By John R. Haines*

(FPRI) — “The success of any major operation or campaign depends on the free movement of one’s forces in the theater. Without the ability to conduct large-scale movements on land, at sea, and in the air, operational warfare is essentially an empty concept.”[1]

Is the Black Sea a distinctive strategic space? That provocative question is begged by Russia’s maritime doctrine, the newest version of which was approved last summer by President Vladimir Putin. One answer comes from Vladimir Anokhin, a retired military officer associated with Russia’s Academy of Geopolitical Problems. He writes, “Neither the Black Sea nor the Mediterranean is a theatre of war for a modern navy.”[2]

That statement is true so far as it goes: the Black Sea is a geographically isolated, semi-enclosed sea. Non-riparian states are subject to tight limits on the number and size of naval vessels permitted there at any one time as well as the duration of their stay. These limits tighten further in wartime, when Turkey has the legal right to prohibit the passage of belligerents’ warships between the Mediterranean and the Black Seas. [3] The Soviet Union’s dissolution gave rise to an as yet unresolved challenge to Russian predominance there. Its strategic objective remains, Igor Delanoë writes, “to lock the basin.”[4]

Russia’s green water Black Sea fleet is a modern iteration of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s “fortress fleet,” by which he meant a navy that operates mostly under cover of shore-based fire support as part of a static coastal defense. Its modern embodiment is an integrated anti-access strategy under which naval vessels (surface and subsurface) are supported by shore-based ballistic missiles. Like the Mahanian fortress fleet, it expands Russia’s anti-access operational area in the Black Sea. But unlike Mahan’s strategically and operationally defensive fortress fleet, Russia’s Black Sea fleet can be offensive and assertive at the tactical level, operating as it does under the aegis of longer-range anti-ship missiles and submarines.”[5] This adds the character of a “fleet-in-being”[6] on the modern Chinese model of a counter-intervention tool.[7] It is, moreover, “a useful toll for integrating ‘lost’ territories.”[8]

So while the place of the Black Sea (and the Mediterranean) in Russia’s newest maritime doctrine may be subsumed strategically to the Atlantic Ocean, it does not diminish the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s critical sea-denial role. It is the sharp end of Russian demands that others recognize its “privileged interests”[9] there.

A start to answering whether the Black Sea is a distinctive strategic space is to clarify the meaning of the term strategy. The Chinese naval officer and geostrategist Xu Qi writes that strategy “represents a country’s effort in the world arena to use geographic orientation and principles to pursue and safeguard its national interests.”[10] It can be conceptualized as a given military force’s position and movement within an n-dimensional strategy space (Duncan Robinson calls this space a strategy hypercube[11]). That space is non-exclusive; it is also turbulent and unstable, not static and linear. Overemphasis of the maritime dimension is a common (if understandable) composition fallacy. “The navy’s strategic choice must be oriented toward the world’s oceans and formulated with a perspective of the grand strategic space,” wrote Xu Qi, “At the same time, it is still more essential to surmount traditional concepts of geographic orientation.”[12]

One can visualize the Black Sea strategic space as a four-dimensional hypercube, within which there is a maritime dimension (surface and subsurface), an atmospheric space dimension (aircraft and missiles), an outer space dimension (satellites), and a littoral land space dimension.[13] Russian anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities are predominantly non-naval. It has a large land-based ballistic missile force for anti-access missions against such key point targets such as air bases and naval facilities. It has advanced counter-maritime and counter-air systems for area denial missions to destroy critical mobile assets, including surface ships and aircraft. Russian A2/AD extends into the space, cyber and the electro-magnetic domains, respectively, as part of a comprehensive architecture to disrupt an adversary’s ability to project power regionally.

So we can accept Mr. Anokhin’s maxim as true and at the same time reject it as incomplete. It is true the warfighting role of naval surface vessels would likely be secondary in in any Black Sea regional conflict. The Black Sea is nonetheless a strategic space, one in which land-based tactical ballistic missiles as well as air and ground forces play an important role—deterrent as well as warfighting—sometimes more so than naval platforms.

More than a decade has passed since President Putin made a pair of declarations within a single two-day span. The first was that “the Azov-Black Sea region is a Russian strategic interest zone.” The second was that adjacent Krasnodar—”Russia’s southern outpost”—is “our most important region, a strategic interest zone, where we have our only warm water sea lines of communication with our main European partners. The Black Sea gives Russia direct access to the most important global transportation routes, including for energy.”[14] Both are reflected in the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation published in December 2014. Among several “main external military risks” enumerated in the document is this key one:

“[T]he deployment (and enlargement) of military forces of foreign states (and groups of states) in the territories of the states contiguous to the Russian Federation and its allies as well as in adjacent waters, including for the purpose of exerting political and military pressure on the Russian Federation.“[15] [Emphasis added]

At the same time the United States and its NATO allies explore more concerted approaches to defending the alliance’s southeastern flank:

“The idea of pursuing an integrated Western strategy toward the Black Sea region has in fact steadily gained ground since the NATO Istanbul Summit of July 2004. The enlargement of the alliance to include Bulgaria and Romania raised the issue of how it was to protect security and stability in the Black Sea. Responding to this prospect, the Russian defense minister, Sergey Ivanov, at a meeting with his Turkish counterpart challenged expansion of NATO naval patrols to the Black Sea; regional security, he declared, ‘should be ensured by the forces of the Black Sea states’.”

In mid-May 2016 a ballistic missile defense (aka anti-ballistic missile or “ABM”) system known as Aegis Ashore—the land-based version of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense onboard the United States Navy’s four forward-deployed Aegis ballistic missile defense vessels—was operationally certified.[16] Located near Caracal in south central Romania and housed on the formerly disused Soviet-era Devaselu airbase (over which the United States assumed operational control in October 2014), Aegis Ashore is part of the second phase of the so-called “European Phased Adaptive Approach” (EPAA) to an overall NATO missile defense architecture. A second Aegis Ashore site in Poland is scheduled to become operational in 2018.

The fundamental justification for Aegis Ashore (which applies generally to any effective limited missile defense[17]) is that it will deter—and failing that, defeat—Iranian intermediate-range missiles launched against targets in Europe and/or Iranian intercontinental missiles launched against the continental United States. The presumed deterrent effect of Aegis Ashore is grounded in its asymmetric advantage vis-à-vis Iranian missile systems, and in the unambiguous commitment of the United States (within the NATO command structure) to use it.

Russia sees it differently. There is “no doubt,” according to the Russian Foreign Ministry that the United States missile defense system “is directed against Russia,”[18] something reiterated recently by President Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitriy Peshkov. Some senior Russian military officials see a less acute threat. The Devaselu site poses only a “limited” threat, one that does not “critically reduce the combat capabilities” of Russia’s Special Missile Forces said its commander, General Sergei Karakayev.[19] And recent commentary in Vzglyad questioned more generally the utility of ballistic missile defense systems, arguing to “Let the United States build a missile defense system. Perpetually.”[20]

The Black Sea strategy hypercube became more turbulent after a recent series of sharp exchanges among NATO allies Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey over the question of regional naval cooperation. Depending on one’s viewpoint, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis either proposed a full-fledged “Black Sea flotilla” as his critics claim; or as he claims, that the allies merely consider joint naval exercises. Either way, it exposed fracture lines in the NATO’s least integrated regional bloc. It also shone a light on the political fragility of NATO member-state Bulgaria, where pro-Russia (and anti-NATO) groups like Natsionalno dvizhenie rusofili (“National Movement of Russophiles”) are a persistent challenge.[21]

One obvious question is whether Aegis Ashore and a postulated NATO Black Sea naval presence (of one sort or another) rather than deter threats—both specified ones like Iranian ballistic missiles as well as the obvious if sometimes unstated Russia one—will trigger a spiral of insecurity and provoke, not diminish, security challenges in the Black Sea? Current events in the Black Sea region do not unfold in a vacuum. Instead, they bear the full burden of history, at least as it is remembered by actors, each in their own way. That history is marked by a struggle for primacy, something perhaps best encapsulated by a somewhat acrostic observation made recently by Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitriy Peskov:

“It is in any case understandable that the unambiguous lesson of this legacy is this: these actions do not of course contribute to an atmosphere of trust and security.”[22]

Black Sea, Russian Sea

“And the Dnepr empties into the Black Sea, and this sea is known as the Russian Sea, and Saint Andrew, the brother of Peter, taught near it, it is said.”[23]

The Romanian historian and political figure Gheorghe Brătianu wrote, “To understand the past, we must first understand the entire geographical, historical and geopolitical context which it belongs.”[24] The history of the Black Sea is largely one of domination by a single great power.[25] Dr. Brătianu called the Black Sea of a millennium ago “un lac Byzantine—a Byzantine lake.”[26] In the mid fifteenth century, Mehmed the Conqueror (who later proclaimed himself Kayzer-i Rum or “Caesar of the Roman Empire”) transformed it into a figurative Ottoman one that was closed to all foreign ships.[27] Control of the Anatolian plateau and the Balkan Peninsula—and later, the Crimean Peninsula—ensured Ottoman dominion until their defeat in the Russo-Turkish War (1768-1774). Russia, having forced the Ottomans to relinquish the Crimean peninsula and the Azov Sea littoral, gained its first Black Sea foothold.[28]

The region is “a political construction rather than a simple geographical space,” writes Mustafa Aydin, existing “at the center of a Mackinder-type ‘geopolitical heartland’ as well as a Huntingtonian style of civilizational fault line, dotted with various ethnic and political conflicts…”[29]

The Greater Black Sea [30]

The contemporary Black Sea is part of a broader and enduring strategic contest, much like earlier ones between the Ottoman and Russian empires that spanned the vast space to the Caspian Sea. This suggests it should be understood as part of a larger geographical continuum that extends from the adjacent areas of the Mediterranean to the Caspian, a territorial expanse in which the Soviet Union’s disintegration ended a centuries-old hegemonic system. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, “the key strategic risks and prizes for most Black Sea states [were] in the hinterland.”

“This is where borders have been threatened and defended, territorial ambitions have been played out, and national independence has been asserted and consolidated. In short, there is a persistent tendency for Black Sea states to look landward in forming their foreign and security policies. Even in the more confrontational periods of Russo-Turkish relations, the key stakes in the strategic competition were on the margins of the Black Sea, in the Balkans and the Caucasus.”[32]

Today some Black Sea riparian states—notably Russia, and NATO members Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey[33]—look toward the Black Sea as much as away from it. Its maritime space represents strategic depth in a region exposed to ballistic missile proliferation, both within the region and in the adjacent Middle East and South Asia. The region’s security dynamics (and its exigent nuclear proliferation risk) threaten a cascading effect on strategic balances and doctrines from Central Asia to the Aegean. For Russia, its importance was amplified by the loss of strategic depth once provided by Ukraine, which feeds a sense of insecurity vis-à-vis the west.[34]

Security versus Defense

Perhaps what is afoot in the Black Sea reflects a subtle distinction between two similar but different concepts, security and defense. The former has gradually replaced the latter since the end of the Cold War:

“The concept of security is much broader and thus less accurate, since it encompasses various kinds of loosely defined risks and threats, that is, intrastate conflicts, international terrorism, WMD proliferation, as well as various infra-military issues, such as transnational criminality, illegal immigration, energy security, environmental degradations, and climate change.”[35]

Those who use the term security usually have in mind particular kinds of threats, where the term threat means “actions that convey a conditional commitment to punish unless one’s demands are met.”[36] The term defense in this context is the means; security is the end.

“Defense is subordinate to security. It involves using the properties of matter for a given purpose. […] Its discussion requires reference both to the thing or person whose security is to be defended, and to the action or intention of the potential attacker…Discussing security involves not only how to grant it…but also considering precisely who or what is to be defended against whom or what, and why.”[37]

While the un-capitalized concept of defense is defensive,[38] “a properly capitalized Defense concept appeals to that basic function of the State to provide protection from outside threats…to be able to actively defend, they must also be capable of preemptive military action.”[39] This idea is embedded in NATO’s fundamental “defense and security” doctrine:

“NATO members will always assist each other against attack, in accordance with Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. That commitment remains firm and binding. NATO will deter and defend against any threat of aggression, and against emerging security challenges where they threaten the fundamental security of individual Allies or the Alliance as a whole.”[40]

This suggests both an additive and a transitive property. It is additive in the sense that individual NATO member-states each opt (or not) to act collectively. Thus “collective defense” is literally so: it is the sum of each member-state’s commitment to every other member-state. So, too, it is transitive: a threat of aggression toward any given member-state (along with each of that member-state’s “emerging security challenges”) is said to apply equally to every other member-state. The associated problems are not novel: Arnold Wolfers wrote in his seminal 1952 essay “[T]he term ‘security’ covers a range of goals so wide that highly divergent policies can be interpreted as policies of security.”[41]

The transitive quality of collective defense is a license to treat a wide range of security risks and threats as if they are Defense interests although many go well beyond the strictly defensive. The author suggests the United States has taken political advantage of this transitive property to “find” a Defense interest in the Black Sea. On this basis it can claim a security interest in a Black Sea missile defense architecture, one that while a Defense interest is not a (un-capitalized) defense or defensive one.

Iranian MRBM Sites & Ranges. Source: Congressional Research Service

So what threat is preempted by a land-based antiballistic missile system in Romania? The United States and NATO contend it is Iranian ballistic missiles. Given that today Iranian ballistic missiles lack intercontinental range, any direct threat to continental United States is hypothetical and unlikely to manifest for several years at best.[42] The threat to American Defense interests is more proximate, however:

“Iran is developing and producing medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) capabilities with ranges estimated up to about 2000 kilometers (with some non-U.S. government sources citing slightly higher ranges), sufficient to strike targets throughout the Middle East. […] Iran views these missiles as an important deterrent and retaliatory force against U.S. and other forces in the region in the event of war. Iran has also constructed an underground network of bunkers and underground silo-like missile launch facilities, and is seeking improved air defenses presumably to enhance the survivability of their MRBMs against preemptive attack.”[43]

All of Turkey along with parts of the western Black Sea riparian (and NATO member) states Bulgaria and Romania fall within 2000 kilometers of Iranian ballistic missile launch sites. This distance represents the outer range of Iranian MRBM systems like the Ghadr-110, which is believed capable of delivering a single 700-1000 kilogram warhead to within 100 meters of a designated target.[44] That being said, Anthony Cordesman believes “much of Iran’s missile force is more a weapon of intimidation than a war fighting tool”[45] since its missiles are thought to lack advanced guidance systems and have only been tested in limited conditions. Iran’s missile arsenal includes a mix of solid and liquid-fuel MRBM like the Shahab-3 (range: 1500 kilometers) and its Shahab-4 variant (range: 1900 kilometers) and the Sejjil-2 (range: 2000–2500 kilometers); as well as Iranian developmental-stage IRBMs like the Shahab-5 aka Toqyān (range: 3000–5000 kilometers) and the reputed Shahab-6 aka Toqyān 2 (range: 3000–5000 km).[46]

Iran’s ballistic missile program presents a ratable threat today only out to medium-range (1000-3000 kilometers). It may in future pose a limited one at intermediate-range (3000-5000 kilometers) and has intercontinental-range ambitions. Estimating the relevant timeframes is elusive. Past intelligence estimates erred—sometimes egregiously—in understating the time required for new missile systems to achieve operational status.[47] Iran’s determination to do so, however, is not in dispute: witness its successful October 2015 test launch of the Emad IRBM, basically a precision-guided version of Shahab-3/Ghadr-series rockets.[48]

Iranian Ballistic Missile Potential Threat Evolution. Source: United States State Department[49]

“Coming after the United States withdrew unilaterally from the ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty—an obvious first step in an effort to fracture the strategic balance of forces worldwide—it deals a second blow to the international security system by creating conditions that violate the INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces] treaty…We can not and will not allow the United States to violate the [INF] treaty. […] Remember a few years ago, our opponents said in unison the missile defense system is needed by our partners in Europe and the United States to prevent nuclear missile threats from Iran. Where is the nuclear threat from Iran? It is nowhere. And yet the construction of a missile defense system goes on.”[50]

Senior Russian diplomats like Mikhail Ulyanov, who directs the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, reinforce Mr. Putin’s denunciation. “The basis is unclear for alleging Iran’s missile program poses a threat,”[51] Mr. Ulyanov said, adding that Iranian missiles have insufficient range to reach United States forces based in Europe. The intended target of NATO’s ABM system in Romania, he maintains, is obvious: Russia. “Experts contend it is wholly implausible to assume Iran will bomb Rome or Warsaw. Iran’s leaders understand that would trigger Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty,” said Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko.[52]

Is there any merit to the Russian argument? Perhaps, though the mission to defend against an attack by (say, Russian) cruise missiles and the one to defend against (say, Iranian) ballistic missiles are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The Aegis Ashore system now deployed in Romania—a land-based version of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System—is designed to do just that.[53] It represents a significant upgrade of Aegis’ capabilities. Most (30 of 33) of the United States’ ship-based Aegis BMD systems can defend at any one time against an attack by ballistic missiles or by cruise missiles, but not against both at once. Of course, a land-based ballistic missile defense suffers the limitation that as a fixed site, it immediately becomes a target for attack. We will revisit this important point in a moment.

The Russian government claims Aegis Ashore is directed against its strategic missile force. However, when Konstantin Bogdanov asks rhetorically, “How does all this [Aegis Ashore] affect Russian missiles?” he answers, “Ironically, hardly at all.”[54]

“The projected trajectory of Russian ICBMs launched from the European part of the country toward the ‘main enemy’ passes over Scandinavia, the Baltic Sea, and the Norwegian Sea. The response time and dynamic characteristics of [Aegis Ashore anti-ballistic missiles] precludes their use against Russian strategic missiles. It is a greater worry for Iran, which is their stated target. Russia neglects an essential point: no one promised the European component of the U.S. global missile defense system would perform only one function (such as target either Iranian medium-range missiles or subtly degrade Russia’s nuclear missile shield).”[55]

“Then what’s the problem?” he asks.

“Aegis Ashore provides the means to control SM-3 [Aegis’ anti-ballistic missile] launched from vertical launchers that are similar to the Mk 41 VLS [the Tomahawk cruise missile capable Mark 41 Vertical Launching System]. Not only does the presence of such weapons in Romania pose a serious threat to Russian military sites and critical civilian infrastructure in the country’s southwest (including Crimea) it also directly contravenes the 1987 INF Treaty.”[56]

Mr. Bogdanov warns this makes Romania “a priority objective for a Russian strike in the event of a hot conflict between Moscow and the West, possibly a preventive one. In any case, it creates for the United States fewer opportunities than the number of challenges that are entailed in defending it.”[57]

Creating a Black Sea Maritime Frontier

“Whomever holds Crimea can rule the Black Sea. Whomever fails to hold it cannot.”[58]

Gheorghe Brătianu elaborated his geopolitical neologism “secure space” (in Romanian, paţiul de securitate, sometimes translated as “safe space”) as “the regions and places without which a nation cannot fulfill its historical mission or achieve in full its destiny.”[59] There were two “key positions” (poziţii cheie) for Romania, the Turkish Straits and Crimea, respectively. “The concept of secure space,” he wrote, “means we cannot be indifferent to what is happening in these two key positions.”

Basil Germond argues that “to grasp the geographical and geopolitical nature” of the defense-security distinction, one has to go beyond the notion of borders—understood as a legal line of demarcation—and discuss the notion of a frontier. He defined it as a wide buffer-type zone “enjoying a high-security value.”[60] The maritime frontier is not a linear line of demarcation but instead an elastic and dynamic one: “The maritime domain enables states to extend the frontier.”[61] Thus the interest in maritime frontiers in domains like the Black Sea for the strategic depth they offer.

