutionary Guard units. At the second level, a 5-day pre-emptive air strike -- deemed a low-risk military option if the U.S were to do it -- could be launched against possible nuclear facilities. At the third level of involvement, a "regime change" invasion would be mounted.

The overall plan of attack was this: a "deception" effort from the south, to distract Iranian troops; a main-force assault across the long border with Iraq; airborne and Special Forces attacks from Afghanistan and Azerbaijan; and cruise missiles from ships at sea.The overall plan of attack was this: a "deception" effort from the south, to distract Iranian troops; a main-force assault across the long border with Iraq; airborne and Special Forces attacks from Afghanistan and Azerbaijan; and cruise missiles from ships at sea.

All five of the game's participants voted to nix the regime-change plan as too risky.

The lessons of the game, according to Fallows? The United States cannot tolerate a radical regime like Iran getting its hands on nuclear weapons. Yet, it has no military option to stop Iran from getting those nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, diplomatic methods, absent a military threat, will not deter Iran from developing the weapons it seeks. So, a U.S. president can only bluff, pretending he has a military solution, when he does not, in the hope that Iran will be fooled.

Fallows wonders aloud whether this is a message that should be published as a cover story in a major periodical: "Is it therefore irresponsible to say in public, as our participants did and we do here, that the United States has no military solution to the Iran problem?" Fallows looks for assurance from Thomas Hammes, a Marine expert in counterinsurgency, who maintains that a government can never assume its enemy will not do something that is "unviable." "History shows," Hammes insists, "that countries make very serious mistakes."

To say that the only strategic option of the U.S. is a bluff is to misunderstand the possibility of mixed strategies in a sequential game of moves, in which the dynamics of play are similar to those that were present in the Cuban missile crisis. (See Steven J. Brams, Game theory and the Cuban missile crisis.) A policy of brinksmanship, ever maintaining a non-negligible probability of invasion, would plainly carry great risks, but may be more likely to produce a better outcome for the U.S. and the West than the unacceptable result of acquiescing to the emergence of Iran as a nuclear power.

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Note: The Adventures of Chester promises another critique of the Atlantic's cover story on Tuesday evening.

Labels: Atlantic Monthly, CENTCOM, Iran, James Fallows, nuclear weapons, war games

In the minds of most summer moviegoers, piracy is little more than historical legend and fantasy. Just this last week, however, the world authority on maritime trade, the London-based International Maritime Bureau, released a report declaring that violent pirate attacks have hit an all-time high. According to the Straits Times, between January and June, there were 234 incidents of piracy, a 37 percent increase. One-quarter of all of the attacks occurred in the waters of Indonesia: pirates boarded 43 ships there and hijacked four vessels.

In "Anarchy at Sea," (The Atlantic, September 2003), William Langewiesche portrays the oceans as increasingly beyond governmental control and organized gangs of criminals and terrorists becoming ever more bold on the high seas. Langewiesche writes: "The most ambitious pirates hijack entire ships: they kill or maroon the crews, sell the cargoes, and turn the hijacked vessels into 'phantoms,' which pose as legitimate ships, pick up new cargoes, and disappear."

A critical chokepoint of world trade is the Strait of Malacca, through which Japan brings 80% of its oil. Singapore's Business Times reports that attacks increased in this narrow 550 mile waterway to 15 attacks in the first six months of 2003, compared to 9 in the same period last year.

Security in these waters is critical to the war on terror. Late last year, video footages from al-Qaeda strongholds in in Afghanistan showed the terrorist network had been spying on Malaysian marine police in the Malacca Straits. An attack on a supertanker in the Straits, similar to that carried out against the French Limburg off the coast of Yemen last October, could seriously disrupt world trade.

Shiver me timbers, indeed!

Labels: Atlantic Monthly, Indonesia, Malacca Straits, piracy, Strait of Malacca