Transcript
Transcribed automatically: it certainly contains errors. It’s pretty good, just not perfect. We provide it here because, for accessibility, it’s better than nothing.
Aaron Stein
0:02
Yeah, dudes from the shake are getting crowded out.
Jeffrey Lewis
0:08
You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk Podcast, the leading podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
Aaron
0:26
And I'm Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Rapide Career Center for the Middle East. And just a note for the listeners, that guy in the background may be junior fellow Oliver Stein, who's homesick today from daycare. And so I am recording from home as well.
Jeffrey
0:41
I heard he barfed all over your suit.
Aaron
0:43
He did. He had the good sense to wait until I got dressed for work. And then I had him in my arms before throwing up all over me. Luckily, the dry cleaner is just about a five minute walk away.
Jeffrey
0:54
My children have discovered the word barf. Okay. That's a good thing. You can get out of the way or wear a poncho. They're just very excited about barf bags. Hey, you know what doesn't make me barf?
Jeffrey
1:09
I was going to say, what?
Jeffrey
1:14
I'm an adult now. And so instead of making many, many, many cocktails, I make myself one every evening.
[Sponsor message]
Aaron
3:35
Can I tell you where they don't drink alcohol, though?
Jeffrey
3:41
The place we're going to talk about?
Aaron
3:43
Well, I mean, I guess they do, but it has to be shipped in the underground. You can't go to the Orange Control One podcast to get a promo code. You have to know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.
Jeffrey
3:51
Uh-huh. Are we talking about Iran? We're talking about Iran.
Aaron
3:57
Block of seagulls.
Jeffrey
3:58
Yeah, I'm thinking that's the other thing Scott needs to splice in is... And Iran.
Scott
4:04
Ran so far away.
Jeffrey
4:07
Can you do that for us, Scott?
Scott
4:09
I'm going to tell you I'm going to.
Jeffrey
4:10
But they made the news this week. I mean... They made the news. That's right. The... The commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said, today the range of our missiles, as the policies of Iran's supreme leader dictate, is limited to 2,000 kilometers, even though we are capable of increasing this range.
Scott
4:36
And so the Iranians...
Jeffrey
4:38
Really put a fine point on things we've heard them say before, but I think they made a more direct statement that the Supreme Leader has told them to cap the range of Iran's ballistic missiles at 2,000 kilometers. ... Which I think got a lot of attention. In fact, I had forgotten that they had made that, that they had made that comment a few times.
And I had forgotten that it was rumored that that sort of emerged out of the, the consultations that led to the JCPOA.
Aaron
5:09
Yeah, I did too. Cause when I saw it, you know, I flagged it, obviously, because of our podcast and my own side interest in Iranian missiles. But then when I went back and started looking, this isn't the first time they've said it. I think what gives it more gravitas or weight this time is that they mentioned the Supreme Leader's dictate and then all the background going on here in the U.S. about our own policy choices vis-a-vis Iran.
Jeffrey
5:37
I think that's right. And, you know, that I think raises this interesting conversation that we haven't really had. I mean, we've had it maybe in passing, but it's a conversation about missile proliferation in the Middle East. Because, you know, one thing we continually hear is that Iran's missile programs are Pose this challenge for regional security and that one of the shortcomings of the JCPOA is that it doesn't address these regional challenges, specifically Iran's missile programs.
And while that's true... I think people don't necessarily realize that we've got a gangbusters missile arms race going on in the Middle East writ large.
Aaron
6:23
Yeah, I've tried to bring attention to this in my own personal endeavors for fundraising as a think tanker. And nobody seems interested in this idea that it's not just Iran's missile program in the Middle East, but there's a lot of missile programs in the Middle East. And I think that has something to do with the way we talk about Iran's missiles, which is to always tie them to the potential that they could be used to deliver a nuclear weapon.
Whereas what we know about the Middle East suggests that the regimes and countries in the region don't necessarily think about missiles as solely for the delivery of WMD.
