The fall of Afghanistan

The American retreat from Afghanistan will have consequences quite different from those faced by Russia in 1988, which in turn, were different to what Britain had to deal with in 1842. Likewise, the worldly-wise Taliban of today will not be similar to the earlier generation led by the messianic Mullah Omar. That said, it is more difficult to forecast how the future will unfold in the region.

Managing a retreat is considered one of the most complex operations of war. What we have had to witness, in the case of the Americans and the Afghan government, is more rout than a retreat, for which President Biden, his predecessor Trump and their Afghan counterpart Abdul Ghani are responsible.

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Things could have been better managed since it’s been clear since 2014 that the US was done with the war. In February 2020, they made an agreement with the Taliban to withdraw from the country in 14 months in exchange for their nebulous commitment to a peace process. As the US got into departure mode reducing its forces and dismantling its bases, the Taliban stepped up operations against the Afghan army. Despite that, the Biden administration stuck to the deal and made an abrupt departure from the principal American base at Bagram in the middle of the night on July 5.

As Frederick W Kagan has observed, the fighting in Afghanistan is seasonal, with the Taliban retreating to their bases in winter. By withdrawing suddenly at the peak of summer, when the Taliban were out in full force, the US action enabled them to rapidly capture the cities one by one.

The core of the success of the new Taliban has been the ability to combine diplomacy with their military prowess. Even as their forces were positioning themselves to capture the cities, Taliban delegations were fanning out to reassure neighbours and prevent the emergence of any new counter-force.

Within days of the US departure from Bagram, a delegation was in Moscow to offer assurances that their gains on the ground would not translate into threats against the Russians or their Central Asian allies. A few days later, another delegation was in Ashgabat to reassure Turkmenistan. In early July, the Taliban participated in an Iranian-led exercise to hold talks with the Afghan government delegations to promote a peaceful settlement.

Tehran had long been supporting the anti-American Taliban with money and weapons. In 2015, a high-ranking Taliban delegation had visited Iran to discuss ‘regional issues’, and in January this year, a delegation had again visited Tehran.

China, too, has maintained ties with the Taliban for some time now. It has been concerned about the threats that could emerge from a US-dominated Afghanistan, or from a resurgent Taliban. Last month, its foreign minister Wang Yi held a widely publicised meeting with a Taliban delegation in Tianjin.

And then there is Pakistan. Islamabad believes that it has the Taliban by their ‘tooti’ (scruff of the neck), a term once used by Pakistan’s Chief of General Staff, Lt Gen Mohammed Aziz, during the time of the Kargil operations. Pakistan provided the Taliban financial resources, training, weapons, logistical support and, most important, a safe haven to fight the government and the US forces in Afghanistan. It has also been part of the ‘Great Game’ against India. A Taliban-controlled Afghanistan will eliminate Indian threat through Afghanistan.

But history doesn’t repeat itself. The Taliban of today are not the naïve Talibs that the Pakistanis created under the leadership of Mullah Omar. This generation are seasoned militants who have sometimes experienced jail and ill-treatment at the hands of the Pakistanis. Islamabad hopes that its control over the Taliban logistics will continue to provide it leverage, as will the presence of its powerful proxy—the Haqqani Network which has been absorbed into the Taliban over the past two decades. But the rapid consolidation of authority over Afghanistan by the Taliban and their outreach to Iran is likely to have upset those calculations.

Without doubt, India is a loser in these developments. It was kept out of the peace process by both the US and the Russians. We had, in any case, functioned there under the American military umbrella. Our effort to develop alternative means of access to the country through the Chabahar port means little now. The prudent course would be to cut our losses and wait.

The biggest loser in all this, besides the poor Afghan people, is the US, which must reflect on its inability to successfully see through wars, despite its enormous military capability. This has implications for its west European and East Asian allies, as well as the Arabs, who depend on the US military to protect themselves.

The Kabul fiasco will undoubtedly affect the US ability to mobilise coalitions against a common cause. With a hostile Iran and Afghanistan, the newly proposed US quadrilateral in Central Asia is a non-starter.