So while as Corbett wrote, “the sea is not susceptible to ownership,”[62] it can be controlled. How far might a NATO maritime frontier extend in the Black Sea? One answer is suggested by Columb’s late 19^th century maxim: “The British frontier is the enemy’s coast.”[63] The United States and NATO, Russian leaders believe, seek to do likewise, using Aegis Ashore to establish a de facto maritime frontier that extends to Crimea (and some argue, beyond). The geopolitical implications of Aegis Ashore have been obvious for a decade—as a Romanian Defense Ministry official wrote in 2005:

“The fact that Romania and Bulgaria, along with Turkey, now are NATO outposts on the Black Sea, and the fact that the United States wants to place bases in these countries, makes it clear that a chess match for mastery of the Rimland is going on, in which Romania represents an important chess piece. Locating military facilities inside Romania and Bulgaria, beyond the need to support counterterrorism and to defend a possible attack by Iran, can boomerang and is a serious concern for Russia.”[64]

Range of NATO SM-3 Block 1B (green circle) & SM-3 Block IIA (red circle) Naval Support Facility Deveselu

Aegis Ashore incorporates the Standard Missile-3 (“SM-3”), the current version of which is the SM-3 Block 1B. The next-generation SM-3 Block IIA scheduled for deployment in 2018 has a “larger rocket motors that will allow it to defend broader areas from ballistic missile threats and a larger kinetic warhead.”[65]

From a Russian perspective, what other concerns does Aegis Ashore raise? Two come to mind immediately, escalation dominance[66] and Russia’s somewhat idiosyncratic view of the principle of territorial integrity. As to the first, Russia calibrates its use of force (for example, in theatres like eastern Ukraine) to avoid triggering external intervention while maintaining a credible threat of escalation. The objective of escalation dominance “often has more to do with exploiting the enemy’s asymmetric vulnerabilities than with developing unique means of attack.”[67]

“In all limited operations, prudence requires anticipating what the outcome would be if the incident escalated to higher levels. Thus, ideally, one should enter a nonbelligerent demonstration with the ability to prevail if it evolves into a limited war and limited war with the confidence of winning any larger conflict that might result. This is the preferred condition for dominating the process of escalation, even if in practice states frequently act on a riskier basis.”[68]

Russia has invested heavily in escalation dominance, both as a means of sderzhivanie—deterring and constraining the enemy—and as a tool of de-escalation.[69] Contemporary Russian military writing emphasizes the use of advanced non-nuclear capabilities—for example, theater-range precision strike systems (ballistic and cruise missiles)—as instruments of escalation management. The goal is to counter NATO’s advantage in high precision standoff weaponry by disrupting efforts to respond to Russian aggression. It is meant to signal heightened risk for NATO member-states and weaken their political will.[70]

Turning to the second concern, territorial integrity and independence together constitute one of the main values of the Russian state order. Russia’s Constitutional Court in July 1995 acknowledged the use of the armed forces to protect not only the state from external threats, but also to protect its territory and territorial integrity. The December 2014 Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation enumerates several “main external military risks” including this key one—”the deployment (and enlargement) of military forces of foreign states (and groups of states) in the territories of the states contiguous to the Russian Federation and its allies as well as in adjacent waters, including for the purpose of exerting political and military pressure on the Russian Federation.“[71] [Emphasis added]

In late July 2014 Mr. Putin addressed the Russian Security Council on “the issues of sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.”

“The most important guarantor of Russian sovereignty and territorial integrity is our Armed Forces. We will have a capable and proportionate response to the approach of NATO’s military infrastructure toward our borders, and we do not fail to notice its deployment of a global anti-missile capacity and reserves of strategic non-nuclear precision weapons.”

“We are often told the anti-missile system is a defensive system. It is nothing of the sort. It is offensive system, part of a larger United States offensive anti-missile system deployed at the periphery [of NATO]. No matter what our foreign colleagues say, we are well aware of what is really happening: the deployment of NATO troops in the territory of Eastern European states has increased demonstrably, including in the waters of the Black and Baltic Seas, as has the scale and intensity of operational and combat training. In this regard, we must ensure the full and timely implementation of all planned measures to strengthen the defense capability of the country, including, of course, in the Crimea and Sevastopol, where we actually have to rebuild the military infrastructure.”[72]

Russia’s position is unambiguous on the question of NATO enlargement:

“It’s every country’s right to decide what form its security should take, but one must understand that if [NATO’s] military infrastructure moves closer to Russia’s borders, we of course will have to take the necessary military-technical action. It’s nothing personal, it’s strictly business.”[73]

An influential Russian defense think tank military called for the nation to “reboot Russian foreign policy in the face of rising external threats…Russia’s position in any foreign policy matter should be proactive and preventive—in a word, strategic”[74] Foreign Minister Lavrov had this to say, alluding to Bismarck’s aphorism that capability is more important than intention:

“NATO has already violated a 1997 agreement, which stipulates that significant military forces will not be deployed permanently in new members. […] It says it has no intention of doing anything detrimental to Russia’s security. But if NATO has no such intentions, why position military infrastructure on our doorstep? In such a situation, we cannot act on the basis of someone’s stated intentions, but instead must act according to the reality we see with our own eyes.”

Not a “NATO Lake”

Russia’s permanent representative to NATO, Alexander Grushko, in late May told the Russian government-owned newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta:

“I don’t want to say we’re in a ‘cold war’ in our relations with NATO, but the Alliance has reverted to Cold War-style confrontational tactics…This is alarming, because now it’s not just political but extends to a military buildup. […] NATO is scheming to expand the confrontation to the Black Sea. Recently, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said we cannot allow the Black Sea to be transformed into a ‘Russian lake’. But NATO countries are well aware that the Black Sea will never become a ‘NATO lake,’ and that we will take all necessary measures to neutralize possible threats and efforts to exert pressure on Russia from the south.”[75]

That “pressure” comes from the direction of Romania and Turkey. In late April, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Romania of “doing its best for many years to push for an expansion of US and NATO presence in the Black Sea region” and “positioning itself as an ‘outpost’ for deterring Russia on NATO’s ‘eastern flank’.”[76]

The remilitarization of Russian security policy is evident in the introduction of advanced air defense, cruise missile systems, and new platforms intended to provide the capability to project power into the maritime domain. The United States and NATO claim “this is a sea denial strategy to hold at risk maritime forces” operating in the Black Sea (and elsewhere) and to “deter NATO operations.”[77] It is certainly true that Russia’s 2015 withdrawal from the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (it had suspended its participation in 2007) leaves the country free to militarize Crimea at will. This reportedly includes the deployment in early 2015 of the Iskander mobile ballistic missile systems [NATO reporting name: SS-26 Stone]. According to General Philip M. Breedlove, USAF (who at the time was the supreme commander of NATO and U.S. European Command):

“These weapon systems—from air defense systems that reach nearly half of the Black Sea to surface attack systems that reach almost all of the Black Sea area—have made the platform of Crimea a great platform for power projection into this area.”[78]

Mr. Lazrov elaborated to Rossiyskaya Gazeta:

“A few months ago, the United States European Command published a new edition of its military strategy. That document states in black and white that the Command’s objective is to promote American interests ‘from Greenland to the Caspian Sea, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Levant.’ The question arises: where is the US and where is the Caspian Sea? And where can Russia promote its national interests? When they say Russia is strengthening it military, remember, we do so first of all on our own territory.”[79]

Russia’s Maritime Doctrine

“The Black Sea Fleet is responsible today not only for Russia’s control over the Black Sea but also for the presence of Russian warships in the Mediterranean Sea.”[80]

Source: topwar.ru[81]

“National maritime policy…is determined by the growing economic, political and military pressure from NATO countries, the promotion of NATO’s eastward expansion, and by a sharp reduction in capacity of the Russian Federation to implement its maritime strategies. National marine policy in this region is based on a long-term solution to problems in the Baltic, Black and Azov Seas, as well as in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.”[84]

The Atlantic Ocean is a main focus of the new maritime doctrine, underlying which is the suggestion that it is the most likely venue for a maritime conflict between Russia and NATO in the next five years. One significant change is that the Black and the Mediterranean Seas are now contextually (and doctrinally) part of the Atlantic geostrategic theatre. An analysis published in Voyennoye Obozreniye (a Russian language news portal focused on military and security topics) concludes that:

“[T]he Atlantic region is linked with plans for the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. With the return of Crimea and Sevastopol, Russia must take all necessary measures to ensure their rapid integration into the national economy. Furthermore, Russia should strengthen its naval presence in the Mediterranean Sea, which is part of the Atlantic region.”[85]

As to the Black Sea, the 2015 Maritime Doctrine emphasizes “the preservation of the city of Sevastopol as its main base” and “ensuring the protection of the sovereignty, and the sovereign and international rights of the Russian Federation.” The government-controlled news portal RIA Novosti highlighted the new Maritime Doctrine’s “emphasis on Crimea,” stating “the basis of Russian policy in the Black Sea will be the rapid recovery and strengthening of strategic positions, as well as the maintenance of peace and stability in the region.”

“In many ways, the special role assigned to the Black Sea Fleet under the new doctrine is explained by expanding the range of tasks assigned to the Fleet after the return of the Crimea to Russia. In particular, the Maritime Doctrine establishes the need for ‘adequate Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean region on a permanent basis.’ Of course, an critical part of the work will fall on the shoulders of the Black Sea Fleet, which will be helped as the newest warships and submarines began to arrive.”[86]

To answer the title question, it has to be parsed into two parts, one addressing the role of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and the other addressing the Black Sea theater, which takes in both its maritime and littoral spaces. Regarding the Black Sea Fleet,

“In many ways, the special role assigned to the Black Sea Fleet under the new doctrine is explained by the expanded range of tasks assigned to the it after Crimea’s return to Russia. In particular, the Maritime Doctrine establishes the need for ‘adequate Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean region on a permanent basis’. Of course, an essential part of the work will fall on the shoulders of the Black Sea Fleet, supported by the arrival of the newest warships and submarines.”[87]

Russian Black Sea Fleet Bases. Source: Argumenty i Fakty (aif.ru)[88]

An unsigned analysis published in October 2013 by the Academy of Geopolitical Problems argued that Russia’s foreign policy doctrine “is dominated by liberal and pro-Western ideas and clichés” like ‘soft power,’ which Russia must reject in favor of concrete strategies and actions that fully meet the national interests.” Here is one new foreign policy doctrine “contour” recommended in that report:

“Russia must not lose sight that it is imperative to hit the brakes on such ‘chronic’ problems as the installation of a United States missile defense to the east or the militarization of Kosovo. Acting on the principle Carthago delenda est, Russian leaders must relentlessly hammer world opinion with reminders and warnings about the aggressive nature of the United States’ military expansion. And since the ‘Iranian threat’ was the pretext for installing US missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic—and just recently, the West has begun to rebuild relations with Iran—Russia must raise the question of dismantling these systems.”[89]

No to a NATO-vski Fleet: Bulgaria Balks

On 16 June, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov announced his government’s opposition to a regional naval partnership with fellow NATO member-states Romania and Turkey. “I do not want war in the Black Sea. We shouldn’t be deploying troops there in ships and aircraft, especially during the tourist season.”[90] He added that President Rosen Plevneliev concurred although some Romanian news agencies reported otherwise.[91]

Mr. Borisov’s statement came in response to a reported proposal by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis to form a joint naval “flotilla” among the three Black Sea NATO member-states, with NATO-aspirant Ukraine also expressing interest. Bulgarian Defense Minister Nikolay Nenchev denied outright that any such proposal existed formally, dismissing reports to the contrary as “an intense propaganda war with elements of hybrid attacks,” presumably coming from the direction of Russia.[92] Turkey that same day unilaterally suspended cooperation with Bulgaria on refugee readmission, though Mr. Borisov denied the two were connected and claimed his government had received no formal notice of Turkey’s action. A scathing commentary published on the Bulgarian portal Skandalno.net suggested sarcastically that Turkish President Erdoğan “was probably the victim of a hybrid war, too, because he gave Bulgaria a direct ultimatum: participate in the flotilla or he’ll release more refugees to Europe.”[93]

According to Bulgarian Foreign Minister Daniel Miltov, “Bulgaria has always supported the idea of an enhanced [NATO] presence and conducting exercises in the Black Sea under a NATO flag. But we have undertaken no commitment to participate in any regional format.”[94] He added “it is absolutely unnecessary for aspects of this debate [over a stronger NATO presence in the Black Sea] to be turned into an occasion for public showboating…we need to de-dramatize the conversation and return to a more rational one.”[95] In late May, Mr. Miltov said Bulgaria was talking with Romania and Turkey about “supplementing [NATO] capabilities in the Black Sea.”[96]

What prompted Mr. Borisov’s action? One published report quotes an anonymous Romanian Defense Ministry official who denied there was any misunderstanding when Mr. Borisov and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis met in Sofia. Afterwards, however, “something happened. We don’t know why. We weren’t given a good reason.”[97] President Iohannis quickly disavowed the idea:

“Where there is likely a misunderstanding is over the concept of a NATO fleet. No one wants to create a NATO fleet; that’s foolishness. NATO cannot and does not want to keep a fleet in the Black Sea.”[98]

Armand Goșu speculated about what happened:

“It’s murky, not just a matter of communication. I think decision makers are in a fog and don’t know what they want. There might not be any plan, and they’re horrified by this prospect. In fact they tossed out the fleet idea, which sounded good, and the world caught it. But was it officially announced? Well, we thought so, but then we heard it wasn’t. And I’m afraid there’s nothing there. That’s the tragedy: there’s no plan for Warsaw [the July NATO summit]. There’s no fleet, just some joint exercises, perhaps like those held in the Baltic in the 1990s. But that’s already happening, which is why I say it seems like there’s nothing to it. It existed only in our minds, a great sham. Externally, it’s a catastrophe. It’s not a question of whether the President understands some words, it’s that he’s going back and saying that a project he guided and discussed doesn’t exist. And now the President tells us there’s nothing there.[99]

Officials from the previous Romanian government admonished Mr. Iohannis.  Former Foreign Minister Cristian Diaconescu said, “It lacks professionalism to come out and say, ‘hey, wait a minute, you’re stupid and didn’t understand.’ A forward presence in the Black Sea isn’t exercises. Let’s not take each other for idiots.” Former President Traian Băsescu called Mr. Iohannis “an embarrassing failure.”[100]

Mr. Băsescu’s former National Security Adviser, Iulian Fota, was less harsh. He believes the Bulgarian government, not Mr. Iohannis, bears most responsibility for creating the impression of a rift among the allies.[101] He dismisses as implausible a suggestion that the Romanian government went to Sofia with a fleet proposal, only to see it rejected:

“I know the Romanian government went to Bulgaria with a proposed framework for cooperation among Black Sea navies within the structure, so to speak, of NATO. Romanian officials did not propose a fleet. I believe it was the Bulgarian president who came out with this idiosyncratic position. On the other hand, [Prime Minister] Borisov has a very fragile parliamentary majority that depends on support from a pro-Russian bloc.”

“We are witnessing an uncertain political contest in Bulgaria, one threatening to harm the North Atlantic alliance, that confirms there’s a pro-Russian camp in Bulgaria, whether or not we can speak of it in Romania. It must be said that we see the Black Sea from a Romanian perspective, in which Russia is a problem. Bulgaria sees it otherwise, and has said in recent months at various international conferences that Russia is not a threat, that Bulgaria is more worried about threats coming from the Middle East than from Russia. So Bulgarians see the Black Sea from a very different perspective. They changed, something has happened in the final 100 meters to make them unreliable.”[102]

Pro-Romania Moldovan news portals were unanimous in criticizing Bulgaria’s action. Radio Chișinău declared, “Bulgaria seems to have succumbed to Russian threats.”[103] According to HotNews.ro:

“Bulgaria changes its position from day to day about the proposed Romanian-Turkish-Bulgarian initiative…Even taking domestic political considerations into account, Bulgarian President Plevneliev’s overnight change of mind in inexplicable, especially considering Iohannis was still in Bulgaria at the time, visiting the town of Grivita.”[104]

Mr. Borisov was having none of this. He pointed a finger squarely at Turkey:

“Not a single friend or ally spoke in my defense when President Putin admonished me in Erdoğan’s presence in Ankara, saying Bulgaria had lost everything. We’ve been involved in contentious disagreements before, and when we had to defend our national interests…I was more than firm. There’s nobody like us in Europe.”[105]

He also said he would be “very unhappy” should it turn out Bulgarian Foreign Minister Miltov and Defense Minister Nenchev committed to the NATO Black Sea fleet proposal.

“I always said in any case, Bulgaria won’t be attacked by Russia because they’re involved in other activities, mostly economic, on Bulgarian territory. We’re Orthodox Christians, we have a common religion and culture as well as other things. Russia may be somewhat concerned about the others, but will be very shocked in Bulgaria does this.”[106]

A commentary by Bulgarian political analyst Ognyan Minchev[107] puts the blame squarely on Turkey, “which during the 1990s and the first decade of this century exercised functional hegemony over naval matters in the Black Sea.” Now, he writes, “Russia’s occupation of Crimea and modernization of its Black Sea fleet has reversed the balance of power” and Russia “has seized the strategic initiative. He dismisses the idea of a “junior NATO” Black Sea flotilla involving naval vessels from member-states Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania—and NATO aspirant Ukraine—as “propaganda fireworks that conceal hegemonic nationalist ambitions behind a mask of NATO legitimacy.” It is “a new form of an old ambition: Turkish naval hegemony in the Black Sea.” The answer, he writes, is to revise the Montreux Convention so as to authorize “NATO forces in the Black Sea, on the model of the Mediterranean and the Baltic Seas.” However:

“This revision is in the hands of Turkey—Ankara has categorically vetoed efforts to revise the Montreux conditions [governing the presence of non-riparian state naval vessels] in order to preserve Turkish hegemony in the Black Sea basin, which Russia today is successfully challenging. […] Turkey seriously considers itself a country that has a legitimate right to exercise hegemony on our region—naval, military, cultural, political. What a coincidence—so does Russia, only squared.”[108]

The leader of Bulgaria’s Patriotic Front party, Valeri Simeonov, disagreed with Mr. Borisov’s action, saying, “I would prefer to join a unified Black Sea fleet to deter possible Russia aggression than to break the readmission agreement with Turkey.”[109]

Expanding NATO’s Black Sea presence would be “destabilizing,” said Russian diplomat Andrei Kelin, who added the Black Sea “does not belong to” and “has nothing to do with NATO.”[110] President Putin went further when he spoke with a group of journalists:

“The threat (of a nuclear Iran) is gone and yet the missile defense system (in Europe) continues to be built, so we were right when we said they were trying to deceive us, to cheat, with insincere references to a supposed Iranian nuclear threat while building a missile defense system. […] If one country develops a missile defense that is better than the other, it becomes an advantage, an obvious temptation to use [offensive] weapons first. That’s why arrangements to [curb] missile defense systems are a cornerstone of international security.”[111]

Mr. Putin’s gravamen is well summarized in a May 2016 commentary published in the Italian communist daily Il Manifesto:

“The function of this so-called ‘shield’ is actually offensive. Were the United States to implement a reliable system capable of intercepting ballistic missiles, it could keep Russia under the threat of a nuclear first strike, relying on the ‘shield capacity’ to neutralize the effects of retaliation. […] What, then, is the capability of the Aegis system now deployed in Europe, which the United States is currently upgrading? Lockheed Martin explains it. A discussion of the technical features of the MK 41 vertical launch system—the one installed on Aegis missile ships and now at the Devaselu land base—stresses it is capable of launching ‘missiles for every mission: anti-air, anti-ship, anti-submarine, and to attack ground targets.’ Each launch tube is adaptable to any missile, including both interceptor and offensive nuclear missiles. So no one can know which are really deployed in the vertical launchers at the Devasalu base or onboard vessels sailing in Russian territorial waters. Unable to verify which it is, Moscow must assume they include offensive nuclear missiles.”[112]

Primacy and Missile Defense

It is worth re-asking a question from the beginning of this essay: rather than deter threats, will Aegis Ashore and a postulated NATO Black Sea naval presence instead trigger a spiral of insecurity, adding to instead of diminishing the set of challenges to Black Sea security?

Primacy—the notion that “only a preponderance of U.S. power ensures peace,”[113] as Barry Posen and Andrew Ross defined it—has been a fundamental tenet of American grand strategy for much of the post-Cold War period, animating such principles as command of the commons.[114] It goes hand-in-hand with the idea of coercive diplomacy, which the political scientist Alexander George defines as “efforts to persuade an opponent to stop and/or undo an action he is already embarked upon.”[115] Its intent is “to create in the opponent the expectation of costs of sufficient magnitude to erode his motivation to continue what he is doing.”[116] Thomas Schelling and others maintain that an asymmetry of power (us) and vulnerability (them) are both critical to whether coercive diplomacy succeeds.[117]

The fundamental justification advanced for Aegis Ashore (which applies in general to effective limited missile defense[118]) is its claimed deterrent effect vis-à-vis Iranian intermediate-range and/or intercontinental missiles. Aegis Ashore is meaningfully coercive, proponents argue, by virtue of its asymmetric advantage over Iranian missiles and NATO’s unambiguous commitment to use it. Fair enough. But restraint is another indispensable element of coercive diplomacy: Iran must recognize that any use of force (and its objective) by NATO was intentionally limited but remains subject to escalation. But all that is easily sidestepped were Iran to confine its actions in the first instance to regional threats. After all, Iranian coercion is much more potent directed against achievable endpoints than the chimera of striking targets in continental Europe.