Jeffrey
7:04
Right. I mean, so there are kind of two things I think people don't realize. I think people don't realize how many countries in the region have missiles, and in particular, how many countries in the region can produce their own missiles. But then I think the second thing, which maybe we should talk about first, is how frequently missiles have been used in combat in the Middle East.
Because it's all the frickin' time.
Aaron
7:30
Yeah, I mean, I think we should talk about which conflicts since the Missile Age have they not been used. That would be a better study, right? But let's go through the list.
Jeffrey
7:39
Yeah. Okay, so my quick list, and I am virtually certain to forget one or two because it is a long, long list, is we have the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. The Egyptians rocketed the Israelis with a couple of scuds.
Jeffrey
7:56
Which was, as far as I know, the first combat use of ballistic missiles since the Second World War. I believe so, yeah. And then in the 1980s, the Iraqis and the Iranians took turns rocketing the hell out of each other in conflicts that ultimately came to be known as the War of the Cities, although I think originally that referred to a much narrower period of time, but I think now we just sort of say the Iran-Iraq War had a bunch of missile strikes.
Jeffrey
8:25
After Operation El Dorado Canyon in 1986, when the United States bombed the crap out of the late Muammar Gaddafi, he turned around and fired missiles at the NATO base in Lampedusa in Italy. Then again in 1991. Saddam Hussein fired rockets at Israel and U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia.
Aaron
8:51
I think one of the largest casualty incidents was a scud hit on a U.S. base.
Jeffrey
8:55
Yeah, I guess the way you look at it is it didn't have a tremendous impact on the outcome of the war, but it was still certainly a tragedy for people who lost loved ones. And then there's yet more. Oh, you know, I also left out, I guess it's not technically the Middle East, but the Soviets used a bunch of scuds in Afghanistan.
Aaron
9:21
I was going to add that at the end of your list, but yes, keep going. Middle East adjacent, we can call it that.
Jeffrey
9:28
Yeah, well, you know, I mean, we're going to include Libya, Turkey, and Iran, so why not, right? And then you've got a smattering of recent uses. The Hezbollah fires rockets all the damn time, and I guess so does Hamas into Israel.
Aaron
9:48
Yeah, I mean, generally smaller, not the Scuds, but yes.
Jeffrey
9:51
Well, generally smaller, but I mean, I think we've seen a lot of Israeli airstrikes in the Syrian conflict, which seem to be aimed at interdicting longer-range missiles, which I think are getting transferred from either the Iranians or the Syrian government to Hezbollah.
Jeffrey
10:09
We have seen a ton of missile-related strikes in the Syrian civil war, particularly the Syrian regime is attacking or was for a long time attacking its own cities. And then since the Russians showed up, they have both been firing missiles. You know, missiles into the region, which of course the United States did too in Iraq, but Russian forces in Syria have been using missiles.
We've seen the Houthis are firing what we think are probably Scud variants into Saudi Arabia and at UAE forces. And Tachkas. Yeah.
Aaron
10:50
And... Saddam Hussein in 2003, again. Repeat of 1991, but more locally towards U.S. forces in Kuwait.
Jeffrey
11:00
I actually missed that.
Aaron
11:03
Did Saddam fire a couple of missiles in 2003? Well, they were intercepted by Patriot, at least we're told. They were converted SA-2s. Scott, does that sound right to you?
Jeffrey
11:14
Oh. Yeah, we may want to double check that because I know all the Scuds were kaput.
Scott
11:19
There's also, don't forget the Iranians have fired ballistic missiles.
Jeffrey
11:23
That's where I was going to end.
Jeffrey
11:27
Well, because there were a bunch against the MEK, and then this summer there were the missile launches that we talked about on the pod, didn't we?
Scott
11:37
We did. Mm-hmm.
Jeffrey
11:41
So, you know, the point is these countries rocket the living bejesus out of each other.
Aaron
11:46
Yes. And, and, and they're a widely used tool.
Jeffrey
11:49
Yeah. And I mean, it is, it is certainly a, it's certainly a oh wait, hang on. Let's see. I want to see what Aaron now has said. I can't.