As the ‘Great Game II’ ends, the ‘Great Game III’ will begin. The new Taliban has a much wider regional perspective than its predecessor. They are jihadists and will continue to support Islamist causes. The Iranians and Russians have their own sense of history. The Americans are unlikely to forgo the ability to intervene in such a key region at some future date. But for that you need an America that can learn the right lessons, overcome domestic divisions and avoid the perils of groupthink that afflict large parts of Washington.

The Tribune August 17, 2021

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/the-fall-of-afghanistan-298191

Pegasus Scandal | MoD Excused Itself, But BJP Govt’s Top Rungs Were Involved

Till now, the Union government’s response to the Pegasus scandal was “Pegasus, who?” or “Pegasus, where?” Then, on Monday, there was another twist worthy of note. In response to a question by V. Sivadasan of the CPI(M), on “whether the Government had carried out any transaction with the NSO Group of Technologies [the makers of the Pegasus spyware]”, the Ministry of Defence declared that the “Ministry of Defence has not had any transaction with NSO Group of Technologies”.

Note, the question asked was whether “the Government” had any transactions, while the answer specified that the “Ministry of Defence” had none.

In an oblique way, the government has admitted there is something called Pegasus, though its response, to be accurate, related to the maker of the software, the NSO Group. Presumably, the Ministry’s answer was based on a careful check on its own institutions charged with the interception of communications.

Surveillance Proof, For The First Time

The Ministry's response is strange, to say the least, unless, and this is always possible, the person in charge of responding to the question did not know what the NSO Group of Technologies was all about and did not take recourse to an excuse trotted out by the government earlier that the issue was sub judice because of several PILs filed in courts! In our bureaucratic system, don’t rule out ignorance and incompetence.

The news of the Pegasus software’s malignant use had come a day before the start of the Monsoon Session of Parliament. The Information & Technology Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, himself a target of Pegasus, had said on the floor of the House that there were several checks and balances in place and the “time-tested processes in our country are well established to ensure that unauthorised surveillance does not occur.”

Authorised surveillance, of course, does take place. There is a clutch of agencies — the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), and so on — that can, with due authorisation from the Home Secretary, intercept domestic communications. There are questions about the extent to which the authorisation procedure and its review work.

Since no clear-cut rules have been spelt out, we assume that the authorised interception of private conversation and messages would target terrorists and known criminals. But a lot of the work of the IB is to keep track of “political intelligence” or spying on the Opposition. In this, many collateral targets — businessmen, media, the judiciary, lawyers — also get pulled in. You can be sure that such targeting is entirely off the books and would be difficult to prove.

Now, for the first time, with the Pegasus programme, some sort of proof is also available. Hacked phones of some of the targeted individuals have yielded traces of the software. The problem is in determining just who could be responsible.

The List Of Targets is Telling

Now, the NSO group itself acknowledges that it deals only with governments.

We know that if in India, someone is using the software, it has to be a government agency or, someone working on behalf of the government.

We also know that at least one agency has ruled itself out — the Ministry of Defence. The military’s Signals Intelligence Directorate, which is part of the Defence Intelligence Agency, boasts of some of the most sophisticated snooping equipment. But its job is exclusively to target India’s foreign military adversaries. There is some domestic interception, mainly targeting the communication network of militants in Kashmir, but this is handled by the Directorate of Military Intelligence. Another agency involved in top-level interception of other foreign targets is the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO).

So, we are left with a number of other agencies that allegedly work according to the prescribed authorisation — IB, ED, CBI and NCB.

Some hints for where Pegasus leads to come from the list of probable targets released so far. The key Indian targets, as of now, seem to be journalists, including several who write for portals that are not friendly to the government, some who are associated with portals not necessarily against the government, and many defence correspondents, investigative reporters and Kashmiri journalists.

There is the predictable list of those in the Opposition — Rahul Gandhi, his aides, Prashant Kishore, Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Bannerjee, former IAS officer-turned-IT Minister Vaishnaw, Prahlad Patel, another Minister, Pravin Togadia, a private secretary of former Rajasthan Chief Minister, a personal secretary to HD Kumaraswamy when he was Karnataka CM, and a security officer of HD Devegowda.