Any number of sound arguments might be advanced in support of Aegis Ashore. They include: the possibility of a deterrence failure; the coercive value (to Iran) associated with merely threatening to attack; and the technical challenges associated with executing a successful preemptive attack against hardened Iranian missile launch sites.[119] To this we might add the possibility that the Iranian regime will act in an irrational manner against its own apparent interests (a set of actions covered by the collective caption “desperation or revenge”[120]).

While none of these arguments is implausible or outright wrong, each is prone to counterargument.[121] Regarding a possible deterrence failure, Iran’s missile development program has substantial ground to cover before it can field an intermediate-range ballistic missile force that poses a credible threat, and no intercontinental one is foreseen within the next decade. Moreover, if the Iranian government’s nuclear weapons program has in fact been curtailed as the Obama administration claims [note: the author questions this contention] then the Iranian missile threat is further diminished. One or all of these contentions could, of course, prove wrong. But the record so far is that Iran’s abilities in the intermediate-range and intercontinental missile realms have been notably (sometimes abjectly) overstated. Moreover, the United States and NATO have at their disposal “a variety of conventional, nuclear, and diplomatic policies to reduce the probability of [Iranian] aggression.”[122]

The deterrence value of Aegis Ashore (or any effective limited missile defense) “depends on the probability of the most dangerous scenarios, especially how much the United States can influence them,” and proponents are prone to “exaggerate the probability of deterrence failure.”[123] It is unlikely Iranian missiles would deter the United States and NATO from intervening to counter Iranian aggression elsewhere since any argued deterrence effect depends on the survivability of Iranian launch sites (whether fixed or mobile) and command & control systems among other technical factors (none of which favor Iran). Were the United States to act in such a scenario (either unilaterally or with its NATO allies) to counter Iranian aggression and restore the status quo ante, its “limited war aims would not depend on its having [an Aegis Ashore-type missile defense] although [having one] might “reduce the expected damage of rogue escalation.”[124] Plus, such threats rarely materialize overnight: a credible missile defense could be deployed in an emergency, for example, by positioning Aegis naval vessels (it is unlikely the United States and/or NATO would be deterred in an emergent crisis by such niceties as the Montreux Convention).

The author suggests the relevant question is this: under what scenario, all else being equal,[125] is the United States and NATO better off with an effective limited missile defense in the form of Aegis Ashore in Romania than without it? Its intended effect is to “diminish the coercive influence that Iran hopes to gain by continuing to develop these destabilizing capabilities.”[126] That is a curious choice of words: coercive against whom? Aegis Ashore’s stated purpose is to defend against an Iranian IRBM attack against continental Europe (as well as a hypothesized future threat to the United States mainland from Iranian intercontinental missiles). So Aegis Ashore leaves Iran free to coerce regional adversaries. Does it in some meaningful way stiffen European spines and/or America’s commitment to collective defense? Those effects are easy to claim but harder to sustain. And are they on balance greater than the harm in the here-and-now to regional security coming from a decidedly not-reassured Russia?

Charles L. Glaser and Steve Fetter make an intriguing argument in their 2001 article that merits reconsideration in the aftermath of Aegis Ashore going operational.

“To further reduce the threat posed by limited NMD [nuclear missile defense], the United States should unilaterally decrease the counterforce threat it poses to Russian [strategic nuclear] forces.”[127]

Russia makes just such an argument, viz., that Aegis Ashore can be readily adapted to threaten Russian strategic missiles. This claim, vigorously disputed by the United States and NATO, is that Aegis Ashore launchers are Tomahawk cruise missile capable. The “threat” is a function of the (claimed or actual) vulnerability of Russia’s strategic missile force. Unilaterally decreasing the counterforce threat would be a bold gambit, vitiating Russia’s narrative that the United States de facto has abandoned the INF treaty specifically and bilateral arms control generally. As Glaser and Fetter argued a decade ago:

“[R]educing the U.S. counterforce threat should make NMD [nuclear missile defense] more acceptable to Russia, especially to military planners responsible for judging Russian forces against demanding scenarios. Second, U.S. willingness to pursue these measures, combined with the asymmetry allowed by the integrated offense- defense agreement, should indicate to Russia that U.S. NMD is not intended to undermine Russian retaliatory capabilities.”[128]

Any such suggestion faces a challenging political climate. The National Security Strategy signed into law by President Vladimir Putin on 31 December 2015 reiterates the role of nuclear deterrence in Russian security strategy. Russia’s new intercontinental ballistic missile, the RS-28 Sarmat,[129] is intended to ensure the long-term durability of Russia’s nuclear deterrent. Called the shchita Rodiny or “the shield of the Motherland,”[130] Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said the RS-28 “is a unique weapon, the mission of which is to overcome missile defenses and to have sufficient range so that it can fly over either the North or the South Pole.”[131] The latter point means it can deliver warheads to a given target from directions other than the expected one, “forcing the other side to establish a circular anti-ballistic missile defense” according to one Russian expert.[132]

Is Antimissile Defense the New Gunboat Diplomacy in the Black Sea?

In the mid 1970s Barry Blechman offered this definition of the role of maritime forces:

“A nation’s navy not only defends its coastal waters and protects national interest aboard; it also signals overall military potential and political intent to influence world affairs. Changes in relative naval strength among the leading powers have always been watched closely in other nations on the assumption that the size of a country’s conventional naval forces reflects its willingness—and ability—to affect political events. This assumption prevails even today when more potent weapons are available. […] And great powers frequently have relied upon warships to impose their will upon lesser states. There is even a term for this: gunboat diplomacy.”[133] [Emphasis added]

Since then, new platforms have emerged to supplant more traditional military ones such as attack aircraft and naval gunfire as the primary means of delivering force to achieve political gain. In the 1990s, it was the Tomahawk cruise missile:

“After a century of ‘gunboat diplomacy’ and a half-century of manned aircraft as the delivery system of choice, the cruise missile ship has arrived as a preferred choice to accomplish a political objective by military means. Despots around the world have taken notice. That lone American cruiser or destroyer patrolling the nearby seas can be as lethal as an aircraft carrier conducting flight operations a few hundred miles away.”[134]

Today, the Aegis Ashore missile defense system gives rise to the newest form of gunboat diplomacy. A group of defense analysts associated with the German think tank Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik wrote in an April 2016 report:

“At the 2010 Lisbon summit, the NATO allies decided to develop a joint missile defense system as a core element of collective defense. Since then, the security environment has changed fundamentally. The hopes of cooperating with Moscow on missile defense have been shattered, while the nuclear deal with Iran reduces the threat from the south and thus undermines one of the central justifications for the proposed system.”[135]

They raise several questions about Aegis Ashore, at least some of which remain wholly or partly unresolved:

“From the security perspective the threat analysis needs to be clarified. At the moment, there are different opinions about what NATO intends to defend against. It must also be asked whether the successful implementation of the Iran agreement would not offer sufficient reason to re-evaluate the scope and timeframe of the project.”

“From the military perspective, the performance of the system should be assessed from different perspectives. Experience has already been gathered with intercepting short-range missiles. Defense against medium-range and intermediate-range missiles has only been tested in a handful of cases, and these were rarely based on realistic conditions. In this context, it is also important to ask to what extent Germany and other European NATO allies would be included in decisions to deploy or use missile defense systems in times of peace or crisis.”

“From the alliance perspective, it should be considered whether and how NATO allies can better reconcile the different objectives associated with the creation of a missile defense system…In particular, the question needs to be asked what influence Europe would have on the possible use of such capabilities in times of crisis.”

“The deployment of effective missile defense systems could have positive repercussions for arms control, if it reduces the political and military importance of nuclear weapons. But at the same time, the danger of new arms races grows.”[136]

The long-term effect of Aegis Ashore on NATO cohesion is uncertain. What is not uncertain is that Russia “justifies resumption of development work on new nuclear warheads and delivery systems by the necessity to overcome US missile defense systems.”[137] As argued earlier, the effect is to create opportunities for miscalculation, but at the same time, to open the door to a renewed effort at bilateral arms control.

It is worth remembering the United States is a relative newcomer to the Black Sea region, occasional hubristic declarations to the contrary notwithstanding. Russia, however, is not, as Isaac Babel wrote in his short story “Odessa.”

“And I think to myself: the Russians will finally be drawn to the south, to the sea, to the sun! ‘Will be drawn,’ by the way, is wrong. They already have been drawn, for many centuries. Russia’s most important path has been her inexhaustible striving toward the southern steppes, perhaps even her striving for ‘the Cross of Hagia Sophia’.”[138]

A final reminder for anyone who doubts the indefatigable drive of Russian expansionism: that object resides in Istanbul.

The title of this essay is adapted from a July 2015 commentary “Putin’s maritime doctrine aims to make the Atlantic Ocean the new Black Sea” (“Morskaya doktrina Putina prizvana sdelat’ Atlantiku takim zhe svoim domom, kak Chernoye more”) published on Nakanune.ru, a pro-Russian government news portal taking its name from the eponymous Turgenev novel (“The day before”).  The translation of all source material is by the author unless noted otherwise.

About the author:
*John R. Haines is Co-Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s new Eurasia Program and Executive Director of FPRI’s Princeton Committee. Much of his current research is focused on Russia and its near abroad, with a special interest in nationalist and separatist movements. As a private investor and entrepreneur, he is currently focused on the question of nuclear smuggling and terrorism, and the development of technologies to discover, detect, and characterize concealed fissile material. He is also a Trustee of FPRI.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

Notes:
[1] Milan Vego (2007; 2009). “The Factor of Space.” Joint Operational Warfare: Theory and Practice. (Newport, RI: Naval War College, reprint, 2009) III-7.

[2] “Morskaya doktrina Putina prizvana sdelat’ Atlantiku takim zhe svoim domom, kak Chernoye more.” Nakanune.ru [published online in Russia 27 July 2015]. http://www.nakanune.ru/articles/110716/. Last accessed 30 May 2016. Colonel Anokhin a retired military officer and a political scientist who serves as vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Issues in Moscow. This commentary was republished under the same title on Geo-politika.info [published inline in Russian 28 July 2015]. http://geo-politica.info/morskaya-doktrina-putina-prizvana-sdelat-atlantiku-takim-zhe-svoim-domom-kak-chernoe-more.html. Last accessed 30 May 2016.

[3] The 1936 Montreux Convention regulates the “transit and navigation in the Straits of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora and the Bosporus,” which are referred to by the collective term “the Straits.” The treaty imposes significant limits on naval vessels of non-Black Sea riparian states, i.e., all countries other than Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. Article 10 limits their passage during a period of peace to light surface vessels, minor war vessels and auxiliary vessels only, excluding other classes of ships, e.g., submarines and aircraft carriers. Article 18 imposes further limits on the total tonnage of non-Black Sea riparian state naval vessels in the Straits or the Black Sea at any given time. In time of war in which Turkey is a non-belligerent, warships of non-belligerent states have freedom of transit and navigation in the Straits allowed under peacetime conditions. No belligerent state’s warships may pass through the Straits. If Turkey is a belligerent, the Turkish government may act freely at its discretion regarding passage of vessels of war. Article 23 regulates transit by civil aircraft over the Straits, with authorization for military aircraft to fly over the Straits is left to the discretion of the Turkish government.

[4] Igor Delanoë (2014). “The Ukrainian Crisis and Security in the Black Sea.” Atlantic Voices. 4:4 (April 2014).

[5] Tetsue Kotani (2013). “China’s Fortress Fleet-in-Being and its Implications for Japan’s Security.” Asie.Visions. 62 (February 2013) 8.

[6] The 19th century naval strategist Philip Columb elaborated the concept as “what, in naval affairs, corresponds to ‘a relieving army’ in military affairs, that is to say, a fleet which is able and willing to attack an enemy proposing a descent upon territory which that force has it in charge to protect.” [Vice Admiral Philip H. Colomb (1891). Naval Warfare: Its ruling Principles and Practices Historically Treated. (London: W. H. Allen). The quoted text is from the 1899 third edition reprinted as Columb (1989). Classics of Sea Power, v.2. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press) 550] Julian Corbett elaborated the concept as a “counterstroke” tool. [Corbett (1911).  Some Principles of Maritime Strategy. (New York: Longmans, Green & Co.). Reprinted as Corbett (1989). Classics of Sea Power (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press) 224–25]

[7] James R. Holmes (2010). “A ‘Fortress Fleet’ for China.” The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations. 11:2 (Summer/Fall 2010) 124-125. https://www.ciaonet.org/attachments/23691/uploads. Last accessed 21 June 2016. Holmes, channeling Corbett, describes it as “a hybrid fortress-fleet/fleet-in-being strategy for strategically defensive aims.”

[8] Kotani (2013), op cit.., 9.

[9] Russian President Dmitry Medvedev used this term in a 31 August 2008 television interview broadcast on Russia’s Pervyy kanal (“Channel One”) speech referring to “regions [that] are home to countries with which we share special historical relations and are bound together as friends and good neighbors.” [http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/48301] Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also used the term in a 10 September 2008 commentary that was published in the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, in which he wrote: “In conducting our foreign policy, we invariably observe principles formulated by President Dmitri Medvedev, including paying particular attention to regions where Russia has its privileged interests. […] We call our partners to follow Russia’s example and acknowledge the new realities. We believe that the statements, made by some countries’ leaders, about Russia’s ‘imperialist’ and ‘revisionist’ policies are completely wrong.” [Reprinted in Russian by the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry 15 December 2008. http://www.mid.ru/press_service/minister_speeches/-/asset_publisher/7OvQR5KJWVmR/content/id/312862. Last accessed 20 June 2016]

[10] Xu Qi (2004). “Maritime Geostrategy and the Development of the Chinese Navy in the Early Twenty-First Century,” Andrew S. Erickson and Lyle J. Goldstein, trans. Naval War College Review. 59:4 (Autumn 2006) 47. The translators write, “this article, published in 2004 in China’s most prestigious military journal, China Military Science, merits special attention…”

[11] Duncan A. Robinson (2003). “The Strategy Hypercube: Exploring Strategies Space Using Agent-Based Models.” In David Hales, Bruce Edmonds, Emma Norling & Juliette Rouchier, Eds. Multi-Agent-Based Simulation III. 4th International Workshop, MABS 2003, Melbourne, Australia, July 14, 2003. Revised Papers. (Berlin: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg) 182.

[12] Xu (2004), op cit.

[13] Peng Guangqian and Yao Youzhi, eds. (2005). The Science of Military Strategy [English edition]. (Beijing: Military Science Publishing House) 62-72. The Chinese edition was first published in 2001. Peng and Yao identify four elements of strategy: national interest, military force, geography, and culture. For its part, the United States uses an expansive definition of the term maritime domain: Joint Publication (JP) 1-02, DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms defines the maritime domain as “the oceans, seas, bays, estuaries, islands, coastal areas, and the airspace above these, including the littorals.” [http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf. Last accessed 10 June 2016]

[14] “Vladimir Putin: “Kuban’ – odin iz samykh dinamichnykh regionov v strane.” Regnum.ru [published online in Russian 19 September 2003]. https://regnum.ru/news/polit/158567.html. Last accessed 16 June 2016.

[15] The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation (2014), subparagraph II.8(c). Published online in Russian http://kremlin.ru/supplement/461. Last accessed 26 May 2016. Author’s translation of the original Russian language text. The official English version published by the Russian government reads as follows: (c) deployment (build-up) of military contingents of foreign states (groups of states) in the territories of the states contiguous with the Russian Federation and its allies, as well as in adjacent waters, including for exerting political and military pressure on the Russian Federation.

[16] It even has its own Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/aegisashore.romania/).

[17] Charles L. Glaser and Steve Fetter define this as having “some capability against rogue-state missile forces.” See: Glaser & Fetter (2001). “National Missile Defense and the Future of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy.” International Security. 26:1 (Summer 2001) 66. http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/4264/2001-IS-NMD.pdf;jsessionid=5600B04E0603BAF4140C7E8E42FB285D?sequence=1. Last accessed 16 June 2016.

[18] “MID RF: napravlennost’ PRO SSHA protiv Rossii ne vyzyvayet somneniy.” TASS [published online in Russian 26 April 2016]. http://tass.ru/politika/3240936. Last accessed 20 June 2016.

[19] “Karakayev: ugrozy so storony YevroPRO SSHA ogranichenny i ne snizhayut boyevyye vozmozhnosti RVSN.” TASS [pulbished online in Russian 10 May 2016]. http://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/3269177. Last accessed 20 June 2016.

[20] Dmitriy Drobnitskiy (2016). “Pust’ SSHA stroyat svoyu PRO. Vechno.” Vzglyad [published online in Russian 14 June 2016]. http://www.vz.ru/columns/2016/6/14/815825.html. Last accessed 20 June 2016.

[21] The group’s deputy chair, Stanislav Stanilov, said the group’s priorities are “resisting anti-Russian sanctions, the struggle against the expansion of NATO’s presence in the country, and categorical opposition to any suggestion that Bulgaria participate in NATO’s anti-Russian potential aggression.” Its chair, Nikolay Malinov, claimed 35,000 signatures on a petition opposing the deployment of NATO missiles in Bulgaria. Both leaders were quoted in a statement published by the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies,  [“Ekspert RISI prinyal uchastiye v s”yezde rusofilov Bolgarii.” RISS.com [published online in Russian 15 June 2016]. http://riss.ru/events/31606/. Last accessed 20 June 2016] The Russian Institute of Strategic Studies (sometimes called by its transliterated Russian acronym, RISI) functions as a Kremlin think tank and is part of the Presidential Administration; it was formerly part of Russia’s external intelligence agency, the Sluzhba vneshney razvedki (SVR).

[22] “Ucheniya NATO v Pol’she ne sposobstvuyut atmosfere doveriya i bezopasnosti, zayavil zhurnalistam press-sekretar’ prezidenta RF Dmitriy Peskov.” RIA Novosti [published online in Russian 7 June 2016]. http://m.ria.ru/world/20160607/1443857202.html . Last accessed 16 June 2016. Most of the English language translations of the statement by Mr. Peskov, who is President Putin’s spokesperson, regarding the June 2016 NATO exercises in Poland were incomprehensible.

[23] Varvara Pavlovna Adrianovoy-Peret, ed. (1950). Povest’ vremennykh let po Lavrent’yevskoy rukopisi 1377 g. Chast’ pervaya. (Moskva–Leningrad: Izd-vo AN SSSR) 11-12. The text (English: The Russian Primary Chronicles aka Tales of Bygone Years) is a c.1113 C.E. history of Kievan Rus’ compiled by Saint Nestor the Chronicler.

[24] Gheorghe I. Brătianu (1988; 1999). Marea Neagră : de la origini pînă la cucerirea otomană. (Iaşi: Polirom Publishing House) 27. The book’s title in English is “The Black Sea from its origins to the Ottoman conquest.”  Romania’s post-war Communist regime purged Brătianu from his university positions in June 1948 and imprisoned him in May 1950, where he died on 23 April 1953 at the age of 55.

[25] Linguists believe the name “Black Sea” comes from the early forms of the Turkic language, in which kara meant both “black” and “great”.  While kara was translated into Hebrew as “great” (and became the basis for Italian translations during the medieval period) the word slowly lost its meaning as “great” (except in remote areas) and “black” increasingly predominated. The Bulgars—the longest settled of all peoples around the Black Sea (except for the tiny Caucasian tribes on its eastern shores)—also called it Kara meaning “Black”. This translation of kara was picked up by travellers to the region in the latter part of the Middle Ages, which tended to reinforce and standardize the usage of the term “Black Sea”. For a detailed etymological discussion see: Osman Karatay (2011). “On the origins of the name for the ‘Black Sea’.” Journal of Historical Geography. 37 (2011) 1-11.

[26] Gheorghe I. Brătianu (1969). La Mer Noire. Des origines à la conquête ottomane. (Munich: Societas Academica Dacoromana) 173. Brătianu wrote the book in the 1940s, and it was first published posthumously in 1969.

[27] Muzaffer Ürekli (1989). Kırım Hanlığı’nın Kuruluşu ve Osmanlı Himayesinde Yükselişi (1441-1569). (Ankara: Türk Kültürünü Araştırma Enstitüsü Yayınları) 16-17.