Aaron
11:59
Al-Samud too.
Jeffrey
12:01
Oh my God. They had an Al-Samud too.
Aaron
12:05
That's one of these Iraqi weird things they put together.
Jeffrey
12:07
You know, we've got an SA-2 engine sitting here at CNS.
Scott
12:16
What? Which one? It's in the corner.
Jeffrey
12:19
What do you mean, which one?
Scott
12:21
The kicker or the sustainer? The sustainer.
Jeffrey
12:23
We have a rocket engine sitting here. It's a war booty. It's from Iraq. One of our employees, who was a former weapons inspector, brought it back.
Aaron
12:35
Take a picture and tweet it.
Jeffrey
12:38
I have on other occasions, but I will do so again. Yeah. So the big takeaway from this is that when we talk about Iran's missiles, yes, they are a regional threat. But we talk about them in isolation as though there aren't a whole bunch of countries in the region with missiles routinely firing them at one another.
Jeffrey
13:05
But there are a whole bunch of countries in the region routinely firing missiles at each other. So it's not surprising that Iran would build missiles to conduct regional military operations. In fact, it would be surprising if they didn't. And it, I think, also then gets to this bigger problem, which is it would be awesome if the But if we were to negotiate a regional ban on ballistic missiles, our friends would like that even less than our enemies.
Aaron
13:41
Yeah, and we talked about this on a previous pod. We had Tehran-Timmy after the Islamic State-linked attack inside of Iran. Their mechanism to respond beyond their forces on the ground was with a missile strike into Syria. Right. And... This was one of the main hiccups, I think, as we were negotiating, the United States was negotiating the JCPOA, was trying to find a workaround for the missile issue.
And I think the Iranians, in announcing the 2,000 kilometer range, were clever in that 2,000 kilometers gives them what they need. I think they can obviously build longer if they choose to. But these precedents that we talked about all take place within this 2,000-kilometer bubble.
Jeffrey
14:32
Yeah, I think so. I mean... That's the partly that range is just selected as a practical matter. 2000 kilometers is the max range of Iran's extended range variant of the no dong. So they, they copied the no dong. They called it the Shahab three that had like a, you know, 12 to 1500 kilometer range, depending on the, the engine in the airframe, both of which they improve.
But then they had an extended range version that they said has a range of up to 2000 kilometers But I think in practice, your mileage may vary. It's probably a bit less than that. It's probably 1,600, 1,700 kilometers, something like that. That range is sufficient for the vast majority of missions they might imagine. And that range is probably about what you could reasonably expect to do with a conventionally armed missile.
Because your accuracy is going to degrade significantly. Unless you know they dramatically improve the quality of the guidance systems. And so if you're going to have conventionally armed missiles, it doesn't make sense to do them much more than 2,000 kilometers unless you can do really fancy stuff with guidance, and as a practical matter, they don't really have any of those missiles, and so there be the line.
Aaron
15:50
Yeah, and this raises the broader issue. I mean, so if you expand the conversation beyond just... Iran's missiles and you look at the region as a whole, one of the things that particularly the Trump administration is trying to do is to use the threat of sanction or more sanctions and perhaps playing around with the JCPOA to try and get certain Follow-on agreements that would entail ballistic missiles.
And it's always linked to this idea that you want to cap Iran's ability to deliver nuclear weapons on a ballistic missile. And I think that misses the point. Because that doesn't really have a definition, right?
Jeffrey
16:30
Yeah, I mean, this whole thing is... I think just a hornet's nest. I mean, no, the JCPOA does not define nuclear capable ballistic missiles. I mean, I think we've sort of agreed with the Iranians that things under 2000 kilometers are plausibly conventional. Things over 2000 kilometers are not. In fact, by the way, you know, I mean, Laura Rosen said that she thinks this pledge emerged from the discussions around the JCPOA.
We've actually seen a really interesting shift in Iran's missile testing patterns. Shay Cotton keeps our Iran missile test database. And the Iranians have really dialed back on testing of the liquid-fueled systems.