There is a lot of focus on the Northeast, with political leaders and activists from Assam, Manipur and Nagaland targeted, including the top echelons of the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM). And there is the predictable list of Kashmiri figures. In the list are some Tamil politicians and activists as well. It's important to note that most of these are not the top-ranking figures, who are presumably “covered” by the IB.

The list of constitutional authorities includes Ashok Lavasa, the Former Election Commissioner. Among the Supreme Court targets are Justice Arun Mishra, now Chairman of National Human Rights Commission and considered close to the government; the former Supreme Court staffer who had accused former Chief Justice of Indian Ranjan Gogoi of sexual harassment; two Supreme Court registrars and several lawyers handling sensitive cases, but none related to national security.

Random, Bizarre Names On The List

Then, there are the accused in the Elgar Parishad case who may have had documents planted on their computers. There is also a random list of activists, like DP Chauhan of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Ashok Bharti of the All India Ambedkar Mahasabha, Shiv Gopal Mishra, a railway union leader, Anjani Kumar, a labour rights activist, and Jagdeep Chhokar of the Association for Democratic Reforms.

The seemingly random approach drags in Gagandeep Kang, noted virologist, and Hari Menon of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Sacked CBI officer Alok Verma, his wife, daughter and son-in-law figure, as does his rival, Rakesh Asthana, who is now Delhi Police Commissioner, and another officer AK Sharma; ED official Rajeshwar Singh is targeted along with his wife and both sisters.

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The list of businesspeople includes Anil Ambani, his aide Tony Jesudasan, and the India heads of Dassault Aviation, Boeing, Saab and the French energy firm EDF.

Curiously, the list also includes a number of security officials — the head of BSF, another top BSF inspector-general, a dissident R&AW officer, an army officer who filed cases against the government on the issue of free rations, and another who complained against the dilution of Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.

Even more bizarre is the inclusion of the current head of the Bihar Cricket Association, Jet Airways’s Naresh Goyal, SpiceJet Chairman Ajay Singh, Essar’s Prashant Ruia, and some other businessmen and lobbyists.

Who, Really, Was In Control?

With this kind of a list, it is difficult to believe that any of the existing agencies — IB, CBI, ED, or others — were handling the operation. The list actually seems like one which has been made by adding the lists of several central and state agencies, and then more.

It has the usual bugbears of the present government — PUCL activists, left-leaning journalists, Kashmiri activists, NSCN (IM) figures, and so on, but also random figures.

What is to explain the inclusion of Justice Mishra, Anil Ambani, the heads of foreign aviation companies, or odd-balls like Pravin Togadia and Bihar Cricket Association chief Tiwary?

The list suggests that this was an entirely off-the-book exercise run by people at the very top of the government, who were associated with not just law and order issues but with the administration as well, dealing with issues such as those relating to the Rafale deal and the CBI controversy involving Verma and Asthana. Equally, it was concerned with politics at all levels, from the top rungs to states like Karnataka, Nagaland and Tamil Nadu, as well.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out where these lines would intersect in our governmental system.

The Quint August 10, 2021

https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/pegasus-scam-mod-has-excused-itself-but-bjp-govts-top-rungs-were-involved#read-more 

Kashmir: Two Years On, the Judiciary is Standing Over the Bonfire of Constitutionalism

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

Two years after the end of Article 370 of the constitution – which gave giving special rights to Jammu and Kashmir – and the demotion of the state to a Union territory, all we have is a bonfire of vanities. Expectations that militancy will be defeated in quick order have been belied by events on the ground. Almost every day we hear of  encounters in one or the other part of the region. Worse, the militancy, once dependent on Pakistani jihadis and weapons, has become stubbornly local.

In 2020, an estimated 163 locals were recruited into the insurgency, this year so far the estimate is 82.

Investment from other parts of the country has yet to flood into the Valley. Indeed, no person from outside the state has bought land in the UT, according to information provided by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs in March this year.