[28] The Crimean Khanate (green-yellow stripe) acted as an Ottoman buffer that prevented Russia and Poland from reaching the Black Sea. It separated from the Ottoman Empire under the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarc and aligned with Russia, which annexed it in 1783.

Source: Wikipedia

In March 2014, Turkish political analyst Ceylan Ozbudak argued that Turkey in 1991 “acquired the right” to reclaim Crimea because a clause in the Treaty provides for Crimea to revert to Turkey in the event sovereign control ever transferred to a third party. Ms. Ozbudak maintained that just such a transfer occurred in 1991, when Crimea became part of a sovereign Ukraine. See: Ceylan Ozbudak (2014). “Turkey caught in the Russian-Crimea snowstorm.” Al-Arabiya [published online in English 1 March 2014]. http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/world/2014/03/01/Turkey-caught-in-the-Russia-Crimea-snowstorm.html. Last accessed 3 June 2016.

[29] Mustafa Aydin (2004). “Europe’s next shore: the Black Sea region after EU enlargement.” Occasional paper no. 53 (June 2004) published by the European Union Institute for Security Studies. (Paris: EUISS) 5.

[30] Sources (left to right):

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea#/media/File:Black_Sea_map.png
• http://www.britannica.com/place/Dardanelles
• https://businessrussia.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/recreation-department-at-the-sea-of-azov-for-sale/;
• http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/20/3-insights-on-putins-russia-from-americas-wisest-c.aspx

[31] The Bosphorus Strait connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara, from which the Dardanelles strait connects to the Aegean Sea region of the Mediterranean.

[32] Ian O. Lesser (2007). “Global Trends, Regional Consequences: Wider Strategic Influences on the Black Sea.” Xenophon Papers no. 4 November 2007. (Athens: International Center for Black Sea Studies) 16. http://ketlib.lib.unipi.gr/xmlui/bitstream/handle/ket/450/Global%20Trends%20Regional%20Consequences.pdf?sequence=2. Last accessed 4 June 2016.

[33] Maintaining control over the Turkish Straits—it is instructive that Turkey has its own name for what nearly everyone else calls the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles—is a key aspect of Turkey’s Black Sea policy. It has long been wary of proposals to expands NATO’s presence in the Black Sea would be a prelude to losing control of the Turkish Straits, which Turkey has controlled since the signing of the 1936 Montreux Convention. Zeyno Baran (2008). “Turkey and the Wider Black Sea Region.” The Wider Black Sea Region in the 21st Century: Strategic, Economic and Energy Perspectives, Daniel Hamilton and Gerhard Mangott, eds. (Washington DC: Centre for Transatlantic Relations, 2008) 90.

[34] Duygu Bazoğlu Sezer (2000). “The Changing Strategic Situation in the Black Sea Region.” In Jahrbuch für internationale Sicherheitspolitik 2000, Erich Reiter, Ed. (Bonn: Verlag Mittler & Sohn) 6.

[35] Basil Germond (2015). The Maritime Dimension of European Security. (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK) 143.

[36] David A. Baldwin (1997). “The concept of security.” Review of International Studies. 23 (1997) 15.

[37] This argument is developed in an undated essay written by Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado. See: “Culture, Defence and Security.” Undated manuscript published online by The New Security Foundation. http://www.newsecuritylearning.com/index.php/feature/152-culture-defence-and-security. Last accessed 5 June 2016.

[38] Contemporary American defense doctrine explains the term defensive as meaning “We must build both our ability to withstand attack—a fundamental and defensive aspect of deterrence—and improve our resiliency beyond an attack.” [United States Defense Department (2008). National Defense Strategy, 12.  http://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2008NationalDefenseStrategy.pdf. Last accessed 4 June 2016] China claims its national defense policy is strictly defensive: “China pursues a national defense policy which is purely defensive in nature. China places the protection of national sovereignty, security, territorial integrity, safeguarding of the interests of national development, and the interests of the Chinese people above all else…China implements a military strategy of active defense. Strategically, it adheres to the principle of featuring defensive operations, self-defense and striking and getting the better of the enemy only after the enemy has started an attack.” See: “Defense Policy.” Published online in English by the Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China. http://eng.mod.gov.cn/Database/DefensePolicy/index.htm. Last accessed 4 June 2016.

[39] Miguel Ferreira Da Silva (2016). “Cibersegurança vs. Ciberdefesa—Uma Visão Portuguesa Da Distinção.” CyberLaw. 1 (2016). Published online in Portuguese by the Centro De Investigação Jurídica Do Ciberespaço. http://www.cijic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/MIGUEL-FERREIRA-E-SILVA.pdf. Last accessed 4 June 2016.

[40] NATO (2010). “Core Tasks and Principles. 4.a. Collective defence.” [sic] Active Engagement, Modern Defence: Strategic Concept For the Defence and Security of The Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. [sic] Adopted by Heads of State and Government in Lisbon 19 November 2010. (Brussels: NATO Public Diplomacy Division) 7. http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_publications/20120214_strategic-concept-2010-eng.pdf. Last accessed 5 June 2016.

[41] Arnold Wolfers (1952). “‘National Security’ as an Ambiguous Symbol.” Political Science Quarterly. 67:4 (December 1952), 484.

[42] Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper testified in February 2016 that  “Iran’s ballistic missiles are inherently capable of delivering WMD, and Tehran already has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East. Iran’s progress on space launch vehicles—along with its desire to deter the United States and its allies—provides Tehran with the means and motivation to develop longer-range missiles, including ICBMs.” Iran’s Simorgh rocket (aka Safir-2) is a continuation of earlier missile design and propulsion systems technology jointly developed by Iran and North Korea. It demonstrates two essential technologies for an ICBM — staging (currently two) and clustered engines (the first stage uses 4 Shahab engines). That said, the Simorgh itself is not an ICBM, a key part of which is the re-entry vehicle, which Iran has not tested.

Source: RT

An ICBM launched from within Iran would need a range of at least 10,000km to reach population centers in the continental United States. It is highly unlikely that the current iteration of the Simorgh is capable of carrying a first generation nuclear weapon, with a mass of 500-1000 kg, to that range. According to one estimate, “Iran’s past missile and space-launcher efforts suggest that Tehran would probably develop and field an intermediate-range missile before trying to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States. So an Iranian ICBM seems unlikely before 2020.” [Michael Elleman (2015). “Iran’s Ballistic Missile Program.” The Iran Primer [published online by the United States Institute of Peace]. http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/irans-ballistic-missile-program. Last accessed 4 June 2016]

[43] Congressional Research Service (2012). “Iran’s Ballistic Missile and Space Launch Programs.” Report R42849 dated 6 December 2012. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R42849.pdf. Last accessed 6 June 2016. Iranian short-range missiles (SRBM) and tactical ballistic missiles (TBM) are excluded from this discussion since the relevant targets here are beyond the range of these systems’ launch sites within Iran.

[44] Ghadr (alt. Qadr) is Iran’s most advanced liquid-propellant medium range ballistic missile. Its range exceeds 2000 km range and it can deliver a single 700-1000kg warhead to within 100 meters of its intended target. It is considered a nuclear-capable missile, defined as one capable of carrying a 500 kg payload a distance of 300km.

[45] Anthony H. Cordesman (2015). “Iran’s Enduring Missile Threat: The Impact of Nuclear and Precision Guided Weapons.” Statement before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa dated 10 June 2015, 7. http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA13/20150610/103582/HHRG-114-FA13-Wstate-CordesmanA-20150610.pdf. Last accessed 6 June 2016.

[46] Ibid., 6. According to Dr. Cordesman, “Most such systems still lack advanced guidance systems, do not seem to have had enough tests in their final configuration to establish a high level of reliability or an accuracy based on real-world tests, and have guidance systems present major problems in attacking point targets or high value parts of area targets without being armed with nuclear weapon…Such missiles can, however, hit large area-sized targets, and disrupt military and economic operations, and civil life.”

[47] For example, a 2012 Congressional Research Service analysis offered the following extended caveat: “These intelligence statements serve as the official U.S. basis for assessing the Iranian ICBM threat to the United States and to its friends and allies. These assessments drive U.S. military efforts designed to respond to such threats, such as the U.S. BMD program in general and the U.S. missile defense system in Europe specifically, as well as U.S. diplomatic and other efforts such as sanctions to dissuade or slow down Iranian long-range ballistic missile programs. However, they do not offer a probability assessment for such technological assistance being available. These assessments do not mean that currently universal agreement exists within the U.S. intelligence community on the issue of an Iranian ICBM. According to these same unclassified statements, some within the intelligence community argued that an Iranian ICBM test was likely before 2010 (which did not happen), and very likely before 2015. Other U.S. officials believed, however, that there is ‘less than an even chance’ for such a test before 2015. Furthermore, U.S. assessments are also conditional in that an Iranian ICBM capability would have to rely on access to foreign technology, from, for example, North Korea or Russia. Finally, some argue that an Iranian ICBM could be developed out of the Iranian space program under which a space-launch vehicle might be converted into an ICBM program. In the 1990s, some argued that Iran could have developed and tested such a space launch vehicle by 2010. Iran successfully demonstrated a space launch capability in 2009 with the launch of a low-earth orbit satellite, but the IC has not assessed that Iran has conducted an ICBM test or acquired an ICBM capability. See: Congressional Research Service (2012), op cit., 36.

[48] Emad (the name means “Pillar”) is an Iranian-designed, liquid-fuel IRBM with a claimed range of 1700 km and 750 kg payload. The test launch was conducted in defiance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which states that for a period of eight years, “Iran is called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”

[49] See: http://photos.state.gov/libraries/russia/231771/PDFs/U_S_%20Ballistic%20Missile%20Defense%20Briefing%20ENG.pdf. Last accessed 5 June 2016.

[50] “Putin: sistema PRO—chast’ yadernogo potentsiala SSHA.” Russkiy Top [published online in Russian 13 May 2016]. http://topru.org/40104/putin-sistema-pro-chast-yadernogo-potenciala-ssha/. Last accessed 4 June 2016.

[51] http://ru.sputnik-news.ee/news/20160512/1649930.html

[52] “V Rumynii otkrylsya pervyy nazemnyy ob”yekt protivoraketnoy oborony SSHA v Yevrope.” Kommersant [published online in Russian 13 May 2016]. http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2984584. Last accessed 4 June 2016.

[53] The upgraded Aegis Combat System Baseline 9.C1 incorporated into “Aegis Ashore” is designed to engage cruise and ballistic missiles simultaneously. Baseline 9 was first tested in November 2014, when the guided-missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) successfully intercepted a short-range ballistic missile and two cruise missiles. In October 2015, the United States Navy and eight other countries successfully conducted a detect-to-engage integrated air and missile defense exercise in the North Sea, during which the coalition simultaneously intercepted a ballistic missile in space and an anti-ship cruise missile target. This was the first missile defense test of its kind in Europe. [http://missiledefenseadvocacy.org/missile-defense-systems/u-s-deployed-intercept-systems/aegis-ballistic-missile-defense-system/. Last accessed 7 June 2016]

[54] “Rumyniya vstupila v voynu na nashey storone.” Lenta.ru [published online in Russian 12 May 2016]. https://lenta.ru/articles/2016/05/12/deveselu/. Last accessed 7 June 2016. Konstantin Bogdanov is a military affairs commentator for the Moscow-based online newspaper Lenta.ru.

[55] Ibid.

[56] Ibid. The United States and NATO vigorously disputes the contention that it violates the INF Treat. It is true, however, that the MK 41 launcher was used during the September 2015 flight test of the SM-3 Block IIA.

[57] Mr. Bogdonov concludes by elaborating the title of his article, “Romania entered the war on our side” (Rumyniya vstupila v voynu na nashey storone»): “In this regard, it is impossible not to recall an old anecdote from the Second World War. Chief of [the German Army General] Staff [Franz] Halder said, ‘My Führer, Romania has entered the war.’ ‘Halder, you could manage this nonsense on your own. Send five divisions against them.’ ‘My Führer, you don’t understand. Romania entered the war on our side.’ ‘That’s much worse. Find ten divisions somewhere to defend them’.”

[58] Brătianu (1941), op cit., 30-31. It reads in the original Romanian “Cine are Crimeea poate stăpâni Marea Neagră. Cine n-o are, n-o stăpâneşte.”

[59] Gheorghe I. Brătianu (1941). Chestiunea Mării Negre, Curs 1941-1942, Universitatea Bucureşti, Facultatea de Filozofie şi Litere, ed. Ioan Vernescu, 11. Brătianu wrote of three spaces, spaţiul de securitate (“secure space”), spaţiul etnic (“ethnic space”), and spaţiul vital (“vital space”).

[60] Ibid.

[61] Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado (undated). “Culture, Defence and Security.” Undated manuscript published online by The New Security Foundation. http://www.newsecuritylearning.com/index.php/feature/152-culture-defence-and-security. Last accessed 5 June 2016.

[62] Julian Stafford Corbett (1911). Some principles of maritime strategy. (London: Longmans, Green & Co.) 93.

[63] Philip H. Colomb (1895), Naval Warfare, 2nd revised ed. (London: W.H. Allen,).

[64] Colonel conf.univ.dr. Liviu Scrieciu (2005).”Mării Negre în contextul geopolitic actual” (“The Black Sea’s current geopolitical context”). Securitate şi stabilitate în bazinul Mării Negre: a V-a. Sesiune Internaţională de Comunicări Ştiinţifice: Bucureşti, 21-22 Noiembrie 2005 (Universităţii Naţionale de Apărare “Carol I” Centrul de Studii Strategice de Apărare şi Securitate), 58-66. http://cssas.unap.ro/ro/pdf_carti/securitate_stabilitate_bazinul_marii_negre2005.pdf. Last accessed 10 June 2016.

[65] http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/sm-3/. Last accessed 7 June 2016.

[66] The term escalation dominance means “the ability to increase the enemy’s costs of defiance while denying them the opportunity to neutralize those costs or counter-escalate. ” United States Air Force (2007). Strategic Attack.  Air Force Doctrine Document 3-70 (12 June 2007) 33. https://fas.org/irp/doddir/usaf/afdd3-70.pdf. Last accessed 21 June 2016.

[67] RAND Project Air Force (2008). Dangerous Thresholds: Managing Escalation in the 21st Century. (Santa Monica, CA: RAND) 17. http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG614.pdf. Last accessed 21 June 2016.

[68] Laurence Martin (1985). “The Use of Naval Froces in Peacetime.” Naval War College Review. XXXVII:1 (January-February 1985) 10.

[69] James Sherr (2015). Containment 2.0: Living with the new East-West Discord. Clingendael-Netherlands Institute of International Relations Policy Brief (November 2015) 6. https://www.clingendael.nl/sites/default/files/PB_Containment%202.0_JSherr.pdf. Last accessed 22 June 2016.

[70] This argument is adapted from a longer one in National Defense University (2016). Countering Russia’s Strategy for Regional Coercion and War (March 2016) 5. https://cgsr.llnl.gov/content/assets/docs/Countering_Russia_Strategy_for_Regional_Coercion_and_War.pdf. Last accessed 21 June 2016.

[71] The official English version published by the Russian government reads as follows: (c) deployment (build-up) of military contingents of foreign states (groups of states) in the territories of the states contiguous with the Russian Federation and its allies, as well as in adjacent waters, including for exerting political and military pressure on the Russian Federation. The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation (2010), subparagraph II.8(c). Published online in Russian http://kremlin.ru/supplement/461. Last accessed 26 May 2016. Author’s translation of the original Russian language text.

[72] President Vladimir V. Putin (2014). “Po voprosam obespecheniya suvereniteta i territorial’noy tselostnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii” (“On the issues of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation”). Opening Remarks at the Security Council meeting 22 July 2015. Sovet Bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii website [published online in Russian 22 July 2015]. http://www.scrf.gov.ru/searchhl?url=conferences/59.html&mime=text/html&charset=utf-8&hldoclist=http%3A//www.scrf.gov.ru%3A17000/%3Ftext%3D%25D0%25A7%25D0%25B5%25D1%2580%25D0%25BD%25D0%25BE%25D0%25B5%2B%25D0%25BC%25D0%25BE%25D1%2580%25D0%25B5. Last accessed 31 May 2016.

[73] ”Om Sverige går med i Nato kommer vi att vidta nödvändiga åtgärder” (“If Sweden joins NATO, we will take the necessary measures”). Dagens Nyheter [published online in Swedish 25 April 2016]. http://fokus.dn.se/lavrov/. Last accessed 2 June 2016.

[74] Akademiya Geopoliticheskikh Problem (2013). “K voprosu o perezagruzke Rossiyskoy vneshney politiki v situatsii narastaniya vneshnikh ugroz.” (“The matter of rebooting Russian foreign policy in an environment of rising external threats”). Akademiagp.ru [published online in Russian 18 October 2013]. http://akademiagp.ru/к-вопросу-о-перезагрузке-российской-в/. Last accessed 30 May 2016.

[75] “NATO zovet v proshloye” (“NATO is calling for the past’s return”). Rossiyskaya Gazeta [published online in Russian 30 May 2016]. http://rg.ru/2016/05/30/aleksandr-grushko-aliansu-byl-nuzhen-bolshoj-protivnik.html. Last accessed 3 June 2016.

[76] Otvet ofitsial’nogo predstavitelya MID Rossii M.V.Zakharovoy na vopros SMI o ideye sozdaniya «Chernomorskoy flotilii» NATO (“Response by Russian MFA spokesperson M.V. Zaharovoy to a media question about the idea of creating a NATO ‘Black Sea fleet’.”). The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation website [published online in Russian 27 April 2016]. http://www.mid.ru/web/guest/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/2256696. Last accessed 3 June 2016.

[77] “NATO’s Role at Sea.” Speech by ADM Mark E. Ferguson, III, USN, Commander, Allied Joint Force Command Naples, to the Atlantic Council 6 October 2015. http://www.jfcnaples.nato.int/comjfcnp/blog/speeches/the-atlantic-council-natos-role-at-sea. Last accessed 3 June 2016.

[78] ” NATO Commander Breedlove: Imported Russian Missiles Have Turned Crimea into a Black Sea ‘Power Projection’ Platform.” USNI News [published online 25 February 2015]. https://news.usni.org/2015/02/25/nato-commander-breedlove-imported-russian-missiles-have-turned-crimea-into-a-black-sea-power-projection-platform. Last accessed 10 June 2016.

[79] Rossiyskaya Gazeta 30 May 2016, op cit.

[80] “Kak razvivalsya Chernomorskiy flot ot Yekateriny II do bor’by protiv IG” (“Role of the Black Sea Fleet from Catherine II to the fight against ISIS”). Gazeta.ru [published online in Russian 13 May 2016]. http://www.gazeta.ru/army/2016/05/13/8230349.shtml. Last accessed 16 June 2016.

[81] http://topwar.ru/79631-utverzhdena-obnovlennaya-morskaya-doktrina-rossiyskoy-federacii.html. Last accessed 31 May 2016.

[82] Morskaya doktrina Rossiyskoy Federatsii na period do 2020 goda. http://www.nti.org/media/pdfs/1_16.pdf?_=1317229205. Last accessed 31 May 2015.

[83]  Security Council of the Russian Federation (2015). Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Mikhail Popov commented at the request of the journalists on the new edition of the Maritime Doctrine of the Russian Federation. Sovet Bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii website [published online in Russian 12 August 2015]. http://www.scrf.gov.ru/news/936.html. Last accessed 31 May 2016. The Security Council of the Russian Federation is analogous to the United States National Security Council.

[84] Ibid.

[85] “Utverzhdena obnovlonnaya Morskaya doktrina Rossiyskoy Federatsii.” Voyennoye Obozreniye [published online in Russian 28 July 2015]. http://topwar.ru/79631-utverzhdena-obnovlennaya-morskaya-doktrina-rossiyskoy-federacii.html. Last accessed 31 May 2016.

[86] “Morskaya doktrina Rossii – Krym i Arktika v prioritete.” RIA Novosti [published online in Russian 26 July 2015]. http://ria.ru/defense_safety/20150726/1148852131.html. Last accessed 31 May 2016.

[87] “Vladimir Putin utverdil novuyu redaktsiyu Morskoy doktriny Rossii.” Novosti VPK [published online in Russian 28 July 2015]. http://vpk.name/news/136915_vladimir_putin_utverdil_novuyu_redakciyu_morskoi_doktrinyi_rossii.html. Last accessed 31 May 2016.