Aaron
17:22
Yeah, and this is where I wanted to go. They've also changed themselves. And you're able to see that through their test cycle and what type of fuel they use.
Jeffrey
17:30
Right, which it makes actually a lot of sense because the liquid-fueled systems are fine, but they have a lot of drawbacks, and I think ultimately the real appeal of liquid-fueled systems is that they offer a relatively near-term path to an ICBM. But in fact, it looks like the Iranians are doing more testing, and in the combat use, all but one of the missiles were solid-fueled missiles.
And so it seems to be on balance. They're shifting their emphasis away from liquid-fueled missiles that are capable of bigger payloads at greater ranges to more operationally useful solid-fueled missiles.
Aaron
18:18
Yeah, I mean, just to put a – I mean, the way I think about it is that their liquid-fueled program was the point of emphasis basically from the 1980s, I would say, up until the mid-2000-ish. And I would call those relatively mature by Iranian standards, whereas the solid is where they're moving into now. And if you're going to have to have a more robust testing program, you would want to focus more on the solids.
Jeffrey
18:43
Dudes from the Shig are getting crowded out.
Aaron
18:46
Right, right, right, right. Exactly. Yeah, dudes from the Shig are getting crowded out.
Jeffrey
18:51
Sorry. You know, we have so many more listeners now, they probably don't know our recurring jokes. In Iran, Iran's missile programs, the liquid fuel programs, are run by the Shahid Hamad Industrial Group, a.k.a. The Shig. That's the entity that does a ton of cooperation with the North Koreans. The solid-fueled missile groups are the Shahid Bakari Industrial Group, or the SABIG.
Okay. Shibig? I know. Shibig? I don't know. You tell me. I don't know. Yeah, I like Zabig because it sounds like Zabig Brzezinski. The late Zabig Brzezinski. And that's a different entity. And we actually don't see a ton of solid fuel cooperation between the Iranians and the North Koreans, which I think is weird because I would expect to see some.
And, you know, maybe if we just wait long enough, we will, but... I don't know.
Aaron
19:43
I was about to say, I mean, a lot of the stuff we know about the shade comes from treasury designations. And so we have to wait till treasury, you know, moves on from the Russians and focuses back in again on, on she big or Z big.
Jeffrey
19:55
Yeah. So, you know, I, I think that, you know, we're at this point where, I mean, to go back to the bigger, the bigger point that I wanted to make, when we look at the JCPOA, And we realize that, like, okay, so we've got, you know, this strategy in place to manage the nuclear program, and it doesn't deal with the missile program.
We often talk about, like, okay, well, this is, like, analogous to North Korea. Now we've got to go deal with this missile program. But that missile program does not exist in isolation. Right. It does not. And I mean, it does not exist in isolation from the region as a whole. And so just to quickly run through them, because we one of the comments I got back on a thing we were working on is someone said only Israel and Iran can manufacture missiles in the Middle East.
It's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like that was true 20 years ago. But Egypt has a. Missile production capability that we don't ever hear about because they don't show things off.
Aaron
20:58
Yeah, they're quiet about it.
Jeffrey
21:00
They got a nice big factory at Heliopolis and a nice test location out at Jebel Hamza with a brand new engine test stand that we don't know what it's for, but to me, it looks like it's for big, solid-fueled motors.
Aaron
21:15
Ooh, that's interesting, too.
Jeffrey
21:17
Yeah, I mean, I think that's the shoe that has yet to drop. The Syrians... You know, admittedly, they had help from the Iranians and the North Koreans. So it's hardly what I would describe as an independent capability. But the SSRC has a big missile production facility. In fact, a couple of years ago, I think there was an interdiction of some goods, some materials coming from North Korea into Syria because you could tell they were trying to replenish their missile stocks.
Jeffrey
21:53
But they're making them in Syria.
Aaron
21:55
Yes, the production line is in Syria, even if they source some components externally.
Jeffrey
21:59
Right. We've talked about our friends in Turkey.
Aaron
22:03
Yeah, the Boracan.