As for the return of Kashmiri Pandits, the Union government keeps putting out dodgy figures of those who have returned, but the reality is that in the present conditions few are likely to do so.

The conversion of the state to a Union territory and the removal of Article 370 were dubious decisions. The constitution has provision for promoting a Union territory to a state, but whether it can demote a constituent State of the Indian Union is questionable. 

As has been argued, if one state can be demoted to a Union territory, so by the same logic can the other states. This would lead to the absurdity of an India as a Union of Union territories, rather than a Union of states, which is basic to the structure of the Indian constitution.

As for the scrapping of Article 370, this was done through a clear sleight of hand. Under the constitution, the change could have been made by the J&K constituent assembly before it was dissolved in 1957, but it wasn’t. There was still, arguably, the option of doing it with the concurrence of  the state legislature. But the legislature itself was dissolved in November 2018, under dubious circumstances, well before its term had ended.

The Modi government took the specious plea that approval could be granted by the governor who, as is well known, is a creature of the Union government. Just how much legitimacy the action had became evident when large-scale repression was unleashed right after these decisions. Former chief ministers, ministers and party leaders were kept under detention for more than a year. Tens of hundreds were incarcerated to prevent protests and more than a thousand people still remain behind bars.

What the Union government did on August 5, 2019 was part of a political project. Removing Article 370 was aimed at fulfilling the BJP’s long-time political demand, but the demotion of the state to a Union territory was an exercise in malicious politics.

Also read: A Patch-Up Attempt on Kashmir Will Not Restore What Is Lost

Neither has basis in law or the constitution and it is surprising that a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court has yet to rule on some two dozen petitions challenging the validity of the J&K Reorganisation Act of 2019 (that turned the state two Union territories) and the Presidential Order nullifying Article 370 and 35A of the constitution.  The apex court seems to feel that time is not of the essence and has gone on record as saying that “the Supreme Court can always turn the clock back.”

But in the meantime, the Union government – acting through the UT administration – is busy creating facts on the ground through executive fiat to undermine any future court decision. More germane is that the people of the region are having to make do with the authority of unelected officials when, under the Indian constitution, they are entitled to a government that they have elected.

The Union government now says J&K could again be promoted to statehood and has initiated some kind of a political process by inviting top Kashmiri leaders for a meeting in New Delhi in June. There are few signs of any follow up.

This is not surprising. It is usually difficult to square a circle.Yet, that is exactly what the Modi government is attempting to do after trashing the constitution and the legitimate rights of the Kashmiri people. 

The Wire 7 August 2021

https://thewire.in/rights/kashmir-two-years-on-constitution

Limited Afghanistan role

In the last couple of weeks, a great deal has been written on Afghanistan. The American withdrawal, the Taliban offensive, Antony Blinken’s visit to New Delhi, have all shifted our minds to the developments there. The Afghan army chief, who was scheduled to visit, cancelled at the last minute, given the situation back home.

The Blinken visit would have seen intense discussions on the subject of Afghanistan. And no doubt, the theme would be the kind of role India can play in shoring up the Afghan government.

India should not see itself as a major actor, and play at best, a carefully limited role in the unfolding events in the country. We can provide technical backing to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), perhaps some financial aid to the Kabul government, that’s all. In no way should we see, or allow ourselves to be set up, as competitors against Pakistan and China. That is something that geography decided, and politics, in the form of Pakistan, has confirmed. We have no land access to the country. Our limited access through Chabahar has been hampered by the state of poor relations between the US and Iran.

Estrangement with Iran and Russia has also limited American options to dependence on Pakistan for any viable Afghanistan policy. Given our own problems with Islamabad, this limits our room for manoeuvre. Washington may be working towards shaping some kind of entente between India and Pakistan, but this remains, as always, a work in progress. Any potential role India can play now is hampered by our increased closeness to Washington which impedes our ability to work in tandem with Iran and Russia to shape a common policy on Afghanistan.