[88] “Sostav Chernomorskogo flota VMF Rossii.” Argumenty i Fakty  [published online in Russian 13 May 2014]. http://www.aif.ru/dontknows/infographics/sostav_chernomorskogo_flota_vmf_rossii_infografika. Last accessed 31 May 2016.

[89] Akademiya Geopoliticheskikh Problem (2013). “K voprosu o perezagruzke Rossiyskoy vneshney politiki v situatsii narastaniya vneshnikh ugroz.” (“The matter of rebooting Russian foreign policy in an environment of rising external threats”). Akademiagp.ru [published online in Russian 18 October 2013]. http://akademiagp.ru/к-вопросу-о-перезагрузке-российской-в/. Last accessed 30 May 2016.

[90] “Premierŭt: Ne iskam voĭna v Cherno more i to prez letniya turisticheski sezon. Faktor.bg [published online in Bulgarian 16 June 2016]. http://www.faktor.bg/novini/balgariya/75784-premierat-ne-istam-voyna-v-cherno-more-i-to-prez-letniya-turisticheski-sezon.html%7D. Last accessed 17 June 2016.

[91] “REACŢIA lui Iohannis după ce Bulgaria a REFUZAT să participe la o COALIŢIE împotriva Rusiei în Marea Neagră. Borisov: ‘Vreau să văd iahturi, turişti, dragoste şi pace în staţiunile noastre de la Marea Neagră, nu vreau fregate’.” EVZ.ro [published online in Romanian 17 June 2016]. http://www.evz.ro/iohannis-.html. Last accessed 18 June 2016.

[92] “Nenchev za flota v Cherno more: Tezhka propagandna voĭna s elementi na khibridni ataki.” Dnevnik.bg [published online in Bulgarian 17 June 2016]. http://www.dnevnik.bg/bulgaria/2016/06/17/2778833_nenchev_za_flota_v_cherno_more_tejka_propagandna_voina/. Last accessed 17 June 2016.

[93] “ETO KAK BŬLGARIYA SHTE RAZMAZHE RUSIYA V CHERNO MORE!” Skandalno.net [published online in Bulgarian 17 June 2016]. http://skandalno.net/ето-как-българия-ще-размаже-русия-в-чер-169640/. Last accessed 18 June 2016.

[94] “Bŭlgariya e za zasilvane prisŭstvieto na NATO v Cherno more.” Focus-news.net [published online in Bulgarian 18 June 2016]. http://www.focus-news.net/news/2016/06/18/2256867/tass-balgariya-e-za-zasilvane-prisastvieto-na-nato-v-cherno-more.html. Last accessed 18 June 2016.

[95] “Ot·stoyavame ideyata za po-zasileno prisŭstvie v Cherno more, no pod flaga na NATO.” Informatsionna agentsiya ‘Cherno more’ [published online in Bulgarian 18 June 2016]. http://www.chernomore.bg/politika/2016-06-18/otstoyavame-ideyata-za-po-zasileno-prisastvie-v-cherno-more-no-pod-flaga-na-nato. Last accessed 18 June 2016.

[96] “La o zi după vizita lui Iohannis în Bulgaria, premierul Borisov anunţă că se opune Flotei NATO în Marea Neagră: Nu vreau ca Marea Neagră să devină zonă de conflict militar.” Mediafax.ro [published online in Romanian 16 June 2016]. http://www.mediafax.ro/externe/la-o-zi-dupa-vizita-lui-iohannis-in-bulgaria-premierul-borisov-anunta-ca-se-opune-flotei-nato-in-marea-neagra-nu-vreau-ca-marea-neagra-sa-devina-zona-de-conflict-militar-15497858. Lastv accessed 18 June 2016.

[97] “Cum a ajuns România de la „flotila NATO în Marea Neagră” la „o prostie”.” Gându [published online in Romanian 17 June 2016]. http://www.gandul.info/stiri/cum-a-ajuns-romania-de-la-flotila-nato-in-marea-neagra-la-o-prostie-15499462. Last accessed 20 June 2016.

[98] EVZ.ro (17 June 2016), op cit.

[99] Gându (17 June 2016), op cit. Dr. Goșu is Associate Professor of Russian Studies in the Department of Political Science at Bucharest University.

[100] Ibid.

[101] Ibid. Dr. Fota is Associate Professor at the National Intelligence Academy. He was President Traian Băsescu’s National Security Adviser, and directed both the Defense Section of Romania’s NATO mission and the country’s National Defense College.

[102] “Fostul consilier prezidențial Iulian Fota: „În Bulgaria avem o tabără pro-rusă”.” Digi24 [published online in Romanian 18 June 2016]. /Fostul+consilier+prezidential+Iulian+Fota+In+Bulgaria+avem+o+tab. Last accessed 20 June 2016.

[103] “Premierul bulgar: Nu vreau ca Marea Neagră să devină zonă de conflict militar.” De Radio Chișinău [published online in Romanian 16 June 2016]. http://www.radiochisinau.md/premierul_bulgar_nu_vreau_ca_marea_neagra_sa_devina_zona_de_conflict_militar-34683. Last accessed 20 June 2016.

[104] “Rasturnare de situatie in Bulgaria: Premierul se declara impotriva initiativei Romaniei la Marea Neagra.” HotNews.ro [published online in Romanian 16 June 2016]. http://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-esential-21084812-rasturnare-situatie-bulgaria-premierul-declara-impotriva-initiativei-romaniei-creare-unei-flote-comune-nato-marea-neagra.htm. Last accessed 20 June 2016.

[105] “Borisov: Shte pratya Nenchev i Mitov na korab da voyuvat.” Dnevnik.bg [published online in Bulgarian 16 June 2017]. http://www.dnevnik.bg/bulgaria/2016/06/16/2778324_borisov_shte_pratia_nenchev_i_mitov_na_korab_da_vojuvat/. Last accessed 20 June 2016.

[106] Ibid.

[107] According to a biography posted on the German Marshall Fund website [http://www.gmfus.org/profiles/ognyan-minchev], “Dr. Ognyan Minchev is a non-resident fellow with GMF’s Balkan Trust for Democracy and the executive director of the Institute for Regional and International Studies, an independent think tank, providing policy analyses on regional and international security and cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe. Minchev is also Chair of the Board of Transparency International-Bulgaria, an anti-corruption organization. He is a professor of political science at the University of Sofia-Bulgaria.”

[108] “Bŭlgariya, NATO, Cherno more.” Dnevnik.bg [published online in Bulgarian 16 June 2016]. http://www.dnevnik.bg/analizi/2016/06/16/2778344_bulgariia_nato_cherno_more/. Last accessed 17 June 2016. This is a reprint of the commentary first appearing on Dr. Minchev’s blog, Otlomki ot ogledalo [published online in Bulgarian 16 June 2016] https://ognyanminchev.wordpress.com/2016/06/16/българия-нато-черно-море/.

[109] “Simeonov: Da priemem flot v Cherno more e po-malkata zlina.” Bgdnes.bg [published online in Bulgarian 16 June 2016]. http://www.bgdnes.bg/Article/5583512. Last accessed 17 June 2016.

[110] Mediafax.ro [16 June 2016], op cit.

[111] “Putin: sistema PRO SSHA v Yevrope mozhet ispol’zovat’sya protiv RF.” TASS [published online in Russian 17 June 2016]. http://tass.ru/pmef-2016/article/3379297. Last accessed 19 June 2016.

[112] “Missili Usa anti Russia in Romania e Polonia, caldissimo il fronte nucleare Nato in Europa.” Il manifesto [published online in Italian 17 May 2016]. http://www.italia.co/politica-societa/missili-usa-anti-russia-in-romania-e-polonia-caldissimo-il-fronte-nucleare-nato-in-europa/. Last accessed 17 June 2016.

[113] Barry R. Posen & Andrew L. Ross (1996). “Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy.” International Security. 21:3 (Winter 1996-1997) 32.

[114] This argument is derived from one by Sameer Lalwani &  Joshua Shifrinson (2011). “Whither Command of the Commons? Choosing Security Over Control.” Monograph published by the New America Foundation. http://web.mit.edu/polisci/people/gradstudents/papers/Lalwani.%20Shifrinson.%20Whither%20Command%20of%20the%20Commons.%20Choosing%20Security%20Over%20Control%202.0.pdf. Last accessed 16 June 2016.

[115] Alexander I. George (1991). Forceful Persuasion: Coercive Diplomacy as an Alternative to War. (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press) 5.

[116] Ibid., 11.

[117] Thomas C. Schelling (1968). Arms and Influence. (New Haven: Yale University Press).

[118]  Charles L. Glaser and Steve Fetter define this as having “some capability against rogue-state missile forces.” See: Glaser & Fetter (2001). “National Missile Defense and the Future of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy.” International Security. 26:1 (Summer 2001) 66. http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/4264/2001-IS-NMD.pdf;jsessionid=5600B04E0603BAF4140C7E8E42FB285D?sequence=1. Last accessed 16 June 2016.

[119] The arguments are adapted from James M. Lindsay & Michael E. O’Hanlon (2002). “Correspondence: ‘The Case for Limited National and Allied Missile Defense’ by Charles L. Glaser & Steve Fetter.” International Security. 26:4 (Spring 2002) 190-196.

[120] The most extreme argument of this type would claim that the nature of the Iranian regime makes it prone to what Lindsay and O’Hanlon call a “Samson scenario” [“Enemy missile launch could occur for other reasons as well. Even if an enemy leader had already accepted the inevitability of his downfall, he might choose not to go quietly. Instead he might employ a ‘Samson scenario,’ after the biblical figure who pulled down the Philistine temple to kill himself along with his captors, and attempt to kill as many Americans as possible in the process. This possibility is hardly mythical. […] Moreover, even if a country’s top leader did not choose to mimic Samson, his military commanders might.”] The claim is easier to make than it is to substantiate and lacks evidence with which to rate its probability. Beyond this inherent weakness, a “Samson scenario” is subject to the same limits as would apply to a non-suicidal regime.

[121] These are adapted from Glaser & Fetter’s response to Lindsay & O’Hanlon. See: Glaser & Fetter (2002). “The Authors’ Replay.” International Security. 26:4 (Spring 2002) 196-201.

[122] Ibid., 197.

[123] Ibid., 198.

[124] Ibid., 199.

[125] Glass and Ferris wrote presciently in 2002, “Of course, all else may not be equal. For example, NMD could strain U.S. relations with Russia and China, in which case these costs must be weighed against NMD’s benefits.” Glaser & Fetter (2002), op cit., 197.

[126] White House Fact Sheet: U.S. Missile Defense Policy A Phased, Adaptive Approach for Missile Defense in Europe. Published online 17 September 2009. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/fact-sheet-us-missile-defense-policy-a-phased-adaptive-approach-missile-defense-eur. Last accessed 16 June 2016.

[127] Glaser & Fetter (2001), op cit., 79.

[128] Ibid., 80.

[129]  The RS-28 has a claimed range of 6000 miles, and is expected to will weigh at least 100-tons and to carry a 10-ton payload. If so, it will be the largest ICBM ever built. Depending on its mission, the RS-28 will carry up to ten heavy or fifteen lighter independently targeted maneuvering thermo-nuclear warheads, and will use a combination of decoys, countermeasures systems, and speed to overcome ballistic missile defenses and to complicate interception. The missile’s transliterated Russian call name Sarmat is from an ancient place name. The Greek geographer Ptolemy defined Sarmatia Europaea as the area extending from the Vistula River and the Baltic Sea east and south to the Don River and the Crimean isthmus, taking is all or part of modern Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, and western Russia. See: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0064:id=sarmatia-geo. Last accessed 30 May 2016.

[130] “V «Energomashe» rasskazali o dvigatelyakh dlya rakety «Sarmat».” Lenta.ru [published online in Russian 29 January 2016]. https://lenta.ru/news/2016/03/24/sarmat/. Last accessed 30 May 2016.

[131] “Minoborony RF: Rossiya gotovit otvet na initsiativu SSHA ‘Bystryy global’nyy udar’.” TASS [published online in Russian 31 May 2014]. http://tass.ru/politika/1229579. Last accessed 30 May 2016.

[132] The quoted expert is Major-General Vladimir Vasilenko, the former head of the 4th Central Research Institute of the Russian Defense Ministry. See: “Sarmat gotovitsya k poletam.” Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye [published online in Russian 15 January 2016]. http://nvo.ng.ru/nvoevents/2016-01-15/2_sarmat.html. Last accessed 30 May 2016.

[133] Barry Blechman (1975). The Control of Naval Armaments: Prospects and Possibilities (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution) 1.

[134] Vice Admiral Joseph Metcalf, III, USN (Ret.). Quoted in Nicholas Sabos, Jr. (1993). “Weapon of Choice: Surface Warfare Strikes!” Surface Warfare. 18:5 (September-October 1995) 3.

[135] Marcel Dickow, Katarzyna Kubiak, Oliver Meier & Michael Paul (2016). “Germany and NATO Missile Defence: Between Adaptation and Persistence.” SWP Comments 22 (April 2016). https://www.swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/comments/2016C22_dkw_kuk_mro_pau.pdf. Last accessed 21 June 2016.

[136] Ibid., 7.

[137] Ibid., 6.

[138] Isaac Babel (2005). The Complete works of Isaac Babel. Nathalie Babel, ed. Peter Constantine, transl. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company) 79.

European Union efforts to stem migration from Libya risk condemning migrants and asylum seekers to violent abuse at the hands of government officials, militias, and criminal groups in Libya, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday. Newly documented abuses include torture, rape, and killings in squalid detention centers where migrants, including people intercepted at sea by the Libyan Coast Guards, are detained.

On June 20, 2016, the EU extended its anti-smuggling naval operation in the central Mediterranean to include training the Libyan Coast Guards and Navy, which are intercepting boats and sending migrants and asylum seekers back to Libya. The EU is also asking NATO to assist its operation. NATO members will discuss options at their summit in Warsaw on July 8 and 9.

“The EU isn’t sending people back to Libya, knowing that’s unlawful, so it wants to outsource the dirty work to Libyan forces,” said Judith Sunderland, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The EU – soon perhaps with NATO’s help – is basically deputizing Libyan forces to help seal Europe’s border.”

At present, EU and NATO vessels are not allowed to operate in Libyan territorial waters. The EU has acknowledged that, under international law, it may not send people rescued in international waters back to Libya due to extreme dangers in that country.

In June, Human Rights Watch interviewed 47 people in Sicily, 23 women and 24 men, who had recently travelled from Libya to Italy on smugglers’ boats. Those interviewed – from Cameroon, Eritrea, Gambia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan – said they had left their homes to flee persecution, including abusive military service, to escape forced marriage, or to seek education and work. They described severe abuses in Libya by government officials, smugglers, and members of militias and criminal gangs, and at times collaboration between officials and smugglers. Rampant lawlessness and violence across Libya convinced those who had gone there for work to attempt the perilous sea crossing to Europe.

“In Libya, they do whatever they like because there’s no law, no nothing,” said a 31-year-old Gambian man, who told Human Rights Watch that criminals had raped his wife.

Eight of those interviewed said Libyan forces they believed to be from the Coast Guards or Navy had intercepted their boat in various incidents and taken them and other passengers back to land, sometimes beating them. On shore, they were held in immigration detention centers with others apprehended on land for entering Libya irregularly or not having permission to stay.

Most of the centers are run by the Department for Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM), under the Interior Ministry, which is nominally controlled by the UN-backed and EU-recognized Government of National Accord, one of three competing authorities in Libya. According to an international task force that visits the facilities, DCIM runs approximately 20 centers, most in western Libya, holding roughly 3,500 people. Militias and smugglers run many other non-official detention facilities.

Conditions at DCIM centers in Tripoli, Zawiya, and Subratha were abysmal, former detainees said. They reported extreme overcrowding, filthy rooms, and insufficient food. Abuses included killing, beatings, forced labor, and sexual violence against men and women.

“Guyzo,” a 40-year-old Cameroonian, said he was detained in the southern city of Sebha in December 2014 for not having proper residence papers and spent a year in detention, in three different centers, the last six months in Tripoli:

“It was inhumane there. I have many scars…. Six men hanged themselves in my room. [They were] men who had been sodomized, who couldn’t take it anymore. It [rape] happened to me seven times. Four or five men at once, beating me to hold me down. If you resist, they call others to beat you more.”

In addition to physical abuse, all of the former detainees said no one took them before a judge or allowed them to challenge their detention. Prolonged detention without judicial review amounts to arbitrary detention and is prohibited under international law.

Four people described abuses and dangerous maneuvers at sea by the Coast Guards. In one case, the forces sped around a migrants’ rubber dinghy, causing panic. A Nigerian woman was crushed to death.

Given the chaos and violence in Libya, in October 2015 UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, called on all countries to “allow civilians (Libyan nationals, habitual residents of Libya and third country nationals) fleeing Libya access to their territories.”

EU policies that result in preventing migrants and asylum seekers from leaving Libya, or that return them to Libya to face serious abuses, contradict the spirit of UNHCR’s call and violate international law, Human Rights Watch said. Article 12(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights grants people the right to leave any country, including their own.

The EU should ensure that none of its training, financing, or material assistance to the Libyan Coast Guards and other Libyan authorities worsens human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said. The EU should support monitoring and public reporting by international observers, including the UN and EU agencies, about detention facilities in Libya, including centers where those rescued or intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guards are detained. The EU should also press Libyan authorities to end abuse in detention, offer alternatives to immigration detention, and ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention.

To assist Libyans and non-Libyans alike, the EU and its member states should generously fund the humanitarian response in Libya, Human Rights Watch said. As of April 2016, the UN’s humanitarian appeal had received only 18.2 percent of the required US $165.6 million.

Any NATO support for EU naval operations should avoid contributing to trapping migrants and asylum seekers in Libya. All NATO vessels in the central Mediterranean should have the mandate and capacity to conduct search and rescue.

The UN-backed government in Libya should work to end torture and other ill-treatment in all detention facilities under its control. It should detain people for immigration purposes only when strictly necessary and for the shortest possible time.

“Supporting Libyan forces should be accompanied by ending torture and abuse in the facilities where those forces are sending people,” Sunderland said. “It’s unacceptable to save or intercept people at sea and then send them back for abuse on land.”

By Alireza Noori*

Turkey’s readiness to restore relations with Moscow, Britain’s exit from the European Union, circulation of some rumors on the Green Continent about the need to revise relations with the Kremlin, increased willingness among Middle Eastern countries to develop relations with Russia, and forthcoming changes in the White House are all new opportunities, which provide Moscow with more options and more expanded maneuvering space in its foreign policy. Adoption of a pragmatic approach, on the other hand, makes it possible for the Kremlin from both theoretical and practical standpoints to make the most of these opportunities. Russia’s pragmatism is based on such principles as involvement in a positive game with all sides, the necessity of usefulness of action, the effectiveness of reaction, avoiding useless belligerence, strategic opportunism, as well as multitier and resilient identity. Within framework of this approach and to make it operational, effort is being made to create adequate maneuvering room for making tactical changes and taking the most advantage of the smallest opportunities.

Russia’s military operations in Syria, from their sudden beginning to their sudden downturn, were an example of the application of Moscow’s pragmatic approach, which up to the present time, has produced “relatively” successful results. By starting those operations, Moscow met part of its interests, including by reminding the West and its regional allies of the importance of the geopolitical element and spheres of influence; protecting its geopolitical interests in Syria in medium terms, and strengthening the Russian coalition in the Middle East through interaction with Iran in Syria. On the other hand, by suddenly reducing its forces and military strikes in Syria, Moscow paved the way for meeting another part of its interests in relations with the West and its regional allies.

With this consideration in mind, finding a more expanded space for “effective” maneuvering by Russia to interact with and affect various sides in the Middle East can be regarded as one of the most important achievements and in better words “successes” of the Kremlin’s pragmatic game in the face of the Syria challenge. This is why while taking to task the policy adopted by the administration of US President Barack Obama in the Middle East, some American diplomats have referred to Russia’s “active” game with various actors in the region from Syria to Iran, Turkey, Arab countries, Israel and the West itself, describing this situation as a sign of Washington’s retreat in this field.

Moscow, however, has been successful in creating and maintaining a fluctuating atmosphere among these actors at a time that its official allies, that is, Iran and Syria, see themselves in essential confrontation with the other side, that is, the West and its regional allies. In this multivector policy, the Kremlin has bolstered its policy and influence in the Middle East through interaction with Tehran and Damascus, on the one hand, while on the other hand, it has proven to the West and its allies that solving problems in this region would not be possible by ignoring the interests and considerations of Moscow and a fair share should be always considered for Russia.