Jeffrey
22:06
I mean, I think that's not just a missile transfer. That's a production capability transfer. Yes. And, and then, you know, there are the countries that maybe they aren't making them themselves, but you know, they do have them. And so there are a ton of missiles in Saudi Arabia, a ton of missiles in the UAE and a ton of missiles on both sides in Yemen, including what seemed to be Houthi built missiles.
I don't think that they're built like, like indigenously built, but like, Modified, kit-assembled, something like that.
Jeffrey
22:44
Mm-hmm. And that's the other crazy thing, is that the Houthis and Hezbollah seem to be getting access to much longer-range missiles.
Aaron
22:55
And at the very least, any ship cruise missiles.
Jeffrey
22:57
Yes, well, that too. That too.
Scott
23:00
So, like, that's a hell of a lot of missile proliferation.
Aaron
23:03
Right, and so this makes the policy, so if you're really serious, again, like if you're actually serious about dealing with the missile problem in the Middle East, you can't deal with one country in isolation. That doesn't make us powerless, but it certainly limits your options because the proliferation cat is out of the bag. I mean, the opening bit of this podcast after the booze was about how many times these things have been used.
Jeffrey
23:34
Yeah. So I was able to come up with three things that I think we could do to try to get a handle on this missile arms race in the Middle East. But, you know, spoiler alert, none of them are like super impressive.
Aaron
23:50
Well, but the fact that both you and I sat down and chatted about this for about 15 minutes before this pod came on and I couldn't improve upon anything that you came up with. Isn't suggestive – is indicative of how this problem has already gotten away, if that makes sense.
Jeffrey
24:10
Yeah. Okay. So my first suggestion is Iran is emerging as a major supplier of missiles and missile production capabilities. And I think they're starting to take some market share away from the North Koreans.
Aaron
24:31
Can you go into that a little bit? The listeners will be interested in why you say that.
Jeffrey
24:35
Well, I mean, I think the Syrians who used to be totally dependent on the North Koreans are now increasingly dependent on the Iranians. And we've seen that there's some evidence that the Iranians are also sending Fatah-110s, which are a short-range, solid-fueled ballistic missile, not just to the Syrians, but also to Hezbollah. And there have been a ton of these, I think I said at the beginning of the pod, Israeli airstrikes in Syria that seem to be associated with the Israelis trying to strike Iran.
Those kinds of missile transfers. But then also, you know, we're watching the Houthis rocket the hell out of the Saudis.
Aaron
25:14
Yeah. I mean, at the very least, they probably have some. That stuff's coming from somewhere. Yeah. Or at least they get some help.
Jeffrey
25:20
Well, you know, my guess is they aren't building it themselves. And so they're probably maybe they're gaining control of Yemeni missile stocks. But, you know, I mean, I don't know. Maybe they're also getting some other assistance from the Iranians. And, you know, I mean, I don't know how seriously the Iranians are going to go into the business, but it's probably time to try to think about getting the Iranians to abide by the MTCR, as the Chinese do.
They're not in the club, but they abide by it. In the hopes of getting into the club, which is what the Indians did for many, many years. And then eventually the Indians got in the club. And I know that will make people upset because they don't even want China in the MTCR. But I got to tell you, if you've got a supplier cartel that excludes Iran, North Korea and the Chinese, it's not a supplier cartel anymore.
Aaron
26:16
I was about to say your cartel has been busted by rivals.
Jeffrey
26:19
Yeah, I mean, I get why we did it. Like, we wanted the cartel to exclude the Chinese and then the North Koreans and the Iranians. And it worked great, right? Like, it worked for like 30 years. That was awesome. But it could not work forever. And now it has failed with regard to those countries. And so you got to decide whether you want them inside the tent pissing out or outside the tent pissing in.
Aaron
26:45
Exactly. And then some other tools that you put out there.
Jeffrey
26:50
Well, so then the second one, which is also MTCR-related... Which is the members of the MTCR plus China seem to regard the Middle East as a place where there are a bunch of rich oil shakes who are willing to spend extraordinary amounts of money. They do do that. For missiles. And so we have seen France and the UK transfer what I believe are Category 1 cruise missile systems.