There is a great deal of talk about how the Taliban have changed and how they could be brought into the governance system in the country and tamed. That is delusional. The Taliban are an ideological force who are unlikely to dilute their beliefs and ideas. It is simply not possible to fit them into the framework of a democratic government, which, for all its faults, the current government of Afghanistan is. As for their casual savagery, it is evident from reports that Reuters photographer Danish Siddiqui was either tortured to death or his remains deliberately mutilated. Either way, it provides little comfort for the unfolding future.

The Taliban have learnt their lessons in their long exile. Their diplomacy is more subtle and hence the outreach to China whose working principle is ‘non interference’ in the internal affairs of any country. The only thing Beijing is focused on is self-interest, which in this case is the need to insulate Xinjiang from Islamist radicalism. The Taliban may have tolerated radical movements like the al-Qaeda, the East Turkestan Liberation Front, the Islamic Movement of Tajikistan, or even the LeT and the JeM, but they have little interest in spreading their own ideas abroad, simply because those have emerged from the unique Pakhtun tribal culture.

Actually, the main reason why India should avoid any major commitment in that region is that there are greater priorities and challenges back home in the subcontinent. Primarily, they relate to the Chinese assertiveness on the borders. Even if we are able to achieve a status quo ante, as of April 2020 on the Line of Actual Control with China, things are not going to be the same again. The CBM regime built up so patiently between 1993-2012 is broken and is not likely to be restored soon.

In the meantime, Beijing has made important inroads into South Asia, particularly in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. The case of Sri Lanka is well known. But Bangladesh, too, appears to be developing denser ties with China.

In a recent paper for ORF, Sumanth Samsani has noted that net FDI from China has zoomed from $68 million in 2017, $506 million in 2018, to $1.159 billion in 2019. China has been particularly active in the country’s energy sector and has built several coal-based power plants, as well as bought three natural gas fields in the country. It is also financing the construction of the Payra Deep Sea port at a cost of $10-15 billion. Among the other infrastructure projects are the eight Bangladesh-China friendship bridges, an under-river tunnel, expansion of the Sylhet airport, and various highways and rail links, including that over the Padma river. And it is, by far, the largest supplier of defence equipment to the country.

At the end of April, China’s Defence Minister Gen Wei Fenghe toured Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In the remarks in the Dhaka leg of his visit, there was a warning on the importance of countries in the neighbourhood resisting ‘powers from outside the region setting up military alliances in South Asia.’ This was shortly after the first Quad summit that was held through a teleconference.

Because of its weak economy and defence industry, India has not been able to convert its geographic and economic dominance in the subcontinent into political primacy, where in the words of Ashley Tellis, India ‘commands the consent, if not obedience, of its smaller neighbours.’ The state of our relationships with them still depends on who is ruling the country.

In these circumstances, instead of distant Afghanistan and Central Asia, India needs to focus sharply on its ability to shape, by coercion or economic attraction, the policies of its immediate South Asian neighbours. And we are not even talking about Pakistan.

The Tribune August 3, 2021

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/limited-afghanistan-role-292045

US-Russia Nuclear Talks: Untangling The Knots

The resumption of arms control talks between Russia and the US in Geneva on Wednesday seems like a flashback to the era of the Cold War. According to reports, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybakov expressed satisfaction at the first round of discussions and have decided to reconvene in late September. They are now likely to determine topics that will be looked into by expert working groups.

These talks were agreed to by President Vladimir Putin of Russia and US President Joe Biden at their summit in June to promote strategic stability and “lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures”.

The Agenda Is More Complex Now

The agenda between the two powers, who between them possess 90% of the nuclear weapons in the world, is now far more complex and difficult than it was in the past. The primary reason for this is the evolution of technology, which has devised numerous new and ingenious ways of delivering nuclear weapons against an adversary. These include AI-controlled weapons, possible cyberattacks on existing weapons and command and control systems, and highly manoeuvrable autonomous aerial or undersea weapons that can evade defences.

Traditional arms control limitations were first established by the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) to place verifiable limits on intercontinental ballistic missiles that the US and Russia could launch at each other. This was updated in 2011 and termed the ‘New START Treaty’. The treaty, which was set to expire in February 2021, involves 18 detailed onsite inspections per year for both sides and the exchange of data twice a year.