The Kremlin is also taking into account the necessity of creating and maintaining effective maneuvering space with regard to other issues and with different actors as a function of its realistic assessment of weaknesses and limitations of its foreign policy assets. This is true because Moscow knows that these assets are not sufficient to achieve its ambitious goals and, as a result of experiences it has gained under the former Soviet Union and also during the 1990s, it has found out that a unilateral approach will have no other “result” but wastage of the existing resources. This approach will provide necessary conditions for Moscow to take advantage of new opportunities in relations with Turkey, the European Union, the United States and countries in the Middle East.

Without a doubt, taking advantage of these opportunities would not be that easy, tactical changes would not come without a cost, and there is also no guarantee about final achievement of goals. However, it must be noted that rapid regional and international developments do not provide any guarantees or safe margins for any actor. In the meantime, a pragmatic approach has offered a wider arena for play and more possibilities are there for tactical fluctuation among sometimes conflicting actors and factions, as a result of which Russia’s chances for achieving its goals have increased.

Practical trends also show that compared to other actors, Moscow has more expanded space and options for action and it will be able to maintain this capability in the foreseeable future as well. Regardless of whether Russia’s foreign policy goals will or will not be realized, this capability, per se, can be considered a “success” for the foreign policy of this country.

However, although the wide maneuvering space, change in tactic, and a multitier game have been “useful” to Moscow, this approach has not been very pleasing to nominal allies of this country, including Iran. This is true because Iran is well aware that any change in Russia’s game with other actors, especially with Turkey, the European Union and the United States, would have inevitable effects on Moscow’s relations with Tehran and, subsequently, on Iran’s interests. Experience has shown that in most cases, this effect has been negative. However, in its new round of relations with Moscow, Tehran has been looking at Russia as a balancing weight against the West as a result of which, it has been willing to have long-term and stable interaction with Moscow, and the aforesaid negative effects can disrupt this framework.

Therefore, it seems that Moscow’s current approach to development of relations with Tehran is not a merely tactical step, but a result of fixed necessities in the foreign policy of Russia and a consequence of geopolitical considerations in the first place, which make it possible for this approach to remain relatively stable. However, it must be noted that even within this framework, Moscow maintains necessary maneuvering space for tactical changes and these changes may not be necessarily in line with Tehran’s interests. With this point in mind, for more optimal regulation of relations, Iran must consider pragmatism – and as a function of it, the “constancy” of tactical changes in Russia’s foreign policy – as a principle. On the other hand, Moscow must take necessary measures in order to reduce to a minimum the negative effects of these changes on Tehran’s interests. It is only in this state that the two sides would be able to come up with a more stable model for long-term interaction.

* Alireza Noori
Ph.D. Student, Saint Petersburg State University & Expert on Russian Affairs

By Julio S. Amador III*

At the sidelines of the APEC Leaders Meeting in Manila on 18 November 2015, Philippine President, Benigno S. Aquino III and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull signed the Joint Declaration on Australia-Philippines Comprehensive Partnership. In general, the comprehensive partnership agreement merely formalizes what has been a close and strong working bilateral relationship between the two sides.

What the comprehensive partnership is all about

Seventy years of diplomatic relations between Australia and the Philippines have deepened the ties between the two democracies. Emphasizing their shared values, the agreement states that the elevated relations are “grounded in shared values of democracy, respect for human rights and adherence to the rule of law.” The agreement further ties the bilateral relations to regional developments, with both sides pledging that along with their “national independence, sovereignty and adherence to the rule of law”, they will “work together in regional platforms to continue to develop architecture supportive of security, stability and cooperation, and to promote confidence-building measures to minimize the risk of conflict in the region.”

The political aspects in the agreement focus on their commitment to ASEAN, shaping the regional and global environment, and adherence to and promotion of international laws including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). On the economic front, the agreement emphasizes inclusive growth, deeper trade and investment cooperation, women’s economic empowerment, and the successful implementation of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA). Defense ties were also strengthened with commitments to high-level defense consultations, assistance to Philippine defense modernization, and the future negotiation of a mutual logistic support agreement. These will build on the Status of Visiting Forces Agreement (SOVFA), signed in 2007 with the concurrence of the Philippine Senate given in 2012, giving it treaty status.

The two parties committed to high level engagement in law and justice, education, and development cooperation. Countering violent extremism, enhancement of ties and investment in Philippine human resource development, and alignment of development assistance to Philippine priorities were included in the agreement. The two parties further identified the mechanism for consultation; the existing Philippines-Australia Ministerial Meeting (PAMM), as well as other meetings between leaders and ministers in bilateral or multilateral settings. It is not difficult to imagine that EAS summits and APEC meetings will feature regular bilateral meetings between the Philippines and Australia at the sidelines.

Implications for regional security

Australia and the Philippines are allies of the US, but the two countries are not in a treaty alliance with each other. This comprehensive partnership does not elevate the ties to an official alliance but nonetheless, it carries with it a formal understanding that Australia and the Philippines will work together more closely on those identified areas where their economic and strategic interests converge.

While not taking sides in the maritime and territorial disputes in the South China Sea, Australia has been very committed to the rule of law and peaceful settlement of disputes in the region, emphasizing this commitment in statements and raising the issue with involved states in its bilateral meetings and in multilateral forums. The Philippines has seen Australia’s commitment to the principles that it espouses in the international arena and sees the latter’s statements as buttressing its case for the use of international legal regimes such as UNCLOS in peacefully settling disputes. Australia’s commitment to regional peace and stability are also important to the Philippines as regional tensions have been stoked by China’s assertiveness in recent years.

Australia’s habit of consulting and aligning its assistance with the Philippines’ priorities makes it a dependable partner in security, economic, and development cooperation. Thus, the Philippine side must take the lead in coming up with programs and projects in these areas where Australia could come in. As the impact of the power dynamics between China and the US continues to affect regional stability, the comprehensive partnership between Australia and the Philippines will serve as a model for how like-minded states can forge closer relationships.

What next?

The Philippines and Australia have agreed to develop a plan of action to implement the Comprehensive Partnership. Since this covers practically all areas of common interests between the two sides, one can expect the action plan to be in-depth and program-oriented – a sign of the close relationship of the two partners. The Comprehensive Partnership should be taken as a sign that Australia is deeply interested in the Philippines and the wider Southeast Asian region. It intends to play an important role both as a strategic and development actor. This willingness to engage the Philippines and the region on their terms and not on Australia’s terms alone displays diplomatic maturity. It also allows the two sides to share the burden imposed by the partnership.

With a new Philippine government in place after June 30 of this year, the two partners have the opportunity to further strengthen their ties and cooperate closely on strategic and development issues. As the strategic environment of the region continues to evolve, Australia and the Philippines should be able to rely on each other to work on old and emerging issues that may threaten them both. 70 years of bilateral relationship is showing highly positive results: the strategic and economic interests have converged further, and the political and diplomatic leadership of the two countries are seeing Eye to eye on most of the important issues.

Now that the Comprehensive Partnership is in place, the two sides can further deepen their ties by working on a plan of action that will benefit the peoples of Australia and the Philippines.

*Julio S. Amador III is the Deputy Director-General of the Foreign Service Institute.

An upset US-based Hindu group has urged global e-commerce company Spreadshirt for the immediate withdrawal of underwear carrying the images of various Hindu deities and sold on its website, calling it highly inappropriate.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, said that it was dismaying to visualize that Spreadshirt, for its mercantile greed, was selling underwear carrying images of gods which Hindus worshiped, despite its claim “We do not print things that are bound to offend people, e.g…. content designed to insult… religious and ethnic groups”.

Images of Hindu deities depicted on the underwear sold at Spreadshirt website -— Ganesha, Shiva, Durga -— are highly revered in Hinduism and were meant to be worshiped in temples or home shrines; and not for displaying on underweas. “Om”, the mystical syllable containing the universe, which in Hinduism was used to introduce and conclude religious work, also appeared on the underwear. Inappropriate usage of Hindu deities or concepts for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it hurt the devotees, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, noted.

Rajan Zed also urged Spreadshirt and its CEO Philip Rooke to offer a formal apology, besides withdrawing all the objectionable underwear.

Rajan Zed further said that such trivialization of Hindu deities was disturbing to Hindus world over. Hindus were for free artistic expression and speech as much as anybody else if not more. But faith was something sacred and attempts at trivializing it hurt the followers, Zed added.

Zed termed it as highly “irresponsible” approach of Spreadshirt which made tall claims of “responsibility” on its website.

By Cheryl Pellerin DoD News, Defense Media Activity
3
PRINT | E-MAIL | CONTACT AUTHOR

WASHINGTON, July 07, 2016 — The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the vaccines division of Sanofi Pasteur have agreed to co-develop a Zika virus vaccine based on initial work by WRAIR scientists and collaborators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

According to a recent WRAIR press release, Army scientists and their collaborators are moving quickly to develop and test the vaccine candidate, which builds on a vaccine platform developed by WRAIR scientists for other flaviviruses, including Japanese encephalitis and dengue.

When this work is complete, the recently signed cooperative research and development agreement will allow the transfer of the Zika purified inactivated virus, or ZPIV, technology to Sanofi to explore advanced and larger-scale manufacturing and production.

The platform, said Army Col. Stephen Thomas, an infectious diseases physician, vaccinologist and the WRAIR Zika program lead, “has been proven to be safe, effective and able to meet regulatory requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”

Vaccine is Feasible

As part of the agreement, WRAIR and collaborators will share data related to assays that measure antibody responses after vaccination with ZPIV, biologic samples generated during animal studies, and biologic samples generated during early human trials that assess ZPIV safety and immunogenicity, WRAIR officials said.

Preclinical work on the vaccine is being conducted with long-term HIV vaccine collaborators at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School.

A preclinical study in mice, published June 28 in “Nature,” showed that a single dose of ZPIV generated an immune response that protected the mice against a Zika challenge with a Brazilian strain of the virus.

“The preclinical work gives us early confidence that development of a protective Zika virus vaccine for humans is feasible,” Army Col. Nelson Michael, the WRAIR Zika program co-lead, said.

Initial ZPIV supplies are being manufactured by the WRAIR’s Pilot Bioproduction Facility in Silver Spring, Maryland. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will provide regulatory sponsorship for the initial human trials, WRAIR officials said.

WRAIR researchers plan to start human testing at their Clinical Trials Center before the end of the year. At the same time, NIAID will begin more studies through its Vaccine Trials and Evaluation Units.

Growing Concern

According to the World Health Organization, as of June 29, 61 countries and territories have now reported continuing mosquito-borne transmission. Of these, 47 countries are experiencing a first outbreak of Zika virus since 2015, and 14 reported evidence of Zika virus transmission between 2007 and 2014, with ongoing transmission.

For the United States and its territories, during a press call this morning by public health experts and congressional leaders on the need for Zika funding, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Tom Frieden said the more scientists learn about Zika the more concerned they are.

“It is now definitively confirmed that Zika does cause not only microcephaly but also other severe brain defects,” he said, and that it can cause such defects whether a person who is infected has symptoms or not.

In the continental United States, he added, travel-associated cases now stand at more than 1,130, including 320 pregnant women.

In U.S. territories the number of diagnosed and reported locally acquired cases stands at 2,526, including 279 pregnant women, Frieden said, noting that in Puerto Rico CDC is seeing “a rapid increase in the level of infection such that we think that each day dozens, and potentially as many as 50, more pregnant women [there] are becoming infected with Zika virus.”

At WRAIR, Thomas says infectious diseases have long been a threat to U.S. service members and that the military has extensive expertise and capabilities for developing countermeasures.

“The WRAIR has been studying flaviviruses for over 100 years,” he added, “since Walter Reed and his team discovered that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes.”

The United States will leave 8,400 troops in Afghanistan into next year, US President Barack Obama said Wednesday, slowing the planned drawdown of the US military presence in the country.

The security situation in Afghanistan remains “precarious,” Obama said in making the long-awaited announcement, which will leave more troops than planned at the end of his administration in January.

Obama had last year said he planned to reduce troop levels to 5,500 by the end of this year, but a review by military commanders recommended a higher level. That figure was itself a slowing of earlier plans that would have left only a small military presence of around 1,000 troops based at the US embassy.

“I strongly believe that it is in our national security interest, especially after all the blood and treasure we’ve invested in Afghanistan over the years, that we give our Afghan partners the very best opportunity to succeed,” he said, noting the Taliban remains a threat to Afghan security and Afghan troops are still not as strong as they should be.

The review looked at the current security environment in Afghanistan, the capabilities of Afghan troops and the last two fighting seasons, according to a US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The move would allow US forces to better advise, support and train Afghan troops who have taken the lead in the fight against the Taliban, the official said.

Afghan government forces have struggled with attacks by Taliban insurgents after taking over full responsibility for their country’s security in January 2015.

Obama says the move should send a message to the Taliban that they cannot prevail and that the US and international community will remain committed to the Afghan government.

“You have now been waging war against the Afghan people for many years. You’ve been unable to prevail,” he said. “Afghan security forces continue to grow stronger and the commitment of the international community, including the United States to Afghanistan and its people, will endure.”

The announcement comes ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw on Friday and is a bid to demonstrate US leadership of the alliance’s mission in Afghanistan, US officials said. Other NATO countries are also expected to announce their own commitments to Afghanistan.

Obama will also meet with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah at the summit and said he expects more allies to step up to provide commitments of troops and funds through the end of the decade.

Obama will leave office in January following presidential elections and he said he believes the move will leave his successor well placed to make continued progress in Afghanistan and fight extremism.

By Anne K.Walters, original article

James Kenney was elected mayor of Philadelphia. He seems to think that gives him the authority, or qualifications, to run the Catholic Church in his city. It does not.

Kenney ripped Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput as “not Christian.” The archbishop’s offense? He issued pastoral guidelines reiterating Catholic teaching on marriage, family, and reception of the Eucharist. There is nothing new in Chaput’s document. It merely calls—as the Church always has—for clergy to provide pastoral care for those living in relationships outside i ts teachings, while upholding the integrity of the sacraments. “Anything less,” Chaput correctly observed, “misleads people about the nature of the Eucharist and the Church.”

Kenney disagrees. Fine. But it is an abuse of his office to use his platform as mayor to publicly intrude on what is clearly an internal Church matter. And it is far from the first time he has used his position as a government official to attack the Catholic Church.

In what Philadelphia Magazine termed “Jim Kenney’s Long War with the Archdiocese,” he has criticized as “cowardly men” archdiocesan officials who determined that a woman in a homosexual marriage could no longer teach religion in a Catholic school. Prior to Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia last September, Kenney tweeted, “The Arch don’t (sic) care about people. It’s about image and money. Pope Francis needs to kick some ass here!” And he criticized the archdiocese for closing 49 Catholic schools—even though in recent years he has become a vocal opponent of school vouchers, abandoning his past support of a voucher program that may have helped keep those schools open.

Kenney labels Archbishop Chaput un-Christian for upholding Catholic teaching. The mayor is demonstrably un-American in misusing his public office to conduct his personal war on the Catholic Church.

Contact Mayor Kenney: James.Kenney@phila.gov

By Rory Devine

Although Bahrain was the first Gulf Cooperation Council (G.C.C.) member to become a major financial hub, the Gulf Arab kingdom still depends on oil for 70 percent of government revenue and 20 percent of GDP. Along with Oman, Bahrain’s efforts to plan for a post-petro economy started long before other G.C.C. states. In October 2008, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa launched the Economic Vision 2030, aimed at enhancing Bahrain’s “sustainability, fairness and competitiveness.”

An important indicator of Bahrain’s ability to live up to the King’s vision will be the strategy of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat. One of the only sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East to publish its financial summaries, Mumtalakat plans to continue its global reach with an anticipated $400 million allocated for international investments in 2016. At the heart of Mumtalakat’s 2016 investment strategy is to diversify its portfolio in line with Economic Vision 2030. This 15-year plan, promulgated by King Hamad, aims to expand Bahrain’s industries and drive private sector growth.

Started in 2006, Bahrain’s $11.2 billion sovereign wealth fund (whose name means “assets” in Arabic) has endured numerous restructuring programs. To reduce operating costs and increase its ability to procure top international talent to the firm, Mumtalakat has cut jobs. In 2009 the firm’s CEO, Mahmood Hashim al-Kooheji, brought in consultants from McKinsey and Co., who produced advantageous results in highlighting and mitigating inefficiencies, as well as fostering greater transparency. Through the help of the advisers, Mumtalakat spotted government corruption and bribery, which amounted to $400 million in lost profits of one of the firm’s top producers, Alba. Last year, the sovereign wealth fund received a ten out of ten in the Linaburg-Maduell Transparency Index, which surveyed 52 funds with only 11 receiving top scores.

Even though Mumtalakat dwarfs in comparison to its counterparts in other G.C.C. states, including the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the Qatar Investment Authority, Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund is starting to broaden its global footprint. Currently, Mumtalakat’s most significant investments are domestic and comprise majority stakes in Alba (67 percent), Edamah (100 percent), Batelco (37 percent), the National Bank of Bahrain (45 percent), and Gulf Air (100 percent). After this year’s shortfall of the region’s economies, Mumtalakat has looked to bolstering its international presence in its focus areas that span the industrial, manufacturing, real estate, tourism, and education sectors.

Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund experienced a 68.7 percent drop in net profits from its 2014 number of $243.6 million to $76.3 million in 2015. Kooheji attributed these losses, in a press release, to the significant reduction and fluctuation in aluminum prices, following a surfeit of Chinese aluminum exports which severely crippled Alba’s profitability. Nevertheless, Mumtalakat-owned Gulf Air was able to narrow its operation losses to $63.9 million from the previous year’s $174.5 million. For Kooheji, Mumtalakat’s 2014 oversees investments of $335 million produced favorable yields that have led the firm to look towards boosting international investments in 2016.

In March, Mumtalakat obtained a 49 percent stake in the Spanish manufacturer of aluminum grain refiners and master alloys, ALEASTUR. That same month, Mumtalakat signed an agreement with Gulf Gyro, a Kuwait-based producer of industrial gasses with operations in 12 countries. Under this deal, the Bahraini fund gained a 10 percent stake in the region’s resource-giant. Other significant international investments include the 2015 signing of a definitive agreement with InvestCorp to acquire Nobel Learning Communities from Leeds Equity Partners. Prior to this arrangement, Mumtalakat had a significant stake in the education service that manages 176 K-12 schools in the United States.

More recently, Mumtalakat signed a $250 million contract with Regent Properties, headquartered in the U.S., to invest in Class-A office buildings in Dallas and Phoenix, America’s fourth and sixth largest cities, respectively. These cities are home to illustrious Fortune 100 companies and have shown significant growth since 2000. Moreover, these financial centers do not contain the same level of competition between real estate firms, as do New York City, Los Angeles and other key commercial hubs in North America.

As the single biggest promoter of growth in Bahrain and among the most prominent developers in the region, it is important to observe Mumtalakat’s investments moving forward. Yet, the fund’s persistence in providing transparency and accountability for its financial offerings has placed the firm in line with its goals held under Vision 2030.

These reforms come at a contentious period for Bahrain. Five years after the Pearl Roundabout protests in Manama during the 2011 “Arab Spring,” political suppression, economic marginalization, and lack of employment opportunities for the nation’s Shi’ites remains resolute. Regional conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, as well as the crackdown on Shi’ite dissent in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province are also exacerbating tensions between Bahrain’s Sunni rulers and the country’s Shi’ite majority.

Given the interconnectedness between Bahrain’s political crisis and economic stagnation amid an era of cheap oil, long-term stability in the island kingdom will require resolution of both the sectarian problems and a plan for sustainable economic growth. Mumtalakat’s global strategy offers Bahrain an opportunity to achieve King Hamad’s vision of a prosperous country with a diversified economy.

International Policy Digest originally published this article.

*Rory Devine is a contributor to Gulf State Analytics (@GulfStateAnalyt)

By Jim Garamone

US President Barack Obama is on his way to Poland to attend NATO’s Warsaw Summit to discuss the future of an alliance that has grown to be the cornerstone of global security.

The summit is a great opportunity for the president “to consult closely with our allies … in the aftermath of Brexit, some of the tensions with Russia over the past several years and some of the broader concerns about the counter-ISIL efforts and the refugee situation,” Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security advisor, told media during a teleconference yesterday.

The president will also discuss operations in Afghanistan, Rhodes said.