To the UAE and Saudi Arabia. And, you know, I, there are reports that the Chinese have made additional missile sales to the Saudis that are not confirmed, but we've seen a new base pop up in Saudi Arabia. And so I think in addition to trying to get Iran to adhere to the MTCR, maybe the MTCR states need to have a, Have a come-to-Jesus moment with themselves about how much they're selling in the region.
Jeffrey
27:57
I mean, I know the money's good, but holy crap, we have sold a lot. I mean, we collectively have sold a lot of stuff. Because even though I said, well, look, the Israelis, the Iranians, and then the Egyptians and Syrians with North Korean assistance, and then Syrians with Iranian assistance later, while they all have indigenous capabilities, that Turkish capability, I think, is pretty Chinese-dependent, and the Gulfies are importing.
Yes, and so if we want to get a handle on this missile proliferation problem that probably starts at home. by the way, oh, you know, I should mention here, I, I, I always implicitly just start with MTCR Category One systems, which excludes Russia's SS-21 and our ATACAMs. But those are very capable missile systems that come right up to that threshold.
And, you know, we've seen a lot of SS-21s in Syria and Yemen. The Russians are now pushing the Iskander on export markets. We'll see if they actually sell it. And we have sold ATACMs to at least the UAE and Jordan. So...
Aaron
29:08
Yeah, and using HIMARS in Syria ourselves.
Jeffrey
29:11
So, you know, I mean, the line is where the line is, and nobody's doing anything wrong selling things that are under the line, but there's a synergy there that we should probably be aware of.
Aaron
29:20
Yeah, and then I want to drop in here, too, this idea that there are also the things that we sell to the Gulf Aces for very legitimate reasons to defend against Iranian missiles as a mechanism of reassurance, missile defenses. While useful as a narrow tool, you know, are not a panacea against missile bombardment and can be construed as a pressure on the Iranians to simply build more missiles.
You know, and so sometimes even the defensive tools we put in, so more missile systems, albeit not quote-unquote offensive, can still spur the building of more offensive systems that make this problem worse.
Jeffrey
30:07
Yeah, you know, I think the Bush administration had a good idea. They started something called the Gulf Security Dialogue, which seemed to sort of peter out in the Obama administration, unfortunately, where there was a real concerted effort to try to look at how to reassure Gulf allies. And I think in the end it kind of became just a way to push missile defenses on them.
And maybe that's why it petered out a bit. But I do think that that general approach of trying to think about what defense capabilities are reasonable to sell, I do think there need to be defense capabilities. I just also think that they have to be integrated into some kind of regional strategy. And if you just do it sort of blindly of, well, we're just going to stack missile defenses up in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Then you're going to then face this problem, which is the Iranians are just going to build more missiles.
And we've been going through picking out Iranian missile bases, and there are a lot.
Aaron
31:12
Yeah, well, they disperse them for obvious reasons. And then you have one more, which I think actually is the lowest hanging fruit.
Jeffrey
31:20
It's the lowest hanging fruit, but it's probably the least valuable of all of them.
Aaron
31:24
But you gotta start somewhere when you start picking from the tree, right?
Jeffrey
31:28
Yes. Yes, the International Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation, also known as the Hague Code, a.k.a. The HCOC, which is what people call it!
Aaron
31:38
I call it the H-C-O-C, but okay, whatever. She big, sick, and now the HCOC.
Jeffrey
31:45
I have sat in countless discussions where people have totally unironically discussed how to handle the H-cock. And I'm just sitting there like, am I the only 14-year-old boy in this room? Apparently I am!
Aaron
32:05
This is a children's show, Jeffrey. We don't have the parental discretion warning.
Jeffrey
32:09
They literally call it the H-cock.
Aaron
32:11
Well, that's H-C-S-E.
Jeffrey
32:15
I mean, I can't tell you. Like, I just sit there like, are we saying this out loud? Why am I the only one stifling a giggle? Like, okay.