A Slew Of Failed Treaties

In the previous decades, arms limitation treaties have gone out the window. It began with the Anti-ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty that the George W. Bush Administration dumped in 2002. This was followed in 2019 by the Trump Administration announcing its withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

Under the treaty aimed at stabilising the European front, ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500-5,500 km were banned, and this led to the elimination of over 2,600 missiles.

The Russian development of the 9M729 ground-launched cruise missile in 2014 began to worry the Americans. But by 2019 they had actually deployed it and this gave the Trump Administration an excuse to walk out of the INF treaty. Plans were made to abandon New START as well, but the incoming Biden administration called for its extension to February 4, 2026, and the Russians agreed. The two sides are seeking to use this time to work out a new agreement.

Biden has said that he wants to use New START as the basis for negotiating more arms control agreements, but the Americans have not quite spelt out what they could be and how they would deal with China.

At the time of terminating the INF agreement, the Trump Administration had said that they wanted the Chinese to join the negotiations as a third party, but Beijing has steadfastly refused to participate. China’s nuclear force is 300 or so weapons, which is paltry compared to the around 1,500 deployed and an equal number of undeployed weapons of Russia and the US.

The 'Mutual Assured Destruction' Approach

The key challenge now is untangling the different needs of the two parties and the evolution of technology. In 2019, there were also accusations from Washington that Russia was conducting a very low-yield nuclear weapons test. There have also been charges that Moscow is testing anti-satellite weapons. All these will feed into the talks that have now resumed.

The bottom-line in any nuclear strategy is the notion of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) and the threat to “do unto you what you have done to me”.

The Soviet Union and the US developed tens of thousands of weapons before they realised that this was unnecessary, and they steadily cut back their numbers through the START and INF treaties.

But from the 1980s onwards, the US also began shifting the goalposts in a major way by embarking on a ballistic missile shield, in a programme referred to popularly as “Star Wars”. This undermined the basic premise of MAD and began destabilising the START and INF agreements, because countries like Russia and China, who were American targets, and who, in turn, targeted the US, felt that with a missile shield, the US could gain a decisive advantage over them if it became invulnerable to their missiles.

Never mind that the technology did not work and Star Wars was abandoned for a more modest programme that would be able to take out individual missiles aimed by the so-called rogue states like North Korea and Iran. Even this technology is not perfect, but the US has not only pursued it but also actually deployed THAAD and Aegis missile defence systems in several countries. The Russians are worked up over deployments in Europe and the Chinese have made a major issue of the South Korean deployment.

A Complex Strategic Environment

Another matter of concern to both countries has been the US’s conventional arsenal of precision-guided munitions and its effort to create a system called the Prompt Global Strike, which can deliver a conventional warhead anywhere in the world, like an Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

So, both Russia and China have been developing missile and nuclear weapon delivery systems that can overcome the US missile defences, should they need to. In 2018, President Putin unveiled a range of weapons, which, he said, could penetrate US missile defences. Among these was a nuclear-powered cruise missile of unlimited range, the Sarmat heavy intercontinental missile, a long-range, nuclear-armed underwater drone, a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle Avangard, which can rapidly change its trajectory, and a hypersonic cruise missile called Kinzhal. The Chinese have been testing and have deployed the DF-17 missile tipped by a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle.

Another spoiler in the current situation is the hacking of US systems by suspected Russian-government hackers. The ability to break into American technology firms is viewed as a potential deal-breaker.

The talks underway are likely to discuss all these issues and see if the two countries can work out new ways to stabilise the already fraught strategic environment. China could still play a deal-breaker indirectly. The US’s counter A2/AD strategy in the western Pacific now plans to use land-based long-range missiles that were earlier banned by the INF. These could effectively turn the Chinese A2/AD strategy on its head by bottling up the PLA Navy within the first island chain.

So, while maintaining the New Start treaty indefinitely may have a reasonable prospect, reviving the INF may not. As for the other issues, it depends on the momentum the Sherman-Rybakov talks can generate.

The QUint July 31, 2021

https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/us-russia-nuclear-talks-untangling-the-knots#read-more#read-more