“From a NATO perspective, this summit comes at a real inflection point … in the alliance,” said Ambassador Doug Lute, the U.S. permanent representative to NATO.

Lute cited Russia’s more assertive actions to the east of NATO, the alliance’s 1,500 mile long border with the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, and then the mass migration flows to Europe across the Mediterranean as reasons for concern. “All these factors in multiple directions combine to really mark this [meeting] as different in NATO’s long history,” he said.

Lute, a retired Army lieutenant general, compared the situation today to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Two Themes

There will be two key themes in the sessions at the Warsaw Summit, the ambassador said. The first is to follow-up on progress made in decisions made at the Wales Summit in 2014. “The alliance took measures to put a larger percentage of its force posture on a higher readiness standard,” he said.

This is NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, the keystone deliverable from the last summit, Lute said. The force has exercised and is ready, NATO officials have said.

The readiness force will be complemented with “modest and responsible” force presence along the Eastern flank of the alliance. Four NATO battalions — from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany — will deploy to the Baltic republics and Poland. “You will have forward presence backed up by rapid reaction,” Lute said.

The ambassador noted that NATO remains open to dialogue with Russia.

Exporting Stability

The second major theme revolves around the alliance exporting stability to its periphery, Lute said. This is the focus of the July 9 sessions beginning with meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah. The alliance will sustain its current level of support to the country beyond 2016. Obama’s announcement yesterday that the U.S. contribution will be sustained into 2017 “is a very welcome statement,” the ambassador said.

The second session will discuss the counter-ISIL campaign, Lute said. “We will talk about how we can work alongside the European Union to contend with the mass migration across the Mediterranean,” he said. “We will also discuss how to deal with weak or failing states to buttress their ability to stabilize themselves and defend themselves.”

The last session will concentrate on Ukraine, and that nation’s president — Petro Poroshenko — will meet with the Atlantic Council to discuss the political and security situation inside Ukraine.

Before the signing of the Iran nuclear deal last year, BBC’s defense correspondent, Mark Urban, published a report [1] that Pakistan’s military has made a clandestine deal with Saudi Arabia that in the event of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, Pakistan would provide ready-made nuclear warheads along with delivery systems to Saudi Arabia.

Moreover, it should be remembered that Pakistan’s military and Saudi Arabia have very deep and institutionalized links: thousands of Pakistani retired and serving army officers work on deputations in the Gulf states; furthermore, during the ‘80s Saudi Arabia lacked an efficient intelligence set-up, and Pakistan’s ISI virtually played the role of Saudi Arabia’s foreign intelligence service.

Additionally, in the recent years Pakistan’s defense production industry, with Chinese assistance, has emerged as one of the most sophisticated military-industrial complex in the region. Not only does it provides state-of-the-art conventional weapons to the oil-rich Gulf States, but according to a May 2014 AFP report [2], Pakistan-made weapons were also used in large quantities in the Sri Lankan Northern Offensive of 2008-09 against the Tamil Tigers.

Notwithstanding, from the massacres in Bangladesh in 1971 to the training and arming of jihadists during the Soviet-Afghan war throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, and then launching ill-conceived military operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas under American pressure, which led to the displacement of millions of Pashtun tribesmen, the single biggest issue in Pakistan has been the interference of army in politics. Unless we are able to establish civilian supremacy in Pakistan, it would become a rogue state which will pose a threat to the regional peace and its own citizenry.

Regarding the Kashmir dispute, there can be no two views that the right of self-determination of Kashmiris must be respected; and I am also of the opinion that Pakistan should lend its moral, political and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri cause; but at the same time I am strongly against the militarization of any dispute, not just Kashmir.

The insurgency in Kashmir erupted in the fateful year of 1984 of the Orwellian fame; when the Indian armed forces surreptitiously occupied the whole of Siachen glacier, including the undemarcated Pakistani portion. Now we must keep the context in mind: those were the heydays of the Cold War and the Pakistan military’s proxies, the Afghan so-called “Mujahideen” (freedom fighters) were winning battle after battle against the Red Army, and the morale of the Pakistan army’s top brass was touching the sky.

Moreover, Pakistan’s national security establishment also wanted to inflict damage to the Indian armed forces to exact revenge for their humiliation in the Bangladesh War of 1971, when India took 90,000 Pakistani soldiers as prisoners of war. All they had to do was to divert a fraction of their Afghan jihadist proxies towards Kashmir to light the fires of insurgency in Kashmir.

Here we must keep in mind, however, that an insurgency cannot succeed anywhere, unless the insurgents get some level of support from the local population. For example: if a hostile force tries to foment insurgency in Punjab, they wouldn’t succeed; because Punjabis don’t have any grievances against Pakistan. On the other hand, if an adversary tries to incite insurgency in the marginalized province of Balochistan and tribal areas, they will succeed because the local Baloch and Pashtun population has grievances against the heavy-handedness of Pakistan’s military.

Therefore, to put the blame squarely on the Pakistani side for the Kashmir conflict would be unfair. Firstly, India treacherously incorporated the princely State of Jammu and Kashmir into the Dominion of India in 1947, knowing fully well that Kashmir had an overwhelming Muslim majority and in accordance with the “Partition Principle” it should have become a part of Pakistan.

Even now, if someone tries to instigate an insurgency in the Pakistani part of Kashmir, I believe, that they wouldn’t succeed; because Kashmiri Muslims identify with Pakistan. The Indian-occupied Kashmir has seen many waves for independence since 1947, but not a single voice has been raised for independence in the Pakistani part of Kashmir in our 68 years long history.

Secondly, India re-ignited the conflict by occupying the strategically-placed Siachen glacier in 1984. Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir has been quite flexible and it has floated numerous proposals to resolve the conflict. But India is now the new regional henchman of the US and also the strategic partner of the latter against China; that’s why, India’s stance, not just on Kashmir but on all issues, has been quite rigid and haughty nowadays; because it is negotiating from a position of strength. However, diplomacy aside, the real victims of this intransigence and hubris on both sides have been the Kashmiri people and a lot of innocent blood has been spilled for no good reason.

Coming back to the topic, for the half of its 68 years long history Pakistan was directly ruled by the army and for the remaining half the security establishment kept dictating Pakistan’s foreign and security policy from behind the scenes. The outcome of the first martial law (1958-71) was that Bengalis were marginalized and alienated to an extent that it led to the dismemberment of Pakistan; during the second decade-long martial law (1977-88) our so-called “saviors” trained and armed their own nemesis, the Afghan and Kashmiri jihadists; and during the third martial law (1999-2008) they made a volte-face under American pressure and declared a war against their erstwhile proxy jihadists that lit the fires of insurgency in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Although, many liberal political commentators in Pakistan nowadays hold an Islamist general, Zia-ul-Haq, responsible for the jihadist militancy in our tribal areas; however, it would be erroneous to assume that nurturing militancy in Pakistan was the doing of an individual scapegoat named Zia; all the army chiefs after Zia’s assassination, including Aslam Beg, Asif Nawaz, Waheed Kakar, Jahangir Karamat and right up to General Musharraf, upheld the same military doctrine of using jihadist proxies to destabilize the hostile neighboring countries, like Afghanistan, India and Iran, throughout the ‘90s. A strategic rethink in the Pakistan Army’s top brass took place only after 9/11, when Richard Armitage threatened General Musharraf in so many words: “We will send you back to the Stone Age.”

Thus, the deliberate promotion of Islamic radicalism and militancy in the region was not the doing of an individual general; rather, it was the well-thought-out military doctrine of a rogue institution. The military mindset, training and institutional logic dictates a militarist and offensive approach to the foreign and domestic affairs. Therefore, as a matter of principle the khakis must be kept miles away from the top decision-making organs of the state.

Regardless, the annual budgetary allocation for defense roughly amounts to a quarter of the federal budget, but Pakistan army also operates its own business empire: from myriads of industries like Fauji Fertilizers and Askari bank and cement to the most lucrative real estate business carried out by the Defense Housing Authority (DHA). All the major cities of Pakistan are dotted with numerous sprawling military cantonments and DHA’s housing colonies for the officers of the Pakistan armed forces.

The profits earned from this business empire are not included in the aforementioned budgetary allocation. Apart from that, Pakistan army has also been getting $1.2 billion every year from the American Coalition Support Fund for the last decade or so, for its partnership with the US in the latter’s dubious “war on terror” policy. If we add up all that, our East India Company really is an unaffordable white elephant. And I don’t mean East India Company in a metaphorical sense; they literally are Pakistan’s indigenous colonizers.

The army officers have their own separate barricaded housing colonies and cantonments where the natives aren’t allowed to enter. They operate their own network of schools, colleges and universities for the children of the army officers. They also run their own hospitals like the Combined Military Hospitals in all the major cities of Pakistan. The British colonizers in India also established separate housing colonies and cantonments, missionary schools and hospitals. In more than one ways Pakistan army is like the British East India Company.

Finally, the rule of law, more than anything, implies the supremacy of the law: that is, all the institutions must work within the ambit of the constitution. The first casualty of the martial law, however, is constitution itself, because it abrogates the supreme law of the land. All other laws derive their authority from the constitution, and when the constitution itself has been abrogated then only one law prevails: the law of the jungle. If the armed forces of a country are entitled to abrogate “a piece of paper,” known as the constitution under the barrel of a gun, then by the same logic thieves and robbers are also entitled to question the legitimacy of civil and criminal codes, which derive their authority from the constitution.

It’s high time that all the political forces and civil society of Pakistan present a united front against the foreign and as well as the domestic enemies. Pakistan armed forces are the friends of Pakistan within their constitutionally-ordained limits, but outside of those limits they are the worst enemies of Pakistan. Determining the domestic and foreign policy of Pakistan is the sole prerogative of Pakistan’s elected representatives; and anyone who thinks that they can redefine the national interest to suit their personal ambition, or institutional interests, is a traitor who shall be judged harshly by the history.

About the author:
*Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and MENA regions, neocolonialism and Petroimperialism.

Sources and links:
[1] Saudi nuclear weapons ‘on order’ from Pakistan: BBC’s defense correspondent, Mark Urban.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24823846
[2] Pakistan-made arms were used against Tamils in Sri Lanka:

The War That Wasn’t Live

Nepalese police broke up a crowd of several hundred Tibetans who were celebrating the 81st birthday of their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in a school in Kathmandu, reported RFA.

The police pulled down large portraits of the Dalai Lama and also scattered banners, flowers and other offerings brought to the event, said the report.

Over 20 Tibetans attending the event were briefly taken into custody said RFA.

“The Tibetan representative and other welfare officers sought permission from Nepalese authorities to hold the event, and permission was granted yesterday,” said a community leader named Lhalung.

“But today, they changed their minds and stopped us. This could be a result of pressure from China,” he said.

An estimated 20,000 Tibetans live in Nepal. Many of them arrived in the country following the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.

The Dalai Lama celebrated his 81st birthday on July 6.

By Maja Garaca Djurdjevic

The International Monetary Fund, IMF, has postponed approval of a 550-million-euros program for Bosnia and Herzegovina after Bosnia’s authorities failed to sign the already reached agreement.

“Due to a delay in the signing of the Letter of Intent, LOI, the IMF Executive Board meeting to consider the authorities’ request for an arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility had to be delayed until further notice,” Francisco Parodi, the IMF Representative to Bosnia, said in a statement on Thursday.

While Bosnian politicians remained silent about the causes and details of the delay, experts warn that longer delays in IMF payments – expected soon after the approval of the new program – would worsen the country’s liquidity issues and could also escalate political tensions that have been running high ahead of local elections in October.

“This is a sign that things are getting much more serious,” Banja Luka-based economic analyst Zoran Pavlovic told BIRN, adding that any delays in IMF funds – which have already been calculated in the state and entities’ budgets – will a liquidity crisis and worry potential investors.

“If the IMF cancels this loan to Bosnia and Herzegovina, we will have major problems implementing the budget,” analyst Srdjan Puhalo told BIRN. He added that this could lead to blocked payments of salaries, pensions, social benefits and other financial obligations. “That, in turn, could lead to public dissatisfaction and protests,” he added.

“The elements of the program and the content of the LOI had been agreed by the IMF mission and BiH authorities in May 2016. To date, the IMF has not received a duly signed LOI,” the IMF explained.

The Finance Ministry of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska told BIRN that all the relevant RS representatives – including the Prime Minister Zeljka Cvijanovic and Finance Minister Zoran Tegeltija – had signed the LOI.

They said the problem was that the letter was not signed by the Prime Ministers of the state and Federation entity governments, Denis Zvizdic and Fadil Novalic.

The RS government held a session on Thursday morning on this issue, while the state and Federation entity governments said they would issue statements during the day.

“This is a warning to the authorities that they need to reach an agreement, to fulfil obligations required by the international community,” Pavlovic said. “This is a clear message and whoever does not understand it, does not understand how the world functions,” he added.

In May, the IMF said that it would lend Bosnia over half a billion euros under a three-year programme but at the same time it required Bosnia to cut its public debt, improve the business climate and secure the stability of the financial sector.

The IMF said at the time that the agreed program had three objectives – to improve the business environment so as to attract investment, reduce public indebtedness through gradual fiscal consolidation, safeguard financial sector stability and revive credit growth.

Spain wants to host banks and other institutions following the United Kingdom’ Brexit’s referendum, and as such an inter-ministerial work group will seek to promote the location in Spain of EU institutions and financial institutions, presently located in the U:, according to the Spanish government.

The Spanish Council of Ministers analyzed a report on some of the economic consequences of the UK’s exit from the EU (Brexit) and, in particular, on the effects this may have on the location of financial institutions and certain EU institutions that currently have their headquarters in that country.

As a result of this, a work group has been set up that will cover all ministerial departments, which will be coordinated by the Vice-Presidency of the Government. According to the explanation offered by the acting Vice-President of the Government, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, its aim will be twofold.

The work group will first promote Spain’s candidature to host the European Banking Authority and the European Medicines Agency.

“These are two areas in which Spain is greatly interested and we will work on the possibility of at least one of them being located in Spanish territory”, Sáenz de Santamaría said. With this aim in mind, it will study how to boost Spain’s ability to receive these institutions and their senior staff from the perspective of such issues as employment, tax, home affairs, visas, etc.

Secondly, the work group will seek to strengthen Spain’s competitiveness to receive international banks located in the City of London that require secondary headquarters within the territory of the European Union.

The Government Spokesperson stressed that several countries are already vying to host these institutions and “Spain is in an optimum condition” to do so, thanks to the re-structuring of its financial sector and the quality of its healthcare system, “acknowledged as one of the best in the world”. The question, she added, is “to begin work now, with time on our side and a horizon to offer the best possible conditions to host these institutions”.

The most disappointing consequence of Brexit for foreigners living in the UK has become the unexpected rise of xenophobia. According to the behavior of locals, the EU open door policy has completely failed. Brits have made it clear that foreigners are not welcome. Not only immigrants from conflict areas, but people from Poland and Baltic States face with insults or even physical violence, hear offensive words and the call to pack their bags and leave.

This situation has become possible mainly due to inconsistency of domestic and foreign policy. Britain’s activity in the EU was often contrary to the national interests and population’s needs. The government chose to ignore the discontent of the population. Locals became more and more irritated by the arriving of cheap labor force from Eastern Europe and the financial costs associated with the provision of assistance to other countries even in the sphere of security and defence.

While helping others, Britain did not pay enough attention to its own troubles. Such policy led to cases of showing hatred towards foreigners that are unacceptable for democratic country. Hidden evils of society got an excellent opportunity to emerge.

Such cases should be a lesson and serve as a prerequisite for review of foreign policy carrying out by other EU countries such as Latvia. Latvia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Edgars Rinkēvičs expressed regret with the Great Britain’s desire to leave the European Union. The fact is the EU exists because member states obey common rules and obligations. Any exception leads to disruption of the functioning. Rinkēvičs understands that Latvia as well as the EU itself will face additional problems with financing, immigration, security and defence. In spite of increasing defence spending, today Latvia is less sure in its proper security than earlier.

In the Baltic States there are also certain concerns of possible rise of discontent inside the countries. Latvian nationalism could rear its head even higher. Latvia is often criticized because of manifestations of fascism. According to a study conducted by the National Defence Academy of Latvia’s Center for Security and Strategic Research revealed on Monday, about 30 per cent of Latvians agree that fascism is awakening in Latvia. Riga invites foreign troops and make their deployment comfortable. But the government does nothing to stop young Latvians from leaving home country and make their life better.
Latvian ultranationalists will for sure exploit the situation in Britain for attracting new members to join ultra-nationalists’ organizations and movements. Youth is their main target.

Following the instructions of the EU and NATO without taking into consideration national interests and domestic situation may cause flowering of extremism and ultra-nationalism in Latvia. The illustrative case occurred in Latvia on July 4, 2016. (http://www.diena.lv/latvija/zinas/policisti-aizturejusi-tris-jauniesus-kuri-sabojajusi-latvijas-karogu-14146418) Three young men were detained in Riga for desecrating the national flag.

Young men who do not respect their own country are the worst thing government can achieve. It is just the time to think over the situation in the country and draw the right conclusions from Brexit in order not to lose the youth generation. It is time to fight for their minds making right political decisions and not to set common international organizations’ priorities ahead of national. British example should be a lesson for all Europe in order to remain united and at the same time not to lose the national identities.

*Adomas Abromaitis is a Lithuanian expatriate living in the United Kingdom.

Hillary Clinton may or may not be a crook. That remains to be proven, though the sheer magnitude of the wealth that she and husband Bill have amassed since leaving the White House, and while she was serving as Secretary of State — nearly a quarter of a billion dollars earned by two people with no known skills capable of producing that kind of income — should raise questions. What can be stated now as fact though, is that Hillary is a serial liar.

If this wasn’t clear already from her long history of distortion and prevarication — like her false claim that she had to “duck to avoid sniper fire” during a state visit to Bosnia — it is clear now from FBI Director James Comey’s 11-page public report on his agency’s year-long investigation into her use of a private server for all her private and official emails during her term as Secretary of State.

That report has exposes her serial lying to both Congress and the public about that illegal use of private email service to handle her public business.

As the Associated Press reports, Clinton lied in March 2015 when she declared in one of her rare news conferences, “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.”

But as Comey reports, she did. Quite often in fact. The FBI in its  exhaustive investigation found at least 113 email chains –some of which had to be uncovered after they had been erased by Clinton’s private lawyers — contained material that was classified at the time of sending, including some that were classified Top Secret and that referred to a “highly classified special-access program.”

She lied again at that same press conference when she asserted, “I responded right away and provided all my emails that could possibly be work related” to the State Department.

Not true, according to the FBI, and also, of course, to the Inspector General of the State Department, with whose own investigation of her actions, Clinton simply refused to cooperate.

Clinton lied when she said earlier this month, in an NBC interview, “I never received nor sent any material that was market classified.”  Comey says that in fact her system did handle emails that bore specific markings indicating they were classified.

Clinton lied when she tried, as she explained more than once, including in that same March 15 news conference addressing the issue, to claim that she had used her own Blackberry phone rather than a State Department secure phone, simply because she “thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for personal emails instead of two.”  In fact, Comey said his agents determined that Clinton had “used numerous mobil devices to view and send email,” all using her personal account. So much for wanting to use “just one device”! Comey said she also had used different non-government servers, all of them vulnerable to hacking.

Clinton lied again when she claimed that her private server was on “property guarded by the Secret Service and there were no security breaches.” She lied again when she added, “The use of that server, which started with my husband, certainly proved to be effective and secure.”  Her campaign website adds the equally false assertion that “There is no evidence there was ever a breach.”

In fact, all Comey will say is that the FBI did not uncover a breach, but he adds that because of the sophisticated abilities of “hostile” forces (i.e foreign countries’ intelligence services) that would be engaging in any such hacking, “We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account.”  They would just not leave any “footprints,” he explains.

We also know Clinton was lying when she said, “I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department.”  The falsity of that particular lie was exposed by the State Department Inspector General, who in his own report on her private server scandal, found that she had never “sought or received approval” to operate a private server for her State Department communications, and added that as Secretary of State, she “had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business with State Department offices.”

Some of these violations that Clinton has objectively lied about may not be crimes. Others clearly are. At a minimum, Clinton deliberately sought to violate the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act, which make all but classified documents public records that are supposed to be made available on request to journalists and the public on request (and even many secret documents upon appeal).  By conducting her official business on a private server, Clinton was assuring that no FOIA requests could touch her.