Aaron
32:23
Maybe that says something about you. Yeah, I guess.
Jeffrey
32:27
The Hague Code, which actually, you know, was something the U.S. was pretty cool toward when it was created because it was a way to try to – Discourage missile proliferation, although it doesn't really do that very effectively, but what it really was aimed at was undermining the case for missile defenses.
Jeffrey
32:54
In, in fact, in point of fact, I don't think it accomplishes any of that. It's a nice set of transparency measures about missile programs and missile policies. So for example, the Iranians saying, yes, we're going to limit our missile ranges to less than 2,000 kilometers, like it's nice to, like, write that down on a little piece of paper with some nice stationery and send it to The Hague.
You know, with the exception of Turkey, not a single country in the region that has missiles is a subscribing state to the Hague Code. Not one.
Aaron
33:31
Yeah. And again, it's not like the most impressive thing in the world, but at least they'd have to be more transparent and open when they make public statements.
Jeffrey
33:40
Yeah, well, I mean, so the things that would be useful, and again, it's not, I'm not under the impression this is going to be enormously useful. But one thing is it has pre-launch notifications for both missile and space launch vehicle tests and flights. And I think we've seen this with the Iranians especially. They don't often announce things in advance.
Aaron
34:04
They want to see if it works first.
Jeffrey
34:07
Right. But then, you know, there's like a lack of transparency. And, you know, we've run into some pretty absurd claims about Iran's missile program that, you know, I think flourishes because the information isn't so great. But then it also requires states to submit an annual declaration. Which is really about policies, mostly. So, you know. Like, that's nice.
I mean, it would be, you know, it's better than a sharp kick to the testicles.
Aaron
34:43
Yeah, I think that's right. And there's nothing wrong with countries basically codifying... Internal policy in making them well-known about how they plan to use these missiles. For some of the countries, and I can think of a three-letter one, that becomes a problem because they don't like to admit that they have them. But for Iran, for example, they like to make public pronouncements about their missiles all the time.
Jeffrey
35:09
Yeah. So, you know, I think you could do those three things. You could try to get the Iranians to abide by the MTCR because I think Iran's missile program is out of control, but I really don't want to see them become a North Korea-like supplier, and I think there's some threat of that. I think we could get the MTCR states to maybe issue a statement where they're going to try to exercise a little bit more restraint because I think in the pursuit of those petrodollars, you know, we've sold some stuff that's Making the problem worse.
And, you know, then maybe, you know, the head coat to shine a little sunlight on exactly what's going on. Because I do think, you know, if we step back from all of this, I think Americans hear about the big, scary Iranian missiles. And that's true. Like, they exist, and they are scary, and they are a problem. But we don't hear about the other side of the capabilities, and so we don't really understand why those missiles exist in context, and therefore we don't form very realistic ideas about how we're going to control them.
Because the Iranians, like, the Iranians are not just going to give up their missiles while the Saudis and the UAE keep theirs and the Turks build theirs. I mean, that's just not, you know, this is not going to work like that.
Aaron
36:26
No, you can't take away that. Yeah, exactly. I mean, and this is something that they say a lot. And it's difficult to implement, but, you know, it's difficult to implement, but because it's in the news so much, I mean, I think it's important to set your goals narrowly and then try and pursue workable policies that could at least try and get more transparency or at least some more information out there that could try and build towards something eventually, maybe.
Is that a happy note?
Jeffrey
36:55
I was trying to ponder that myself. I don't know. I mean, when I ended my little review that we were doing internally, I ended it like, nah, this sucks, we're screwed. But that doesn't quite sound as bad as I felt.
Aaron
37:11
Yeah, I mean, yes. I mean, it can always be worse. Yeah.
Jeffrey
37:18
How are things over there on the Slack channel, Scott?
Scott
37:23
The Slack channel is great. And as always, listeners can go over to patreon.com slash ACW podcast and kick us $5 a month for access to our Slack channel or $3 a month if they are students. Hey, Aaron.
Aaron
37:37
Yes. Thank you for joining me. Always a pleasure. And thank you for listening.