The question of Clinton’s “trustworthiness” is a huge issue among the public, with all but her die-hard supporters — a minority within the Democratic Party.

Maybe some people don’t care in these cynical times when it’s simply assumed that “all politicians lie,”  but one hopes that those lies will relate to personal foibles and sins, not official business. A nation that celebrates great leaders like George Washington, who at least according to the national mythology once said, “I cannot tell a lie,” and Abraham “Honest Abe” Lincoln, for their integrity and forthrightness, surely can demand at least a semblance of truthfulness in its top leader.

Clearly Hillary Clinton has failed that test of leadership, and in a big way.

I’m concerned that the FBI and the State Department’s own Office of Inspector General, as well as Republicans in Congress, have missed the real import of Clinton’s lying. It is not that she violated rules and standards that may have led to national security secrets being hacked, serious though that may be. For one thing, powerful intelligence agencies like those of the Russians and Chinese, just like the US’s own National Security Agency, have the capability to hack even the government’s most secure servers.

What should really be getting asked, by government investigators, political critics and by any real journalists left out there, is why Clinton, as Secretary of State, was so insistent — even to the point of violating laws and State Department policies — on avoiding the reach of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The answer to that has to take us back to the reality of the Clinton’s phenomenal success at vacuuming up vast sums of money from wealthy individuals, corporations, and even foreign potentates, both for their personal accounts as when either Clinton speaks at gatherings of bankers, pharmaceutical executives or military industry leaders, and for their Clinton Foundation, reportedly the recipient of over $2 billion in corporate and foreign government largesse.

Their success at raking in such piles of cash reeks of influence peddling, probably much of it conducted by phone and by email — and it’s the kind of thing that, if it were done by a Secretary of State on a government electronic device, would be vulnerable to a FOIA request.

On a private server, it’s the type of communications activity that Hillary Clinton’s private attorneys would have “wiped” from her hard drive to escape scrutiny when they erased thousands of emails they determined, with no official backstopping, to have been “private.”

Comey was wrong to recommend no prosecution of Clinton for her email practices, since some of her own State Department employees, as well as employees of the CIA and other agencies have been charged with and convicted of felonies for the same and even lesser infractions. But Clinton, as a Secretary of State and as the likely Democratic Party candidate for president, clearly lives on a higher plane that operates under a different set of rules. Only the “little people” get called to account for such crimes in the United States.

If the severely compromised US “Justice” Department cannot step up and issue an indictment based upon the findings of the FBI about Clinton’s email violations, it is up to the people of the United States to decide whether we want such a greedy woman — a confirmed serial liar ready to say anything necessary to obtain power — to be our next president.

Amid raging corruption, social pathologies and outright political thuggery, a new gang of vassal regimes has taken-over Latin America. The new rulers are strictly recruited as the protégé’s of US financial and banking institutions. Hence the financial press refers to them as the “new managers” – of Wall Street.

The US financial media has once again provided a political cover for the vilest crimes committed by the ‘new managers’ as they launch their offensive against labor and in favor of the foreign and domestic financiers.

To understand the dynamics of the empire’s new vassal managers we will proceed by identifying (1) the illicit power grab (2) the neo-liberal policies they have pursued (3) the impact of their program on the class structure (4) their economic performance and future socio-political perspectives.

Vassals as Managers of Empire

Latin America’s current vassalage elite is of longer and shorter duration.

The regimes of longer duration with a historical legacy of submission, corruption and criminality include Mexico and Colombia where oligarchs , government officials and death squads cohabitate in close association with the US military, business and banking elites.

Over the past decades 100,000 citizens were murdered in Mexico and over 4 million peasants were dispossessed in Colombia. In both regimes over ten million acres of farmland and mining terrain were transferred to US and EU multinationals.

Hundreds of billions of illicit narco earnings were laundered by the Colombian and Mexican oligarchy to their US accounts via private banks.

The current political managers, Peña in Mexico and Santos in Colombia are rapidly de-nationalizing strategic oil and energy sectors, while savaging dynamic social movements – hundreds of students and teachers in Mexico and thousands of peasants and human rights activists in Colombia have been murdered.

The new wave of imperial vassals has seized power throughout most of Latin America with the direct and indirect intervention of the US. In 2009, Honduras President Manuel Zelaya was ousted by a military coup backed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Zelaya’s program of agrarian reform, regional integration (with Venezuela) and constitutional elections was abolished. Zelaya was replaced by a US vassal, Roberto Micheletti who proceeded to murder several hundred landless rural workers and indigenous activists.

Washington moved to organize a constitutional cover by promoting a highly malleable landowner, Porfirio Lobo Sosa to the presidency.

The State Department next ousted Paraguyan President Francisco Lugo who governed between 2008-2012. Lugo promoted a moderate agrarian reform and a centrist regional integration agenda.

With the backing of Secretary of State Clinton, the Paraguayan oligarchy in Congress seized power, fabricated an impeachment decree and ousted President Lugo. He was briefly replaced by Vice President Federico Franco (2012-2013).

In 2013, Washington backed , the capital, Asuncion’s, notorious crime boss for President, one Horacio Castes – convicted for currency fraud in 1989, drug running in 1990, and most recently (2010) money laundering.

The Honduras and Paraguayan coups established (in miniature) the precedent for a new wave of ‘big country’ political vassals. The State Department moved toward the acceleration of banking takeovers in Brazil, Argentina and Peru.

In rapid succession, between December 2015 and April 2016 vassal managers seized power in Argentina and Brazil. In Argentina millionaire Mauricio Macri ruled by decree, by-passing constitutional legality. Macri fired scores of thousands of public service workers, closed social agencies and appointed judges and prosecutors without Congressional vote. He arbitrarily arrested social movement leaders – violating democratic procedures.

Macri’s Economic and Finance Ministers gained millions of dollars by ‘buying into’ multinational oil companies just prior to handing over private options on public enterprises.

The all-encompassing swindles and fraud carried out by the ‘new managers’ were covered up by the US media,who praised Macri’s professional team.

Moreover, Macri’s economic performance was a disaster. Exorbitant user fees on utilities and transport for consumers and business enterprises, increased three to ten-fold, forcing bankruptcy rates to soar and households to suffer light and gas closures.

Wall Street vulture funds received seven billion dollar payment from Macri’s managers, for defaulted loans purchased for pennies over a dollar, twenty-fold greater then the original lenders.

Data based on standard economic indicators,highlights the worst economic performance in a decade and a half.

Price inflation exceeds 40%; public debt increased by twenty percent in six months. Living standards and employment sharply declined. Growth and investment data was negative. Mismanagement, official corruption and arbitrary governance, did not induce confidence among local small and medium size businesses.

The respectable media, led by the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post falsified every aspect of Macri’s regime. Failed economic policies implemented by bankers turned cabinet ministers were dubbed long-term successes; crude ideologically driven policies promoting foreign investor profiteering were re-invented as business incentives.

Political thugs dismantled and replaced civil service agencies were labelled ‘a new management team’ by the vulgar propaganda scribes of the financial press.

In Brazil, a phony political power grab by Congressional opportunists ousted elected President Dilma Rousseff .She was replaced by a Washington approved serial swindler and notorious bribe taker, Michel Temer.

The new economic managers were predictably controlled by Wall Street, World Bank and IMF bankers. They rushed measures to slash wages, pensions and other social expenditures , to lower business taxes and privatize the most lucrative public enterprises in transport, infrastructure, landholdings , oil and scores of other activities.

Even as the prostitute press lauded Brazil’s new managers’, prosecutors and judges arrested three newly appointed cabinet ministers for fraud and money laundering. ‘President’ Temer is next in line for prosecution for his role in the mega Petrobras oil contracts scandal for bribes and payola.

The economic agenda by the new managers are not designed to attract new productive investments. Most inflows are short-term speculative ventures. Markets, especially, in commodities, show no upward growth, much to the chagrin of the free market technocrats. Industry and commerce are depressed as a result of the decline in consumer credit, employment and public spending induced by ‘the managers’ austerity policies.

Even as the US and Europe embrace free market austerity, it evokes a continent wide revolt. Nevertheless Latin America’s wave of vassal regimes, remain deeply embedded in decimating the welfare state and pillaging public treasuries led by a narrow elite of bankers and serial swindlers.

Conclusion

As Washington and the prostitute press hail their ‘new managers’ in Latin America, the celebration is abruptly given way to mass rage over corruption and demands for a shift to the political left.

In Brazil, “President” Temer rushes to implement big business measures, as his time in office is limited to weeks not months. His time out of jail is nearing a deadline. His cabinet of ‘technocrats’ prepare their luggage to follow.

Maurico Macri may survive a wave of strikes and protests and finish the year in office. But the plunging economy and pillage of the treasury is leading business to bankruptcy, the middle class to empty bank accounts and the dispossessed to spontaneous mass upheavals.

Washington’s new managers in Latin America cannot cope with an unruly citizenry and a failing free market economy.

Coups have been tried and work for grabbing power but do not establish effective rulership. Political shift to the right are gyrating out of Washington’s orbit and find no new counter-balance in the break-up of the European Union.

Vassal capitalist takeovers in Latin America generated publicist anesthesia and Wall Street euphoria; only to be rudely shocked to reality by economic pathologies.

Washington and Wall Street and their Latin America managers sought a false reality of unrestrained profits and pillaged wealth. The reality principle now forces them to recognize that their failures are inducing rage today and uprisings tomorrow.

If you thought Luke Skywalker’s home planet, Tatooine, was a strange world with its two suns in the sky, imagine this: a planet where you’d either experience constant daylight or enjoy triple sunrises and sunsets each day, depending on the seasons, which happen to last longer than human lifetimes.

Such a world has been discovered by a team of astronomers led by the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, using direct imaging. The planet, HD 131399Ab, is unlike any other known world – on by far the widest known orbit within a multi-star system. The discovery will be published online by the journal Science on Thursday, 7 July, 2016.

Located about 340 light years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus, HD 131399Ab is believed to be about 16 million years old, making it one of the youngest exoplanets discovered to date, and one of very few directly imaged planets. With a temperature of 850 Kelvin (about 1,070 degrees Fahrenheit or 580 degrees Celsius) and weighing in at an estimated four Jupiter masses, it is also one of the coldest and least massive directly imaged exoplanets.

“HD 131399Ab is one of the few exoplanets that have been directly imaged, and it’s the first one in such an interesting dynamical configuration,” said Daniel Apai, an assistant professor of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences who leads a research group dedicated to finding and observing exoplanets at the UA.

“For about half of the planet’s orbit, which lasts 550 Earth-years, three stars are visible in the sky, the fainter two always much closer together, and changing in apparent separation from the brightest star throughout the year,” said Kevin Wagner, a first-year PhD student in Apai’s research group and the paper’s first author, who discovered HD 131399Ab. “For much of the planet’s year the stars appear close together, giving it a familiar night-side and day-side with a unique triple-sunset and sunrise each day. As the planet orbits and the stars grow further apart each day, they reach a point where the setting of one coincides with the rising of the other – at which point the planet is in near-constant daytime for about one-quarter of its orbit, or roughly 140 Earth-years.”

Wagner identified the planet among hundreds of candidate planets and led the follow-up observations to verify its nature.

The planet marks the first discovery of an exoplanet made with SPHERE, one of the world’s most advanced instruments dedicated to finding planets around other stars. SPHERE, which stands for the Spectro-Polarimetric High-Contrast Exoplanet Research Instrument, is sensitive to infrared light, making it capable to detect the heat signatures of young planets, along with sophisticated features correcting for atmospheric disturbances and blocking out the otherwise blinding light of their host stars. The instrument is part of the Very Large Telescope operated by the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.

Although repeated and long-term observations will be needed to precisely determine the planet’s trajectory among its host stars, observations and simulations seem to suggest the following scenario: At the center of the system lies a star estimated to be eighty percent more massive than the sun and dubbed HD 131399A, which itself is orbited by the two remaining stars, B and C, at about three-hundred AU (one AU, or astronomical unit, equals the average distance between the earth and the sun). All the while, B and C twirl around each other like a spinning dumbbell, separated by a distance roughly equal to that between our sun and Saturn.

In this scenario, planet HD 131399Ab travels around the central star, A, in an orbit about twice as large as Pluto’s if compared to our solar system, and brings the planet to about one-third of the separation of the stars themselves. The authors point out that a range of orbital scenarios is possible, and the verdict on long-term stability of the system will have to wait for planned follow-up observations that will better constrain the planet’s orbit.

“If the planet was further away from the the most massive star in the system, it would be kicked out of the system,” Apai explained. “Our computer simulations showed that this type of orbit can be stable, but if you change things around just a little bit, it can become unstable very quickly.”

Planets in multi-star systems are of special interest to astronomers and planetary scientists because they provide an example of how planet formation functions in these more extreme scenarios. While multi-star systems seem exotic to us in our orbit around our solitary star – multi-star systems are in fact just as common as single stars.

“It is not clear how this planet ended up on its wide orbit in this extreme system, and we can’t say yet what this means for our broader understanding of the types of planetary systems out there, but it shows there is more variety out there than many would have deemed possible,” Wagner said. “What we do know is that planets in multi-star systems are much less explored, and potentially just as numerous as planets in single-star systems.”

The co-authors on the paper are: Markus Kasper and Melissa McClure of the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany; Kaitlin Kratter at the UA’s Steward Observatory; Massimo Roberto at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland; and Jean-Luc Beuzit with the Université Grenoble Alpes and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, both in Grenoble, France.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, did not intend to be in the position that others coveted so badly. According to one former campaign staffer, he planned to finish no higher than second place behind one of the establishment candidates. Little did he anticipate that his appeal to white nationalism would mean more to the Republican rank and file than proposals to cut taxes for rich people or defund Planned Parenthood.

Now we hear the incessant demand, “Stop Trump!” These words are used as a club to beat anyone who considers rejecting Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy or even posing questions or offering critique. The warning is a phony one because Trump shows all the signs of being headed for defeat.

Trump is a picture perfect bogeyman for the Democratic Party. If Trump isn’t calling Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers or promising to ban Muslims from travel to the United States he is making misogynistic remarks. In 2011 he spent months claiming that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States. When he isn’t talking about the “the blacks” he says a judge presiding over the Trump University lawsuits is biased because of his Mexican heritage.

But he has touched a chord with millions of mostly white Americans in part because he frees them to express their racism and also because his policy positions would benefit them. Only Trump questions the trade deals like NAFTA that send millions of living wage jobs out of the United States. Only he asks why the United States spends billions of dollars patrolling the planet and why enmity against Russia is viewed as being sacrosanct by foreign policy “experts.” At a certain point it is illogical to support the “white people’s party” if it doesn’t actually help white people.

When it comes to serving corporate interests the Democrats and Republicans happily bury the hatchet and act in concert. But Trump’s questioning of this orthodoxy has made him persona non grata among his own. No further proof is needed after looking at Trump and Clinton fundraising results.

As of June, Hillary Clinton had $42.5 million in campaign funds on hand and Trump had only $1.3 million. He explained the predicament himself. “But we have a party that, I mean, I’m having more difficulty, frankly, with some of the people in the party than I am with the Democrats because they’re just, they don’t want to come on.”

The enormous fund raising discrepancy makes one thing crystal clear. The Republicans who raised more than $100 million each for Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio don’t want Trump to be the president. They would rather lose than see him in the White House. The heavy hitter funders didn’t suddenly lose wealth or any interest in politics. Instead they have decided to take a pass on the 2016 presidential contest because the nominee opposes what they support the most. They will not take a chance and end up with a president who risks the continuity of international globalization and the imperialism needed to keep it afloat.

So desperate is Trump’s campaign that it is purchasing email lists just two weeks before the Republican national convention. Elected officials who usually sharpen their elbows to get national exposure are finding excuses not to appear at the RNC convention at all.

Donald Trump isn’t likely to be president and the Democrats know it. Hillary Clinton will not only have Barack Obama’s campaign and marketing team at her disposal but she will have millions of dollars more than Trump does. The Obama Justice Department surprised no one with the announcement that she won’t be investigated for comingling personal and State Department emails on a private server. The elimination of any legal problems gives her a clear path to the Democratic nomination and victory.

One wouldn’t know the pathetic state of the Trump campaign because Democrats and the corporate media act as though he can win. They are flogging anti-Trump fears as if he is a serious candidate and it isn’t hard to figure out why.

Democrats will keep progressives silent and passive only if they whip up hysteria about the prospect of a Trump presidency. Bernie Sanders is going along with the charade as a means of saving face. Like Trump he didn’t expect to be a credible challenger and he is using Trump as an excuse to bow out and endorse Hillary Clinton as he planned to do all along. Before he executes his final “sheep dog” herding maneuver he will keep saying that he wants to join in the fight against Trump, even though Trump would have to pull off a political miracle in order to win.

Donald Trump will surely get millions of votes, but Hillary Clinton will get more and in the states that really count towards the total needed in the Electoral College. She will use Trump to move to the right and pick up votes from Republicans uneasy with his candidacy. The only risk to her is not from Trump, but from Bernie Sanders supporters who for the moment are unsure of how to respond to their leader’s impending betrayal.

The worst thing they can do is believe in the almost non-existent risk of a Trump presidency. His party doesn’t want him and the “Stop Trump” clique know it. If millions of Democrats would say they don’t want Hillary Clinton either then the fracturing of the two parties will continue and the American people will have a hope of real democracy.

El Niño exerted powerful effects around the globe in the last year, eroding California beaches; driving drought in northern South America, Africa and Asia; and bringing record rain to the U.S. Pacific Northwest and southern South America. In the Pacific Ocean off the West Coast, however, the California Current Ecosystem was already unsettled by an unusual pattern of warming popularly known as “The Blob.”

New research based on ocean models and near real-time data from autonomous gliders indicates that the “The Blob” and El Niño together strongly depressed productivity off the West Coast, with The Blob driving most of the impact.

The research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters by scientists from NOAA Fisheries, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and University of California, Santa Cruz is among the first to assess the marine effects of the 2015-2016 El Niño off the West Coast of the United States.

“Last year there was a lot of speculation about the consequences of ‘The Blob’ and El Niño battling it out off the U.S. West Coast,” said lead author Michael Jacox, of UC Santa Cruz and NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center. “We found that off California El Niño turned out to be much weaker than expected, The Blob continued to be a dominant force, and the two of them together had strongly negative impacts on marine productivity.”

“Now, both The Blob and El Niño are on their way out, but in their wake lies a heavily disrupted ecosystem,” Jacox said.

Unusually warm ocean temperatures that took on the name, The Blob, began affecting waters off the West Coast in late 2013. Warm conditions – whether driven by the Blob or El Niño – slow the flow of nutrients from the deep ocean, reducing the productivity of coastal ecosystems. Temperatures close to 3 degrees C (5 degrees F) above average also led to sightings of warm-water species far to the north of their typical range and likely contributed to the largest harmful algal bloom ever recorded on the West Coast last year.

“These past years have been extremely unusual off the California coast, with humpback whales closer to shore, pelagic red crabs washing up on the beaches of central California, and sportfish in higher numbers in southern California,” said Elliott Hazen of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, a coauthor of the paper. “This paper reveals how broad scale warming influences the biology directly off our shores.”

The research paper describes real-time monitoring of the California Current Ecosystem with the latest technology, including autonomous gliders that track undersea conditions along the West Coast. “This work reflects technological advances that now let us rapidly assess the effects of major climate disruptions and project their impacts on the ecosystem,” Jacox said.

Separate but related research recently published in Scientific Reports identifies the optimal conditions for productivity in the California Current off the West Coast, which will help assess the future effects of climate change or climate variability such as El Niño. The research was authored by the same scientists at UC Santa Cruz and NOAA Fisheries.

“Wind has a ‘goldilocks effect’ on productivity in the California Current,” Hazen said. “If wind is too weak, nutrients limit productivity, and if wind is too strong, productivity is moved offshore or lost to the deep ocean. Understanding how wind and nutrients drive productivity provides context for events like the Blob and El Niño, so we can better understand how the ecosystem is likely to respond.”

Both papers emphasize the importance of closely monitoring West Coast marine ecosystems for the impacts of a changing climate. Although the tropical signals of El Niño were strong, the drivers – called “teleconnections” – that usually carry the El Niño pattern from the tropics to the West Coast were not as effective as in previous strong El Niños.

“Not all El Niños evolve in the same way in the tropics, nor are their impacts the same off our coast,” said Steven Bograd, a research scientist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center and coauthor of both papers. “Local conditions, in this case from the Blob, can modulate the way our ecosystem responds to these large scale climate events.”